The Busy Bee

Below is a list of WordPress Video Tutorials created in Sept. 2011.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.  And to view a playlist on YouTube with all of the below videos, you can go here: WordPress Video Tutorials

WordPress Tutorial | Introduction to WordPress Admin

If you are interested in the WordPress User Guide, click on that link to start at the beginning.

How to make an email address on your website automatically open a users default email program on their computer and insert that email address in the To: field.  Instructions here are specifically tailored to use with WordPress, but can be applied in any case.

1. Add the email address to your website’s content as you would any content.
2. Then you are going to make it a link, jut as you would make some text link to another page, for example. So you would highlight your new email address (ie double click over it or click-drag your cursor of the email address); and then click on the “Link” button in your website editor to open the pop-up dialog box that allows you to add a website address.
3. INSTEAD of creating a link starting HTTP://….. – you will want to erase that part and insert the following: mailto:john@cnca.com
4. …where john@cnca.com is the email address being used. By putting mailto: before the email address, this causes the effect you want.
5. That is it. Save your changes. You do not have to specify a Target for that link in the pop-up.

For instructions on how to create a Forward in a Cpanel based hosting environment, click on How to Create an Email Forward in CPanel.

For example, if you generally use an email address myname@yahoo.com, and you want to add an email address to your website myname@mydomain.com, and have that newly created email address (which has your website’s domain name), then you will want to create a forward to forward myname@mydomain.com to myname@yahoo.com).  This will have the effect of automatically forwarding all email to your yahoo.com email address without having to share it on your website, (and also you can share a more professional email address on your website).  This is often desirable if you do not want to change how you manage your emails, as you would still be able to continue to just check your yahoo.com account as usual.

Instructions on how to create a Forward in a Cpanel based hosting environment

For example, if you generally use an email address myname@yahoo.com, and you want to add an email address to your website myname@mydomain.com, and have that newly created email address (which has your website’s domain name), then you will want to create a forward to forward myname@mydomain.com to myname@yahoo.com).  This will have the effect of automatically forwarding all email to your yahoo.com email address without having to share it on your website, (and also you can share a more professional email address on your website).  This is often desirable if you do not want to change how you manage your emails, as you would still be able to continue to just check your yahoo.com account as usual.

The one downside is that you will not be set up to send email from that new domain, only to receive.  In many cases, this is not an issue

1. First, login to your hosting account.  You can get that information from your hosting provider.
2. In the various sections of your hosting administrative panel that will present itself, there is a section titled “Mail”, and in there an option called “Forwards”. Click on Forwards.
3. Displayed will be a list of existing forwards (if any) and under that list is a button “Add Forward”. Click that button.
4. In the field under Address > Address to Forward, you will enter, for our example, just the name john.
5. On the right side of that field you may have options as to what domain name you want to have your new email address connected to. The options presented will be only those domains in your hosting account.
6. Then below that where it says Destination > Forward to email address, you will enter the email address you want your new email address to be forwarded to – for example, john45@yahoo.com
7. Then click on the button at the bottom of the page, “Add Forwarder”. That is it. Use the button at top right of your screen to “Logout”.

If you want to learn how to add an email link to your website, specifically within WordPress, click on How to make an email address link.

Are you thinking, “My browser only prints one page of a website, the first page”? Are you using Firefox?

There are several instances that trigger printing errors with Firefox.  The one I have run across results from declaring overflow: hidden, overflow: auto; or overflow: scroll, which I use sometimes for its self-clearing float effect.  The easiest solution to this is to create a print style sheet that  changes all of your tags that use this to overflow: visible.

You can read more about this and other related Firefox print bugs here:  at mozilla support, and at bugzilla.mozilla.

Good luck.

How many times have I needed to identify a specific WordPress Category ID and scratched my head trying to remember.  And worse, when I searched on-line for an easy jogging of my memory, found un-necessary solutions leadering others to endlessly scratch their heads as well, wondering if there is an easier way.

And although I am assuming that if you found this post that you know why you are trying to find it, for those who don’t know, there are programming reasons to know – such as to specify in the code to exclude or include a certain category from being displayed on a page.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

How to Update your WordPress Installation.

