Sites at Lafayette http://sites.lafayette.edu The blog for personal, club and organization web sites at Lafayette College Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:53:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 ITS Coffee Break for 11/4 http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/11/11/its-coffee-break-for-114/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/11/11/its-coffee-break-for-114/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:53:19 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=262 On this episode of the ITS Coffee Break, hosts Courtney Bentley and Ken Newquist discuss Chris Phillips’ essay “I Hear America Reading: Using Digital Audio to Teach American Poetry,” which appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of Teaching American Literature, and they announce Moodle Hack/Doc Fest V, which will be held at Lafayette.

Tech News includes Windows 7 testing, the Droid smartphone, and DARPA’s new $40,000 balloon hunting challenge. In Help News, Ken and Courtney take a look at the Powerpress plugin for WordPress and announce a new smartboard workshop. Get the podcast.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/11/11/its-coffee-break-for-114/feed/ 0 Bug with Numbers-only Page Slugs http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/29/bug-with-numbers-only-page-slugs/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/29/bug-with-numbers-only-page-slugs/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:14:14 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=251 We’ve discovered a bug in WordPress in which pages that only have a number for a name (e.g., 2009) can’t be accessed. Instead of going to the page in question (e.g., http://sites.lafayette.edu/asite/classes/2009) the parent page loads (e.g., http://sites.lafayette.edu/asite/classes). The problem is that WordPress will not allow page slugs to contain only numbers; if you change the slug to something with a mix of alphanumeric characters, like “classof2009″ then the page loads normally.

Here’s how to change a page’s slug name:

  1. Click “Pages” from the left menu in your site’s Dashboard.
  2. Hover over the pages titled with only numbers and click the “Quick Edit”
    link when it appears.
  3. Change the slug name to include a non-numeric character and click
    the “Update Page” button.
  4. Repeat for each page titled with only numbers.

This bug has been submitted to WordPress.org.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/29/bug-with-numbers-only-page-slugs/feed/ 0 ITS Coffee Break Podcast Returns http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/29/its-coffee-break-podcast-returns/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/29/its-coffee-break-podcast-returns/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:16:53 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=244 The ITS Coffee Break podcast is back. After a six-month hiatus the long-running podcast has moved from its old home on Soapbox to Sites.

In Episode #60, hosts Courtney Bentley and Ken Newquist discuss Lafayette’s WordPress MU project, take a look at Bates College’s new WordPress-powered home page, discuss the Google Wave web application, debate the merits of Amazon’s Kindle vs. Barnes & Nobles’ new Nook ebook reader, and talk about an upcoming copyright webinar. Get the podcast.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/29/its-coffee-break-podcast-returns/feed/ 0 Plugins Update for 10/28/2009 http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/28/plugins-update-for-10282009/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/28/plugins-update-for-10282009/#comments Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:12:33 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=238 We’ve updated three WordPress plugins:

  • Authors
  • Contact Form 7
  • Google Analytics

We’ve also added a new FeedBurner plugin that can be used in tandem with Google’s FeedBurner service to track the number of people subscribing to your site’s RSS feed. To use it, just activate the plugin, go to Settings > Feedburner and add the URL of your feedburner feed. If you need to burn a feed, visit feedburner.google.com.

If you’re using these plugins, and encounter problems after the upgrade, please call the Helpdesk at 610.330.5501 or submit a help ticket.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/28/plugins-update-for-10282009/feed/ 0 WordPress Speed Boost Implemented http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/26/wordpress-speed-boost-implemented/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/26/wordpress-speed-boost-implemented/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:35:09 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=234 We’ve made some changes behind the scenes to give WordPress a speed boost.  The practical effect of this is that almost everything that makes up a WordPress page (web pages, JavaScript and style sheets) will now download 2 to 3 times faster than they did before. This should help those who’ve reported slowness when working with WordPress off campus or over wireless.

If you’re still experiencing slowness with WordPress, please contact the help desk at 610.330.5501 or submit a help ticket.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/26/wordpress-speed-boost-implemented/feed/ 0 Plugins Update for 10/13/2009 http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/14/plugin-update-for-10132009/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/14/plugin-update-for-10132009/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:26:31 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=222 We’ve updated several plugins on Sites at Lafayette to their latest versions: Authors, Contact 7, Google Analytics, NextGen Gallery, Page Links To, PowerPress and Sidebar Login. If you’re using these plugins, and encounter problems after the upgrade, please call the Helpdesk at 610.330.5501 or submit a help ticket.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/10/14/plugin-update-for-10132009/feed/ 0 Site Update for 8/19 http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/08/19/site-update-for-819/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/08/19/site-update-for-819/#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:12:40 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=190 Sites at Lafayette has been updated upgraded to WordPress 2.8.x. This was a security update, and doesn’t include any major new functionality. One side effect of the upgrade is that sites that have an apostrophe in their title (e.g. Joe Smith’s Web Page) now have a backslash in them (e.g. Joe Smith\’s Web Page). You can remove the backslash by logging in and going to the “Settings” page for your site, clicking the “General” link, and then editing your site’s name where it says “Blog Title”.

We’ve also updated the Google Analytics (statistics tracking) and Powerpress (podcasting) plugins to their latest versions.  Unfortunately, we also needed to remove a plugin: the Slideshare plugin (used for sharing online presentations via Slideshare.net) is broken, and has been deactivated.

If you encounter problems, please call the Helpdesk at 610.330.5501 or submit a help ticket.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/08/19/site-update-for-819/feed/ 0 Off-campus access to admin dashboard fixed http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/off-campus-access-to-admin-dashboard-fixed/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/off-campus-access-to-admin-dashboard-fixed/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:56:46 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=171 Over the weekend we had a problem with off-campus users being unable to access the WordPress admin dashboard on Sites. That problem’s been fixed, and you should be able to access it now.

]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/off-campus-access-to-admin-dashboard-fixed/feed/ 0 Plugins Upgdate for July 22 http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/plugins-upgdate-for-july-22/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/plugins-upgdate-for-july-22/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:55:00 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=151 We’ve recently upgraded a number of plugins on Sites. If you use these plugins, please verify that they’re working as expected. If you encounter problems, please post a comment here or email the site administrator at wordpress@lafayette.edu.

  • Akismet: This is our anti-spam software; there’s a known issue with the “Akismet Stats” link, but the anti-spam functions should still work fine.
  • Slideshare: This presentation-sharing tool saw only minor updates.
  • Powerpress
  • NextGEN Gallery: This update fixed a number of bugs, but the jump between versions also caused a hiccup on the options page; the only way to fix that problem is to reset your options, as documented here
]]> http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/plugins-upgdate-for-july-22/feed/ 0 Welcome to Sites! http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/welcome-to-sites/ http://sites.lafayette.edu/blog/2009/07/27/welcome-to-sites/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:54:48 +0000 Kenneth Newquist http://sites.lafayette.edu/?p=155 After a successful pilot of WordPress MU during the Spring 2009 semester, ITS has decided to move WordPress into production with Sites. This installation, located at sites.lafayette.edu, hosts personal, club, and organization home pages. A separate installation, called Depts, is being setup for WordPress-powered departmental web sites.

All traffic to the WordPress pilot site — wordpress.lafayette.edu — and the myriad blogs and sites hosted there is being automatically redirected to sites.lafayette.edu. We plan to maintain this redirection through December 2009.

Questions about the pilot-to-production migration can be sent to the program administrators at wordpress@lafayette.edu.

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