IT DEVICES

How to Set or Mark a Partition as Active in Windows

Do you have multiple partitions on 
your computer with different operating systems installed? If so, you can
 change the active partition in Windows so that when the computer starts
 up, it will load the appropriate operating system. This is called a 
dual-boot or multi-boot system.<div class="post-content entry-content">
<div class="KonaBody">
Changing the active partition is a fairly advanced task, so if you 
are planning on doing this, you probably didn’t need the explanation 
above! Only change the active partition if there is an operating system 
residing on that partition, otherwise you will have a non-working 
computer.<br />

Also, there are a few things to note about marking a partition as active:<br />

<ol>
<li>A logical drive or extended partition cannot be marked as active, only primary partitions can be changed to active.</li>
<li>You can only have one active partition per physical hard disk. Trying to do otherwise will cause all kinds of problems.</li>
<li>If you have several physical hard disks on your computer, you can 
mark a partition as active on each disk, but only the active partition 
on the first hard disk detected by your BIOS will start up the computer.
 You can go into the <a href="http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/change-boot-order-xp-vista/" target="_blank">BIOS and change the order to detect hard disks</a>.</li>
</ol>
In addition to the above notes, there are additional things that have
 to be in place in order for the system to boot. Just setting a 
partition to active does not ensure that the system will boot properly.<br />

<ol>
<li>The active partition must have a boot sector that was created by the operating system</li>
<li>The active partition should contain the boot loader and boot files 
for the OS and must know the location of the OS on the physical hard 
drive</li>
<li>The actual operating system has to be located in the correct spot on the hard drive</li>
</ol>
When the computer boots up, it will look for an active partition on 
the primary partitions first. The boot sector, located at the beginning 
of the active partition, will run the boot loader, which knows the 
location of the operating system boot files. At this point, the 
operating system will boot up and run.<br />

<h2>
<span style="color: black;">Set Active Partition via Disk Management</span></h2>
Open Computer Management by going to the <strong>Control Panel</strong>, clicking on <strong>System and Maintenance</strong>, and then clicking<strong> Administrative Tools</strong>.<br />

You can also click <strong>Classic View</strong> and then choose<strong> Administrative Tools</strong>. Now click on <strong>Disk Management</strong> under <strong>Storage</strong>.<br />

Another option is to go to your desktop, right-click on <strong>Computer</strong> or <strong>This PC</strong> and choose <strong>Manage</strong>.
 You’ll see Disk Management in the left hand menu like shown 
above. Right-click on the primary partition that you want to mark as 
active and choose <strong>Mark Partition as Active</strong>.<br />

<h2>
Set Active Partition via Command Line</h2>
If you screwed something up in Windows and marked the wrong partition
 as active, you will no longer be able to boot your computer. In the 
case where you cannot mark a partition as active using Windows, you’ll 
have to us the command line.<br />

Depending on your version of Windows, getting to the command line can be a bit tricky. Read my post on <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/restart-safe-mode/" target="_blank">restarting Windows in safe mode</a> to get to the system repair options for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10. If you’re running Windows 8, read my post on <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/windows-8/how-to-boot-to-windows-8-system-recovery-options/" target="_blank">booting to system recovery options</a>. Once there, you have to go to <strong>Troubleshoot</strong>, then <strong>Advanced Options</strong>, and then click on<strong> Command Prompt</strong>.<br />

First get into the command prompt using a boot up disk and type <strong>diskpart</strong> at the prompt.<br />

At the DiskPart prompt, type in <strong>list disk. </strong>You will see the list of disk currently attached to your computer. Now type in <strong>select disk n</strong>, where n is the disk number. In my example, I would type <strong>select disk 0</strong>.<br />

Now that we have selected the correct disk, type in <strong>list partition</strong> to get a list of all the partitions on that disk. To select the partition we want to set as active, type in <strong>select partition n</strong>, where n is the partition number.<br />

Now that we have selected the disk and partition, we can mark it as active by just typing the word <strong>active</strong> and pressing Enter. That’s it! Now the partition is set.<br />

Most people are familiar with using FDISK to mark a partition as 
active, but that is now an older and outdated command. You should use 
DISKPART to manage disk and partitions on a modern Windows computer.<br />

<h2>
Set Active Partition via MSCONFIG</h2>
In addition to the above two methods, you can use MSCONFIG to set the
 active partition. Note that this method only works for primary 
partitions on the same hard drive as MSCONFIG won’t detect partitions on
 other hard drives. Also, the other partition can only have Windows 
installed in order to set it as active.<br />

