Archive for the ‘Virtual Technologies’ Category

Where to Learn How to Code – Free and Paid Plans

Monday, November 28th, 2022

Free

  • CodeHS – link, free and paid
  • freecodecamp
  • Khan Academy
  • LinkedIN Learning – via local library

Paid

  • Treehouse
  • Code Combat
  • Sitepoint – link, $72 for Premium
  • Code Avengers
  • code academy

Advertisers for Low Traffic Websites

Thursday, November 3rd, 2022

Monumetric

  • Minimum Pageviews: 10k
  • Application process is slow
  • Google certified Partner for Ad Optimization – yes

Ezoic

  • Minimum Pageviews: 10k
  • Wants ability to add or delete content
  • Google certified Partner for Ad Optimization – yes

Clickio.com

  • https://www.reddit.com/r/adops/comments/vi0i7e/clickio_what_are_your_thoughts/
  • Google certified Partner for Ad Optimization – unknown

Playwire.com

  • Minimum Pageviews: 500k+ for website; 1k users for apps
  • https://www.playwire.com/faq
  • https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.playwire.com
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/adops/comments/pjrbso/urgent_have_anyone_worked_with_playwire_how_are/
  • Google certified Publisher Partner – yes

Adthrive.com

  • Minimum traffic: 100k+
  • certified Partner for Ad Optimization – unknown

Mediavine

  • Minimum Sessions: 50k over 30 days
  • Google certified Publisher Partner – yes

Freestar

  • Minimum Sessions: unknown
  • Google certified Publisher Partner – yes

Monetizemore

  • Minimum Sessions: unknown
  • https://www.monetizemore.com/how-to-join/
  • Google certified Publisher Partner – yes

Adpushup

  • Minimum Sessions: must already be generating $5k
  • https://www.adpushup.com/frequently-asked-questions/
  • Google certified Publisher Partner – yes

How do I test my website on mobile??

Tuesday, October 11th, 2022

App Testing

Browser Testing

Reference Links

  • https://www.browserstack.com/guide/mobile-web-testing

How to Know If Your PC has been Hacked

Friday, January 7th, 2022

Security Tools

Intezer.com – upload files to analyze malware signature (free)

Systernals (Microsoft-owned) – Analytze Windows processes (Systernals Suite)

Trend Micro – Anti Malware Tools for Home Users (Trend Micro)

Microsoft CMD.EXE (Run as Admin) – netstat shows you list of applications and what they are listing (use triggers -b -o for more info)

Social Media Widget – Getting Your Custom Icons to Work

Saturday, May 12th, 2012

Social Media Widget, created by Brian, has to be one of the coolest widgets out there to handle all your social network connections.  It comes with lots of features out of the box but it is dynamic enough to allow end users to easily customize on their own.

As I was creating one of my websites, I wanted to leverage this widget but customize the icons to better fit my design.  But alas, I was not able to make it work initially. Upon further research (I got it to work), it was nothing more than correctly identifying the path to the icon folder!

Because there are so many variations involving hosting providers, WordPress installation methods, etc., it can get downright confusing.

Since Brian has done an excellent job of describing what needs to be done, I am simply going to outline minor tweaks I made to get my customized icons to work.

ENVIRONMENT

Host:  Hostgator Hatchling (limited to one domain assigned to the hosting package)

