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I just spent most of today upgrading to WordPress 2.6 platform, which is powering my site.

Our exciting new features are…… well, there aren’t many new features actually. The big change is that I scrapped Categories completely, in favor of Tag Cloud based approach. Now, under each Post title are relevant Tags instead.

The 10 minute upgrade took most of the day. Considering I was still on 2.3 or so, issues were expected, but this image upload issue exceeded all my expectations. Here’s the timeline:

1. A lot of time was spent reviewing the many Plug-Ins that my site uses or even In-Active ones. I had to decide what to remove forever, and for others I was making sure there isn’t a newer version available that should minimize my chances of incompatibilities.
2. Upload of new WordPress.org PHP and related files, was rather painless. Don’t forget to review additions to wp-config.php in root directory, it needs to be kept, but it has to have additions, and 2.6 had 3 more parameters than my older config.
3. Upgrade of DB itself was easy, don’t forget to backup database before the move!
4. I quickly found that my Categories got all messed up. In-fact they were there, but without any names. I think it is a result of my having one category with single quote in it (O’Rly). At first I picked up database backup, found what used to be in wp-category table and applied the category names onto records.
5. But that was only half the story, since I used Simple Tags plug-in in the past, I was trying to figure out how to move from those old Tags into the new world. Well, apparently there is a nifty embedded tags importer, thanks to simple tip in FAQ.
6. Once All Tags from old posts were imported/converted and such, I setup a Tag cloud Widget on my sidebar, and made minor change to my Theme to show Tags under posts, instead of Categories.

At this point I was sure that Upgrade is done, and I decided to celebrate the success by posting something. Funny thing, the Draft uploaded just fine through my Windows Live Writer, which I often use, but the final Post didn’t want to go up. Kept failing.

Took me a couple of back and forth to realize that the difference isn’t "Draft’ to "Publish", the difference is the fact that I added image, as I often do towards the end of post creation.

Well, long story short, many hours of investigation, logs review, forums checking, later, it looks like there is a freshly minted WordPress bug. Seems that whatever fancy technology generates Thumbnails for uploaded images, is hard-wired to default to /wp-content/uploads directory. Granted that many blogs have their images there, but mine are elsewhere!!

Hopefully this is just a small thing that Matt and Co can work out quickly. So just wait until inevitable 2.6.1 version, like I should have…

Meanwhile, I decided to spice things up just a little bit to celebrate the Upgrade. Presenting Virtual Chat Room, where you can interact with me and/or other visitors of this blog. I know I am not much of an interior decorator, but I will try to improve in the future! Meanwhile, visit the new Chat page and Suggestions Welcome!

PS: Note how there are no images on this post   Nor can I figure out how to add Tags from Live Writer… As my daughter brilliantly noted: "I thought Upgrade was supposed to improve things, not break them!"

UPDATE: I can not explain it, but today I changed my upload directory back to just say uploads, and it works fine, at least from Online uploader. Perhaps I did something wrong on Sunday, but first, I shall try the live writer next, to confirm that it uploads from there!

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When I launched this site, several months ago, a good friend asked me why would I bother the expense, the time and the complexity of having my own separate Dot Com blog, when there are so many other web sites out there for blogging these days.

Well, here’s a perfect example why: Yahoo! 360, home of my earlier blog, is being “turned off“. Yes, they are promising to keep our content, although at this time they aren’t sure on what site or in which form…

Actually, I trust Yahoo! and I think they are doing the right thing. I wouldn’t have created my blog there in the first place if I did not have full trust in them (Full disclosure: I own some Yahoo! stock). They are going through some management turmoil now, and these are rough times while many leading tech companies (Microsoft comes to mind!) trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and what is the best model for the future of computing for masses.

So, back to the issue at hand. When this blog launched, I actually used another Web Host. Since I own my domain, it took only about half an hour to completely move my blog with All Its Content to a new provider. And the best thing, my readers did not feel a thing. I still have the same address in the vastness of the Internet, which is very important.

By the way, same thing goes for email! In this day and age I am just shocked when I hear anyone using their Internet Provider email address. What is this qtpie@comcast.nët email you are giving out to people??? What will you do when you change to DSL provider next year? Or move to a state without Comcast? Why loose your email identity, your connection to friends? Why not utilize Yahoo! Mail or GMail or Hotmail (by Microsoft), which are all free!

If you are still reading this long post, then here are some things useful for you. Probably, one of the easiest options to get your own .Com with Blog going these days is provided by WordPress.com. For a little extra pay you can even point your actual .Com domain there, giving you a complete solution. If you are more adventurous and feel comfortable with uploading PHP sources and creating MySql databases, check out complete Open Source solutions from WordPress.org or MovableType.org .

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