Thursday, 28 December 2017

Google Drive for Mac / PC is going away. Alternative - Google Backup and Sync

google-drive-mac-pc-going-away-backup-and-sync
For those of us using Google Drive software on our Windows or Mac to save files from our computers and sync to Google Drive, "Google Drive for Mac / PC is going away soon". If you are still using Google Drive, you might have seen the notice when starting Google Drive desktop app. As a user, we might be wondering if Google Drive is going away completely? What happens to all the files saved on Google Drive?
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Monday, 11 December 2017

Best Free Windows Software For Renaming Files In Bulk

rename-files-in-bulk-batch

It is imperative that proper naming of files is important to make good used of search feature in any operating system including Windows. Very often, we see files shared to us without proper file names such as "New Document.docx" or "File01.pdf". When such files are stored on our hard drives and accumulate, it becomes more difficult to find. It is always a good practice to name files properly so that the files can be quickly searched. While that is a good way to start, if you have a lot of files to rename already, then we can use this excellent free software that will do that job. In this post, we shall see how to rename files in bulk using a free software called -Advanced Renamer.
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Saturday, 9 December 2017

Free OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software for Windows

Optical Character Reader (OCR) is a software program that uses Optical Character Recognition to read specific characters on sheets and convert them to digital characters. Optical Character Reader (OCR) software can be used to convert printed data to digital data without typing, such as from scanned document. Optical Character Reader (OCR) is very useful when there is a need to digitize text from books, scanned documents etc. Once Optical Character Reader (OCR) extracts the text, the text can be copied to or saved to other text editors such as Notepad or even Microsoft Word for further editing.

Here are some Free Optical Character Reader (OCR) software for Windows Operating system
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Saturday, 25 November 2017

Unable to login to phpMyAdmin in XAMPP: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)

unable-to-login-phpmyadmin-xampp-password-root
Unable to login to XAMPP's phpMyAdmin page : Error #1045 - Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO).
In this post we shall see how to set root password for phpMyAdmin to resolve the access denied error while accessing phpMyAdmin. This may usually happen if XAMPP is reinstalled on the same computer.
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Friday, 24 November 2017

Useful WordPress PLugin to resolve HTTPS insecure content and mixed content warnings on WordPress

wordpress-plugin-insecure-mixed-content-errors

Nowadays, most recent browsers expect websites to have HTTPS in the URL, meaning SSL certificate installed on server, which makes websites which used to be accessible over simple, insecure HTTP protocol to more secured HTTPS. In one of the previous post -I posted about "How to fix partially encrypted/mixed content errors after switching from HTTP to HTTPs (SSL)". In this post, we shall discuss particularly on "How to resolve HTTPS insecure content and mixed content warnings on WordPress Websites?"
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Tuesday, 21 November 2017

How to create a WordPress Child Theme?


WordPress has tons of free and premium themes you can use for almost any kind of website. But there may be a need to do some customization here and there to fit your need. Customization should not be done on a base WordPress theme as the changes will be lost when the theme is updated to a new version. That is why it is always important to use a WordPress child theme instead. In this post we shall discuss about how to create a Child Theme in WordPress.
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Sunday, 19 November 2017

Remove or modify Copyright From WordPress Free Theme's Child Theme Footer


Remove or modify Copyright or credit links from WordPress Theme's Child Theme Footer? The title seems a little confusing, but what I mean is if you want to remove or modify the copyright link in the footer of a child theme whose parent theme is a WordPress Theme wherein the creators allow editing or removing the credit links. Phew! Well, I specifically mentioned "allow to remove the credits" because, "free theme" doesn't mean we can always freely remove credits from themes wherever we want. And since it is the work of others, it is recommended to credit the creators though I know many people remove the credits just like that.

Anyway, in this post we shall discuss how to remove or modify the copyright credit link from the footer of a child theme of a WordPress theme, which allows removing the credit links.
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Thursday, 16 November 2017

How to resolve Drupal unable to send email - contact the site administrator?

drupal-unable-to-send-emails-smtp
In earlier versions of Drupal or for that matter even WordPress, the site could send email notifications easily using the PHP mail function. However, most hosts have disabled the default mail function due to security and vulnerability reasons. Therefore, emails will not go. This is not a Drupal issue as the same issue we see on WordPress as well. In this post, we shall discuss how to let Drupal site send out emails using a third party module.
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Some steps to prevent Open Source CMS websites from hacking


websie-hacker-hacker-cms


Some factors that makes Open Source CMS vulnerable to hacking attacks:
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Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Someone else is using your Google Adsense code on their website without permission?


