Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Hard Drive not Recognized/ Found/ Detected/ Accessible
http://dynamic-tips.blogspot.com/
If you install a new hard drive and install an Operating System on it and it suddenly acts like it is not there, it may be a loose connection.
If a bootable CD, such a s Knoppix, is not able to read your hard drive, it can have several causes. The list of possibilities below can also be used for troubleshooting hard drives, floppy drives, and CD/DVD drives.
CAUTION: Make sure the power is off and that the PC is disconnected from power. Also be sure to avoid static electricity, or you will need a new PC. Do not force any thing. All parts should easily fit together if they are properly aligned. Sometimes you may have to push or pull harder than you think. Just be careful to make sure any levers or buttons that hold it in place are not overlooked.
* Least likely is that a new hard drive has failed. Try the other options before assuming it is the new hard drive. If all of the below do not work, and it is a new hard drive, contact the manufacturer. New hard drives should include very good instructions for installation and troubleshooting. When in doubt read the instructions.
* Open the case and make sure that all the connections are correct.
* Unplug the power supply connection, make sure there are no bent pins, and plug it in securely.
* Repeat the procedure with the connection to the motherboard, make sure no pins are bent.
* If you have multiple drives, try hooking up just one drive to make sure you can read it.
* Make sure that the power supply, and other components are working correctly. It is possible that another component of the PC has failed.
* If you have another PC available, try connecting it to the other PC. This could point to failure of the power and/or motherboard cables in the original PC.
* If none of the above works, call in professional help. You can also beg a friend or family member to help. If you cannot pay a friend or family member, a good meal, is a nice way to get them to rescue you again.
If you install a new hard drive and install an Operating System on it and it suddenly acts like it is not there, it may be a loose connection.
If a bootable CD, such a s Knoppix, is not able to read your hard drive, it can have several causes. The list of possibilities below can also be used for troubleshooting hard drives, floppy drives, and CD/DVD drives.
CAUTION: Make sure the power is off and that the PC is disconnected from power. Also be sure to avoid static electricity, or you will need a new PC. Do not force any thing. All parts should easily fit together if they are properly aligned. Sometimes you may have to push or pull harder than you think. Just be careful to make sure any levers or buttons that hold it in place are not overlooked.
* Least likely is that a new hard drive has failed. Try the other options before assuming it is the new hard drive. If all of the below do not work, and it is a new hard drive, contact the manufacturer. New hard drives should include very good instructions for installation and troubleshooting. When in doubt read the instructions.
* Open the case and make sure that all the connections are correct.
* Unplug the power supply connection, make sure there are no bent pins, and plug it in securely.
* Repeat the procedure with the connection to the motherboard, make sure no pins are bent.
* If you have multiple drives, try hooking up just one drive to make sure you can read it.
* Make sure that the power supply, and other components are working correctly. It is possible that another component of the PC has failed.
* If you have another PC available, try connecting it to the other PC. This could point to failure of the power and/or motherboard cables in the original PC.
* If none of the above works, call in professional help. You can also beg a friend or family member to help. If you cannot pay a friend or family member, a good meal, is a nice way to get them to rescue you again.
What’s New in the Upcoming WordPress 3.5 Release?
http://dynamic-tips.blogspot.com/
Categories: News, Wordpress
The official release of WordPress version 3.5 is coming in December 2012 and we’ve had a chance to take a sneak peek and have a quick play around with the WP 3.5 beta 1 version.
The WordPress developers have made something like over several hundred changes and most of them are under the hood or something developers would be normally interested in but there are also some neat and visually more obvious functional changes for the rest of the WordPress users.
1. New Native Theme – Twenty Twelve
The much overdue Twenty Twelve theme will now become the third native WordPress theme available as part of the WP installation alongside the Twenty Eleven and Twenty Ten themes.
Some features which the new and cool Twenty Twelve theme boasts are:
Responsive theme – Twenty Twelve is a fully responsive theme and is actually the first native WordPress theme to be fully responsive. This responsive design feature makes it very user-friendly for mobile web users. It adjusts really well to smaller screen sizes without losing or compromising much of the basic page functionality.
Better Typography – The Twenty Twelve theme comes standard with the Open Sans font family via the Google Web Fonts directory. Although many people overlook the importance of typography and readability of their web pages, this theme will at least give you a very stylish and readable font by default.
Front Page Template – this theme also includes a special front page template which has its own dedicated widgets. This really highlights the versatility of this theme and opens up the options for how one can display their front page.
