Problem:

You want to create a calendar event that occurs yearly, on the same day, but not necessarily on the same date.

Solution:

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How To View Friendship Status Page

[list style=”square” color=”cobult”]

• Login to Facebook.
• Navigate to one of your friend’s Facebook pages.
• Look for the gear icon just below the lower right-hand corner of their timeline image.
• Click the gear arrow.
  
• Click on ‘See Friendship’.

If done correctly you should have been directed to a unique page displaying information related to only you and the friend in question.

The pages are a good way to keep track of conversations and find something you both interacted on, in the past. What are your thoughts on the pages?

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From time to time all websites experience outages. Typically the downtime isn’t very long and often times most users don’t even realize there was a problem. However, when a website experiences a significant outage the users who notice compounds the longer the issue remains. ItsNotJust.Me is an simple way for users to check if a website is truly down or if their connection issue is unique.

In June of 2012, Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a significant outage and as a result websites across the web were down and inaccessible. The result was widespread chatter across social networks and businesses from users wondering what was wrong with their service(s).

Companies like Netflix, Pinterest and others use AWS and so when their websites and services were disrupted it was immediately noticed. For those instances, social media will likely be the first source for information and confirmation that it’s an outage. What about smaller niche websites and services though?

ItsNotJust.Me is the answer. Users wondering why a website or service is inaccessible can enter the url address of the affected website on ItsNotJust.Me to find out if it’s truly an outage or a client side error. The simple result will show whether the website is down for just you (the user) or if it’s a more widespread problem. Next time a website is unresponsive and you think there might be a problem, use ItsNotJust.Me to check it out.

Visit ItsNotJust.Me

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Make Your Website Part Of The Nifty Collection

The official codex explains the process well, though it could use a little more detail and step-by-step type instruction for those unfamiliar with the process. That’s what I’ll be addressing in this post. This move was accomplished on WordPress 3.4.1.

Prerequisites

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• First and foremost, review the Moving WordPress codex. It will familiarize you with the steps and options involved with moving your WordPress site.
• Ensure you have FTP access and working login credentials. Adjusting the location of files is more standardized in terms of explanation when FTP connections are used.[notice type=”blue”] Note: If you are familiar with cPanel’s File Manager, then you may want to use that since it is generally quite fast. [/notice]
• Backup your WordPress site. Include the database as well as .xml exports.
• Familiarize yourself with How To Use Velvet Blues Update URLs plugin.

Before You Begin

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• Examine the root (/) directory of your site and look for an .htaccess file.
  [notice type=”blue”]Note: It will be hidden by default, so you may need to instruct your FTP client to display hidden files. If one exists (and it should, even if it’s empty), download the file to a unique directory on your computer.[/notice]
• Search through the remaining files in your root directory for any with the same name as those in your current WordPress directory (Example: /blog, /wordpress, etc.). If any exist, download them to their own unique directory on your computer. Doing so makes them easily accessible later on if you need to make changes.
• If you wish to preserve the files in your root directory for archiving purposes, now is the time to download them all.
  [notice type=”yellow”]Note: Once you begin to move your WordPress files, those in the root directory will be overwritten if they have the same name (Example: index.php). Files with unique names will remain in the directory.[/notice]
• Optional: Download all files and folders from your existing WordPress directory to a unique folder on your computer. I recommend this for anyone archiving their old setup. I also find it more straightforward for FTP file movement.
• From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Settings → Permalinks and make note of your existing permalink structure.

How To Move WordPress

• Login to your WordPress dashboard as an administrator.
• Login to FTP, cPanel or whatever you’re using to move your files.
• From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Settings → General.
• Change both WordPress address (URL) and Site address (URL) to the new location for your WordPress site. Example: http://domain.com would be the new URL for moving your wordpress site to the root directory.[notice type=”blue”]Note: This step must be done before moving any files to ensure users can log back into their WordPress dashboard.[/notice]
• Click save changes.
• From your FTP client, access your WordPress files and folders. Example: Moving from /blog to the root directory you will access all files and folders inside the /blog folder, but not the blog folder itself.
• Move all files and folders from inside the /blog (or wherever your WordPress files are) to the root directory.
• When movement of all files is complete, check the old folder location (/blog or similar) for any remaining files. It should be empty. If not, remove the leftovers (download them to your computer if you didn’t already download the old WordPress directory for archiving purposes).[notice type=”blue”]Note: Download of any extra files is simply precautionary in case they were missed in the move and you need them later on.[/notice]
• Login to your WordPress dashboard at http://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php[notice type=”blue”]Note: The wp-login.php file has moved to your root directory.[/notice]
• On the WordPress Dashboard, navigate to Settings → Permalinks.
• Update your permalinks to your preferred structure (as previously noted).
• Click Save Changes.
• Update media links and folders. There is an easy way to accomplish this by using the Velvet Blues Update URLs plugin. Follow this guide.
• Update any menus you’re using on your WordPress site to reflect the directory changes.
• At this point you can view and test your WordPress site. If everything was done properly, then you should see your old site just as it was now on the main domain.

Post Move Instructions

If everything went perfect, then you don’t have much to do. However, it’s a good idea to check a couple things to make sure.

