Tech Help

WordPress is usually a very reliable platform. However, I have had some recent issues with my installs due to an upgrade by my hosting provider, Bluehost.

The last thing you want to see when visiting your site is a critical error notice.

PHP Version

I had several sites go down because Bluehost upgraded the php version of their service. They did inform me, but the email went in my spam and I found it after the issues started. The email notice did not say: This update CAN BREAK your site, in large print, so I might not have worried too much if I had seen it.

It turns out that the php version is important. At a certain point, older versions cannot communicate with newer versions. Backwards compatibility is limited at major upgrades.

Our servers support PHP 7.2 and higher. PHP versions 7.2 and higher offer a significant improvement to speed and memory usage over past PHP versions.  — Bluehost

Now I know how to update the php version of my sites if I ever receive a notice like that again. These repairs cannot be done from inside WordPress.

This linked help (above) is specific to Bluehost, however PHP management is similar on any hosting site.  Every hosting company may have a different system, so it is best to contact your host and have them help you. Call Three to Bluehost, described in the previous post was when a helpful tech support technician fixed a couple of sites and then told me how to do the rest. 

However, even after that was done, I still had one site that did not function properly. I called the Bluehost help again. Generally, when I call support for big companies, I find I get faster service when I phone late at night because most of the clients are in North America. I live in PST, and the middle of the night is daytime in India where Bluehost support technicians are located.   

.htaccess file

It turns out that the .htaccess file for that one site needed to be updated manually. I looked it up and this file can definitely break your WordPress.

Again this is a function that cannot be controlled by signing into your WordPress site. These files are located on the host site. Usually in my experience, after the installation, WordPress functions smoothly and I don’t have to re-configure these files manually. 

I am not sure why changing the php version affected the .htaccess file. However, my Bluehost support identified and repaired the issue very quickly.

Regular Updates in WordPress

Once you get back in your site, it is always good to keep your plugins, theme and core wordpress files up to date. There is less chance of a compatibility issue if you are using the latest versions.

If you are using a theme or plugins that have not been updated by the author in a while, you might want to change them. There are always many options with engaged authors who regularly update their work.

Running the latest version of WordPress, theme and plugins also helps keep your site safe. Vulnerabilities in older software do become known over time and can be exploited. Updated versions often repair these vulnerable areas to prevent infection with virus or malware. More on this in future posts as I continue to work to improve these aspects of my sites.

Summary – If your wordpress site goes down make sure that your webhost has not altered your hosting.  I did and maybe still do, have some malware on some sites. However, my core issue was a PhP update that took my sites down.

Advice – Don’t throw money at the problem until you know what it is! Change all your passwords. Read the posting for my story and links to other posts that offer reliable help.

Process of Detection and Repair

My site went down and several of my other sites were affected. I contacted my webhost, Bluehost, immediately. I noticed a major reorganization and new graphic symbolism on their site after sign in. The control panel (cpanel) that I use to control any issues is now under “Advanced” at the bottom of the sidebar. The hosting now opens by default on a page for WordPress management.

Call One – First I asked if my site had been moved by Bluehost. Previously, I had issues when a reorganization moved my hosting to another server location. I also pointed out the redesigned site and asked if there were major upgrades. I was told that Bluehost had not done anything to affect my hosting.

I was informed that I had malware on my site and that a Sitelock scan could identify the issues. I was surprised because when Sitelock was introduced to me, I was told it was a constant scan to identify any malware issues on my sites. If anything was found, I would receive an email.

Now that I have a problem, the Bluehost support told me that the free version is limited. They can run a scan on request, but I would be responsible for removing the malware myself. She offered to email me the scan when it was complete. The tech was not sure if there was a real time scan at all. there was a sales pitch for the paid version. 

I will have to investigate Sitelock, “We secure websites by automatically finding and fixing threats”. So far, they are not inspiring confidence. It makes no sense for me to have to request a scan if they are “automatically finding” and the “fixing” is only in the paid version. I had a false sense of security because Bluehost told me I had Sitelock on my sites.

The scan would be an important tool. but I was still investigating the issues. I wasn’t sure that was the whole story as the sites were affected differently.

