I’ve created a new My Space / Facebook / Twitter alternative for the Apostolic Christian. It can be found at Apostolic Fellowship Hall. I invite everyone to come and check it out!
Several people have asked me about blogging, so here goes my advice on the matter. First, start with a topic or subject that really interests you. If you want to maintain a blog to keep friends and family updated on what you are doing, I’d recommend getting a Facebook or Twitter account. Mosst blogs are subject specific. For example, this blog of mine focuses mostly on technology, specifically web technologies although I do throw in a few posts on operating systems.
Secondly, choose a good service provider. If you want something free, I’d go to Wordpress or Blogger and obtain a free account. If you are really into blogging, or want to have a more professional appearance, I’d recommend getting a web host provider such as bluehost and installing blogging software onto it, such as wordpress or moveable type.
Lastly, be sure to post frequently. A blog is only as good as it’s content. If you blog onlly occassionally, say once a month, people will soon lose interest in following your blog. I’d recomment at least weekly, although it is hard sometimes to find the time to do this. With most blogging software you can set a post date. If you find a spurt of creativity, post a few posts but set their posting date into the future, a week apart. This will keep your content current.
Try adding these update services for automatic trackbacks to your posts. If you are using Wordpress, just go to your admin page, scroll down, expand settings and click the writing link.
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com/:10080/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://api.feedsterr.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
Add the following in the update services list, and watch your google ranking get higher as you continue to post content to your blog. Basically this will put your blog closer to the top of these update services priority que for them to ping your blog and index it.
Well, I’ve changed themes quite a bit in the last 2 days. I’m pretty particular when it comes to themes. I don’t want a bland theme, but at the same time, everything needs to displlay correctly as well. Some themes look good to me, but when I apply them to this blog, the widgets don’t display correctly, it is missing an element I want such as a display of the pages in a menu form…
Eventually I will learn enough about css and html to create my own themes, but until then, I think I’ll stick with this one. It seems to be my style, and displays everything correctly.
Well, anyway, have a happy new year and God bless you all!
Well, just converted an SMF database from 1.0.8 to 1.1.5. Basically had to create a new instance of SMF from scratch. Used phpMyAdmin to do the merges. Here is what I learned for those of you trying to do something similar.
1) upload the old database files from the previous forum. Be sure the file is named something different than the new SMF.
2) use the following code sample in phpMyAdmin in the SQL tab:
INSERT IGNORE INTO `sample_new_smf1`.`smf_permissions`
SELECT *
FROM `sample_old_smf1`.`smf_permissions`
replace sample_old_smf1 with the name of the database you are copying from.
replace sample_new_smf1 with the name of the database you are copying to.
smf_permissions is the name of one of the tables in smf. You’ll have to repeat this for every table in smf. Also note that some of the table structures might have changed between versions. If you get errors merging the databases, this is most likely the reason why you are getting errors. To do the comparison, print out the table structure of the new table you are copying into. Then go into the old table and insert or modify the old table’s structure to make it match the new table’s format. Using phpMyAdmin, this is fairly simple. Just click on the pencil icon to modify a record entry, or scroll to the bottom to find an easy way to add new record fields into the table.
Once the two table’s structures match, re-try the merge again, and you should have no problems.
After all of this is completed, all you’ll need to do is relog into your forum and go through the fix any errors and optimize the tables.
