April 2009 – Learning Signs

Crosspost – Help Needed! WordPress commenting isn’t working (WordPress database error Duplicate entry)

April 29, 2009 Dad dad

Ah, these are the moments I wish I had my own IT staff. If you’re a WordPress or mySQL guru perhaps you can help me!

I am running WordPress on my main blog (“Moving at the Speed of Creativity”) and the blog has stopped accepting comments for some reason, as of Monday night (April 27, 2009) around 8 pm CST. That’s when my last comment came in successfully. I can post new entries to the blog, but no new comments can be received. I’m running WP 2.7.1. I haven’t installed or updating the blog or plug-ins lately, so I don’t think the source is a recent change I’ve made. I tried disabling all plug-ins except Akismet, but the error persisted. I think the problem is in my mySQL database. 🙁

I checked my WordPress directory error_log file and this is the last entry. It is a “WordPress database error Duplicate entry” message:

The other strange symptom is that in my WordPress dashboard, it shows that I don’t have any comments on my blog, even though there are almost 7000 approved.

The comments are still there, when I click the “comments” sidebar link they show up. Something is messed up with the auto-incrementing and I think it needs to be reset in mySQL. I’ve never done that, however.

I did a full mySQL database backup using phpMyAdmin. I considered reinstalling WordPress 2.7.1, but since this appears to be a mySQL problem I don’t think that would help. I haven’t (to date) done a good job monitoring and managing my error and access logs, and I’ve got some other issues and problems that it looks like I need to fix. (Some big ones with PodPress.) Overall I know I need to clean up my mySQL database, but never having done that before I am not sure where to begin. At least I have a new backup, I know that’s always a good idea…

Do you have any suggestions or tips for me that could help? Since my blog isn’t accepting comments (isn’t that ironic) I’ve cross-posted this to our Learning Signs blog (where commenting is working) or you can Tweet me an idea or link as an @reply or direct message.

Many, many thanks. Yuk. I really don’t like technical glitches like this which can often consume LARGE amounts of troubleshooting time.

Technorati Tags:
wordpress, error, mysql, comment, duplicate

3 comments

KidZui browser

April 20, 2009 Dad dad, technology

I’ve just discovered the KidZui browser. It looks pretty cool, you create a unique account and can login to access games, videos, and lots of other “kid friendly” stuff. I’d like you to both check it out and let me know what you think and find by writing a blog post about it here. I’ve created an account for you both, ask me and I’ll tell you your login credentials. (Hint: Your userids are the same ones you’re using for our blog. Rachel’s is the same as she’s using for Club Penguin. Everyone’s password is the same as Rachel’s Club Penguin password.) I’ve downloaded the program already on my laptop, we’ll need to download and install it on other computers too.

Have fun!

One comment

Auctioning Coins

April 19, 2009 Alexander brother, coins, collecting

This last week I had the chance to go to a coin auction. There weren’t that many people there so I get to get pretty good deals on two pennies. They both cost 1$ which is a good deal because one is worth 5$ and the other one is worth 3$. That may sound crazy but they have never been in circulation, in good condition and are both pretty old. Here is a picture.

To here more about me and coin collecting read my post from April 5th.

One comment

International Cooking Show: Banana Bread

April 14, 2009 Sarah food, scouts, technology

Here is the first episode for the International Cooking Show! This is a video showing how to make banana bread. I hope you like it.

Learn more about the International Cooking Show on our project wiki.

Technorati Tags:
cook, cooking, banana, bread, recipe, show, podcast, video, student, collaboration

11 comments

Get Ready for Tech Summer Camp at FreshBrain

April 11, 2009 Dad brother, sister, technology

Alexander and Sarah: Get ready (if you want) for a technology summer camp at Fresh Brain. It’s free to signup and participate, here are the options for things you can do:

Create a 3D Video Game
Build Applications for the G1 Mobile Phone
Building Flashy Websites
Java Development
Create a Facebook Application
Make Amazing Videos
Learn Graphic Design
Animation
Music Production
Photo Editing Techniques

Let me know if you want to sign up, and which “learning path” option sounds most exciting to you! We can talk about the differences in these, you can do more than one if you want too!

