If you have a WordPress site, and millions of people do, you should make sure that you backup your database on a regular basis. If you post every day, you should do this at least once a week. The frequency depends on you. How important is your work? How many posts do you want to lose?
TIP: In case you didn’t know, all of your posts are NOT in your wp_content folder. Your precious posts, all of your hard work, are in the MySql database. If you backup your WordPress installation or copy a few folders to your computer, you will still lose your posts if disaster strikes. Keep that in mind.
Yesterday, a backup from our hosting company, Fatcow by name, saved our bacon. We’d gone ahead and tried to move this site to another hosting account, still with Fatcow, but managed to screw it up totally. By late yesterday afternoon, most of our posts were either missing completely or were cut off in the middle. This morning we imported a database backup from two days ago and, thank goodness, everything is back to normal. Yes, we lost one post but that’s better than losing over 300, isn’t it?
How do you backup your database? It’s relatively simple but it depends on which software your hosting company is using. Fatcow uses vDeck. We’re used to CPanel but vDeck isn’t that much different. Each ‘panel’, no matter which one your hosting company uses, has full instructions for each type of job you need to do.
When you are backing up your database, don’t depend solely on a WordPress plugin. We’d been trusting a plugin for about six months, only to find that it was emailing us empty attachments that were useless when we attempted to restore our database. If a plugin works for you, fine, but perform your own backup on a regular basis.
After you create these backups using the automatic tools that your host makes available from your account, make sure you make copies of them. We use Dropbox but it’s a good idea to put them on a flashdrive as well. We’d recommend keeping three or four backups on hand at any one time.
That’s it for this post. Here’s a shot of vDeck so you can see what you’re into with FatCow:
Point and click is pretty much what you’ve got here.
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Our last post detailed how to hide or unhide your Facebook Likes ‘box’. Here’s that post: Part One of the Ultimate Facebook Likes Guide In that post, we showed you how to control the privacy of each like. Since that part is a bit confusing, here’s a guide to the whole ‘Like’ section.
Before we begin, some explanation is required. The ‘likes’ we are talking about here are those that pertain to your interests, things such as Music, Television, Books, etc. None of this applies to photos or comments that you click ‘like’ on. As you know, those ‘likes’ are controlled by the owner’s privacy settings, not yours. Are we clear on that? If you like Ally’s photo, only Ally controls who sees either the photo or the fact that you like it. The only way to hide your ‘like’ is to ‘unlike’ it. Same goes for your comments, your liking a comment, etc. You control things that you post. You do not control anything that you do not post.
Second point: Some things, such as Music and Film, can only be hidden or shown as a group. If you like the Beatles and want to show everyone that you do, you can show them ALL of the music you like. If you like the Backstreet Boys and DO NOT want anyone to know that, you have to hide ALL of the music that you like. If you’ve got your main section settings set to ‘Friends’ or ‘Public’, and you happen to add Britney Spears to your Music likes, everyone will know. The ONLY way you can hide it is to remove poor old Britney from your list or hide the whole section.
Let’s get started. From your Timeline, click on Update Info. The rest of this post flows down from the top to the bottom of the page that comes up next after you click Update Info.
Hide everything by clicking the Edit icon and selecting Hide Section.
Working down from the top, let’s see what you can hide and what you can’t.
1.About – You can hide different parts of your information. Click the Edit icon in each section to see what you can hide.
2. TV programmes – It’s all or one for this. Show everything or hide everything.
3. Books – All or none.
4. Films – All or none
5. Music – All or none.
6. Music – All or none.
7. Friends – Show all or hide all EXCEPT for mutual friends. If you have a mutual friend with someone, you can’t hide that.
8. Photos – You have complete control of all of your photos EXCEPT your Timeline cover photos. Please remember that you can’t hide your cover photos. We said that twice simply to emphasize it. If you have a questionable cover photo, everyone who sees your Facebook profile, even if they are not friends of yours, can see it.
9. Games (Recent Games, actually) – All or none.
10. Places – All or none.
That’s it for the sections of your ‘likes’ or your favorites. (Maybe everyone should start to use the term favorites instead of likes. It gets confusing otherwise, right? Read on….)
OK, now we are into the last section of these favorites. Conveniently, Facebook has named them Likes! The final section is divided up into these categories:
Other Likes, Inspirational People, Sports, Sports Teams, Athletes, Games, Activities and Interests.
In previous posts, we’ve used the term ‘page likes’ for these items. Until recently, you could hide some of your individual likes but now it’s different. For better or worse, you only get to show or hide ALL of each category. Click on any of the topics at the top of your Likes section. Most of them would probably be under the heading ‘Other Likes’, at least they were for us. Now you don’t have to worry about hiding some but showing others. It’s easy to hide them all. Click the edit icon on the right side and choose Edit Privacy. Here’s what you see:
Choose your privacy settings here.
