The upgrade from 3.3.0 to 3.3.1 was in the file wordpress-3.3.1-partial-0.zip. I’ll try to remember to update this post as future versions come out. I’m not sure of the exact file format. I think it’s -partial-0/1/2 to mark how many minor versions back the upgrade goes.

Personally, I use these files for minor upgrades because it’s faster, but I use the full download file for a full version upgrade.

Would you like to share that load with some co-cooperators in a WordPress hosting cooperative? Imagine a small group of developers collectively managing 50 or 100 WordPress sites instead of individually managing 10 or 20.

Logistics

Ok, you’re sold on the vision, what about the details?

Initially, a loose association of a few individuals, no legal structure. I’m willing to act as the banker for the startup period. I’ll register a domain name and pay for a few servers. I promise to transfer ownership of the domain and any other assets when (or if) a legal organisation is created at any point in the future. Or, if I choose to move away, to transfer the domain and other assets to another person in the group.

My suggestion is that we adopt a split pricing model. We set a fair market price for customers. In the beginning, it’s probably simper to charge per blog irrespective of traffic, disk or cpu usage. We can change this policy as soon as we need to.

Members then pay a pro-rated share of costs based on their number of sites. For example, we have 10 customers paying $10 a month, $100. Expenses are $150 a month, we have 5 members with 4 sites each, $50 over 20 sites, each member pays $2.50 per month per site.

To distinguish between customer and member sites, we can say if money changes hands, it’s a customer site. So a member might pay for 8 of their client’s sites at customer rates, and 3 for their family at member rates. The distinction is whether or not the member receives cash from somebody for that site. We trust each member to be honest.

Payment optional

It’s not as crazy as it sounds, honest! I suggest we adopt a post-paid, payment optional policy. At the end of each month, we send invoices marked payment optional. Customers can choose not to pay and their sites will be taken offline in reasonable time period.

The advantage of this model is we don’t ever have to deal with refunds, price disputes or otherwise. If the client is happy with the service they already received, great, if they’re not, they don’t have to pay and we part ways amicably.

Principles

• Transparency: All financials are publicly visible.
• Profits: Until we have a legal organisation, any profits are kept in the group to pay for expenses. No payouts to members until the legal structure is sound.
• Do-ocracy: Until we decide to change it, we each contribute what we can and what’s needed to keep the system online.
• Respect: Inspired by the Ubuntu project, in joining the group, we each commit to treat other members and customers with the utmost of respect at absolutely all times.

Next step

These are my initial thoughts as I wrote this post in half an hour. If you’d like to join the discussion, become a member or a customer, post a comment below, shoot me a message, or otherwise open the communication lines.

I’ll update my picture (people seem shocked when they see it after meeting me in person!), and modify the menu using the new menu editor. I’ll try to make navigating a little easier. If you haven’t already tried it, I recommend the new version of WordPress.

To serve these aims, I propose to create wpflavours (or wpflavors). I imagine a site where flavours can be downloaded, an svn repo where patch sets can be maintained (maybe using quilt), and potentially a mailing list for group communication. Maybe we could host the whole thing on google code or some other public code / svn service. I suspect we’ll need server space to automate the patching and packaging process though.

If there’s sufficient interest (say anyone else interested in writing patches), I’ll register the domains, setup a simple WordPress site, figure out svn, setup a mailing list, and we’ll see what happens. If you’re interested comment publicly below or get in touch privately.

This is a quick and dirty integration. There might be a more fanciful or secure way of doing this. It works (for me, no guarantees!) and it’s easy. I think it will work for WordPress and WordPressMU but I’ve only tested on WordPressMU.

Firstly, you need to sync all the key and salt values in wp-config.php and bb-config.php. Set them in bb-config.php first. You need two lines like this:
define('BB_SECRET_KEY', 'secret_key_here');
define('BB_SECRET_SALT', 'secret_salt_here');

Generate secrets here.

The next step is to copy those values into wp-config.php. Copy the secret key value into all of these lines:
define('SECRET_KEY', 'secret_key_here');
define('AUTH_KEY','secret_key_here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY','secret_key_here');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY','secret_key_here');

Then copy the secret salt value into each of these lines:
define('SECRET_SALT', 'secret_salt_here');
define('AUTH_SALT','secret_salt_here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT','secret_salt_here');
define('LOGGED_IN_SALT','secret_salt_here');

It is possible for these to be different on WordPress. That means each cookie will be different. WordPress uses 3 cookies to handle logins. However, that complicates matters with bbPress, so for simplicity, keep them all the same.

You may also need to set COOKIE_DOMAIN and COOKIEPATH in bb-config.php. Check out your forum admin (Settings > WordPress Integration) and it will tell you what to do.