If you’re not familiar with the MSCONFIG tool, read my previous <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/cool-websites/guide-to-msconfig-windows/" target="_blank">guide on using MSCONFIG</a>. Open MSCONFIG and click on the <strong>Boot</strong> tab.<br />

You’ll see the operating systems listed and the active one will have <strong>Current OS; Default OS</strong> after the name of the operating system. Click on the other operating system and then click on <strong>Set as default</strong>.<br />

There are other methods to set an active partition like using a Linux
 live CD, but these are much more complicated and normally not 
necessary. Even if the built-in system recovery options don’t allow you 
to get to the command prompt, you can always use a secondary computer to
 <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/windows-8/create-bootable-system-recovery-usb-drive-in-windows-8/" target="_blank">create a bootable USB system recovery drive</a>. <br />

</div>
</div>

Troubleshooting How to Set or Mark a Partition as Active in Windows

Do you have multiple partitions on your computer with different operating systems installed? If so, you can change the active partition in...

How to Rip DVDs to Your Hard Drive in Windows and OS X

10:46 AM Unknown 0

If you have a lot of older DVDs 
sitting around in your house, you might be wondering if there was a way 
to rip them to your computer for free? Even though I stream most of my 
movies online today via iTunes, Netflix, HBO Go, etc, I still have about
 200 DVDs that I had bought over the last two decades, which I still 
like to watch sometimes.
Instead of just getting rid of them or having to use a DVD player to 
watch them, which I don’t even own anymore, I decided I would rip them 
all to my NAS (network attached storage device) so that I can watch them
 anywhere or any device.<br />

Now it’s worth noting that technically it’s illegal to rip DVDs 
because of copyright protection, but the MPAA probably won’t be suing 
you unless you sell or distribute the ripped DVDs. As long as you keep 
them to yourself, you shouldn’t have to worry about any legal issues.<br />

Another issue to take note of is that some DVD drives have encryption
 protection on the drive itself and therefore can’t be circumvented by 
any kind of software. In those types of cases, you’ll need to get an 
older DVD drive that doesn’t have that type of built-in copyright 
protection.<br />

In order to rip a DVD to your computer, you basically need two 
things: a program called HandBrake and an open source library for 
unscrambling DVDs called libdvdcss. You’ll find tons of other articles 
in Google about ripping DVDs using other programs and methods, but this 
method is free, uses safe, clean and malware free software and works on 
both Windows and Mac.<br />

<h2>
Step 1 – Install HandBrake</h2>
The first thing we need to do is download and install <a href="https://handbrake.fr/" target="_blank">HandBrake </a>on
 Windows or Mac. If you go to the main page, it automatically determines
 which version of the program you should download onto your computer.<br />

For Windows, it downloads a common x86 and x64 installer for 32-bit 
and 64-bit Windows and will install the appropriate version for your 
computer. For Macs, there is only a 64-bit version. Go ahead and install
 it in the default location for Windows or Mac.<br />

It should be a fairly quick install and you don’t have to choose any options, etc. At the end, go ahead and click <strong>Finish</strong> and HandBrake will now be installed. Now go ahead and run HandBrake, click on <strong>Help</strong> and then click on <strong>About</strong>. You only need to do this step if you are on Windows.<br />

At the top, you will see the version of HandBrake and whether it is 
the 64-bit version or the 32-bit version. Make a note of which version 
you have because you’ll need to know for the second step.<br />

<h2>
Step 2 – Download libdvdcss</h2>
The open source decoding library is actually managed by the VideoLAN 
company, which creates the VLC media player software. Note that we do 
NOT need to install VLC media player. A lot of online tutorials state 
that you need to install HandBrake and VLC together, but you actually 
don’t have to do that.<br />

Depending on the version of HandBrake you have installed on Windows, here are the links to the appropriate versions.<br />

<a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.12/win64/" target="_blank">Windows 64-bit libdvdcss</a><br />

<a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.12/win32/" target="_blank">Windows 32-bit libdvdcss</a><br />

<a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.12/macosx/" target="_blank">Mac OS X libdvdcss</a><br />

Just click on the link for the DLL file and it will download it to your computer. For Mac, click on the<strong> libdvdcss.pkg</strong> file and download that.<br />