Have you found out that someone else is using your Google Adsense code on their website without permission? You are not alone. A simple Google search indicate that several others are facing similar issues. Is there something to worry about? Yes. At first it sounds okay that someone else chose to use your Google Adsense code and that the revenue from that website (if the site has some traffic) will be yours, but on the other hand it is risky for your Google Adsense account as it might have been done with bad intentions to spoil your Google Adsense status. Such malicious usage may lead to Google Account being banned. So what can be done?
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Friday, 10 November 2017

OSCLASS Tips: How to modify or change the published date of ad listing on OSCLASS website?


If you are using OSCLASS CMS to run a classified ad website and you want to modify the published date of an ad listing, there is no option in OSCLASS admin dashboard to do so. In this post, we shall discuss an alternate way how to modify or change the change the published date of ad listing on OSCLASS website.
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Wednesday, 8 November 2017

How to Fix the HTTP File Upload Error in WordPress?

http_error_file_upload_wordpress

How to Fix the HTTP File Upload Error in WordPress?
Today, I encountered an HTTP error when uploading file (a pdf) to WordPress website. While editing a post or page, on clicking 'Add Media', the file seems to upload as the progress bar progresses but after a while WordPress shows HTTP error. In this post, I would like to share how I resolved or fixed the HTTP File Upload Error in WordPress.
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Tuesday, 7 November 2017

How to hide / Show Blogger Widgets/Gadgets In Home Page, Post, Static Pages, Archive Page etc.

hide show blogger widgets using blogger conditional tags
Blogger allows various gadgets or widgets to be included in Blogger blog. Also, apart from the default Blogger widgets, we can also include HTML or JAVASCRIPT codes in Blogger blogs. At times, we may not like to display the widget on all pages. Instead, we may want to hide widgets on certain pages. In this post, we shall see how to 'Hide / Show Blogger Widgets/Gadgets In Home Page, Post, Static Pages, Archive Page etc.'
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Monday, 30 October 2017

Drupal 8 Tips: Display only one image from multifield image on teaser

drupal8_display_one_image_multi_image_upload_views

On Drupal 8, there is a useful feature in Views Module (now in Core) settings called "Multiple field settings" with which we can display only one image from multifield image on teaser. As seen in the image above, each of the content has multiple images but only one is displayed in the teasers.
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Thursday, 19 October 2017

Paint.NET Free Photo Editor Resize Photo For Government Website Requirements 3.5 cm x 4.5 cm


In this post, we will discuss about using Paint.NET for resizing photo to 3.5 cm x 4.5 cm and other specifications required by most Indian Government exam websites . In my previous post "Tools for editing photos for government exams online application in India", I wrote about a few photo editing tools that can be used to edit and resize photos for the purpose of uploading to Indian Government exam application websites where they usually ask photos in specific dimensions and size. And to my surprise, it is one among the most visited articles on this blog. In the post I shared some basic and common photo editors that may be used for editing photo for government purposes.
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Wednesday, 13 September 2017

Issue importing WordPress database from development to live server: 1273 - Unknown collation: 'utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci'


So I was trying to import a MySQL database exported from local development machine to a live server and I got the error thrown by phpMyAdmin:
#1273 - Unknown collation: 'utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci'
On some systems, the error could be: Unknown collation: 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci'
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Monday, 11 September 2017

How to fix WordPress plugin update fail - Plugin update failed ?



Alright, so I had some notifications in a WordPress website to update some plugins, which is damn easy in WordPress. Yes, just click update and finish. But no, this time, a new situation had cropped up. On clicking on 'Update' from the interface, I got the message "Update Failed: Plugin update failed". I immediately turned to Google, searched for solutions others have tried for this WordPress plugin update failed error. Here are a few things findings and solution that worked for me.
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Saturday, 9 September 2017

How to use WhatsApp on desktop computer?