Check File Permissions

Before the move, most should have been 0644. If any are shown as 0000, then make sure you adjust them.

Combine .htaccess files

The WordPress .htaccess file was moved to the root directory and contains special instructions for plugins, permalinks and other WordPress specific arguments. You must combine that file with the other (old) .htaccess file which you downloaded and saved earlier from the root directory. Open them both up in a text editor (Notepad, gedit, etc.) and copy the contents of the old .htaccess file into the new one.

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• Copy the contents of the OLD .htaccess file into the new .htaccess file beneath everything else.
• Add the following line to the .htaccess file, replacing yourdomain.com with your new WordPress domain address and replacing /blog/ with your old WordPress location:[notice type=”blue”] redirect 301 /blog/ http://www.yourdomain.com /[/notice]
• Save the file and upload it to the root directory. Confirm overwrite of the file.[notice type=”blue”]Note: If you’re comfortable modifying the .htaccess file by hand, then now would be a good time to tidy it up with annotations and remove any outdated or duplicate information.[/notice]
• Check redirects. The easiest way to check this is to enter the old URL of your WordPress site into the address bar. If the 301 redirect information was entered correctly it should send you to your WordPress site at the new URL.

Check Plugins

Some plugins may rely on URL structure and will need to be updated. As an example, automated backup plugins may require you to update your file retrieval directory.

Adjust Webmaster Tools

Google will automatically crawl your site in its new form, but to speed the process along, you can resubmit your new sitemap. The same holds true for Bing and other webmaster tools services.

Troubleshooting

Even though everything is supposed to go off without a hitch, sometimes there are problems. Here are some quick troubleshooting tips if you run into trouble.

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• If you’re moving a site locally, be sure to reboot the server if changes don’t take effect.
• If menu links return 404 or other error, navigate to Appearance → Menus and check all links begin with http://yourdomain.com/ or create custom links to manually enter the domain location.
• If links and images aren’t directing properly,run Velvet Blues Update URLs again. Double-check that the proper file structure is chosen.
• If for some reason Velvet Blues Update URLs doesn’t work or is unavailable at the time of your move, review our Troubleshooting Tips or try Search and Replace plugin.

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To fix internal links and image paths, users can run the Velvet Blues Update URLs plugin after the WordPress move is complete. The plugin makes the process very easy and painless. Here’s how to use the plugin successfully.

[notice type=”yellow”]Warning: Link structure must be maintained in order for this process to function properly. Example: If during your WordPress move your URL was changed to yourdomain.com (without the www), then the new URL in Velvet Blues Update URLs must be entered without the www as well.[/notice]

How To Use Velvet Blues Update URLs

[list type=bullet]

• Login to your WordPress dashboard.
• Under plugins, click “Add New”.
• Search for and install the Velvet Blues Update URLs plugin.
• Activate the plugin.
• Under Settings, click “Update URLs”.
  
• In the site address fields enter your old URL and new URL in the appropriate boxes. Example: If moving your WordPress blog from /blog to root(/), the fields would read as shown in the image below.
• Check off the first four boxes under the URL address fields. Note: Checking the first four boxes is typical for most users. If you have a unique setup, then you may need to adjust those options accordingly.
  
• Click update URLs.
• When Velvet Blues Update URLs is finished you will receive a success message with some details about the number of links changed, etc.

It’s important that you test your links. It isn’t necessary to test every link obviously, but you’ll want to check a bunch of different post links and images to ensure everything is working properly.

Troubleshooting

Changing links on a wide scale like this can be unpredictable, though for the most part successful. Here are some things to check if your link changes don’t work as expected.

[list type=bullet]

• You’ve just changed your entire link structure so if none of them appear to be working, be sure to empty out your cache and cookies. Then test them again.
• Updating URLs has to be precise. If links aren’t directing properly, double-check that the URLs entered are accurate. See warning above.
• Velvet Blues Update URLs isn’t the only option, so if no matter what you do the links still don’t change properly or at all, you can try Search and Replace as an alternative.
• If all else fails and plugins won’t work, you can manually edit the database file to reflect the changes. Open the .sql file in a text editor and replace references to the old URL with the new URL. Save and restore the database. Note: Again, you must be precise. Replace the entire URL to ensure it is done properly.

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Home improvement is something most home owners get excited about. There are so many ideas ranging from crafting and building to shopping and construction. Through social networking sites, homeowners are able to broaden their knowledge and get help with projects without spending thousands on professionals. Along comes Hometalk to gather those homeowners and their ideas in one place.

Premise

Hometalk targets home improvement on a global level. Like watching home makeover shows on television, Hometalk provides a place to showcase inspiring projects, facilitate ideas in DIY’ers and watch improvements take shape. Unlike television though, Hometalk also delivers help when a project or improvement becomes troublesome.

Functionality

Hometalk’s purpose is to provide a place where users can share their home and garden ideas and help others who need it. Hometalk is built around topics which are sorted by area such as ‘Bathroom’, ‘Outdoor Living’, ‘Gardening’ and others. Within those topics, users can post about success stories and ask open questions via ‘Post’ and ‘Ask’ buttons respectively.