2. Improved Media Experience
The media uploader has once again seen another improvement. In the 3.3 major WP release we saw the introduction of HTML5 Silverlight for media uploads. Although the new release doesn’t quite boast such a major enhancement, it does give the user a much improved experience.
When a user clicks on the upload media button they will get the usual drag/drop box but in addition they will see a displaying of a gallery of uploaded images. When an image is clicked an insert button appears which the user can click.
3. Links Menu Has Been Removed
When you fire up WP3.5 and go into the administration panel you might not notice the fact that the “Links” menu item has disappeared. This could be due to the fact that you never really used this item before.
If you have been using this feature and are concerned that you can’t use it when you upgrade to 3.5, fear not, because you can install this plugin to revive the links feature if you wish.
4. Simplified and User-Friendly Welcome Admin Screen
When you first log into the admin panel of your WordPress 3.5 installation you will notice some subtle changes in the administration screen. Firstly the welcome screen has changed and arguably it is a lot more user friendly.
For example under the “Welcome to WordPress!” heading there are some easily referenced links for people who are new to WordPress and need guidance in starting with their blog’s construction and design.
5. Improved Keyboard Navigation
If you like to use your keyboard to navigate around pages then you will appreciate the 3.5 release.
For instance as soon as you log into the admin panel try clicking the <tab> button to navigate around the page and you will see some improvements.
As you tab across each main fly-out menu item it will automatically open and traverse along the sub-menu items.
6. Easily Install and Reference Your “Favorite” Plugins
With WP3.5 you can now also quickly reference any plugins which you may classed as “favourite” in wordpress.org by clicking on the new item in the “Install Plugins” window called “Favorites”.
7. Some Brief under-the-hood Enhancements for Developers
Below is a summary of what developers can expect in WordPress 3.5:
External libraries updated: TinyMCE 3.5.6. SimplePie 1.3. jQuery 1.8.2. jQuery UI 1.9 (and it’s not even released yet).
Also added Backbone 0.9.2 and Underscore 1.3.3, and you can use protocol-relative links when enqueueing scripts and styles.
WP Query: You can now ask to receive posts in the order specified by post__in.
XML-RPC: New user management, profile editing, and post revision methods.
Multisite: switch_to_blog() is now used in more places, is faster, and more reliable.
You can now use multisite in a subdirectory, and uploaded files no longer go through ms-files (for new installs).
TinyMCE: Added API support for “views” which you can use to offer previews and interaction of elements from the visual editor.
Posts API: Major performance improvements when working with hierarchies of pages and post ancestors. Also, you can now “turn on” native custom columns for taxonomies on edit post screens.
Comments API: Search for comments of a particular status, or with a meta query (same as with WP_Query).
oEmbed: Added support for some oEmbed providers - now can handle SSL links.
Essential WordPress Security Tips – Is Your Blog Protected? Categories: Blog Setup, Featured
I have been revisiting the various security settings of my WordPress blog after the sudden database table corruption of this blog for unknownreason last week. In this post I have highlighted some of the security tips that can help protect your blog from possible outside attacks.
Use Strong Passwords for all Entry Points
I was surprised to find out how many of my friends use the WordPress admin password generated by WordPress during install time and thinks that their blog is protected from attacks as they are using a strong password! The WordPress admin password generated during install time is normally pretty strong (consists lowercase and uppercase letters with numbers and symbols) so there is nothing wrong with that. I was mainly shocked to find out that their ftp/cPanel password for that domain is not that strong. It gets even better… one of them were using his partners name as the password (Did I mention that his partner’s name was mentioned on his blog’s ‘About’ page?)! The ftp/cPanel password for your domain is equally important. If someone can access your cPanel then that person can delete your WordPress database from the cPanel->Databases->MySQL Databases. Anyway, the bottom line is to use strong passwords for all entry points not just one.
