How often do you backup your computer? Have you automated the process? Do you have a backup off-site, in case some tragic event wipes out everything in your home? Do you backup nothing, cross your fingers, and hope you never need a backup?
I used to be like most people who would answer those questions with the following answers: “Huh?”, “No”, “No”, “Yes!”
I also burned through several computers and even more hard drives in the last few years. Each time, I wished I’d had a backup, but I didn’t.
I am fairly certain all that is behind me now. I’m a stickler for backing up, but I don’t have to even think about it anymore. That’s a good thing, because my… Continue reading
Posted on December 12th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 8 Comments »
Ever noticed the fact that I display a post called Emergency Preparedness List in the Featured Posts section of the sidebar? That’s because I went through Hurricane Katrina and I know how important it is to be prepared for disasters. I want to make sure each of you is aware of it as well. But this post isn’t about real life disaster planning. This one is about planning for your web site or blog disasters. A disaster for your site is a disaster for your business, and you need to be prepared for it.
The very worst thing that can happen to a site is to lose it - I’m talking about having all of its files and data deleted… Continue reading
Posted on October 16th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | No Comments »
I mentioned the use of feed readers in yesterday’s post, and I thought it might be a good idea to delve into the topic of RSS feeds, subscribing to blogs, and and feed readers in more detail.
What are RSS feeds? A feed is a special file that lists summaries or full posts from sites or blogs, with a link to the original post. This feed might contain the last X posts from one blog, or it might be a mashup of posts from several sources, all related to one topic. As an example, this blog publishes a feed of the last 10 posts. If I wanted to, I could also put together a feed that lists the last 10 posts of several news sites. There… Continue reading
Posted on October 1st, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | No Comments »
The WordPress admin is fairly vulnerable to hackers. Hackers know where the admin is; they know the username for the admin is usually “admin”, so that only leaves one problem - the password. For a hacker, that’s not a really big problem. Just run a brute force attack and in a matter of time, there’s a good chance of figuring out the password and logging in. What comes next? Anything the hacker wants, including destroying the blog you’ve worked so hard on.
A good friend of mine just finished creating a WordPress plugin called Login LockDown that aims to make that task much, much more difficult for a hacker. The plugin records makes a record of the IP address every… Continue reading
Posted on August 29th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 1 Comment »
Adding a music clip to your audio or video project can make that project stand out and be noticed. You need to be aware though, that you can’t simply grab a clip of your favorite Top 40 song and use it on your latest Youtube video. Why? Because that’s illegal. Short and sweet. So what can you do?
Music and lyrics published before 1922 are in the public domain, but sound recordings of any music never go into public domain. You can record those old public domain songs yourself if you want. That can be used legally. Or you can record your own original music and use it however you want, of course. Anything else requires that you shell out some… Continue reading
Posted on August 17th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 2 Comments »
Lately, I’ve seen quite a lot of sites (usually blogs) put gray text on a black background. Tonight, I noticed it from StumbleUpon (a site I love, btw), and was just dismayed. (Yes, the screenshot above is from something SU wants me to know). Stop it, people! Just stop it. I don’t care how uber-cool it might be, it just plain sucks for readability. Show off your dark side in some other way, but don’t tick off your users in the process, k? If you want me to read what you have to say, make it legible, why don’t you?… Continue reading
Posted on August 15th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 5 Comments »
I had hoped that I could become less hard drive dependent by running off of Portable Apps, but my hopes were dashed today. This might be useful for some people, but the fact that the apps load and run EXTREMELY slowly makes it a deal-killer for me. If you do decide to try it out, make sure you have several hours free to install the apps. Some are quick, but some take a really long time to install.
Oh well, I’ll just use my brand new Lexar USB Flash Drive as a backup drive. For now, I’ll just copy my Documents folder over to the flash drive once in a while, and I’m also backing everything up nightly to Mozy Online Backup, so… Continue reading
Posted on August 13th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 5 Comments »
Yesterday, when discussing how I plan to survive my next computer crash, I mentioned that I was going to start storing music and photos on thumbdrives (USB Flash drives). Since that time, I’ve come to the conclusion that I *may* be able to run most of what I do from a USB flash drive. I’ve ordered a 2 GB flash drive and when it comes in, I intend to install a bunch of portable apps onto it. We’ll see how well I can function using this for almost everything I do on a daily basis on my computer. If you’re interested in trying this as well, here’s how to get started.
First head on over to PortableApps.com. You’ll be able to get just about any… Continue reading
Posted on July 24th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 2 Comments »
Social Networking - What is It? I get asked this fairly often, so I thought I’d give a brief explanation.
Social Networking sites are all different in some respects, but they all have some things in common.
- As the name implies, they are “social”, and revolve around a community of users who are all actively participating in some way (rather than just passively reading).
- The users are usually “sharing” something with each other.
- The users are often giving their opinions of something, either through ratings or approval/disapproval systems.
- The “shared items” are generally displayed more prominently based upon their ratings and/or popularity, which is based upon how the users rated them.
What gets shared is usually the biggest differentiator amongst the sites. Here are some examples of Things… Continue reading
Posted on July 16th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 4 Comments »
After using WordPress for a while now on different sites, I’ve come to the conclusion that WordPress simply rocks. I’m not sure I would ever use anything else for a new site, even a non-blog site. In any case, over time, I’ve used the following Wordpress plugins and widgets on some or all of my WordPress sites. Of course, there’s the old standards like Akismet, that no one should ever be without, but I’m not including those in the list. Some of these might be ones you’ve never heard of before, while some are pretty popular.
First things first, if you are starting a new blog, choose a theme that is widget-compatible. Whether or not you intend to use sidebar widgets, you’ll eventually discover… Continue reading
Posted on May 3rd, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Tech Advice | 5 Comments »
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