If a Facebook page doesn’t fall into one of the main categories, it will be placed under ‘Other Likes’. Keep that in mind. As you scan your individual likes, you’ll see a sub-heading under the name. Some may be Theatre or Travel Agency or something completely different. Weixin, for instance, is listed as an ‘Interest’ under ‘Activities’. Weixin or WeChat really isn’t an activity, it’s a bit of software. Somehow it’s shown as an interest. Go figure.
We mention this because you may decide to show your ‘like’ of Inspirational People. Well, if you look at the list of inspirational people, you may be quite surprised at who Facebook deems ‘influential’. You may be expecting Mother Theresa but Charlize Theron shows up in the suggestion box. If you’ve chosen to Like Theron and expect her to show up under ‘Other Likes’ that you’ve hidden, you’d be surprised to find out that she’s in the Inspirational People section that you’ve chosen to show. See what we mean?
TIP: Facebook uses your Likes and Interests (Favorites) to tune the ads that you see on your pages. If you like Guitars, you will see Guitar ads. It’s that simple. Choosing a certain genre of movie or a certain type of music will almost certainly put you into an age demographic that Facebook will mine for ads that you just might click on. If do, they make money. Keep that in mind when you’re blithely ‘liking’ things that you see on Facebook.
There’s more to this than meets the eye, isn’t there? In our next post we’re going to get into these likes in more detail. Now you know what you can hide and what you can’t, we’ll work on some deeper concepts next time.
It seems that Facebook changes their own rules every week. They probably don’t change every week but in the last few months, many of our previous posts on Facebook likes have been made obsolete. Here we go with our latest how-to on this topic. If you’re lost your ‘Likes’, we’ll get them back. If you want to hide them from everyone but yourself, we’ll show you how. Grab a coffee, open your own Facebook profile and let’s get started.
How to Hide (or un-Hide) Your Likes on Facebook
1. Everything you do is done from your Timeline so start there. You will notice that the various boxes (photos, friends,likes, etc.) have been replaced by the words Timeline, About, Friends, Photos and, finally, More. Clicking on More brings down a menu, as seen here:
No likes here!
2. We’ve hidden our Likes from this menu. How do we get them back? Click on the words Update Info:
Update Info is where we start.
3. On the right side of the page that comes up, click on the pen/pencil icon on the far right. When the menu pops down, choose Edit Sections:
Click Edit Sections to bring up a new menu, one we haven’t seen before.
4. Here’s the new menu:
Here’s where you choose which topics show up on your Timeline when a friend clicks the word ‘More’.
Simply decide which sections of your favorites you want to show to your friends. There are three sections that you can’t hide, About, Friends and Photos, but you can certainly hide parts of each ‘section’ listed on that list. What can’t you hide? You can’t hide your Mutual Friends from anyone. Bummer, huh? Yes, you can hide your Friend list but you can’t hide Mutual friends. Keep that in mind, folks.
5. Notice that this time we’ve selected ‘Likes’. Click Save and then go back to your Timeline and click the word More.
What’s this? The ‘Likes’ are back? Cool!
Guess what? Our Likes are shown in the drop-down list. Pat yourself on the back! You’ve completed your assignment. This has been a short and simple way to get the Likes ‘box’ back. You’re right, it’s not a box but people still use that term to describe it so we will too. Obviously, perform the opposite steps if you want to hide your list of likes. What do you see when you actually click on the word ‘Likes’ on that menu? Here’s what we see:
Here they are, broken down into groups. These groups may vary from person to person.
Now you’re asking, “Who can see what?” right? Time to hover. Move your mouse (cursor) to the right of the words under each ‘Like’. You’ll see an icon that reflects your privacy settings for each of the ‘Likes’ shown.
Click on the icon if you want to change the privacy settings for each ‘Like’.
OK folks, that’s it for today. We’ve got the Likes box back or we’ve hidden it, it’s up to you. Next, let’s take a look at some privacy settings in your Likes area.
Questions, comments, oatmeal cookies…we love them all. Let us know what you can or can’t do and we’ll see what solutions we can come up with. Follow us on Facebook (just click Like) and keep up with all of our updates, posts and interesting stuff. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
While the Western world seems infatuated with Youtube, the Eastern world, at least those in China, cannot access it. The strange thing about this is that the West can access just about any site in China. What good is that you ask? Well, if you’re stuck on Youtube then you’re missing Youku!
Youku.com is China’s answer, some would say copy, of Youtube. While both sites show many of the same videos, there is a vast selection of Youku-only videos. Yes, the site is in Chinese but any searches can be done in English. If you’re looking for Jay Chou, for instance, just type in his name, forget about the fact that you don’t read or speak Chinese. Looking for episodes of Friends? Type in Friends. It’s that simple.
