Freedom Countdown

Archive for the ‘Geeky Stuff’ Category

A friend mentioned that she set up a feed to my blog and I realized that I had no idea how she did that.  I didn’t remember setting anything up.  But sure enough at the very bottom of my blog is a little RSS.  Why in the world is it all the way down there?  Seems like it needs a more prominent position.  I’ll have to change that at some point.

I decided to learn more about setting up feeds and the first article I found, included feeds plus several other must have plugins.  I already had about half of them and am working on the other half.  It’s a great article for WordPress beginners so check it out.

Getting my inventory and workspace organized has finally risen to the top of my priority list.  I started about a month ago moving everything related to my business out to the barn, as we lovingly call outbuildings where I live.  That was the easy part.  The internet access was much harder.  I don’t have DSL in my rural area and rely on the  wireless internet provider from hell.  They are the only provider that works with my day job’s remote access requirements so I’m stuck with them until Obama brings me DSL or cell phone signals get stronger.

My first solution after hours of research on the internet, and a worthless conversation with a clerk in a Best Buy, was a range expander.  The theory is that it can pick up the wireless signal from my router at the edge of it’s range and extend it on into my barn.  The only problem was that the end of my router’s range appears to be in the road somewhere, hardly a spot to mount a range expander.

The next step was to find a stronger router.  I actually tried to make a homemade antenna based on an online video to boost the power of my existing router.  When this didn’t work, I bought the highest rated router I could find with two antennas.  After messing around with it for a week to no avail, I finally called the internet provider from hell and they came out, spent about three hours trying out a variety of things and decided we needed to hardwire the barn with an ethernet cable directly to the rooftop wireless antenna.

But…. they don’t bury cable or suspend it overhead between two buildings, they just lay it on the ground.  So we had to find someone willing to dig a trench in 105 degree weather.  A month later it’s all done and working great,  but it was every bit as troublesome as I had thought it would be.

Next step, hire a high school student to help me clean things up, get them organized, and do the shipping tasks I dislike so much.

I love Artisteer.  I’ve tried about 5 different tools to make a blog or a website and they’ve all been a lot of work, even though they claimed to be simple.  Artisteer truly is point and click and I’ve been able to do everything that I’ve wanted to do.  Plus for a $50 price tag, I can make as many website or blog templates that I want and none of them look the same.

I received feedback that my site was too blue.  And I agreed.   Plus I didn’t like the stock photo from Artisteer.  So I used Picasa to crop a picture of my grandfather’s windmill in Oklahoma  and I changed up the colors a little.  I like the new, clean, less blue look.

I think about the family farm in Oklahoma a lot and to me it represents a simpler time.  Of course, I was young and carefree when I was there, so no wonder Grandma’s house was so great.  For years, and even now, when I think about escaping or running away, this is where my mind takes me.

I decided to try Twitter and see if I could use it in some way that went beyond “I’m going to eat sushi” or “Just got home”.  I’ve read in several places that if that’s all you do with Twitter that you’re missing out on the power of Twitter.  It may take more imagination than I have, we’ll see.

Sign up was easy, but I quickly ran into a stumbling block.  Should I use my real name or my blog’s name?    I Googled the concept and read opinions that included using your  real name and not using your real name.

I decided to use my business name but found that I was limited to fewer characters than my name contains.  Keep that in mind if you haven’t selected a name yet.  I shaved off the last few letters and was left with a Twitter username of FreedomCount.  Not ideal, but I’m not willing to change my blog name at this point.

I also found that I could post my tweets (twitter posts) on my blog and vice versa with a WordPress plugin called Twitter Tools.

At the end of the first day, I had six followers.  I have no idea who they are or why they would follow me.  I’d like to think that they are interested in what I have to say, but if not, thanks anyway.  I’m just excited to have followers.

T-Minus 316 Days

While messing around with the WordPress plugins, I noticed several for backups.  What a shame it would be to do all of this work and a server problem or a hacker cause it to all be lost. I always say to backup whatever you’re not willing to recreate.

I had assumed that my blog was automatically backed up by my web host, but after reading a few horror stories about web host issues, I decided to be safe and install my own backup system.   By the way, my web host states that they do periodic backups of my files and site, but that they are not guaranteed to work and that there is a fee to access them.

I did a little research on two of the more highly rated backups, WP-DB-Backup and DBC Backup.  After reading the info at KLKL I decided to go with DBC Backup.  But when I installed it, I got an message stating that it had not been tested with my version of WordPress.  Since I don’t really know what I’m doing yet, I decided to go with the other option, WP-DB-Backup.

It was really easy to install and the configuration settings were self explanatory.  It has options to save the backup to your host, your hard drive, or your email address.  To provide another place besides my host where the files reside,  I opted for my hard drive.  I still need to select a method for backing up my hard drive.

It also has an option to make the backup automatic so that you never have to think about it again.  Simply check the box for the backup interval you want; daily, weekly, etc.

T-Minus 317 Days

I had planned to start this blog with an elegant countdown date of 365.  But I was bumfuzzled by all of the choices in blogging software coupled with some preconceived notions about how I wanted the blog to look.  As usual, I knew enough to get me in trouble.  If I had been happy with a quick and dirty solution I could have had a blog up and running on Blogger or WordPress in a few minutes.

After buying a domain name and doing some research I decided to go with WordPress for no other reason than it appeared to have more 3 column templates and my web host made Word Press easy to work with.

I’ve intended to learn HTML for some time and have even started a few tutorials.  I know it’s relatively easy, I’m just not interested.   So in my browsing, I ran across a little $49.99 software package called Artisteer that allows you to easily create your own WordPress templates.  As you are designing your template, the changes are reflected immediately on your screen.  It has an interesting feature where you can opt for Artisteer to suggest an idea for whatever component that you are working on… colors/header/footer, etc.

The tool can also be used to create a simple company website.  That will come in handy if I ever get around to updating the store’s website.  One drawback will be having to pay another $25.00 or so for an upgrade in a year if I want whatever new functionality they come up with.

After I created my template, I had to re-remember how to upload files to my web host and how to login to my WordPress account.  But thank goodness, I had written all of that down in a binder where I keep all of the arcane instructions required to run the online portion of the business.