Repair One – Changed my hosting password. Noted that all the html pages were loading, but only the WordPress was affected.

Call Two – I contacted Bluehost support again with questions. This support individual apologized and told me that the scan could be found on my hosted files. Support technicians are not allowed to email clients.  Good to know. I found the scan using file manager from the cpanel. This individual advised me to download affected files to my computer and repair them.

No way would I ever do that. I am always careful with downloads and it is not advisable to download possibly inflected files to your computer. 

REPAIR Two – A Under the Advanced>cPanel>File Manager

Oh good it is still there. I found the Sitelock report and opened it, copied the text and pasted it into a text editor on my computer. The report is not in the folder public html so should not be affected. Even so, I am careful.

I saw a lot of PhP errors, but only a few traces of html malware. The ones I knew I could repair were code in html. I found them by using the power of the cPanel File Manager to search the online site for the offending code. I copied the code from the report into search and hit enter. Then I opened the affected file in the File Manager, removed the code and resaved.

Most of these files had been untouched for years according to the date listed. None of the repairs I completed fixed my sites.

REPAIR Two – B Check the internet for help – > The Medium

A super great post on the Medium. They advise having something like Sitelock but say:

A good security plugin would identify and alert you, in real-time, of all the changes made to your website. 

That’s what I thought was happening, but it did not work as advertised.

The Medium article advises to check core wordpress files. They give some methods, but I have Jetpack installed on all my wordpress sites. Jetpack is a plugin made by wordpress and they have a good article with advice on my problem.

Another option is to completely reinstall WordPress to ensure all core files are clean. You can do that via Dashboard > Updates, by clicking ‘Re-install now.’ It sounds scary, but this will only replace the files at the very core of WordPress and will not remove or replace any of your content, media, themes, or plugins.

If you are a member of wordpress.com, you can access your sites and scan them from your account. My site checked out with no malware in core files.

My wordpress core files are good.

Call Three – Late at night, I reached a technician who really knew PhP. She Knew that Bluehost had updated to PhP 8.0 Then she investigated and found my sites were still using older versions. She updated the PhP connection and my site works.

I still have some sites that were not repaired.

Repair Three – I am now changing the admin passwords on all my sites and checking some that I maintain, but do not visit regularly.

A representative of Sitelock contacted me by email and by phone about my malware issues. He told me my personal site has malware that is “phoning home” and causing reinfection, so I need to purchase monitoring and cleaning. 

It seems that any good technician could find the beacon that is contacting the infecting site and remove it.

I am not impressed by their lack of attention while using the free version and their slogan of “automatically finding and fixing issues”. My long experience shows that automatic is not the best. Why should I pay them so much for pressing “scan”, then “repair”?

I was amazed when he informed me that Jetpack and Akismet (now a part of Jetpack) may host malware. Certainly any file on a website can contain malware, but infecting these would be very tricky. As these plugins are made and supported directly by WordPress, it seems unlikely they would be the source of an infection. 

WordPress is constantly monitored by the best in the biz and I trust them. It seems more likely that a plug-in or theme would be the source.

I do not think I will be employing Sitelock as my core problem was PhP related. They saw the scan and most of the issues were PhP not a html infection. They did not suggest that there could be am issue with PhP compatibility. They just talked about signing up and the cost of plans.

They seem a lot more interested in signing up clients than fighting malware.

I did have malware on my site, but I am in the process of changing all my passwords and removing the unused themes and plugins. The individual who phoned me did not even recommend that I do that when it is Step One!

There will be another post as I continue to follow the steps outlined in the article in the Medium and on the Jetpack site.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1984, my partner and I purchased the Alpha Syntauri keyboard system and an Apple II+ computer. We were thrilled with this pre-MIDI recording system for synthesizer sounds. The Alpha Syntauri was fully programmable with 16 discrete voices. 

It was an expensive system at the time with the computer and cards purchased separately. Our studio in Toronto in late 1984 was the Alpha Syntauri, a Fostex 8 track tape recorder and an EMU Drumulator. We both played guitar and sang.

I used the system until the 1990s when the keyboard was stolen. I took the cards out of the Apple II when I no longer had room for it and recycled it.

