The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.

I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward.

For me, the biggest online tool for most entrepreneurs is definitely their website. Having a website is like putting your shingle out declaring you’re in business.

In this presentation, the first section focuses on further defining your idea so you can create the site, offline, before engaging someone to build it for you (or building it yourself). From who the users / customers will be and what kind of information they want, to what the actual purpose of the site will be (conversion), to defining a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for the site.

The second section focuses on how to collaborate with those who will help your idea become a reality, from working with collaborators remotely, to the kinds of tools and software you’ll need to collaborate, and setting some guidelines for those tools to be effective.

The third section focuses on methods and approaches for communicating your idea, whether through the use of social media or just being consistent in your entire presence online.

Be sure and page through the entire slideshow to see the resources I included at the end for those looking for open source software alternatives to proprietary software, and links for getting started with ebooks and Creative Commons.

Below is the slideshow, click through to see the slideshow in your browser:

Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.

Dear Ask the Geek,

A friend set up my WordPress site and the design for it, but now I want to change it and give my site a new look. How do I do that, and where do I start?

Signed

WordPress newbie

Dear WordPress newbie,

You can find WordPress themes all over the Internet which is the great thing about WordPress – anyone can develop for it. I strongly recommend starting with the WordPress.org Theme Directory as the themes there have been reviewed and there’s a higher guarantee that no malicious/spam/ad code has been inserted in the theme (a small risk of using Google and looking for WordPress themes).

I suggest browsing the Popular themes first. These are all free themes and you may find a few designs you want to come back to. If you have a specific feature or layout in mind (like how many columns, main color, or style, etc.), you can use the Theme Tag Filter tool to narrow it down.

If you’d prefer a theme that is more unique or has support from the theme developer associated with it, you may also want to browse the WordPress.org Commercial Themes directory which lists many companies that offer custom themes for a small payment and give you access to various benefits with your purchase.

There are usually some themes already installed on your WordPress site and can be accessed via the Dashboard at Appearance > Themes.

Make note of which theme your site is currently using (it should be the theme featured as “Current Theme” at the top of the Manage Themes tab) so you can go back to your original setup if necessary.

To add other themes from the WordPress.org theme directory, click on “Install themes” and search for a type of theme or a theme name.

You can preview it or install it directly. Click on Install and confirm Installation.

After installation, you can preview it again how it will look with your content, and if you decide to Activate it, click on Activate. It’s now live on your site!

Open the front page of your site in another browser tab/window and see how it looks – click around to different posts and pages to see if you like it.

If you need to go back to that original theme you made a note of when we started, go back to Appearance > Themes and search for the name of your original theme in Manage Themes, and click Activate it to return to the original.

Note that you can add dozens and dozens of themes to your local theme directory so don’t feel like you have to choose or install just one at a time to your local directory. For a commercial theme, you will have to upload the theme after purchase before being able to activate it.

The only other thing you would need to check is if your sidebar content (recent posts, comments, etc. ) is using widgets (check for their existence at Appearance > Widgets) – widgets are easy and great for you to be able to upkeep, and they are independent of the theme which makes switching themes painless.

If you aren’t using widgets for your sidebar content, now is a good time to set them up before switching the theme. Once we get them into widgets, you’ll be able to switch themes easier, and then it’s just making sure we include your stats.

Note: this is an answer for a self-hosted, paid hosting user using the WordPress.org software – if you have your site at WordPress.com, you can use the theme.wordpress.com directory

Enjoy playing with your site’s theme!

Sara Rosso, aka WIHT’s in-house geek

I use Google Apps for my domain and integrate several other email accounts into what I call my “control tower” for email.

Gmail keeps growing and adding new features, and gives users a cool way to learn Gmail tricks by becoming a Gmail Ninja, but one thing I really like is that they have Gmail Labs which gives users access to experimental features that can be activated as desired.

You’ll find a lot of great tricks and features in their Gmail Ninja tips, but my 5 favorite Gmail Labs add-ons are:

• Undo Send
• Canned Responses
• Sender timezone
• Refresh POP accounts
• Multiple signatures for multiple email addresses

Undo Send

Undo send perhaps is the most important add-on you can activate. After you’ve hit the “Send” button, it gives you the ability to cancel sending an email for several seconds. That attachment you forgot to send, that email you probably shouldn’t have, the person you forgot to copy on the mail, all now have a savior. At least for a few seconds.

Enable “Undo Send” and the next email you send, you’ll see “Your message has been sent” and then a link to “Undo” that will remain visible for several seconds. After it’s gone, your message has been delivered.

Canned Responses

Canned Responses, especially for someone who has a website and receives a lot of emails with the same types of questions (solicitation, guest posts, advertising, advice, moving to Italy, etc.), are a time saver!

