Troubleshooting A WordPress Install

Manually installing WordPress is a pretty simple and straightforward process but sometimes things can go wrong.  Here are some possible problems you can encounter when installing WordPress and ways to fix them.

Problem: Incorrect database name/user name/password.  After creating a database and uploading WordPress to your web server you can usually go straight through the installation process simply by visiting the WordPress directory in your web browser and inputting the requested information, but if something goes wrong (maybe you made a typo or forgot to add the user name prefix many servers add to their database, and database user names) visiting the WordPress directory will no longer take you through the setup process it will simply give you an error message.

Solution: The way you can reenter your information correctly is by going to /wordpress/wp-admin/install.php where “/wordpress” is the instillation directory of your copy of WordPress. Read the rest of this entry »

Access Android Via WiFi

The following method was tested with a Motorola Droid running Android 2.1, and a PC running Windows 7. It should work using computers running Windows XP or Vista as well.

The steps listed in this post will allow you to set up you Android devise as a network location on your Windows PC. The two-step process is simple first you install and set up a FTP server on your Android Phone, I recommend SwiFTP which can be downloaded from the market by scanning the QR code below. Read the rest of this entry »

WebM Open and Free Video

What It Is

WebM is a new video format which uses the open source Ogg Vorbis audio codec, and the VP8 video codec recently acquired by google which it has made open source.

The Haters Deterents

Who would like to stop the use of Web M (or at least make sure it’s not so free) ?  Most likely the 26 companies contributing to the patent pool for H.264 which is the primary video format for the iPod and a number of other software and consumer electronics. Some of the companies which make up this pool are Microsoft, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, and Apple (news.cnet.com 2010). Read the rest of this entry »

Initial WordPress Setup

WordPress is a great CMS, and blogging platform, but there are a few things you should change or consider adding out of the box. I’ve listed a few of these things below.

Permalinks: The most commonly used, and recommended  permalink structure for SEO is http://yourdomain/category/post-title. This Can be achieved in your WordPress admin area by clicking on Settings > Premalinks then selecting the Custom Structure option and placing /%category%/%postname%/ in the area provided.

XML Site Maps are used by many search engines to help index pages on web sites. Google XML Sitemaps is a popular plugin which helps generate a site map for your blog and keep it updated. Once you have your site map created it’d be a good Idea to set up a Google Web Master Tools account and submit your XML site map. Web master tools can be used to give you good information about your site and alert you to any potential problems. Read the rest of this entry »