Image Source: Whatsapp.com


WhatsApp is currently the most popular messaging app for many users worldwide, almost diminishing the need to use SMS for personal messaging, though SMS is still in use for some other purposes such as receiving OTPs and updates from online shopping etc. I suppose, that may be the case for many other users, now that most users have smartphones and most people use mobile data to stay connected even when moving around. Nowadays, I see many people use WhatsApp for work also. Work related groups are created for quick updates and information.

While at home, I like to use WhatsApp on the computer where I can use the computer keyboard to type conveniently. It is also convenient when I have to copy some text from websites or emails to send to someone. In this post we will see how to use WhatsApp on a computer and how to install the WhatsApp software on computer.
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Sunday, 3 September 2017

How to fix partially encrypted/mixed content errors after switching from HTTP to HTTPs (SSL)?

connection is not secure https mixed content

How to fix partially encrypted/mixed content errors after switching from HTTP to HTTPs (SSL)?

HTTP (or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is the protocol or method used by which data is moved around the Web but HTTP is not secure. HTTPS (or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) is the answer to the data protection issue. It used to be mostly used by eCommerce and banking related sites. HTTPS protects data by encrypting it before sending it either way by using an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate. Most websites still run on HTTP which is alright if there is not critical information being transferred such as login, password, bank details etc. But when details such as those mentioned are involved in the transfer, HTTP is not secure as there are ways and means by which bad guys can intercept and misuse. But even after applying HTTPS, browsers may block some contents because they are still being served over HTTP. In this post, we will check how to fix partially encrypted / mixed content errors after switching from HTTP to HTTPS.
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Thursday, 24 August 2017

How to group or un-group icons on Windows 10 Start ?

start-menu-group-ungroup-windows10

This is a short post to discuss how to group or un-group programs in Windows Start screen. But before we get there, if you have a new Windows 10 computer, then you might have observed that there are lots of stock programs preinstalled and occupying space on the Windows 10 Start screen. Let's first see how to remove some of those program icons and keep only what we need. And then, we shall see how to group icons and un-group icons.
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Sunday, 20 August 2017

How to enable "Send email as" in Gmail to send email on behalf of another email ?

how to enable send email as in gmail to send email on behalf of another email

Do you know we can add another email to Gmail and send emails as the new email added? This is especially convenient for website who have email address with website domain and also a Gmail address. In this post, we shall see how to add another email to Gmail and send email from the new email from Gmail.
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Sunday, 13 August 2017

Useful WordPress Plugins for Admin User Interface Customization, Maintenance Mode etc.


WordPress is a pretty easy to use Content Management System (CMS) for blogging and for development of various kinds of websites. WordPress after installation can be used as is pretty easily but there are lots of things in the WordPress admin area that some users don�t need to see or use. Requirement to customize the admin pages might arise to hide certain things that are not required to be displayed to other users granted access to manage the website- such as Authors, Editors and Contributors etc. For example WordPress by default shows some default widgets such as WordPress news in the Dashboard area. This may not be required by some to be shown to Authors/Editors. Similarly, admins may like to hide some post meta-data as too many data can be overwhelming to some. Admins can decide what is appropriate for their users to see or not. For all such requirements, there are plugins available for customization of Admin User Interface.

Some useful WordPress Plugins for Admin User Interface Customization

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Wednesday, 2 August 2017

Four FREE Android Phone Manager / PC Suite for Android Mobile Phones

free desktop android phone manager pc suite

Quite often we end up in need of backing up our smartphone data to our local computer. That is when PC Suite or desktop phone manager comes in handy. Nowadays, we also have cloud storage to backup some of our data but then, cloud storage comes with limited storage if free and of course, it required data connection to upload (better do it on WiFi). And generally, not all photos and videos we took from our phones are not worth uploading all to cloud storage. That would be a waste of our precious space. So the ultimate choice is to store it on our computer or on external hard disks. That's when PC suite and phone manager comes in handy. We can also copy or transfer files from phone to computer and vice-versa just by using USB cable but having a PC Suite helps us in doing more with our phone than just transfer files. In this post, we shall see top five FREE PC Suite or phone manager software for Android smartphones.