Canned Responses will show up right next to the “Add an Attachment” link in your email editor. After you click “Reply” just click on the Canned Responses drop-down and “Insert” and select the applicable message. Or, if you’ve just crafted the perfect reply, you can save it by selecting Save > Create new Canned Response. It has saved me a lot of repeating myself.

Sender Time Zone

Now that I’m working with a very international team, and very international clients, it’s hard to keep track of what time it is wherever they are. When I need to answer an email, it helps me to use Sender Time Zone so I can know exactly what time it is where they are. Are they sleeping, and won’t see the email for a few hours, or are they just about to walk out of the office, so it’s best to send the email as soon as possible?

Refresh POP Accounts

Refresh” link to the right of your main navigation buttons, and it will show up to the right of the “More Actions” button.

Multiple signatures for multiple email addresses

This last feature is actually not part of Gmail Labs, but it’s a feature that was added only recently and it’s one I’ve rejoiced about. If you manage multiple email addresses in Gmail, it’s likely that you don’t want to use the same signature for all of them. You can set up individual signatures for each account by going to Settings > General and scrolling down to Signature.

Do you have any tricks you use to enhance your email experience? Even not in Gmail? Let me know.

Images: Google, and screenshots of my own Inbox.

Writers*, the Internet and its images are not your ClipArt gallery.

Especially in the case of Cooks Source, an assumption was made by the writer that the material they found online was somehow “available” and could be taken, re-used, re-written and published, and including the original author’s name was enough to justify its usage.

Some people make a living publishing content and photos online. Some just enjoy it as a hobby. Some do it as a second job, hoping for something more. All of these people have the right to full control over their intellectual property’s copyright, no matter what you perceive their aim to be.

In this article, though, I want to focus on photography. While more and more people realize using words someone else has written is plagiarism, it’s not as clear to them how they can use / re-publish others’ photos in their content.

A Photo Illustrates Your Story, or A Photo is The Story?

I think the first distinction to be made is between a picture illustrating or visually decorating content, and a picture as the story. In the first case, the picture helps you, the writer, to illustrate your story to the reader through visual clues. People like pictures, it breaks up text, and it gives them different focal points. In the second case, the picture is the reason for the story. It’s news, a point, a counterpoint, or the basis for a discussion.

Example: this picture of gelato.

In the first case (a picture illustrates a story): the writer could decide to use the picture in a story talking about gelato, about summer in Italy, about ice cream even. They use the photo like clip art – to punctuate a textual story with visual elements.

In the second case, an article could be written with reference to the author’s original blog post where the picture appeared. Additional details like the original author’s name & link, point of view, perhaps even a small excerpt is incorporated into the story (not only a credit at the end) as the writer uses the author and her photo as a point of reference and source, and as a key component to the story the writer is currently telling that is related to the original author’s content.

Neither of these editorial approaches is more correct than the other. Most of the photos on When I Have Time are used in the first case, as they help illustrate my story, but they are not the story. Often copyright owners find more gratification from the second case – if my photo is your story, most likely I am getting publicity, interest, and hopefully credibility and traffic from its inclusion.

In both cases, the writer needs permission from the copyright holder to use their photo.

Case #1 actually happened to me and this particular photo, and it was included in a post as an visual without my permission. I feel no need to name the site as we rectified the situation cordially and they were very professional. But it became even clearer to me that the assumptions some writers are working on need to be set straight.

Respect Image Copyright

If there’s a watermark on the photo, you can bet the photographer cares about how that photo is republished and used. Even if there’s no watermark, there is copyright on the photo! {Read up on a Guide to Copyright and Creative Commons if intellectual property rights are fuzzy to you} If a photo is available for Creative Commons usage, the author will declare it somewhere in an easy-to-find place like their site sidebar, on their About page, or directly under the photo.

If you can’t find Creative Commons license information at first glance, don’t assume that photo is available for the taking. Assume the exact opposite. It’s not available, for any usage, and you should write the copyright holder for permission. When in doubt? Send the photographer an email!

Proper Usage and Crediting a Photo

If you find a photo available for usage that is Creative Commons, its license dictates how the photo can be used, modified and attributed. If you’re not sure your usage is ok, ask the photographer! Ask!

Some tips for proper usage and crediting a photo:

• Did I mention ask permission? When in doubt, ask. This step cannot be overlooked.
• You credit the name, but don’t give a link. A link is not required by law, but it is the Internet. Why not share the love back?
• Make sure you insert the link and credit before the post has been published (so all RSS readers see the link).
• Never put your own logo or watermark on the photo unless you have explicit permission to modify the photo (again, ask!).
• If the photo you’re using is Creative Commons, drop the author a line after the fact to see where their photo has been given new life – who knows, you may gain another reader or even an advocate.

