Site Update
At long last, I’ve finally got around to updating this blog to the latest version of WordPress!
When I first set this site up back in 2007, I was using WordPress v2.2.2, and I never did a single update.
One of the reasons was that there was no such thing as automatic updates back then, and I thought, if it’s not broken, why fix it?
Now, I realise that some WordPress updates are to fix security issues, and that I should have applied them, but, and here comes my usual excuse, life and work got in the way.
Well, last December, I thought I’d pay somebody on Fiverr.com to do the update for me, as I suspected that jumping from v2.2.2 to the latest version, which, at the time of writing this, is v3.0.4, would be very tricky.
I found a guy to do the work and he accepted the gig, but then he never actually did the job.
So, I cancelled the gig and thought I’d give it a go myself.
Well, I began by doing a manual upgrade of the WordPress files on my existing site (after doing both site and database back-ups, of course!) and then, when it came time to see if the database upgrade would work, I got an error message to say that the hosting company I was using (1&1 UK) was not running a recent-enough version of MySQL.
Aaaarrrggh!
Time for Plan B – I set the blog up on one of our Host Gator accounts instead (if you use the following coupon code, you can get your first month’s hosting for just $0.01, if you select the Baby Plan: TRB20110109), and used Fantastico to install v3.0.3 of WordPress, at which point the automatic upgrade, which took seconds, brought me up to v3.0.4, where I am now.
So far, so good, I thought.
Now for the moment of truth – would the automatic database upgrade work?
I’d deleted the database created by Fantastico (again, after taking a back-up copy) and imported the back-up from my old hosting account (i.e. the v2.2.2 database copy).
Tentatively, I tried to log into the Admin panel, and sure enough, it gave me the warning that it needed to update the database.
With not much to lose at this point, I clicked the button, and in seconds, it had done the update successfully.
Now, there were a few problems, mainly caused by plug-ins that were installed on the original version of this site not being installed on the new version.
That was soon fixed, and the final task was to find a more up-to-date, interesting theme. Greenling, which I was using, was OK, albeit a bit plain-wrap, but I wanted something along the lines of a desk, so what you see now is what I found – it’s called Disorganized, in case you were wondering.
So, with all that behind me, I do intend to keep this blog up-to-date with all future WordPress upgrades now, as I don’t want to go through all this again!
I hope you like the new look, and if you have any comments, please feel free to add them below.
Tags: coupon code, automatic database, automatic updates, back ups, plan bBELIEVE IT OR NOT:
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