Day: July 23, 2011

After spending some time setting up the wordpress website I decided I would set up email blogging. Apparently all you do is setup a (secret) email address then send email to said address. If this blog is online it will mean I set the system up correctly (not first time though 🙁 )

Anyway enough rubbish it’s a right pain typing on an iPhone. Hopefully s

Update:

It turns out that email blogging isnt as easy as all that in WordPress 😕 I tried in total vain for a couple of attempts to get this to work with my virginmedia email account.  Unfortunately virgin media email NOW (never used to) requires SSL connections.  No problem I thought, I know the server details, just set the port to 995 in the wordpress post via e-mail settings (settings > writing > post via e-mail [port]).  I can catgegorically say this did not work for me.  I did find a few references to the way that PHP is compiled and that PHP.ini may be misconfigured.

I requested (and got) a copy of PHP.ini from my host provider and WAS going to look at making some PHP.ini changes to resolve this (when I do I may post an update, but honestly I think unless you are your own host reconfiguring PHP isnt necessarily an option).

My resolution to this was to use an email address that doesnt require SSL connections to the POP3 server.  Easily achieved really as cPanel included virtual mail hosting for me, so setting up an email address of contact [at] nateallen.co.uk was a good idea really. 

Once I had configured the mail server (literally add an email address of contact in cPanel) I found I could add my secret blogger email address to the server and take details of my virtual mail server and transfer those details into WordPress post via e-mail settings and use the standard port 110 for POP3; worked like a charm first time (for that email address anyway). 

I did consider setting up the nateallen.co.uk email in the beginning, but it was worth (part of) the excersize to see if SSL POP3 would work for me.  It didnt work for me, but it may well do for you if PHP is compiled and configured correctly on your web host and you set the post via e-mail port to 995.

Good luck and happy e-mail blogging.

In the past I did PLENTY of moaning about getting page rankings in Google.  In fact I first started looking at this in 2007 (4 years ago)!  In the space of 72 hours I have managed to register a domain name (this one), write a small amount of rubbish about setting up the site; putting my name in several places on the site, with a few links to help me along.

Unbelievably I already find myself crawled by the Monster Google Bot and my new site appearing in a search for ‘nate allen uk’.  Realistically I would prefer the search for nate (or nathan) allen to feature higher in the page rankings but there are some far bigger doggs out there 😕

It will definitely be a SEO excersize for me now, honestly I am amazed (see this blog); that site NEVER made it into Google searches in 4 years.  I suspect that to be a nuance of the free blueyonder web service (but I really am tight and didnt want to pay Mr Branson any more money).

Since then I have tried DYNDNS NO-IP and home hosting, but that didnt work either (2 years); so thanks Chris it would seem you were right all along, I should have done this 2 years ago when you first suggested it eh?