WordPress:  v.3.3.1

Framework:  StudioPress Genesis 1.8.1

Theme:  Magazine Child Theme, v2

Widget:  Social-Media-Widget-2.9.4

Icons:  Gray, 32px, created with Adobe CS5 Fireworks

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Log into Hostgator cpanel
  2. Navigate to WP-CONTENT, then create a folder called “icons”
  3. Copy files into this “icons” folder (as instructed by Brian, naming convention MUST BE IDENTICAL to his existing icon names.  Let’s use facebook.png as an example.  First, match the file name including lower letters. Second, make sure it ends in .png file fomat. Third, you can ONLY use 16px, 32px or 64px sizes.  Other sizes will not work.   Whatever size you decide, it should be standard across different icons)
  4. Install widget as instructed
  5. From the WP dashboard, click on APPEARANCE–>WIDGETS, then drag over the Social Media Widget to your target destination (in my case, the primary side bar after SEARCH widget)
  6. For my website, I made the following changes:
    • Title:  Connect with Us
    • Icon Size: 32px
    • Icon Pack:  Custom Icons
    • Added my profile URL links for Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and RSS.
  7. For the CUSTOMS ICON URL,  the default (sample) value was: http://wwww.yoursite.com/wordpress/wp-content/your-icons (another example Brian gave was: http://www.yoursite.com/blog/wp-conent/icons)  In my case with Hostgator, the formatting was slightly different:  http://wwww.yoursite.com/wp-content/icons
  8. For the CUSTOM ICONS PATH, the default (sample) value was: /path/to/your-icons I changed this to: /home/your-cpanel-user-id/public_html/wp-content/icons
  9. At this point, all my custom buttons showed up in my page.

When in doubt, contact your hosting provider for the exact path.  Hostgator online chat technician was awesome.  Good luck.

RESOURCES:

Hostgator – Server Path, Absolute Path

How to Create Drop Caps in Genesis and Thesis

Friday, May 11th, 2012

How To Create Drop Caps - Sample Text
Drop cap is simple enlarging the first letter of a body of text to draw readers attention. It is a very popular effect used in magazines and newspapers as well as online content because it is attractive and effective.

OVERVIEW

There are many different ways of accomplishing this task but the most effective way I found was through the use of a CSS stylesheet.

You may be aware that CSS stylesheet is allows design information to be stored in one location to make it easier to make broad changes (i.e. font size, font type, color, etc.)

So I started looking around and there were some very good suggestions (see below in the resource section), but I just could not make any of them to work in my particular situation so I decided to outline how I did it.  Hope it will work for you as well 😉

REQUIREMENT

  • WordPress.ORG v.3.3.1 or higher (this article applies to self-hosted wordpress.ORG, NOT wordpress.COM)
  • Genesis Framework v.1.8.1 or higher
  • Genesis Child theme – any version

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

In general, I do NOT like installing WordPress plugins for two reasons:

  1. Security – WordPress gets updated quite often to address security issues; I find that most plugins are not maintained often (free ones anyway)
  2. Performance – there is an inverse relationship between the number of installed plugins vs. web server performance.  More plugins force a web server to work harder, meaning your site may run slow (not good in terms of user experience)

So here is how I used CSS declarations to utilize dropcaps:

Step 1 – I use Hostgator so I logged in, then opened up a file manager

Step 2 – Navigated to where the style.css was located within the magazine child theme folder;

Step 3 – Opened it for editing

Step 4 – opened another Firefox window and downloaded Eka Kurniawan’s plugin (see below for the link)

Step 5 – Open the dropcap-shortcode.php in your text editor and copy the highlighted text

How to Create Drop Caps Style CSS code(here is the actual code)

span.dropcap {

display: inline;

float: left;

margin: 0;

padding: .25em .08em 0 0;

#padding: 0.25em 0.08em 0.2em 0.00em;/* override for Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers*/

_padding: 0.25em 0.08em 0.4em 0.00em; /* override for IE browsers 6.0 and older */

font-size: 3.2em;

line-height: .4em;

text-transform: capitalize;

color: #c30;

font-family: Georgia, Times New Romans, Trebuchet MS, Lucida Grande;

}

Step 6 – Switching to the FF window containing the Genesis – Magazine STYLE.CSS, past the code to the end;

Step 7 – Go to you page or post and simply use <span class=”dropcode”> </span> HTML tags to make your first letter a drop cap.  That’s it!

LAST WORDS

  • backup your style.css before making any changes; that way, you can revert to your backup if your new changes are no good;
  • If you have existing (and lots of) posts and pages, you can try using the automated route as outlined in the Binaryturf.com article.  Unfortunately, this did not work for me because each of my post/page contained an image at the top

RESOURCES

Greg Rikaby – http://gregrickaby.com/2011/04/how-to-create-drop-caps-in-thesis-and-genesis.html
Binary Turf – http://www.binaryturf.com/code-auto-dropcap-thesis-wordpress-themes/
Eka Kurniawan – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/drop-cap-shortcode/

Solution to your trouble with HP zr2740w monitor with HP Elitebook 8560w?