Build a Relationship with your ClipArt generator, the Photographer

If you’re a site owner, or a community site writer, why not think of other ways to approach photographers so that they will be more interested in your request to republish their all-rights-reserved photos?

• Approach the photographer and offer to do a profile on your site about the photographer in exchange for a certain number of photos (i.e., 5) for other blog posts.
• Offer to pay the photographer (innovative, I know).
• Offer something else in exchange (perhaps you can barter its usage).
• Ask if they have any photos with Creative Commons licenses or available on stock photography sites – perhaps you’ll find a substitute photo that can be purchased cheaply or can be used with Creative Commons.

Are you a writer looking for images? Start with Flickr’s search for Creative Commons images licensed for commercial use.

Do you have any tips for writers on correctly finding and using images on the Internet?

If you’re a photographer, what would you prefer writers offered you, other than money, for using your photos?

*I use the term “writers” in this case to mean both journalists and bloggers – I have seen cases where both have overlooked copyright.

Photo credit: me, Sara Rosso

I cover WordPress featured images in the presentation mainly from a user standpoint and not from a developer’s standpoint, though I include some tips and suggestions for users curious about experimenting with code at the end.

Covered in the presentation are:

• what are featured images
• the evolution of featured images in WordPress Codex
• some popular & free magazine themes for WordPress
• how to use featured images in WordPress without changing your base theme via plugins (sidebars, archives, related/random/recent posts)
• how to start experimenting with the Featured Images code, online and through a local installation of WordPress.

I’d love to hear your feedback! The video of the presentation will be made available online at a later date, and I’ll link to that when it is available.

Note: This presentation is being released with a Creative Commons license – Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic.

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=featuredimages-101016153152-phpapp01&stripped_title=using-featured-images-with-wordpress&userName=sara.rosso

Sounds confusing, right? It’s really not.

What you need to know about WordPress is that it’s an easy, powerful, and very flexible platform for blogs AND static websites.

What you may not know is that the WordPress community is very large, which means you’ve got a ton of information, documentation, and helpful people (like me) ready to get you started with WordPress.

Note: I am referring to an installed/self-hosted version of WordPress (available at WordPress.org), not the free, hosted sites on WordPress.com

Ready to get your hands dirty with WordPress? This is what you’ll need:

1. Web hosting selected (with needed minimum requirements) and purchased
2. A domain name selected and registered
3. A backup / export of your current blog’s content (optional)
4. A theme / design for your new blog (and pertinent files)
   
5. FTP client software and/or web FTP access to your hosting server
6. WordPress installation files and instructions
7. Bonus: Importing content from existing blog (optional)
   
8. Bonus chapter: not so quick, but very dirty: Modifying old URLs and Images for the new blog

That’s it! You’re ready to go.

Let’s break down each piece:

1. Web Hosting Selected (with needed minimum requirements) & Purchased

WordPress has some minimum requirements to run, and most hosting providers will give you this information in the FAQ area or possibly specify if they are WordPress-compliant. If you don’t see this information, don’t hesitate to email the provider before committing and purchasing your web hosting. Some providers may even offer WordPress as a “pushbutton” or “1 click” installation which means they are not only compliant, they’ll walk you through the installation! Read server requirements for Hosting WordPress so you know what requirements your web hosting provider has to have to run WordPress. {Read the WHT article about How to Choose Web Hosting for your Site}

Really quick & dirty: buy web hosting from one of WordPress’ web hosting partners

2. A Domain Name Selected and Purchased

For the purposes of this example, I’m assuming you’re moving from a free blogging platform with an existing (free) URL like myblogname.oldblogsoftware.com, and you’re interested in moving to a hosted WordPress installation on your own domain. If you don’t have a domain yet, read the {WHT article: How to Buy a Domain and What to Do With It}. In this case, as mentioned above, you want to buy web hosting for your domain.

Really quick & dirty: most domains can be purchased directly from your web hosting provider and you can do it during the setup of your web hosting account or directly after.

3. A Backup of your Current Blog’s Content (Posts and Pictures!)

WordPress can accept just about any blog’s content on the planet. Your job is to find out how to export the content of your particular blog and save it to a safe place on your computer.

