tidystorm

random techno-gab

Make Christmas Card labels with Gmail and Word

How I set up my Gmail Contacts
I manage my xmas card contacts by making use of the “other” field in the contact record. I put “xmas” in each one. I use the “title” field for the title that will be printed on the label.
Get the file ready in Excel
1. Click on “contacts” in Gmail
2. Click on “export”
3. Select “only Christmas cards”
4. Select “Outlook CSV format”
5. Click on “export”
6. Open with Microsoft Excel
7. Delete every column except for the first, middle, last name, and address column
8. Change the “Home Address” title to “Address”
9. Save this as an Excel 97 file in the Christmas folder and get out of Excel.
Use Mail Merge in Word
1. Open Microsoft Word
2. On the tools menu, point to Letters and Mailings, and then click Mail Merge Wizard.
3. Click Labels, click “starting document”
4. Click Label options. Use Avery 5160. Click “ok.” Click “select recipients”
5. Select “use an existing list,” then click browse
6. Choose the excel file you just saved, choose the first selection (if there’s more than one), click OK, rearrange the fields with first name, then middle, then last, then address. Click OK.
7. Click “arrange your labels.” Choose “address block.” Use “Joshua Q. Randall Jr.” and “only include the country/region if” (leave the “if” blank)
8. Click “update all labels”
9. Click “preview your labels”
10. Click “complete the merge”
11. Click “edit individual labels” and merge all records
12. Select all the labels, change the font size to “10” and change font if desired. In 2009 I found that the addresses were too far left-aligned for my Avery labels. So I centered all the addresses, which was an easy fix. I didn’t feel like figuring out what was wrong.
13. Save the file
14. Test two pages on plain paper
15. Put the label sheets in the printer and print the labels

Go live with WordPress

I had an old site built with flat html files. Then I installed a new site in wordpress as a subfolder on the old site, with the intent of switching over and going “live” when I’m done.

During development, I decided to follow the prevailing instructions for “going live” without moving the files (not moving the files seems important to people) entailing changing settings–>general site address subdirectory to root, then moving the index.php to the root, then editing the index.php to change the wp-blog-header.php

But the procedure made a mess, and I had to quickly restore everything. I was in no mood to debug the process.

So instead I tried another method, which worked! Why, anyway, is it so awful to “move the wordpress files”? Moving the wordpress files to the root directory turned out to be simpler. I’d recommend it to anybody who doesn’t mind having their wordpress files in the root (it makes the root cluttered, but that’s the only drawback.)

Here’s the procedure:

  1. Make sure first that you have all the pages in, the navigation working, that none of the links contain “/wordpress/” in the URL.
  2. Move or delete all of the directories and files from the old site: Every .htm file, every .inc file, every .css file, .tmpl file.
  3. Move or delete all of the files in the public_html directory except wp-config.php and favicon files
  4. Change both urls in wordpress general settings to remove wordpress
  5. Move all of the files in the wordpress directory to the public_html directory
  6. Verify that you can see your site and your wordpress admin

How to restore a WordPress website

 
After too much googling, I found a generous and bright gal who blogged about how to restore a WordPress web site. I suggest reading it and following her recommendations BEFORE the catastrophe, if possible.

Her name is Thu Nguyen, and this is the link to her post:

http://www.bloggingfor.info/how-to-restore-your-wordpress-site-in-less-than-1-hour

And because the thought of catastrophic loss strikes fear in the hearts of even the most rational, I am also copying her post here, just in case she takes down her site or something equally unlikely.

As a final note, I’ve given her all due credit. I’ve linked to her, friended her, and subscribed to her, and, in exchange, hope she understands that I’ve duplicated her words here for posterity. So here goes, with the content of
Thu Nguyen’s post about restoring a WordPress site:

I ran into a horrible dilemma yesterday and it would have cost this whole blog it’s life but luckily using a few tools, I had a backup of the database which helped me restored everything. Strangely, everyone always preaches backing up but don’t really explain how you can put it back up online.

