Computer Tips & Tutorials

I was busy updating my website Genealogy Web Creations when I came across a resource I just had to share. Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers is a book by Sarah Horton. This book is a primer - a simple and concise introduction to the fundamentals and basic principles about designing accessible and usable websites.

You can read Digital Magazine’s Review of the book here:
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/access_by_design/

And one from Web Reference here:
http://www.webreference.com/reviews/access_by_design/

And you can access the full html version of Access by Design from Universal Usability.

Today I received an e-mail touting a new book and website hosting service that I consider not only spam but very poor advice for budding website designers and genealogists. My friend Tina Clarke wrote about it on her blog Bad Practices, Spam and Irate Web Designers.

After reading parts of their material and the methods they suggest using, I shudder to think of how many genealogists will buy the book and follow their advice for designing a website.

I echo Tina’s closing statement:

“. . . .the owners of this book and site sent the email to the wrong two people who feel strongly about valid and accessible code. (My good friend Pat Geary also received this email). Hence this post from two irate web designers.”

Continue Reading »

For your Christmas enjoyment, I’ve just added three new templates to the Template Collection at Genealogy Web Creations. The Christmas Templates are written with XHTML coding and use an external style sheet. The package includes the three templates, the style sheet, all images and a dynamic web template for use with FrontPage 2003 and Expression Web in zipped format. Merry Christmas from Genealogy Web Creations.

A favicon is a small, 16×16 image that is shown inside the browser’s location bar and bookmark menu when your site is called up.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -

A favicon (short for ‘favorites icon’), also known as a website icon, a page icon or an urlicon, is an icon associated with a particular website or webpage. A web designer can create such an icon, and many recent web browsers can then make use of them. Browsers that support favicons may display them in the browser’s URL bar, next to the site’s name in lists of bookmarks, and next to the page’s title in a tabbed document interface.

Some samples include the W for the Wikipedia site, G for the Google site, and a small tree for my own genealogy website.

You can create your own favicon with your graphics program or use one of the on-line generators.

Dynamic Drive Favicon Generator

Once you have created your favicon, save it to your website on your hard drive. You will then need to add it to your website on the server.

1. Upload the file (favicon.ico) to your site. Verify That it is actually there by typing http://mysite.com/favicon.ico in the browser’s location, where “mysite.com” is your site’s address.
2. Insert the code shown below in the HEAD section of your pages.
   <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” />
3. Your favicon may not appear immediately after you’ve completed the above two steps.

It’s as simple as that. Make sure you you add the code to pages in another directory, that you adjust the path of the url.

Tis the season to entertain and make merry and Cheryl Wise of by-expression.com is offering a Christmas Party Template for you to download. The dynamic web template and the images are free for you to use. She does urge you, to make a donation in whatever amount you feel comfortable with to VetDogs to help provide seeing eye and other service dogs to veterans who need them. Visit her site to view and download this first in a series of seasonal templates.

Have you been searching for a website template you can use to design your genealogy website? There are lots of free templates out there, some specific for genealogy, some not. Some of these are free and some are not. Most free templates require a linkback to the site offering them. REMEMBER: All templates are NOT created equal.

Before you start using a template you have downloaded, the very first thing I do is to validate it. It is much easier to correct coding before you start adding your own content than after you are finished. Make sure you understand enough html coding and css (cascading style sheets) to fix or change things that might go wrong. The majority of free templates come with NO technical support.

I have created a series of templates you can use for your genealogy website available for FREE download at Genealogy Web Creations. They are all css based layouts with the exception of one that uses tables. Each of them validates “out of the box.”

This is just one of the templates available.

If you have questions or need help, feel free to contact me. If you use any of the templates a linkback would be appreciated but is not required.

A recent question on the RootsWeb FreePages mailing list asked about a template for a Pedigree chart written in html that could be posted on their web site. While I personally prefer to post my GEDCOM on WorldConnect and have it formatted as a pedigree chart, I have collected all of the links posted by members of the list for future use.

Example: My grandmother’s pedigree formatted as part of my WorldConnect database.

From Pat Asher: http://freepages.computers.rootsweb.com/~pasher/pedsamp.htm

From Nick Reddan: http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickred/birthbrief/a1.htm

From Elaine Johnson: http://www.ida.net/users/elaine/pedigre2.HTM

I also found one you can download from Microsoft which is an Excel Template. You could then print it to a pdf file and  post it on your site.

WordPress Database Backup lets you backup on-demand your WordPress database.
wp-db-backup takes advantage of the WordPress cron system which means it can setup your backups to occur at almost any frequency.

Download the latest version

Installation

Extract wp-db-backup.php, upload it into /wp-content/plugins/
and activate it under the Plugins menu.

How to Use

Step 1 - Click the Manage menu in your WordPress admin area.
Click the Backup sub-menu.

Step 2 - The plugin will look for other tables in the same database.
Select how you’d like the backup to be delivered:

• Save to server : this will create a file in /wp-content/backup-*/ for you
  to retreive later
• Download to your computer : this will send the backup file to your browser
  to be downloaded
• Email : this will email the backup file to the address you specify

Step 3 - Click “Backup!” and your database backup will be delivered to you.

The filename of the backup file will be of the form DB_prefix_date.sql

• DB = the name of your WordPress database, as defined in wp-config.php
• prefix = the table prefix for this WordPress blog, as defined in wp-config.php
• date = CCYYmmdd_B format: 20050711_039 the “B” is the internet “Swatch” time.
• See the PHP date() function for details.

When having the database backup emailed or sent to your browser for immediate download, the backup file will be deleted from the server when the transfer is finished. Only if you select delivery method “Save to server” will the backup file remain on your server.

This tutorial is included in the Launching a WordPress Blog EBook by Pat Geary and Tina Clarke. You may download the EBook FREE from Genealogy Web Creations or Any Expression Designs.

Tags: , Database Backup, Plugins, WordPress

Recently, I upgraded my WordPress Blogs to the latest version 2.3. At the same time I thought it might be nice to add my signature to some of my posts. I was checking the list of plugins that work with WP version 2.3 and found Signature Plugin for WordPress by Dagon Design

This plugin lets you display a custom signature at the bottom of your posts. Simply type the text you want in the options page and configure it to display on every post, or manually display it by adding the trigger text wherever you like. You can also add in author information using the included variables - login name, first name, last name, nickname, email address, website, and description/bio. It get this information from the author’s account settings. It currently supports up to three different signature templates.

Download and Install the Signature Plugin

I downloaded the signature plugin script from the Dragon Design website and uploaded it to the plugin folder.
ftp://your-domain-name.com/wp-content/plugins/
Make sure when you are uploading with your ftp program, you change the transfer File Type to ASCII. Once uploaded, you will need to activate the plugin before it will work.

Click thumbnail for larger image.

Useage

You can use HTML and CSS in your signatures so I created a graphic image using a font I liked. I added some text and a link to my main website Genealogy Web Creations and created a style to reduce the size of the font. The script can be customized and can automatically insert your signature or you can do it manually. I chose to manually insert my signature by inserting the code.

<!-- ddsig -->

Full instructions are available at Dragon Design for customizing the signature plugin.

Copyright © by Pat Geary of Genealogy Web Creations

Tags: , dagon design, signature plugin, WordPress

This tutorial was originally written while upgrading from WordPress Version 2.1.3 to Version 2.2.1. It is included in Launching a WordPress Blog EBook written by Tina Clarke and Pat Geary. You may download the EBook from Genealogy Web Creations. I followed the detailed tutorial on Upgrading WordPress. The steps may vary slightly depending on what version you are currently using. Continue Reading »

Tags: upgrading wordpress