Category: Editorial

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Editorial

Bye Bye WordPress! Hello WordPress MU!!

In last few days, you might have noticed site going down or sometimes showing weird content or no content at all. No, nothing was wrong with our server and no problem was there from our hosting company MediaTemple! Only reason was, we were busy in moving all our blogs, scattered all over the Internet, into a single WordPress MU installation.

It was tougher than anticipated. WordPress MU, unlike its counterpart WordPress (standard package), is very hard to configure. Also to get expected results I needed to modify may WordPress MU core-files. In fact, in the course, I have developed a small plugin for WordPress MU which will be released into open-source after some more testing.

So why we switched to WordPress MU…

We till now have only 3 blogs in network and one more expected to launch in a day or two. So maintaining 3-4 separate blogs isn’t tough task but maintaining 30-40 of them can be nightmare. So with WordPress MU, we are now ready to roll on many blogs into our blog network without much efforts. Setting up a new blog now is just few clicks away!

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What it mean to our contributors…

You no need to bookmark all URL’s separately to log into different blogs. All blogs will feature a log-in link in navigation menu. Just log into any blog. You can switch to other blogs with just one click.

rtblogs-network-wordpress-mu-menu-1

Only problem here is, we are using different top-level domains for all our blogs so when you switch to different blog, you will be shown login box again. We recommend, checking “Remember Me” option. That way you need to enter username & password only once per blog and then you can switch between them seamlessly. We are trying to fix this problem as well, but till then bear with us! Sorry!

About AdSense…

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If you can notice above, there is “My AdSense” item in above screenshot. You can use that to configure your AdSense account. Instructions are here. You need to do this only once on any blog. Other blogs will use your AdSense settings automatically!

Important: AdSenese plugin we are using to share revenue is originally developed for WordPress single-blog setup. We patched it to work for WordPress MU. As patch was applied in hurry, we request you to verify if your old posts are showing your AdSense correctly. We will soon replace this patched plugin with a new, developed for WordPress MU plugin.

More options for our community soon…

The moment we done with fixing our WordPress MU 2.7, we came across release post for WordPress MU 2.7.1 beta 2. As new release is in beta and we am tired with playing with WordPress MU (for more than a week), we decided to take a brake before going for new minor version. It has some really nice features which we will love to offer, but first we want to get comfortable with WordPress MU. So…

Feedback Please…

We need your feedback as there many be few things left broken or not working. If you come across something which was there in past but broken oe missing, please let us know. 🙂

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Editorial

TDIS – Introducing a new section on Devils Workshop

Few days back, Vaibhav Kanwal posted about his experience with Linux. As an editor, I was initially reluctant to publish that article as it was based on more personal experience. But as a strong and active community many of our reader participated in healthy discussion surrounding that topic.

Since then we were thinking about starting a section on Devils Workshop where our readers can share their personal experience related to Internet, technology, social networking and other technology related stuff. Unlike other articles, where we demand technical tips, tricks, hacks, tutorials, etc which can be directly used by others, goal of this section is to give our readers a platform to share their views.

You can use this new section to initiate healthy debate/discussion or collect a feedback on a topic on your mind. You no need to be a formal blogger to write in this section. Of course, you can run still run your adsense ads on your articles.

TDIS – Thank Devil It’s Sunday!

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This will be a weekly feature, published on Sunday only. We choose Sunday, because its holiday for most people. So rather than brainstorming with another technical how-to guide, its better to indulge in lighter discussion.

Of course, if we get more articles for this series, me may consider increasing frequency of posts in this new section.

A note for non-bloggers…

We hope participation from many non-blogger readers. They may find registration process and using WordPress platform to publish articles little harder. In that case, they can email their articles to our editor team at email id – editor@devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw. Please add word [TDIS] into subject line.

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If you want to publish your article anonymously, its fine with us. Otherwise include 2-3 lines about yourself in the beginning of that email.

More experiments…

First we thank you Vaibhav for posting his own experience which gave us this idea. We are open to more experiments on Devils Workshop. After all its a community blog!

So feel free to use our forum, contact form or comment section to suggest new ideas/sections which you will like to see on Devils Workshop. If you can contribute towards your idea, that will be a plus!