You’ll notice that this version of libdvdcss is actually pretty old 
(around 2012), but it’s the latest version for Windows and Mac. They 
have a lot of newer versions for Linux, which you can see <a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/" target="_blank">here</a>.
 I’m sure they will come out with a newer version eventually, so if you 
download the 1.2.12 version and this post is a couple of years old, make
 sure to browse through the newer versions and see if they have folders 
for Mac, Win32 and Win64 like they do for the 1.2.12 version.<br />

Go ahead and download the correct file (either the .pkg for Mac or 
the .dll file for 32-bit or 64-bit Windows) and then move on to step 3 
for your operating system.<br />

<h2>
Step 3 – Install libdvdcss & Configure HandBrake – OS X</h2>
For Mac users, you will want to start by running the<strong> libdvdcss.pkg</strong>
 file on your Mac. When you double-click on the file, you might get a 
message saying the program was downloaded from the Internet and 
therefore blocked.<br />

In this case, you have to go to the Downloads folder and manually right-click on the package file and choose <strong>Open</strong>.<br />

You’ll be asked for your Administrator password, but you should be able to install the package at this point. If not, go to<strong> System Preferences</strong> and then <strong>Security and Privacy</strong>. At the bottom, you’ll see that the app was blocked, but you can click<strong> Open Anyway</strong> to run it.<br />

Once the package has been installed, you’ll see a message stating that the install was successful. Click the <strong>Close</strong> button and let’s now open HandBrake.<br />

We have to configure one setting in HandBrake and then you’ll be good to go. Open HandBrake and then click on <strong>HandBrake</strong> at the top and <strong>Preferences</strong>.<br />

Now click on the Advanced tab and then uncheck the <strong>Use libdvdnav (instead of libdvdread)</strong> box.<br />

That’s all you need to do for the OS X. Skip down to the<strong> Step 4 – Rip DVD in HandBrake</strong> section below to learn how to rip the DVD now that you have everything setup.<br />

<h2>
Step 3 – Install libdvdcss & Configure HandBrake – Windows</h2>
For Windows users, you have to copy the libdvdcss.dll file to the 
HandBrake directory on your computer. First, open one explorer window 
that points to your Downloads folder or whichever folder has the DLL 
file. Next, open another explorer window that points to <strong>C:\Program Files\HandBrake</strong> or <strong>C:\Program Files(x86)\HandBrake</strong>, depending on which version of HandBrake was installed.<br />

The (x86) path is for the 32-bit version of HandBrake and the other 
is for 64-bit. HandBrake will only be installed in one of those paths, 
not both. Now just drag and drop the DLL file into that folder. Note 
that you don’t have to rename the file by removing the -2 at the end of 
the file name. That was required in older versions of HandBrake, but not
 anymore.<br />

You might get a message stating you need <strong>Administrator Privileges</strong>
 in order to copy the file to that directory, so just click Continue and
 it should work. Once you have that file copied or moved to the 
HandBrake folder, go ahead and open HandBrake in Windows.<br />

At the top, click on <strong>Tools</strong> and then <strong>Options</strong>. Click on Advanced and then check the<strong> Disable LibDVDNav (libdvdread will be used instead</strong>) box.<br />

That’s all you have to do in Windows. Go ahead and restart HandBrake and then move on to step 4 to actually start ripping DVDs.<br />

<h2>
Step 4 – Rip DVD in HandBrake</h2>
Now that we have the unscrambling program installed in HandBrake, we 
can actually start a DVD rip. Go ahead and pop in the DVD in your drive 
and open up HandBrake. Go ahead and click on <strong>Activity Log</strong> to open the log window.<br />

Now click on <strong>Source</strong> and then click on the DVD option
 that should be at the bottom. The program should automatically start 
scanning the DVD and then load up all the title and chapter information.
 If, for some reason, you get an error and nothing loads, you might have
 to close HandBrake and open it again, but this time right-click on the 
desktop shortcut and choose <strong>Run as Administrator</strong>.<br />

As long as you get the title and chapter info loaded, that means the 
encryption was able to be circumvented and you should be good to go. You
 will also see this information in the Activity Window as the following 
highlighted lines:<br />

Depending on the DVD encryption, it can take anywhere from a few 
seconds to minutes in order for the program to decode the encryption 
keys, so be patient. If you see the following in the activity log and 
the chapter and title info don’t load, then you have to delete the <strong>libdvdcss-2.dll</strong>
 file and try to copy it again. Make sure to close HandBrake first and 
right-click on the shortcut and choose Run as Administrator when opening
 it back up after copying the file.<br />

Hopefully, this tutorial is detailed enough for anyone to follow. It 
does take a few steps, but nothing is very complicated. You luck with 
vary depending on the DVD drive you have and the type of DVD encryption 
you have to bypass. If you have any questions, feel free to comment

Troubleshooting How to Rip DVDs to Your Hard Drive in Windows and OS X

If you have a lot of older DVDs sitting around in your house, you might be wondering if there was a way to rip them to your computer for f...

