I like to think that when we build blogs we like to show a bit of ourselves to the world.  It is hard to do that if we sport somebody else’s logo, even if we like and use their products.  I like and use Elegant Themes for my blogs because I get a lot of choices for a reasonable price, but that does not mean that I want the stock logos on my sites.  So how does one go about changing a logo?

I am currently helping to put together a hobby site named Spotting Round* and have chosen The Source theme for the site.  This is what the header looks like out of the box:

It is a nice logo, and it certainly is more professional that what I will replace it with, but it is not mine and it is not my site name, so it has to go.  First thing I did was create my logo using word art in Microsoft Word.  Word art is just a way to create fancy lettering and is a stock part of the MS product.  My logo is below.  As you can see, it is not bad, but it really is not a professional job.  Who cares!  This is not my profession!  So take a moment and create your logo, because we will need it in a few minutes.

Here is the logo I created – I sweated over it for all of two minutes.  Note that my logo is not the same size as “thesource” above.  This will cause an issue in a moment.

So lets go change our logo.  Under the “Appearance” menu option of your WordPress Dashboard select “TheSource Theme Options”, as pictured in the image to the left below.  Once you have done so, you will see the epanel pictured below.  Note how the very first option in the epanel is for the logo.  Very convenient.

Select the Upload Image option, and you will be given the opportunity to search for the logo you created on your computer.

Once you have selected your logo file, scroll down to the bottom of the window that you are in and make a few small changes.  Because this is my logo, I select the “None” radio button for the alignment, I select the “Full Size” size option, and then I click the “Use for Logo” button.

You need to remember to click the Save button at the bottom of your epanel or else the actions you took above will not stick.  (In writing this example I did just that and was puzzled for half a second when my nice, shiny new logo did not appear as expected).  So once you hit save, you can now test-view your site.  Voila!  Here is the new logo, looking good.

Logo for SpottingRound.com

* A spotting round is a single artillery shot fired when the gunners are being told where to shoot at a target they cannot see, by somebody who can observe the target.  They shoot a single shot so that the observe can tell them how to adjust their aim to hit the target.

I use Google Analytics to track this website.  To do so involves pasting a snippet of code into the header of each page that enables Google to peek under the hood if you will.  In updating the site I reinstalled my header file and therefore deleted the Google code.  For the past few days my site traffic looks to have flatlined, while I know that this is not so.

Another side effect is that I had changed the font color from the stock grey to a darker color to make this blog easier to read.  Alas this change got lost as well.  Luckily I remember that I wrote up how to change this so all I have to do is go through my article archive and follow the instructions.

So remember: if you update your theme you may lose modifications that you made to your site.  Probably not terminal to the health of your site, but definitely a bit annoying.

I wanted to create a new site to blog about a hobby of mine, and could not for the life of me remember how I went about setting this or the other half dozen or so sites I created in the winter up.  So what did I do?  I went to my own How To Do WordPress instructions.  And you know what?  They are damn good with a bunch of good screenshots to help navigate the process.  Setting these things up is really easier than I remember.  Now if I can just keep finding the time to post new content…

Sometimes you will need to access the files on your host directly.  You may have some non-WordPress pages that you need to manipulate, or perhaps want to swap one photo for another without messing with WordPress.  So how do  you do that?  With an FTP client.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol.  It is the de facto standard on the internet for moving files from place A to place B.  You may have actually used it through your Windows Explorer without knowing it.

There is a good, free FTP client called FileZilla.  FileZilla is donation supported, so if you use it and like it send them a few bucks as a thank you.  To install FileZilla, first go to its website FileZilla-Project.org.

On the homepage, you will see two big grey buttons.  You want to select the first one, Download FileZilla Client.  Click it, and you are taken to a screen that allows you to select your operating system from between Windows, Mac OS and Linux.  Obviously you should pick the one appropriate for your situation.

Download and install the program as you would any other program.  When it is set, launch the program.

Now that you are in FileZilla, take a moment to look around.  You will need to enter the location with which you want to transfer files, and need to enter that information across the top of the screen.  You will need to enter your Host, Username, Password, and Port.  If you know all this information, you can just enter it at the top of the FileZilla screen.

If you do not know this information, where do you get it?  At your hosting provider.  Now HostGator has a whole instruction set to help you set up FTP accounts, but for what I need to do it did not work.  So here is what does work for me.

Select Site Manager from the File Menu.  Once in Site manager, you need to verify a few fields.  First, click the New Site button.  Up in the Select Entry window (top right) there will now appear a “New Site” entry.  Change this name to something relevant.

Next, change your host name.  Most likely the name is FTP.YourDomain.com (you do not need to capitalize, and YourDomain.com should be whatever domain you want to ftp to).  You can enter a port number if you have problems, but I do not and it works just fine.

Change the Login Type to Normal, then enter your username and password in the next two fields.  I used the username and password that I use to login to cPanel.  Once you have made these changes, click the Advanced tab at the top.

On this tab you should set your default local directory to whatever is convenient for you.  It is not critical if you choose to skip this step, as you will always have the option to browse to where you need to go anyway.  It just makes life easier.

