From the category archives:

Tech Geek

Understanding the WordPress API key

July 16, 2009
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Most people develop an interest in the WordPress API key when they discover Akismet, a handy plugin that handles comment spam.  Unfortunately, in order to activate this plugin (and some others), you have to have something called a WordPress API key, and the process of acquiring one can be a little confusing.  Here are a [...]

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Understanding avatars and gravatars

July 12, 2009
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Have you ever noticed how on some blogs, when people leave comments there's a small photo or icon that appears next to all of their comments?  Have you ever wondered how to make your own photo/icon show up next to your blog comments? Those little photo/icon things used to be (and sometimes still are) called [...]

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Using categories and permalinks on your blog: A simple approach

July 9, 2009
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When I first started blogging, I ignored both categories and permalinks.  I didn't really understand what either was for, but I just wanted to get my blog up and running and figured I'd worry about them later.  Now that I've been thru several different blog incarnations (both mine and others), I have a better understanding [...]

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Understanding RSS and Web Feeds

July 6, 2009
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For a long time I had a vague understanding of RSS as something that let me know when one of my favorite blogs was updated, but always felt a little unclear on some of the basics.  Here's a short explanation of RSS, and of web feeds in general. A web feed is useful for a [...]

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How to move your WordPress blog to a new host

June 26, 2009
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A few days ago I had the opportunity to move a WordPress site from one hosting company (1and1) to another (HostGator).  You can find a number of "here's how I did it" descriptions of this process online, most of which differ from each other in small ways.  I found this thread in the wordpress.org support [...]

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Dansguardian: Internet filtering software for Linux

March 30, 2009
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Even though I had installed Linux on my home computer a couple of months ago, I hadn't set up user accounts for my kids yet because I wanted to install internet filtering software, and the process is a little intimidating for newbies.  Once I finally got around to it, however, installation wasn't that difficult, so [...]

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Migrating from Windows to Linux

March 20, 2009
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A couple of months ago I installed Ubuntu on my home desktop PC, configuring it with a dual-boot option so I can either boot my old Windows XP system or my new Ubuntu system.  I was impressed enough with it that I decided I wanted to also install it on my laptop PC, which is [...]

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Understanding Skype

February 8, 2009
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I've had a Skype account for a few years now, but I've only recently begun to use it on a pretty regular basis.  The event that kicked off my increased use of the service was when my wife signed up for a Skype account about a year ago; since both of us spend a good [...]

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Finally trying out Linux

January 18, 2009
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As someone who has often been frustrated by the MS Windows virtual monopoly on PC operating systems, I've been wanting to try out Linux for a while and have finally gotten around to it. Linux is a free, open source operating system for PCs which first came on the scene back in 1991. It was [...]

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I just converted my site to WordPress

December 22, 2008
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I recently converted my website to WordPress.  Previously, I had a somewhat standard website format, which had a link to a blogspot blog where I posted all my miscellaneous work-related musings.  This worked okay, but I decided I wanted a format that had my blog posts integrated more closely with my other site content, so [...]

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