Here are some shortcuts for the most popular blogging platforms – if you are given a choice, you’ll want to export in XML format:

• Export content from Blogger: Dashboard>Settings>Blog Tools >Export Blog or read How to Export on Blogger’s Help Forum
  
• Export from TypePad: Export/Import on Six Apart’s knowledge base – (they actually go into quite a bit of detail about moving from TypePad to WordPress)
• Export from Movable Type: Exporting content from Movable Type
• Export from LiveJournal: Log into LiveJournal’s Export page
  
• Export from Posterous: it has the functionality available via their API, but someone still has to write an exporter (Nov 09)
  

You’ll also need to download pictures and other content you’ve uploaded in your current blog. If you’re using Flickr for your images, and you embed the HTML code directly into your posts, you won’t need to do anything.

Really quick and dirty: Pay a friend to do this for you. Or dinner works, too. But not pizza – don’t be cheap, man!

4. A Theme / Design for your New Blog (and pertinent files)

I could write several posts about choosing a theme, but for now I will keep it simple: visit blogs (if you’re reading RSS feeds, click through!) and start noting which sites make you sit up and take notice and what you don’t like. Then start to understand what kind of design you’re looking for with your new blog (2 columns, dark, rotating header image, red, etc.) and then go here to narrow down your choices: WordPress Themes

I suggest downloading at least 2-3 blog themes that you like, so after you get your content imported and the themes uploaded, you can switch from one to the other if you find your favorite theme doesn’t suit your content. You may also consider paying someone to make you a custom design, but for now let’s just concentrate on a clean free design for the first iteration of your WordPress blog!

Really quick and dirty: Use one of the 30+ free themes that are automatically included in your WordPress basic installation, accessible via the Administration panel : Appearance > Themes.

5. FTP Client Software and/or Web FTP Access to your Hosting Server

You’ll also need a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client software so that you can transfer files from your hard drive to your web hosting server, including most of the WordPress installation files (if you don’t have assisted installation through your web hosting provider) and your blog’s content like themes and photos. I suggest FileZilla FTP Client – it’s open source!

Really quick and dirty: Your web hosting may provide a web interface to upload files via web FTP, so you won’t have to install anything additionally, but you may find an FTP software to be easier and faster.

6. WordPress Installation Files and Instructions

You can always find the latest version of WordPress at: http://wordpress.org/download/ – you’ll need to save this to your computer. Then you’ll want to get started with Installing WordPress. You’ll especially want to have the detailed instructions page as well as the Famous 5-minute installation pages open.

Really quick and dirty: Use one of the WordPress hosting partners with 1-click installation for WordPress. Otherwise, you’ll definitely want a friend who’s installed WordPress before to help you with this – bribe them nicely!

7. Import Content from Existing Blog (optional)

Now you’ve got a working version of WordPress with some default content. Now to import your content. After you’re logged on as administrator, Click on Tools to expand the submenu on the WordPress administration panel. Next, scroll down if necessary and click Import to show the various import options. Next, click your previous blog’s type and follow the directions. Read more about Importing content from other blogging software into WordPress.

Geek Tip – only for the adventurous: If you have a large blog, you may get an error uploading your content as the uploader times out. MAKE A COPY/BACKUP of the original import file you downloaded from your previous blog interface. Then take the file and divide it into two or three pieces (you’ll want to make sure you cut off before the <ENTRY> or <POST> XML tag)

Really quick and dirty: It can’t get much quicker or dirtier than this. Be content.

That’s the end of the quick and dirty guide to Getting Started with WordPress. Below is a bonus chapter that has to do with cleaning up after yourself and your move.

8. (Bonus) Modifying Old Internal URLs and Images for the new blog

Chances are, if you’re a decent blogger, you’ve linked to yourself at some point, or often, within your posts. While WordPress will change the structure of your posts’ permalinks (URL) from oldblog.oldblogsoftware.com/mypostname to www.newdomainname.com/mypostname when you import your content, it will not change any internal references to your content. Oh dear, what’s a blogger to do? If you’ve got a friend who is comfortable rooting around in your database (MAKE A BACKUP FIRST BEFORE ANYONE PLAYS!), they can do a find and replace in your wp_posts table and do a partial replace (find: oldblog.oldblogsoftware.com substitute with: www.newdomainname.com).

If you don’t have any friends like that, or you prefer not to take chances, I can only say you’ll just have to go in by hand to each post, update the URL and save the post again. I suggest starting with your 10 most recent posts (more likely to be seen with random “Older posts” browsing) and your top 10-20 most popular posts and update the URLs.

Geek Tip: You’ll want to understand permalinks well when you import your blog – if your old blog post URLs were structured oldblog.oldblogstructure.com/day/month/year/postname, and your new blog’s URL structure is www.newdomainname.com/postname, you’ll have to pay attention when updating your URLs.