My friend Chris Walsh is one of the organizers for Fresh Brain. He’s an amazingly fun and creative guy, so we can be guaranteed it’s going to be high quality and super-cool. I got to know Chris through our work on the Google Education Blog, “The Infinite Thinking Machine.” He was the producer for most of the ITM videos like this one, produced after the MacWorld 2007 conference:

Technorati Tags:
technology, camp, fun, freshbrain, kids, learning, summer

One comment

Documenting our zoo trip with AudioBoo

April 7, 2009 Dad littlesister, travel

Today Rachel and I spent a couple hours in the morning at the Oklahoma City Zoo for the “READ ACROSS OKLAHOMA 2009: READING ROUND-UP” event. We used my iPhone and the free application/web service AudioBoo to share some observations from the field! This is live-blogging at its best when you’re just five years old!

The Chilean Pudu At The OKC Zoo

Galapagos Tortoises At The OKC Zoo (For this AudioBoo, we were also able to add a photo of the tortoises, which you can see if you click the previous link.)

We love AudioBoo! AudioBoo rocks!

For more on AudioBoo and other similar tools, see my ISTEconnects post from last week, “Publishing Audio at Will.”

Technorati Tags:
audioboo, fieldtrip, zoo, record, reflect, share, audio

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

4 comments

Watch out for people who want you to email them like this

April 6, 2009 Dad technology

Brother and Sister:

I am updating our blogs with some new software today, and ran across the following comment on brother’s String and Me blog:

Let’s talk about this together.

Why do you think this “comment” is suspicious?

Why do you think I deleted this comment, rather than approving it so it would show up as a public comment on brother’s blog?

Why do you think someone would write a comment like this, asking for you to email them?

Technorati Tags:
predator, safety, email, blog

3 comments

American Girl Site

April 5, 2009 Sarah movies, sister, technology, websites

American Girl SHOP FUN FOR GIRLS MAGAZINE MOVIES STORES

Explore the largest American Girl store and enjoy FREE shipping for a limited time. Plus, see what’s new for spring.
SHOP >

Enjoy games, quizzes, advice, and more activities—like Chrissa’s new games—all just for girls! You may not have a lot of money to gamble with but you’d like to “try your luck”. If all you have to spare is $25 (and you should only ever gamble with money you can afford to lose) then deep down inside you’ll suspect that maybe you won’t last long with that kind of money. The casinos know we all struggle with these kinds of doubts when we are checking them out.

So offering a welcome bonus is a way of reassuring you that the casino is also taking a risk. You could win a jackpot on your first play roulette online spin. Although that is very unlikely it’s a real possibility. What is more likely to happen, simply because of the way slot games work, is you’ll deposit your money and play it down quickly.
FUN FOR GIRLS >
MAGAZINE >

Fun today, memories forever—that’s what you can expect at American Girl stores. Make reservations today for spring break!
STORES >

Discover more about our movies, including An American Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong, only on DVD—watch the trailer!
MOVIE HEADQUARTERS >

This is the front page of the American Girl site. It has fun games including quizzes and water balloon battle also my favorite game What’s your volunteer style. This site also has a place where you can see a movie trailer and a behind the scenes video plus a photo gallery. Also one of my favorite things it has a thing on bullying and to try and stop it. Also on the site there is a shop where you can order American girl stuff. It also has a thing on visiting and that says where the American girl stores are.

Collecting Coins

April 5, 2009 Alexander brother

I am a coin collector. I have been collecting state quarters for awhile and even started collecting pennies. But when I went to the local coin place I started all over again. I bought The Red Book which has every U.S. coin ever made in it. It has information about all the rare ones and how much each coin is worth depending on how good condition it is in. I learned where everything is in the book and memorized which dates are rare and which ones I need to look for in my change. Coin collecting is something that you can do for a long time and enjoy it.

One comment coins

Videos from the Medieval Festival in Norman

April 3, 2009 Dad littlesister, sister, socialstudies, travel

This is absolutely too cute not to share. I think we can title this “Camel Ride Promo Spot.”

Yes, the annual Medieval Festival in Norman, Oklahoma, IS a good time for all. Except, of course, if you’re a teenager who gets into a child’s swing and gets so stuck the Norman Fire Department has to come cut your swing down so you can get out of it!

We did some in-the-field documentation of Rachel and Sarah’s perceptions of our evening in Norman using AudioBoo on my iPhone. These were the first AudioBoos we’ve recorded and uploaded over the EDGE network connection, rather than WiFi. It took a lot longer for the upload, but they DID work! Here are more of Rachel’s thoughts about her camel ride: