Wordpress Flickr Manager Broken? Possible fix for you

Hey, I am remembering to write this one down right after I solved the problem. Aren't you proud of me?

So, open source software is great. All those free apps, and free doodads you can run on your website! Shopping carts, project management sites, wordpress plugins...Yay!

Except when they break and the developer has stopped working on them.

Wordpress is a great piece of open source software, but I have seen two of the plugins I rely upon for clients go unsupported in the past year.

The latest one is the Wordpress Flickr Manager(WFM), which makes it easy for people to post their own pictures on their sites without having to ftp them and figure out what the URL is for the image. (Note: Wordpress has a native image uploader now, but the Wordpress Flickr Manager still has some advantages. One, it has a built in Lightbox javascript pop-up image display; Two: if the site owner will add tags and a link to the proper blog page in the image descr. on flickr, it becomes another source of traffic for the blog/site.)

WFM hasn't been updated for the latest versions of Wordpress, so the built in Lightbox function isn't working anymore. You can still insert Flickr pictures, but the Lightbox effect doesn't work, and you can't upload pictures via the plugin.

However there are fixes!

First of all, you need to edit some files in the plugin's folder. I don't have to tell you to use a text editor like Window's Notepad, or Notepad++ (Free Code Editor), do I?

In order to fix the Lightbox not working issue, edit wfm-lightbox.php and wfm-hs.php and remove the @ characters from the file. (2 in each file). Those php files are in the /js folder inside the plugin's folder. This solution was found here: Plugin Broken With WP2.8.

In order to fix the upload issue, comment out line 139 in FlickrCore.php like this

Change this:
echo 'Content-Type: ' . mime_content_type($filename) . "\r\n";

Into this:
// echo 'Content-Type: ' . mime_content_type($filename) . "\r\n";

This 'solution' was found here: Uploads don't work local. I have no way of knowing what commenting out that line really does, so use at your own risk.

 

Replacing RAM in Inspiron 2600/2650

My Girlfriend's computer died.

It was sad.

We cried.

Then I started troubleshooting. It would sort of boot up....ahhh, I can't remember. I need to write these darn blog posts right after the incident.

Anyhow, I thought maybe bad RAM. I used the <God Voice>Ultimate Boot CD</God Voice> to do a memtest and yeah, bad RAM.

("BAD RAM! Get back under the trailer!" )

Luckily I just happened to have a spare module hanging around. I got my jewelers screwdrivers and started taking plastic bits off the bottom of the laptop. And Lo! There was only one RAM stick accessible by this route. WTF? And, it wasn't the RAM that I needed to replace. ARGH! Where the heck did they put the other RAM, and what kind of muttonhead engineer would put it in a place where you can't easily get to it?

I unscrewed all the rest of the screws on the bottom of the laptop, and then, when the bottom didn't come off easily, I paused.

1. This was not going to be easy to take apart. Laptops can be a real pain to get apart, and back together again. Like, 4 layers and little plastic snap tabs, and tiny hidden screws pain.
2. Upgradeable parts are usually easy to get to.

Even though it is against the Man Code to read directions, I have learned through painful experience that it is usually faster to follow directions than to try to strike off into the wilderness of little plastic snap tabs.

So, I found this site: How to disassemble a Dell Inspiron 2650. This guy is SOO awesome for going to the trouble to post all the pics of the Inspiron 2650 disassembly procedure. I just wanna click all over his Google ads. But he doesn't have any

Turns out that the RAM module was pretty easy to get to. I just had to lift out the keyboard which was actually fewer screws than those that hold the bottom plate on.

The new RAM is playing nicely with the old RAM and the old computer is humming along nicely on its mission of email and web browsing.