TonyZeoli.com » Wordpress

WordPress Networks, MediaTemple, Plesk and bouncing email

Tony Zeoli — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:56:04 +0000

Over the past couple of days, I’d gotten a few phone calls from prospective clients who told me they were using the contact form on my Digital Strategy Works website to submit an inquiry about our services, but they hadn’t heard back from me. Huh, I wondered. Really? How could this be?

I did some preliminary investigating and there didn’t seem to be a problem with the Contact Form 7, which I use for my forms. WordPress itself and my server were running normally. After clicking around, it was time to test the form for myself.

I sent myself an email through the form and got back the following (removed the @ symbol to obfuscate address):

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at netmixsupport.co.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<az(at)digitalstrategyworks.com>:
This address no longer accepts mail.

--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path: <tonyzeoli(at)me.com>
Received: (qmail 25887 invoked by uid 110); 13 Jan 2012 21:47:22 -0500
Delivered-To: 1-admin(at)netmix.co
Received: (qmail 25882 invoked by uid 10001); 13 Jan 2012 21:47:22 -0500
To: admin(at)netmix.co
Subject: tonyzeoli(at)me.com
X-PHP-Originating-Script: 10001:class-phpmailer.php
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:47:22 +0000
From: "tonyzeoli(at)me.com" <tonyzeoli(at)me.com>
Message-ID: <4742bf2ae62bb12327fd973a8fd9380c@netmix.co>
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: PHPMailer 5.1 (phpmailer.sourceforge.net)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

From: tonyzeoli(at)me.com <tonyzeoli(at)me.com>
Subject: test

Message Body:
test
--
This mail is sent via contact form on Digital Strategy Works http://netmix.co/digitalstrategyworks

I though, that’s odd. The qmail-send program should be sending an email from the server to the email address I’d set in the admin panel of the Contact Form 7 plugin. But, I was getting a bounce back to the email address I’d tested in the form, saying that the address I was sending to was undeliverable. Why was it undeliverable, when I get email to my digitalstrategyworks.com address all the time?

There were a couple of reasons. First, I am using Google’s hosted mail service to handle mail for a couple of my domains: netmix.com and digitalstrategyworks.com. Second, when I set up my WordPress network on MediaTemple VPS, I needed to add a “domain alias” for each domain name that would be included in the network. While I added Netmix.com and DigitalStrategyWorks.com to the MediaTemple administration panel, you’re required to access the root domain of your WordPress network and add those domain aliases.

My root domain is netmix.co and my domain aliases were added to that account in my control panel. The image below is a screenshot of the control panel. Under “Websites and Domains,” click the “Show Advanced Operations” text link at the mid point of the page, which will drop down an extended set of options. Highlighted in the red square is the link to “Domain Aliases,” where you can add or manage all of the alias domains you’re going to use in your WordPress network. Remember, just because you’ve added them in your MediaTemple account center, does not mean that they will work. They must be added as a domain alias in your primary domain’s control panel or none of your domains will resolve correctly in your network.

Websites and Domains admin in Plesk Cpanel

After you have clicked on the Domain Alias link, you can add the domain aliases. In the image below, you can see a list of domain aliases that I have added so that the domain mapping plugin for WordPress can redirect to each domain alias assigned under the primary domain.

Plesk CPanel Domain Aliases administration panel

Now, here’s what I found that was causing the inadvertent mail issue. Since I’m using Gmail hosted mail services for two of my domains, netmix.com and digitalstrategyworks.com, I am not using the qmail feature of the server to send email directly from the server. The two domains in question, netmix.com and digitalstrategyworks.com inherit the local functionality of the qmail server, but we don’t want that, because my email DNS entries are listed as Google’s and not MediaTemple’s. Aha! Therein lies the problem. The domains are not accepting mail, because they are set to use the local mail server and not the 3rd party Google hosted mail server!

If you are hosting your email through a 3rd party service and not using the local mail feature, you’re going to get this issue where mail cannot be delivered to the domain, because the server is trying to use local mail and not the Gmail system. How do you fix that? Easy, just click on any one of the domains that you’re hosting mail for using Google or another service, and then turn off the local mail service. Problem solved!