SETTING UP A HTML EMAIL SIGNATURE IN MICROSOFT ENTOURAGE (MAC OS X)

11:57 AM Unknown 0

<br />
<h1 id="pagetitle" style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: franklin_gothic_fs_cdbold, sans-serif; font-size: 40px; font-weight: normal !important; line-height: 40px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; text-transform: none;"><em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Yes, you can add a custom signature to Entourage, it’s just not quite as straight forward as MS Outlook nor does Entourage allow direct HTML editing. Here are the steps:</em></span></h1>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">1.</b> Have each person in your organization who wants to create a personalized signature utilizing the custom signature design we made download the graphic file we provide to their local system (usually a .png file).</div>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">2. </b>In Entourage go to: <i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Tools -> Signatures -> New</i></div>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">3. </b>Name your custom signature and type your contact info, you can use the basic HTML formatting tools displayed. A general fyi, the web safe fonts to use are Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Verdana, and Trebuchet (we can use any font when I design a graphic of course). If you don’t use one of those fonts, you run an increased risk of the recipient not viewing your signature as you intended.</div>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">4. </b>For some strange reason Microsoft decided not to give us an option to insert a photo in the signature window, so go back to the main menu and go:</div>
<blockquote style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 40px; margin-top: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
 <i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Message -> Insert -> Picture</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
NOTE: If you happen to have an email open that you’re editing Entourage might decide to insert the picture there instead of your signature, so make sure all other Entourage windows are closed before doing this). Insert the custom signature graphic.</div>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">5.</b> Close this window (which should save your signature, check in the list to make sure it’s there).</div>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">6.</b> To set this signature up to insert automatically go to:</div>
<blockquote style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 40px; margin-top: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Tools -> Accounts</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
and double-click your email account to open its settings window. Select the 'Options' pane, and the first option is the signature to use on this account's messages by default. Select the signature you just created from the drop-down menu. To set the default mail format to HTML so you don't need to switch it on each time, go to the Entourage application preferences (Entourage menu; 'Preferences'). Select 'Compose' and in the 'General' section there are drop-down menus for the default format for mail and news messages. Set these to HTML.</div>

TIPS SETTING UP A HTML EMAIL SIGNATURE IN MICROSOFT ENTOURAGE (MAC OS X)

Yes, you can add a custom signature to Entourage, it’s just not quite as straight forward as MS Outlook nor does Entourage allow direct HT...

How to Create Your Own Google Sites Website

7:39 PM Unknown 0

<a href="http://sites.google.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><strong>Google Sites</strong></a>
 allows you have your own content available on the web.  Unlike blogs, 
Google Sites work like MS Sharepoint wherein you can control who can and
 cannot edit the contents of your site.
<div align="justify">
With this website creation tool you don’t have to 
install anything to write your own page – you can do them online 
anywhere as long as you are online.  Small offices who want to have 
their own Web space will also benefit since this is a good way to have a
 website with the least cost of ownership.</div>
<div align="justify">
To start making your own website go to <a href="http://sites.google.com/" title="http://sites.google.com">http://sites.google.com</a>,
 you will need to have your own Google account to be able to access this
 site.  If you have an existing GMail account, that will work, you don’t
 have to make a new one.  After logging in, click <strong>Create site </strong>button to start the</div>
<div align="center">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image40.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb40.png" height="249" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb40.png" style="display: block;" width="520" /></a></div>
The page creation form will appear.  Type in the specific details 
needed for your site.  You don’t have to follow the texts or themes I 
inputted below since this is customized per page:<br />

<div align="center">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image41.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb41.png" height="501" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb41.png" style="display: block;" width="520" /></a></div>
The first entry is the <strong>site name</strong>.  This is like a title of your site so make sure it matches the purpose of your site:<br />

<div align="center">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image42.png"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb42.png" height="122" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb42.png" style="display: block;" width="502" /></a></div>
Next comes the <strong>site description</strong> where you can add a short descriptive tag line or catch phrase for your site:<br />

<div align="center">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image43.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb43.png" height="73" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb43.png" style="display: block;" width="513" /></a></div>
Turn on mature content warning if you plan to add nudity or contents not suitable for minors:<br />

