The Wandering Brit

Using Anchors in WordPress

Dave — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:05:33 +0000

Anchors are a very handy way of locating a specific part of a page. They are commonly used on FAQ pages, where a list of questions appears at the top of the page and then clicking on each link will deliver you to the response lower down the page.

I had struggled for a while with trying to figure out how to use them in WordPress, but when it came down to it, it was merely a case of adding a little HTML. Here’s how to do it:

First of all, create all the text on your page, including where you will be linking from (a list of FAQs) for examples and where you will be linking to (the anchor – a set of answers for example). Bear in mind that you can use anchors to link to another page altogether, so the link does not need to be on the same page as the anchor.

Create the anchor

Once you have created all your text, go to the place that you want to place the anchor. This is most likely some text, but can just as easily be an image or any other part of your WordPress post. Making sure that you are in the HTML editing part of your WYSIWYG editor, put your cursor before the text/image/code. Once there, you will need to “mark” the text, so that the place of the anchor is specified. You should do this by putting the following code ahead of the text/code, changing the word label for any string you choose (this could be descriptive, or simply sequential numbering):

Text and/or code here...

Repeat this process for every part of the page that you want anchors, using a different label for each one.

Create the link

Now that your anchor is in place, you are ready to create the link to it. This is done by using the href HTML tag. As such, use can use relative or absolute links accordingly. The href tag syntax is made up like this:

Text that will link to URL

Therefore, in this case, you will create a link such as this, replacing the appropriate parts so that it suits your application:

Text linking to anchor

If the link and the anchor are on the same page however, you can use a relative URL, which involves deleting everything between the first quotation marks (“) and the hash symbol (#), leaving a much simpler href:

Text linking to anchor

Now by way of example, you can go to the top of this post using this anchor link. Let me know if you have any problems or suggestions, but even more so, let me know if this helped you out.

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Automate WordPress Database Backups for Care-Free Protection

Dave — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:57:51 +0000

: Image by drpritch via Flickr

I’m sure you’re sick of hearing everyone reminding you to backup your database, usually before performing any upgrades to your site. Well, this is largely because irreparable damage can be done if something goes wrong with your database and far too many people rarely, if ever, backup their database.

I used to be in the same boat, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t regret it on more than one occasion. As your sites and their content and comments become invaluable and irreplaceable, you’ll see the value in backing up your database, where all the “meat” of your site is contained including post content, settings, categories, links and taxonomies.

There are many ways of doing this, but for most people, the following method I’m about to show you will more than suffice and you’ll never find yourself with lost content.

Get a GMail account

First off, you’ll need to get a new GMail account (or your personal one if you frequently have loads of free space left). You can use any email account really, but I recommend GMail because the free space provided is huge and you’ll need the ability to filter email like GMail can.

Install WP-DB-Backup

Now you need to install the plugin that is going to perform the backup for you without your input. Install the WP-DB-Backup. You can either search for and install it from within your WordPress console, or download it directly from WordPress.

Set up WP-DB-Backup

Tools menu

Once the plugin is installed and operational, head over to the settings page from your admin console, by going to Tools->Backup.

Once in the settings panel, you’re going to set it up so that the plugin performs a SQL dump (export of all your database data) on a regular basis and emails the resulting .sql file to the email address we set up above.

The page is split into three sections – ignore the first two for this tutorial – we’re interested in the scheduled backup section.

: Settings for automatic SQL dump email

Make sure that you select all the tables listed (unless you’re concerned with file size and are certain that you wouldn’t miss the data if it disappeared). Then you’ll need to set up a frequency for performing the backup: this will largely be a function of how often your blog changes and how large your SQL database is (and thus how much storage you will need to keep an archive of SQL databases in your email account). My SQL backups tend to be about 700KB, so a 30-day archive, based on once-a-day backups will only use about 21MB of storage space (compared with GMail’s 7GB+ of storage).

