I had used the ISAPI Rewrite filter before to handle URL rewriting like the rewrite rules that come with WordPress to support permalinks. But I had never done a 301 Redirect on IIS with this method. How hard could it be? I was replacing an ASP.NET site and needed to redirect old links like this:

OLD:  http://www.example.com/AboutUs.aspx
NEW:  http://www.example.com/about-us/

In Apache you would simply do a 301 redirect by adding the following line to .htaccess:

# This will not work using ISAPI Rewrite
Redirect 301 /AboutUs.aspx http://www.example.com/about-us/

I assumed the same syntax would work in .htaccess using ISAPI Rewrite. WRONG!

It turns out that the Redirect directive is part of Apache mod_alias and not part of mod_rewrite. So, how do you do a 301 redirect using mod_rewrite? You can do all sorts of crazy URL rewriting using mod_rewrite but I just wanted to do a simple page to page redirect!

Well, here’s how I eventually got the redirect for the About Us page and the default.aspx page to work:

RewriteRule ^default\.aspx / [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^AboutUs\.aspx /about-us/ [R=301,L]

I hope this helps if you are trying to do a 301 redirect using ISAPI Rewrite.

Anyway, it turns out that when you are issued your SSL cert you are also issued an intermediate certificate. My webhost had that box listed as optional and I didn’t have the intermediate cert filled in.

Once I entered the intermediate certificate the errors in Firefox went away. Took a few minutes to refresh.

I hope this helps anyone in the same situation.

I got involved with the project after running into a David Silverlight at the local WordPress meetup. I had worked with David many years ago and knew he was an excellent .Net and Silverlight developer so I was surprised to see him at a WordPress meetup. It turns out that David is working with WordPress now and was scouting out some plugin ideas for some of his sites. David introduced me to Alex Funkhouser Sherlock Tech’s President and I teamed up with Media In Sync and Steve Earle to work on the site.

In addition to re-platforming from a custom .NET/SQL CMS to WordPress, Sherlock had the following requirements:

• Support mobile devices
• Present a cleaner, more professional branding
• Integrate with social media, especially Sherlock Tech’s Facebook Page
• Integrate their website with a third-party recruiting application

Marsha Belinson, an Account Director with Sherlock served as the creative director/project manager for the redesign. Mobile support was a priority for Marsha and I recommended using a responsive design. I have been using the Genesis Theme framework from StudioPress for years and they had recently launched several new themes that were responsive. We selected the Genesis Streamline child theme and customized it to give Sherlock Tech their own unique branding.

Sherlock Tech uses a recruiting app called Sendouts to publish their open positions and track applicants. Sherlock wanted to use the Sendouts API to import open positions and add them as content on their new WordPress site. I created a custom post type to handle jobs and wrote a custom WordPress plugin to run each hour using the WP cron. The service pulls open jobs from Sendouts and synchronizes them with the existing custom posts on the WordPress site. Jobs are searchable on the Sherlock site and applicants then apply through the Sendouts app.

This was definitely one of the more challenging projects I have worked on in recent months. In my experience the key to a successful project is having good project leadership. Alex and Marsha provided clear direction on what they wanted and we launched on time and within budget.

Over the past year I have seen a need to get all the talented people in the WordPress community connected with employers who are looking to hire. Last week I finally put in some sweat equity to launch WPWorkforce.

Job seekers can create a free profile and resume that employers can use to view their skills. Employers can post jobs for positions requiring WordPress experience.

Right now job posting is FREE on WPWorkforce.com so get to it!

http://wpworkforce.com

This year I was able to help out with the volunteer team and did the CSS styling work and content admin for the WordCamp Miami website. It presented a unique challenge since I did not have access to the php code in the theme. All I was able to modify was the site CSS. If you want to see how powerful CSS is, take a look at some of the other recent WordCamp sites like San Fransisco, Orlando, Portland, Phoenix and Atlanta. Everyone one of these sites, including Miami use the same WordPress theme but have their own unique style by modifying the CSS.

Infographic by R.O.I. Media Web Design

• Online Presentation: WordPress Custom Content: Refresh South Florida + WordPress – September 8, 2011

Resource Links

We decided to get a VPS account at HostGator, where we got our own cPanel and lots more control than we actually needed for the site. However, the assurance that only our web sites would be running in our virtual space made me feel a lot better.

Overall I have been impressed with HostGator. It was my first experience using them. I have been a DreamHost customer for years and were it not for the fact that I have 30+ sites running on my DH account I would move to HostGator in a heartbeat. I did not feel confident enough about DH to recommend them to my customer.

So, after we got the new account set up on HostGator I uploaded the web site files and the WordPress database and we were in business. The only thing left was to do the DNS cutover.

In all my years of web development experience DNS cutovers have usually taken anywhere between 4 and 8 hours to propagate. Of course, when you do a cutover you want to ensure that the old web site is available for long enough to support the propagation and that was the plan with this cutover.

It turns out that using HostGator VPS you have to create your own nameservers. No problem I thought. Even NameCheap.com which is a reseller for eNom which is a reseller for Verisign let me create my own nameservers. We contacted Earthlink and their support staff didn’t even know what it meant to create a nameserver. The customer was handling the contact with Earthlink and during the course of a few days trying to get the nameservers set up Earthlink at one point recommended shutting down the existing account. For whatever reason, this actually happened and the DNS had not been cut over yet.

To make a long story short, my client’s web site was down for close to 2 whole days and Earthlink still had no way for us to create a nameserver. For every DNS change request that we had with Earthlink they told us it would take between 24 and 72 hours. It turns out that they use Network Solutions and they only put in change requests during a certain time in the afternoon. So, we would have to call Earthlink and wait for their request to get sent to NetSol. Then we’d have to wait for NetSol to handle the request.

The solution I came up with was to create my own temporary name servers and point those to the new HostGator VPS IP address. I then told Earthlink to use those nameservers. After waiting an unusually long time the web site finally came up.

Here’s how you can avoid a similar horror story in the future:

• Don’t use a company to host your website that is not really in the business of web hosting (hint: Earthlink).
• No matter what, make sure your current web host will keep the site up during the DNS changeover.
• Plan for the worst.

The last thing I would recommend is to use a site like webhostgear.com to get cPanel hosting reviews and recommendations on WordPress hosting options.

Find out everything you need to know and register at the WordCamp Miami website. Follow WordCamp Miami on Twitter to keep in touch.

Kudos to local WordPress gurus, David Bisset, John James Jacoby and John Carcutt who have done a super job organizing the event in an extremely short timeframe!

Feel free to add your comments to let me know what you would like to learn at WordCamp Miami 2010.