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Dynamic image resizing in WordPress

1st March 2010 Design, Hosting, Web & PC stuff, Wordpress , , , by

Some of the WordPress themes I’ve trialled include a dynamic image re-size option, which initially sounded quite good. However, after trying for hours to get the thing to work and searching countless other forums and WordPress guides, I still couldn’t get it to work.

That was, until, I stumbled across a web site (http://ravidreams.com/2009/10/wordpress-automatic-thumbnail-issue-with-hostgator/) that specifically covered by problem – and it wasn’t anything to do with my directory permissions either. It was a bandwidth protection measure from my host, Hostgator!

Anyway, following the instructions on the site (copied and pasted below, for ease) – resolved the issue nice and quickly… and now I have a fully functioning, image resizing WordPress installation!

Here’s what to do:

1. Login to your Hostgator control panel and contact Live Chat Support.
2. Ask the support technician to white list your thumbnail generation file for mod_security . You will need to give your file name and path.  The file name mostly will be timthumb.php or thumb.php. You can find this file inside the WordPress theme folder. An example file path wp-content/themes/theme_name/thumb.php

This is apparently a known issue with Hostgator’s WordPress hosting and all their technicians should recognize your request.

This problem will be solved by them in minutes.

Mass marketing: email marketing

1st March 2010 Marketing, Web & PC stuff , , , by

Email marketing or emailshots are an easy way of contacting a large number of people quickly, easily and generally low cost.

However, there are pitfalls to watch out for so as to avoid being classed as a spammer. First of all, there’s varying legislation governing what you can send and to whom, depending on your country of operation. I plan on writing follow up articles about opting in or out and how to manage subscriber lists at a later date. This post is more concerned about the do-ing element of email marketing.

Yes, you can use your own email software such as Outlook Express, Outlook or Thunderbird… or even directly from your web mail accounts, if you decide to run things via web based services. The danger of doing this though, is that if you’re running a business – the last thing you really want or need is for your domain to be blacklisted because of email abuse. So, think very carefully about how you’re going to go about this.

A handy way to add a degree of safety to your mailshot activities is to use a third-party mailing application.

A couple of the better known ones are:

Not only can these manage varying subscription lists for you, but can safely send hundreds or even thousands of emails on your behalf and give you full statistical analysis of the success of your campaigns. Mail Chimp even offers a free package for low volume lists – allowing for up to 500 subcribers and 3,000 emails per month before requiring you to upgrade and start paying; whereas Campaigner, offers unlimited packages from just $10.

Does it matter that they’re not UK based?

The simple answer is, no. Support may not be as quick due to the time zones, but the prices are certainly worth the trade off.

How to configure Windows XP to log on automatically

28th February 2010 Web & PC stuff , , by

It’s more secure and better practice to not just have your computer log on automatically. Ideally, for security reasons, you should install a BIOS password too – but that may be a step too far for some people. Instead, you can just add that extra layer of security by not running your system as the computer administrator and setting up limited user accounts instead.

Using the Control Panel to set up users is fine, but if you want to be able to force them to log in at the Welcome Screen, you need to follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, then Run to get to the ‘Run’ box
  2. Then in the run box execute this command: control userpasswords2
  3. You will see a check box labelled ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’.
  4. Ensure there is a tick in this check from this check box.
  5. Click on OK.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to have to log in each time…

  1. Untick this check box.
  2. You’ll then be prompted to enter the user name and password you wish to automatically log on with, and then click OK.

Now anyone with physical access to your computer can use this machine. It makes your computer more convenient to use, but at the same time can pose a privacy / security risk.

If you need to start up the computer but do not want to log in automatically one specific time, then You can suppress the automatic logon by pressing the SHIFT key during the boot process.

If you want to permanently disable the auto-logon, you can execute this command from the Run box: rundll32 netplwiz.dll,ClearAutoLogon

Completely erase your PC

27th February 2010 Web & PC stuff , , , , by

If you’re selling your PC, donating it someone else or sending it to a charity – or even if you’re scrapping it, you should make sure that the system is 100% clean of every trace of data that could be used by someone less scrupulous.

There are paid solutions out there to achieve this – but there’s also a handy, free tool called Darik’s Boot and Nuke.

It’s free to download and use – and can be run from a CD. Just download the application and there’s an ISO in there ready to burnt by most CD burning software. Once your machine is completely clean you can do what you want with it, as there’ll be nothing linking it to you now. Of course, if you’re donating it or selling it, you might want to re-install Windows or whatever OS back on to it first.

What does their web site say about it?

Darik’s Boot and Nuke (“DBAN”) is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis.

DBAN is a free software product that can be used at home or in a business at zero cost. The only official place to obtain DBAN is by download at this web site. We do not sell DBAN media.

Download it

You can download it HERE

Job Aggregators

26th February 2010 Careers, General, Marketing, Web & PC stuff , , , by

There is an updated version of this article available here.

What are job aggregators?

They’re online services that trawl through the Internet, locating and indexing jobs from job boards and employers according to the niches or geographies in which they operate. They’ve been around for a while – and almost all of them make the claim of having the most jobs, being the largest job board, or the most visited. The simple truth is that they’re quite similar to each other.