So today’s article will explain what I did to restore this blog back to it’s original state with a couple of exceptions. You’re going to at least lose one article, some comments or the last tweaks from several hours ago. No biggie but yet, it still hurts. Hopefully, from this lesson alone, you’re backing up your site daily if not, twice as it begins to accumulate.

Without further ado, let’s carry on.

If you’ve accidentally uninstalled WordPress

Before you reinstall, make sure you go into your web hosting dashboard and back up everything you got under your site’s folder. You can do this with a FTP (file transfer protocol) program which your host suggests or use the browser version which they provided. This will allow you to click and drag over the content to your hard drive’s preferred path.

Why? If you’re going to reinstall, the new configurations won’t overwrite the old files. Your old files kept the configurations of your old blog. So you want to back up these files which has all the uploaded media you’ve been putting up for the past couple of months or more.

Depending on how old your site is, the wait can be about 5 minutes to half an hour. It took me about 10 minutes but once that is done you can then re-install WordPress onto your domain name using your web host 1-click install.

install the same version of wordpress you had before, not update it

If updating your WordPress version is something you want to do now, you may do so but I suggest not because if your site has been using an older version, configured for it, then you might be running into some errors, namely with plugins and theme integration. That’s going to mean more down time and a whole lot of technical tweaking.

Now you’ve got WordPress installed

You’ll notice that all your original posts are gone, even your site’s design is set to a template. Tear. Tear. I feel you. If you go on over to your plugins installation you’ll noticed that they’re still all there, just not activated. OK good.

Here are two of the most important plugins you’ll need to restore the site back with all your original articles and pages. Make sure you get the latest version which will be stable enough with your WordPress version!

Thanks to WP-DBmanager, I already had a backup of the database of the site on my web host server. However, here’s the sad part, it was backed up from the previous day. So the current post, if you have had one will be lost. Don’t worry I’ll show you how to back those up too if you so happen to get worried. But first, let’s carry on with restoring your database files.

Activate the plugin if you haven’t already done so. Head on down towards:

Database – Manage Backup DB

Manage Database inside WP-DBmanager

You’re going to then get the latest databases you have on your server, now if you haven’t already installed a database backup plugin yet, now’s the time to do so! Don’t prolong backing up until it hits you, because when you get to this part, you’re going to be hit dead on. Let’s not make it happen.

Restore your database

Below you’ll notice I already had some past databases. This is helpful if you’ve upgraded your WordPress to a newer version and got errors and want to downgrade back. Restoring from your backup database will bring back the older version. Likewise, you want to choose the latest backup. In this case, you’ll see the newer version for today below but I had to opted for the July 19, 6:19 am file, which before the problem occurred was all I had.

Wp-DBmanager timeline table

Notice that the files are in SQL, an extension for the common database language file in the structured query language system. You have the option to compress these files into a GZip file but because you don’t have to. Here it’s saved in it’s entirety on my web hosting server. If you want to compress yours you can do so. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Now, choose the data you want restored, the e-mail you want the backup file sent to and click on RESTORE. Give it a couple of moments and then continue on.

You’ve restored the backup database, now what?

Check your site to see if all your original posts and pages are back. You’ll notice that there’s a slight change in your theme. But that’s OK, the point is are the pages there? Click on a link and test it out. You’ll notice that you’ll get a 404 error.

OK, now’s the time to repair your database and optimize it as well. Doing both will sync your site with the restored pages so that search engines will look for the pointers you’ve restored. Thus, it won’t produce those 404 errors that will become frighteningly scary.

WP-DBmanager repair

All you have to do is select YES to all the options and click on REPAIR. It might take a minute so be patient. Next, on top of the Repair DB option is Optimize DB. Just like repairing, you just select all the options and click on OPTIMIZE.

You’ll notice that it’s suggested to optimize your database each month. It won’t hurt to do it weekly though. Helps your site load faster and also your content organized.

