Posted by ljmacphee on May 19, 2008 under how to, tools, wordpress | 
All the major blogs on blogging were urging their readers to start Twittering a few months back. I had heard of Twitter, looked Twitter, but hadn’t yet done anything with Twitter. So I signed up for an account: Twitter.com/timestocome.
There it sat with nothing but the default tweet for over a month. I then attended a garden blogger’s convention in Austin and several garden bloggers said they were using Twitter on their blogs and quite happy about it. ( And I’m thinking I’m really behind the times if my fellow garden bloggers are out teching me. )
So things have finally quieted down and I had a chance to play with Twitter again. There are several plugins for Wordpress blogs and Twitter. I started using Twitter updater to post notices to my Twitter account when I have a new blog post, but it updated Twitter every single time a file saved, even if the post date was in the future and the post wasn’t completed.
I’m trying Twitter for Wordpress to publish my most recent Twitter in my sidebar on my personal blog. So far it seems to be working well.
There is also a Twitter Tools plugin which allows you to send notices of your posts and also add tweets to your sidebar. I’m now using that to send tweets for new posts. I’ve found it also updates Twitter when you update an existing published post, but not for pages. So that was a bit of a pain. It also posted a link back to the Twitter Tools plugin page on each and every tweet.
As well as announcing new blog posts you can use Twitter from your cell phone with SMS. It is extremely simple. Go to Twitter->Settings->Devices and plug in your mobile phone number. Twitter then gives you a code, you send an sms to Twitter ( 40404 ) with the code and you’re good to go. Just sms to 40404 any thing you want posted on Twitter from then on.
Tweets are limited to 140 characters so like text messages you’ll need to be short and to the point.
Twitter might turn out to be useful for blogging, but I’ve yet to find a plugin that updates only new posts with out adding stuff to the tweet. So for now I’ll be updating Twitter manually to announce new posts. Twitter has badges for MySpace, Blogger, Facebook and TypePad. Just follow the ‘Display Twitter on your website links’ while on Twitter to build a badge.
I’m also noticing that none of the profiles on the techy forums I post at have Twitter spots in user profiles. So I’m thinking it’s not really mainstream yet. At least among the geekiest of us.
Posted by ljmacphee on April 28, 2008 under blogger, blogging, how to |
I was asked to help set up a website for a local non-profit. Last time I set up a custom domain name for Blogspot with GoDaddy it was totally painless. It sure wasn’t this time. 404 errors, name servers that wouldn’t update and Google’s directions on Blogger just don’t work.
Here is what does work.
1) Log onto Google
- go to your blog
- go to settings then publishing
Your domain = http://www.yourdomain.com
Be sure to put in the www
Do not check the box for the redirect.
Save settings.
[ click on image for larger view ]
2) Log onto your GoDaddy Account
- go to Domains then My Domains
- check that the name servers are ‘Default Parked Nameservers
3) Go to Total DNS Control and MX Records
- under cnames set host www to points to ghs.google.com
[ click on image for larger view ]
4) Go to Forwarding
- Forward Enabled
- Forward To: http://www.yourdomain.com
- Redirect type 301 Moved Permanently
[ click on image for larger view ]
That’s it. If everything is correct all should be well in a couple of hours. Possibly as long as two days but I’ve never had it take more than a couple of hours. Just replace herselfsgreenthings.com with your domain name in each of the three pictures.
[ I just set that up temporarily to solve this problem. That domain will probably be reverted to its proper home by the time you read this. ]
Posted by ljmacphee on April 14, 2008 under coppermine, how to, mysql |
I’ve known for a few months I needed to move to another hosting company but I kept putting it off because the thought of redoing all the Coppermine stuff horrified me.
It turned out to be pretty easy. OK after 4 hours of going in circles I now know how to do it and it is easy now.
Backup old stuff:
Download your entire Coppermine directory from your old host to your home computer. This may take a while if you have lots of pictures.
Using whatever tools your webhost provides backup and download your Coppermine MySQL database. Most hosts use phpMyAdmin. If you have that available select your Coppermine database; Select Export; Select Save as file; Give it a file name ( template ) and download it with no compression.
Upload to new server:
Upload your entire Coppermine directory to your new webhost ( this may take a while )
Create a new database for Coppermine on your new host using what ever tools the host provides. Write down your user name, database name, and server if it gives you a server name. ( Most of the time it will be on the same server and you will just use localhost. )
Import the old database to the new database. If you are using phpMyAdmin, select the database; Select Import; chose the file and upload.
If you get permissions errors from MySQL while importing your data base try this: On your computer open your database backup you downloaded in a text editor. It is a plain text file you can easily work with it. ( Make a copy first of course! ) Remove every thing until the lines
–
– Table structure for table ‘cpg_albums’
–
Leave those lines and every thing after them in the file but remove the lines before that. The user name, database, CREATE DATABASE etc are all what is causing the permissions problem. Dump the lines below - yours will be slightly different.
– phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
– version 2.9.1.1
– http://www.phpmyadmin.net
–
– Host: 10.6.255.255
– Generation Time: Mar 11, 2008 at 02:06 PM
– Server version: 4.1.22
– PHP Version: 4.4.4
–
– Database: `her0731003345419`
–
CREATE DATABASE `her0731003345419` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
USE `her0731003345419`;
– ——————————————————–
–
– Table structure for table `cpg_albums`
–
It took me several hours to find that information. It is not well documented anywhere. The rest of the move was painless.
The last thing you have to do now is to change your user name, host and database name in your config.inc.php file to use your new database. You’ll find this file in Coppermine/includes. Just edit the entries and remove your old user name, password and host and enter your new password, host and database name.
Posted by ljmacphee on February 13, 2008 under gimp, how to |
So you want to do more with the Gimp now that you have the basics down. There are hundreds of plugins for the Gimp in existence and more coming all the time.
Installing and using a Gimp plugin:
- If it is a .gzip, tar.gz, .zip, .rar file unpack it
- Copy it to your gimp/plugins folder
( usually \lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins )
or ( /lib/gimp/2.o/plugins ).
On my Mac I put new plugins in ( /Users/herself/.gimp2-4/plug-ins )
That’s it. It will be there the next time you start up the Gimp.
Finding Gimp plugins:
- Most plugins can be found in the Gimp Registry
- TechZilo has a list of 40 favorite plugins
You can also try PSPI which will let you run some Photoshop plugins in Gimp