Some phone manufacturers provide their own PC suite. We may fondly remember Nokia PC Suite as well from those days. Others include Samsung's Kies, Mi Phone's Mi PC Suite etc. But if your phone manufacturer did not provide a PC suite software or if the pc suite software is not working as expected, you can try any of the below free desktop Android phone managers to manage your Android phone from a computer.

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Tuesday, 1 August 2017

How to access a website that shows "Your connection is not secure"?


When I browse a website I see "Your connection is not secure". What to do?
If you are trying to access a website served on HTTP then most probably you would see "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private". In some cases, the reason for the error could be due to the following reasons.

Browsers today indicate whether a website is secure or not by the following icons on the left of the address bar:
  • Lock Secure
  • Info Info or Not secure
  • Dangerous Not secure or Dangerous

Reasons for "Your connection is not private " error could be due to:
  •     Wrong date and time (User's end)
  •     Antivirus block SSL Connection (User's end)
  •     Invalid Browser Cache and Cookies files (User's end)
  •     SSL not implemented (Website owner's end)
  •     Expired SSL certificate (Website Owner's end)
  •     Invalid SSL Certificate Setup (Website Owner's end)
Solutions for "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private" due to the above errors:

    Wrong Date & Time:  (User's end)
If computer or device's date & time is incorrect, the browser is unable to verify the SSL certificate. Check your system date and time and correct it. Then try again.
   
    Antivirus Blocked SSL Connection:  (User's End)
Besides wrong date & time, antivirus software may be blocking SSL connections. Disable the antivirus and try again. If it works with antivirus blocked, then you need to check your antivirus settings to allow SSL connections.
   
    Invalid Browser's Cookies & Cached Files: (User's End)
Invalid Cache and cookies can also cause this error. Try clearing cookies and cached files in the browser and then try again.
   
    Expired SSL Certificates: (Website owner's end)
In some cases, the owner of the website might have applied SSL but the certificate expired. In that case, the website link may have HTTPS in the URL but there will be a red mark in the URL. In this case, the user cannot do anything about it. A user may notify the website owner if there is a way to. As a user, if you need to access the website and the website is trusted, then you can proceed to access the website by:

  • On Firefox browsers: click Advanced and add Exception. 
  • On Chrome browsers: click "Proceed to www.websitename" 
    Invalid SSL Certificate Setup: (Website owner's end)
In some cases, the "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private" error could be due to invalid setup of SSL certificate. As a user there is nothing you can do from your end.A user may notify the website owner if there is a way to. As a user, if you need to access the website and the website is trusted, then you can proceed to access the website by:
  • On Firefox browsers: click Advanced and add Exception. 
  • On Chrome browsers: click "Proceed to www.websitename" 


How to access a website that shows "Your connection is not secure"?

The "Your connection is not secure" or "Your connection is not private" error could be due to any of the reasons discussed above or something else. Users may check if the error is occuring from their end such as incorrect system date and time etc. But if the issue is from the website owner's end, there is nothing a user can do. 

 If you trust the website (well, not the connection), and you have to access it, then you can go ahead by following the steps below in Firefox browser:
  • On the page where "Your connection is not secure" message is displayed, click on "Advanced"
  • Now click on Add Exception.
  • Click on Confirm Security Exception
  • If you want, you can view more information regarding the problematic certificate by clicking the View button.
Similarly in Chrome, you can click on "Proceed to www.website..." to continue accessing the website.

There are some detailed steps to check more when you see "Your connection is not secure" here.

Sunday, 23 July 2017

How to edit or hide "Thank you for creating with WordPress" link in WordPress admin pages?

hide-thank-you-for-creating-with-wordpress-2

If you are a WordPress website admin, you might have noticed that there is a link in every admin page - "Thank you for creating with WordPress" - at the bottom. Now if you have created website using WordPress, it is okay to give a little credit. But this link is visible only to admins and not to visitors. So it is actually useless. In this post, we shall see how to change or edit the "Thank you for creating with WordPress" link in WordPress admin pages.
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How to disable country specific redirection of Blogger Blogspot sites?