Anything I’m missing from the Quick and Dirty Guide? Let me know.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/photonoob/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Dear Ask the Geek,

I’m beginning to get a decent amount of hits on my blog (5000 pages/3000 unique per month…not millions, I know, but they’re increasing steadily), along with lots of requests to advertise. I need to determine the best way to monetize both the blog, and/or all my sites. I use text-link-ads at the moment, but I need some advice on where to go from here.

Sincerely,

I Work Hard for the Money

Dear I Work Hard for the Money,

Monetization is a formula that’s very specific for every site, and one that needs to be constantly evaluated based on your website’s goals and content, and perhaps your business needs at large. I think talking about the three following things will help answer your question:

• Website conversions
• Paid links & Transparency
• Advertising rates and payment types

Website Conversions

Understanding your website’s main objective (and in particular, if there is a monetary correlation) is called a conversion:

Conversion is the process of successfully achieving the primary objective of a specific page or website.[1]

Focusing on defining what the conversion for your website is will make things much clearer for you regarding advertising – what kind of advertisers you’d like to host, pursue, and what type of visitors you’ll want on your site to fulfill your website’s goals. Also, it will help you further define your audience (existing or ideal) and therefore understand what type of advertising will not be intrusive or a nuisance but rather a service to them!  i.e., you have a site about Venice, but you get an offer to host an ad for part replacements – does it make sense? Does your audience want that?

Of course, conversions don’t have to be strictly monetary – perhaps you’re hoping to turn visits into writing opportunities, photos sold, or email inquiries received. Perhaps after defining your website’s conversion, you’ll find that you should actually think about BUYING advertising instead of hosting ads on your site for others, or make it available in a subscription format, etc.

Here are some questions that you should answer to help define what your website conversions might be:

• How do you measure the success of your site currently?
• Beyond the number of visitors and traffic in general, how are you planning to track the effectiveness of your site? What factors will be considered when examining who comes to your site and how they’re getting there? Are some sources/referrers higher-valued than others? Why?
• Are there particular key pages on your website you want your audience to see/visit or are there particular paths the user should complete that could be considered conversions? (i.e., request information/quote, buy product, stumble, etc)
• Is there a correlation between more traffic and an increase in “sales/conversions” in other ways? (more tours, more photos sold, more products bought, etc.) How are you measuring this?
• Should you be focusing on better-serving your existing audience instead of looking for more traffic? How are you measuring the experience of visitors to your website?
• How much money are you expecting to make? Do you have an actual target / fiscal need that must be met and is driving your website’s purpose?

Write the answers to these questions down along with your other brainstorming, or perhaps create a light business plan, and then you can use this to base all your other decisions regarding partnerships, revenue goals and advertising.

Tip: If you end up instead buying advertising, understanding your website conversion is essential to measure if your investment is giving a good return on investment (ROI).

Paid Links & Transparency

Google doesn’t like paid text links, or more specifically: Google doesn’t like links that are not labeled as advertising (“selling links”) because it compromises the integrity of how they calculate PageRank and therefore the influence a certain site has. I’m not sure exactly how you have configured your advertising/paid links (or what you’re getting in terms of revenue) but you might want to read this article about paid links by Google. With that being said, many have decided not to care what Google thinks and use them anyway.

I can give you some advice regarding monetizing, but I think monetizing your website is like finding the perfect pair of jeans: every site is going to have the perfect fit and mix of advertising that’s different from everyone else.

I think the best type of advertising to sell is that which respects the trust relationship you have between you and your audience. In my case, I believe graphic advertising, in designated advertising areas of one’s site and clearly labelled are best. They may affect the aesthetics of your site but the transparency is very clear to your audience.

Since your sites are quite focused, and you have the opportunity to find local/niche businesses that might want to be featured, you can probably take a pro-active approach and contact them with your rates, whether it be graphic advertising or text links. You may try to attract a quality advertiser with discounted rates if it adds then to your site’s own reputation to have them advertising there or helps you get other advertising contracts based on the reputation of your current advertiser.

Types of Ads and Payment

If you’re determined to have ads on your site, whether you’re selling them directly to the business or opting into an ad network (like Google) you’ll need to understand how your payments are calculated.

Ads, in terms of payment, can be broken down into two general categories – CPM (cost per thousand page impressions) and CPC (cost-per-click). Google AdSense, for example, pays per click. Usually CPM are offered in conjunction with several ad networks (like BlogHer, Federated Media, etc.) who sell a level of exposure to advertisers across their network of blogs, but CPM can also be inferred if you’re offering an ad space for a specific period of time, like a month.

The CPM formula can be calculated by dividing the cost by the number of thousands of page views. For example, if your blog gets 10,000 page views a month, and you’re selling an ad space for $30/month, the CPM is therefore: 30.00/(10,000/1,000) = $3.00/CPM. Alternatively, you may negotiate a CPM that is good for X number of impressions and the advertisement is removed by you after meeting this quota.

