This is a guest post by Emma Hamilton. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Organizing your blog post in advance is really a thing that most bloggers struggle with. Even I struggled a lot when I was new to the world of blogging.

Somehow, I felt I haven’t come across the perfect way of planning and scheduling blog posts.

There was no solution to this problem until WordPress came up with the WordPress Editorial Calendar plug-in.

I don’t know about other folks but I find it perfect for scheduling my blog posts. That’s why I’d like to share with you the features of this plug-in that I’ve come to love.

Let’s take a look at six reasons why every blog writer will love the WordPress Editorial Calendar Plug-In:

Planning Your Blog Posts Is Easier Now

With the editorial calendar you can not only view blog posts up to five weeks but also schedule any number of posts by clicking the month in the calendar. So you can have a record of the scheduled blog posts and also those that are saved and need to be finalized.

The Whole Calendar Can Be Viewed On One Screen

Instead of browsing through all the draft posts, the Editorial Calendar Plug-in helps you to view them on one single page. It is advantageous to those who have lots of blog posts lined up.

Rescheduling Blog Posts Have Also Become Easy

This WordPress plug-in is drag and drop. So if you have scheduled a blog for a day (say Tuesday the 21st) you can drag it to reschedule it for some other day (Tuesday the 28th).

Structure Your Blog Content

When you can view all the scheduled blog posts at a glance it becomes easy for you to find out whether you have missed out a specific topic or not. In the Editorial Calendar you will also have an option for quick edit as well as to change titles of blog posts, content and even publishing time if required.

Be More Creative With Editorial Calendar Plug-In

Organizing your blog posts, so far have taken quite a lot of your precious time. The Editorial Calendar saves your time that would have gone into scheduling or rescheduling your blog posts. So you can be more creative and devote more time in what you are best at, writing content.

The Visits to Your Blog Increases

Fresh and time-sensitive content keeps the readers engaged in your blog. The number of visitors increases as readers seek for timely posts. Even the search engines respond to regular and frequent posts and send more searches on your way.

Drawbacks of Editorial Calendar Plug-In

The Editorial Calendar Plug-In comes with a few limitations, though not many. One of the most annoying that I find is that the draft posts that have been created before the plug-in was installed don’t appear automatically in the editorial calendar. So once you have installed the plug-in it is best to use it for creating the draft posts.

Have you used the WordPress Editorial Calendar Plug-In? Let’s us know what you think about it in the comments below.

About the Author: Emma Hamilton is a freelance content writer and she writes articles and blogs on Time Warner Cable and others Web technologies.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

Six Reasons Why You’ll Love the WordPress Editorial Calendar Plug-In

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I recently installed Windows XP on a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6. Here’s my experience, why I did it and what you can expect when doing something like this.

Running Windows on a Macbook Pro

Yes, you can run Windows XP on a Macbook Pro.  You can also run Windows 7 on a Macbook Pro too.  But for this story, I’m using Windows XP.

I’ve got a Macbook Pro that’s freakin’ cool and was purchased in January 2011.  It’s got a 500 GB hard drive, so there’s a plenty of space to run two Operating Systems.

The person who will be using this is NOT an experienced computer person and is the only person who will be using his Macbook Pro.

Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines or VMs as they’re known are great.  VMs allow you to run two operating systems on one machine.  In this case we’ll be running Mac OS X and Windows XP.

More specifically, you can run Windows XP in a window on the Mac OS as it’s running.  So you would fire up your Mac, and start a VM that would run Windows XP at the same time.

This allows you to use both operating systems at the same time.

However, because the person who will be using this setup is a novice computer user, we’re going to setup Windows XP as a dual-boot setup.

The person only needs to use one application that requires Windows XP, so when he’s done using that application, he can reboot the machine into the Mac OS.

For some people, this is simpler.  Some folks have a hard time understanding the VM concept and it becomes a bit more confusing to them.

In review then, a VM allows you to run two operating systems at once, and a dual-boot setup allows you to run one OS at a time.

With that said, here are two products you could buy if you want to setup Windows as a VM under Mac OS X.  As a side note, I have set this up for two people who are more experienced Mac users and they totally understand the VM concept.

VMware for Mac ($79.99) (not an affiliate link) – You can download a free trial.

Parallels for Mac ($79.99) (not an affiliate link) – You can download a free trial.

You can also use the freely available Virtual Box software as well.  I have not used Virtual Box so I won’t talk about it in this article.  But check it out if you don’t want to plunk down $80.00 or so for one of the other two solutions.

I’ve used both VMware and Parallels and they both work great.

Apple’s Boot Camp

Apple’s Boot Camp is a free utility that comes with the Macbook Pro and is located in the Utilities folder.  This is the software that controls dual booting for the Mac.

