A 3 and a half minute video tour is viewable below:

Updating is straightforward and didn’t break any of the plugins found working with the last major update. All in all I estimate the upgrade to take less than 15 minutes including deleting and re-uploading through FTP.

I strongly encourage everyone to apply the update as it fixes approximately 194 bugs besides offering full SSL support in the core, and the ability to force SSL for security (new cookie setup). It also includes speed improvements and a Wiki-like tracking of edits.

Again, I must admit I haven’t been able to run the testing for more than an hour, so there might be a few incompatibilities still not discovered. Feel free to share your findings, and also let me know how you experience the speed and overall “look n’ feel” of the site.

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WP Slimstat for WordPress

There’s dozens of statistic plugins available for WordPress already, but I find WP Slimstat to be one of the best. However, since the release of WordPress 2.3 the plugin no longer recorded all hits as the WP table structure was altered. The author of WP-Slimstat still offers the plugin from his website but informs visitors that it’s no longer in development.

Screenshots

Earlier today I found the solution to the problem in one of the forum threads. Having waited for a decent solution for some time I decided to implement the necessary code changes but also keep it backwards compatible. The updated copy of the main file (wp-slimstat.php), including the new WP 2.5 colour scheme, can be downloaded below:

WP Slimstat (116) - 24.86 KB

Before you continue I recommend backing up your database. This way you can always roll back in case something goes terribly wrong. I’ve just completed the update myself without any issues so I hope and think there shouldn’t be any surprises.

If this didn’t scare you away you can now proceed with the actual update. All you need to do is replace the old copy of wp-slimstat.php with the new one included in the zip, using your favourite FTP program (e.g. FileZilla).

Update the IP to Country Database

The plugin also shows you where your visitors are coming from by comparing the IP against the “IP to Country database” made available by webhosting.info. The original is now a bit old (March 2006) so I’ve made an SQL dump that contains the latest list (10th March 2008):

IP to Country Database (109) - 609.06 KB

You can update your IP to Country database table as follows:

1. Log on to phpMyAdmin (or any other tool you use to maintain your database) and empty the old table (normally wp_slim_countries)
2. Unzip and upload the file you just downloaded (wp_slim_countries.sql) using the import feature

If you experience difficulties uploading the file (it is quite large -> 2.56MB) you can try bypassing this by opening the file in WordPad (not NotePad), copy all the text (CTRL+A and then CTRL+C) then paste (CTRL+V) and run it as an SQL query in phpMyAdmin.

Feel free to let me know if you experience any problems or have a comment on this unofficial WP Slimstat release.

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• WordPress 2.6 is out
• New WordPress Theme

In case you wonder most the plugins I’ve used are still working. Below is a list of all plugins used on this site, and besides one they’re all compatible with the new release. Strangely enough it’s the Popularity Contest plugin by Alex King that doesn’t seam to work. I’ve left a comment announcing this, and with any luck (and if he’s not to busy) an update will be available shortly.

Update: I’ve found a temporary fix for the Popularity Contest plugin, see my main blog for a solution.

WP 2.5 Compatible Plugins

• Akismet v2.1.4
• Dunstan’s Time Since v1.1
• Get Recent Comments v2.0.2
• Google XML Sitemaps v3.0.3
• Pagebar2 v2.16
• Posts By Category v2.0
• ShareThis v2.1
• Smart Archives v1.9.2
• Smarter Archives v1.0.1
• WassUp v1.4.9
• WP-ShortStat v1.13a
• WP 2.3 Related Posts v0.51
• WP Contact Form III v1.5
• Youtube Brackets v3.0

I must admit I haven’t been able to run the testing for more than an hour, so there might be a few incompatibilities still not discovered. Feel free to share your findings, and also let me know how you experience the speed and overall “look n’ feel” of the site.

As a final side note I must give credit to the outstanding WordPress developers for providing yet another great update. The admin panel, long left in the shade (design wise), is now looking extremely nice and works great. I’ve already gotten used to the new layout and won’t miss the previous one bit. Thank you!

Update (31st March): Moving from RC1 to the first official 2.5 release took around 5-10 minutes, including FTP, and caused no issues at all. More information on the latest release are found here, and the download here (as usual).

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• A busy year for Egtvedt Web Design

The new theme has been named Tranquil Horizon, which is the feeling we get looking at the photo below the main menu. If the interest is big enough we will consider releasing the source (that means you will have to comment on this post and let us know).

In the blog section we have also added the popular comics plugin that we initially created for Blogvaria (below header image to the right).

Instead of the normal widgets in the sidebar we have hard-coded it in order to get it working/looking exactly like we want. We’ve also made great efforts to keep all the code 100% standards compliant. CSS provides complete control of layout and design, which makes future changes a breeze.

The only thing we are still working on is the logo. We are 93% happy with our current one and are still brainstorming for new ideas. We are also more than happy to receive suggestions… [submit here]

Please let us know if you encounter any bugs or abnormalities, as we are eager to fix and expand in the following days.

MT

Thomas

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