So you open your mail and your client has sent you a screenshot or image to look at and you naturally think he or she is doing something wrong. What you’re looking at is a blank image with the words “Missing Plugin” on it. The first thing I assumed was that there was a Flash update and maybe one of the browsers didn’t update correctly. I was wrong and it was me, or at least my Apple Mail program.
It turns out that during the last round of updates or possibly a software update over the weekend (I reboot my Mac so seldom it’s difficult to pinpoint which update caused it) the Java settings have been reset or updated on your computer. Here’s how you fix it (courtesy of the smart people over at Mac OS X Hints):
Go to Applications > Utilities
Click on Java Preferences.app
Under General (the already selected tab), click “Restore Defaults” in the top half of the app window.
Update 2: Looks like wp-security-scan is also having some conflict issues /killing the admin on a few sites I’ve done upgrades on. I’m deactivating that where necessary.
Check out the video below highlighting the changes in this newest (and long awaited) version.
Send me a note if you’d like me to build you a site using this awesome content management system / blogging platform or if you have questions concerning your current WordPress site. Those of you with sites already based on WordPress and hosted with GroovySoup will be updated as we sort through the changes and make sure everything works as it should. Remember: all installs are different due to the plugins you use and the custom code used in your site themes. These differences can cause parts of the site to stop functioning correctly until they are sorted out. That’s why we’re taking our time rolling this one out :)
Update: We did find a bug with our site and All in One SEO forcing us to deactivate that plugin. It’s not necessarily the plugin’s fault but turning it off solved our issue which was the live site not displaying correctly or at all.
Let’s say you just sent out a huge mailing to all of your friends, favorite clients, and prized customers. It’s 4:57 pm and you have dinner reservations at 5:30 and if you’re late again, your spouse is really gonna let you have it. Again. You can’t just walk away and hope people are clicking on your newsletter and signing up for your latest promotion and… the list goes on and on.
We might have a solution for you, but only if you can be subtle about checking your phone. That’s right. GroovyMail is now on your smart phone. That means iPhone and Android users can now view their campaign stats in full HTML graphic goodness glory while they’re on the go – without their laptop and the glares that would induce at the dinner table ;)
So here’s the deal: go here like you always do: http://www.groovysoup.com/groovymail and log in using your normal info. GroovyMail will know if you’re using your phone and will automagically show you the stats for your latest campaign right on your phone – and not teeny tiny but normal size so you can read it and see what’s going on without your spouse seeing your phone – well, not if you’re cool about it anyway.
You know what else is cool about it? If you’re on iPhone you can just add it as a bookmark to your Home Screen and it will create a snazzy little icon that saves you from logging in next time. Cool, huh? Give it a try and let us know what you think, and if you’re not already using GroovyMail for your HTML email campaigns, drop us a note and we’ll get an account set up for you right away. Your spouse will thank you for it :)
Okay, so that might be the geekiest blog post title ever but I don’t know how else to say it. The situation is this: You have a client and they need to upload an album for download. Whether it’s a paid download or free doesn’t really matter at this point. You’re going to need this process to be as foolproof as possible so you should include both the M3U playlist to cover non-iTunes users and the PLS file format to cover iTunes and Windows Media Player users. This way your end user will be able to click these files and a playlist or album will be created in their software program or the playlist you determine will start to play immediately in their audio program.
You’re going to need to gather some info about your MP3s in order to build these files. Here’s what you need:
Artist name
Title of each track
Length of each track (in seconds – multiply the number of minutes by 60 and add the seconds to it. So 4:22 would be 262 seconds)
Full file name for each track (ex. Overview.mp3)
Okay so let’s build our files, M3U first. According to Wikipedia, the file starts out like so:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:41,Artist Name - Track Title
filename.mp3
So for the additional tracks in this file you just cut and paste the example above (except that opening line (#EXTM3U that tells your software what kind of file it is), the #EXTINF: will stay for all files, the 41 is the track time, artist name, hyphen, track title, line break, filename are all kind of self explanatory. It needs to be in this format including the hyphen and line break. Then skip a line and paste your next one in.
For the PLS file things are pretty similar. Here’s what it looks like for a two track playlist:
So things look pretty similar here. Filename, title, length in seconds. Then you tell how many entries were in the list and it has to be Version=2 for some reason. Again, Wikipedia has the scoop on this but this will get you started. Copy and paste tracks like you did before and duplicate the line breaks like I have here.
Here’s the key to both of these files as far as keeping it simple for your user: Zip all of your files together and include the M3U and PLS file in that zipped directory. Why? I know Wikipedia doesn’t tell you to but the thing is, when your user downloads the files, you don’t really know where they are going to be saved. By zipping the files up, you make sure all the files will be in the same place as your playlist files. So, when the user clicks one of the playlists, the player will look for the files RELATIVE to where your playlists are, and since they’re in the same directory they’ll work correctly :)
Let’s say you’re trying to upgrade all of your plug ins at once using Tools > Upgrade. Let’s also say that WordPress hangs mid upgrade with the site in maintenance mode. How do you fix it? Assuming you have FTP access, go to the top level directory for your WordPress install and delete the file named “.maintenance”. This file is created when you opt to do mass upgrades and generates the “Site in Maintenance mode, come back in a minute” message.
Related to this potential disaster is the “I can’t get my damn WordPress to auto update” issue. I happen to have been suffering from this one on a few blogs and guess what? It’s one of the plug ins I have installed on the site(s). Solution? Go to your Plug ins page, deactivate all of your plug ins, do your WP core upgrade, then re-activate all of your plug ins. It worked for me but your results may vary :) I found this solution here.
So you open your mail and your client has sent you a screenshot or image to look at and you naturally think he or she is doing something wrong. What you’re looking at is a blank image with the words “Missing Plugin” on it. The first thing I assumed was that there was a Flash update and maybe one of the browsers didn’t update correctly. I was wrong and it was me, or at least my Apple Mail program.
Okay, so that might be the geekiest blog post title ever but I don’t know how else to say it. The situation is this: You have a client and they need to upload an album for download. Whether it’s a paid download or free doesn’t really matter at this point. You’re going to need this process to be as foolproof as possible so you should include both the 