Preparation

First, let’s get our stuff in order to pull this off:

• A Ton of Patience
• One Western Digital 1 TB External Hard Drive to Backup Mac OS
• One External Hard Drive to Backup Windows XP
• Windows XP SP2 CD with valid key
• Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard Install Disk
• Apple’s Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide (link opens in a new window)

Okay, let’s get dirty.

Steps to Install Windows XP on a Macbook Pro

Here are 10 steps to make it through the process of setting this up.

First Things First: Before doing any of this, I used the Western Digital 1 TB External Hard Drive FIRST to backup my Mac OS.  I used Time Machine to do a complete backup. It works great and restores great too.

1. Run Apple Boot Camp

As I pointed out, Boot Camp is an Apple product and it’s free.  It’s also located in the Mac Utilites folder.  You use it to partition space for Windows XP on the same hard drive as the Mac OS.

For this installation I used 100 GB out of a 500 GB hard drive because I knew the person was only going to be running one application under Windows XP and besides he doesn’t like Windows XP anyway.

2. Follow the Instructions

The downloadable PDF Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide mentioned above is a great guide for this process.  I had it open all the time on another PC during the whole process.  Read through it before you begin.

3. Format Your Windows Partition

After the 100 GB partition was created, I rebooted into Windows XP SP2 CD.  I had previously tried Windows XP SP3 but ran into a problem during the installation.

Windows XP SP3 could not find the hal.dll driver even though it was there.  I tried to edit a system file to point directly at it but it just wouldn’t work.

I knew if I went back to Windows XP SP2 that later the Microsoft Updates would install SP3.

I formatted my Windows XP drive as an NTFS partition.  One note on this, you won’t be able to transfer files between the Mac OS and Windows XP OS because of NTFS.  If you pick FAT32 you can transfer files between the two operating systems.

4. Finish the Windows XP Install and Enter the Windows Install Key

At this point there are a lot of screens you’ll fill out as Windows XP installs, so I won’t point out any details during installation.  They’ll be dependent on your own installation requirements.

Probably the most frustrating thing is to get almost all the way done with an install and have Windows ask you for the install key – and you don’t have it or you don’t have the right one.

With all my Windows install disks, I’ve always written the install key on the CD with a Sharpie.  That way I don’t go running around everywhere trying to find it.

Reminder: During reboots, hold down the “Option” key to select which operating system you want to boot into.  This is easy to forget while working with Windows.  When you go to reboot into Windows, you might end up in the Mac OS.  So just remember that handy-dandy “Option” key.

5. The Apple Support Software

Once I had Windows XP SP2 installed, I inserted the Mac install CD under Windows and let it run automatically.

The Apple Support Software tools will be installed under Windows XP that allows you to setup networking, the display and other features to help you make Windows work properly in this environment.

Side Note: I ran the Apple Support install three times before it completely installed correctly.  For some reason (I think it was during the audio drivers being installed), it created a blue screen of death two times before it finally installed everything from the Apple Support CD.

6. Run Windows Updates

At this point you’ll have a bunch of Windows Updates.  Let them all install, as well as SP3 and IE 8 if you so desire.  I had around 74 updates one time and had to reboot, and then another 59 updates before they all finished.

If Windows requires multiple reboots as you install the Windows Updates, remember to hold down the “Option” key during reboots so you can select which operating system to boot into.

7. The Boot Camp Windows Driver

The Boot Camp Windows Driver will allow you to set how you want the mouse pad on the Macbook Pro to behave in Windows XP.  It will also let you restart the machine in Mac OS as well using the Taskbar icon it places in Windows XP.  There are a few more setting you can set to your liking.

8. Install Windows Applications

At this point you’ve got a full-working dual boot Macbook Pro that runs both Mac OS X and Windows XP.  Time to start installing the Windows applications you’ll need and any other tools you might need to run in Windows XP.

Reminder: During reboot, hold down the “Option” key to select which operating system you want to boot into.

9. A Word About Windows Security

I also install Microsoft’ Security Essentials on the Windows XP OS.

For Windows, I use the freely available and downloadable PDF called (big breath) – Windows XP Professional Operating system Legacy, Enterprise, and High Security Benchmark Consensus Baseline Security Settings – Whew!!

You can download it from the Center for Internet Security.  You might have to fill out a small form in order to download the PDF.

At this point I’d also do a full backup of Windows XP.  Backups come in handy when a drive fails and has to be replaced.  All you have to do is a restore the Mac OS, create a partition with Boot Camp for Windows XP and restore that too.

10. You’re Good To Go!!

Burn a mental note into your brain on pressing and holding the Mac “Option” key right after you hear the Mac OS bootup sound and see the smoky-white screen.  You’ll be presented with two images of hard drives, one for the Mac OS and one for Windows.

Wa-lla!!  That’s it.  Not so bad for a few bumps and bruises along the way.  You’ve now got a Macbook Pro that boots into Windows XP or the Mac OS X operating system.

