Off The Walt

Most of you that know me know that I operate the largest independent podcast group in the world, Kore New Media .

I used to literally have 17 WordPress blogs for show notes, news and more for said podcast group, but found that I was "in the weeds" (to use a hospitality term) on a regular basis. Eventually I figured out how to get all my podcast feeds running out of a single WordPress installation (thanks to Blubrry PowerPress WordPress Podcast Plugin and an assist from the staff there) but recently when trying to update a category (I wanted to get interviews from beneath Kore Movies to a global category) I couldn’t find it to edit.

After a search of the toobs, I found David Cumps’s blog where he details how he fixed the problem.

It involves messing with the database and I’m lazy, so I didn’t wanna do that bit. He does mention that you can fill in the description after doing the database bit and then going manually to each category the way WordPress sees it, as a cat_ID and refilling the info in:

After I’ve done this, I visited my admin section and noticed the Descriptions were filled in again. But there was no Name, and all my posts still had empty categories linked to them.

To fix this, visit http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1 where 1 is the category id to edit. Fill in a Name and a Slug, the url name for your category, and save it.

Repeat this process for all your categories, until they all have a Name again.

What I did was cycle through 77 categories on Kore Notes.com by updating the number at the end of the URL: http://your-site/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=1

I eventually found the offending category, updated it to have no parent and it suddenly showed up in the category list the way it should and sorts just fine on the public side of the blog.

Thanks to David and as he says in the opening of his blog post, I put this up in case others need help and are lazy like me. (He didn’t say he was lazy though!)

As I’ve been a computer tech for many years, I get asked a lot about what type of computer to buy. Here’s a handy guide for you to run through if you don’t know what to buy:

Who to buy from?
Dell. Period.
I’ve been buying Dell machines for years. Nearly every IT professional uses them as well. The components are generally a grade above the competition and the machines are usually easier to perform maintainence on.

How much stuff do I need to buy?
If you want to do anything but the latest games and graphic design, generally the cheapest you can find. Honestly. You can get a computer these days for less than $500 that comes with a new display (aka monitor). Let’s work through a few more details though…

Windows vs Mac
I can fix both machines and they both are good and bad. Personally, I favor Windows machines. Sure, you can be trendy and buy a Mac, but look at the software you use at work and see if it’s available on the Mac platform. Unless you’re in design as a profession, chances are no. I’m a senior webdesigner and I use all sorts of art and design applications and I personally have found that they, as well as most other programs, are better on a Windows platform than a Mac. This is my personal preference, so YMMV.

Windows Platform
If you go Windows, you’ve got 3 different Operating Systems to choose from:
1. Windows XP. Venerable but trusted. Several of my machines still run XP. It’s very stable and does what most want it to.
2. Windows Vista. Shiny and good. Vista got a bad rap because manufacturers, not Microsoft, didn’t catch up. Vista had some issues here and there, but it was not Microsoft’s fault. I have a machine with Vista and it runs just fine.
3. Windows 7. 7 is rumored to be out Summer of 2009 and is essentially rebranded Vista. Honestly. Microsoft is trying to recover from the negative image Vista obtained and move forward with a new name.

32-bit vs 64-bit?
The bottom line: buy whichever is cheapest.
A slightly longer explination: the number of bits is how much information the processor can process per clock cycle (there are 16 clock cycles per second).
If you’re going to want more than 4 gigs of RAM, you’ll need 64-bit.

RAM (aka memory)
If you’re getting Windows XP, 2 gigs is fine, 4 gigs would be a bonus.
If you’re looking at Vista or 7, you will need 4 gigs minimum. 6 or 8 would really future-proof your investment.

HDD (aka hard drive or storage)
If you’re not going to get every music track, get the smallest size available. Most of my clients never use 10% of their drive. If you have internet-savvy kids, you’ll want to go larger. Most people won’t use more than 10 gigs their entire life. I’ve seen internet-savvy kids use in the thousands of gigs (basically 1 thousand gigs is called a terrabyte or TB).

Display Adapter (aka video or video card)
Are you going to play those really intense shoot-em-ups? Do you need to have 2 or more monitors? If no, whatever comes with it is just fine for you.

If you need 2 monitors, look for a "dual head" display adapter.
If you need games, look forward to spending at least the price (sometimes 2x!) of the computer’s price again on the latest and best.

Display (aka monitor)
Let’s get some terms out of the way… "Flat Screen" is not the same as "Flat Panel". The original displays (CRTs or cathode-ray tubes), when they were huge had a curved glass front. Eventually a method to have a flat piece of glass came out called "Flat Screen". Now we have these skinny little panels 1-2 inches wide. These are called "Flat Panels". They also have flat screens, but that’s not what you call it.

