The WordPress API is a travesty, but despite that, it’s actually very easy to change feeds. I used the_title_rss filter.

add_filter('the_title_rss', 'convergence_feed_title_filter');

My function is called convergence_feed_title_filter.

function convergence_feed_title_filter($content) {
  global $wp_query;
  $post_id = $wp_query->post->ID;
  $permalink = get_permalink($post_id);
  $categories = get_the_category($post_id);
  $category = $categories[0];
  $string = $category->cat_name . ' #' . get_episode_number($permalink) . ": " . $content;
  return $string;
}

First, we need to know what the current query is, then we need to get the post_id out of it. Episode numbers at The-Nexus.tv are stored conveniently in the permalinks, so I get the permalink and then categories. Why? Because single_cat_title does not work well or as advertised. Running get_the_category works, but because there could be multiple categories, I just pulled the data from the first choice. That data is the cat_name, and then I concatenated everything into a neat string: series name, episode number and then original title.

Here’s what I setup: there is a custom post type (CPT) for episode. So for each episode of a podcast, I add a new Episode. Now, I figure there will be more podcasts on the same installation in the future, so I made a custom taxonomy (CT) for podcast. So when I make a new series, I just make a taxonomy entry and set the episode to have that taxonomy. So that’s good so far.

My ideal URL permalink structure would be this: the-nexus.tv/{podcast-name}/{episode-name}/ where the {podcast-name} is the name of the podcast, like “On The Hill” and the episode-name is the post-name of the episode. An example of this would be: the-nexus.tv/on-the-hill/243/. Does that make sense?

Right now, episodes have permalinks like so: the-nexus.tv/episode/1/. This is instantly problematic: the /1/ name is taken up forever across all episodes and there is no mention of which podcast this episode belongs too. What I need is the name of the podcast to be apart of the episode slug so that multiple episodes can have the same post-name. Somehow, this does not sound entirely possible.

What have I tried? I attempted to follow Jonathan’s post about permalinks and post types, but I did not have much success with it. I have searched the WordPress forums. And Google.

So, I’m really not having any luck. I read a mailing list entry from Otto that explains that custom post types don’t really function within the rewrites of normal posts, but that didn’t make too much sense to me.

Any ideas?

Update WordPress
Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-3.2-latest.zip…
Download failed.: Not Found
Installation Failed

The footer of WordPress believes I’m still testing despite being on the main build.

In the Beta Testing plugin settings page, I made sure that it was set to point-releases, so it wouldn’t try to update to another build if it were available. Well? The fix is easy.

To update to WordPress 3.2.1, I simply deactivated the WordPress Beta Tester plugin and the yellow notification update box appeared. Everything updated just fine.

The WordPress trac had a ticket filed that mentions PHP 5.4 and I mentioned its imminent arrival in the wake of a very specific host not supporting even the latest stable version of PHP 5.3 officially.

I wonder about the future of PHP.

As of 3.2, you’ll need to be running PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. As we mentioned almost a year ago when we announced that this change was coming, the percentage of people running older versions of PHP and MySQL is relatively low. With more than 45 million people using WordPress, though, even a small percentage can mean a lot of people! Don’t caught with your pants dashboard down — make sure you’re running compatible versions of PHP and MySQL before you update tomorrow when WordPress 3.2 is released.

The WordPress teams suggests that if you don’t know your PHP or MySQL versions or just want to make sure, you can use the Health Check plugin. The plugin will run immediately upon activation and display a message box with the results. My results were like so:

Excellent: Your server is running PHP version 5.2.17 and MySQL version 5.0.91 which will be great for WordPress 3.2 onward.

My host, 1and1, appeared to be running an older version of PHP, but it’s not. 5.2.4 is a lesser version that 5.2.17, so it’s actually quite capable. Had this not worked though, I might have had to try my special 1and1-hack to enable PHP 5.3-support.

I’ve been testing WordPress 3.2 for the last three weeks and I love it. The Distraction Free Writing mode is awesome and the refined Administration pages look sleek and up-to-date. Of course, those are just some of the updates. There are more and they are certainly worth upgrading for.

Happy blogging!

