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After discovering Flickr only allows a maximum of 200 photos uploaded to your photo stream without upgrading, I decided to do what I originally planned and host my pictures locally. The only issue was most photo plugins I was interested in required WordPress 2.7 or higher, and I was running 2.6. As a result, I decided to go ahead and upgrade my WordPress MU install although as usual things didn’t go as planned. I used this tutorial for some guidance, although after reading through it I decided to just do it without going through each step.

1. First, backup your MySQL tables using phpMyAdmin. I’m not going to go through each step this entails, if your not sure just do some googling. I used the export tool and exported my database as a .sql file.
2. Next, backup all current WP files.
3. WordPress 2.7 has a few changes in the wp-config.php file, mostly realting to security changes and cookies. The tutorial I referenced above goes through a step by step process to edit your wp-config.php file, however in the end it didn’t work for me and after my upgrade I was unable to login to the WP backend. After some trouhbleshoting, these are the steps I took for editing my wp-config.php file:
   1. Place the following code after $base = ‘/’;
      
define('DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'scaleddesign.net' );
define('PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/' );
define('SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1);
define('BLOGID_CURRENT_SITE', '1' );

      Replace the domain with your own, not including the http://www. portion, the PATH_CURRENT_SITE should reflect where your WP install is located, for example /blog if your blog is located at domain.com/blog.
   2. Place the following code after define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT
      
define('NONCE_KEY', '');
define('AUTH_SALT', '');

      Replace ” with a randomly generated string from http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/
4. Once you have edited your wp-config.php file, remove all your old WordPress files on your site.
5. Upload a fresh install of WordPress MU, which can be obtained from http://mu.wordpress.org/download/
6. Upload your newly edited wp-config.php file into the base WordPress directoy.
7. Be sure to check before hand that all your plugins and themes are compatible with 2.7. Remove all the contents of /wp-content and replace them with the contents from your 2.6 installation.
8. Login to your WP backend and run a sitewide update by going to Site Admin -> Upgrade tab.

Everything should be good to go! If you have trouble logging in, I would suggest looking at your wp-config.php file and making sure everything is in place. The sample config file that comes in the fresh WordPress install is a helpful reference as well. Also be sure to check your directory permissions as this could be an issue as well. The above worked for myself, however there are a number of nuances between different server configurations and hosting services, what I did may or may not work for you.

In preparation for my upcoming trip, I’ve migrated my entire site over to WordPress MU.  This seemed to be the best solution, since this section was developing into its own blog and some feature required it to be on a separate WordPress installation from my main site.  Although the process as not as easy as I expected, everything was migrated and put in place.  For those of you who are curious, I ended up exporting my posts in XML using the built in WordPress feature instead of moving the MySQL tables over.  This proved an easy solution, however if your site is larger with more content, I would recommend another solution involving moving your MySQL tables over.  This new section for my blog includes a revised theme, along with a bunch of other blog features such as Flickr integration.  I also enabled comments on this post, after activating my Akismet plugin.

With less then a month until I leave, I’ve nearly completed all the necessary reservations.  I was even able to snag first class on the flight over, although this came at a price since I now have two layovers.  Hopefully before I leave I’ll get some time to add an image gallery and some other features.

I well aware that no one reads this “blog” and to be honest it was never intended to be read.  However, I find this an excellent place to document my travels and the other exciting occurrences of my life.  Its therapeutic, especially after a long day of work, and helps me remember the experiences I’ve had.  Over the next month or so, I’ll be doing some upgrades on this part of the site to turn it into more of a blog as opposed to random crap.  Eventually, there will be an archive calendar, comments will be re-enabled, and I’ll finally get around to getting a gallery plugin installed.  Its all very dubious as to when this will be completed, however I hope to have everything running before I leave for Japan.

Scaled Design has been around for almost two years now developing professional web solutions for small businesses.  Since Scaled Design started in 2006, our client base has grown dramatically, expanding on a national level.  With each new client our designs continue to be fresh and contemporary still tailored to each clients specific needs.  With all the continued work, it is often difficult to keep our own site up to date, however we have found time to re-design and release v2.0.  The new look is now powered by the newest WordPress release, a system which we have implemented for many of our clients.