Computer and Web Shortcuts, Tips & Tricks

Blogger To Self-Hosted Wordpress Import

2007-11-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

Importing from the new Blogger to a self-hosted wordpress is not an easy task... I discovered a very easy trick for doing this that will document here and share with all of you :).

Step 1) Create a free Wordpress.com account. Once you have your blog / account created there, go to the admin area then "Manage" then "import" then "blogger" ... follow the steps to import from your blogger blog. The reason we will create a free Wordpress.com account is because they have an import tool that use's Google's API and works very well!

Step 2) Once you have your posts imported in your Wordpress.com account, simply go back in the admin are, under "Manage" again, but this time select "export". Save the wordpress export file to your pc (note the save location on your pc).

Step 3) Go in your self-hosted wordpress blog's admin area, under "manage" then "import" and choose "wordpess" (because now you have a wordpress export file!. Let the import do it's job and VOILA! All imported from Blogger to Wordpress. Enjoy :)

Keyboard Shortcut: Close a window

2007-10-09T00:25:00.000-07:00

Keyboard shortcuts such as these are nice to know to save time or in this case; when there is no other way to close a window using your mouse.

To close a window (In Windows) using your keyboard, simply keep the "Alt" key down and press the "F4" key.

voila! A quick and easy way to close windows. (It's also a nice pratctical joke to play on friends that don't know what it does, for example if you happen to be losing in a friendly online game you could tell your friend "Hey, I just discovered this, try hitting "Alt + F4" on your keyboard, it's cool!"... then his window would close and you'd win the game :-) hehehe.

How to REALLY refresh a page.

2007-09-12T21:06:00.001-07:00

Have you ever refreshed a webpage but the content that is suppose to be there isn't? that's because your computer is using a cached version of the page instead of the newly updated version on the remote server. To get the remote version and not the cached version, hold down your "ctrl" key and while keeping it pressed down, press your "F5" key (F5 pressed alone without the "ctrl" key also does a normal refresh, just like when you click the refresh button of your browser).

Knowing all these keyboard shortcuts can increase your efficiency whatever you use your computer for. Time is something we never get back so might as well use it the most efficiently possible right? :)

Copy + Paste Images

2007-09-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

When working on in Photoshop or other image editing / graphic design program, this is a useful tool, sometimes you need to take an image from the the web to import in your graphic design program, the longer was is to save the image to your hard drive then from your program, open another document, find the location you saved the image to and open it. The copy + paste is a lot quicker and it's easy to do.

Step 1) After finding the image you want to work with, move your mouse cursor over it and do a "right-click".

Step 2) From the menu that appears, select "Copy".

Step 3) Go to your graphic program and do another "right-click" on the document you are working on and select "paste" from the menu.

That's it... it's a quick way to get the images your graphic work.

Viewing your website before domain propagation

2007-09-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

If you've just changed the nameservers to point to another server for your domain, it can take up to 72 hours for the propagation to happen and for you to be able to see your website on the new host.

Another use for this tip is if you want to work on a website but aren't ready to change the nameservers and point it to the new host until you finish your work on it. With this trick, it's possible to view a site on another server without having to wait for the domain propagation to happen!

The first trick is the easiest by far, all you need to know is the IP of the server your site is now on and you just go to this website and you can preview your site before your dns (nameservers) have propagated!

In windows, the file to edit for this is called the Hosts file, it's located here usually:

C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS

Open this file in note pad or any text editor and add the following info at the end of the file:

 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx www.yourdomain.com
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx yourdomain.com

The Xs reprensent the IP of the new server and of course you'd replace "yourdomain.com" with your domain name. Save your file after your changes.

This will allow you to view your website on the new host but remember, you're the only one that's viewing it there, the rest of the world is still viewing it on the old host until the domain propagates throughout the web.

To reverse this you simply open that file again and remove your entries. You can have more than one set of entries, if you need to create more, just enter them one bellow the other.

In OSX it's a bit different but here is the command you would type in the terminal:

sudo echo "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx www.yourdomain.com" >> /etc/hosts

How To Copy And Paste Text

2007-09-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

The Copy And Paste has the honor or being my first blog entry, simply because it's the first tip that comes to mind :) it's probably the most widely used "tip" out there and it's a very useful one, specially for beginners. It can be a big time saver! So here are various way to "cut and paste" text or other elements.

Method 1) Slow
a) Highlight the text you want to copy with your mouse (bring your cursor at the beginning of the text you want to highlight, then while keeping your left mouse button down, drag your cursor at the end of the text.
b) Release the mouse button.
c) Move your cursor on top of the highlighted text and press down your RIGHT mouse button (this is called a "right-click"). A menu will appear with various options.
d) One of the option in the menu will be "copy", select that option.
e) Now, the highlighted text is sitting in your computer's memory, you are ready to "paste" the text... go where you want to paste it, whether it's in a text editor, blog post entry or wherever else you want to paste this text.
f) To paste the text, "right-click" and from the menu, select "Paste" and Voila! you paste that text without having to manually type it in!

Method 2) Slower
The same as above, however in most browsers and other application, you will find a "edit" option in the menu; once you have your text highlighted, you can go to that edit menu and select the "copy" option, then when you are ready to paste your text, go to the edit menu again and this time select the "paste" option.

Method 3) Faster
It's the same as above, however instead of using the right-click menu, you simply highlight the text and then on your keyboard, press down the key "ctrl" and while still holding down the "ctrl" key, simultaneously press down the "c" key. This places the text in memory ready to be pasted in your desired location. To paste the text, hold down the "ctrl" key and simultaneously press the "v" key.

That's it!
Copying + pasting is much more than a time saver, it's a more error-proof and accurate way to duplicate text, sometimes you need to put some text somewhere and making a human error is not an option, using the copy and paste method, there can be no human error or "typos".

This is the first entry of my blog, which will become a collection or pc and web tricks & tips, some more complicated than others but there should eventually be things here to help everyone.