1. Open Task Manager.
2. Look for processes that do not belong.
3. End any processes that should not be running.
4. Use HijackThis to find any secret processes.
5. Research processes on The Internet to learn about their behavior.
6. If you can continue, you can use SuperAnti Spyware and MalwareBytes to remove general problems.
7. Use specialized removal tools if required.
8. After sanitizing, use Sysinternals Autoruns to see lingering auto-running programs.
9. Remove crapware.
10. Run CCleaner with everything checked on the main pane.
11. Run the CCleaner registry cleaner twice.
12. Run Windows Update.
13. Put any files on the desktop into a folder in My Documents.
14. Remove all desktop icons except for: My Documents, Firefox, Chrome, My Computer and the Recycle Bin.
15. Install the latest Firefox.
16. Install the latest Chrome.
17. Install AdBlock Plus for both Firefox and Chrome.
18. Defrag computer.
19. Run Windows Update again.
20. Restart a few times to verify viruses are gone.
21. Install Microsoft Security Essentials.
22. Run CCleaner.
23. Done.

To do what I did, I think my dad’s friend would have had to pay at least $300 to BestBuy or similar computer store. You can get rid of a virus either doing it like I did, or reinstalling Windows. The latter takes an hour and is usually fool proof while the former could take anywhere from an hour to days and it’s certainly hit or miss.

Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 29622272) (tried to allocate 3096504 bytes) in /homepages/27/d20110405/htdoc/blog1/wp-includes/class-http.php on line 1426

This is a memory related issue but it has nothing to do with the download itself. To fix my particular problem, all I had to do was turn my plugins off. There are lots of solutions for this but WordPress should have a method to turn off all plugins at once.

I turned my fourteen plugins off and then tried the update again. I was greeted with successful update message.

Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-3.1.1.zip…
Unpacking the update…
Verifying the unpacked files…
Installing the latest version…
Upgrading database…
WordPress updated successfully

If your WordPress update fails due to not having enough memory, try disabling your plugins.

The feature I immediately noticed was the new admin bar. It mimics the admin bar found over at actual wordpress.com blogs. It looks pretty nice.

It was clever that it included a little stats graph in there as a bonus. I’m not sure if I understand the motivation to have Widgets as an item, but Themes make sense. The box that pops up when you click shortlink could look a little better but it’s great that’s it’s auto-highlighting. The Add New > Post is a great shortcut in any case. Oh, how long I’ve waited for that built in admin bar?

The other features noted in the blog post were redesigned linking workflow and streamlined writing interface. Okay, where were those? I disabled my visual editor so I cannot attest to any new feature – at the very least it isn’t sitting in the HTML editor. To see it, the visual editor must be turned on – no luck for use HTML-only people.

As for that streamlined writing interface? I’m not sure. The old bug I saw many years ago has been fixed in someway. Inside of covering the editing area the right floating panels now drop off the page for small windows. It might have been introduced in a previous version, but it’s always annoyed me that I couldn’t edit with a small window.

The other mention was that worthless panels would be hidden or closed by default. I noticed that with a clean user account, but with my normal account, it’s not quite obvious. Now by default, many panels under screen options are unchecked and are thus hidden. That’s pretty cool!

Irony

After writing this post and thinking back to my old WordPress posts, I get the feeling I have been blogging for a long time. The first post about WordPress specifically was written on July 29, 2008. Two years and six months later, here I am sitting in a college class room completely ignoring the instructor and his foolish table lesson plan, blogging about WordPress features.

I use nearly the same plugins for every blog I run. Here’s my list.

• Akismet - It seems silly to not have Akismet. Does anyone want spam on their blog? I don’t know of any better way to deal with stupid annoying pointless messages.
• WP-Stats/Google Analyticator – Depending on if the blogger I’m setting up the blog for has a Analyitcs account, I use WP-Stats or GA. I love them both (and personally have them setup side by side here). I find these two plugins great for glancing at recent traffic and changing the posting schedule based on trends.
• WordPress Database Backup – A priceless and invaluable plugin. Every day at 10am, WP-DB Backup sends a complete copy of my database to a secret and highly secure email address. I run my own backup every Tuseday, but the worst probably will happen on Monday at 11:55pm.
• WP Super Cache – Slow pages are terrible. Since I’m continuously logged in, this makes less of an impact on me, but my readers enjoy having fast page loads. I was never able to figure out W3 Total Cache, so Super Cache is enough for me.
• WP-Optimize – Every few weeks I’ll optimize my database with this little plugin. It doesn’t do much, but it essentially runs optimize MySQL command on each table in the database and also removes old post revisions that are no longer needed. It’s excellent.

Of course, I’d love to say thanks to the developers of those excellent plugins: Automattic, Chris J. Davis, Ronald Heft, Austin Matzko, Donncha O Caoimh and Ruhani Rabin.