Jean Galea

How to set a home page and blog page on Wordpress

Jean Galea — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:22:19 +0000

By default Wordpress displays all the posts on the front page of your blog. For a more traditional website look, we would normally have a static front page, and possibly another page displaying our blog. This is very easy to implement in Wordpress, without touching any code. Before we begin, please create two pages, one named ‘Home’ and another named ‘Blog’ or whatever you want to name the page containing all your posts. Then follow the steps below.

Go to Settings > Reading
You will see a Front Page displays option, select ‘A static page’.
Set the Front Page option to point to the ‘Home’ page we created earlier.
Set the Posts Page option to point to the ‘Blog’ page we created earlier.

If you have dynamic menu generation in place (using for example the wp_list_pages function), you will most probably see your new setup implemented on the front end of your blog. See, that was simple, yay for Wordpress!

How to Take Care of Your Laptop Battery

Jean Galea — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:51 +0000

Laptop batteries are expensive things, and so it is important that we learn how to take best care of our laptop batteries and thus prolong their life as much as possible. Follow these guidelines to achieve a longer life for your laptop battery:

Heat is your battery’s worst enemy. Avoid keeping your battery in hot places such as your car during the daytime.
A full discharge puts more strain on your battery than several partial discharges. You do not need to worry about battery memory with Li-Ion batteries. Get into the habit of recharging the battery when it reaches 10-20%.
Never discharge your battery to 0% – as this can render your battery useless.
Calibrate your battery’s fuel gauge by doing a full discharge every 30 cycles. Run the battery to the cut-off point in your notebook to keep the battery’s fuel gauge accurate.
If you will be on AC power for an extended period of time, you can prolong your battery’s lifespan by removing it and putting it into prolonged storage.
Prolonged storage should be done with a 40% charge-level and in a cool, dry place. Some experts recommend you place the battery in your refrigerator. Use a sealed plastic bag to keep moisture out if you do this.
Do not freeze your battery.
Allow a stored battery to warm to room temperature completely before using or recharging it.

Maltese fonts for download

Jean Galea — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:25:17 +0000

Just a few fonts that might come in handy to people who open documents written in a Maltese font. Remember nowadays Windows supports typing documents in Maltese, in many fonts such as Times New Roman, so ideally when creating a document in Maltese you should use one of the standard fonts which are available on all Windows computers, such as Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Georgia etc.

Click here to download Maltese Fonts (Fonts tal-Malti) (.zip Format)

Instructions:

To install these fonts, download the compressed file above, then unzip it using a program such as Winzip or Winrar.

Once you have the extracted files, copy them to the Fonts folder found at C:\Windows\Fonts.

Update

Thomas Pace, one of this blog’s readers, has kindly made us aware of a very useful manual regarding using Maltese fonts on a PC, which can be downloaded from this location:

http://kunsilltalmalti.gov.mt/filebank/documents/kompjuter.pdf

Automated CPanel Backups for multiple sites

Jean Galea — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:57:47 +0000

I’ve just discovered a very useful tool for all website owners and hosting resellers, read on…

Someone has finally made it easy to backup your website files and databases without needing to log into your cPanel control panel every single time.

Backup Smart is the name of this incredible time saver, check out the free fully-functional 7 day trial and see for yourself why this is one essential tool you should have.

Gone are the days when you forget to backup or run out of time to backup your precious data.

Think about this for a moment…

What happens when your web host has a failure and your account get’s damaged or worse case scenario, the web host loses everything.?

Do you rely on your web host to take backups for you? Check the fine print of most web hosts terms of service and they will state that they are not responsible for your data, even if it’s their fault. Great isn’t it.

So what’s the solution. Simple. Backup your data regularly.

Let me tell you how to do it on cPanel web servers, it’s quite labour intensive.

a) Go to your http://yourwebsite.com:2082 and enter in your login credentials.
b) Go to the Backup icon (will look different depending on your cPanel theme)
c) Click on the link to download the home directory backup (this will take all your files)
d) Click on the links to download your databases
e) Click on the links to download your email filters or email aliases

Now do that once a week or month for your home directory (files) and everyday for your databases like Wordpress, Forums, Shopping Carts, Email Lists.

No thanks I have better things to do with my time.

That’s where Backup Smart comes in. It’s a desktop software application that runs on Windows and MAC OSX. It automates the whole backup process I’ve just outlined for you.

You just set it and forget it. Backups are done on a schedule set by you, it’s just so easy.

If you even have just one website with a database then you need this software to protect your assests. But if you have more than one website on different servers with multiple databases then this software is a huge time saver and you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

Check out all the details at www.backup-smart.com

Hope you find this useful!

XHTML Right Now launched

Jean Galea — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:06:52 +0000

XHTML Right Now is a specialised service of conversion from Designs to XHTML and CSS code. The site provides an easy explanation of the conversion process as well as forms enabling customers to upload their designs and obtain a quick quote on their work.

www.xhtmlrightnow.com

The style used on this website is quite informal and aims to make the user feel comfortable in exploring the information regarding this technical conversion process.

Naming Conventions I Use and Recommend

Jean Galea — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:57:51 +0000

With so many different coding styles in use by developers nowadays, I would like to suggest some ideal naming conventions that I have found useful and practical myself.