Google includes a CPM rate in their calculation, but it’s actually a post-facto calculation that is made based on the ads clicked and however much they negotiated per-click with that ad owner. They call it Effective CPM, which is why you can see different CPMs for the different advertising spaces you have on your page. It depends on how many clicks they have received.

A third type of advertisement type is called an affiliate link / ad / offer, which means that you don’t receive anything from the ad owner unless the user purchases something on the ad owner’s website, and you’ll receive a percentage of this sale. These affiliate links can be internal to your site’s content (much like text links) or an offer/link to an affiliate store in your sidebar.

Sara Rosso (aka WHT’s In-House Geek)

Resources

• Advertising 101 for Bloggers and Developing a Strategic Business Plan from Design*Sponge (excellent!!)
• Perform Better With AdSense: The Ultimate Round-Up from Smashing Magazine
• 10 Things to Consider when Choosing an Ad Network from Food Blog Alliance
• What is Affiliate Marketing? from ProBlogger
• The Google Page Rank Pendulum Swings…. Again from ProBlogger
• How to Monetize Your Site with Video from Mashable
• Effective CPM from Google

Hopefully I don’t need to spend a lot of time convincing you that backup is essential to anyone that has digital data. And who doesn’t these days? Some of the benefits for backing up are avoiding data loss and gaining data independence from your physical computer and therefore, being more prepared for an eventual failure or crash.

• What to Backup
• Different types of Backup
• Backup vs. Archiving
• Scheduling and My Backup Setup
  
• Backup Software, Online Backup Services and Google Docs
• Resources

What to Backup

In short, anything you have on your computer you can’t bear to lose.

I backup what I consider to be the most important documents to me: my photos, my writing, organizational and university documents, and archives of important orders or noteworthy digital receipts. Anything I can’t replicate easily, or whose historical value means something to me. I also backup my ebooks, music and films I’ve purchased as some sites don’t provide you with a bookshelf or a way to re-download the media after purchase.

I often download files, programs and installation files to a specific folder (like C:/downloads) so that I can find the exact program later and re-install if necessary. Backup your installation files if you’ve downloaded them from the Internet, especially if they aren’t easy-to-remember program/website names.

If you’re using an email client that downloads mail directly to your computer, you’ll definitely want to have a backup of those email, too.

Different types of Backup

Backup is generally divided into two methodologies: file-based and image-based backup.

Image-based backup or disk imaging is like taking a snapshot of your computer’s current state and configuration. It will make an exact copy of your operating system, programs and drivers in that moment, useful for restoring at a later date. The entire backup is saved as a single file that is not navigable / explorable because it’s a complete package – you won’t be able to just restore a particular file or driver. If you’ve ever seen an installation CD for your favorite software, the data on the CD is usually in an .iso format which means it’s a disk image.

Image-based backup can be helpful to capture a particular state of your hard drive, installations, or system settings and is more popular for servers that are in a production environment, or a commercial setting. Most end users will not need to make an image backup. If you have a disk that is partitioned (i.e., on C: you have all your programs and operating system, and on D: you have just your data) you may decide to image the entire data drive instead of selecting particular folders.

File-based backup is based on selecting files, folders or even file types for backup. This is the most common usage of backup and allows you to have clear control on what exactly is being backed up. To allow for some flexibility, I select high-level folders (like C:mydocs) where I save all my personal data. Centrally saving your data and downloads so you can easily locate them later is a good practice to get into – try to override any default settings in programs to save in their particular folders.

Doing a backup by file type (like all images: .jpg, .gif, etc.) can be useful to someone who just wants to back up photos or a particular type of document they have on their hard drive. Backup by file type can be limiting, though, especially if you’re not sure what kind of data you’re going to be producing in the future or if you don’t regularly check your backup settings to see if something needs to be changed to be more inclusive.

Backup vs. Archiving

Archiving is different from backup. Backup means that a file is copied to a secondary location where it will reside until it’s needed to replace or restore the version on the primary device. With archiving, the primary copy of the data is on a secondary device (like an external hard drive), and the original copy is deleted from the primary device (i.e., your laptop hard drive). Archiving a file means future versions of this file will not be synchronized to the secondary device and/or if the file is deleted from the primary device, the archived version on the secondary device is not affected.

Be careful that you don’t mix up the terms backup and archiving when looking at backup software and online services. Most software and solutions available today are based on synchronizing or backing up your computer’s actual state and files and are not archive solutions. If a file is deleted from the primary device, then a version of the file is available from the last time you backed it up on the secondary device. But if a file is deleted/changed/lost, and then a synchronization is executed before recovery is attempted from the secondary device, that file will be deleted/changed/updated on the backup repository and therefore non-recoverable.