From this point, you want to activate or install WP Super Cache or your preferred caching plugin. Once you’ve done so, delete the cache. This will refresh your site and actually let you see everything restored from the database backup. Click on the links and pages you got. Are they there? Are you still getting 404 errors?

Go back and repeat the process from restoration again. See if that will help.

Some minor disappointments worth changing

You’re not going to be entirely satisfied with the backup. At least I wasn’t because I still lost a post, some comments and also the theme was out of sync. In order to save myself from those miseries for the future, I did a backup and configuration of several more areas:

  • Thesis’s configurations
    • Thesis – Manage Options – Download Options – All Options
    • This will export a .dat file with the current date, great for organizing
  • exported WordPress content
    • Tools – Export – Download Export File
    • This will export a .xml file with all your wordpress content also with current date
  • changed the schedule of database backups to a shorter timeframe
    • Database – DB Options
    • Take a look at this section CAREFULLY because this will enable you to have more or less backups. You can set the maximum backup files – default is 10. Then under Automatic Scheduling, set when you want to backup and when you want to optimize. Here’s where you can set if you want your files saved as a compressed GZip or not. Then save your changes and you’re all set.

While I was on the brink of giving up in looking for that last post, I forgot, I also had a subscription to my RSS feed. Thankfully, that saved me because it syndicated the latest content and I had it in my e-mail box. So subscribe to your own feed if you haven’t already done so. It’s good recordkeeping plus a great place to restore content if all else fails.

What happened was TweetMeme also referenced to this post in a certain link. All I did was:

  • repost the content
  • set it to the correct date
  • set the permalinks correctly

This put me back in business and while it was a bucket of sweat, it was worth shedding!

Worst Case Scenario

Downtime is something you don’t want from your blog. One of the tools which will help you monitor your downtime is UpTimeRobot. Not only that, it will also let you know when your site goes back up.

uptime robot logoI’ve been using it for the past couple of weeks and am surprise with the results it has given me. I’m learning more about my web host’s ability to serve me better and times which I should be aware of. The usability is really straight-forward. So it’s an analytic tool which you should keep handy to track your site’s downtime.

Best of all it’s FREE.

Another thing is ranking. Who knows how much visitors I’ve lost or even comments which are bringing in link juice. While those are just some possibilities. Losing your work is something you don’t want happen. So while the longer your site is offline, the rankings will fall off too.

Thus, I was lucky. Very lucky to have backups of the content and also approached the situation as promptly as I could.

Yours could be a matter of more difficulty. If so, ask your web host provider to do the technical stuff for you. Call them to back up what they can of your site from their backups. Don’t be happy yet, some might have it a week prior so you’re still going to miss out at least some posts, comments or changes.

Look on the bright side, better to have most of it than none.

I hope this article will help you ensure the future of your site as well as save you from any loss in profits, mental misery or even ongoing efforts.

Any other suggestions for backing up? What’s your backup nightmare story?

 

WordPress CSS Management my way

I’m new to Content Management Systems and new to WordPress. I’m new to CSS, and I’m new to the Techozoic theme that I chose for WordPress.

New new new.

So I naively figured that somehow there’s a way to muck with CSS that would be one consistent place, and would be processed after all other style sheets. Wrong.

I tried to change the CSS of the WP Author Plug-in in the same place where I put in all my other CSS changes, which is in “Techozoic Settings.”

Didn’t work. But I don’t want to change the plugin CSS, because that will go away when the plug-in gets updated.

Being the newbie, I figured there must be a plug-in that lets me edit a CSS file that really does come last. And there was!

It’s called My Custom CSS.

I’m still new, and maybe I’ll always be, because I don’t get how other folks update their CSS.

I’m running WordPress 3.2.1

Adobe Premiere Elements editing for beginners

I had a webinar in wmv format I wanted to publish that contained two minutes of silence in the middle. Not good.

I couldn’t find any straightforward instructions for dummies on how to fix it. So I figured it out the hard way, and now I’m writing the steps here.