Now I want to find a new home for the parts that I still have. The original price sales notes on the promo item show we paid around $3500 for the system. Then we bought the MIDI update card when General MIDI was finalized.

What is it worth now?

I do not have all the pieces because the keyboard and the Apple II+ are gone.

I list below the things that I do have.

It is important for me to find someone who is interested in making this work. 

 

 

I purchased the mouse much later for the children’s games listed at the end.

Detailed manual for the Syntauri system with chapters on set up, operation and  theory. Chapters are: Version, Quick reference, Metatrak (recording section) alphaPlus (synth section) Performance and Appendix. It is a really complete manual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I took the photos, I found the Mountain Equipment Manual that was designed to use the cards for creating synth notation. That is why there is a pen on the card.

I really do not know if this will work after all these years, so I will take offers for this package AS IS.

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I also have Children’s games and educational software – I will let these go separately. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Send me a message using this form

 

 

 

 

I will be showing a work in progress called “Share A Tweet” at Aberthau Community Centre in the Point Grey neighbourhood of Vancouver. More information here.

Share a Tweet: A gesture controlled sound and visual installation.

This installation investigates a variety of bird songs accompanied by music and an array of lighting effects. Participants can control bird shapes flying through the branches of the hedge and active birdsong. By controlling the “lights”, bird shaped projections will “tweet”. Victoria has been a stalwart volunteer for LMA during the Queen Elizabeth show last year and has been invited to present work in natural settings.

This is your invitation to the 121212 Festival of Cyber-performance!

The retrospective section of the program “Walking Backwards into the Future” is already underway.

Schedule for these events here.

The portion that I am involved in is the new experimental works, Testing 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 .

I am working with “Play the Moment – Shakti”, a group of four women located in different cities.

We will be performing a piece called ‘excavating desire/fouilles pour le désire”

Our stage is located on a website in Australia called Waterwheel and will be viewed through either this link or a link through the festival site Scroll down to find our show.

About the Show

Excavating Desire – Fouilles pour le Désire

Play The Moment Shakti (Canada, USA)

11 December 10.30pm EST / 12 December 4.30pm New Zealand (find your local time)
12 December 1pm EST / 13 December 7.30am New Zealand (find your local time)

Excavating Desire is a free improvised audio and visual work in four movements:

1. On the Surface – exploring constraints imposed on female desire by society and ourselves
2. Digging Deep – recognizing our wants and needs
3. Gathering Courage – risking societal censure, economic loss or emotional pain requires resolve and strength
4. Flowering of Passion – acceptance and expression of our own inner identity

Four women going through the same risk and hardship of “Excavating Desire”.

Desires are often hidden underneath layers so we do not even recognize them ourselves. It is a risk to reveal our true self, particularly in personal and intimate situations, but also when revealing oneself as an artist. “Excavating Desire” provides a structure to peel away the layers of constraint and grant ourselves permission to express what we choose to see and hear as art.

Schedule and time zones

A handy time zone converter to find your viewing time can be found here.

These converter links can be found already programmed with the correct DST time under the title of the show in the spreadsheet.

For example the second  performance of our show is at 7:30am on Thursday, December 13th DST in New Zealand — the location of the 121212 festival, but it is Wednesday, December 12th at 10:30am PST, in Vancouver, Canada, where I live.

More information about the show can be found by clicking the title of the show.

Facebook Event Page Here

 

 

 

 

 

My work in video and photography is mainly in post-production as a graphic designer, digital artist and general technology assistant. I was helping a photographer to set up a professional photo site to sell his images, so here is a comparison.

All of these photo sites have the following features:

• encourage social media sharing and give tools to help users and fans to share photos.
• gallery and collection options.
• a certain level of photo security from casual theft and re-use.
• site customization
• no infringement on your copyright
• digital download pricing and print pricing
• community of photographers and clients

Photoshelter

I have a free account on Photoshelter, vix.photoshelter.com but I think they have stopped providing free long-term accounts. When I signed up, I was able to store a small amount of images without paying, but now, after a short trial period, you must select a hosting plan. This is the largest and most established professional photo hosting and sales site.

