Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘How to’ Category

Ever since I worked in a call center we were taught to lock our computer whenever we left the desk. It’s important for privacy and to protect whatever information you have stored there as well as whatever you’re working on. I was surprised to learn that a lot of people don’t know how to do this. It’s easy. One way to do this is to press the Windows key and the letter L on a Microsoft compatible keyboard. Another way to do this is to press CTRL-ALT-DELETE and then click on lock computer. Before locking make sure you know your password or you won’t be able to unlock.

• How to change nameservers for Yahoo domains
• How to create a database in Cpanel 11
• Looking for wireless trackball recommendations

Did you know that you can search on Twitter? Way down on the bottom of the page there’s a link called Search. I never noticed this was down there for the first couple of months that I used Twitter. The basic search form is just a simple field, like Google. Advanced search offers capabilities to look for Tweets containing certain words, people, places and dates. You can even specify if Tweets containing links should or shouldn’t be included. To get to this just click “Advanced Search” from the Search page.

• How to update Firefox automatically.
• How to write your first post in Wordpress
• How to add your Home page to your sidebar

Some people prefer to single click within Windows, just as they do when surfing the web. I myself don’t like this approach, sometimes things inadvertently open that I don’t want open. But if you’re one of the people that wants to use single click in Windows, here’s how to do it.

Open Control Panels.
Open Folder Options.
Where is says “Click items as follows”, choose “Single–click to open an item (point to select)”.
Click Apply.

You’re finished. If you find you don’t like clicking set up this way, go back into Folder Options and choose “Double-click to open an item”.

• How to switch from Outlook to Thunderbird
• How to turn off the Wordpress visual editor
• How to change the author name in Wordpress

You’re wondering why someone would write a how to about sending an email, aren’t you? Here’s the deal. Anyone who works with email a lot has seen this happen. You open an email and it’s been send to you and twenty other people. Not necessarily the worst thing except you don’t know them and now they have your email address. After that, who knows who else will get your email address.

When emailing a group of individuals, be sure to be considerate to others and do it correctly. I am not referring to emailing all members of one group, such as a PTA board. I am referring to emailing multiple individuals that are unrelated, such as a bunch of your friends that don’t know each other or a bunch of different companies that you’re reaching out to.

The reason why emailing a group of unrelated individuals correctly is important is because you’re protecting them and the confidentiality they’ve shown you by giving you their email address. If you just put all of your email recipients in the to or cc field of an email, everyone will see everyone else’s email address. Not only is this giving out information that shouldn’t necessarily go out, it’s also opening all people on the list to people that collect email addresses to build databases and the needless reply all syndrome that some people have. The correct way to send a group of unrelated individuals an email is to put the addresses into the bcc field and send the email to yourself.

I don’t know about you, but I get enough spam and enough reply alls already.  I can’t recommend doing this enough, and the people in your address book will appreciate it too.

• 10 things to consider before emailing
• How to switch from Outlook to Thunderbird
• How to thank first time commenters

Ever searched for something on a blog and didn’t find it? It’s awful to see that 404 message and not have anywhere to go from there. Have you tested your blog’s 404 page? Try testing it out by trying to go to yourblog.com/testpage or some other page you know isn’t there. If you only see Not found go into your dashboard now and get to work. It only takes a few minutes to customize a 404 page and it might keep someone on your sight longer. You can include a number of things on your 404 page including categories and monthly archives, a listing of all your pages and an offer to subscribe to your feed. So rather than seeing “page not found” a visitor could now see something like ” the page you requested wasn’t found but feel free to browse the pages listed below for what you’re looking for”.

To customize your Wordpress 404 page, log in to your dashboard and click on presentation. Click on Theme Editor and then click on the 404 Template link on your right. Find the message you just saw when you tested your 404 page and replace it with a customized message. You can even include the php code to show your categories, pages and archives. Click update and you’re finished. As always, go one step at a time and test, that way if there’s a problem you can undo your last step. And always backup your files.

• How to clean up your blog archives
• How to add your Home page to your sidebar
• How to install a Wordpress plugin

Have you ever been writing something or working on a website and wondered what the finished results would look like complete with text? If you use Microsoft Office you don’t have to wonder. There’s a way you can enter “dummy text” effortlessly. It’s great if you’re working on a newsletter. Depending on which version of Word you’re using you can type one of a couple of things into your document.

Word 2003, Word 2002, Word 2000, or in Word 97 for Windows.
Type =rand() and press enter in your Word document and you’ll get a paragraph of five sentences. Each sentence will read The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. You can put numbers inside the parentheses to obtain the output you desire. P is for number of paragraphs and l is for the number of lines per paragraph.

