1. Get a Firewall. A firewall acts as a barrier between the online world and your home (or business) computer, that filters information to keep your system safe.  Everyone needs a firewall to protect the information and functionality of your computer.  Some newer computers come with a firewall built into the system, others don’t. Quite a few anti-virus software products have firewalls built in. If you want to make sure your firewall is set properly, contact me.
2. Block and Remove Spyware and Viruses. Spyware will track your activity online and off to gather information about your computer and you.  Viruses can take over the functionality of your computer and use your system for their purposes and they are always bad. The more spyware you have on your system, the slower your computer will be, and put your personal information at risk. Hackers can see and possibly use your personal information once they’ve attached themselves to your system. contact me to make sure your system is safe, or to download anti-spyware/virus software.
3. Keep your computer updated.  Almost every type of software comes with some updating function, usually automatically. These updates can be annoying, but they are very important to the health of your computer  These updates are actually patches created by your software and computer manufacturer to keep your system updated and protected. The best thing you can do to keep your computer running smoothly and safely is to pay attention to these updates or to set up auto-updates on your system.
4. Secure your wireless connection. When setting up a home wireless network, be sure to use the security codes provided by your wireless internet carrier. Many people think using public WiFi spots at coffee shops, airports etc. are safe. Not always true. Whether you pay for the WiFi or the location offers it free, you are vulnerable to hackers as the public WEP key provided is used by everyone in that location. To protect yourself, make sure the wireless connection is encrypted. Ask the service desk, if the location is not sure, don’t use their WiFi.  Remember, hackers can see your data as it is going to and from your computer in these environments so protect yourself when in a public setting.

Following these four basic rules is only the beginning for keeping your computer protected and optimized for longevity. For more information on protecting your computer, contact me.

You tried the e-mail password recovery from the Login Screen and you either didn’t get the mail or the password doesn’t work.

You tried going through the MySQL command line and making changes there and even tried Resetting your password through phpMyAdmin (both of which should only be tried by experienced users) to no avail.

You even tried to reinstall your WP installation from your Backup file (you Do have a backup right?) and still can’t get into your Administration page.

I know just how frustrating all those steps can be, I had to go through them myself and none of them worked for me either.

Then I found the emergency.php script on the village/idiot.org.

It was originally written for versions 2.2 and 2.3x of WordPress. Well, I’m here to tell you it works up to version 2.7x from my own experience.

Installation instructions

1. Dowload the zip file and unzip the file
2. Upload the emergency.php file to the root directory of your WordPress installation (where wp-config.php is)
3. Type http:// yourblogname.com/emergency.php into your favorite browser.You get a screen that looks like the one above.
4. After you are able to log into your WordPress blog, DELETE the emergency.php file from your server. You don’t want to risk someone else getting in there this way.

Last but not least, Change your password in the Users portion of the Administration page.

While the RAM installed on your computer is fixed, you can increase the Virtual Memory to allow your system to use some of your Hard Disk space as if it were RAM.

These 5 steps will increase your VM for just such a situation.

1. Go to the Control Panel and Click on the System settings.

2. Then Navigate to Advanced System Settings (on the left hand side)

3. When there, Open the Advanced Tab and click the Settings Button in Performance

4. There you will again open the Advanced Tab and you will see your current Virtual Memory settings. Click Change.

5. Pick Custom size and add Low and High end of your Virtual Memory as needed. Once you add the additional VM, Click Set, Ok and continue to back out that way Clicking Apply and or Ok as necessary.

Now you are ready to Stream your Audio or Video files whenever you want without waiting for the Buffer to Fill every few minutes.

Although this is for Windows Vista, the same basic steps apply for other Window Operating Systems as well.

Another problem I have had is when adding an HID (Human Interface Device), an external keyboard to be specific. It doesn’t really matter what brand, I’ve tried a couple different brands and always ran into the same problem; the internal keyboard renders different characters than those I type into any field once I unplug the external keyboard.

To make a long story (months) short, I found out that the problem is not the keyboard, or the HID drivers themselves. The problem seems to be the internal cache where the device information is stored. And it only seems to occur if you use “Num Lock” and unplug the keyboard while it is still activated.

You might think that looking for the Cache file and clearing that would be the way to fix such a problem and it would probably work with no additional problems, but I found the simplest way was to just Deactivate the “Num Lock” before Unplugging the Keyboard.

If you just take that simple step, you will avoid a major headache using an External Keyboard with Vista.

How do I look up a DNS(Domain Name System/server) name or IP(Internet Protocol) address from my desktop?
(You must be connected to the Internet to look up a DNS name or IP address even though you are using Windows.)

• In the Start Menu, Open the Command Prompt.
• At the Command Prompt, type nslookup, a space, and the IP address or name (eg. nslookup microsoft.com)
• Then press ENTER.
• You get Your Result
• When finished type exit, then press enter

Pretty simple, but…

What to do if you are scraped?

• Try contacting the author through their about or contact page (if they even have one)
• Leave a comment on your post (that’s on the offending blog)
• Look up their IP address on http://allwhois.com/ and report them to the host
• Send a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) complaint
• If they are running Google Ads (and the probably are) click the Google Ads link and report them as scraping your content

Other than that, you might consider doing what I did on my Working at Home on the Internet blog (click the link for my alternate solution). It worked for me!

Here’s how you can set up an AdSense campaign to show after one post per page. The example has the Ads showing after the second post, but you can set it up after any post number you like. And this also works on Category and “Next” pages without any other changes being made to your code.

Go to your index.php in the Presentation folder of your WordPress Dashboard.

And look for:

<?php if (have_posts()) >
  <?php $postCount=0; ?>
  <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post();?>

And IMMEDIATELY BEFORE it put this bit of code:

<?php
$postnum = 1;
$showadsense1 = 2;
?>

Go a little further down in the code and look for this (at the end of the content statement)

<?php endwhile; ?>

And place this bit of code RIGHT BEFORE that statement:

<?php
 if ($postnum == $showadsense1)
  (your AdSense code  goes here)
$postnum++;
?>

It’s as simple as that. There should be no need to make any changes if and when you update your WordPress version, but you will have to remember to redo the code if you change your Theme.

You should be able to copy/paste the above code with no problems, just remember to put YOUR AdSense code in place of “(your AdSense code goes here)” or it will never work.

Questions or problems can be left in comments and I will answer them there so others will know the answer to your question too.

When your readers stop by on an individual post you probably would like them to read some of your other posts. But when they get to the end of your article the only thing they see is <- Previous or Next ->.

Why not give them an idea of what your “Previous post” is by adding the Title of the Article they would be reading?

First look in your Single Post php for your navigation class, it looks something like this:

<p class=”pagenav”><?php previous_post(‘%’,'« Earlier’, ‘no’); ?> | <?php next_post(‘%’,'Newer »’, ‘no’); ?> </p>

Using the same class designation (ie p class=”pagenav instead of div class=”navigation”) insert the following code:

<div class=”navigation”>
            <span class=”alignleft”><?php next_posts_link(‘& la quo ; ‘. __(‘Earlier Entries’)) ?></span>
            <span class=”alignright”><?php previous_posts_link(__(‘Newer Entries’).’ & ra quo ;’) ?></span>
        </div>

Save the code and go look at the navigation links at the bottom of a post, it should give you the Titles of the “previous” and “next” posts. You may have to make some minor adjustments to get the look you want, but it should work just fine. (Be sure to remember, there are no spaces in (& ra[la] quo ; )

If you don’t have a single post php, look for the navigation code in your Index php right after your content info.