vanderwal.net

Off the Top Search Update and More

I was initially hoping to look at what was going to be needed to update the Off the Top blog search with phrase searching. In going through the options and potential work needed, I started running tests in the Lab. Those tests progressed quickly and with debugging assistance I had something that worked and I was also able to add a boolean exclusion as well.

The past month or so, with posting more, I have been regularly checking with blog search to see if I have posted something related to include in a new post or posted something so close I don’t need to post it. In doing those searches for things along the lines of “model of attraction” (with no quotes around them) I found all sorts of things with model and/or attraction. The results that didn’t have the phrase were wasting time and started being a little annoying. Now, with the update, a “model of attraction” with quotes only pulls results with that phrase. The search is indifferent to capitalization, which I am quite fine with (as of this moment). The exclusion is nice to have as well, as I cannot include results with a term or quoted phrase, so “-mess” does not include results with mess.

I have a hint under the search box on the Search Page :: Off the Top :: vanderwal.net, but It needs better styling. The search results page doesn’t have the search hint in it, but phrase search and exclusions work from there as well, as it is the results that handle all of the parsing.

A WordPress Urgent Update

As I had the blog search update working and dropped in on the production side of the world, I had a note from my host that I urgently needed to update a WordPress installation related to my dad’s memorial site - tom.vanderwal.net. I went through that process, which included sorting out the stored credentials no longer working. Then there was the back-up of the DB and WP files. There was a bit of an update to go through as the PHP was needing an update, the only two plug-ins running needed updating, and removing 7 themes not used as well as updating the one being used.

I let my host know and they came back with a definitive, “nope, not done”. This started feeling like one of those, “the call is coming from inside the house moments”. I looked at where they pointed to and it wasn’t what was serving the sub-domain, the WP wasn’t exposed, WP wasn’t running, and wasn’t connected to a database. I archived it and deleted the directory. Then went through the host controls to deal with mentions of it in the control panels.

So, what was I planning on doing 7 hours ago?