How to disable Blogger Blogspot site from redirecting to country specific domain?
If you are using Blogger Blogspot, you might have noticed that Google redirects Blogger Blogspot sites to country specific URLs. For example, if I open this blog whose URL is the-blogger-tricks.blogspot.com, it gets redirected to the-blogger-tricks.blogspot.in, since I am from India. Similarly, a visitor from UK would see the-blogger-tricks.blogspot.co.uk and so on. You can find the reason from this update here why Google chose to implement country specific domain. In a nutshell, Google implemented country specific domains so that is a site need to be blocked in a certain country but made available on others.

But for bloggers, it creates issues especially with social stats like Tweet counts, Google+, Facebook Likes and even Facebook comments. Therefore, many users prefer to disable the domain redirection. In this post we will see how to implement Blogger from redirecting to country specific domains.
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How to Disable or Hide WordPress Dashboard Widgets?

hide-disable-wordpress-default-widgets-in-dashboard

If you have a WordPress website installed, you might have seen that there are some default widgets on the WordPress dashboard as shown in the screenshot above. The WordPress dashboard is the landing page right after an admin logs in. The default widgets (as of WordPress version 4.8 ) are - "At a glance", "Activity", Quick Draft" and "WordPress events and news". There may also be some other widgets available by default from plugins we installed. In this post, we will see how to disable or disable unnecessary widgets from the WordPress dashboard.
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Wednesday, 19 July 2017

Display YouTube videos in a gallery in WordPress website and how to get YouTube API Key

youtube-videos-gallery-wordpress-plugin-api
YouTube Videos Gallery in WordPress

There may come time when we need to show YouTube videos on websites. As most of us may already know, we can easily embed YouTube videos in web pages by simply copying the YouTube embed code from a particular YouTube video and put it in web page to display the YouTube video. Similarly, we can show YouTube library.

In this post, we shall discuss how to add a YouTube videos gallery in WordPress website that I did for one project recently. The requirement is to post videos on a YouTube channel and show the same to the WordPress YouTube Gallery to display.
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Wednesday, 5 July 2017

How to show labels widget expanded instead of collapsed in new Blogger theme 2017?

How to show labels expanded instead of collapsed in new Blogger theme 2017

Google released new themes for Blogger in 2017 and they are great! If you haven't seen them, check them out here - Check out new responsive Blogger themes released by Google! They are modern and elegant design. I have already blogged on some posts related to the new Blogger themes which you can find from this link - Blogger Themes 2017.

Now, one thing I wanted to change in the new Blogger theme I have applied on this site was to display labels expanded. Yes, the new Blogger theme show all the labels collapsed. So, a user has to click on the title or drop down to see first few labels and then click on "Show More" to see all the labels selected during the widget setup. I wanted to display at least the first few labels at least.
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Tuesday, 4 July 2017

How to resolve - Missing Facebook comments on Blogger sites due to country specific redirection

How to resolve - Missing Facebook comments on Blogger sites due to country specific redirection

If you have applied Facebook comments on Blogger blog and you are not able to see some of the Facebook comments, this post is for you. In this post, we will discuss how to resolve - missing Facebook comments on Blogger sites due to country specific redirection by Blogger.
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Facebook comment on website - Also post on Facebook - where is it displayed?

facebook-comment-also-post-on-facebook-wall

This is a post w.r.t a question I got via Facebook comment on a blog post on "How to add Facebook comments on Blogger site?" in another post (link here). The questions are given below. I won't be able to reply to him with screenshots in a Facebook reply. Hence, this post. And may be it will also be useful as a reference for others too. So, in this post, we will discuss what happens when a Facebook user comments on a website with Facebook comments integrated and where the comment appears when "Also post on Facebook" is selected by the commenter.
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Sunday, 2 July 2017

Selfie stick not working on Redmi Note 4 ? Check this demo video and selfie stick settings

Selfie Stick not working settings

Selfie stick not working on Mi Redmi Note 4? Check out this video for selfie stick demo on Redmi Note 4 and settings required.



Redmi Note 4 and Selfie Stick Demo and Settings.
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Friday, 30 June 2017

How to display Google Adsense after the featured post or first post on Blogger new theme 2017?

adsense-after-featured-first-post-blogger-new-theme

Google introduced new themes for Blogger in 2017 and if you have applied those to your blog, great! Congratulations! In this post, we shall see how to display Google Adsense after the featured post or first post on Blogger new theme 2017. Not just Adsense, we can add and display anything else if desired.
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How to receive emails from website using contact forms?