Update: This Sunday’s post has been publish now – Me and My Social (Networking) Life (by Puja Lalwani)

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Editorial

Introducing Witcrumbs – New blog in our network

(cross posted on rtCamp blog)

We are happy to let you know that we have turned from family of two blogs to three with a new member – WitCrumbs, a blog dedicated to celebrate wittiness!

witcrumbs

Started by Akki a blogger taking tot-steps in blogosphere as www.sensationally-numb.blogspot.com today has a new avatar in www.witcrumbs.rsites.dev6.rt.gw. In Akki’s words…

Witcrumbs is a space to blabber random & absurd thoughts. Its a canvas to doodle haphazard lines & dots. Its a cocktail of vodka and tea. Its epitomizing freedom of speech on WebSphere that has come to be blogging. To sum up the spirit. This blog drifts in the giant gulf between what is said and the person who doesn’t get it.

So folks please join us in welcoming the newest member of rtCamp Blog Network.

Links: WitCrumbs | rtCamp Blog Network

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Editorial

We are hiring – WordPress Developers

wordpresslogo.pngOur parent company rtCamp is looking for expert WordPress developers.

Main role will be to create WordPress themes. Ability to code wordpress plugins will be added bonus.

This opening is strictly for our Pune, India office and this is full-time office job. Of course, you can work from home once you get used to with things we are working on.

I repeat, we are looking for full time WordPress developers only.

Job Profile Links: View | Download | Apply

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Editorial

Welcome to rtCamp!

rtCamp, a concept that I visualized during my masters course has finally become a reality.

We received all the necessary registration documents from the concerned government authority on 13th March and then I was busy for last 2-3 days building the website for – rtCamp Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

We also started our company blog which I recommend all our clients, friends, partners and everyone who wish to join us to follow. All the future announcements related to our services, blog-networks, etc. will be made on the rtCamp blog. This is the last time I am annoying Devils Workshop readers with a non-technical post. 😉

rtCamp site is still  in infant stage as our basic goal was to inform visitors about our blog-network and services at the earliest.

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As a part of our blog-network we will be launching around 10 blogs which will cover topic related to photography, finance, cricket, travel, blogging and wordpress over the next 2 months .

We will soon start our next round of recruitment. If you happen to be good wordpress programmer from Pune, you can get in touch with our hr@rtcamp.com ahead of time!  Keep checking rtCamp blog and career sections for more opportunities.

Thank you all for being with us. 🙂

-Rahul Bansal
Founder & Director,
rtCamp Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

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Editorial

We are on MediaTemple (dv) now…

Update: Why Dreamhost PS is a Pathetic Server – 5 Reasons

It has been more than 24 hours since we have shifted to MediaTemple. Everything seems to be working fine on the new host.

There are many minor tasks that are still pending so I will answer questions like, why we moved to MediaTemple, later.

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This post is to make few important announcements…

1. For our readers/contributors

You guys can post comments and articles now. During migration (or may be just before that) we had a mysql crash which made us lost 4-5 comments and I guess 2-3 posts pending for review.

So comments and posts made (draft and pending review posts only) in the last 24 hours are most likely lost and not “rejected” or “moderated”.

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Sorry for the inconvenience. 🙁

2. For our friends, partners, clients, etc

All our paid clients are safe. All the necessary changes for them has been taken care by us.

For rest, whose sites are hosted on our Dreamhost account, please replace hostname rtcamp.com with orkutfeeds.com.

Similarly host for mysql databases is now mysql.orkutfeeds.com.

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You can try host names orkutfeeds.com for FTP and mysql.orkutfeeds.com for MySQL if you are not able to log into FTP account or cannot connect with the database.

If you are facing any other problem, please contact us.

That’s it for the time being. More about the migration process and other tech-tips, later. Do let us know if you face any problem with any of the sites in our network.

Thanks. 🙂

Related: Why Dreamhost PS is a Pathetic Server – 5 Reasons

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Editorial

We are moving to MediaTemple

Update: Migration is completed now.  You may like to check Why Dreamhost PS is a Pathetic Server – 5 Reasons

This is to inform all our readers/contributors that we are finally moving Devils Workshop, Orkut Diary and few other sites to MediaTemple.

We had recently shifted to Dreamhost PS but unlike shared Dreamhost service, our experience was too painful to continue anymore on Dreamhost PS. As I have mentioned earlier, we will continue to host most of our small sites on Dreamhost.

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So this migration may result in few hours downtime for sites listed below only, including any subdomains they have.

  1. Devils Workshop
  2. Orkut Diary
  3. Orkut Buddy
  4. rtCamp

To all contributors, please do not post any comment/article as of now. We will notify you all again with a blog post once migration gets completed. Update: You can start posting now as migration is completed. 🙂

Sorry for inconvenience and considerable downtime you have experienced in last 3-4 days. 🙁

I will write in more details about Dreamhost PS (Pathetic Server) once this mighty task gets completed.

