Seriously, I think I need to hire a supervisor to watch me use my blog, because recently it seems that no matter what I touch, or what I do, I always end up screwing things up. My most recent failure was last night, when I attempted to upgrade automatically to Wordpress 2.8. I’m assuming if you’re using Wordpress you’ve seen the “Upgrade to Wordpress 2.8!” sign at the top of your dashboard by now? Well, I figured, why not? Anything automatic just has to be easy, right? Besides, I’d automatically upgraded plugins before with no problem, so I was pro.

I clicked the link and it warned me to do a backup. Meh, I’ll be right.

(This is the part where the girl in the movie is running towards an alley…and the audience knows the killer clown is hiding in there, brandishing a knife, and they begin to throw popcorn at the screen and shout “DON’T DO IT!!!!!!” but she can’t hear them and runs into the alley anyway and then the PSYCHO music starts playing and she gets stabbed and DIES and wished that she’d paid attention to the audience and BACKED UP HER BLOG because…)

One click was all it took. A few seconds of loading, then an error message. It seemed that the installation had got halfway through, but then failed. Too bad, I thought, I’ll just have to upgrade another way. I clicked on the Dashboard button absent-mindedly … and got a white page with “index of wp-admin” and nothing else.

Uhh, what?

I clicked on my blog’s link … and got Wordpress’s dreaded white page of death.

There was absolutely nothing there. My blog was a blank page. With one click of a mouse, and in less than one minute, I had killed my blog. I realised this was something that couldn’t be just “undone” I would need to tell Phill what I had done.

Oohhhhhhh, shit.

Phill was sitting with his back to me, doing some work on his computer. I cleared my throat timidly. “Uh, Phill?”

“Yeah?”

“Um, I have a problem. With my blog.”

“What problem?”

“Well, it’s not exactly there anymore.”

A pause, then: “What do you mean, not exactly there?”

He turned and I showed him the blank page. I could see his expression turn from confusement to a furious OH-DEAR-LORD-SHE-KILLED-HER-BLOG in two seconds flat. Through gritted teeth, he said: “What. Did. You. Do?”

I felt myself blush. “I tried to automatically upgrade to Wordpress 2.8 but it didn’t work. It came up with an error message and then I couldn’t load my blog, or the dashboard anymore. They’re just blank now.”

“What did the error say?”

Silence.

“You didn’t write it down, did you? Why did you click away? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIX IT IF I DON’T KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG????” There was a pause, then: “Did you at least backup before you started?”

I made an apologetic face and he let out a frustrated noise, turned around and started typing away. Tap tap tap. A few swear words. Tap tap. More mumbled swear words. Tap tap tap. He stopped suddenly. “There’s nothing in your wp-admin file. NOTHING. It looks like it got as far as wiping the old Wordpress, but didn’t install the new one.”

My heart sank. My blog was dead … again. Is Wordpress trying to tell me something?

Tap tap tap. Swearing. Sip of water. Tap tap. I felt terrible because I knew he’d had a long day and was tired, and now he was pissed off and cranky. Finally, he turned and said, “Okay, try now.”

I clicked on my blog … and whola, it loaded. Well, it sort of loaded. My template was gone – in place of the patterns was just a big blank blue page. Two of my plugins had been erased. My photos didn’t show up. Phill did some more tapping on his computer and deduced that all of my photos had been erased from the uploads folder. It wasn’t the end of the world, I’d just have to go through and re-add each one. I guess, in a way, it’s lucky that my blog kicked the bucket in April – it means I don’t have two years of posts to go through, just two months’ worth.

At least I had my blog back.

I know I made huge mistakes and my biggest (besides not backing up!) was assuming that clicking the “automatically upgrade” button would just work. I had figured if it didn’t work, everything would go back to normal and it would be as if I hadn’t done anything.I couldn’t have been more wrong! Here are things I should have done before attempting the upgrade.

Things I Should Have Done Before Upgrading my Wordpress Blog

Backup

If I had made a backup, we could have avoided much of the stress and worry.  If you are like me, and wouldn’t know where to start, Lorelle has a really helpful post about backing up your blog. I think some people (me included) just feel like they aren’t going to need a backup, that “it won’t happen to me” – but seriously, my blog has died twice now this year, one time because of me, and the other time because of reasons out of my control. Backing up your blog is very important - especially if you are going to attempt to upgrade and especially if it’s likely you’ll kill it somehow.

