paul schreiber

Many WordPress users have run in to the error “You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.”

Sometimes, it is because you changed the table prefix and the solution is a database change.

For other folks, it was due to old plugin incompatibility. To fix it, you need to replace admin_head with admin_menu.

Unfortunately, neither solution worked for me. However, the latter (and some digging) pointed me in the right direction.

In my case, I had to change the parameters to—and order of—the add_submenu_page() and add_menu_page() calls.

Here’s the old code:

function thgs_add_menus() {
 add_submenu_page(__FILE__, "Heather Gold Show", "Shows", 8, "thgs/shows.php");
 add_submenu_page(__FILE__, "Heather Gold Show", "Venues", 8, "thgs/venues.php");
 add_menu_page('Show Management', 'Shows', 8, __FILE__);
}

And here’s the fix, which works with WP 2.8.4:

function thgs_add_menus() {
  add_menu_page('Show Management', 'THGS', "administrator", "thgs/shows.php");
  add_submenu_page("thgs/shows.php", "Manage Shows", "Shows", "administrator", "thgs/shows.php");
  add_submenu_page("thgs/shows.php", "Manage Venues", "Venues", "administrator", "thgs/venues.php");
} 

The apple.com search engine seemed to have a spot of trouble with this one.

If you haven’t heard of MAPLight.org before, here’s what they do (which is fantastic):

MAPLight.org, a groundbreaking public database, illuminates the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes in unprecedented ways. Elected officials collect large sums of money to run their campaigns, and they often pay back campaign contributors with special access and favorable laws.

They’re a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non-partisan organization.

MAPLight recently announced Money Near Votes, which shows you how campaign contributions closely mirror voting records:

…combines information on campaign finance and congressional votes. Journalists, citizen activists and bloggers can easily track campaign contributions from special-interest groups given within a month, a week, or a day of each vote in Congress.

It’s available for every bill they track. It’ll be interesting to follow HR 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act with Money Near Votes.

Buried in my Amazon Chase Visa “This E-Sign Disclosure and Consent” was this gem:

Hardware and Software Requirements. In order to access, view, respond to, and retain electronic Communications that we make available to you, you must have:

• an Internet browser (Microsoft ® Windows 95 or higher, Windows NT 4.0 or higher with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5+, Netscape 4.6+ or AOL 4+) that supports 128 bit encryption;
• sufficient electronic storage capacity on your computer’s hard drive or other data storage unit;
• an e-mail account with an Internet service provider and e-mail software in order to participate in our electronic Communications program;
• a personal computer (for PCs: Pentium 120 Hhz or higher; for Macintosh, Power Mac 9500, Power PC 604 processor 120-MHz Base or higher), operating system and telecommunications connections to the Internet capable of receiving, accessing, displaying, and either printing or storing Communications received from us in electronic form via a plain text-formatted e-mail or by access to our web site using one of the browsers specified above.

I’ll dig out that Power Mac 9500. It’s around here somewhere…

Recently, I received an email from Nancy Pelosi:

Apparently no one explained to her (despite representing Internet central), that scanning your letterhead and pasting it in to your email is a bad idea. It looks worse when it’s on a funny angle.

Having text as images this must be some sort of ADA violation.

Finally, the message lacks an unsubscribe link.

Of course, Speaker Pelosi isn’t the only one with problems. Anna Eshoo, who represents the only slightly gerrymandered California 14th, home to none other than Google and Yahoo, can’t get her web presence together, either.

First, her mailing list is woefully out of date. I left her district almost three years ago, yet I still get emails from her. As with Pelosi, there’s no unsubscribe link. I’ve left her district office staff numerous emails and voicemails, but they won’t remove me from her list.

Second, when you visit her web site, you get an SSL error:

…this certainly doesn’t instill confidence her ability to keep constituent communications secure and private.

Once you submit the form, you get obtuse error messages like this one:

…1996 called, they want their form validation code back.

For those wondering what required-prefix means — that’s the formal prefix that precedes your name, such as “Ms” or “Mr.” Which, of course, shouldn’t be required in the first place.

Who needs an “SEO Mavin” anyway?

I’ve proposed a panel for SXSW Interactive: Abort? Retry? Failwhale? Making Error Messages Suck Less.

Here’s how I described it:

An unknown error occurred. Call your system administrator. Abort/retry/fail? Bad errors are everywhere. Sure, complain on twitter. But how do we fix them? Through hilarious examples, we’ll explore the 12 ways errors fail us. Then, we’ll teach you to write lucid messages that won’t make you (or your users) cringe.

Please vote for my panel:

I’ve been playing with the prerelease version of Chrome for Mac OS X and found a rather amusing bug:

Good ol’ Fklsdjf Fldskf;!

I finally (finally!) got my Translink card. So excited! It now joins my BART EZ Rider card, my MBTA CharlieCard and my WMATA SmarTrip card.

(Aside: TTC and (NY)MTA, get on this.)

Inside the envelope are several letters and brochures. I head to the Translink web site to add funds to my card.

Fail #1 Nowhere on the front page do the words “add funds” or “add value” appear. If you go to site map, aside from the two “Register your card” links, under “Get TransLink®”, there’s an Add value online link. Finally!

(Please drop the ®. It’s unnecessary, ugly, and impairs readability and scanability.)

But, there were two problems. First, they don’t take American Express. Boo. But the larger, more catastrophic problem:

Fail #2: It may take up to 72 hours for the value you ordered to be added to your card.

Seriously? Funds need to be added in real time. Period.

There are a few more problems with the web site. On the home page, there’s a box with contact information, including an email address. But they’ve made it so hard to use. The email address isn’t even a link. (And selecting it is hard, too, because it’s buried under several layers.) Look:


<li><span class="standout">Email:</span> <a href="mailto:#" accesskey="e">custserv@translink.org</a></li>



And when you hit the home page, you get five different 301 or 302 redirects:
http://translink.org/
http://www.translink.org/
http://www.translink.org/TranslinkWeb
http://www.translink.org/TranslinkWeb/
http://www.translink.org/TranslinkWeb/index.do
https://www.translink.org/TranslinkWeb/index.do;jsessionid=tCfKg-cBzZp4P1P1GuMtBQ**

Seriously?

What kind of a URL is https://www.translink.org/TranslinkWeb/index.do;jsessionid=tCfKg-cBzZp4P1P1GuMtBQ** anyway?

Recommended reading for the Translink webmasters: URL as UI and Cool URIs don’t change.