The default remote directory can be set to /public_html/.  That way you will upload your files straight to where they can be found on the internet.  (This assumes, of course, that you want your files to end up on the internet.)  I personally do not do that as I need to access to my entire directory tree and it annoys me to have to backtrack when I log in.

With that, click Connect and you will be ready to transfer files between your personal computer and your web host.

Looking to learn how to create your own WordPress blog?

Then head over to my step by step instructions on how to do WordPress!

I wish I could remember where I picked this tip up so that I could give credit where it is due.  There is a plugin called WP Maintenance Mode.  If you need it, I have previously created a guide on how to install WordPress plugins.

WP Maintenance Mode quite simply replaces your home screen for some period of time.  By default, it replaces it with this:

The plugin allows you to set some variables to customize it for your purposes.  Want to change the message?  Go ahead.  Want to put a timer on it so that it automatically switches off?  Go ahead.

This is everything good in a plugin.  It is simple and effective.  What more could you want?

Looking to learn how to create your own WordPress blog?

Then head over to my step by step instructions on how to do WordPress!

Since I have already created a guide to installing WordPress plugins through the dashboard I will not rehash that here, but what happens when you want to install a plugin that does not show up in the dashboard search?  You have to install them manually.  Lucky for you, it is not hard to do.

For this example I will not be installing the ReplyMe plugin, because it does not come up in the search results.  This method works for plugins regardless of the source though – once you download it to your computer the process is identical regardless of the source.  The difference is just in the front end of searching for the plugin.

To begin our manual installation, let us pop over to the WordPress.org plugins page.  To get there you can go to the main site and select the Plugins tab.  When you arrive you will see a screen similar to that pictured below.  Note that I have already entered the name of the plugin that I am searching for.

So what if you do not know the name of the plugin that you are searching for?  Not a problem, just type some descriptive phrase such as “security” or “calendar” or whatnot and you will get a list of plugins that may fit the bill.  (Sometimes you do get strange results though).

So I searched for “calendar” and ended up with 286 results.  Which do I pick?  My personal preference is to start with one that has a high rating and a lot of downloads.  If it does not do what I want it to, then I will uninstall it and try another one.  (Remember to delete plugins that you are not using.  Your site will be more secure if you do.)  For this example, I will use the first result, and I click on the name to learn more about it.

Once you have clicked the plugin name, you are taken to more information about the plugin.  On this page you can read a brief description of the plugin including features, rating, and compatibility with various versions of WordPress.  To keep the image size down I cut most of that off.

The orange button will enable you to download the current version of the plugin to your personal computer.  Note that this is a zip file, and you do not want to unzip it.  Just save it to your hard drive.  I have a separate directory for my WordPress downloads so that I can find them quickly if I need to.

Once on your system, you need to upload the file to your site.  For that you navigate to the Plugins menu option on the WordPress dashboard, select Add New (either location will do), and then select Upload.

After selecting Upload, you will see a standard Browse button, which will enable you to navigate on your computer to where you saved the plugin zip file.  Once you have located it, simply click Install Now.

Your final step is to activate the plugin.  Just click on Activate and it is live.

Remember that some plugins require configuration before use, so while this guide instructs on how to install a plugin, you are not necessarily done with what you need to do to configure the plugin.

Until next time,

Nick

Looking to learn how to create your own WordPress blog?

Then head over to my step by step instructions on how to do WordPress!

I am now using a service to post my content to social media.  Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.  It is too exhausing to do it all manually, so I I will write that service up down the road a bit, but for irght now I just want to warn you about what happened to me.

After I signed up, Google was reporting my traffic as a flatline zero.  What the heck?  Did I get banned?

I also use Google Webmaster Tools.  So I went to investigate what it had to say about my site and, much to my surprise, I found that it said that I was not the registered owner of the site.  Now I get really worried.  Have I been hacked?

I zip over to my site and log in.  No problem there.  I am not locked out.  I verify that the site is up and displaying properly.  Again, nothing wrong here.  So I have not been hacked.  What else can it be?

If you check out my article on registering for Google Analytics, there is a part about inserting code before the </head> tag.  This snippet of code is how Google Webmaster tools verify that you are the owner.  No code, no ownership.  My code had disappeared.

So here’s my theory.  When I installed my social media management plugin, my header got rewritten.  Part of that rewriting deleted the google snippet that was there.  My solution was to paste it back in.  Now everything appears to be working correctly again.

So take this as a warning.  If you change something on your site, such as adding a new plugin, and suddenly something else stops working, you may have to do a bit of detective work to find out what happened.  If things are really messed up, just restore your backup (you do back up your site, don’t you?).

Crawl errors are hiccups that Google ran into while investigating your page.  Most of the time these will be 404 errors, which are links in your site that are broken.  As part of your maintenance program you should be making sure you do not have these.  (Another article that will be coming soon is a guide to what maintenance you should be doing, but that one is further off).  The problem that I ran into with these errors is that while I was able to find some of the broken links, I could not find them all.  So what is a webmaster to do?

