I’m so proud of myself! I spent the past thirty minutes upgrading my WordPress database for my four WordPress blogs. Actually, I attempted to upgrade two blogs from version 2.0 to 2.2 in early August but there was a plug-in conflict that made my upgraded hang. It was unclean and I left the blogs like that hahaha!

Now, two months later, I finally found the time to sort things out and once I found the error, did the upgrade for all three of my blogs and upgraded two 2.2 to version 2.3, one 2.0 to version 2.3 and one 2.2 to version 2.3. Can you believe that I have to take this long to do a simple task like that? Hah! I just took that long 😀

Well, that just shows how free I am this morning. Total earned from sponsored posts within the past 24 hours – ZERO. Well, it happens SOMETIMES!! I hope it would a regular habit, though!

I just have to laugh at myself. Upgrading went so smoothly and to think that I kept bugging my host to help me with the upgrade because I was afraid that I would mess up my blog and then lose all my posts or screw up my blogs. Bleh! Thankfully everything went well! Yahoooo!

Trivia: Total number of spam comments that came in while Akismet was deactivated: FIVE

A couple of weeks ago, I received the “good” news that my webhost is not taking in any more subscription. That means my hosting is FREE. My hosting reseller is a small time company set up by two internet friends and they do not have too many customers and since profit is slight, they decided to do away with the fees.

HOWEVER, that seems like bad news to me.

Since this is free hosting, that effectively means that I do longer have technical support from my webhost, except to “seek” for the assistance of good Samaritans from the forum. This is what I do not like because the problems get unaddressed and the solutions are slow in coming.

I am such a noob and have had problems understanding WordPress since the beginning that I would rather pay people to get my technical problems sorted and sorted fast too.

Free hosting is good only for people who are experienced in hosting their own blog or website and I am certainly far from experienced. I don’t know. Am I asking too much if I require help with the technical side of my hosting. I think not but since this is now free, I don’t think I could even so much as send in an S.O.S.

Free isn’t always good

As I wrote in an earlier post that I am forced to have my WordPress version upgraded. I was rather happy with how things were but my host told me that I should get the latest version as the old ones have some security hole or something. Why do they have to release something with holes and then give us more work to do by catching up with newer and newer versions of the software?

Anyway, I begged my host to help me after I read the documentation on how to upgrade WP for like a gazillion times and still did not understand how to go about it.

The good thing was that my host found an automatic upgrade plug-in and uploaded it for me and all I had to do was to activate it and then follow the instructions. He said it would only take a minute per blog.

So I was very happy that there is something so easy out there, like a WP Upgrade for Dummies. I activated it and did as instructed, AND YET still get my WP screwed up. I am just thankful that my blog is still accessible and all the posts are still live.

According to my host, it may be because my plug-ins are no longer compatible with the new WP version. UUrrghh now I have to check my plug-ins and grab the latest versions. Why does own hosting have to be so troublesome????

By the way, I am amazed THERE ARE people who bought WP t-shirts at MYR100 a piece. I wouldn’t wear it if it were the last t-shirt on earth. I think I am developing an allergy to WordPress!

When I first started this blog, it was very quiet, very clean. As days go by, more and more spam comment kept hitting my blog. I really do not understand how they could even find my blog or the permalinks of specific posts. Anyway, I tolerated them and even found some to be really funny.

Until a couple of days ago, I consistently received more than 50 email alerts of comments on the blog which are 99% spam. I don’t know why Blogger blogs could stop spam from hitting but WordPress can’t. I don’t even get as many spam from all my Blogger blogs combined since day one compared to one day on one WordPress blog.

After tolerating for seven long months where it got exceptionally bad this past couple of months, I finally moved my butt over to wordpress.com to register for an account sans blog just so that I could get the free Akismet API key. Well, I think it’s mighty redundant to have to do so. I mean, I don’t even want a wordpress.com blog and neither have I ever logged in to read other blogs. I’m not that free. I’m not bored up to that level yet.

That’s the main reason it took me this long to get the key but now that I have finally activated my Akismet, whoa, only one or two wayward spam comments managed to hit my inbox PER WEEK. It’s so effective (for now) 😀

You know what, as if I am not busy enough, I am thinking of setting up a NEW BLOG!!!! GASP!!!!!

This time, I am thinking of buying a domain name and let Blogger host it. This is because I am seriously sick of Word Press! Really, I get so confused over the codes, plug-ins and what not, I feel like abandoning my WP blogs and hop back to the security of Blogger!

While I am still keeping my Blogger blogs active, I wonder how it would be like to let Blogger host my blog, but with my own domain.

I suspect, being the muddle-headed me, I would require assistance in the initial set up, but once everything is set, I am sure I never have to worry about my blog anymore and also the tedious task of backing up my blogs every single day. Now, backing up is not a problem but when I say tedious, I mean that I have to REMEMBER to back up my blog after every post. Gah!!!

Well, I’ve got bad news. My host told me that I will have to upgrade my WordPress. How do I do it? Where do I start? Sure, I have the link to READ and lest you say that I did not read the documentation, let me assure you that I did, a few times, but what can I do when my brains can’t make head or tail of the whole page? Is it my fault?

I don’t even know why I bothered hosting my own domains. Sure, it’s nice to have my own home online but then it’s too much trouble. I literally begged for help with customizing this theme. Boy, I loathe doing it but I had no choice.

And now this …..

Why isn’t there some place where everything is done for me and I just pay for my domain subscription and hosting plan every year? I don’t even need to know what WP version I am using or what security loopholes older versions have. All I have to know how to do is adding stuff on the sidebar and back up my data, that’s all.

Is there such services or not? Think of it as paying for an account with Blogger.com or WordPress.com. They do everything for us, don’t they? I am willing to pay a little more, if there is something like that.

Uggghh what to do? What to do? I really hate this

I need to find someone I can entrust my user ID and password with. And the peoplewho are willing to risk their lives for me know nuts about WordPress. Ah… just my luck

Call me low-tech or whatever, but I cannot think of how spammers located my blogs and spammed them left, right and centre. The thing is that there are no visitors to my blog that I could trace as spammers. And yet these robots know which post to spam me. Hhmm how ah?

Ok, so I know that they do not need to come to my blog once they have my URL but they did not even come when they left me the very first spam comment.

Right now, the amount of spam comment is still manageable so I am not using a spam filter. What’s so good about WordPress when the amount of spam comments a day is more than what I received in my Blogger blog since the day it was set up?

Well, I don’t know. Seems like even spammers are higher-tech than I am!