Contact Forms are great to let website visitors contact you for any queries or for specific purpose. Contact Forms are found on most websites nowadays. When we build a website, we usually include a �Contact form" on the website for users to contact us. Once we buy a domain and hosting services from a service provider to host the website, we also usually get email address along with it. And it looks professional to have emails with the website domain name instead of using internet email such as gmail or Yahoo mail. In this post, we shall see how to setup Contact Form and how to receive emails sent from the website.
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Monday, 26 June 2017

How to show Google Adsense after the first post on Blogger home page (mobile and desktop)?

How to show Google Adsense after the first post on Blogger home page

Google Adsense is the preferred advertisement platform for most Bloggers. It is very easy to implement. It can be added to the Blogger site in so many ways. But basically, in three ways -
1) By choose to auto display ads by Blogger
2) by adding the Adsense code in HTML/JavaScript widgets or
3) directly adding in the Blogger template.
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Sunday, 25 June 2017

How to hide featured image on single WordPress posts and pages content?

hide-featured-image-wordpress

The 'featured image' feature in WordPress is a way to assign a separate image to be displayed as post thumbnails in post feeds such as recent content, related content, category posts, etc. But there are times when a developer may want to hide the featured image on individual posts and pages, show on some posts and not on others. In this post, we shall see how to hide featured image on WordPress single posts and/or pages content.
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One of the best free screenshot capture software on Windows - Lightshot



Do you take screenshots frequently? Are you still taking screenshots using "Print Screen" and Microsoft Paint? Not satisfied with Windows Snipping Tool? Then it may be time to find an alternative screen capture software. In this post, we shall check out Lightshot. Probably, one of the best free screen capture software for Windows.
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Monday, 5 June 2017

How to add a responsive slider on OSCLASS website (using contributed OSCLASS Slider plugin)?

How to add a responsive slider on OSCLASS website

Sliders or Slideshows are dynamic elements usually displayed in home page of websites. Usually with a catchy background image and phrases, they grab attention. They are great additions to any websites to add more aesthetics to websites. Since they are dynamic, websites look more grand and alive. They can also be used to display important content and graphics to engage with visitors. And though sliders are not so good in terms of making websites easily accessible on mobiles over data network due to higher load times, it has still become a standard web design layout.
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Saturday, 3 June 2017

How to download a website from live server to development local server?

download-move-website-from-live-server-to-local-development-server

In this post, we shall see how to download a website from live server to development local computer. I will be using a Drupal website as an example. On the local machine, I am running XAMPP stack on Windows. But the process would generally be the same for any other CMS or website for that matter. If you are looking for how to move or upload a website from local development computer to a live production server, following the steps here.

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Thursday, 1 June 2017

How to move website from XAMPP on one computer to XAMPP on another computer?

How to website from XAMPP on one computer to XAMPP on another computer?

I normally use XAMPP for web development on my local Windows machine. And I needed to move the website files from one computer to another as I have a new Windows laptop on which I would be doing my web development activities from now on. So, I needed to move the existing website files from the older computer to the new computer, along with the database of the website. If you are in a similar situation, refer to the steps below how to move the websites from XAMPP on one computer to XAMPP on another computer.


XAMPP is a free and open source cross-platform web server solution stack package developed by Apache Friends, consisting mainly of the Apache HTTP Server, MariaDB database (supports MySQL) , and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl programming languages.

    X = Cross Platform / Any Operating System
    A = Apache Web Server
    M = MySQL / Maria DB
    P = PHP Programming Language
    P = Perl Programming Language

XAMPP is easy to install and packages all the above requirements of web development out of the box. There is minimal configuration required to kick start web development on local machine instead of installing all the above requirements manually.


How to move websites from XAMPP on one computer to XAMPP on another computer?


Assumptions / Pre-Requisites:

So, I have been using XAMPP for web development on my local computer. I use WordPress and Drupal mostly, but there are some custom PHP sites too. In this post, I will be using one of the WordPress CMS site for the purpose of illustration in this post. On my system, XAMPP is installed at C drive at C:/xampp. Thus, website files are located under C:\xampp\htdocs directory.