When a new update to WordPress is released, you will be notified in your admin panel by a one sentence statement to that effect, displayed at the top of each page of your WordPress admin panel. There is a link in that notification to update. Updating your installation immediately is always a good idea.  Sometimes the updates have security patches that protect your website from hackers.

Click that link to go to the update page where you will have 2 options – to update automatically or manually.

The WordPress automatic updater works very well. Just click the button to update and wait 5 to 10 seconds until it tells you it is complete.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

It is actually super easy to create a new post or page in WordPress.

1. Login to your WordPress Admin panel;
2. On the left column where the core navigation buttons are, click on either the Posts or Pages button, depending on which you want to create;
3. Click on the “Add New” link.  This will take you to the “Add New Post” or “Add New Page” screen.
4. Enter your title in the top text area.
5. Enter your post or page content.  Edit your content.
6. Save or Publish your new post or page.
7. The rest is optional.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

Video Resources:  In September of 2011 I created a series of video tutorials and uploaded them to YouTube – you can find them here:  WordPress Video Tutorials

This section of the guide starts on the Edit Post or Edit Page section of your WordPress Admin area.  You can get there either by choosing the “Edit” or “Add New” option under Posts or Pages on you Core Navigation bar at the left of your admin screen (see image to right for reference). If you are adding a new post or page, you may want read How to Add a New Post or Page before continuing below.  If you are editing an existing post or page, you will be presented with a list of posts or pages to choose from.  You can either click on the title of the post or page, or hover your cursor over the bottom of the title and options will appear, including “edit”.

Let’s get started.

The control panel to edit a post is identical to that used to edit a page, therefor the information below pertains to both.

Upload/Insert Media

The icons at the top left of the editor next to the words Upload/Insert allow you to add and edit images, video, audio and other media.  We will be focusing on editing text in this article.  You can learn about uploading and inserting media in the article titled How to Add Images and other Media in WordPress.

Visual and HTML Editors

There are two content editor modes, the “Visual” editor and the “HTML” editor.  You can select which editor you want to use using the buttons at top right of the content editor.  The image below shows the Visual editor.

This is one part of a series of articles providing basic instructions for using WordPress. To start at the beginning, or view the full index of articles in this series, go to  A Simple WordPress User Guide for Beginners.

Let’s Get Started

Orientation » There are two editing modes, Visual and HTML.  Each have their own edit commands.  We will be working within the “Visual” editing mode.  See below at top right of the editing area where the word “Visual” is clear and “HTML” is faded out.  This means you are in visual mode.  If you are not, simply click on the work “Visual” to switch modes.

If you ever need to access files on more than one computer, and you haven’t heard of Dropbox, I can’t recommend more highly checking out their service.  On top of that, I have only read glowing feedback on-line from others, which has been my experience.

I am not exagerating by saying that dropbox was for me the easiest and most user-friendly application I have ever had to install and get up and running.  The learning curve to have this application serving your needs quickly so you could move on to other things you want to be doing – was almost nothing.  I would even go so far as to say it would be a stretch to say you have to even “learn” how to use it.  Not only have they made it incredibaly easy and simple, but they even hold your hand in explaining how to use it, kind of like, if you add 2 and 2 together, your will get 4. You can be sleep deprived and multi-tasking, and you will understand it.

After setting it up, you have a folder, just like any other folder, in which you can save, edit and delete files, just like you normally do.  Except all of those files will automatically synced with any other computer you have set-up with that same dropbox account.  And if you are away from your computer and need to access those files using another computer, you can login to your account with Dropbox and access those files that way as well.

Runs automatically.  Super Secure.  You can also have a folder specified to for sharing so you can invite others to view or collaborate with you live.  They have a free iPhone app so you can sync with your iPhone, if you have one.  And there is more, but I think you get the point.  Check it out, try it, use it.

And the price – Free for the first 2 GB.  That is a lot of free space.  For some people, you won’t need more.  For me, and how I plan to use it, I don’t actually need more space.  From there you can upgrade to $9.99 for 50 GB, or $19.99 for 100 GB.

I think that about says it. Check it now – visit Dropbox.