Tech Help

External hard drives have been the most helpful item that I have purchased. I admit that I buy many of them and particularly now with high definition video where files sizes are large and a 30 Gig camera drive can uncompress to 10x in size depending on the final file type.

This post will serve two purposes:

1. How to install a hard drive in an external enclosure

2. Give a Warning on a problem that I had trying to use a Nexstar 3 enclosure with Mac OSX.

[I am trying out the anchor function with a new plug-in and it only works after you open the “more” tag — working on it.] Read more…

Today I took the bus with my Pelican case full of tools and motorcycle apparel to where I left my motorcycle after it took me on a very wild ride.

I had some difficulty early Wednesday morning after I finished editing a draft CD for a client at Waterlou Studio, it was 3 am. I went out to ride my Yamaha motorcycle home, but I found the choke was stuck closed and the bike would not start. Not wanting to annoy the neighbours with repeated attempts I got off the bike and pulled on the choke knob as hard as I could, until I finally felt it slide out.

This was not the first time I had this problem, so I felt confident enough that once I started the bike, I could slide the choke in and out a few times and the choke would return to normal operation. This time the ride did not go so well. The choke was stuck on and no amount of sliding in and out was going to change that fact. The revs kept climbing until the gas was wide open no matter what I did with the throttle. An FJ 1200 with the choke stuck wide open gains speed rapidly. A few moments of excessive speed followed — as the throttle had no effect on the full on feed of gasoline into the carburetors. I killed the engine.

I managed to get the bike into neutral after a few very quick minutes. I could coast down the hill with the revs climbing out of control and me frantically pumping the choke lever and snapping the throttle. When it got so bad that I feared for my engine, I used the kill switch and cut the power to the motor. I tried all of the controls I had and started the bike again. The revs climbed to a dangerous level so I killed the engine again. After a few of these sessions, I decided that the bike must be parked, so I found an out-of-the-way spot with no signage and carefully backed and pushed the bike to a stop.

I was lucky to get a ride home as it was raining and cold and my friend, who had kindly given me a ride, took my waterproof  cover back and carefully covered the bike to keep off the pounding rain . . .

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My Tech Help blog is using the iNov theme developed by mg12. I am not sure that I will keep this theme, but I am investing work into it. After getting my feeds set up, I had decided that I was going to try Google AdSense on this blog. I finally got it to work using the WP AdSense plug-in. I also figured out that I can insert the code directly into the post by using the HTML option in the WordPress editor. The Google Custom Search still is not working properly.

I was warned that Google only allows three ad sections per page, so I now put in a “more” tag and paste the ad code beneath the tag. That way the ad on the footer counts as one and the code in the blog only displays when the reader opens the post.  This prevents exceeding the limit when the posts are attached one after another on the home page. Check it out. Read more…

One of the first actions I do in my fresh  WordPress install is to travel to Google and set up my new RSS feed with Feedburner.  Feedburner used to be a separate company, but now it has merged with Google and uses the same log-in account as the rest of my Google tools. RSS Feed links are usually identified with the logo at left. Clicking on the logo will subscribe to the feed from the site the logo on the page itself will also subscribe as it is linked to my feedburner account. Most blog pages and many web pages will feature this logo.

Feedburner handles all of the RSS feeds [Really Simple Syndication] from my websites. The wiki article explains RSS historically and technically, but the point for me is that the RSS feed delivers content from my site directly to subscribers.  This is a really simple RSS explanation from Feedburner. This process can be compared to a magazine subscription, once someone is subscribed they receive every issue of the magazine. Feedburner will even allow e-mail subscriptions that deliver directly to the subscriber’s e-mail box.

Most people just pick up the feed and read it in an RSS reader software that shows them a copy of each of the feeds they are subscribed to in one place. There are many very good RSS readers and most browsers will read the feed, although some may need an add-on or plug-in. Many of the most popular readers are displayed on the Feedburner subscription options page [click on the RSS button to see the page] and I would recommend that you start with one of those. It is a matter of personal taste because they all work well, but feature different options. Read more…