Now I love Wordpress, and Wordpress.com is a great service. But since Wordpress.com does not allow advertising to be placed on one's precious blog, there may come a time in a young blogger's life where they want to get their own host, and their own Wordpress installation.
I'm not going to cover setting up the hosting because there are many, many hosts who can set you up cheaply with a domain, a 1-click Wordpress installation, and have you on your way to blogging for a living in under an hour. One such host would be Dreamhost. To get your fabulous blog set up with them, just head over to Dreamhost and use the promo code NEWBLOG2008 when signing up. See end of post for details on the promo code. The great thing about Dreamhost for new bloggers is that their install of Wordpress really is one click - much easier than many other hosts.
Anyway about how to grab the images from Wordpress to bring them over. To do this you will need shell access to your webhost. So, once you've got your hosting sorted out, set up your new domain and site. Get Wordpress installed under your new domain.
Now ssh into your shell account.
Go to the directory where your photos will be installed, .e.g. yourblog.com/wp-content/ or yourblog.com/wp-content/images/ (replace yourblog.com with your actual blog domain directory on your host.)
Type in this command:
wget -A.png -e robots=off -E -H -p -Dyouroldwpblog.files.wordpress.com,youroldwpblog.wordpress.com --random-wait -r -l inf http://youroldwpblog.wordpress.com
- Replace youroldwpblog with your Wordpress.com blog name
- If your images are not in png format, change the first parameter -A.png to -A.jpg, -A.gif or whatever format they are in.
Hit enter and wget will do it's thing. It will take a few minutes depending on how many images you have on your blog and how fast your connection is.
When wget has finished, type ls, and you will see that it has created two directories, one for the Wordpress image hosting domain, e.g. youroldwpblog.files.wordpress.com and one for your actual Wordpress.com domain, e.g. youroldwpblog.wordpress.com.
If you were using a custom permalink structure then it will have placed the images in directories based on this, e.g. 2008/03/25/catname/image1.png
So, to get them where you need them (e.g. yourblog.com/wp-content/images/) you will now need to go into this directory and move the images back up to where you want them.
To do this:
It is likely that all the images will be stored under the Wordpress file hosting domain directory:
cd youroldwpblog.files.wordpress.com
(if you have category directories)
cd /2008/03/
mv image*png ~/yourblog.com/wp-content/images/
That's all! Now you can reference your images in your new blog posts by using a url like: http://yourblog.com/wp-content/images/image1.png
If you need help with this, feel free to contact me in the comments.
Details about the exclusive RandomTech Dreamhost promo:
This promo code gets you:
- 1 year of hosting for $50 off the regular price - total cost for 1 year = $69.40
- 500GB disk space (that is a lot for a blog!) and increases by 2GB each week
- 5TB (yes Terrabytes!) of bandwidth per month, and increases by 40MB each week
- 1 free domain registration with domain privacy
- Unlimited email accounts and access to Webmail/POP/IMAP/SMTP with built-in spam filtering
- Unlimited hosted domains/subdomains
- Easy install of Joomla, Wordpress, Zencart, and more
- A great, easy to use control panel
- 24 hour tech support
There is even a 97 day money back guarantee - no questions asked.
Tech stuff:
- PHP4 and 5, Ruby on Rails (with Mongrel hosting!),
- Unlimited MySQL databases
- Unlimited FTP/Shell users
So give it a try now - you can use it for 3 months and then decide it's not for you - that's a no risk trial! Remember that promo code is NEWBLOG2008
Microsoft Word: How to cross-reference a sequence number
If you found this post, then you are getting into the more advanced areas of Word. Namely, creating sequences, presumably to form your own custom lists. Sequences are a simple yet powerful tool which allows you to create an automatically-incrementing sequence of digits. As a software professional, I use this feature a lot when creating ordered list of tests or requirements.
A sequence is a type of Field in Word.
To create one, you just click on the Insert menu, then Field...
Change the Categories value to Numbering, and select Seq in the Field Names box.
In the Field codes box, add a unique name, e.g. MySeq, after the word SEQ. Leave a space between SEQ and the sequence name.
You can also add options which control the way the sequence is displayed, but that is out of scope. A good site to look at is: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP051861901033.aspx?pid=CH061047291033.