Let’s hear from you in the comments about your experience with dual boots or VMs.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

How to Dual Boot a Macbook Pro with Windows XP Using Boot Camp

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There’s a lot going on with Google+ and I’ve written a short guide (pdf) called Getting Started with Google+.  It’s a fast track to help you start using Google+.

The guide is 8 pages long and includes some powerful tips, tricks and tools.  I skip through some of the basics like how to upload a picture or video so you can get  to the cool stuff that makes Google+ – well, cool.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

• Tips on how to setup your Google+ profile
• 3 Tips on using Google+ Circles
• Tips on posting to Google+
• Enhance your Google+ experience with these must-have Google Chrome Extensions
• Get connected quickly to people you’ll find interesting with these Google+ people finders
• Learn how to search all of Google+ with these search tools
• You’ll also receive free updates to the PDF as it grows
• and much more…

So all you have to do is use the subscription form below or at the top, right side of this page.

Use the form to enter your email address to subscribe to TheSpinningDonut.com and you’ll get the free Getting Started with Google+ pdf delivered into your email inbox immediately.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

FREE Getting Started with Google+ Guide (PDF)

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Continuing on from part one of my favorite Android Mobile Apps here are 10 more apps on my Droid X that I hope you find useful and entertaining.

1. Spread The News – I’ve become fascinated with Pulse.me because I can tailor it to the news I want to read and easily share.  Pulse.me streams news from some standard sources as well as allowing you to customize and add your own sources of news.  While reviewing news, stories, pictures and videos, three little icons hover over them that allows you to “Star” a story, share on Facebook or share on twitter.  When you press the star, you’ll be able to review those items on a web page at Pulse.me.

2. Schedule Your Shared Stuff – I use Hootsuite to schedule some of the stuff I share online.  Couple this together with Pulse.me and you’ve got a pretty powerful news and resource sharing device.  Anytime you want to retweet something or share something on Facebook, having Hootsuite on your mobile device allows you to schedule the stuff you want to share at the times you want to share it.

3. Google+ – Google+ is out and with it came an app you can find in the Android Market or have a link texted to your phone when you join Google+.  On the app dashboard you’ll find icons that you can touch to go to your stream, photos, your circles, create a huddle and view your profile.  There’s a handy Notifications area at the bottom of the dashboard so you can gain quick access to anything new that’s come in to your Google+ stream.  You might have to sign up for an invite if you don’t already have one.

4. Organize Everything – Catch is an app that allows you to capture everything that’s important to you like notes, photos, lists, web pages, and organize it all.  Another app for organizing a bunch of stuff is Evernote.  It too has the capability to capture many different things and organize them for you.  These types of programs are called personal digital assistants and allow you to send stuff to them by email as well as tweets using twitter.

5. Let’s Have Some Fun – Have you heard of FatBooth?  FatBooth does one thing really well and that is to allow you to take photos of people and make their faces, well, fat.  It’s just pure fun and in the hands of teenager (or an adult teenager) at a family gathering, things can get pretty fun and funny.

6. Share Videos – Want to share video with your friends instantly?  SocialCam allows you to do just that.  With a clean and minimal interface you can take video of the events in your life and share immediately on Facebook or other social media sites like twitter.  You can even tag friends who are in a video you’ve taken.  Very easy to use.

7. Oh Dang, The Power’s Out!! – What do ya’ do when the power in your house goes out?  Well, after you’ve run around and found out everyone else in the neighborhood is affected too, fire up your Android device and check out what the local radio stations are saying using TuneIn Radio Pro.  This app will help your find out why it’s happening, who’s affected and how the weather might have affected the power outage.

8. Stumble The Web – Have you ever used StumbleUpon?  It’s channel surfing for the web.  It’s been around a long time and bloggers and website owners love it because it can bring tons of eyeballs to your site.  Anyway, the same concept applies to the mobile version of StumbleUpon, you stumble upon websites and blogs around the web.  You can even filter sites down to specific categories as well as what your friends on StumbleUpon are recommending.  Tip: If you stumble upon a website or blog where the print is too small, use ReadItLater to get it beautifully formatted and read using ReadItLater.

9. Do It Tomorrow – Do It Tomorrow is a smart phone app you can use to keep your to do list and  anything else you’d like to list on a daily basis.  It provides a nice and clean interface to keep track of your lists.  You can easily swipe a task for today over to tomorrow.  Editing your list allows you to mark items complete or delete them.

10. One More Music App – I’m checking out Spotify on my Droid X.  Iz pretty cool.  Just another music app but it gathers your music from the spotify website after youi’ve created an account and downloaded the program to your desktop computer.  It works kind of like iTunes but with less restrictions and the synch feature works a heck of a lot smother.  At leaset that what I’m experiencing.  You’ll need an invite first so head over to Spotify and enter your email address.