Despite this, they should still play a role in both a candidate’s job seeking arsenal and in a recruiters or employers advertising portfolio.

For advertisers (recruiters and employers):

The best thing is that most of these job aggregators are free. Most of them operate without requiring any direct intervention and they’ll silently come and trawl your site, finding your jobs and advertising them on your behalf. Because they’re mostly doing this in real-time, you also don’t have to worry about ensuring positions are removed when they’re filled, or expired. Just remove them from your own listings and the aggregators will reflect this when they next re-index or aggregate your job feeds.

Some of the aggregators will come to your site automatically and start aggregating your jobs, especially if you readily make available RSS or Atom based feeds of your jobs. Others, you have to specifically register with them and provide the direct links to where they can pick up the feeds. It’s still limited input, for what can often be access to quite a large potential market of jobseekers.

For jobseekers:

The job aggregators represent a quick, easy and accessible route to the latest jobs. They can save time by reducing the number of sites that you have to visit to find the jobs that are relevant to you and as they’re typically presenting job search results in real-time, you can be assured you’re accessing the latest vacancies. The bad news is that there can be serious problems with duplication; and some sites will try and bundle additional (sometimes chargeable) services with the job searching process.

For web developers:

Some of the aggregators have started offering APIs now too, so that you can directly integrate a fully functioning job search element in to your web site. The benefit to this is that can be another added facet for the services you provide to your users. The main downsides are that you’re effectively directing traffic away from your web site and you never hold the jobs yourself on your site, therefore there are no SEO benefits here. You also have little control over what’s displayed or how it appears. But they’re low effort, zero cost options that certainly can be a part of some sites.

Alternatively, you could consider developing your own aggregator using off the shelf php scripts, or considering plugins for blogs or CMS systems that can mostly do the job for you.

List of job aggregators:

This list is going to be forever changing, so right now, these are the main job aggregators (primarily UK based) that seem to have the highest profiles

Simply Hired – http://www.simplyhired.co.uk/

Indeed – http://www.indeed.co.uk/

Workhound – http://www.workhound.co.uk/

Work Circle – http://www.workcircle.co.uk/

Job Applications –http://www.jobapplications.co.uk/

Career Jet – http://www.careerjet.com/

Job Safari – http://www.jobsafari.co.uk/

Creating a favicon

25th February 2010 Design, Web & PC stuff , , by

What is a favicon?

It’s one of those little images that sits up in the address bar next to the web address.

They’re really good for branding and help create an association between your web site, your logo and your overall styling.

There’s a good tool out there to help convert everyday images into favicon’s.

You can get to it HERE – it’s free to use and provides a handy zip file with a download of your favicon.

Custom built PCs

25th February 2010 Shopping, Web & PC stuff , , , , by

Why would you want to buy an expensive PC from the likes of PC World or Dell, when you can use a specialist, custom PC builder to produce a more powerful, better specification machine – and all for less money?!

After my old desktop PC started literally falling apart at the seams, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and purchase a new one. After a detailed online search – I came across Dino PC.

Two weeks after ordering, I have taken delivery of my new desktop system – all for around the same price as an average netbook.

They’re well worth a look if you’re in the market for a new machine.

How to make a post sticky

25th February 2010 Web & PC stuff, Wordpress , , by

It’s surprisingly easier than I thought it would be – and after a quick search with our friend Google, I found the answer.

In versions of WordPress after 2.7, there’s a new option that’s been added to make posts sticky.

It’s not in the full add or edit post option, but when you go to the quick edit post option you’ll see a little checkbox there for making the post sticky.

Of course, all this does is make sure your post stays at the top of the page – which is kind of handy to ensure that, on your homepage at least, there is a consistent message available.

Hosting – who do I recommend?

24th February 2010 Hosting, Web & PC stuff , , , by

Without doubt, my best experience of a reliable, low-cost, feature packed hosting company has to be Host Gator.

Yes, they’re US based, but so what? Apart from the billing process being prone to currency fluctuations, they’re just ultra reliable and very helpful if you ever have any problems.

I’ve used them for plenty of years and plan on staying with them too.

More to write on these in subsequent posts too… such as setting up databases, installing web applications and general configuration, tips and my experiences.

Marketing, business and web skills

24th February 2010 Careers, General, Marketing, News, Web & PC stuff, Wordpress , , , , , , , , by

So this web site is now a handy place for me to keep everything that I do online ordered and accessible, as well as test various online technologies and functionality.

My skills and experience includes:

  • Marketing – strategic & tactical marketing plans, advertising, etc.
  • Business & organisational health checks
  • Web design – HTML, PHP, Joomla, WordPress, others…
  • Graphic design – predominantly Photoshop – covering print and advertising design, business graphics, logos, invitiations, anything really…
  • Research – predominantly secondary, desk-based research – but also including advice and consultancy on alternative options and sources of information
  • Recruitment – how to recruit, services available, routes to market, CV writing advice, careers management and consultancy work, recruitment web sites, etc.
  • Social media marketing – just starting here (late, I know), but, watch this space…
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