When creating a sequence you give it a name and I believe you can have an unlimited amount in your document. You often combine a prefix with the sequence, e.g. E1, R1, N1, to indicate which sequence is being used. Another common way to use them is to place the sequence field in a table cell, as a way of numbering each table row.
Anyway enough of the general stuff - amazingly, in Word (up to 2003, haven't checked in 2007) you cannot just go ahead and cross-refence a sequence. You would think this would be a normal feature, as it is a common task to want to reference a sequence number elsewhere. For example you may want to say "see requirement R37" and reference sequence number 37 in the Requirements sequence.
So the way you accomplish this is:
Go to each sequence value you want to reference.
Select the whole item, including the sequence number and any prefix/suffix.
Click on the Insert menu, then Bookmark...
Under Bookmark name, create a unique bookmark name, e.g. Req37.
Click Add.
You sequence value is now bookmarked.
Now you can reference it elsewhere:
Click on the place in your document where you want the cross-reference to be placed.
Click on the Insert menu, then Reference, then Cross-Reference...
Select Reference Type "Bookmark" and select "Bookmark text" in the "Insert reference to" list.
You will see your bookmark in the list. Click on it, then click on the Insert button.
You should see the sequence value inserted into your document.
Test it by Ctrl-clicking on the reference.
That's it! Hope that helps.
A sequence is a type of Field in Word.
To create one, you just click on the Insert menu, then Field...
Change the Categories value to Numbering, and select Seq in the Field Names box.
In the Field codes box, add a unique name, e.g. MySeq, after the word SEQ. Leave a space between SEQ and the sequence name.
You can also add options which control the way the sequence is displayed, but that is out of scope. A good site to look at is: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP051861901033.aspx?pid=CH061047291033.
When creating a sequence you give it a name and I believe you can have an unlimited amount in your document. You often combine a prefix with the sequence, e.g. E1, R1, N1, to indicate which sequence is being used. Another common way to use them is to place the sequence field in a table cell, as a way of numbering each table row.
Anyway enough of the general stuff - amazingly, in Word (up to 2003, haven't checked in 2007) you cannot just go ahead and cross-refence a sequence. You would think this would be a normal feature, as it is a common task to want to reference a sequence number elsewhere. For example you may want to say "see requirement R37" and reference sequence number 37 in the Requirements sequence.
So the way you accomplish this is:
Go to each sequence value you want to reference.
Select the whole item, including the sequence number and any prefix/suffix.
Click on the Insert menu, then Bookmark...
Under Bookmark name, create a unique bookmark name, e.g. Req37.
Click Add.
You sequence value is now bookmarked.
Now you can reference it elsewhere:
Click on the place in your document where you want the cross-reference to be placed.
Click on the Insert menu, then Reference, then Cross-Reference...
Select Reference Type "Bookmark" and select "Bookmark text" in the "Insert reference to" list.
You will see your bookmark in the list. Click on it, then click on the Insert button.
You should see the sequence value inserted into your document.
Test it by Ctrl-clicking on the reference.
That's it! Hope that helps.
Are you hanging out for GMail 2.0?
... well you may already have it!
It seems Google have pretty much finished rolling out Gmail 2.0, so if you don't have it yet, try the tip below:
Go into Settings (in the top right corner of the Gmail interface) and ensure that the setting called
is set to English(US).
Scroll down and click Save Changes.
How do I know if it worked?
You will see a link to the right of Settings called Older Version (this allows you to roll back to the previous gmail version if you need to).
Have fun!
It seems Google have pretty much finished rolling out Gmail 2.0, so if you don't have it yet, try the tip below:
Go into Settings (in the top right corner of the Gmail interface) and ensure that the setting called
| Gmail display language: |
is set to English(US).
Scroll down and click Save Changes.
How do I know if it worked?
You will see a link to the right of Settings called Older Version (this allows you to roll back to the previous gmail version if you need to).
Have fun!
Making Money From Blogging - Part 1
If you're reading this then chances are you either blog, have tried it, or read a lot of blogs. If you're part of the last two categories, then I wonder if you realise that you can actually make real money by blogging.
If you already blog actively then skip ahead to the end where I discuss ways to 'monetize' your blog. Also, if you're more interested in actually advertising on the web, then I'll be writing a post on that soon, so add my RSS feed to make sure you get it as soon as it's released. In the meantime, have a look at Google Adwords. There is a link to Google Adwords at the top of the page.