Protect the ‘wp-admin’ Directory
Use a .htaccess file in the ‘wp-admin’ directory to limit access to only certain IP addresses (your home, work etc). The WordPress htaccesstips post has more htaccess related tips and tricks. Below is an example .htaccess file that can be used for this purpose (replace ‘x’ and ‘y’ with your IP address)
AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “Access Control”
AuthType Basic
order deny,allow
deny from all
# whitelist home IP address
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
# whitelist work IP address
allow from yy.yyy.yyy.yyy
If you don’t have static IP addresses then the above method can be a bit hard to implement. In that case I would recommend the use ofAskApache Password Protect WordPress plugin. The ‘AskApache Password Protect’ plugin adds some serious password protection to your WordPress Blog. Not only does it protect your ‘wp-admin’ directory, but also your wp-includes, wp-content, plugins, etc. Use the Login Lockdown Plugin to protect your blog against brute force attack (a brute force attack is a method of defeating a cryptographic scheme by systematically trying a large number of possibilities)
Deny access to your Plugins and other directories
A lot of bloggers don’t protect access to their WordPress plugins directory. What I mean by this is that if you go to the www.your-domain.com/wp-content/plugins/ from a browser it shows all the plugins that you are using. Many wordpress plugins can have vulnerabilities which the attacker can use to harm your blog. So, its a good idea to block access to these directories. You can use a .htaccess file or just upload a blank ‘index.html’ file to that directory to block access to these directories. (download a blank index.html)
Update WordPress to the Latest Release
As new WrodPress versions are released the security bugs for previous release becomes public information. WordPress could have vulnerabilities as a result of how the program is written that allow an attacker to pass HTTP arguments, bad URI strings, form input, etc, that could cause Bad Things to happen. So always upate your WordPress to the latest version to make sure that you are protected against any known security bugs.
Don’t Show WordPress Version on Your Blog
You should not make the WordPress version that you are using visible to others for the same reason explained above. The specific WordPress version that you are using can give the attacker an upper hand in finding a way to break in.
Backup Your Data
I can’t stress this enough… always keep backups of all the important files. I always backup my WordPress Database and WordPress files in case of emergency. Read my ‘What would you do if you lost all your blog’s content‘ article to find out how backups can help you sleep better at night
Be Careful When You Upload Something to Your Site
When you upload a script (example: a plugin, a theme or just a normal script) to your site you need to be extra careful as it can harm your site if it was designed to do so. Only upload authentic content to your site. Neverdownload a plugin or a theme from a warez or torrent or file sharing sites. The content on these sites can be disguised as a plugin or a theme but it will harm your site when uploaded to your server. You can read more on these types of attack from the free premium plugin and theme downloaders beware article.
Checkout the advanced WordPress security tips article for more tips.
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9 Ways to Find a Domain Name for Any Site
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With dozens or even hundreds of domain search sites available, you can easily waste hours exploring all of them.
Instead of casting a wide net, do a targeted search based on your project.
Building an affiliate or AdSense site? Use a keyword-based domain site.
Creating a new business or blog? Find a memorable, brandable domain.
Below are the best domain search sites for any purpose.
For SEO and Niche Sites: Keyword-Rich Domains
Most domain search sites specialize in keyword-rich domains. Why? They’re in high demand and are easy to serve up to potential buyers.
Lean Domain Search is a quick way to find available domains containing your target keyword.
Bust a Name will combine your potential keywords and show you the available permutations.
Panabee is really basic but will show you a short list of options including keyword combinations, spelling variations, and keywords with simple modifiers like “go” or “it.”
For potentially higher-quality domains, try aftermarket site Sedo. The prices are higher, but the domains should be more desirable.
For New Companies/Projects: Brandable Domains
Brandable domains are not for SEO. They’re for people, not search engines, to remember.
To be brandable, a domain and business name must be short, unique, and memorable.
The domain should be less than ten letters, easily pronounceable (especially to English speakers), and be spelled how it sounds.
Real words with other meanings can work well but will be harder to brand with a new identity. Think Apple or Amazon. They’re also probably already taken or too expensive.
Wordoid is a great source of word-like domains that are pronounceable but available.
You can select how natural you want the domain to sound, in which language, how many characters (max), and a word or letter combo to include in the domain.
If you can’t find what you want on Wordoid, try Domainr.
Domainr will find available and very short domains, but you’ll be stuck with a tricky subdomain and extension combo like del.icio.us.
Give it a try, but Domainr is ideal for finding short URLs for existing sites.
For Quick Set Up: Domains with an Identity
If you want to hit the ground running, you can buy a package of a brandable domain with a logo and color scheme.
Both Stylate and BrandBucket resell domains with ready-made logos as a brand package.
Both sites sort domains by category, so you can browse the possibilities for your niche. Name and logo quality seem fairly equal. The biggest difference is price.
Every domain and logo package on Stylate is $250. BrandBucket’s packages start at $595 but most are multiple thousands of dollars. The latter does offer a larger selection however.
For Any Purpose: Domains Without Effort
You can find additional tools like the ones above on NameStation. Their biggest differentiator, however, is their domain name contests.
For just $35, you’ll get 100-300 suggestions of available domains based on a project description. Once ideas start coming in, you can vote on them to give the contest entrants more direction.
When you’re tapped out of ideas or just need a starting point, turn over your project to the masses and let them do the work for you.
Regardless of your project, you should be able to brainstorm domains with just one or two sites. What are your favorite domain search engines?
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