Turns out, there is a bug in the plug-in configuration interface. When you enter the URI of your Piwik installation into “Hostname of the piwik server” form field, and put in full address with http:// in front of it, plug-in doesn’t recognize that, adds its own http://, and sends data to something like http://http/hostname.net. So, for now one should take care to put only the domain name without protocol designation. To check that your inputs are correct, try using “check out your stats!” link on the bottom of the configuration page which should lead you to your Piwik installation.

I’ll write the author about it, though. Plug-in should have a check for the protocol designation, and strip it before applying its own. And what about Piwik installations accessed via some other protocol?

Update: In version 1.0.2 (April 3^rd, 2010) Jules updated the explanation for the form field in question urging not to put http:// bit in there. It doesn’t fix usability issue, but, at least, makes things clearer for a user.

In the year since I set up WordPress on my site, some positive development occured both in the core software and plug-ins. Firstly, WP now (comparing versions 2.1 I had then and 2.3.2) properly supports UTF encoding — database directive “SET NAMES” now included in wp-db.php file. Also, in wp-config.php there is now a way to set up encoding and collation for DB. That and the fact that my hoster started to offer 5th version of MySQL made installation a breeze.

Now I have to figure out how to migrate my original set-up (WP still doesn’t support multi-lingual sites out of the box, so I have to run separate copies of it off of separate databases) from v. 2.1 and v. 4.0 of MySQL, wich I took great pains to get to work properly, to the new, more robust combination.

Next thing is RC 4 of the K2 framework/theme I use on top of the core software. It looks like many kinks were worked out since I installed it last. AJAX features are more solid, albeit search is still acting up sometimes.

The Sidebar Modules Manager (reverts to WP widgets if disabled) now looks real neat, although all that fanciness slows it down even on my rather powerful machine (to be fair, I have some 50 windows open in Opera now, so that has to do something with something). Supports 3-column page layout. Quite a few useful modules available, including “Latest Comments”, “Calendar”, “Tag Cloud” et cetera. Although, when it comes to recent comments I prefer separate “Brian’s Latest Comments” plug-in for I like its realisation (N recent posts commented, showing latest comment authors and total number of comments, all customizable, versus just N recent comments with one-line teasers of) better.

In the plug-in realm it seems like v. 1.5 of “Raven’s Antispam” finally works with AJAX comments (The only apparent reason that I see is that I have updated version of DB now). Can’t wait to see if it’ll protect the site from most of spam without using Akismet and the like. Also, “Subscribe to Comments” plug-in appears to work properly.

Important thing to note is that “Ultimate Tag Warrior” plug-in doesn’t officially support WP v. 2.3 per se (possibly because of the taxonomy scheme newly introduced in the WP core), but author is working on some tag-related things for WP 2.3 (some really nice things, like embedded tags, tag management etc. Will try some of them). However, K2/WP now has built-in tag support with the same functionality as an orginal UTW.

For quite a while Textpattern has caught my fancy, however, due to hosting limitations I didn’t manage to install it in one setting. Ere I went into search and query, I decided to give WordPress a shot, as my friend recommended.

Installation and adjustment took even less time than WordPress’ “Famous 5-Minute Install”, everything started to work straight away and without particular trouble, aside from hindrances of the hosting itself. Comparing functionality “out of the box”, both systems are quite similar, however WordPress seems somewhat cumbrous and template editing looks more difficult.

But, as I am lazy, it’s three o’clock in the morning, and WordPress by and large makes a nice impression, I think to leave it at that, and work as it is. The order of work shall be as follows:

1. Fill the site with materials from the past, some of which hasn’t been published.
2. Think out the original design.
3. Organize multi-ligual support, which shall include both individual templates, and customisation of typography module (for instance, so that in Russian version quotes would be such as: « „ ” », and in English — such as: “ ‘ ’ ”).

Since I’m no man of experience in these affairs (affairs of WordPress in particular and PHP in general), any help is welcome. Write, Shura, write. And here — lights-out.