Monday, March 12th, 2012

I needed some additional screen real estate to efficiently handle coding / graphics design work so I decided to purchase an external monitor for my HP Elitebook 8560w Workstation Notebook (without a docking station)).

I ultimately decided to purchase HP zr2740w 27″ LED monitor over Dell Ultra Sharp 27″, Apple Cinema Display 27″ and HP’s own 2711x because:

  1. zr2740w has superior IPS panel (advantage over 2711x);
  2. zr2740w has higher resolution at 2550×1440 WQHD (advantage over 2711x with 1920×1080 HD);
  3. zr2740w has superior LED lighting vs LCD lighting (advantage over Dell and Apple);
  4. zr2740w has cheaper price than Apple or Dell;
  5. zr2740w has a three year warranty (advantage over Apples one year warranty)

I purchased the monitor directly from HP Direct because:

  1. they offered free overnight shipping;
  2. offered a discounted price ($679 as of March 10, 2012)

Yes, I could have avoided paying sales tax by purchasing from an online retailer but HP offered 30 day satisfaction guarantee.  On top of that, if you made a purchase with an Amex OPEN credit card, you could receive up to 10% cash rebate (5% for purchases less than $1,000; 10% for $1,000 or higher purchase) from American Express.

Anyway, my excitement quickly turned sour when I hooked it up to my HP Elitebook 8560w workstation notebook (XU083UT#ABA) via the DisplayPort cable (included with the monitor).  All I could see was a (lighted) empty screen and no matter how much I tried tweaking the Windows 7 Professional display configuration, the external screen did not display any data.  After 30 minutes of frustration, I finally called the HP Small Business tech support (800.334.5144).

He made me go through the usual battery of questions to triage the problem:

1.  What is the notebook configuration (Model XU083UT#ABA, BIOS f.20, 16 GB memory, ATI m5950 1GB v.ersion 8.850.7.3000 – 20111116

2.  Is the master power switch on (in addition to the soft power on/off switch in front of the monitor, there is a physical on/off switch where the power cord gets plugged in)?

3. Is the DisplayPort cable HP OEM part (there are some incompatibility issues with third-party DP cables) and tightly plugged in?

4. Reset the BIOS to factory default

5. Try using a DVI or VGA cords (could not try DVI because my notebook does not come with one;  could not try VGA because the monitor does NOT come with a VGA port!)?

6.  Run scanning tools from here (http://www.hp.com/go/ispe) using the Internet Explorer (the scan did not work; app got stuck and got nowhere);

7.  Reset the monitor to factory configuration by unplugging the monitor from power, then hold the power button for 60sec while plugging in the power cord.

When I mentioned that googling “HP Elitebook 8560w zr2740w problem” produced results with people who are having same problems (with questions being posted at hp forums to boot with HP engineers providing a beta display driver!), the tech agent told me he would escalate my case to a level 2 support agent.

An hour later, a level 2 agent sent me an email with an ftp link to SP56103.exe file with the caveat that it is in BETA and that a final driver will be published at the end of March 2012.

When I was waiting, I found the newest AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC) software (v.3.00.0851) here and got my monitor to work (you may encounter some installation error messages; just ignore them and reboot) so I did not try the SP56103 driver.  I will uninstall my latest CCC app and install the final driver from HP later.

Now that the monitor is working (FHD or 1920×1080 on my notebook and 2560×1440 WQHD on my external monitor), I can get some serious work done!

Modify custom_functions.php and custom.css DIYtheme files

Saturday, February 4th, 2012

DIY Thesis Theme for WordPress is an awesome framework for WordPress that provides excellent web site customization flexibilities.  One cool feature allows users to modify  custom.css and custom_functions.php files via text editor that gives almost limitless possibilities in terms of design and functionality. Although there are number of other excellent fram

But the ease of which a user can  make changes to these two files can be a double-edged sword.  Especially if one makes a single typo in the custom_functions.php file which can instantly disable the entire sit.  Furthermore, if a person makes a change that causes a fatal error, the user may not be able to correct it using the WordPress application.