Scheduling and My Current Backup Setup

With scheduling, you can really harness the true power of doing a backup – being able to schedule your backup automatically. Depending on your data generation/modification habits, I would suggest scheduling a backup once or a few times a week to keep your backups fresh and relevant.

My Backup Setup

For fun, I’m going to share the backup and archiving solution that I use at home. Perhaps you might feel I’m a little cautious with a lot of my failover, but it definitely goes back to the benefit of backup – feeling independent from my computer. My laptop is 4 years old, but I don’t worry anymore about the day that it might break down. My laptop drive is so small that most of my new content can’t fit on it anymore.

• A. Primary device – laptop 60GB
• B. Backup drive 1 – 250GB
• C. Backup drive 2 – 750GB
• D. Online backup services – MozyHome

On A, I keep some personal documents and photos, which I then back up to B. On B, I now also have some photos and original content which only exist on B (and not on A). These documents and photos from A & B are backed up onto D, my online backup service. Then the entire contents of B (backed-up files from A, and primary content on B) is backed up to C. On C there is some primary/original content that is not backed up, and for now I’m ok with that.

Backup Software and Online Backup Services

There are many options for online and offline backup, many of which are listed in the articles at the end of this post. If you already have an external hard drive you back up to, you still might need software to help the scheduling or synchronization process. I use Synkron which is an open source software that synchronizes folders which works pretty well. If you don’t have an external hard drive, what are you waiting for? They are getting cheaper every day – pick up a Western Digital or Seagate drive.

If you’re running Windows, you may not have to buy anything. Microsoft XP comes with its own backup software = Windows XP Backup – installed automatically on XP Pro and available to XP Home users, too. I’ve never used it so I can’t vouch for its effectiveness, but it appears you can select what to backup and even schedule it. Read more about how to set up Windows XP Backup.

As far as online backup options, there are so many. I have been using Mozy (Pro) for my online backup more than a year, and while it’s a little slow, I’ve been generally happy. If you feel like giving me a little love, you can sign up for Mozy using my referral link – but that’s up to you. Here’s also a clean link to Mozy with no referral.

Another popular solution for online backup is Dropbox. We use it often at work to share files and folders among members of a virtual working group. Similar to Mozy, you get 2GB free and they have other, more robust options for pay.

Worth mentioning, and one you might not have thought of is Google Docs, an online document service that will actually import files into their online versions. If you’ve got text, presentation or Word files that you’d like to be accessible online, this is a great way to have a copy of them online, but it’s not a good solution for continuous backup. Note that Google Docs does NOT have a guarantee for users so it’s possible that some day your documents could be lost or they could turn off the service.

What concerns or issues do you have when it comes to backup? What’s your setup like?

Resources

• 10 Data Backup, Storage and Sharing Solutions from Smashing Magazine
• CNET’s list of backup software
• List of backup software on Wikipedia
• List of online backup services on Wikipedia
• Best online backup services by PCMag
• Synching your files with SugarSync by NYTimes

(img by zebble)
Note: There are affiliate links in this post which are clearly labeled.

You might not understand what all the fuss is about – global WordCamps, plugins, themes?

Luckily, there’s a way you can play with WordPress on your own computer, without having to buy or commit to anything!

In a few steps, you can install this software that will simulate a web server on your computer, and you’ll have WordPress up and running. You can install this software package on a Windows, Linux or Mac computer and then install WordPress.

Why should you install WordPress on your home computer? After you’ve installed WordPress, then you can:

• Practice importing your site from another source into WordPress (Blogspot/Blogger, Typepad, hosted WordPress.com site)
• Apply and modify a WordPress (free/paid) theme design and play with other design features
• Create your own custom WordPress design (theme) from scratch
• Install and practice with the thousands of WordPress plugins available online or write your own WordPress plugin
• Get to know the WordPress interface and its features
• Practice inserting your own content, managing images, and other key WordPress lessons
• and…you can install MULTIPLE instances of WordPress – so you can work on more than one blog at a time!

Setting it up on your home computer means you can experiment, make mistakes and stop work whenever you want because the site is accessible only to you on your personal computer.

Not only is it free, it’s really easy to use and install.

Since WordPress is Open Source and free, it relies on several other open source and free software components to run. So that means it’s completely free for you to try out WordPress. On a more technical note, you just have to remember that there are four main components to get WordPress working: the web server software, the database engine and the programming language engine(s).