Netmix Mail Service Off

A Nice Recommendation

Anthony Zeoli — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:59:44 +0000

On November 7, my postion as Lead Developer in the Reese Felts Digital Newsroom at UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication ended. I really enjoyed working with so many talented students and look forward to seeing where they end up in their careers. As for me, I’m off in search of a Director of Digital Strategy position for an agency/brand, or a Product Development position in a news or media organization. It’s a tough market out there, but with a shiny new resume and this nice letter of recommendation from the J-School, I should land on my feet in no time.

In the meantime, I’ll be working on consulting projects through my Digital Strategy Works consulting company. If you stumble across this post and need help, training, or advice building websites with WordPress or iOS applications, I’d be happy to speak with you. Get in touch!

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Getting Started With WordPress Presentations

Tony Zeoli — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:01:41 +0000

Here are a couple of presentations I’ve loaded up on slideshare.net/tonyzeoli. These slides will help you get involved in WordPress from a beginner’s level.

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WordPress and Social Media Presentation

Tony Zeoli — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:09:29 +0000

I gave this WordPress and Social Media presentation in the Spring 2011 at WordCamp Raleigh. While WordPress does not have specific social media functions built-in, there are many ways to optimize WordPress for social media.

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My Storify links are not working with Embed.ly

Tony Zeoli — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:08:52 +0000

If you love Storify, an excellent service that allows you to aggregate and post status updates from the social web, and you love Embed.ly, a service that allows you to embed media content more than 200 services, you’re in good company. Both are pretty awesome. However, there’s one tiny glitch that you might not know about. I found out about this and thought I’d share the news.

Currently, there’s a bug in the Embed.ly WordPress plug-in. When you click on the Embed.ly button in your post editor and add the link, you only get a thumbnail, description and link for the story, and not the full Storify treatment.

Embed.ly Storify preview in WordPress Post Editor

When you post the link, it then looks like the following in your page.

How has Apple and Steve Jobs made an impact on your life?We asked locals, How have Steve Jobs and Apple products changed your lives? This is what you said.

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How has Apple and Steve Jobs made an impact on your life?We asked locals, How have Steve Jobs and Apple products changed your lives? This is what you said.

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I contacted Embed.ly support and they were quick to respond. Art in Customer Support told me that there was a bug in their plug-in, which they will fix on the next release, but for now, all you have to do is put your naked link in the Post Editor, and it will work.

Storify Link pasted directly into Post Editor

It’s as simple as that. See the Storify post below.

WordPress and Multimedia (Updated) for WordCampNYC 2010

Tony Zeoli — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:28:25 +0000

B2B blogging and publishing with iPhone WordPress App

Tony Zeoli — Sat, 22 May 2010 19:00:00 +0000

(This is an updated post to the original. WordPress App for iPhone didn’t save my post the way I’d originally intended it to. I had to update this post and republish using my laptop, defeating the purpose of the article. I’ve am grateful I remembered most of this post. There’s nothing like losing your content and having to start from scratch.)

I’ve been carrying this iPhone for well over a year now with the WordPress iPhone app installed, but I rarely pull it out to post to any of my blogs. Amazing technology hangs on my belt, but I’m not using it!

Usually, I’ll pull up my Facebook or Tweetdeck app for the iPhone to publish my random thoughts, keeping my 1,500+ friends on the FB and over 700 followers on Facebook updated. But there’s only so much one can say in 140 characters or less. The concept of SMS texting and status updates have changed the dynamics of interpersonal communication. I recently heard a report on WNYC radio in New York City about a young girl who posted 14,528 texts in one month. While that’s an anomaly, companies like Twitter, Jaiku, and the defunct Pownce responded to the demand for applications to post quick, short updates using mobile devices. While each company provides the ability to post updates on a website, most posts come from mobile handsets, which provide a constant connection to the web.

