Category Archives: How To

How To

WordPress Migration Weirdness

About 3 weeks ago, SE moved to a new server.  The WordPress installations were transferred (migrated) from the old server to the new server.  This caused some weird behavior.  I thought I’d document it for myself for the future migrations and also for others who run into the same problems.

Note: I’ve linked to the plugins and such that I refer to here.  No links are affiliate links or anything like that.  They’re just for your information. Continue reading WordPress Migration Weirdness →

How To

Asus N56VZ-DS71 – WLAN replacement

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In September, I bought a new laptop.  I was tired of my Asus G51J ROG overheating and needing to be constantly on a notebook cooler.

And frankly, I find it a little embarrassing to be a computer professional with a terrible running machine.  I did some research, and landed on the Asus N56VZ-DS71.

Yes, Asus again. 🙂  I think they make an excellent laptop, especially for the dollar, and the graphics card Asus used in the old machine did have trouble in a lot of laptops, not just Asus machines.  The main complaint I heard about this model was the wireless card.  Because I know that Asus doesn’t tend to lock their hardware in the bios, it seemed like it might not be a big deal to change it.  Then I saw where it was.  Continue reading Asus N56VZ-DS71 – WLAN replacement →

How To

WordPress – How to “change” the admin user

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Lots of people are talking about the latest attack on WordPress hosted sites.

One recommendation from Matt Mullenweg, WordPress founder, is

If you still use “admin” as a username on your blog, change it, use a strong password, if you’re on WP.com turn on two-factor authentication, and of course make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest version of WordPress.

That first comment is the one that seems to be confusing a lot of people.  Change it?  Change it!?!?  I can’t change a username! Continue reading WordPress – How to “change” the admin user →

How To

The easy way to move your iTunes library to another computer

Mp3s, Movies, podcasts, Apps, Books – all of it.

Last week, I had to replace my laptop.

In moving to the new one, one of the tasks I wasn’t looking forward to at all was iTunes. In fact, despite the fact that it meant that I couldn’t sync my iPod and Blackberry, I actually left both the iTunes and Blackberry Desktop software until the very last. Continue reading The easy way to move your iTunes library to another computer →

How To

Email and website documents – what types should I provide

Certain file types have always been vulnerable to virus infection.

In the broadest sense, there are basically 2 types of files on a computer.

  1. Files that are executable.  – These files are usually referred to as programs.  iTunes, Microsoft Word, virii, malware, even Windows itself is basically a (gigantic) program or group of programs. We sometimes say that these programs “execute code”, because all programs are coded instructions that tell the computer what to do.  Hence the term “Computer Programmer”, and one of the slang terms for the same person:  a “coder”.
  2. Files that require a program to run them.  For the most part, we can refer to these as documents.  Word  processor files (.doc or .docx), Audio files (.mp3, .aac, etc), pdf files, picture files (.jpg, .png, .tif, .cr2, etc), movie files (mp4, flv, etc) and the like.

Almost any executable file can be infected with a virus.  This doesn’t meant though that non-executable files are always safe. Continue reading Email and website documents – what types should I provide →