In this post, I will outline detailed steps to minimize the risk and what to do about it should you encounter that problem.

Back up custom_functions.php and custom.css files

Because there are many variations between hosting providers and graphical user interfaces, I am going to assume the following:

  • You have WordPress v3.1 or higher;
  • You have DIYtheme v1.8 or higher;
  • You have access to your hosting server via cpanel;
  • You can use cpanel file manager to access web files;

Step 1: Login to your host via cPanel (fig 2.1)

Step 2: Click on the File Manager icon (fig 2.2)

Step 3: If you have multiple domains associated with your cpanel, choose the appropriate domain (fig.2.3).  By the way, you will note that by “GO” button is grayed out.  That is because my account access timed out when I took this screenshot.  Simply log out and log back in and you will be able to click on the “GO” button.

fig 2.1-cpanel

fig 2.2-file manager

fig.2.3-select domain

Step 4:  Navigate to this path (“public_html/mvirtualoffice.com/wp-content/themes/thesis_18/custom“).  Please note that cPanel file manager works slightly different than that of Windows Explorer.  To drill down the file directory, you need to click on the folder icon (fig.3.1.A).  Clicking on the file or directory name allows you to change the name of that file/directory (fig.3.1.B).

Step 5:  Create a backup directory called backup-20120204 by first clicking on the New Folder icon (fig.3.2.A) then completing the name field (fig.3.2.B).  Because I frequently change my custom_functions.php and custom.css files, I use a date (yyymmdd) format for my own tracking needs but obviously you can choose any naming convention to suit your needs

Step 6: While holding down the CTRL button, click on the custom.css and custom_functions.php files (fig.3.3). While still holding the CTRL button, drag the highlighted files into the newly created backup directory. 

Please note that dragging and dropping the highlighted files while pressing down the CTRL performs a COPY function.  If you were to do this step without pressing down the CTRL key will instead perform a MOVE function.

fig.3.1

fig.3.2

fig.3.3

 

Modifying custom_functions.php

There are two ways to modify a custom_functions.php file.   You can do it directly through cPanel or DIYtheme.  I chose DIYtheme route because it is faster to make rapid, on-the-fly changes.

Step 1: Log into WordPress

Step 2: Click on the Thesis link to expand the drop down list

Step 3: Click on the Custom File Editor

Step 4:  Select custom_functions.php from the drop down menu and click edit

fig.4.1

fig.4.2

fig.4.3

Recovering from a custom_functions.php error

There are two possiblescenarios:

Scenario 1:  File is corrupted but you can still access the WordPress-DIYtheme application
Scenario 2:  File is corrupted and you CANNOT access the website,Wordpres or DIYtheme application

For scenario 1, fixing it is quite easy.  Just open custom_functions.php version prior to the broken one in notepad, copy and paste via DIYtheme’s Custom File Editor.

For scenario 2, involving a fatal error where you are unable to access the front end (website/WordPress/DIYtheme), you need to log in using your cPanel credential and either copy & paste using cPanel’s editor, or just upload the custom_functions.php text file version that is working.

Thanks for reading!

Where is the terminal application under Ubuntu 11.10?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

I have been using Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal for awhile so I was able to find what I needed quickly, including my trusty command line interface application called terminal.

After upgrading to Ubuntu 11.10, I just couldn’t figure out where the terminal app was located.  After searching around a bit, I finally found it by clicking on the Ubuntu logo and typing in “terminal” in the search box.  Little bit clunky like how Windows Vista arbitrarily moved around applications from Windows XP (thank goodness Vista was retired though!)

 

 

Visio 2010 crashing with Windows 7

Friday, October 21st, 2011

Microsoft Visio 2010 is an excellent tool to draw various objects, including network schematics.

However, my Visio 2010 under Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) kept crashing

Same here, remove the add on.

In Visio select File/Options/Add-Ins/

Manage COM Add-Ins/Click Go

Select ‘Send to Bluetooth’

Click Remove

 

Yeah finally this worked for me Tools -> Trust Center -> Add-ins-> Check “Disable all aplication Add-ins”.