My Journey Back from China

 2 Responses »
Jul 142010
 

confusedA few days ago I noticed that my Feedburner feed was not updating so I began the long, confusing journey to find out why and fix it.

Easier said than done. On my journey, I discovered from the Troubleshooting option at Feedburner.com that there was a problem with my original feed at Feedburner that I needed to fix in addition to a 404 error. Of course, the exact "problem" of my original feed was not disclosed. So I decided to paste this original URL in a browser and was quite perplexed by what I found. My original feed URL was automatically redirecting to another site that was not mine. How did I know it wasn't mine? It was in Chinese and I don't speak Chinese. I found it even more perplexing that the URL of this redirected feed was MY URL yet the feed was obviously not mine.

I continued on my journey by trying to determine exactly where this problem originated from. Was it my web server? No, they said it was not. Was it WordPress? I have no idea because I didn't get any response to my posting on their forum. Was it Feedburner? Again, I have no idea because no one answered me on that forum either. It was somewhat comforting to read that others have had similar problems (although I didn't read about anyone else's feed linking to a Chinese blog). WordPress did indeed have postings from others with the same issue that were resolved usually by uninstalling a plugin which was causing the problem. But, alas, I wasn't using any of the same plugins that seemed to be the culprit for others. However, I did follow their suggestions and uninstalled each of my plugins to see if perhaps they were causing my issues.  They weren't.

Tonight I decided to try again to see if anything made sense. To my pleasant surprise, my original feed URL was no longer redirecting to the Chinese blog. As I did absolutely nothing since the last time I checked, perhaps this was some sort of divine intervention? Who knows, I am just grateful that I don't have to learn Chinese.

I read through many more forums, tried to ping my feed several times, uninstalled and reinstalled my plugins yet again and still nothing. As there was nothing else I could think of trying, I went back to work. Several hours later, I decided to give it another try. I repinged with success. I confirmed that the redirection to the Chinese blog was still gone and tried unsuccessfully again to resync my feed. I received the same error message I have been receiving all along with the resync option in Feedburner.

Just for the heck of it, I checked out both my original and my feed URL and guess what? Both feeds are now updated even though I am still getting the error message when trying to resync.

I have absolutely no idea why my feeds are all of a sudden working and can't help but wonder what I might find tomorrow.

The morale of the story? Beats me but maybe I should consider calling Ghost Busters as there are times I am convinced there is a Poltergeist living inside my computer!

 

My Technical Angel!

 3 Responses »
Jul 032010
 

Adam Kreitman is my technical angel. I don't know Adam. I have never met Adam. Adam doesn't know me. Yet he is still my angel. Why?

Because Adam has technical knowledge and experience I don't have and Adam just so happened to have had the same problem I was having with Internet Explorer and WordPress.  Adam figured out why our sidebars were not showing up on the home page in Internet Explorer only…. AND the best part? Adam wrote a blog post about it sharing his experience, knowledge and his fix.

Adam is my technical angel.

Thank you Adam :)

Read The S.W.I.S.S. Money Blog.

Man’s Best Friend

 3 Responses »
Jun 212010
 

best friendOur dogs know the true meaning of unconditional love even if they don’t have any sense of timing – which is actually a nice thing. When you go out to get the mail and come in two seconds later, your pup is so incredibly excited to see you – right? I often wonder HOW we “know” that dogs have no sense of timing. The dog experts say that this theory has been tested. I can’t help but wonder what types of measurements were used and that perhaps those “in the know” are pet owners who don’t want to feel guilty about leaving their dogs alone all day when they go to work.

For those small business owners who are not techno-savvy, there are two “best friends” available to them that are real life savers. One is that wonderful, amazing, couldn’t-live-without “UNDO” button! What would we do without this awesome invention? Bless whoever invented it!

The other wonderful best friend for small business owners who use WordPress is the plugin. There are plugins for almost anything and everything imaginable. When in doubt on how to do something on your WordPress blog or website, do a search for a plugin and you will probably be pleasantly surprised. Not only does WordPress offer these “technical solutions for dummies”, it also rates and describes them for you. Use caution, however, because just like everything else in life, not all plugins are created equal and just because something shows up in your search, doesn’t mean it will work or work properly. See how many stars the plugin has and if necessary, you can even do a Google search to find reviews on the plugin.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an “undo” button and a WordPress plugin for other parts of our lives that do not include the computer? Failed a test? UNDO! Hit a car in the parking lot? UNDO! Want your teenager to learn to live responsibly, be accountable for his/her own actions and show respect? Search for “responsible teenager” in your WordPress add new plugin search field. It is ok to dream……………….