Word 2007 actually has three options.
Option one. Type rand() and then enter and you will get three paragraphs containing three sentences each. The text will come from Microsoft help files. Again, placing p and l inside the parentheses directs how many paragraphs and/or lines you want output.
Option two. Type rand.old and then enter and you will get three paragraphs containing three sentences each. Each sentence will read The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Again, placing p and l inside the parentheses directs how many paragraphs and/or lines you want output.
Option three. Type =lorem() and then enter and you will get three paragraphs of Latin text beginning with the words Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Once again, placing p and l inside the parentheses directs how many paragraphs and/or lines you want output.

That’s it. Let me know if you find it useful!

• How to keep notes in Wordpress
• How to adjust what appears in the content of your rss feed
• How to embed a video in a Wordpress post

Did you ever see a widget within a post that had a + and said bookmark this, add this or share this? And when you rolled over it a bunch of different social bookmarking sites were listed? You probably have. If you’ve seen the one I’m referring to it’s a free Wordpress widget called Add This. There’s a regular version and a dropdown version of the widget.  To use it first download and unzip the folder. Then upload it to your Wordpress plugins directory. Activate it from within your Wordpress dashboard and you’re all set. There’s nothing to configure, although the ability to make a minor change is available if you want your stats included in the widget. I’ve included a screenshot of the dropdown in action on valmg.com. Do you have a  social bookmarking widget on your blog? I’d love to hear which one, feel free to leave me a comment.

• How to show similar posts in Wordpress
• How to keep up with your Wordpress plugins
• How to let your readers subscribe to comments of a post

Have you ever wanted or needed to know how many words you’re written in a post on your blog? It’s easy to check at any time if you use the Wordpress plugin Leprakhaun’s Word Count. To use it, just unzip and upload it into your plugins directory. Then activate the plugin in your Wordpress dashboard. After that, whenever you write a post you’ll see a box that has a button that says calculate words a little bit below your post. Click it and it tells you how many words you’ve written. There’s a screenshot below of what the Word Count button and box look like within a new post. I really like it and recommend it highly. It’s a really helpful little plugin worth checking out. If you try it, let me know how you like it.

• How to clean up your blog archives
• How to show someone’s last post (and some love) on your blog
• How to place a contact form in Wordpress

A couple of weeks ago I came across a plugin that organizes your archives on a page of their own. This easy to use plugin is called SRG Clean Archives and can be downloaded for free. The plugin will lists the years, months and days that you’ve posted in. The listings include the post permalink and the date the post was published. They can be configured to include post and comment count. The months can be set up to collapse and expand, which is nice because it saves room.

To install it just download it from the author. Unzip the package and upload it to your plugins directory of your blog. Next, activate and configure the plugin. Then all that’s left is to create an Archives page and install the piece of code to make the plugin work. What you see above is a screenshot of the admin panel with the Wordpress dashboard. If you want to see the plugin in action, visit A Contest Blog and click on the Archives page. I’m really pleased with it. If you try it let me know what you think.

• How to show similar posts in Wordpress
• How to install Wordpress using cpanel 11 on your own domain
• How to show someone’s last post (and some love) on your blog

Do you have sell advertising on your blog? Wouldn’t you like an easy and efficient way to manage the ads? If you would, then you need to get OIO Publisher. OIO Publisher is a Wordpress plugin designed for managing blog monetization and sales. If you’re like me you might have kept track of things in a spreadsheet, or in your email. OIO Publisher makes it a whole lot easier to manage advertisers right from your blog’s dashboard.

Once installed you can sell and manage different types of advertising including banner ads, links, rss feed ads, inline posts and reviews. You can even set up custom advertising options. All ads can be either do follow or no follow, and you can adjust your price depending on which one you choose if you like. After configuring the ads you want to sell just install the code for the ad spots, either in the code or by widget, and you’re ready to go. When a potential advertiser clicks on one of your open spots they’re presented with an advertising page. (This is mine if you’d like to see what one looks like.) This awesome plugin even lets you create your own built in affiliate program.

After making your purchase, not only do you get this great plugin, but you get support from the creator Simon, who’s already helped me twice. You also get to list your blog in the marketplace where advertisers look for places to buy ads. Your advertisers will like it because if set up they can geo target their ads, and they will be sent a report summarizing their ad performance. OIO Publisher sells for $37 and is worth every cent. The time you will save using it will make it pay for itself in no time. Let me know if you’re using it or if you start using it, and how you like it.

• OIO Publisher on sale for $20
• Do you follow? I do follow.
• Want to better manage your Wordpress comments?