Its been a little more than a month since my last post. I have been a little busy with wooing (customers)and moving (a wordpress website from the test server to live). The website in question is a product related website and has a lot of images and cross-links in the main post and custom fields. At 250+pages, it was a big question about how to change all these urls to point to the new domain. While it is possible to update them through dabbling in PhpMyAdmin, I was queasy about doing it. Luckily two plugins came to rescue - Velvet Blues Update URLs and Search and Replace. I first used Update URLs plugin – it has a clean interface and less options. It did its work well, except that it skipped all custom field entries. Enter ‘Search and Replace’. I found it to contain more options and a little bit confusing (and I suspect a bit dangerous if you don’t know what not to check) but after checking the right boxes, it replaced nearly 400 entries in the custom fields flawlessly.

Another advantage of ‘Search and Replace’ is that you get to know exactly how many of each type of links are replaced, which is something ‘Update URLs’ lacks. I recommend this plugin with all my heart.

Happy moving!

Last week I almost deleted this blog to oblivion trying to install WPMU to get multiple websites running on a single installation. There are actually several ways to achieve this, WPMU being the most visible. However after banging my head with MU and multi-site plugin, I found these options (from the ones listed on the codex page) still alive:

Lyceum – Sounds interesting and easier than WPMU, but the author is mulling closing down the project. This is an independent project based off Wp 2.0.x branch. If it gets revived, it will be interesting to take it for a ride.

Virtual Multiblog – seems popular among users who don’t use WPMU, and its apparently been around for some time. But I felt theprocedure was a bit complex.

WP-Hive – Its a new project,v 1.0 released only this February, but it seemed simple to install and use. Be sure to look at the forum along with the installation instructions to get it up and running in under 5 minutes…or follow these instructions below:

1. Setup your first blog as a normal WP installation
2. Upload the WP-Hive plugin into the Plugins directory.
3. Move the db.php from WP-Hive folder to wp-content directory.
4. Activate the plugin.
5. Load the homepage of the first blog in a new window/tab of the browser (you don’t want to lose the admin page you are into – do you?
6. In your hosting cpanel (whatever you use – DA, Helm, H-Sphere…) park the new domain you wish to add.
7. Once the domain resolves, run the WP installation script on that domain by typing http://domain.tld/wp-admin/install.php (where domain.tld is your second domain name).
8. Enter the admin interface and you will see all the plugins that are present on the main site, but inactive. Activate wp-hive and the others you wish to.
9. You will also see the themes you have installed on the main site, activate the one you want to use.

You’re done! I am currently running 2 domains off the single installation.

1. http://teck.in/google-indic-transliteration-wordpress-plugin.html
2. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/indic/
3. http://www.vishalon.net/IndicResources/IndicIME/tabid/244/Default.aspx

I plan to install and test each. Expect a review soon!