Why do you want a new display even though your huge old CRT display works just fine aside from that smudge no amount of Windex can get off? It’ll save you on your power bill. Not only does that huge monster cost more to power, it lets off copious amounts of heat which your A/C has to combat, costing you more money!

More programs, games and website are being designed with the 16:10 widescreen format in mind. Things won’t look right soon enough if you don’t catch up. 19" is the standard of today. If you’re buying for someone with poor eyesight, you may want to go bigger.

Software (aka applications and programs)
You don’t need to drop tons of cash to make your computer do what you want. There are tons of free games and programs out there. You don’t need Microsoft Office, you can get by with OpenOffice.org.

Conclusion
Don’t spend money if you don’t need to. You shouldn’t expect to spend more than $500 on a machine. It’s easy to spend alot but you really don’t need to.

As a computer technician, I’m repeatedly asked what the best method for backing a computer up is. A caveat is usually simple and automatic. I’ve been using a product called Mozy since 2006 and absolutely love it. There’s nothing wrong with it as far as I can tell and believe me, I tend to push software to its limits.

There are extreme advantages to having an online backup over a local one. What if your home or office gets broken into? What if there’s a fire or alien attack? If you have your backup onsite, you endanger it failing you in your hour of need. Mozy is offsite. You transfer your files over the internet after they have been backed up by a 448-bit encryption. I’m sure you can back up financial data and not worry one bit about it.

Mozy gives you a free 2 gig backup. Free. Seriously. They do have paid backup plans as well that are a lot more flexible, but for most people’s needs, the free version is just fine.

The sign up is easy:

1. Fill this form out
2. They send you a confirmation email
3. You click a link in the email
4. You download the software client
5. You install the software client
6. Walk through the wizard and tell it what you want backed up (usually documents and Quicken data, photos and music will be likely too much for the 2gig limit)
7. Start the backup and walk away (or do something that doesn’t require a lot of internet access)

The initial backup will take a long time, but after that, the daily/weekly backups will usually take less than 10 minutes because it’s only backing up new and changed files.

Paid versions get you versioning which basically gets you multiple versions of the documents you’re working on, in case you accidentally delete a few paragraphs or something, you can recover the better version of the document. Mozy is a good program and I encourage you to sign up for the FREE account today. It’s really easy and you’ll wish you had if your hard drive crashes!

Mozy.com

Walt Snider is a Computer Technician and Webmaster in South Florida that operates Kore New Media, the fourth largest podcast group in the world, Florida’s largest podcast group. More about Walt Snider can found at www.WaltSnider.com or on his blog at www.OffTheWalt.com. His podcasting group, Kore New Media, can be found at www.KoreNewMedia.com.

I think when I figure out how to fix something, I’ll start posting it here… when searching for fixes to problems, I’ve found a number of blogs useful and want to help the rest of the community out.

I’ve had a problem with Microsoft Office Outlook Connector for some time now. Basically, it would still sync my contacts and tasks, but not my email. One could argue this is the most important part as I also sync Outlook with my smartphone (I have a Samsung Blackjack II).

Fist of all, what is Outlook Connector? If you have Outlook (not Outlook Express, I’m talking the version that comes with Office) you can sync your MSN Mail/Hotmail/Windows Live Mail email, contacts and tasks (calendar too if you pay for it) between the web and Outlook itself.

To revise, my problem was that email was not syncing and also my contacts were getting duplicated. I wanted to recreate the account locally (local = on your computer, not the ‘net) but found the local software would not let me delete an account.

Today, I ended up making a new email account and found that you can have 2+ webmail accounts set up with Connector. I added my second account, deleted my old account, then readded my old account as an addon account, the deleted the new account. Make sense?

Once I did all that, I ended up with my old account and as I type this, I’m about 22% done download my 3gigs of email and contacts back down to my local machine.

Now if anyone in South Florida can tell me why my Earthlink connection keeps dropping out, I’d greately appreciate it!

Update August 1, 2008:

MS Connector has been fading in and out in terms of working. For a couple weeks, it hasn’t.

I downloaded Community Clips becuase I wanted to record some screen caps for a how-to-get-podcasts tutorial for those not in the know, and for a new video-based podcast I am working on with Benjamin Adams.

Ever since installing it last night, Outlook has been download all my mail and attachments. I don’t know what the two have to do with each other, but if the above alone hasn’t worked by itself, give this a shot and leave a comment.

http://communityclips.officelabs.com/