For the steps explained below, it is assumed that XAMPP is installed on both the computers already.


Steps to move websites from XAMPP on one computer to XAMPP on another computer.

This method is not only for WordPress shown in this example. It can be used for any other CMS or sites. The basic process in a nutshell is to move the website folder to the new computer under the same folder, that is under C:\xampp\htdocs and move the database to the new computer


1) Move website files from computer 1 to computer 2:

    Copy the website folder you want to move from C:\xampp\htdocs\. For this example, the website folder to be copied is "techblog". Thus, I copied the folder C:\xampp\htdocs\techblog
    Move the website folder from the computer 1 to C:\xampp\htdocs\ on the computer 2 using any medium. For this example, the website folder copied is "techblog". So, we should have the website files in C:\xampp\htdocs\techblog.

That is all that is required as far as moving the website files from one computer to another for using with XAMPP is concerned.


2) Export database of the website from computer 1
  •     Open phpMyAdmin in a browser on computer 1 by accessing http://localhost/phpmyadmin
  •     Login to phpMyAdmin if a password is set for root
  •     Select the  database from the left sidebar of phpMyAdmin
  •     Click on STRUCTURE and check how many tables the database has. It is displayed at the bottom of the STRUCTURE page. Compare  the number of tables during import on computer 2.
  •     Now to export, click on EXPORT tab

        Note: For some CMS (such as Drupal, WordPress etc.) it is recommended to clear cache from the admin interface before exporting database to avoid any import issues and/or site issues after import.

  •     Keep default settings and just click "GO" to export and download the database.
  •     An SQL file will be exported. Save it to computer 1
 




 3) Import the exported database from computer 1 into computer 2

  •     On computer 2, access http://localhost/phpMyAdmin and login if a password is set.
  •     Once logged in to phpMyAdmin, click on "databases" and create a new database.
  •     You can name the database whatever you want but preferably keep the same name so that settings need not be changed.
  •     Select the new database from the left sidebar
  •     Click Import.
  •     Click on the "Browse" button and locate the database we exported from the old computer.
  •     Keep default settings and just click "GO" to import the database.
  •     Once the database is installed, check the website on computer 2 by accessing http://localhost/techblog. If the database name was kept the same during new database creation on computer 2, there is no need to change database name in the website settings file.

Database import issues?

Unable to import database into phpMyAdmin due to an error?

If this is a new  XAMPP installation on the new computer without any setting changes so far, then the database might not have uploaded due to size limit. In that case, upload size need to be changed in php.ini file on computer 2.


        Error: No data was received to import. Either no file name was submitted, or the file size exceeded the maximum size permitted by your PHP configuration

If you are unable to import database into phpMyAdmin due to the above error, you would need to edit some settings in php.ini configuration file at C:\xampp\php\php.ini.


  •     Open php.ini in a notepad, preferably Notepad++ and edit the values of the following parameters. I increased the following parameters to:

        post_max_size = 50M
        upload_max_filesize =50M
        max_execution_time=200
        max_input_time=200

Since it is a development environment, you can set it to any reasonable value. On live server, these parameters will usually be controlled by your web host service provider. and you may not have access to php.ini.

  •     After changing the values of the above parameters, restart Apache from XAMPP control panel.
  •     Retry the import of SQL database into phpMyAdmin. It should be resolved now.


How to prepare the SQL database file before import if the XAMPP on the previous computer was using another port for such as "localhost:8080" instead of the default "localhost"

If on the previous computer 1, XAMPP was set to use "localhost:8080" instead of "localhost" to access web pages but on the new computer it is using the default "localhost" to access web pages, then the website on computer 2 will not work properly as the database has referenced to "http://localhost:port-number/websitename". Sometimes, people have multiple web servers on a single computer such as IIS and Apache from XAMPP. In that case, the default HTTP port 80 may already be used by the other web server. So, Apache is assigned another port to use.


We can edit the URLs containing the "localhost:8080" from phpMyAdmin with simple SQL querries but I find it easier to edit it using text editors by using simpler "find and replace" feature. We can find all reference of "localhost:8080" and replace them with "localhost" only. For this purpose Notepad++ is good instead of Notepad.

