Category: WordPress

Switching host: Update 1

I have been using open-source web-based photo album organiser Gallery for a long time, starting (around 2003) with Version 2 and now on (the final) Version 3. In fact it’s been so long ago that I have forgotten why I made the decision initially, except vaguely recalling something along the lines that I was looking an application based around PHP and MySQL (around the time the term LAMP stack was coined) photo gallery software Gallery, and there wasn’t anything else as feature-rich and user friendly at the time. My needs are fairly basic so I have not re-evaluated other choices since upgrading to Gallery 3.

Now, due to the recent decision to move host, I discovered two things while attempting to migrate Gallery. One is that Gallery has not been actively maintained since 2014. The second thing is that the MySQL dump from Gallery apparently exceeded the file size limit (50MB) for uploading to my new host using phpMyAdmin and the command line route is also out (certain errors during importing that I could not track down). This led to the slightly annoying situation of needing to find a new photo album software. By the way, although briefly experimenting with Flickr (which has also become history, as they say), I am more for keeping content on my own server.

A quick Google search showed I was not the only one having the same predicament. Taking the easy (ie. lazy) route I decided to follow the advice of more knowledgeable users such as the below and migrated to Piwigo. I must say, it’s been good after a week’s use. read more

Switching host yet again

A couple of months ago, I was informed that my current web hosting company Webfaction was merging with GoDaddy, although it sounded more like a take-over frankly hosting issues would be handled by GoDaddy since moving forward. The whole process was set to be finalised in a month or two. Since GoDaddy has never been high on my list of web hosting companies, I started to shop around for a new home for the few domains that I own.

The final decision was reached after reading these few articles:

  • https://justfreethemes.com/best-hosting-services/
  • https://winningwp.com/shared-vs-managed-wordpress-hosting/
  • https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/best-wordpress-hosting/
  • https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/shared-vs-managed-wordpress-hosting/
  • https://hostingfacts.com/hosting-reviews/siteground/
  • https://www.shivarweb.com/7970/siteground-hosting-review/
  • https://www.websitehostingrating.com/siteground-vs-bluehost/

I guess it’s kind of obvious that SiteGround was ranked highly but I still had some reservations about the renewal price, seeing that I am mostly dealing with WordPress sites plus the occasional trials of other software.

Google code

I have often wondered what it would be like to participate in an open-source project but felt uneasy because of a lack of confidence in my programming skills. Well, after some discussions with another team member from Donorweb to open-source some of our past work, here is my first project that is hosted on Google Code. Hopefully by announcing it here, I will be “forced” to keep putting in some effort into the project. I hope that it will be useful to the community at large.

http://code.google.com/p/donorweb-wp-themes/

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