Rx, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WORDPRESS

[Rx] Variations on a WP Theme

oldsite

I’ve been playing with the standard WordPress Twenty-Twelve theme and a variation based on Zurb Foundation, WP-Forge.

I played with some logo alternatives and manually entered the “Rx” graphic on the how-to post titles. It’s simple to do. In the title box, add your image location as:

<img src=”http://www.something.com/Rx_blue.png”> The is My Post Title

  This is My Post Title

It looked a bit ugly in the WP dashboard because the “<img etc…” code/title pops up in all the post title listings. I’m just going to add [Rx] as text in the title. Simpler.

GPS, Rx

[Rx] Hacking The Garmin Nuvi 265W GPS

Garmin Nuvi 265WI haven’t played with my GPS in a couple of years. I keep on getting notices that my maps are old and that I should update them since the one on the system is from around time of Columbus and there have been significant changes. I guess the earth is round or something.

To start, I planned to reinstall my old Garmin PC software, MapSource, which needed the original with serial to install. While I was poking around, I found that there is a new and improved PC-based mapping program from Garmin, BaseMap (free).

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Rx

[Rx] Convert Too Long Win7 File Names in 7-Zip

7z_rm01Sometimes MS-Windows really sucks. I unzipped a folder without reviewing the file names. Some joker had named each file longer than War and Peace. Of course, after installing, these files couldn’t be renamed or deleted.

I tried opening the terminal window and using the MS-command line.

Dir /x

This gives me the short name. Then, I can:

rename shortname newname

This is usually bulletproof. BUT, it didn’t work and sent an error message that the file could not be found. Bummer.

What did work was using 7-Zip:

  1. Open 7-Zip Program
  2. Navigate to the directory that has the “bad” files.
  3. Highlight a “bad” file
  4. Press F2 and rename to something shorter.

That’s all folks!

LINUX, Rx

[Rx] Linux Mint – Updating UPDATE MANAGER

UpdateManagerI have LinuxMint 17.1 VM under Win7.  This morning, when I ran Mint, a message popped up and said that there were updates via Update Manager.

I’m not an expert on Linux by any means, but figured I’d better install them, about 400MB worth. Guess which program didn’t update? Yep,  Update Manager. It was suppose to be the latest version 4.8.4. 

I opened up a terminal window and this did the job via command line:

sudo apt-get update        # Fetches the list of available updates
sudo apt-get upgrade       # Strictly upgrades the current packages
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade  # Installs updates (new ones)

Remember that you need to enter your super-secret password after each sudo command. I also used the default for any install errors.

NOTES

[RANT] Why Do “Free” Web Email Accounts Need My Cell Number?

cellphone01I went to Yahoo to set up a special account for just my creative writing endeavors. I got everything set up and then it asked for my cell number. What?!! It isn’t enough that free web mail providers have my email. Now, they want my cell number on top of that for “security purposes.” Yeah, right.

One that didn’t ask for my cell was GMX http://www.gmx.com/

I read through their terms and it basically says you can’t send/receive anything that looks, smells, or might even be illegal, immoral, or just plain bad without violating the agreement. If you can live with that, it’s a cell-free option.

While I haven’t set it up, it also looks like the service will allow fetching via POP3 and IMAP. Here’s the link to how to set up Thunderbird:

 https://help.gmx.com/en/applications/imap.html#thunderbird

GMX is owned by 1&1 of the webhosting/registration fame. A first glance, GMX looks better than 1&1’s own webmail. Some comments said to beware that GMX is a bait and  switch “deal” to the 1&1 paid email server service.

Warning: There are lots of complaints about email accounts being blocked by GMX. If you’re using this mail as a spam dump, that shouldn’t be too big of a deal. If you’re concerned, download your emails with POP3/IMAP.

NOTES, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WORDPRESS

Offline WordPress

2014-11-15_175125I use Instant WordPress (IWP) for developing WordPress offline and I use  Windows Live Writer (WLW) tool for writing content. There was some sort of trick that I used to get WLW to work and I don’t remember exactly what I did. See boys and girls, why I need to document, document, document? Nuts. I know it had something do with the url address of the WordPress directory.

Anyway, I found a WLW 2012 portable via the ever-trusty Internet. This worked great until Windows Updater “helped” me out by overwriting my files with the latest and greatest. Anyway, this is just a note to let me know that it can be repaired. How? Beats me. Hopefully, I’ll write it up next time it happens (with screen shots and all!)

OPEN SOURCE, REVIEW

[REVIEW] GNUcash 2.6.3 – The GNOOD, the BAD, and the GNUGLY

gnc-download

FREE. I love that word. It’s almost as good as Open Source. GNUcash is financial-accounting software for personal and small business all under an open and free GNU GPL . The only problem with a lot of open/free software is that you get what what paid for…

Right off, you’ll probably have to whip out the documentation and actually read at least some of it to get started. What I wanted to do was to keep track of expenditures and also draw from an advance.

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LINUX

A Near Death Out of Bodhi Experience

EKG-Flatline

BODHI IS ALIVE AND UPDATED!

IT TOOK ME AWHILE TO find a Linux distro that I liked for my eeePC. I settled on Bodhi Linux. I spent days customizing and setting up.  This was the first version that worked better than advertised and gave new life to the netbook. I was so happy to hear that a major update was coming at the end of summer.

The deadlines came and went and the  update is still spinning around in 3.0RC1. 

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FONTS, PDF, Rx

[Rx] How to Create a Screen Readable PDF

AFTER DISSECTING A FEW online magazines, I came up with a reasonable copy for readable online PDFs.

PDF Logo

  • Title Font: 20th Century MT Condensed Extra Bold, 36 pt, Blue (R68-G84-R106)
  • Subtitle Font:  Arial, 18 pt, Blue (R68-G84-R106), Spacing After 8 pt
  • Base Font:  Open Sans, 11 pt, Black, Spacing:  Single