Check to see if the theme is compatible with 2.8

The reason my theme didn’t load is because it’s not quite compatible with 2.8. This means I had to find one that was – and, as 2.8 was only released on June 10, it’s likely that a lot of the themes you use or look at, won’t be compatible. Knowing if your theme will survive the upgrade will be useful because you won’t have to find a new one, or attempt to fix the old one, if it’s not compatible. Wordpress has a list of themes that are compatible here.

Check to see if the plugins are compatible with 2.8

Two of my plugins were eaten by the upgrade. We aren’t sure why, but we assume it’s because they won’t compatible. It’ll save a lot of time if you can upgrade your plugins so they will ready to go when the upgrade is complete.  Wordpress has a list of plugins that are compatible here. I also read that you should disable all your plugins before upgrading.

Asked for help from a competent person

Phill hosts my blog and fixes it whenever I kill it … and he was sitting right next to me while I was killing my blog. If I’d asked him for help, this could have been avoided. After my failed attempt at the automatic upgrade, he was able to get into the nitty-gritty stuff and manually upgrade. I’ve actually read a lot that people don’t suggest doing automatic upgrades because, well, they don’t always work, and I agree. Next time there’s an upgrade, I’m just going to get Phill to show me how to do it manually.

Wait until the upgrade is old news and the bugs are gone

Normally I wait a long time to upgrade to a newer Wordpress because I find during the earlier stages of a release, there are bugs and kinks that require fixing. I like to hear other people’s experiences and opinions before making the decision to upgrade now, or wait. The sneaky “auto upgrade” option made me think it would be as easy as upgrading a plugin – and it wasn’t! I didn’t realise the upgrade was so new, didn’t realise many plugins and themes wouldn’t yet be compatible, and I paid the price.

Not skip upgrades

I can’t remember if I started out with 2.7, but I’ve read that skipping upgrades is not a good idea and you’re best off gradually upgrading until you reach the latest release, as too big a jump from your version to the newest can result in problems. If I had an earlier version to 2.7, part of my problem could have been the leap.

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Can you think of anything else I should have done? I’d hate for anyone else to go through what we went through last night! Anway, now I’m using Wordpress 2.8 and loving it … but it took me a while to get here, plus a few tears and choice swear words.

Have you upgraded yet? How did it go?

Today I thought I’d pop into the bank nice and early, because I figured it wouldn’t be busy. There was only one lady waiting to be served, so I got in line behind her, figuring I’d be in and out within minutes. An elderly man entered the bank and queued behind me. Actually, he was queueing very close behind me. I could hear him breathing in my ear so I snuck a look at the ground and saw he was standing so close, his shoes were almost touching mine. Now, I like my personal bubble of space so I stealthily moved an inch forward.

He, of course, moved forward with me.

By this point, I was so focused on the man piggy-backing me that I had not realised that we had actually been queueing now for 10 minutes. It seems that the bank also figured it would be quiet at this time in the morning, so decided to only put on two employees. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the new layout of the bank means that those employees not only do transactions, but also do everything else you’d visit a bank for. Things that often take a long time to do, which means that people like me, who would literally take minutes at the desk, are forced to wait in queues for a long time too, while people hog the desk asking long and difficult questions about credit ratings, home loans and mortgages.

The doors slid open and a young woman walked in. She started a new queue to the left of us and obviously appeared to be in prime position to be called next because, well, the woman in front of me nearly had a heart attack. She spun around and glared at the woman, eyes furious and growled, “There’s a queue here, you know!”

The woman simply pointed to the sign she was queueing behind. “This is business banking, you’re in the personal banking. It’s a different queue.”

That made total sense actually, but I figure the woman in front of me had been queueing for a lot longer than I had, and thought that she should be next, regardless of whether she’s here for business or personal reasons, since she nearly went ape. She was standing there shaking her head, tapping her foot, her mouth opening and shutting like she wanted to scream obscenities. It was rather mesmirising, like watching a bomb, not sure if it’ll go off or not, and if it does go off, you don’t know what sort of BOOM it’ll make. We were now fifteen minutes into the queue and I must admit, even I was starting to get a little impatient. My legs were sore, since I’d been at work since 4am and I was a bit annoyed that my plan to duck in and out of a bank (YEAH RIGHT, LIKE THAT’S AT ALL POSSIBLE!!) had very quickly (very slowly??) gone up in smoke.