<div align="center">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image44.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb44.png" height="51" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb44.png" style="display: block;" width="480" /></a></div>
<div align="justify">
If you want to share the website to limited group 
then choose “Only people I specify can view this site”, else click 
“every on the the world can view this site”.</div>
<div align="center">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image45.png"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb45.png" height="85" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb45.png" style="display: block;" width="518" /></a></div>
Then choose a design theme.  Pick a color scheme and pattern that 
matches your site description.  It should blend with the contents that 
you will later add to the site.<br />

<div align="center">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image46.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb46.png" height="130" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb46.png" style="display: block;" width="520" /></a></div>
Finally, type in the secret captcha word to authenticate you as 
human.  This allows Google to prevent robots to spam the server with 
fake accounts:<br />

<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image47.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="image" border="0" class="lazy aligncenter" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb47.png" height="173" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb47.png" style="display: block;" width="520" /></a></div>
NOTE: If the chosen URL is available it will direct you to the home 
page of the site, otherwise you will need to enter a new site name that 
is not yet taken.  In this case, “shadesofgreen” is already taken so I 
used “shadesofgreensite”:<br />

<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image48.png"><img alt="image" border="0" class="lazy aligncenter" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb48.png" height="458" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb48.png" style="display: block;" width="520" /></a></div>
From here you can start editing and adding the pages.  Click <strong>Edit page </strong>to start updating the main page:<br />

<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image49.png"><img alt="image" border="0" class="lazy aligncenter" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb49.png" height="92" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb49.png" style="display: block;" width="520" /></a></div>
You should see the online editor come up where you can put your content and save the changes you did:<br />

<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image50.png"><img alt="image" border="0" class="lazy aligncenter" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb50.png" height="279" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb50.png" style="display: block;" width="520" /></a></div>
At this page you can either save or cancel.  You can also create a new page to add more pages to your site.<br />

Saving the file transfer you to the saved file’s location so you can see the changes that you did:<br />

<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image51.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><img alt="image" border="0" class="lazy aligncenter" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb51.png" height="233" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/image-thumb51.png" style="display: block;" width="513" /></a></div>
Users familiar with online blogging tools or MS Sharepoint will be 
right at home with this simplistic web site editing tool.  If you plan 
to have your own website, Google Sites is an exciting way get started 
with it.  It is easy to learn and you won’t have to worry about 
installing a web editor or managing your own web server since Google 
will host is for you.

TIPS Troubleshooting How to Create Your Own Google Sites Website

Google Sites allows you have your own content available on the web. Unlike blogs, Google Sites work like MS Sharepoint wherein you can c...

Basic Joomla Installation Tutorial

7:38 PM Unknown 0

Joomla is a popular 
web-based content management solution (CMS).  As a CMS, it lets you 
manage your sites’ contents like documents, pictures, HTML and other web
 documents.  This free web application could be used as your corporate 
or community website, complete with a secured login/logout for users, 
administration and of course content editing and management.<div class="post-content entry-content">
<div class="KonaBody">
<div align="justify">
Joomla requires a PHP webserver and MySQL like the 
one packaged in XAMPP.  We have written about XAMPP and SQLyog to guide 
you with the installation of the required software.  The steps below 
will guide you with installing Joomla.</div>
<div align="justify">
You can get the Joomla package from their official website: <a href="http://www.joomla.org/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.joomla.org/">http://www.joomla.org/</a></div>
<div align="justify">
<strong>Step 1.</strong> Start the Apache and MySQL services.  In XAMPP you will need to click the Start buttons next to each process:</div>
<div align="justify">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image6.png"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb6.png" height="277" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb6.png" style="border: 0px none; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="344" /></a></div>
<div align="justify">
<strong>Step 2.</strong>  Put the unzipped Joomla 
package on the htdocs folder of XAMPP. I have XAMPP installed on my 
C:\XAMPP directory so the Joomla folder goes to the C:\XAMPP\HTDOCS 
folder:</div>
<div align="justify">
You can rename the Joomla folder to anything you want.  In my setup I renamed it to myJoomla.</div>
<div align="justify">
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image7.png"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb7.png" height="343" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb7.png" style="border: 0px none; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="461" /></a></div>
<strong>Step 3. </strong>Browse the URL where Joomla is placed.  If you have it on your computer with folder named “myJoomla” the URL will be <a href="http://localhost/myJoomla" title="http://localhost/myJoomla">http://localhost/myJoomla</a>. You should see the Joomla installer open on your web browser:<br />