I would love to hear what you’re using on your mobile device.  Let us know in the comments.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

10 Android Apps You’ll Find Useful and Entertaining

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I’ve been using the Motorola Droid X phone for a few months now. It’s powered by Google’s Android Operating System. Like the Apple iPhone, the Android app market is huge, providing every kind of app you would want, some free and some paid. But for now, here are just a few apps that are on my Droid X and I use them often.

1. Amazon Appstore for Android – I check the Amazon Appstore for Android daily because they are giving away one paid app a day free. Although I’m not one to download every single app and try it, I have downloaded some that I’ve found very useful, ezPDF Reader being one of them.

2. Android Security – Being a proper computing person, you have to think about security first.  With some horror stories in tow about folks downloading mobile apps and getting hacked, one of the first settings to check on your Android device is to only download stuff from trusted or known sources.  Go to Settings->Applications and make sure “Unkown sources” is unchecked, this should be unchecked by default.

If you run into an app you really want to download and it’s from an untrusted source, do some investigation first and find out as much as you can about it before installing.  Running one of the apps in #3 (below) will also help scan the apps that you download.

However, it’s easy to get a false sense of security, just remember that a security scanning program might not pick of every new virus or threat to your mobile device.

3. Watch Out for Those Viruses – You might not think of your mobile device as a computer but it is, make sure you put a virus checker on their.  A couple free ones are Lookout Mobile Security and Anti-Virus Free by AVG Mobilation.  Both products also have paid versions that give you more features.

4. Let There Be Music – Everyone’s got to have their music and I use doubleTwist and doubleTwist AirSync on the Droid X.  You can pull your music in from iTunes when you’re connected to your computer or do it wirelessly with AirSync.  doubleTwist will also recognize music you download from the Amazon Cloud Player and other music sources.  Pandora is also a must-have on your Droid.

5. Bookmarking Your Favorite Articles – I love Read it Later.  Read it Later can be used to quickly bookmark articles while you skim the web.  At a later time or right away, you can read your articles on your mobile device using Read it Later, which its sole purpose is to present incredibly easy to read and great looking text.  There’s a free version and pro (paid) version.

6. Books, Books and more Books – I used to love going to the bookstore and getting a new book to read at the store or buy and take home, but, I haven’t done that for a while, you?  So, I get most of what I need from Amazon and read it on my Droid X with Kindle software.  Also, if you don’t want to read books, just listen to them, browse over to audible.com and make sure you install this app so you can download and listen to your favorite books.

7. Web Browsers – You can use the internal browser that comes with your Droid X and you can also install Firefox for Android as well as Opera for Android.  I like to keep up with all of them to check out their features and what folks are doing with mobile web browsers.  Oh yea, if you browse to a web site where the text is super small, just share it out to Read it Later and it will be available immediately for better viewing in your Read it Later app discussed in #5 above.

8.  Just Plain Fun Apps – Okay, here’s a couple easy ones that I use that are incredibly functional.  First up is the Droidlight, an app that turns your camera’s flash into a flashlight.  Great for walking around the house in the middle of the night looking for stuff and not waking everyone up.  Or during a storm and the electricity goes out.  Another fun one is the Bubble Level.  If you work with leveling shelves or anything else that needs leveling, this is the app.

9. File Sharing Between All Your Computers – If you haven’t heard of it yet, Dropbox is a great way to store files out in the Cloud.  You can get free space at Dropbox to do this and much more space if you pay for it.  It’s a great way to keep your PDFs and other files available all the time between multiple devices.

10. Your Social Life – Whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or both, you’ll have many apps to choose from, but for me, right now, I use the Facebook app that comes with a Droid X as well as twitter apps Seesmic, TweetDeck, and most recently Twidroyd Pro.  They all have a bit different features that help you communicate with your friends and fans online.

That’s it for now but I’ll be listing more apps in future articles so make sure you subscribe for free and you won’t miss a beat.

Whether it’s an iPhone, an Android powered phone, or any other phone or mobile device, what’s on your device that you use constantly or can’t live without?  Let everyone know in the comments.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

Android Apps That Will Get You On The Road To Becoming A Mobile Expert

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Here are five favorite websites and/or tools you can check out for this weekend.  I hope they enhance your web explorations.  Whether old or new these are some of my faves that I came across this past week.

1. FFixer

FFixer is a customizable script that enhances your Facebook experience using Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers.  You install Greasemonkey and then install the FFixer script.  This will allow you to hover your mouse over images on Facebook and the image will pop-out to a larger view.  FFixer also allows you to customize your account settings to control what displays on your Facebook homepage.  There’s quite a few other features packed into FFixer.  Get all the details over at makeuseof.