  •     Open the databasename.sql exported from the previous XAMPP in a Notepad or Notepad++
  •     Press CTRL+F and search for "localhost:8080". You should be able to see some results.
  •     Now replace all instances of "localhost:8080" with "localhost" by doing replace all.
  •     Save the edited SQL file or "Save As" with a new name
  •     Use this edited SQL file in the phpMyAdmin import (described above).


Other related posts:

    How to install and run XAMPP on Windows?
    How to migrate site from local development machine to live site?
    How to install and run WordPress using XAMPP on Windows?

Tuesday, 30 May 2017

How to integrate Facebook comments on single blog post of new Blogger Theme 2017 ?

How to integrate Facebook comments on single blog post of new Blogger Theme 2017

If you are here, you might already have checked out the new Blogger themes released by Blogger in 2017. The new Blogger themes are neat and responsive, and are big improvements from the previous old Blogger themes. In case you have not yet checked out the new Blogger themes, check out my previous blog post about them here- Check out new responsive Blogger themes released by Google!

In this post, we shall talk about how to integrate Facebook comments on the new Blogger theme, for both mobile and desktop view.
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Saturday, 27 May 2017

How to automatically update all Third Party software in Windows Computer ?

Manage update of third party software on Windows Computer automatically

On Windows Computer, we can use the Windows Update to install patches and updates from Microsoft. Any new updates available from Microsoft are installed. That is all right. But we don't use Microsoft software alone do we? In fact, except for those using Microsoft Office programs, most people use Third Party software for majority of their needs.

Most users manage software updates manually - either the software notify us that there is a newer version or we check out manually from the software's website and download new updates or versions. Now this is all right too, but sometimes, a software that does not notify of new updates or those which are not frequently used might be missed. And it may be a tedious task to go to each software's website to check out for newer versions. What if we could manage third party software updates automatically by using some programs? Well, in this post we will see how to update third party software installed on Windows computer automatically.
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How to add Google Adsense in the middle of post content after read more in new Blogger themes 2017?

Google Adsense New Blogger Themes 2017
Have you checked out the new Official Blogger themes from Google? If you have not, then I recommend you to check out the previous post - Check out new responsive Blogger themes released by Google! And, if you have, then I am wondering if you are thinking how and where to place Google Adsense in the new official Blogger themes. You can also check out different regions where you can place and display Google Adsense ads on new Blogger Themes here.

Besides automatically displaying Google Adsense ads from Blogger or manually adding Google Adsense ads via HTML/JavaScript widgets / gadgets, if you intend to place Google Adsense ads in the middle of post content, then you can do so in the following steps.
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Thursday, 25 May 2017

Extend Wi-Fi network using two wireless routers one as base station and one as wireless repeater

Extend Wi-Fi using two wireless routers

Would you like to extend your Wi-Fi? Are you looking for ways to extend the Wi-Fi range at home? We can extend Wi-Fi using wireless repeaters or wireless extenders. Some wireless routers comes with wireless repeater feature. Using such routers we can easily extend Wi-Fi range at home or office. Besides wireless routers with repeater or extender features, one can also buy dedicated Wi-Fi repeaters and extend Wi-Fi network. They are usually cheaper than Wi-Fi routers. In this post, we shall see how to extend Wi-Fi using two Netgear Wi-Fi routers.
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Best Android app to compress videos on Android Mobile Phone (Video Compress Demo)

Best Android app to compress videos on Android Mobile Phone

When we buy Android smartphones, we want the best - with good features and with good camera resolutions. Nowadays, most smartphones have at least 8 MP resolution camera. And more resolution means, more video file size. Eventually, the phone's memory is going to be filled as memory is not unlimited! So there may come a time when you might need to compress the videos to keep them on the phone though backing them up on a computer is more practical to preserve the original resolution and quality. And most users use mobile data connection which is costlier than our home Wi-Fi. And some users share video shot off their mobile phone camera as it is. For viewing a video on mobile devices, a very high resolution is not necessary. Thus, it seems more practical to compress such videos before sharing to others so that the sharer does not waste a lot of data and even so that the receiver also do not need to spend a lot of data to download the video. While we can also use desktop video editing / compression software to compress videos and put them back to the phone, it may be a tedious task. And why do that when there are Android apps for it, hmm?
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