The prices for hosting are quite reasonable because they protect your photos with the best anti-theft technology – a transparent layer over each photo. This means that anyone attempting to copy the image will only copy the cover layer. In addition, they provide the option of watermarking the images so a screen capture will be ruined.

One thing I found a bit bothersome, is that a commission is charged on all sales through the site. The commission rate changes depending on the level of hosting and more expensive plans pay less sales fees. This would not be an issue if this was posted on the sign-up page, but I only found out about these charges when I was preparing to price the photos. The photographer I was working for was aware of this practice, but for me it was a surprise.

Adorama, the industry standard in photo printing located in NYC fulfills all print orders directly from the site, or you can arrange to have the prints made yourself.

Smugmug

SmugMug also provides watermarking, and they use Amazon storage, known as one of the most secure clouds in the industry. They offer a “vault” membership option if you only want to use the cloud storage instead of displaying your images.

Three photo printing company options, four paper/print combinations and an expanded selection of merchandise to decorate with photos can be ordered. Once photos are in the shopping cart print quotes from each company can be compared before the order is placed.

I was not able to discover if they charge a commission on sales. A free trial period can be activated, but then, a hosting account must be purchased. They do prominently post their great return policy and full refund if prints or products are unsatisfactory.

500px

The most generous of the top three hosting sites, 500px offers a permanent free account to photographers. However, the pricing structure of photos sold in the market set by the company. All the photos sold in the 500px market are the same price, unlike the other two sites, which allow photographers to set their own prices and sell independently. Click here for a copy of the 500 px pricing guide. If the pricing structure works for you, then this could be a good thing.

Instagram

This Smart Phone app deserves a mention as it is one of the fastest growing photo sharing sites today. If you have an iPhone and are not interested in prints, the price is right – Free.

All of these sites are a great place to look at really excellent photos.

Adobe Flash player no longer supports computers built with the Power PC chip although there are many of these machines in use, still serving their owners reliably. This morning I received a call from a G4 Power book Mac owner running Leopard OSX 5.8, he called because of an error message that insisted he upgrade his flash player. When he tried to upgrade, he found the new version did not support his chip or operating system.

One of the reasons I started writing this blog is that I act as a help desk for many of my friends, so I searched for a solution and found Elmedia Player, a free download on Cnet. Elmedia Player, from Eltima Software, is more than a player, it also helps you organize media files using an iTunes type of interface.  The Pro version also allows you to download and copy internet hosted media files, but there is a cost for this functionality.

Please note — anything after this content is an ad and I do not endorse the product or even know what it is.

My friend reports the free version is working on his notebook for Flash (flv) playback. The website claims El Media Player supports playback of FLV, SWF, XAP (Silverlight), RM and RV (Real), AVI, MOV, MP4, and many other formats.

These older computers are still functional and the push to constantly upgrade by Adobe and other companies can be resisted. Keep your faithful computer out of the landfill as long as possible. I am keeping older computer hardware functional using a combination of these types of helper programs and/or converting to the Ubuntu operating system.

This is a shout out to all of my friends with writing, wordpress or other CMS, administration, programming or technical skills.

Please click on the link below so that I can get affiliate credit for inviting you to join oDesk.

Join the On Demand Global Workforce – oDesk

I am now working on oDesk and it has a lot of advantages. oDesk does take a percentage of each payment, but they do a lot of administration and attract a lot of employers to the site. Unlike all those scams, this really does allow you to work from home and earn USD that you can get paid through PayPal or other web based financial services.

I am only working on hourly contracts because payment is guaranteed. The downside is you have to give up a bit of privacy when you are working. oDesk contractors install an app the takes a screenshot of your screen periodically to verify you were actually working on the project. The screenshot is posted on the site so the employer and the contractor can see and verify the hours worked. There are jobs where a flat rate is offered, but oDesk will not chase the employer for payment if the deal goes bad. With the hourly rate, oDesk shows that employers have a verified payment method and some have spent a lot of money hiring people already.

It is kind of like an eBay for contractors and employers because there is a record of the hours you worked, feedback scores and tests you can take to prove your skills. Employees and contractors give feedback, so you can see the reaction other people have before you accept or give a job. Employers may click on the image to hire me for jobs. Here and at the top are the same link.

