Ever activate a WordPress plugin and it “breaks” your website where you are unable to login to deactivate it.  Or activated a theme and get that “white screen“. Yeah sooner or later it is going to happen.  Fortunately the fix is pretty simple for the technical user; just open the database and reset a few settings. Well on page.ly, clients do not have access to the database (for their own good) and we were getting support requests of the occasional white-screen problem so we built a little self service system to fix it.

(Announcer Voice) Announcing the The White Screen Eliminator….

This is how it works. Page.ly customers must first verify their account and may choose from the 3 reset options.

1. Reset the site blog/home domain.
   Ever done this? You go under Settings > General and change the blog home url thinking it would just modify the url structure and instead you bork the site? Yep. That setting is confusing.. what you are actually trying to do is related to permalinks or reading subpanel.  This selection just resets these two fields back to proper defaults.
   
2. Deactivate all plugins.
   Sometimes upgrading a plugin (or not upgrading it when you upgrade the core) break things. Just how it goes. This is the most common reason for “white screens”.  This selection just deactivates all the plugins, so you can re-activate them 1 by 1, skipping the suspected broken one.
   
3. Reset to default theme.
   Again sometimes a theme creates the white screen scenario where you are unable to login.  This selection just sets your theme back to the default kubrick theme so you can login again and choose another custom theme.

That’s it. Choose 1,2, or all 3 selections to reset a few defaults on your site so you can get back to work. Note: Rest easy, This will not affect your posts or content, or any other settings..

The White Screen Eliminator can be found on the right side of the Support page

Jane Wells of the WordPress development team posted an update of the pending WordPress 3.0 release. While all of the 3.0 features are exciting, one of particular interest to us here at page.ly is the MU merge. It has a potential impact on our current and future page.ly customers.

WordPress MU is the multiuser version of WordPress that allows for 1 install to serve many blogs. (Like WordPress.com or Lockergnome.net). In 3.0, the MU version and the normal WP version are merged into a single product and will be able to run in multi-user mode or single mode from the same codebase.

So this begs the question- Will Page.ly support/allow multi-user mode found in the WP 3.0 release?

At this point in time Page.ly provides a very specific and unique solution. We do the technical setup and configuration of a complete hosted WordPress solution and provide core upgrade, backup, and other managed hosting services to our customers. Our customers tell us we are really good the best ever at doing this.

One of our core values here at Page.ly is to give our customers as many of the +’s  (theme choice, plugin choice, easy to use) with as few of the -’s (technical setup, upgrade headache, maze of up-sell’s during purchase) of hosting your own WordPress website.  With the addition of multi-user/multi-site to WordPress it adds a potential positive to this equation, yet also potential negatives.  There has to be a net benefit to all of our customers when deciding what to include and what to limit. An example here is database access on page.ly; you will never see it with our service, because you should never need to see it, especially if you don’t know what you are doing. With MU, while it may be a benefit to a small number of our clients, at this point in time we think the added management, post and comment moderation, spblog suppression, and configuration required of a site owner to run an MU service is not a positive benefit to the majority of current customers and those whom we have identified as prospective future customers.

Of course there are also real business and infrastructure considerations to be made from a service provider side as to the viability of providing a MU solution on a large scale. So the short answer is no. Page.ly will not “allow” multi-site mode on Page.ly installs and will amend the Terms of Service to reflect that. Whether or not we take other actions to limit (at a software or server level) multi-site mode is yet to be decided.

So to sum up the “official position” : Page.ly will not support/allow activation of multi-site mode in the WP 3.0 release at this time.

However this position is certainly subject to change should our current and future customers express a demand for a multi-site hosted solution.

My (Joshua Strebel) personal position on it is this: I will do whatever my customers ask of me that is within reason, falls within “our” core capabilities, is ultimately good for business, and does not in any way negatively impact the peaceful enjoyment of our service by current and future customers. If you folks really want multi-site mode I’ll make it happen. But I will have to ask for your patience as we test, develop, and plan for it, and it will not happen any sooner than our datacenter move (mid-late 2010). This could all be much ado about nothing, but I felt it important to clarify where we stand as customers and resellers alike were asking.

Happy to hear your thoughts, protests, or comments below.

SPECIAL

Running a little special thru the end of this month. Sign-up for Page.ly WordPress Hosting and get the 2nd month Free. NO PROMO CODE NEEDED.

Pretty Simple…

1. Sign-up (super fast 2 minute setup)

2. Get the 2nd month Free

3. That was easy

Offer ends March 1st 2010. 2nd month free does not apply to Premium Theme PowerIUps which are billed separately.

Does apply to repeat customers whom also save 30% every month.

Choosing the best WordPress hosting plan remains a mystery to most. It’s important to understand what to look for in a WordPress hosting plan as well as why it’s important. The following list offers basic criteria for finding a host.

1. WordPress only- older applications like oscommerce and phpbb are sometimes vulnerable to exploits that can affect performance of the entire server.  Using a host that only runs WordPress ensures that other app vulnerabilities do not affect your site.

2. Managed Hosting – Are you all on your own or is there someone there looking out for you? In a managed environment the server is maintained by the provider to ensure your account is kept humming along.

3. Knowledgeable Support Staff – Ever called support and had to listen to a 10 minute upsell for more services or worse yet the support staff cannot find the answer to your problem in their script? Make sure they’re answering your questions.

4. No adult content- The search engines are not a huge fan of gambling and adult sites. If these sites share a server or IP address with yours it may negatively influence how your website performs in the rankings. In other words, limited traffic to your quality site.

5. Reasonable Number of Sites Per Server- Wonder why your current website is slow? Some providers jam 1000’s of accounts on to under powered machines to maximize profit. There is no set maximum of sites per server but there is reasonable number each machine can handle.

6. Pricing – Rock bottom pricing is great if it also includes a complete solution. Watch out for deals that seem to good to be true. Chances are they host numerous site on one server and may allow adult content. Also, if the price is too low, what type of support do you think you’ll actually get?

7. Customer Feedback- What are their customers saying? Regardless of the companies marketing material, the customers are always talking for good and bad. It’s reasonable to expect a few disgruntled customers on every service.. but if it seems more people have bad feedback than good.. watch out.

8. Limited Contract – Payed up front for for a year and now want to get out? What are the terms of the agreement, can you cancel and get a refund. Or better yet do they offer a month to month plan?

9. Automatic Core WordPress Updates- WordPress updates help maintain security. If some sites are running on an old version of WordPress there may be potential for the spread of malware.

Disclaimer- Yes, page.ly provides WordPress hosting that practices the tips mentioned.  Page.ly is – better WordPress hosting.

WordPress released 2.9.2 today to address a few security concerns.

Page.ly customers rest easy.. hundreds of WordPress sites running on page.ly were updated to 2.9.2 today, about 10 minutes after the release annoucement.

This is what we mean when we say we got your back. No hassle updates.. and Automatic nightly backups come standard with all page.ly accounts.

Not a customer yet? Sign-up today, only 14.98/mo