For most people, once a day is more than adequate. Unless you’re running a high activity blog, you’re unlikely to need anything more. Bear in mind that performing this function weighs down your server periodically, so if you’re doing a large backup every hour, you might notice a degradation of service.

Now that you’ve selected your backup frequency, enter your email address that we set up earlier and hit Schedule Backup.

Set up GMail filter

Creating your GMail filter

I set up my GMail account so that it will keep 30 days worth of backups and then automatically delete them. I figure that if there’s a problem with my website, I’ll figure it out within 30 days! Again, this is done completely automatically (after setting up this filter) so that once you set it up, you never need to do anything again. Of course, if you want to keep more than 30 days of backups, that’s simple to do as well.

Setting your filter settings

Login to your GMail account and head over to the Settings page, and then head over to the filters tab. Now you’re going to “Create A New Filter”. Now insert the information as shown in the images to the right. Bear in mind that you will need to change the From address to reflect your own domain (wordpress@yourdomain.com).

Now before you start freaking out once you notice that I’ve checked the “Delete It” box, listen up. What this filter does is it takes all of your backup emails, marks them as read and sends them to your Trash folder. The reason you do this is because GMail account automatically delete anything in the trash folder after 30 days. This means that your trash folder will hold 30 days worth of backup emails before automatically trashing them for you, thus you never need to touch it.

What your GMail Trash folder will start to look like

Should you ever need to retrieve a backup, just head to your trash folder, and you’ll see 30 days worth of database backups for you to download and restore to your server.

Of course, you can perform this on multiple WordPress installations using the same mail account, as I do. You are only limited by the amount of space in your email account. However, even though I backup seven or eight databases, I still use just 1% of my GMail storage, so you’re not likely to encounter any problems.

Going the extra mile

I can’t say that I’m so paranoid that I’d suspect there’s a chance of my database being compromised and on the same day, GMail happens to lose all of my data, but if you really are that concerned, you could always modify your filter to forward each email to another email address hosted by someone else.

Alternatively, you could also do something more labour-intensive and just download the attachments every day.

Feel free to post any questions in the comments, and if you found this useful, let me know or share the article.

UPDATE: Bear in mind that if you install new plugins which create tables in your database, you will need to add them to the selection of tables to back up as new tables are not automatically added to the selection.

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BBC News iPhone App Finally Provides Trustworthy News For iPhone Users

Dave — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:27:52 +0000

BBC News has finally released their news app to the iPhone masses, having been limited to just the iPad until a few days ago.

Until now, I was forced to rely on either American news sources (which I despise) or use the old BBC mobile site, which was pretty abysmal:

: Old BBC News Mobile Site

Now however, they have produced a beautiful and easy to navigate app for staying up to date with the world’s most neutral and reliable news source. In future updates, I’d like them to consider push notifications for breaking news, or further customisation of news sections (like news from the UK regions, as you can do on the BBC News website, for staying up-to-date with news in my home county), but all in all they’ve made a great (albeit late) start on adopting the iPhone platform.

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Downloading BBC shows for your iPhone from outside the UK

Dave — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 19:10:49 +0000

I’ve already written a couple of posts about how to access the BBC iPlayer from outside the UK by using Firefox and my now-preferred browser, Chrome.

Now, to help the days in the office pass by quicker, I wanted a way to download programs onto my iPhone so I could watch them during the day and while I’m out in the field / on holiday etc.

Well, I found just the ticket. By using tactics already described in the posts above, coupled with a couple of new techniques, it is easily possible. Here’s how:

Follow the first four steps in this article to get Vidalia installed on your machine. (P.S. I have since switched to a Mac since writing that article, so if you have a Mac, you can find your config file under <> – Library – Vidalia – torrc). To check that Tor is working correctly, go to any BBC iPlayer show and see if you can watch it.
Now download Get iPlayer Automator from Tom Tech. (Please note that this program is only available for the Mac – there are alternatives for PCs)
After you have installed this program, launch it and head straight into the preferences.
Under proxy, ensure you select “Provided” and enter 127.0.0.1:9050 into the box shown. Feel free to set the remainder of the preferences to suit your setup. I personally find it very handy to automatically add shows into iTunes and add Series-Link Programmes to Queue to startup (see below for explaination).
Now just enter the name of the show that you want to download in the search box and the program will show you all the available shows for download (note that occasionally, high-cost shows including American series such as Heroes, or films are not available for the iPhone because of licensing costs).
Now just select the show you want to download, add it to the queue and then hit start to start downloading the files. The files will be downloaded to wherever you specify in the preferences.
Now a feature that I really love about this awesome piece of freeware is the Series-Link feature. If you want the program to automatically download all available episodes of a certain show as and when they become available, hit the PVR (Personal Video Recorder) button across the top of the screen to enter the PVR Manager. In this window, you simply search for the series you want to record and then select auto-record to add it to the list of shows you want to download automatically. Now every time you launch the app, it will search for new episodes of these shows (provided that option is selected in the preferences).

The last thing you need to do is to be sure to donate to Tom for the excellent work he has done on this software, only to provide it to all for free.

If you have any questions about these methods, are having trouble setting it up, or want to share your own tips, please leave a comment, or get in touch with me.

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Meebo for iPhone Finally Arrives and Brings Speedy Push Notifications With It

Dave — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:25:01 +0000

After it’s release earlier this week, I have been using the Meebo iPhone app and testing it out. I actually stopped using IM clients about 4 years ago when I got a full-time job.

However, I’ve since had a desire to use Facebook Chat on the go, using Facebook’s iPhone app, but that was no good because the open had to be open in order for you to remain signed in to chat.

Meebo however keeps you logged in to all your IM networks (and it supports dozens by the way) and then gives you push notifications whenever someone IMs you. I’ve been using it for a few days now and have found it to be very quick and responsive, both with notifications and real-time chatting.

It’s a great client for IM on the go and the best part of it all is the price – gratis.

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Google Voice Introduces Web App To Circumvent Apple App Store Rejection

Dave — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:20:21 +0000

Some months ago, Apple rejected Google’s app for Google Voice, apparently nudged by AT&T to stop customers using Google’s free VOIP phone service, thus forcing them to continue to use their wireless phone plans.

Google then abandoned plans to make a specific iPhone app, instead opting to produce a web app, which can be accessed from any mobile device.

They released the updated web app a couple of weeks ago and they truly have done a fantastic job.

It looks like an app, is easy to navigate, has full functionality including SMS, calls, contact, settings and voicemail and even has a keypad to make a call directly from the web app.

While Google Voice is still in invitation only mode, those lucky enough to have the service can start enjoying Google Voice properly on their iPhones by going to the web app address. You should save the address to your home screen for instant access.

Check out the following screenshots.

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iVideoCamera Finally Brings 3GS Video Recording To iPhone

Dave — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:40:12 +0000

iVideoCamera is the first iPhone app that I’m aware that of that brings iPhone 3GS style video recording to older models of the iPhone.

In the past few weeks, there have been a flurry of apps that perform video recording, such as Qik, however, they typically involved uploading the videos to their servers or keeping local copies within the app. Where iVideoCamera differs is that you can export the video to your camera roll, as if the iPhone had recorded it natively, as it does in the 3GS model.

This then allows you options such as trimming and sharing. And speaking of sharing, the app has the ability to publish your videos on the most popular video sharing websites such as Facebook, YouTube, 12seconds.tv and Twitter.

While the app isn’t free, it’s just $0.99 – nothing to complain about given how awesome the app is. Check it out.

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Watching BBC iPlayer Outside the UK – Now Using Google Chrome

Dave — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:30:10 +0000

Following up from my earlier post, where I described how you could watch BBC iPlayer (or any geo-restricted content for that matter) from outside the UK. The process involved using Firefox and a plugin called FoxyProxy.

Since then, I have taken a liking to Google Chrome as my web browser, because it is so much faster than anything else out there. However, until recently, it didn’t have extensions, the very function which allows you to use FoxyProxy on Firefox.