2. Facebook Plugins

This past week the F8 Facebook conference took place and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg took the opportunity to introduce some new stuff.  New stuff like the social bar plugin, the recommendation plugin, the activity stream plugin and the Facebook login plugin as well as the most talked about “like” button.  Check out the wrap up at Search Engine Journal.  Learn how to install the plugins at Digital Inspiration.

3. Design Inspiration

Whether you need a new business card or not you can always get your fill of design inspiration from some of the business card designs created in the last few years.  OddStuff Magazine has a list of 90+ Most Unusual Business Card Designs Of All Time to get your inner creative designer juices flowing.

4. Twitter Permalinks

Need to reference a twitter tweet?  Twitter permalinks are available with every tweet via the time setting of the tweet.  At the end of each individual tweet is the time of the tweet or how long ago the tweet was tweeted.  That is the permalink to that tweet.  If you click on the time of the tweet you’ll be taken to an individual web page that displays that tweet.  So if you need to reference a twitter tweet or bookmark a specific tweet for future reference, now you know.

5. Chrome Extensions

If you’re an avid Firefox user you probably already know about and use Firefox Add-ons.  Add-ons increase the functionality of your Firefox browser.  Well Google Chrome has Extensions.  These are the same as Add-ons only for Google Chrome.  In Google Chrome you can browse their extension web page to try some out.  My favorites right now are the Shareaholic for Google Chrome extension and the StumbleUpon extension that displays the StumbleUpon bar in Google Chrome.  Don’t know what StumbleUpon is?  Read more about StumbleUpon at StumbleUpon – How To Channel Surf The Web.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

Five Faves for the Week Ending April 23rd, 2010

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Today is Thanksgiving 2009 and some folks celebrate at mom’s house.  Many people support their parents or siblings computers and today is a day to take the time and update, enhance and in general make YOUR life easier when you have to provide support.

So here are 5 things you can do to provide quick and easy support to your loved ones and hopefully they’ll be extra thankful today for your generosity.  

1. Firefox

If you haven’t already installed Firefox on their computer, do so.  In general, it’s a bit quicker, a bit more secure and renders web pages in a more standard way.  Plus, most likely your family member’s computer is an older one.  Firefox can load quicker than most browsers on older computers.  Make sure you provide shortcuts to their top 3 or more favorite sites on the desktop.

2. Virus Update

If their computer already has virus protection, make sure it’s up to date.  If they don’t have virus protection and its a Windows computer, download and install the freely available Microsoft Security Essentials.  Make sure you set it up to do a daily Quick Scan.  You can do the scan when your family member sleeps and then…

3. Automatically Shutdown Their PC

You can pick between any of my articles on How To Shut Down Your Windows XP Computer, or How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows Vista Computer, or How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows 7 Computer .

Now, depending on what Anti-Virus software you’re running, that software might include an automatic shut down as well, after a virus scan.  So go for a scan when they’re sleeping and then auto-shutdown the computer.  A computer that’s turned off is a safer computer.

4. Remote Control Software

Don’t ya’ just love those late night calls or in some cases every night calls?  Ease the pain by installing remote control software on your relative’s computer.

I prefer LogMeIn Free.  But, I’ve also used Copilot.  Copilot is one of the best and quickest ways to connect to someone.  However, you only get 2minutes free.  If it’s someone you support occasionally, CoPilot also offers a Day Pass for $5.00 that gives you 24 hours of support.  The Copilot Day Pass has worked wonderfully for me.

5. Backup, Sync and Share

While working on Mom’s computer, you might need to transfer files or keep a quick backup of necessary tools, documents, etc.  For that, I use Dropbox.  With 2GB of online storage for free, Dropbox is incredibly fast and a secure way to backup, sync or share files that you might need while supporting computers.

There’s plenty more tips, tricks and techniques I will share in future articles, so make sure you subscribe.  Happy Thanksgiving!!  

Post from: The Spinning Donut

5 Tools You Must Have to Take Care of Mom’s Computer

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Well, here we go again.  In addition to my How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows XP Computer I showed how to set it up so you can use the ShutDown.exe command to schedule and automatically shut your Windows XP computer off. In my How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows Vista Computer we stepped through the same idea.  And now, here’s Windows 7.  Guess what?  Not too different.  So let’s get going.

For this How To, I’m using Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC).  Hopefully not too many changes between now and the final version of Windiows 7  changes in regards to running a scheduled task.  Below is the first screen shot after I clicked on the Start button and Control Panel.  You’ll find the Scheduled Tasks under System and Security.

Click on System and Security and you should see the Administrative Tool selections at the bottom of the control panel window.  Click on Schedule Tasks and you’ll be presented with the screen below.

Click image for larger view (800px)

The Task Scheduler is pretty much the same in Windows 7 as Windows Vista.  The Task Scheduler can look intimidating but it’s not too bad. Just move forward. We are going to look at one task and not all the extra stuff in Task Scheduler.

