Ideas….

It’s been a while since I wrote, and its not that I forgot about my blog, it’s just that I’ve been busy.  Our Moodle installation is growing up and will be getting its own server soon.  I’m hoping that it’ll be a OSX 10.5 Server so I’ve been working out some of the kinks in my test installation:

1. GD Library — By default the GD library’s aren’t part of the PHP package in Server 10.5.  I was poking around in this Step by Step Installation guide trying to upgrade my PHP library on my server.  Turns out I didn’t need to for various reasons (also the package recommended screwed with my Apache).  So instead i went into my php.ini file and uncommented the line:
   

   extension=php_gd2.dll

   This turned on the GD Library and Moodle looks much better now.

2. MySQL — I was getting a weird error in Moodle under Admin > Server > Environment.
   

   It is required that you store all your data in Unicode format (UTF-8). New installations must be performed into databases that have their default character set as Unicode. If you are upgrading, you should perform the UTF-8 migration process (see the Admin page).

   I thought that was a bit weird cause I installed the database from scratch. But sometimes you just need to do what it tells you to. So I ran the following query:

   alter database moodle collate = utf8_unicode_ci;

   And voila the error went away.

So now my Moodle is a bit happier.  I am of course (like always) recording this so that when I get my new server and I run into these problems again, I can remember what the heck I did.

I was poking around, trying to find some good cloud computing blogs. I found one called ElasticVapor (the owner of which started following me on Twitter a week or so ago). At anyrate I saw this posting on the Semantic Cloud Abstraction and I thought cool; Cloud Computing + Semantic Web = Brain Spinning.  But I read the post anyway.

Which was good because I found a great thing buried at the bottom: Getting Started with the Google Data PHP Client Library.  Fun!  Ok for me maybe.  I like lists and I like videos.  This minimizes my brain function and leads me to learn things quickly (which I then forget quickly).  We’re talking about moving to Google here at Wheaton for email and calendaring, so hopefully when we do I will remember these lovely PHP libraries and be able to have tons-o-fun with Google APIs.

I have a VERY out of date WordPressMU I’m trying to update (v. 1.0). After getting nowhere, I decided (with the help of the boss man) to export out all of the blogs and then reimport them into the new installation.

First thing I ran into was that the file was too big. I adjusted my php.ini settings for the filesize (restarted apache) and that did nothing but give me a new error message with a lower limit than before (!). So then I asked my friend Google about the error message and he told me about the instructions on Asher Bond’s Blog.

So yay, now I can import the blog. Nope, that would be too easy. Every time I went to upload it, the process timed out. Luckily I remember seeing something in the php.ini file that set the processing time:

max_execution_time = 600 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 600 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data

And yes I really did need it that high, the blog is 3 years of (just about) daily podcasts.

Also for those that have never done it, WordPress will actually go out and fetch the files from the old blog and move them into the new blog. This is wonderful, and whomever at WordPress thought this up should be given a medal.

So anyway, I record all of this here in hopes that one day others will have the same problem and run across this post (or I run into the problem and need to know what the heck I did to fix it).

Next on the list: converting the podcasts from the defunct PodPress plugin to a plugin that’s useful. Options are: PowerPress and Podcasting. Leaning toward Powerpress because they are a company.

After that: LDAP and WordPress integration possibly using the wpdirauth plugin. I have to say I’m quite surprised that there aren’t more ldap plugins out there.