Related: Why Dreamhost PS is a Pathetic Server – 5 Reasons

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Editorial

OrkutFeeds will be down for a week

(cross posted on OrkutFeeds blog)

We are sorry to announce but we have to take down Orkutfeeds service completely for a major update.

As posted on our main blog, we have recently shifted to dedicated private servers which cost us a lot. Also as we do not make any money from OrkutFeeds, we can’t let this resource hungry service to burn holes in our pockets.

The only solution which seems good enough now, is to re-code most part of it with exclusive support for caching. That way we can reduce load on our server as well as on Orkut server by 80%. Atleast as per our calculation.

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Call for PHP geeks…

If you are a PHP geek and like to volunteer for next version of Orkutfeeds, please contact us.

As we are not making any money from this service as of now, your efforts will not be monetized immediately. But we have plan to make money from this service in future and if you happen to be with us there on timeline, we will surely make you rich! 😉

Sorry once again for downtime. I hope to fix everything within a week.

You can subscribe to this status feed for updates regarding OrkutFeeds.

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Editorial

We are on Dreamhost (Virtual) Private Server

In last 2-3 months, we received many complaints from our visitors regarding downtime, specifically “500: Internal Error”. Also one of our service, OrkutFeeds, was completely down for one week. Reason was continuous rise in traffic for both Devils Workshop and OrkutFeeds.

We do not blame Dreamhost…

We do not blame Dreamhost as they always offered more than one can expect from a shared hosting plan. From long time, we were planning to move to Virtual Private Server(VPS) hosting. But making a choice between Dreamhost Private Servers (PS) and Mediatemple dedicated virtual (dv) hosting is really tough. We have many open questions about Mediatemple which need 2-3 weeks time to sort them out.

For time being, we have shifted our web and mysql server to Dreamhost’s Private Servers. We will monitor our sites performance closely and then we will make final decision whether to continue on Dreamhost or move our high traffic sites to Mediatemple.

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We will be on Dreamhost always…

One thing is sure, even if we decide to move to Mediatemple, we will continue to host our non-profit services like Orkutfeeds on Dreamhost shared hosting plans as long as possible. We just can’t afford paying private server charges for free services. Its OK for us, if our free services run slowly.

Also we offered free hosting on our Dreamhost account to few non-profit organizations, friends and some of our readers. They all run low traffic websites which don’t require virtual private servers.

Things we like about Dreamhost PS…

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  • Moving to PS was very smooth. Only thing I remember was clicking on “Enable PS” option from control panel.
  • Dedicated IP – Every private server gets a dedicated IP. Dedicated IPs have many advantages. One of them is better treatment from anti-spam plugins like akismet.
  • If something goes wrong on any of our site, we can instantly reboot our server.

Things we don’t like about Dreamhost PS…

  • You can not be selective about Dreamhost PS. Its either for all sites/users or for none. Given a choice, at this stage, we would have moved only Devils Workshop & OrkutDiary to PS.
  • Cost! Dreamhost’s shared hosting plan offers best value for your money. Same is not true with their VPS solution.
  • Same control panel. Dreamhost have one of the best control panel but what we need exclusive support for reselling and ability to manage resources on per site/client basis.

I will update you with more details about Dreamhost Private Servers soon as we explore it. If you are among our regular visitors, please let us know if you can see any improvement in speed. 🙂

Categories
Editorial

Devils Workshop ranked #3 in India!*

imageOur Devils Workshop ranked #3 in India as per a recent post published on Binary Day.

Ranking is based on many factors including Google Pagerank, Alexa rank, Yahoo backlinks and Technorati authority. Sita, who worked hard on writing algorithm for ranking and gathering data surveyed 6000+ blogs listed in indiblogger directory.

As usual with all surveys and ranking, this will also raise some controversies as it is missing 2 top Indian blogs in my knowledge – Digital Inspiration and Quick Online Tips. There may be few more false negatives. Still results can be counted to greater extent as indiblogger directory contain most of active blogs.

If you are surprised to see your blog is missing form the list, then please add it to indiblogger so that in next listing it will be counted by folks at Binary Day.

For DW co-bloggers, I know our ranking is questionable, still enjoy the moment and lets work harder so that we can be on top, unanimously! 😉

Links: Listing at Binary Day

(image credit: drink86)

(* Ranking is based on blogs listed in indiblogger directory)