What did you get for christmas? This year I vacationed in Vancouver and the best present I got was time.
Time to read
Time to with my family
Time with my friends
Time in the mountains
Time to drive a 4×4
Time to wander the markets
Time to finally upgrade this space
I’ve struggled to get the automatic updates for WordPress working and was forced to embrace an extended manual upgrade. Here are my musing on the process.
Backup the truck
The golden rule of any upgrade is to back up your existing system. I’ve been a fan of Cyberduck FTP for a several years and used this application to zip up my WP installation on the server and download a copy to my Mac.
Health Check
I contacted Communilink – my ISP in Hong Kong – to migrate the backend services to the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. This also required a DNS update which takes a 24 – 72 hours. I used the downtime to create the logo for this site using Adobe Illustrator.
Filing and Testing
With the DNS updated, I needed a quick way to remove all of the old WP files and replace them with the updated versions. Doing this via FTP can take a long time so I learned how to use Terminal on the Mac to TELNET to my web server. With a little help from my friend @saeed_rahman I was able to diagnose some display errors and get the site up and running.
Have you ever performed a manual WordPress upgrade? What advise would you give others?
The memory of this dive adventure still lingers and a return trip is definitely on the cards.
Undoubtedly, the best way to experience this spectacular part of our world is from the water and the MV Sachika definitely lived up to the marketing. The crew went out of their way to ensure that your holiday whims were catered to with grace and a smile. Sachika is has everything you could possibly need on the open ocean with a focus on sport diving.
Meals are simply amazing. Â Fresh fish is caught the night before from the boat and served in a myriad of styles, authentic Italian pasta has a prominent place as do local delicacies.
Diving is done from the comfort of a ‘Doni’ which follows Sachika every move and is specifically designed for the many world class dive sites. Although we did not get a kodak moment with the elusive whale shark, the marine life was stunning and strong seasonal currents made for adrenanline pumping deep dives.  ”Negative Entries” are the norm to get down fast before the current takes you away from the ’thilla’.
Take a look and some of my shots from land and sea…
We have allowed 19 days to cover this much country in a VW Golf! I will try to post updates on our progress from each locale as connectivity permits.
View Larger Map
This photo was taken on my iPhone using ‘Pano’ while hiking the charming island of Lamma. Considered by many as a ‘hippy enclave’, Lamma definitely prides it’s self on being laid back and carefree.
A welcome change from the pace of the city, with legendary seafood and a lively art scene, it should be on every visitor’s must see places in Hong Kong.
“What’s the educational value of 1-to-1 computing for teaching and learning and why Apple?”
In my role I am often asked this question. My response is that technology is just a medium through which learning can be enriched.
More crucially, it is continuous professional development and the communities of practice that one participates in that creates value.
This has been further reinforced through my participation in the Apple Professional Development Workshop 2010, Singapore.
The caliber of educators attending this event far surpassed my expectations and I have come away inspired and humbled by my peers. Apple Education run this workshop annually for a select group of people with the goal of providing a forum for sharing good practice around the planning, delivery and review of comprehensive professional develop experiences for schools integrating technology.
In addition to constant communication from our regional representative and annual events, this workshop clearly demonstrates to me that Apple are seriously committed to education and educators. This workshop involved 15 professionals from several innovative international schools in South East Asia. Working for the better part of 14 hours over 2 days we were given an opportunity to ‘cross-pollinate’ each other with strategies, activities and resources intended to enrich the educational experience with Apple technologies.
Being given the opportunity to work with these amazing people has reaffirmed my response to that question.
