Ruth Stalker-Firth

I updated both my wordpress versions a while back and ever since I have had an an error occurred while processing this directive message when trying to access this blog. I incorrectly diagnosed the solution to be some conflict due to running two versions of wordpress. I spent ages fiddling with the .htaccess file again and then gave up and thought that I would fix it another day.

Today, I updated both versions of wordpress to 6.2.2 and found that everything works as it should do. A quick google about confirmed that I was getting the error message because my last wordpress upgrade hadn’t worked properly - I should have just reinstalled everything instead of fiddling where I shouldn’t.

I set up a second wordpress installation in a directory named /jasmine so that Neil and I could blog about our daughter Jasmine who has chronic renal failure. However, because I fiddled with the .htaccess this technical blog kept serving up Error 404 pages instead of the blogs I have written.

There are ways of running two wordpress blogs with one installation, but if you decide to run two completely separate installations of wordpress like I have then you will need to make sure you have two .htaccess files. One in each directory. So, in the home directory my .htaccess (or the relevant lines) looks like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

And, in the /jasmine directory the .htaccess file looks like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /jasmine/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /jasmine/index.php [L]

My mate Wayne is the kind of programmer who loves to program. I am not. I think of programming as a means to an end. Something I have to do if I can’t find what I need - which, thanks to the old internet, is rare these days. Wayne writes his own version because he can, because - like Everest - the challenge is there.

I am convinced that the day he takes up blogging he will, of course, write his own blogging software before sharing his thoughts with the world. I am very excited by this prospect and will be on standby to dish out usability advice. Until this fateful day (and probably even after), I will be sticking with WordPress. I am a WordPress groupie.

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I have kept an electronic diary for three years now. I upgraded my handwritten diary back in 2003 and have never missed pen on paper. Yes, searching your own diary is geeky but I like it. It is something I do much more often than I thought I would. It is much quicker to have a search engine go through your words rather than flicking through pages of handwritten stuff. (more…)