Mark Headrick’s Blog

WordPress has recently released WordPress 2.5.1 which I have completed upgrading my blog to. It contains one critical security patch as well as a number of bug fixes. Surpass Hosting also upgraded their server over the weekend to use PHP 5.2.5 by default and MySQL 5. In doing so, the server software now reports back as WebServerX again and not Apache. So, I had to edit the /wp-includes/vars.php again to force $is_apache to true. Following is the server detection part of the script:

// Server detection
 
/**
 * Whether the server software is Apache or something else
 * @global bool $is_apache
 */
//$is_apache = ((strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') !== false) || (strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'LiteSpeed') !== false)) ? true : false;
$is_apache = true;
 
/**
 * Whether the server software is IIS or something else
 * @global bool $is_IIS
 */
$is_IIS = (strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Microsoft-IIS') !== false) ? true : false;

The only difficulty I had was with the RAZ-Captcha plug-in. I was getting a fatal PHP error which was causing the Login and Registration pages to not appear:

PHP Fatal error: Cannot use object of type WP_Error as array in /(deleted)/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/raz-captcha/raz-captcha.php on line 590

I have disabled that plug-in for the meantime. I may look for a new plug-in to do image verifications on the Login and Registration pages. If I get ambitious, I may try and fix it myself but I doubt it, LOL.

WordPress has just released WordPress v2.5, which I have completed upgrading my blog to. I have also upgraded my plugins to their latest versions using the new plugin update feature and it worked great!

As always, I did have to modify the /wp-includes/vars.php file in the server detection section to force the apache detection to true so that it could modify the permalink structure:

// Server detection
 
/**
* Whether the server software is Apache or something else
* @global bool $is_apache
*/
//$is_apache = ((strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') !== false) || (strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'LiteSpeed') !== false)) ? true : false;
$is_apache = true;
 
/**
* Whether the server software is IIS or something else
* @global bool $is_IIS
*/
$is_IIS = (strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Microsoft-IIS') !== false) ? true : false;

The reason is that Surpass Hosting’s value for $_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'] is WebServerX. I also updated my theme to include all the updated code in the default WordPress theme which mine is based off of. All in all a fairly painless process.

I have been thinking of adding some PHP programming content (full blown scripts to achieve this or that to modifications of other scripts to achieve something) to my website and I am trying to decide where I should put it. I can either add them within the context of my Programming page, which is in a current state of extreme lameness, or as a WordPress article or page.

I think the thing to do is to put the main content within the context of my Programming page and then write a blog post about it that links to it. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Now, when will all this happen? I have no idea. One of the problems with placing things like this online is the expectation that you will provide support for it when people try it and have problems. I do tech support all day at work and when I get home, I’m generally not in the mood. I think the fact that I won the “Coder” award in Surpass Hosting’s Surmunity forum has inspired me to do this. I had no idea I had won until I was asked about the prize. LOL. So, stay tuned for this!