In the Actions column on the right, click Create Basic Task…

You’ll see the following window and I’ve already filled in the Name and Description of our task.

Click image for larger view

After clicking Next you’ll see the Task Trigger screen. We want to shut down our Windows 7 computer in the middle of the night, every night so we’ll pick Daily.

Click image for larger view

The next screen you’ll see is the Start Date and Time screen.

Click image for larger view

The following screen is the Action screen. Let’s Start a program.

Click image for larger view

The next screen you’ll see is the Start a Program screen.

Click image for larger view

And finally the Summary screen.

Click image for larger view

Let’s take a look at our task in the Active Tasks list.

Click image for larger view (800px)

Double-click the Task Name if you need to work with the settings.

Here’s the screen when the task fires off and starts to automatically shut down Windows 7. A window pops up telling us that Windows will shut down in less than a minute. You can click on the Close button but that will just close that window and Windows itself will continue to shut down.

Click image for larger view

There’s quite a bit of detail with the shutdown.exe command and here is the output when you run the shutdown.exe /? command at the command prompt in Windows 7. It lists the choices of how you want to run the shutdown.exe command.

Click image for larger view

There you have it. Now you can automatically shutdown your Windows 7 computer.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

How To Automatically Shut Down Your Windows 7 Computer

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This contest is now over and thanx to all who participated.

Hey folks. I’m running a contest over at DailyTwiTip.com. I’m giving away a flip minoHD camcorder valued at $229.00 or a $225.00 gift card to buy.com (winner’s choice).

I’m trying to get past the 2,000 followers mark by Monday, 5/4/09 at 10:00pm United States Central Standard Time. If I do, I’ll give away more prizes just in time for Mother’s Day.  That is also when the drawing will take place.

Here’s what you have to do to  win – browse over to my Mother’s Day Contest – 2009 blog post and do the following over there:

1. Follow DailyTwiTips on twitter (opens in a new window).
2. Simply send this tweet “I entered to win a flip minoHD. To win, follow @DailyTwiTips and retweet. http://xr.com/mom2009” (opens in a new window).
3. THIS IS IMPORTANT!! Enter your twitter username below and click on the Submit button.  You’ll have to do this one over at my Mother’s Day Contest – 2009 blog post.

Of course, you’ll have to be on twitter to enter.

Good Luck!!

Also, I would love to get some more subscribers to my DailyTwiTips blog as well as folks commenting.  I appreciate the support.  Thanx!!

Post from: The Spinning Donut

The 2009 Mother’s Day Contest

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When you sign up for your own web hosting account you typically receive x number of free additional domains.  This means you can host other websites (domains) on your one web hosting account.  These are called Addon Domains or Sub Domains.  We’ll be discussing Addon Domains for this post.

For example, with my HostGator account I pay for one site and get unlimited free additional sites (domains) that I can host on my one account.

So what does that mean?  Well, let’s take for example a main website called www.mymainsite.com.  When you install this site on your web hosting site, it can be located in the root folder which is /.

Control Panel (cpanel)

When you want to add another website to your hosting site, you would pick Addon Domain.  I’m using HostGator and the management tool called cpanel or Control Panel as it’s called.  Here is a screenshot of what the Addon Domain menu selection looks like.

After selecting Addon Domains you’ll be presented with the following screen.

After adding the my2ndsite.com to your main website, you’ll have a tree structure like this – /public_html/my2ndsite.  This is where you can add WordPress if that’s what you’re wanting to do.  So you have a WordPress installation in the root at / and one at /public_html/my2ndsite.

Fantastico

With cpanel under my HostGator account, I can use the Fantastico software tool to install another instance of WordPress.

Now that I’ve created an Addon Domain, when the WordPress install asks me what domain I want to install WordPress on, I can slect the my2ndsite.com domain.  The install directory would be left blank after selecting the my2ndsite.com domain.  This will install WordPress into the root of the Addon Domain my2ndsite.com.

The admin username and password asked for during the WordPress install is the username and password you will use when you want to administer WordPress on your my2ndsite.com/wp-admin.

The Site name is the blog title and the Description is the blog tag line that will show up under the blog title.

Name Servers

A Name Server is where you’re web hosting is located.  Although there’s more to a name server than that, I’ll leave it at that since all you really need to know for this task is where your name servers should be pointing to.

Let’s say you used GoDaddy to register your new domain name my2ndsite.com.  You need to go change the name servers from GoDaddy’s default name servers to your web hosting account name servers.

For example, let’s say the two default nameservers are nsx.godaddy.com where x is a number.  You would edit the name servers and change them to your name servers that you get at your web hosting site, which could be for example nsxxx.hostgator.com.

