The process of backing up and restoring a WordPress blog site can be done using a variety of standard WordPress tools and some added plug-ins. It also takes some in-depth knowledge of how the original site was initially set up. There is no current way to full automate this process; doing this takes manual reworking of various […]

QUESTION: I’m trying to add a student’s blog feed to the MotherBlog in my course and I keep getting errors…like this “The data could not be converted to UTF-8. You MUST have either the iconv or mbstring extension installed. Upgrading to PHP 5.x (which includes iconv) is highly recommended.” OR similar to “This XML is […]

QUESTION: What steps do I take to get the Twitter Hashtag Feed Widget working? ANSWER: Activate the widget by clicking on Plugins and then click on the Activate link under the Twitter Hashtag Feed Widget. Click on Appearance Click on Widgets Drag the Twitter Hashtag Feed Widget to the appropriate Sidebar or Footer Give the […]

QUESTION: May I change my WordPress username that I login with? ANSWER: There is not a way to change your username that you login with. Your “Nickname” can be changed which is what is displayed publicly when you add posts or comment on posts. If you would like to change your “Nickname” you can do […]

QUESTION: How do I setup a Twitter Feed, I see it wants me to set up Twitter app keys and authorize my Twitter account? ANSWER: the general issue of one of getting a Twitter feed into a web page, which I’ve always done via RSS. Apparently that’s no longer an option, as Twitter is moving […]

QUESTION: When I paste embed or iframe HTML code on the “Text” tab and then “Publish” the post, my embed and iframe code is stripped out. I am the site administrator, why is this happening? ANSWER: WordPress Multisite (which is what Virginia Tech is running) does not permit straight embed codes or iframes (i.e. unfiltered […]

QUESTION: Students are reporting that their blog posts are not showing up on the CourseBlog because they are pending approval. When I go to the “Syndication->Posts & Links” settings for the CourseBlog, the setting “Publish syndicated posts immediately” is selected. ANSWER: What’s happening is that students are posting to the motherblog directly instead of to […]

WordPress is a highly customizable platform with a variety of themes and plugins to add appearances or functionality not available in the standard installation. Users who would like plugins or themes added to Virginia Tech’s campus-wide WordPress installation (blogs.lt.vt.edu) should submit a ticket to www.4Help.vt.edu with information about the plugins or themes and an installation […]

Follow these steps to resolve this issue: Go to the Dashboard In the left menu, click on Settings In the submenu under Settings, click on Permalinks Click Save Changes (without making any changes)

Here’s a quick fix for blog setup when you get a “username already taken” error message. 1. Go to http://blogs.lt.vt.edu and login (link on the right sidebar) with the username and password you’ve chosen. 2. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll find yourself at the welcome page dashboard, where you don’t have editing privileges. No problem– 3. Now navigate back to http://blogs.lt.vt.edu (without […]