In HTML and CSS, Camel Case notation eg. myTestclass can be far less than ideal as it might be difficult to spot errors, consider for example the difference between myTestclass and myTestClass which is not so easy to identify but will result in your styles not being applied, and possibly hours of frustration. I prefer using lower case for all elements, with dashes to separate multiple words, e.g. my-test-class. I think it’s far more readable and faster to type than having to introduce capitalised letters.

For simplicity and consistency, I use lowercase characters for all CSS code including elements, classes, and IDs. As for whitespace in CSS I use the following format:

body {
font-size: 20px;
line-height: 150%;
}

If needed CSS code can be minified to increase performance, however while developing I like to use the style above as I find it the easiest for me to read.

Form elements should be named for what they are, not how they work. If you decided to change a radio button to a check box in the future, you will see why having originally named it something like radio-answer turns out not to be such a great idea after all.

PHP Conventions I Use

Take a look at the Zend and PEAR standards and naming conventions:

Zend

PEAR

PHP Naming Guidlines - Zend Framework 1.9+

Classes – PascalCase (UpperCamelCase)

Special Considerations: Class names must match the name of the directory on the file system that contains the class file. Names are to be AlphaNumeric only with the exception of an ‘_’ which is only to be used to show separation in the path. If you have a class file named Car.php in the path ‘/Models/Car.php’ then the class name would have to be Models_Car.

Interfaces – PascalCase (UpperCamelCase)

Special Considerations: See Classes.

Functions and Methods – camelCase

Special Considerations: AlphaNumeric only with exception of ‘_’ as described here. Names must describe behavior of function or method. Methods that are declared with private or protected visibility modifier must start with an _.

Variables – camelCase

Special Considerations: Names should describe the data in the variable. Variables declared with private or protected visibility modifiers must start with an _.

Constants – ALL_CAPS

Special Considerations: AlphaNumeric and ‘_’ are allowed however ‘_’ must be used to separate words in constants.

Code example:


define("CURRENT_YEAR", date('Y'));

interface Transport
{
public function getDescription();
}

class Models_Car implements Transport
{
private $_make = 'Ford';
private $_model = 'Mustang';
private $_year = 1967;

private function _findAge()
{
return CURRENT_YEAR - $this->_year;
}

public function getDescription()
{
$desc = $this->_year . ", " .
$this->_make . " " .
$this->_model . " is " .
$this->_findAge() . " years old.";

return $desc;
}
}

$car = new Models_Car();
echo $car->getDescription();

Apart from the above conventions by Zend, it is also acceptable to use the following naming structure for functions:

function my_function($args) {
}

Notes:

Pascal Case -> ThisIsPascalCase (Also Called Upper Camel Case)

Camel Case -> thisIsCamelCase (Also Called Lower Camel Case)

No related posts.

Virtual Business Cards (vCard)

Jean Galea — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:45:03 +0000

We have recently launched our vCard creation service, enabling you to have your very own personalised vCard and domain for only 40 Euro.

What is a vCard?

vCard is a file format standard for electronic business cards. vCards are often attached to e-mail messages, but can be exchanged in other ways, such as on the World Wide Web. They can contain name and address information, phone numbers, URLs, logos, photographs, and even audio clips.

It cane be thought of as a normal business card with the added bonuses of it being dynamic, instantly downloadable and very easy to share without any cost. You can update it from time to time with new information and images, making it much more versatile than your traditional business card.

www.jpgalea.com

The example above shows a vCard I have created for myself. As an alternative to this blog, it serves as a quick bite-sized introduction to myself and the services I offer. It also includes contact details and links to my various social profiles. Such vCards are also useful for small businesses such as hair stylists, or professionals like interior designers. They can also be used to attractively showcase examples of your work through photos that enlarge nicely when clicked upon.

Want a vCard or mini-site?

Contact me now and I’ll show you how I can help you promote your services through the use of a vCard or mini-site for yourself or your business.

Using CSS to Generate Footnote Links for Printing

Jean Galea — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:06:47 +0000

When generating stylesheets for print purposes one problem is that by default a user would not be able to see links included in the content. However we can use a script to detect all links present in the content and then present footnotes with the linked pages so users printing your page will still have the possibility to see where you are linking to from your content.

This article is probably the best tutorial / script to help you achieve this effect.

How to Create Snippets with Adobe Dreamweaver CS4

Jean Galea — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:43:45 +0000

This video tutorial shows you how to make use of Dreamweaver CS4’s Snippet capability. I will be showing you how to create a Doctype snippet.

Simple technique for compacting your Gmail inbox

Jean Galea — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:30:13 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

When you start reaching the limit of your Gmail account space, it is time to delete some bulky emails. I use a simple search phrase that gives me all those emails having movie attachments (usually the biggest attachments in my email account), then simply go through them and delete those I don’t really need.

Here is the phrase that does the trick, you need to type this in the ‘Search’ box in your inbox.

has:attachment (*.mov || *.wmv || *.wm)

You can then substitute the file extensions within the search phrase to include other big files you might have in your inbox, such as mp3s, “*.mp3″ and “.zip”.