Now go to your forum admin, Settings, WordPress Integration. Click “Show manual config settings:”. Now copy that into bb-config.php. Change this line to:
$bb->authcookie = 'wordpress_logged_in_';

WordPress standalone uses a wacky cookie name, generated randomly, but WordPressMU does not. If you’re using WordPress, you need to change this value. Log into WordPress, check the cookies in your browser, and copy the name here. I think you can also do this by setting COOKIEHASH in your wp-config.php. See this article for more info.

Now when you log into WordPress, you’ll be logged into bbPress. When you log out of WordPress, you’ll be logged out of bbPress. But not vice versa. In order to complete the link so you can log in and out on bbPress, you’ll need to add a little plugin to bbPress. Get the code here and put the file in bb-plugins then activate the plugin via your forum admin. This plugin only works for WordPressMU / bbPress. If you want a version for WordPress, nag me with a comment on this post and I’ll see what I can do.

Now logins should sync beautifully. If you have any questions, try asking on the bbPress forums.

If you’re reading this in a feed reader, come check out the site and share your thoughts in the comments.

I think Seth Godin’s is my favourite blog. His posts are short, concise and usually thought provoking. Seth avoids the mistake of writing too much, too often, and writing crap just to keep the content flowing.

Today Seth talks about thinking bigger. It’s got me thinking about StraightPress.

I host a handful of WordPress sites for family, friends and so on. Every time a WordPress update is released, I manually go through each site, run a backup, apply the update, then test the site. It’s a time consuming process, but it’s important to keep the sites secure. The sites are on my server, so security is my concern. It’s a bit like brushing your teeth. Important, but not always the highlight of your day.

This is where the idea for StraightPress was born. If I can manage a handful of sites, why not manage a few hundred sites, and generate serious economy of scale? Like a professional tooth brusher. We’ll come round to your house at 6pm every night and give your teeth a professional clean. Great I thought, here’s a business I can build that meets my criteria.

Recently I read the excellent book Scientific Advertising (pdf) by Claude Hopkins. The book was written in 1923 and is as relevant today as the day it was penned. It really is an inspirational read. It’s a book about caution, practicality, being realistic. It’ll never inspire you to create Google, Apple or Twitter, but like insurance, it will keep you safe, sensible and secure.

The book makes an excellent point about toothpaste. The author makes the point that tooth paste is easier sold on account of its beauty enhancement than its disease prevention. I do believe that is true. Offering a product that enhances, improves, enriches is a much easier sell than a product that prevents.

Why do you want your WordPress site kept up to date? One of the most important reasons is security. Preventing problems. But that’s not a great selling point. New features is another important point. WordPress 2.6 added post revisions. Every time you save a post or page, it creates a new version. So if you mess something up, you can easily go back to an older version. That’s a very powerful feature.

My question is, how do I think bigger? How do I shape StraightPress so the offering is oustanding, remarkable, notable. What can we offer, around WordPress hosting and management, that would make people sit up and say “Damn, I want me some of that”? I don’t have an answer today, but it’s a question that will be on my mind until I do.

Please be sure to look back at previous questions before posting here. If you’re having a problem where mails are not being sent, or anything of that nature, please post your debugging output. Send a test mail, then copy / paste the response into the comments. Remember to delete any passwords. I’d recommend you replace any @ symbols with something else (at), [at], #at#, etc.

Update: I’ve released version 0.7 today as well. This version fixes a long-standing bug where the plugin would overwrite the from name and email, even if they had been set by another plugin (or WordPress itself). I recommend everyone update to 0.7 as soon as possible.

Internet at the event was generously provided by Henk from Skyrove. Skyrove have an interesting business model. They manage internet hotspots and revenue share with the venues who host the hotspots. Bandwidth is outrageously expensive in South Africa, so Skyrove are also a little pricey.

However, Skyrove have undoubtedly gone up in my estimation since I met Henk. When accessing the internet through Skyrove hotspots he pays as an ordinary user, so that the venue get their revenue share. It’s nice to meet ethical business people.

From the meeting we spawned a Cape Town WordPress meetup. I’ve started a mailing list and a blog. I chose Google Groups to host the mailing list, much to my distress. I simply cannot find a good alternative. If you know of one, please put me out of my Google misery!

With plugins like Google AdSense for Feeds WordPress users can put their own ads into their feeds. With a handful of feed stat plugins around, it must be possible to get all the benefits of FeedBurner without the downsides.

I suppose it’s one of those situations where they’ve “made it” sufficiently that using FeedBurner is the norm. That and they were just acquired by Google, uh oh, the G disease is spreading…

Please note: SMTP authentication does not work in version 0.2, I encourage all users to upgrade immediately.