<strong>Step 4.  </strong>Follow the seven steps of the Joomla 
installer.  First step is the language so just choose the language that 
you want to use.  At the second step it is important that you meet the 
pre-installation check wherein a list of all minimum requirements need 
to be met:<br />

<strong>Step 5.  </strong> Read carefully the license agreement, press next if you agree to the statements provided in the agreement.<br />

<strong>Step 6.  </strong>Create a mySQL account that will be used by
 Joomla so it can save data to the MySQL database.   Enter the account 
details on the fields<br />

<div align="justify">
<strong>Step 7. </strong>You will not need to enable 
the FTP settings on the FTP configuration screen.   This is not required
 on a Windows OS since you can directly alter the Joomla files using 
explorer.  If you use a secured web host, you should set an FTP account 
that can access the root directory.  You might need to get with the host
 admin to get the username and password if you want it to be a generic 
account separate from your user account.</div>
<a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image11.png"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb11.png" height="254" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb11.png" style="border: 0px none; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="458" /></a><br />

<strong>Step 8. </strong>Enter the main configuration settings.  Enter your preferred site name, admin email and password:<br />

<strong>Step 9</strong>. At this point you will get a hurdle with a message saying that you need to remove the installation directory:<br />

Go to the Joomla directory and delete the “installation” 
sub-directory.  Only this directory needs to be removed so make sure not
 to touch the other files and directories.  <a href="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image14.png"><img alt="image" border="0" data-original="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb14.png" height="388" src="http://onlinetechtipscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/image-thumb14.png" style="border: 0px none; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="521" /></a><br />

<strong>Step 10.</strong> <strong>Whew! You’re done!</strong> You now have your own Joomla website. If you used the same “myJoomla” folder name then the URL will be <a href="http://localhost/myJoomla/" title="http://localhost/myJoomla/">http://localhost/myJoomla/</a><br />

Isn’t it a breeze to setup Joomla?  On the next posts we will talk about how to customize Joomla.<br />

<blockquote>
Ben Carigtan show’s you how it’s done.</blockquote>
</div>
</div>

TIPS Troubleshooting Basic Joomla Installation Tutorial

Joomla is a popular web-based content management solution (CMS). As a CMS, it lets you manage your sites’ contents like documents, pictur...

Quickly Make a Web Site Smartphone Compatible

7:37 PM Unknown 0

Smartphones grow in popularity with 
each passing day—much faster than cellular providers can upgrade to 
faster, 3g and 4g networks to support the amount of data streamed by 
these phones. The most successful Web site owners realize the potential 
of mobile phone consumers and create a mobile version of their Web 
sites.<div class="post-content entry-content">
<div class="KonaBody">
Unfortunately, few Web site owners have the time and money to invest in mobile phone versions. This is where <a href="http://www.onbile.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Onbile</a> seeks to help by automatically converting a Web site for mobile compatibility with about five minutes of setup time.<br />

Start by creating an account. Choose a username and password, then 
enter your email address and agree to the terms of service. Click <strong>next step</strong> to proceed.<br />

Select a template for the mobile version of your Web site. The color 
scheme may be altered by clicking each of the boxes for background, 
title and buttons and choosing a new color. Click <strong>Next Step</strong> when finished.<br />

The next step is to add content settings. For bloggers, this just 
means giving your feed’s URL. Then, you can either give the URL for a 
background, or upload a picture to use as a logo. Click <strong>Next Step</strong> when finished.<br />

Enter the domain address being converted to mobile format and click <strong>Publish.</strong><br />

Almost done! A message proclaiming your site’s mobile transformation 
appears, along with a message to confirm your email address. Once 
confirmed, a code appears that must be pasted into the index file of 
your Web site.<br />

While Onbile is easy, it is not without faults. Some Web site owners 
report JavaScript errors. If using an RSS feed, the template choice is 
limited. In the terms of service, Onbile reserves the right to use 
advertisements at will—with no provision for Web site owners to choose 
the placement of such ads.<br />

Overall, this is a great idea and an easy way for small Web sites to 
join the Mobile phone community, but it is probably a short term 
solution. As a Web site grows, more professional interfaces are 
expected.<br />

</div>
</div>

Quickly Make a Web Site Smartphone Compatible

Smartphones grow in popularity with each passing day—much faster than cellular providers can upgrade to faster, 3g and 4g networks to supp...