Baidu.com is a bit different. Baidu is China’s answer to Google. When you get to the site, you’re looking at what is essentially the same menu as Google. If you’re using Google Chrome, and you should be, here’s the magic it can do:
Oh no! It’s all in Chinese!Let Google work its magic and, suddenly, it’s all in English!
Once you’re feeling comfortable again, search for the videos you would like to see. Baidu is not as comprehensive as Youku, simply because Youku hosts its own videos while Baidu searches many other Chinese sites for its resources. We’ve only mentioned Youku, since it’s the most user-friendly, but there are many other Chinese video sites. We’d recommend that you stick with Youku, however. Some other Chinese sites, just like their counterparts in the West, are full of malware and adware. Stay safe!
Next time, we’ll show you how to record some of these videos to your computer. We’ll also take another look at downloading Facebook photo albums. We’ve had an update from one of the programmers of a plug-in we wrote about a few weeks ago. Stay tuned!
If you’ve had a problem getting your head around what Google Glass is, you’re in luck if you are a Star Trek fan. We mean the original series, of course, which started way back in 1966. Most of us already know that Star Trek was ahead of its time but we were shocked to see the similarities between that ‘old’ TV show and the brand new Google Glass. Take a tour of Google Glass through the eyes of Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock.
Two episodes of Star Trek are all we need to set the first scene here. In “The Menagerie”, a two-part episode from November 1966, and again in “Court Martial” from February 1967, we are shown videos of several events that occurred on the Enterprise. These videos are used in courtroom situations in attempts to prove guilt or innocence. Since there are no visible video recorders, we can only assume that the ship’s computers recorders made these videos, theoretically capturing every hour of life aboard the Enterprise, not just the Kodak moments.
The crucial moment. Did Kirk press the Eject Pod button at the wrong time?
Enter Google Glass and its ability to record every detail of your life, both the mundane ones and the extra-special ones, for as much or as little time as the wearer decides he or she wants. There have been reports of some wearers feeling a need to record everything for posterity. As with the Star Trek episodes, we’re sure you can see the importance of recordings such as this in similar courtroom situations.
Next up is Spock’s Tricorder. In almost every episode of Star Trek, Mr. Spock is seen intently staring at the tiny screen of the Tricorder that he carries with him. Kirk and the crew members of the landing party seem paralyzed until Spock checks things out with his Tricorder. This advanced bit of technology can identify just about anything that Spock points it towards. He is able to tell how old a structure is, if it’s real or an apparition; virtually everything about anything. Kirk and crew depend on the Tricorder far more than their own intuition. In many episodes, the Tricorder is the key to solving whatever dramatic situation they encounter. Do you see a similarity here? …starts with a G?
Mr. Spock and his ever-present Tricorder, the precursor to Google Glass.
Googling something is how we have created our very own Tricorder when we’re using a computer. With Google Glass we will be carrying that computer with us. Looking at something will link the wearer up to Google Image Search and, suddenly, all the details of whatever is within sight are known. Maps, directions, histories, recipes, reviews; it will all be there, just as it was for Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise.
When Kirk or Spock have a problem to solve, they turn to the ship’s computers. With reasonably broad instructions, the female-voiced computer can predict patterns, solve complicated scientific problems and so on. When the crew encounters a problem on a foreign planet, they use the ship’s computers to help them figure out a solution. In many episodes, the lack of access to that computer is the source of the drama.
With Google Glass, everyone will be able to solve problems just about as well as the crew of the Enterprise. We can see situations in classrooms around the world where Google Glass could possibly replace human instruction, certainly for the sciences. With a heads-up display on one eye and a fetal pig in front of the other, we think dissections will suddenly become a whole lot easier…but no less yucky. Math, physics, chemistry; well, the possibilities are endless, aren’t they. Asking a question with your voice alone will make our streets and public places just a bit more interesting, too.
How important are the various gadgets to the crew of the Enterprise? It seems they are so vitally important that one whole episode, “Arena”, is based on Kirk’s inability to access any of it, creating enormous tension and suspense until he finally defeats the Gorn using plain old brain power. Well, right now, we’re with Kirk and the Gorn, using our brain power in every life situation we experience…unless we’re linked to our various bits and pieces of technology. Once Google Glass becomes affordable for the masses, we’ll all be as smart as Spock and his Tricorder!
The Gorn looks menacing here but Kirk finally prevails.
We’ve had some fun with this post but we’re quite serious when we say that Google Glass, given the correct pricing structure, could possibly become as important to the modern wearer as the Tricorder and all of the Enterprise’s computers were to Captain Kirk and his crew. Let’s just hope there aren’t too many Gorn episodes in our futures.
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a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