My girlfriend recently checked out You Are Not A Gadget for me from the Bronxville Public Library. I’m not even 20 pages in yet, but have already been introduced to author Jared Lanier’s belief that the use of status updates have had a negative affect on interpersonal communication. Whether that’s true or not depends on how we value social media tools in our daily lives. Our children are being trained to communicate in short bursts of information, communicating in acronyms and hacking punctuation to create smiley faces and frowns as a substitute for words. Young people have always created new forms of communication. There isn’t much different in that regard, but we race to understand it and try to limit it, without even really comprehending its affect on us.

While I’m pro social media, one can’t ignore that communication has been irrevocably altered. While some argue SMS and status updates are disrupting the art of writing, which will lead to the decline of Western Civilization as we know it; others say that technology innovation makes improvements to our lives that we have yet to fully understand. Why use so many words to explain simple concepts? Status updates are brief and too the point. Once the wheel was invented, people chose to drive over walking. I’m sure there are those who argue nothing beats walking, but others embrace progress and use the new tools to their advantage, speeding by who they consider the walking fool. To each his or her own in this world. Let the chips fall where they may.

For bloggers, it’s easy to fall prey to the allure of SMS and status updates. As I use the WordPress App for iPhone, I realize there are three distinct issues for those who want to publish long form text on mobile devices. The first issue is screen size. It’s very difficult to view what you’re already written that is hidden behind a scroll. You can only really see a few lines of text, which impacts your ability to quickly refer to what you’ve already written.

The second issue is typing for an extended period on a mobile device. The size of the keys in portrait mode are difficult to master. Constant spelling errors abound. And, WordPress on the iPhone doesn’t identify spelling errors. You have to be on point and make sure there are no mistakes.

And third, I’m here (I was here, I’m back at the hotel room now trying to salvage this post) in at the Four Points Sheraton in Raleigh, NC attending Wordcamp Raleigh. It was pretty easy for me to pull out my iPhone and tweet, Facebook my status, and use FourSquare to tag my location. I’m here at the listening to Jeffrey L. Cohen from Howard, Merrell, and Partners give a presentation on business blogging, which reminded me of a conversation I recently had with my girlfriend, who asked me why I post status updates instead of using my blog as my outlet. She knows that if I publish to my blog, Twitter Tools will post an update to Twitter, which is linked to my Facebook profile. Why not publish my thoughts on my blog and drive traffic, instead of ignoring the site in favor of the others?

The answer lies in the time it takes for someone to blog at a conference. If I were just attending Wordcamp Raleigh as a blogger to cover the event, things might be different. I might have more time to sit down and publish an extended post about what I’ve learned. But, I’m attending as a business owner. I’m not only taking in the sessions, I’m also networking and talking business.

With Jeffrey and my girlfriend’s comments on business blogging in mind, I thought I’d pull out my iPhone, fire up the WordPress app, and do what I tell my clients to do all the time. It took me about 3-hours to fully complete this post. And, once completed, while I thought my post was saved correctly, somehow I lost the entire post and had to go back and remember everything I wrote to recreate the original intent.

I consider myself an expert on WordPress, having blogged and constructed sites on the platform for the past 8-years. Today, when it comes to blogging over mobile using WordPress for iPhone, the key word is “FAIL.”

That sure won’t happen again! Maybe an iPad will solve the problem.

New WordPress Theme for TonyZeoli.com-Jarah

Tony Zeoli — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:00:14 +0000

Jarah Theme for WordPress

Okay, so I got tired of the bland, generic theme I had been using. I think this theme is so much nicer! You can get this theme called “Jarah” in the WordPress Theme Directory.

Jarrah is a WordPress theme with two columns, four widget areas. The theme options include a removable bottom sidebar, category or page navigation, custom copyright notice. It comes with a lavalamp dropdown menu.

WordPress Theme Presentation at WordPress Westchester on Livestream

Tony Zeoli — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:55:12 +0000

On Feburary 24th, I gave a presentation to the WordPress Westchester Meetup Group on the basics of WordPress Theming. We used Livestream to web cast the video.

wordpress on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free