Now that’s all changed however and Chrome has opened up its doors to extensions.

It took a bit of searching and configuring, but I’ve now found the perfect solution for getting BBC iPlayer up and running on Google Chrome, from outside the UK.

In order to do this, follow the first four steps on my earlier blog post, which will lay the foundations for being able to use the Tor network to circumvent geo-restrictions.

Then we need to tailor it for use with Chrome. In order to do this, ensure you have the latest version of Chrome running on your machine. Once you do, install the Switchy extension.

After this, you need to configure Switchy. Do this by going to your Extensions page (select Extensions from the Tools menu in the top right hand corner of your window).

Once you select Options for Switchy, you will see the following window.

Now, create a new profile and perform the following steps:

1. Label the Profile “BBC” or similar

2. Uncheck the “Use same proxy server for all protocols” box.

3. Delete the contents of all remaining boxes, except the Profile name.

4. Under Manual Configuration, type 127.0.0.1 by SOCKS proxy and enter port 9050.

5. Save it. Now whenever you head over to iPlayer, just ensure you start up Vidalia (Tor) first and then switch your proxy profile over to BBC, using the icon shown below. Now everything should be filtered through Tor and you’ll be able to watch the iPlayer as if you were in the UK.

Bear in mind that you will want to remove your proxy connection when surfing other websites. The developer of Switchy has said that a future release of the extension will include URL patterns, meaning that as soon as you visit a BBC website, it will use the BBC profile and other websites will use your standard internet connection.

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IMDB Releases iPhone App

Dave — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:52:25 +0000

For movie fans and couch potatoes, there has been one online location that has always been the first place to look when looking for film information such as cast, plot and photos – IMDB (Internet Movie Database).

Up until now, there has been little in the way of an iPhone offering that could provide the same level of information as imdb.com. I had previously used the Movie Star app which pulled select data from
IMDB, but it wasn’t well presented and there was a lot missing.

Now, IMDB have finally produced their own iPhone app, which gives you all the information that you can throw a stick at, presented in a familiar and easy-to-use format. If you frequent imdb.com, you should download this now.

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Dropping Vonage In Favour Of Google Voice

Dave — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:14:08 +0000

When I first moved to the States from England three years ago, one of my first tasks was to ensure I had a viable way of calling my friends and family back home. It was around the time that Vonage was becoming really popular and unlimited calling within the US and back to the UK (among other places) for $24.95/month seemed like a great deal. And it was. It piggy-backed on your Internet connection, so there were monthly line service fees as there was with a conventional home phone.

So we’ve been using Vonage without issue for the past three years. They’re a great company, who had a great idea and really capitalized on it and provide a good service.

However, that was 2006. It’s now 2009 and we’ve seen, among other things, the advent of Google Voice. The idea behind Google Voice is to provide you with a single phone number (which you can choose yourself) and for it to act as a hub if you will, which takes incoming calls and routes them to all your existing phones (such as home, work, mobile) for you to pickup. Among other advantages is the ability to provide a single number to everyone, without the need to distinguish between friends, family or clients, as you can set up rules, which dictate how the call is handled depending on who calls you.

Since Google Voice is a Voice Over IP (VOIP) based system, it’s overheads are very low and in turn, not limited geographically. As such, I can call anyone in the world, at fairly decent rates. For instance, the main one I care about is calls to the UK – Calls to landlines are two cents a minute or 19 cents a minute to mobiles: even if I called home for an hour a week every week, that would cost less than $5 a month. Compare that to the $32 Vonage bill I have every month and it’s a no-brainer.

In an age where the mobile is king, usage of landlines is dwindling, to the point where many, myself included, are ditching their landlines in favour of using their mobile minutes.

With such services as Google Voice around, there’s now little excuse to keep a landline, even if you have a business / call internationally / spend all day at home. Makes sense to me.

Google Voice is still by invitation only. If you know someone who has GV, ask for an invitation, or request one directly from Google.

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