Monthly Archives: October 2011

Broken Link Contest

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Help me clean up this mess — and maybe win a prize.

I’ve been building content on this site since 2003. In eight years, I’ve collected a lot of junk.

Broken Link ImageAs I revise this site, I’m going through every single post, deleting the ones I don’t think are relevant anymore, and fixing up the ones that remain. Along the way, I hope to hunt down and destroy all broken links.

But I’m only one person and can only check so many links in a day. So I’m asking for your help. And I’m willing to reward the folks who help me most with a free copy of any one of my books still in print.

Here’s how you can enter to win:

  1. Browse the site as you normally would.
  2. When you find a broken link*, open the comment for this post. (I put a link to it in the sidebar so it’s easy to find.)

    3. Check all the preceding comments to make sure your broken link isn’t already listed. I can’t give points for duplicate entries!

  3. If the broken link isn’t already listed, use the Comments form at the bottom of the page to enter the following information:
    • Your name and email address. (This might not be necessary if you’ve already commented here.) Please use your real email address; I will use it to contact you if you’re a winner. I will not share your address with anyone else or spam you. I promise.
    • The URL of the page where you found the broken link. It must begin with http://www.mariaguides.com/ — I’m not interested in rewarding folks for finding broken links on other sites.
    • The URL of the broken link. The easiest way to get this information is to either Control-Click (Mac OS) or Right-Click (Mac OS or Windows) on the broken link and use the Copy Link Location command in the contextual menu that appears. You can then paste it into the comment form.
  4. Submit the comment.
  5. Repeat as necessary. The more broken links you report, the better your chances of winning.

When I approve the comments — all comments are moderated here — I’ll check your findings. If you’ve correctly identified a broken link, you’ll score a point and I’ll note that in a reply to your comment.

At November month-end, I’ll award prizes to the top broken link finders.

Does this sound like a plan? I hope so. l could really use the help.

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* A “broken link” is a link on a Web page that, when clicked, displays a “Page Not Found” error or something similar. In other words, it doesn’t display what it should for whatever reason.

How To Determine What Formats Your Optical Drive Can Write To

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Use the System Information app.

Wondering which optical media formats your computer’s optical drive can write to? You can quickly find this information in the System Information app.

  1. Hold down the Option key and choose Apple > System Information. The System Information application launches and displays the Hardware Overview screen.
    Apple - System Info
  2. In the left column of the window, select Disc Burning. The right side of the window displays detailed information about your optical drive.
    Disk Burning
  3. To learn the burn speed of the optical drive, insert a CD or DVD and choose File > Refresh Information, or press Command-R. The display in the right side of the window changes to show this information.
    Burn Speed

Note that the System Information application was called System Profiler in previous versions of Mac OS.

Category Feeds Being Removed

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As part of the site revision process, I’ve decided to do away with the category-specific feeds. These feeds, which cover Excel, Mac OS, Word, and WordPress content, are being utilized by less than 100 people. If you’re reading this message in your feed reader, YOU might be one of them.

Within a month or so, these feeds will simply not work. Delete them from your reader.

If you want to continue receiving content from this site via RSS, please subscribe to the main feed, using one of the following URLs:

Major Site Update Planned

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I am embarrassed about this mess and will start fixing it today.

It boggles my mind how bad I’ve let this site become. Cluttered, tiny print, bad links, missing files, out-of-date content. And what’s with the missing spaces after certain punctuation? I typed them there — why don’t they appear?

Why do you let me get away with this?

Well, help is on the way. I begin reconstructive surgery on this site this afternoon. Not only will I be changing it’s entire look and interface, but I’ll be removing a lot of very old material and all the bad links that frustrate visitors to no end.

I expect the changes to take about a week to finish, so hang on and bear with me. Feedback is always welcome; you can add your comments to this post and get a discussion going. Be sure to tell me what you do and don’t like as things progress. And, if you have any wish lists for the site, now is the time to speak up.

Ready? Let’s get to it then!

October 26, 2011 Update:
I’ve finally started work on the changes. So far, I’ve changed the site’s overall design, removed a bunch of outdated content, and reorganized topics. I’ve also restructured the menu system at the top of the page. More changes coming. Bear with me as I continue working on this.

October 27, 2011 Update:
I’ll be spending most of today going through the 400+ posts uploaded here since 2003, weeding out the old junk no one cares about, and recategorizing and tagging what remains. Can you say tedious? But I think it’s worth it to have good, easy-to-find content here.

October 30, 2011 Update:
I finally finished going through all the posts on this site. I removed more than 100 out-of-date or uninteresting posts, leaving behind a total of 317 for your reading pleasure. All posts have been properly categorized and tagged. I also fine-tuned the layout, increasing the font size of the sidebar so people like me could read it. (Getting old sucks.) Next up, I’ll convert pages to posts and fit them into the hierarchy. I’ll also re-add the information about my work and contact form. Would love to get some feedback about the site changes so far. Comments, anyone?

How to Safely Use Find My Friends

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A few tips to retain your privacy.