So, you're thinking, 'Great, it's hard enough thinking of things to write about on a regular basis, let alone get people to pay me for writing it!' Well, it's not like they're paying your direct. In fact, to make money from your blog you need to attract advertisers. There are three main ways to do this: Ad Networks, Affiliate Networks, and Self-Negotiated Campaigns.
The most common ad network is Google Adsense/Adwords, then followed probably by Adbrite. They essentially bring advertisers and publishers together. A publisher is someone like you, who is willing to set aside a small area on their site to display ads. The exact ads which display are chosen by Google, although you can make small tweaks such as blocking competitor site's ads. You are paid mainly for the number of times people click on the ads displayed on your site, but also (as your blog becomes more popular) for the number of times ads are viewed.
As I said, Google chooses the ads to display on your blog based on the words it finds in your blog posts. And this is the great thing about advertising on your blog. Due to the targeted nature of Internet search engines, the narrower the niche of your blog the better. This is because when your topics are very specific, and people find your site in search engines then they are already looking for that exact topic. When you display what Google calls 'targeted' advertising, the ads your readers will see are matched to what they were looking for. Hence they are a lot more likely to click on the ad than if you had some kind of banner selling ringtones or screensavers (see Myspace for examples!!)
Another Ad network I found recently, are an Australian company called AdToll. They've been around in the web industry for a while, but have only quite recently opened their ad network. The features are a lot more simple than AdSense, so this is where I recommend you start off as it's the easiest and quickest way to start earning. All you need to do is sign up, and set up the type of ad you'd like to display. You then paste the code that AdToll will give you into your blog. To get started, just sign up here.
I really recommend trying it for several reasons. One is that people with popular blogs are actually making a living from advertising revenue alone. The other is that it will encourage you to post more and improve your writing skills. After all, you started the blog to write about something you enjoy thinking about, so why not have yet another reason to do it?
The next step is to place your ads to attract the best views, and thus the most amount of clicks. I'll discuss this in Part 2 of Making Money From Blogging.
If you already blog actively then skip ahead to the end where I discuss ways to 'monetize' your blog. Also, if you're more interested in actually advertising on the web, then I'll be writing a post on that soon, so add my RSS feed to make sure you get it as soon as it's released. In the meantime, have a look at Google Adwords. There is a link to Google Adwords at the top of the page.
So, you're thinking, 'Great, it's hard enough thinking of things to write about on a regular basis, let alone get people to pay me for writing it!' Well, it's not like they're paying your direct. In fact, to make money from your blog you need to attract advertisers. There are three main ways to do this: Ad Networks, Affiliate Networks, and Self-Negotiated Campaigns.
The most common ad network is Google Adsense/Adwords, then followed probably by Adbrite. They essentially bring advertisers and publishers together. A publisher is someone like you, who is willing to set aside a small area on their site to display ads. The exact ads which display are chosen by Google, although you can make small tweaks such as blocking competitor site's ads. You are paid mainly for the number of times people click on the ads displayed on your site, but also (as your blog becomes more popular) for the number of times ads are viewed.
As I said, Google chooses the ads to display on your blog based on the words it finds in your blog posts. And this is the great thing about advertising on your blog. Due to the targeted nature of Internet search engines, the narrower the niche of your blog the better. This is because when your topics are very specific, and people find your site in search engines then they are already looking for that exact topic. When you display what Google calls 'targeted' advertising, the ads your readers will see are matched to what they were looking for. Hence they are a lot more likely to click on the ad than if you had some kind of banner selling ringtones or screensavers (see Myspace for examples!!)
Another Ad network I found recently, are an Australian company called AdToll. They've been around in the web industry for a while, but have only quite recently opened their ad network. The features are a lot more simple than AdSense, so this is where I recommend you start off as it's the easiest and quickest way to start earning. All you need to do is sign up, and set up the type of ad you'd like to display. You then paste the code that AdToll will give you into your blog. To get started, just sign up here.
I really recommend trying it for several reasons. One is that people with popular blogs are actually making a living from advertising revenue alone. The other is that it will encourage you to post more and improve your writing skills. After all, you started the blog to write about something you enjoy thinking about, so why not have yet another reason to do it?
The next step is to place your ads to attract the best views, and thus the most amount of clicks. I'll discuss this in Part 2 of Making Money From Blogging.
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