The man behind me was still breathing in my ear and had now added the frustrating sound of packaging paper crinkling to his symphony, which was then followed by wet, lip-smacking noises. I figured he had started sucking a lolly. It reminded me of that episode of Family Guy where Mayor Adam West is enjoying a taffy, whatever the heck a taffy is. All I can figure is it’s some sort of lolly and it takes a long time to chew it down.  Normally, eating noises wouldn’t bother people, but the noise of saliva squelching around in someone’s mouth just makes me want to strangle them.

I started concentrating on the second-hand on the clock on the wall.

I was just trying to figure out if what I needed to do could be done through an ATM or the internet or the phone (nope, I needed to speak in person with a teller), when finally another employee came in, sat at a vacant desk and called the woman in front of me over. HOORAY. Less than three minutes later, she was done and it was my turn. I did what I came to do and left quickly, tossing a sympathetic smile to the last person standing in the queue, which was now more than ten people long.

It seems that 9 o’clock in the morning is the new lunchtime rush.

…you can turn on your laptop, go downstairs, make yourself a cup of tea, use the bathroom and come back upstairs … and still have to wait five minutes before everything finishes loading so the laptop is usable!

My laptop was going downhill very quickly over the past week. It was getting slower and slower to the point of ridiculousness. The hard drive light was permanently on and I had a sudden realisation that, if I didn’t do anything about it, there was the possibility that my hard drive might simply die – and take with it everything on my laptop – my photos, university work, documents – everything.

So last night we put in a new, bigger and better hard drive. A hard drive transplant, if you like. Everything worked well and now my laptop is speeeeedy. Seriously, it is so fast, it’s great. The hard drive light only comes on briefly when it needs to, which is a great sign. I’m in the process of pulling all my stuff off my old hard drive. It’s crazy how much stuff I have – especially all the stuff I have but don’t even need!

I don’t really have anything interesting to say. Things are happening here a lot lately and as a result, I haven’t had a lot of time to sit and blog, or even sit and visit other blogs. My Dad was in and out of hospital, my Mum was staying for a little bit and I’ve been trying to keep up with two jobs, one of which needs to be completed well, last month. The good thing is, by the time bedtime comes around, I am eagerly ready to go to sleep, but I have also been less interested in cooking. I simply can’t be bothered, so our meals have been thrown together. I did buy a ham hock yesterday and a soup mix, so I’m hoping to make some nice ham and pea soup, as the nights are getting colder around here.

Perfect hot chocolate weather, if you ask me. Ned Flanders-style, of course!

It’s been a busy week, full of twists and turns and unexpected surprises. Firstly, my Dad who has been staying with us since Sunday after having an operation, had to call an ambulance while I was at work and was rushed to hospital on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he had to go in for surgery. He’s still in hospital and doing well, in high spirits, but it was still a nasty shock to get a phone call from my Mum telling me Dad was on his way to hospital. Any phone call that starts with, “Don’t panic, but…” is one you just don’t want to ever take.

It was Phill’s birthday on Thursday, he’s 23. Since he’s nearly exactly six months younger than me, I like to joke that he’s no longer my toy-boy… until I turn 24 in December, anyway. Mum came for dinner on Wednesday night, then on Friday night Phill and I went out to celebrate with friends and then last night we went to a housewarming. Upon arriving home at about midnight, I mentioned to Phill that I wasn’t feeling well (not alcohol induced since I hadn’t drank at all). Fifteen minutes later, I was hugging the toilet. For the next four hours, I was rushing back and forth. I hate vomiting. I think it’s the grossest thing you’ll ever have to do in your life.

I called in sick to work early this morning and I’m glad I did. I slept until 11am and I’m now on the couch, wrapped up in my doona. My stomach is still feeling queasy – so far I’ve managed to eat two slices of raisin toast and drink a glass of water. I’m trying to keep my fluids up, but there’s something about a belly full of water that makes me feel sick.

Phill’s been a great nurse but he knew not to come in the bathroom while it was, err, occupied. I’m rather particular about that. Hopefully it won’t be happening again for a long while, fingers crossed.

Anyway, I’m buggered (I can’t believe how much typing this has tired me out!) so I’m going to stop there. I’m going to try to visit some of your blogs today as I have over five hundred new posts to read. Then I think I might sleep again, because sleep … is good.