  1. Open Adobe Premiere Elements 9
  2. Open new project
  3. Name your new project
  4. Click OK
  5. File–>Get Media From–>Files or Folders
  6. Browse to the file and click open
  7. Click sceneline if it’s not selected
  8. Drag the file’s screen shot to the first box in sceneline
  9. Move the timer to where you want to cut
  10. Click on the scissors (“split clip”)
  11. Move the timer to the next place you want to cut
  12. Click on the scissors (“split clip”)
  13. Looking at the scenes, there should be three. The one in the middle is the one you want to delete. Right click it and choose “delete scene and its objects.”
  14. Now you want to “share.” Look on the right of the screen for the share tab and click on it
  15. Choose “computer export files for viewing on computers”
  16. I scrolled down to “windows media files” so I would get wmv
  17. Click “save.”
  18. Now wait. It can take a long time

How to add a database to backupmachine

I use lunarpages as my host. I’ve had to derive over time how to add databases to Backup Machine.

Here are the steps:

  1. Click on “add MYSQL database”
  2. For the database server, fill in the host name or the IP, not localhost. Find the IP on Cpanel (or probably LPCP)
  3. Fill in the database name
  4. Fill in user name. (You first have to create a user name in PHPMYADMIN. I suggest creating a username specifically for backupmachine.com)
  5. The password is whatever you assigned to the user name you just created.

Notes:
If you run into an error, take note of the error message because backupmachine will tell you their IP address in the error message. Then go into Remote MYSQL on CPanel (or probably LPCP) and put backupmachine’s IP address in. Then try again.

In LPCP you can add the IP address on the same page and at the same time as creating the user.

If LPCP assigns your user with an “@” appendage, remove that part of the user name when you type into backupmachine.

If all else fails, add a wildcard to as the Access Host in Remote Database Access Hosts. The wild card is a lone percent sign.

How to use WordPress as a CMS

I learned from ugly experience that to use WordPress as a CMS, it needs to be installed in the root. Maybe there’s a way around that, but I don’t know what it is. So install in the root.

Then, google “create a static front page in wordpress” and follow the instructions.

I use the Ashford theme, which is built for CMS, and has good support.