Now you and the rest of the world can browse to your new website www.my2ndsite.com.  Woo Hoo!!

Recap

1. You have a main site called www.mymainsite.com and you want to start another website using your current web hosting site because you can add unlimited domains.
2. You create an Addon Domain called my2ndsite.com.
3. You installed WordPress into my2ndsite.com.
4. You change your domain’s name server to point at your my2ndsite.com domain located at your web hosting site.

Capiche? I know, clear as a bell.  Ask any questions if you need help in the comments or contact me using the contact form.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

How To Create An Addon Domain

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DotNetNuke is a Content Management System or CMS. It is written in the Microsoft Visual Basic .NET programming language.

A Content Management System allows you to get a professional website up and running quickly.  It provides functionality to easily manage the users of a website, the content, design aspects, and many other attributes of a website.

With DotNetNuke, it’s not only easy to get a website up and running quickly but to manage and maintain its content.

For developers, specifically Visual Basic developers, DotNetNuke offers a programmer to get started with web development quickly and learning MIcrosoft’s ASPX technology.  Since a VB programmer understands Visual Basic they’ll be able to pick up the programming languate Visual Basic .NET fairly quick.

To get started read my article 4 Programming Languages To Help You Become A Programmer.  Download the freely available Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition by Microsoft.  Then head over to the DotNetNuke website and download the Install Package of DotNetNuke.

Here’s the quickest way to get started:

1. Download and install the Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition.  This can be a pretty long install and I accept all the defaults during install.  Especially the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express option.  You’ll need to install it so you can run DotNetNuke.
2. Download the DotNetNuke Install Package and unzip it to C:\DotNetNuke.
3. Fire up Microsoft Visual Web Developer and select File -> Open Web Site… and select the folder C:\DotNetNuke.  Click Open.  This will open DotNetNuke as a web site in Visual Web Developer.
4. Once the web site is open in the development system, press Ctrl-F5.  This will start and run the web site wizard without the debugging system.
5. You’ll notice an ASP.NET Development Server pop-up in the lower right-hand corner of your window.  This is the built in web server that comes installed with Visual Web Developer so there’s no need for Microsoft’s IIS web server.
6. After the web site has been compiled you’ll be presented with the first wizard screen to install DotNetNuke.  On this screen the installation method default is “Typical”.  Change it to “Auto” and click the Next link.  There is a possible issue with the “Typical” install that hangs on a screen where the database scripts get run.  To avoid this just select the “Auto” method.
7. The install will complete and you’ll have one web page that displays the output of the install with a link at the bottom that says, “Click Here To Access Your Portal.”  Below is your DotNetNuke web site after a successful install.

Click image for larger view

So what do have?  We installed the development environment so we can develop custom modules in the future for DotNetNuke.  We downloaded and installed DotNetNuke.  We opened the web site on our local hard drive at C:\DotNetNuke, compiled and ran the wizard to setup DotNetNuke.

This article was about running DotNetNuke on your computer.  There is a bunch of other stuff to do and take into consideration to run a DotNetNuke site for public or private consumption.  I’ll go over that type of stuff in a future article.  So make sure you subscribe to my blog by email or by RSS Reader.

Here’s the video walk thru.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

An Introduction To DotNetNuke

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Here are 10 tweets from Twitter on Social Media including statistics, links, tools, people and opinions.

1. Report: Social Web Usage Tipped in 2008 by ReadWriteWeb in care of a tweet by lizstrauss

2. Social Media Now 10.31.08 by Social Media Club in care of a tweet by jfouts

3. 10 of the Best Social Media Tools for PR Professional and Journalists by Mashable in care of a tweet by leadingzero

4. Social Media Exposes the Corporate Psychopath by BusinessWeek in care of a tweet by PheonixREGuy

5. 17 Un-Pimped but Kick-Butt Social Media People by altitude in care of a tweet by brianadrian

6. Election Day 2008: The Best Blogs and Social Media Resources by The Blog Herald care of a tweet by MLx

7. Yoono Releases Onslaught of New Features, Finds an Interesting Business Model by Mashable in care of a tweet by Mashable

8. Negative Online Behavior is a Product of Culture, Not Your Social Media Tools: What I’m Learning from the Work Literacy Course by The Bamboo Project in care of a tweet by brittgow

9. 7 Signs You May Be A Social Media Addict by FurtherNow in care of a tweet by rampantheart

10. The Top Five Books on Social Media Marketing and Public Relations by Dianosphere in care of a tweet by BuzzToNews

Post from: The Spinning Donut

10 Social Media Resource Tweets

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Loops are things in programming languages and operating systems that process stuff. Loops do what they sound like. If you were to run around in circles you are also looping around in a circle. So, if you can imagine running around in circles in the same spot, you have the ability to process stuff while you loop around in circles.

