how to

  • March 7, 2018

    Now is the Time to Start an Online Course!

    When I first started freelancing, my resources were basically online discussion boards and people I knew in real life. I am eternally grateful for the people in my life who helped me get my business up and running, but since then, there’s been a bit of a revolution online. In 2018, it seems everyone is creating an online course. And not just great freelancers like Paul Jarvis or my friend Carrie Dils. Take a look at MasterClass.com. Judy Blum, Gordon Ramsey, and Steph Curry are all making courses on how to excel in their craft. And you can too.

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  • December 22, 2010

    Quick Tip: How to Move a WordPress Site

    I won’t go too in-depth here, but I will describe the steps you need to take to move a WordPress website to a different host.

    1. Download all of the site files from the old host
    2. Export the entire database WordPress is using. If you’re not sure how to do that, there are instructions here.
    3. If there are existing files on the new host, back them up by downloading them. Do the same for any databases on the new host.
    4. Upload the site files from the old host to the new one.
    5. Create a new database on the new host. Each host is different, but you’ll have to create a database, a database user, and then give the database user all privileges on the new database.
    6. Import the database from the old host to the new database.
    7. Change the wp-config.php file info to the new database name, host, username, and password.

    Some Things to Consider:

    • Most hosts keep the database host as localhost but not all of them. If you’re not sure what your host is, you should contact the new host’s support.
    • This is just moving WordPress to a new sever; I assume you’ve already pointed the domain. If you’re changing domains, you will also have to change all of the domain references in the WordPress database, most notably in the wp_options table (there are two references there). If you don’t change the wp_options table, your site will not work. The best way to change all of the references (most of which being in the posts table) is probably to do a Find/Replace on the .sql file in your favorite text editor after you complete step 2.
    • If you’re moving a WordPress MU/Multisite install, you will also have to configure the sever to handle subdomains. The codex has instructions on how to do that here.

  • March 31, 2009

    The Basics of Twitter

    twitter

    Now that I’ve convinced you to join Twitter, I wanted to talk about the basics of how to use it- terminology, features, etc. Are you ready? Ok.

    First of all, each time you add something to Twitter, it’s called an update or more commonly, a “tweet.” You tweet what you’re doing. Cute, I know. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s take a look at the more social aspects of tweeting.

    • Friend or Follow? You’re friends on Twitter are generally referred to as people that are either following you (getting your updates) or people you follow (you get their updates). Your followers will get your updates in their Friend Feed. Updates of people you follow will show up in yours. If you choose to make your updates private, only people that follow you (after being verified by you) will see your updates. Otherwise, they will also show up in the public timeline (or public feed), and they will be searchable.
    • @replies (recently renamed @mentions)- You can reply to someone’s tweet by starting a tweet with @username (at username). So, if you were to reply to me, it would be, “@jcasabona Great post about Twitter!” A mention is simply a tweet with at @reply somewhere else in the tweet. So, “Hanging out with @jcasabona” would be a mention. These specifically target a single user. That means even people that don’t follow you will see your @replies to them and vise versa.
    • DM– DM is short for “direct message” and it’s a way of privately messaging someone. Where @replies will show up in your updates, DMs do not.
    • RT– RT is short for retweet and it is when someone else reposts one of your tweets. So if I had a tweet that said, “Yankees Win!,” someone else could retweet it by writing, “RT @jcasabona Yankees Win!” It’s a way of giving credit where credit is due when you find something cool on Twitter.
    • #– This is a hash tag, and it  just might be my favorite part of Twitter. You would put the hash tag in front of terms you want to be easy to search for at search.twitter.com. For example, I could tweet, “Going to the game #yankees.” This would add my update to everyone else’s who  has added the hash tag for #yankees. By using hash tags, it’s easier to find trends and aggregate updates. Plus, most 3rd party Twitter apps automatically make hash tags links to Twitter’s search page. They are using for people tweeting about specific events or news items, or fun little games on Twitter. For example, every Friday is #followfriday and you add people you think others should follow.

    So there you have it- the basics of using Twitter. If you have any questions, or feel I left something out, comments are open!