Another issue for me is that I am competing in a world market, so graphic designers in India and the Philipines can underbid me every time. However, that is already happening in Vancouver. A lot of web and print design is outsourced and that is part of my problem as a freelancer. Vancouver is a very expensive city and I cannot afford to work for $3. per hour, but a designer in Manila or New Delhi can.

Many of the jobs are for very low rates of pay, even as low as $2. USD per hour because this is a global work force and people in other countries will work for that amount.  The jobs I am getting pay more than Canadian minimum wage because they are for writing in English as a native speaker.

I passed several of the tests and because I know wordpress well and SEO marketing, I have already been hired by two employers.

I am also working on eLance, another freelance service. They seem to keep the rates at a more reasonable level and have attracted higher skilled workers as a result. Both of these companies are legitimate ways to work from home.

I have a Sharp IR sensor hooked up to my Arduino Duemillanova board in the process of testing the interface for my show, “Bandwidth”. Despite the fact that I had this set-up working one year ago at EMPAC, I am having difficulties now.

Luckily, I live in a city that has a local hackspace with a regular listserv. I put out a call for help and was answered by a robot builder named Dan Royer who has a site called Marginally Clever. I was very impressed by his ability to write and edit sketches and his friendly, helpful attitude in reminding me how to hook up my sensor to the board. His website is a fascinating look into the world of do-it-yourself robotics. You will be able to see him at Burning Man if you are attending.

Now my Arduino is happily blinking, but I still have to develop a sketch that allows me to use two sensors on the same board without an extreme amount of latency. As Dan writes in a post “Robotics is a lot of Trial an Error” — Integrated Art is exactly the same. Build it and see if you can make it work.

Photos coming soon.

 

 

At the end of 2008, I purchased a Blu-Ray Hitachi video camera with a built in mini DVD burner. I thought this was a wonderful technology because, not only did it have the 30 GB hard drive, but if you ran out of space or wanted to create a back-up file, the rewritable DVD was at your service. The image was taken from the Hitachi site and my camera is the shiny silver one on the right.

I immediately ran into problems because the compression system used on the camera creates m2ts files, a file type that could only be opened and edited with the very basic software from Pixela that came with the camera.

This software had few conversion options, no titling and basic edit functions with no transitions. The editing features in the camera were just as as good. Even home movies should look better than this!

When I went to Banff, I used the music dept’s Sony and Pauline and Ione’s Canon HD cameras because they store information in mts format. The mts format is readable by Final Cut Pro and can be converted into useable 1080p HD video with no loss of quality.

Despite the best efforts of the video experts at Banff, my camera was useless because the files could not be converted into an editable format such as AVI or Quicktime mov.

In September of 2009, almost a year later, I decided to try to use my video camera again. I wondered if some kind of conversion software had been developed. There had been some advances in that Windows movie player would now play the uncompressed m2ts files, but it would not convert them to wmv. VLC media player would convert in Ubuntu, but only to SD. There were several other conversion software brands available on the internet, but they all either converted to SD, produced artifacts or other visual problems or had no sound.

Enter Shedworx Voltaic conversion software!

This software works to convert my m2ts files to editable formats with a number of options of output. I just upgraded to version 2 and there are even more conversion options that re-compress for iPhone and other video applications as well as for editing in professional software.  It also includes an editor and will automatically upload edited movies to your You Tube account.

I have not tried all the new features, but the conversion is rock solid and I have been producing Blu-Ray quality films on the Apple Macintosh version. I understand the newest version of Final Cut will convert m2ts files now, but for those of us on a budget, the $39.99 USD price tag for Voltaic is a lot more economical than an upgrade of FCP for $299 USD.

Another problem with upgrading is the new FCP will only run on the intel chip and requires a newer operating system. Voltaic is working great on the Power PC quad core G5 with 10.4.11 Tiger.  It is really expensive to keep up with the latest and greatest Apple offerings, so Shedworx gives the indie film maker a chance to produce in Blu-Ray without having to recycle a wonderful, working computer.

Thank you Shedworx, for providing me with a free upgrade to 2.0 because I bought my copy of the software late in 2009! This is a very generous program for a software company and I am happily using my new update today.