Where in the world is?I love cool new apps — especially ones that keep me in touch with my friends and family members.

Find My Friends, an app that works on iOS 5 devices, is one of those apps. It plots the location — with stunning accuracy — for the people I connect with.

I wasted no time experimenting with it yesterday. By this morning, I had the locations for friends in Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Canada, England, and New Zealand. Zooming in on the map on my iPad put their dots on a street map. Tapping their bullets displayed their names, location label, and approximate street address.

MikeHeck, as my husband drove off to work this morning, I could see his progress as he drove down the street! How cool is that?

But wait a minute. Is it really a good idea to let people know exactly where you are at any time of the day or night?

The answer is: it depends. Specifically, it depends on:

  • Who you’re revealing your location to. Are these close friends and family members you know well and can trust? Or are they “friends” you met on Facebook or Twitter who might use your location information in ways you might not like?
  • Why you’re revealing your location. Do you honestly want people to know where you are, perhaps for a meet-up or to keep track in a crowded mall or amusement park? Or is it just a cool feature to play with because its new?
  • When you’re revealing your location. Are you sharing your location when you’re out in public and want to connect with people or keep them apprised of where you are? Or are you also sharing location information when you’re asleep, at work, or visiting other friends and family members, thus revealing their locations as well?

Find My Friends can be a great app for keeping in touch with your friends. Or it can be a tool for stalkers or burglars who can use your location information for their own purposes — which are not likely what you intended at all.

Here are a few things you can do to safely use Find My Friends:

  • Only share your location information with people you know and trust very well. A good rule of thumb is this: If you have to provide a “friend” with your email address, there’s a good chance he’s not quite as “trusted” as he should be to have this information. Make sure those people understand that your information is not to be shared with others. Also make sure they understand the implications of sharing their own location.
  • Temporary ShareMake use of the Temporary Share feature. This enables you to create an event with a definite end time. Anyone who accepts the invitation to share their location using this feature will automatically stop sharing at a predetermined time. This is a great way to connect with friends at a park or mall without having to worry about them seeing where you are once the event is over.
  • Hide from FriendsDisable Find My Friends when you don’t need it. On the device broadcasting your location (my iPhone, in my case), tap the Me button. Then set the option labeled “Hide from Followers” to ON. This removes your location from their devices. (I like to think of this as “stealth mode.”)

There are a few other security features built into Find My Friends:

  • If you choose to decline an invitation to share your location, the person who invited you will not be able to see where you are. If you don’t know someone who is inviting you, be sure you don’t accept their invitation to share location!
  • If you don’t lock your device, each time you enter Find My Friends, you’ll have to provide your Apple ID password. This is to prevent someone who has stolen or found your device from seeing the locations of your friends. You can disable this feature by requiring a password to access your device. You do this with the Password Lock option of General Settings.
  • If you’re a parent, you can set up restrictions on your child’s device to prevent him or her from hiding. You do this with the Restrictions option of General Settings.

In conclusion, I have to say that I really do like the Find My Friends app. Sadly, other than checking to see how close my husband is to arriving home and possibly meeting up with friends at an outdoor venue, I don’t think I’ll get much use out of it. Right now, it’s just a fun thing to play with — with people I trust.

What do you think? Share your comments here.

Photos from Facebook

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Use your Facebook photo galleries on your WordPress-based site.

This past summer, I built a simple WordPress-based website for a friend of mine’s business. A designer/developer wanted $8K to build the site and he just couldn’t see spending that much money. While I know that the site I built for him isn’t nearly as polished as what the designers would have created, it certainly meets his primary needs: to provide basic information about his business to people who need it. You can see and judge for yourself here.

WordPress is an excellent tool for building Web sites. What I like about it is that once the site has been set up with the design and features needed, anyone with Admin access can modify its contents. That means that when he has a price change or hours change or some other change, he can go in and change it for himself. No need to bug me or wait for me to get around to it.

But what’s even better than that is the multitude of plugins available to add or enhance content.

Here’s an example. My friend has had a Facebook presence for some time now and his company is “liked” by a considerable number of people. They frequently check in to see what’s new. Yesterday, I helped him add about 10 photos of some work he’s been doing. The photos on Facebook were a big hit with his Facebook friends. I wanted to add the photos to his website. I poked around the plugin directory at WordPress.org and found one called Facebook Page Photo Gallery. This was even better than I’d hoped: it would take the photos I’d already uploaded to Facebook and present them on his WordPress-based site.

I decided to test it here before I went live on his site. I soon discovered that it works only with public photo galleries on Facebook — which meant it would not work with my personal Wall photos. (It probably would if I could figure out how to tweak the settings on Facebook, but I really don’t think it’s worth the bother.) It would, however, work with the Wall photos for Flying M Air‘s Facebook page. And it worked very well, as you can see here:

Did you notice that when you point to an image, it displays the caption?

This is a huge time-saver for me. Rather than have to re-upload and arrange the photos on the website, I can enter a WordPress shortcode with a few variables and a wonderful image display is created automatically. What else could I ask for?