Processing stuff while you run around in circles could include catching something that someone throws to you, a ball for instance. In turn, you could throw the ball as you run around in circles as well. All the while, processing stuff that comes in and out of the loop.

That is what a loop structure is in programming languages. So let’s look at some examples.

WordPress

WordPress is written in a language called PHP which is a scripting language that is well suited for web application development. A great resource to read up and learn more about PHP is the W3 Schools website where they walk you through PHP in their PHP Tutorial.

Here is the WordPress loop that processes is the common index.php page.

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<?php endwhile; ?>

The while and endwhile statements are the loop structure that processes what shows up on a common WordPress blog home page – blog posts.  My interpretations is, “Run around in a circle while blog posts show up on the page.  When there are no more blog posts, quit.”

As you look at loop structures in PHP as well as other languages, you’ll find out that there are different types of loop structures used for different purposes.  These include statements like do..while, for, and foreach.  Again visit the PHP Tutorial at the W3 Schools website to study more examples.

Visual Basic

In Visual Basic one type of loop structure looks like this:

for x = 1 to 100

debug.print(x)

next x

The Visual Basic loop tells us that x will count from 1 to 100 as the loop executes.  There are other loop structures that can be used in Visual Basic just like any other language to process various actions in various ways for various reasons.

Windows Operating System

At another level, the Windows Operating System even has loop structures.  Whenever you type on the keyboard or click the mouse a message is sent to a queue.  The message queue (or list) gets processed and sends those messages to a program running in Windows where the program then interprets what the message is and what to do about it.

Once you understand how a loop structure works it’s pretty easy to figure them out in other languages.  It then becomes a task of figuring out the nuances of those loop structures for each language.  They don’t always work the same in every programming language.

Photo Credit: frostnova

Post from: The Spinning Donut

An Introduction To The Loop Structure – Everyone’s A Bit Loopy

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Hey, it’s WordPress Wednesday and I got more on the Thesis Theme for WordPress.  Now, I’m not trying to stick to a strict editorial schedule but since it’s Wednesday and I’m trying to update my Thesis theme I thought I’d write about it.

Shortly after I talked about some of the stuff I would like to see in the Thesis Theme for WordPress it was released with some of those very features. Three column layout was already in the previous versions but now you can have a column on the left side of your content and on the right side of your content.  The two column also allows you to put content on the left or right side of the sidebar. All with a click of a button. Pretty cool.

Layout Constructor

The layout constructor as it’s called allows for a lot of flexibility with varying column widths and order. Excellent. All this is provided by the Thesis Design Options page under the Design menu in WordPress.  The Design menu is currently named Appearance in the soon to be released (November 10, 2008) WordPress 2.7.

The following screen shot might look a bit different than the current WordPress 2.6.3 since it’s the Appearance menu selection in WordPress 2.7 at this time.  You never know what we’ll get with the final version of WordPress 2.7.  But, notice the different layout options available with the Thesis theme.

Chris The Plumber

Developer Chris Pearson has also reworked some of the internal plumbing of the theme.  These changes are necessary to provide ultimate flexibility in the theme.  It might be a bit confusing now but going forward with Thesis updates the rework will allow for a more flexible framework for everyone to do good theme stuff easier.

Also, if you’ve customized some of the Thesis code you’ll have to figure out where it goes.  However, as I take the time to move stuff around that I’ve customized and understand what’s been done, I am trying to use the custom.css and custom_functions.php files to provide the functionality I want without touching any of the core coding files.  Make sure you head over to the support forums for help and reviewing other folks who might have some of the same questions you have.

The Hook System

At the end of my Thesis Theme 1.2 for WordPress post I wrote how I wished upon a star for more places for hooks. Guess what? The Thesis theme is getting tricked out with hooks. Again, hooks are spots in the core code where you can insert your own custom code.  You can also remove existing code as well, using those built-in hooks.  All of this is controlled in one file, the custom_functions.php file.  Kind of a centralized area to do your customizing which is nice.

What’s needed now?

I don’t know what the plans are for future versions of Thesis but I would like to see hoards of menu structure navigation designs.  In other words, for the designer challenged among us, we don’t design our Thesis theme too much unless we know design or hire someone to design it.  A few different menu designs that act and look different than the stock menu navigation look and feel would be good.

Also, do the same thing with headers.  Promote a ton of different header images that are sized right and slide right into Thesis.  When you don’t do heavy redesign with the Thesis theme, everyone using the Thesis theme starts looking the same.

Actually they have revealed a magazine style fuctionality that will be included in the Thesis theme.  This was going to be a separate project called Cosmo, but it sounds like we’ll see it in the next versions of Thesis.  Looking forward to it.

So that’s it for now and go get the Thesis theme to help with your WordPress theme implementations.

Post from: The Spinning Donut

Thesis Theme 1.3 for WordPress

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