There’s an installation package that will give you all four of them called XAMPP. XAMPP has these four components: Apache HTTPD (web server), MySQL (database engine) and PHP and Perl (programming language engines). Each of these can be downloaded and installed separately, but the XAMPP package does it all in one go so you’re sure to have the right versions.  Note: for the purposes of this article, I am assuming you will installing this for use on your personal computer, to be accessed only by you on that same computer for testing reasons. This is not an article about setting up a web server on your computer to be accessed externally.

In simple terms, Apache HTTPD is the software that turns your computer into a web server and to allow it to “serve” content in the form of web pages, images, and other content you’d find on a website when you use – it’s what happens when you insert “http://” in your web browser address bar.

MySQL is the database server. Years ago a web page consisted of actual files for each page of the site like index.html, contact.html, etc. Each of these files was sitting in your webserver’s hard drive and had be downloaded individually. Now with more modern sites, and especially with WordPress, each page is created more dynamically because the majority of the content is actually stored in a database. When someone wants to see “Sara’s Page” WordPress will put the pieces together dynamically, from the header to the footer with the blog’s theme, sidebars and formatting.

PHP and Perl are two programming languages that WordPress needs. PHP is the language that WordPress is written in and a language that was made for scripting web pages. Perl is a very succinct and powerful programming language and is often included in WordPress code (that you won’t have to worry about). You need to install these two engines so that when the PHP / Perl code is run, it can be interpreted and executed on your local computer.

In order to get WordPress running on your computer, here is the overview of the steps to do it – make sure you’re referencing the manuals for each installation to have detailed steps.

1. Download and install XAMPP. Make sure you choose an easy to remember folder to install it in (like C:xampp)
   1. http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html from Apache Friends
   2. or from SourceForge http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/
2. Download the latest version of WordPress
   1. http://wordpress.org/download/
3. Unzip/copy the WordPress files into its own subdirectory in the folder that is the “web directory” on your local computer – this will be defined during the installation in #1. It will be something like “C:yourxamppinstallationdirectoryhtdocs” – in the above example: “C:xampphtdocsmywordpressfolder”
4. Install WordPress following the directions on the Installing WordPress page. And you’re done!

For multiple instances of WordPress, i.e., to experiment with more than one blog at the same time, just repeat steps 3 and 4 in another subdirectory of your web directory folder.

Now you’re read to experiment with WordPress with no hassle or commitment!

If you need a more detailed explanation, here’s screenshots of all the steps for installing WordPress on Windows XP thanks to sp-arun

Installing WordPress Locally in Windows Xp Using WampServer http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=20309755&access_key=key-1mqdiwczayor83igvzyn&page=1&version=1&viewMode=

Photo by ericmmartin

What is Domain Masking?

Domain Masking is sometimes called a “pointer domain.” If we are to continue our example of a postal system mentioned in DNS in Plain English, is like having your mail sent to a P.O. Box. It’s not a physical address, and the “final” destination is another location entirely. You’re hiding the final address from the sender for whatever reason.

Domain Masking is usually offered by your domain registrar as a service. [How is this different from Domain Forwarding? Read Domain Forwarding in Plain English]

If you set up Domain Masking for a blogspot blog, for example, you might consider the following:

www.domainname.com is a Domain Mask for domainname.blogspot.com

When someone types in www.domainname.com, it’s really forwarding to domainname.blogspot.com without the address changing in the address bar (the part of your browser where you see the URL beginning with “http://…”. The user continues to see www.domainname.com in the address bar although the site and its contents are really from domainname.blogspot.com.

Why Use Domain Masking?

If you have an existing site that is being hosted free (like a blog from Blogger or WordPress.com) being able to give out a short URL or address may be a benefit to you. Also, if you’re not ready to pay for hosting, it’s a quick way to utilize your domain name.

Why Should I Think Twice about Domain Masking? Does it Matter?

It definitely matters to Google. If you will rely on search engines for any traffic, then you need to seriously consider if you need to use domain masking or if you can find another solution, such as Domain Forwarding or Switching Your Web Hosting.

Google doesn’t like duplicate content, and with Domain Masking, it sees two domains with the same exact content. What will happen? Google has not released their exact policy on Domain Masking but they make it clear that duplicate content will only get indexed once, and it may not the URL or domain that you prefer.

I Still Want to Use Domain Masking. What Do I Do?

Make sure you use 301 (Permanent) Redirects if given a choice by your domain management.

It may be possible to do this in the settings when you select Domain Masking, or it may require access to the administrative console of the server, so it’s possible that this will not be available to you.

Ready for More? More Resources on Domain Masking:

• What is DNS? DNS in Plain English [When I Have Time]
• Domain Masking [Wikipedia]
• Webmaster Guidelines and Duplicate Content [Google Help]
• Will Domain Masking Impact my SEO? [Your SEO Plan]

Image by eyesplash