Drupal 7 Create a sub-theme based on Bartik

I have copied this great information from opensourcecms.pro

Assume you want to customize the default Bartik theme bundled with Drupal 7. Since you know it is a bad idea to alter the core files, you are going to create a new sub-theme based on Bartik and make your modifications there.
Step 1: Create a copy
First, copy the directory /themes/bartik
Step 2: Rename the directory
Paste the base theme directory into the directory /sites/all/themes and rename it as you see fit. For purposes of our example, we’ll call it newsub. In other words, you should now have a complete set of themes files located at /sites/all/themes/newsub
Step 3: Delete unwanted files
The sub-theme will inherit almost everything from the base theme. (The exceptions are the .info file and the site logo image file.) Given that inheritance is the norm, you should eliminate everything from the sub-theme that you don’t plan to change. In other words, if you don’t plan to modify a particular file, delete it from the sub-theme’s directory.
Most people will want to consider keeping one or more of the templates and the template.php file, but this depends on your plans. If you intend to customize any of the existing templates, or create template suggestions, keep the relevant templates. If you want to modify any of the themable functions or create new ones, you will need the template.php file.
Open up your newsub directory and delete everything you don’t need. No matter what you plan to do, you should keep the .info file — your sub-theme has to have a .info file — and keep the /css and /templates directory, though you can delete the contents if you don’t plan to modify them.
Step 4: Update the theme name throughout
Next, let’s update the theme name inside all the files we’ve kept. We need to change every occurrence of “bartik” to “newsub.” If you’ve got a code editor, you can run a find/replace to get this done, if not, you’ll need to crack open each file and do this.
Step 5: Create your stylesheet
Next, let’s create a new .css file. This is a requirement for a valid sub-theme; you need at least one stylesheet. Create an empty file, name it newsub.css and put it in the /css directory.
Step 6: Update .info
Make sure your .info is now called newsub.info. Next, open up the file and perform the following operations on the contents:
1. Make sure the name field has been updated to reflect the name of the sub-theme.
2. Update the description line as you see fit – this information will appear inside the Theme Manager as a description for the theme.
3. Delete the lines for package and version.
4. Add a new line: base theme = bartik
5. Declare our new stylesheet by adding this line: stylesheets[all][] = css/newsub.css
6. Delete all other stylesheet declarations.
7. Save the file.
Note that sub-themes do not inherit custom regions from the parent theme. Therefore if you want to use any custom regions in the base theme, you will need to re-specify them in the sub-theme’s .info file. In the example we’ve just worked through, we’ve simply copied the Bartik .info file, so we already have the entire list of custom regions in the newsub.info file.
That’s all there is to it! At this stage you have a new, fully functional theme. If all has gone according to plan, your NewSub theme can now been seen inside the Disabled Themes section of your site’s Theme Manager.
Additional Tips – Overriding Templates
• If you wish to modify any of the templates included in the Bartik base theme, simply copy them over to your directory /newsub/templates and make your changes
• If you want to override other core templates, copy the original template and place it in /newsub/templates
• If you want to add a template suggestion, place the base template in /newsub/templates and create your new suggestion in the same directory
Additional Tips – Overriding Styles
• If you want to override a specific style, simply place the selector in /css/newsub.css
• If you want to override an entire stylesheet from the base theme, place a file of the same name in the /newsub/css directory.
Additional Tips – Overriding functions
• If you want to override an existing function, copy it into /newsub/template.php and change the name to match your new sub-theme.
Where to go to Learn More
• Sub-theme strcture and inheritance, http://drupal.org/node/225125 (note this has yet to be updated for Drupal 7, but is valid)
• Structure of the .info file, http://drupal.org/node/171205
• Overriding themable output, http://drupal.org/node/341628 (note this has yet to be updated for Drupal 7, but is valid)
• Using Base Themes, http://drupal.org/node/980434

Drupal 7 multisite step by step tutorial

I had a first site called FIRSTSITE.com.
I wanted to add another site called SECONDSITE.com.
I wanted the second site to render as a separate website, and I wanted the two sites to share my Drupal 7 installation.

I couldn’t find a guide for Drupal 7 multisite, so now that I’ve figured it out from a pastiche of advice, I’m documenting it.

This post is not about updating a multisite from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7. I am a Drupal noob with Drupal 7. It assumes Lunarpages VPS Hosting but that may not matter.

  1. Install Drupal 7 for FIRSTSITE.com. (I had already done that earlier.)
  2. Create a new MySQL database and user. They will be used for the new site SECONDSITE.com.
  3. Configure SECONDSITE.com to point to the FIRSTSITE.com servers. In my case, I did that with Network Solutions, and I documented it here The change can take a day or two to complete.
  4. Park SECONDSITE.com to FIRSTSITE.com. How to do it in Cpanel is here. I did it in LPCP (a control panel available when you have Lunarpages hosting.)
  5. Create a directory /sites/SECONDSITE.com/ inside your main Drupal folder.
  6. Copy the default.settings.php file (found in drupal/sites/default/) to /sites/SECONDSITE.com/ and rename it to settings.php
  7. Change its permissions to 666 (make it changeable by everyone)
  8. Make a new directory under /drupal/sites/SECONDSITE.com/ and name it “files”, then change permissions of it to 777.
  9. Navigate to http://SECONDSITE.com/install.php, and complete a new installation for SECONDSITE.com with the Mysql details from earlier.

Reference:
# cp drupal/sites/default/default.settings.php drupal/sites/SECONDSITE.php
# chmod 666 drupal/sites/SECONDSITE.com/settings.php
# mkdir drupal/sites/SECONDSITE.com/files
# chmod 777 drupal/sites/SECONDSITE.com/files