The search feature was more than adequate with the ability to filter results by Posts, Photos, Members, Professionals or Zip Code. Through several searches, we found a very involved community willing to provide assistance like a message center and genuinely engage with others about their projects.

Social

If you’re familiar at all with social networks, then Hometalk will feel like second nature. Similar to most social sites, users can follow each other as well as like and share posts. Users can also save posts. Saving is a great way to bookmark projects, ideas and help topics for easy reference at a later time.

Though Hometalk does track followers and likes, they aren’t focused on it. Where Facebook fan pages seek likes and Twitter accounts pursue followers, Hometalk casually makes sharing and connecting feel more comfortable and without pressure.

Extras

Hometalk sufficiently covers what any DIY type needs through posting and asking questions. When projects get out of hand, users can contact a professional through Hometalk. Businesses/contractors can create a profile, but cannot advertise which keeps Hometalk free of constant in-your-face sellers. Users can request a quote through Hometalk or obtain contact info for communication by other means.

Wrap-up

The sharp focus of Hometalk means more enriched conversation about topics and less nonsensical noise. Like other interest based networking sites Hometalk relies on its community to grow. Home improvement provokes involvement and with an outlet like Hometalk, users can gain knowledge and flourish in their own projects.

Visit Hometalk

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Make Your Website Part Of The Nifty Collection

How To Setup Remmina

For this tutorial we’re referencing instructions targeted to Ubuntu users. The same setup process applies, but installation will differ slightly for your Linux flavor.

Installation

• Open Ubuntu Software Center.
• Search for Remmina (there should be only one choice).
  
• Click install.

Setup

• Open Remmina (terminal command: remmina).
• From the toolbar, click Create a new remote desktop file.
• A Remote Desktop Preference window opens.
  
• Enter a Name for the connection. It can be anything, this is just for description purposes.
• Choose a Protocol from the drop-down menu. We’re setting up a Windows Server connection so we’ll choose RDP – Windows Terminal Service.
• In the Server field, input the IP address of the server you want to connect to.
• In the Username field, input the username for the remote system (ex. Administrator).
• In the Password field, input the password for the remote system.
• The remaining settings are subjective to your situation, but generally on a new setup the default values are acceptable. Tip: To improve speed, reduce the resolution and color depth.
• When you’re finished, click Connect or Save.

That process should get you up and running. Remmina offers more advanced settings as well. To improve speed, users can set the quality level to fastest under Preferences → RDP or manipulate the toolbar under Preferences → Options, along with a number of other more advanced settings.

Remmina is straight-forward and does exactly what it intends to do. The interface is direct, not flashy but adequate. There are a number of remote access titles available, but what makes Remmina convenient is that it uses the Windows built-in Remote Desktop on the host end. Thereby eliminating the need to install a third party software title on the receiving end.

You can download Remmina or search for the package in your distribution, as we described above for Ubuntu.

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Users who look at their settings will see the change under Email where they’ll see something like this, <your_facebook_name_here>@facebook.com. The change is touted by Facebook as a way to have everyone on the same level, whereby they can make the change to their liking afterwards.

Now, some may wonder why this is such a big deal. It’s not an overwhelmingly troublesome change, but it is an annoyance and a notification would have been nice rather than relying on media to convey the details. If you’re someone who relies on email as a way for Facebook friends to contact you because you’re too busy for regular Facebooking, then this change means you’ll need to adjust the email address broadcast to friends so that it reflects the email address you’re always plugged in to instead of the @facebook address.

The upside of such a change is that users who’ve embraced Facebook as their complete internet portal will likely find the change welcome since Facebook essentially becomes their email provider as well.

For those who want to make the change to a traditional email address or change their profile back to how it was, follow these steps:

How To Change Facebook Contact Info

• Login to Facebook
• Click your name in the top right corner to reach your profile page.
• Under your Profile photo, click About.
• Look for Contact Info and click Edit.
  
• The box expands to a large window. Find the @facebook email address and click the Friends icon to the right of it.
• Select Only Me to hide the visibility of the email address.
  
• Click the Circle icon to the right of the Friends icon and click Hide from Timeline.
  
• At the bottom of the Edit window, click Save.

Repeat those steps for the email address that you want people to use. For example, if you want friends to contact you through your Gmail account, you would follow the steps through #5, but click Friends, Public or Custom.

If you have any trouble, feel free to contact us through our Facebook page.

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HTML5Media

HTML5Media is small snippet of javascript code designed to allow for <video> and <audio> to be used in all browsers. The single line of code is placed in the web document. Afterwards, webmasters or whoever adds content to your site can embed video or audio by using the <video> and <audio> tags respectively.

This powerful little javascript snippet is an excellent option for avoiding unsupported codecs or problems caused by older browsers. This form of delivery allows for all your website visitors to see the video and hear the audio you want them to.

There will come a time when all browsers have <video> and <audio> tags standard, but until that time, HTML5Media is a solid choice to ensure functionality for everyone.

The code:

<script src=”http://api.html5media.info/1.1.5/html5media.min.js”></script>

You can view HTML5Media in action and view code samples from their website – HTML5Media

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