As is pretty much the case with everything that you and I are trying to do online these days, somebody has gotten there before us.  In this case, there are plugins, or add-ons, for your web browser that can check all of your links for you.

So which browser do you use?  I have IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari on my machine.  Generally I use Firefox, but I have the other 3 to verify that my sites are displaying correctly, and sometimes I will run into a site that does not display correctly in one of the browsers.

Both Firefox and Chrome make it easy to install plugins to enhance the browser’s capabilities.  IE and Safari I do not know about because I have not tried.  To add an add-on in Firefox, just click on the orange Firefox button in the top left corner of the screen, and then click the Add-ons puzzle piece menu item.
Once selected, a new tab will open that is the Add-ons Manager.  For our purposes there are two interesting parts to this page.  First is in the upper right corner, which is where you can search for an add-on.  Simply enter in a relevant term (such as “link checker”) to search for it.  On the far left of the screen there are four menu items, the second of which is Extensions.  That is where we can go to see which add-ons we have installed and if they are enabled or not.

I entered “link checker” into the search box, and got the following results (there were more, I just cut them out to save space).

If you click the “More” link, you will get more information about the add-on.  If you click the Install button, Firefox will install the add-on.  Now all you have to do is restart your browser, and your add-on is live.

I personally use LinkChecker, which is not pictured above because I already have it installed (note the spelling).  I do not know if it is anything special, but it works for me.f

Questions?  Just drop me an email through the Contact Me link above.

Looking to learn how to create your own WordPress blog?

Then head over to my step by step instructions on how to do WordPress!

You will generally want at least one email account to use with your WordPress website, assuming you want people to contact you.  You could of course use your primary account, but anything posted on the net is a target for spammers and it is easier to change an dedicated email address than the one you use for your whole life.

To add an email through cPanel, begin by logging into your hosting service.  Your cPanel should appear.  (At least it does if you are using HostGator).

The email accounts icon on HostGator's cPanel

Once clicked, you will see the following on your screen.  You will, of course, need a name as password.  For the purposes of this example I used the names “example” and “second example”, but you should certainly use something relevant to you.  It is your site after all.

HostGator cPanel Create Email Account

Finally you will have to decide how much storage you want this email account to have.  250 MB is the default, and if there is only one email account then do not worry about it.  If you are going to have many accounts, then you will probably want to cut it down.  Click “Create Account” when done.

You will get a confirmation bar indicating that you have successfully created your email account.

The Confirmation Bar That You Have Successfully Created an Email Account

Now that you have created an email account, how to access it.  Look in the list of email accounts below the account creation box.  All the way to the right is a dropdown box labeled “More”.  Click it and select “Access Webmail”.

The Email Account List

This will bring you to a new page that list the email interface programs that you can use.  It makes no difference which one you choose.  They all look different, but you can do the same things with all of them.

HostGator Email Client Choices

You have two choices below each of the three email clients.  The first choice, “Read Mail Using XXXXX” will launch the email program and you will be able to start reading and sending emails.  The second option, “[Enable AutoLoad]“, will allow you to set up the system so that it automaticaly loads the email client when you select the email account on the previous screen.  I suggest that you do not change the time delay to less than 2 seconds as it becomes hard to select anything else on the screen if you do.

So there you go!  You now have an email address all to yourself!

Looking to learn how to create your own WordPress blog?

Then head over to my step by step instructions on how to do WordPress!

My HP laptop’s screen decided that it had enough and quit on me, which makes it damn hard to write posts!  I’ve received my new Toshiba from Tiger Direct and I’m very happy with it so far.  Of course, one day is not enough time to really get to know one’s new system.

I had a Toshiba back in school, which I loved.  Until I dropped it and broke the screen.  then I got an HP whose keyboard decided to wear out.  Well, not the whole keyboard.  Only a few letters.  I do not use the “W” very often, but when I need it…

My last HP had the screen crap out.  It would come up for a while if I only opened the cover 30 degrees or so, so it was clear that it was not going to be long for this world.  What a disappointment that system was.

So I am back with Toshiba, and this time I actually bought the extended warranty as well.  Now I know, these are supposed to be terrible deals.  Normally I never get these, but since my last two laptops have both suffered mechanical failures after 18 months or so I am tired of having to buy a whole new system.  I would rather pay the $100 now than ten times that in a year and a half.

It is a Square Trade warranty, which covers up to my purchase price in repairs.  If something breaks and there is sufficient coverage, they fix it.  If something breaks and there is not enough, they send me a check.  So it is not unlimited, with the lifetime limit of the purhase price, but how many failures should I expect in 3 years?  So if something breaks 35 months from now, and it is more expensive to fix than what I paid, I get a full refund of my purchase price.  I am kinda hoping for that actually…

Now accidential damage, such as a spill or a drop is not covered by default.  So my first Toshiba would not have been covered.  You can purchase that as well but it is expensive.  I am still so careful because of that first drop that I am now extra careful.

In a few days I will add the screenshots to the Google article explaining how to add Analytics to your site and we will be back up and running!

Looking to learn how to create your own WordPress blog?

Then head over to my step by step instructions on how to do WordPress!