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Setting up a staging environment is fairly straight forward with Wordpress. Copy the files contents to the new site/directory. Duplicate the database and update the wp-config.php file to point to the new db. And the final, critical step is to update the site URL. WordPress presents 4 different ways to do this.

The first option is what I tried. The site loaded, but there were issues with the layout. The site is using the Divi editor for front-end editing. I thought perhaps there is a rouge absolute URL somewhere, so I tried a find/replace search to point to the new staging URL. No luck.

The solution was to use the second option found on Change The Site URL page. This updates the database to point to the new URL. After that, all the layout issues disappeared with Divi! Just remember to remove the code from functions file when you’re done!

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Perhaps I didn’t look hard enough, but if you’re try to set the contact’s communication field of No Bulk Emails (User Opt Out) using the bulk CSV import tool, the correct value to use is an integer. 1 for yes. 0 for no. The default export from Adobe Business Catalyst for the same field is a true/false (boolean) value. A quick find and replace in excel or text editor can remedy this quite quickly for a bulk import. Anyway, might save someone else some time on this one.

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I spent a significant amount of time setting up CiviCRM yesterday, only to discover there was a mismatch between the timestamp provided by the MySQL server and PHP. Normally, modifying the php.ini file (specifically the date.timezone value) adjusts PHP’s timezone. Yet, running phpinfo() still showed the timezone had not been changed. There were no other ini files being loaded, so I did some more snooping in the settings of RunCloud. A Google search result led me to a FaceBook page that had a change log for RunCloud’s app. Turns out it’s possible to tune PHP for each specific app and adjust the timezone within RunCloud’s interface. To change the timezone in a specific RunCloud web app, do the following:

1. On the Server page, click Web Apps.
2. Click on the app you wish to modify the timezone of.
3. Click settings on the left hand panel.
4. Scroll down to PHP settings and you’ll see the second value is date.timezone. Modifying this accordingly.
5. Hit Update Web Applications Settings and you should be good to go.

To verify the change, run phpinfo(); in a php file and locate the date.timezone value to see if it has updated.

If you’re like me and also setting up CiviCRM, you’ll need to update the timezone within Wordpress. Go to Settings>General and select the time zone drop down.

It’s important to have all systems on the server running the same timezone, otherwise timestamps for payments will be incorrect and backups won’t run at correct times. I’m really enjoying RunCloud at the moment and will probably do some further posts about it — it’s very handy for managing VPS’s.

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I recently ran out of space on my hard disk, and so I decided to delete the Linux partition to free up some space. I then extended the Windows partition to make use of the additional space. In the the process, I mistakenly deleted the boot partition. Reading up the on the net, Windows 10 does have some built-in recovery tools and commands to rebuild the boot loader, but because I had deleted the EFI partition, it was having trouble recovering. So here’s what I did:

1. Download a live CD/USB image of GParted and boot using the corresponding media. There is setup instructions on the site.
2. After booting with Gparted, you need to create an additional partition for the boot loader. I had to shrink the existing partition. To shrink, Select the partition from the list. In the menu, Select Partition > Shrink. I set it to 120mb before the primary partition. This may take a while depending on the size and speed of your hard disk. It took me about 30 minutes on my 256GB SSD.
3. Format the new partition using the FAT32 Fileystem. I set the flag as primary.
4. Reboot the machine with a Windows 10 Disk/USB to get into the recovery options. Select cmd tool.
5. Enter the following commands:
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

And that should be it.

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The JetPack plugin has a nifty featured called “related posts”. Using 3rd party servers, JetPack will analyse your posts and produce 3 related posts that appear at the bottom of your post. When hovering over the related posts, a tooltip is shown that takes a excerpt from the related post. I had a client who wanted this removed. There isn’t a setting to remove this, so I used some jQuery code to remove the tooltip text. You can place the below code in a JS file or if you’re using Divi, this can be entered under Theme Options > Integration > Add code to the top of your posts.


(function($) {
$(window).on('load',function(){
//Remove related posts excerpt tooltip text
$('#jp-relatedposts .jp-relatedposts-items .jp-relatedposts-post .jp-relatedposts-post-title a').removeAttr("title");
$('#jp-relatedposts .jp-relatedposts-items-visual .jp-relatedposts-post a').removeAttr("title");
});
})(jQuery);

The $(window).on(’load’) function is used as we need to wait for JetPack to load the content, since it is generated dynamically. And if you don’t want the hover effect on the related post thumbnails, you can add the following CCS to see the opacity to 1:

#jp-relatedposts .jp-relatedposts-items-visual .jp-relatedposts-post {
opacity: 1 !important;
}

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One of the pains of web development is supporting multiple browsers. Most browsers play nice when it comes to implementing standards, but some of the older variants of IE have a different way of doing things. Hence, targeted CSS “hacks” are needed to ensure the front-end is consistent across all browsers. In a recent example, I had some issues with icons in buttons. Worked fine on Chrome, Opera, Firefox and even Edge, but IE 10 and 11 had the icons well out of place. I tried targeting the IE10 and 11. This appeared to be successful until I realised it caused a regression issue on Edge. What I needed was a CSS selector that would only target IE10 and 11.

Stack Overflow tends to have the answers for these things, but I found some of the answers provided ways of targeting IE as a whole only, or the selectors didn’t work for me. GitHub user zunairmushtaq has come up with an extensive CSS reference sheet for targeting individual versions of IE and Edge. You can add this one to your bookmarks:
https://gist.github.com/zunairmushtaq/aeaa48432d51cad0eb1c

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Audials One, by RapidSolution Software is perhaps one of the most featured pack media centers of all time. Audials One can grab multiple radio stations at once, watch and convert videos, create ringtones, burn CD’s and much more.

When I was first introduced to the software, I wasn’t quite sure of its functionality. Having played around with it, the incorporated features are endless. I’ll split the features into 6 sections based on the tabs in the software: Radio, Search, Wishlist, Web, Podcasts, and Converter.

Radio
The radio section allows you to select multiple radio stations based on your choice of genre or wishlist (more about this later on) , record them, and split the songs into whatever format you want. Remember, all of this is done automatically for you. There’s thousands of radio stations to choose from, so you’re guaranteed to find something you like.

Search
The Search function allows you to search the internet for videos and mp3’s. Not only can you use a title search to find music, but also based on genre and similar artists in your current music library. Once the MP3 has been downloaded, it can be converted if desired, the MP3 is tagged, Album Art is added, and lyrics are grabbed as well. Nice.

Wishlist
The Wishlist allows you to add artists to a list in which Audials One will crawl the net looking for songs and videos related to that artist. There is also the option to share wishlists with other people. Basically, it’s audio on demand.

Web
So you have been on the net watching some videos, saw a video you really like and want to save it. AudialsOne monitors you internet temp folder and gives you a list of all the videos you have previously viewed. Once again, you have the option of converting the video to a selected video format if you wish.

Podcasts
Subscribed to multiple Podcasts? Audials One will download multiple Podcasts in parallel to make the most of your internet connection. There are many Podcasts to search through from all over the globe, so make sure you take a browse.

Converter
Converter allows you to convert any multimedia file on your PC to your selected format. Ranges from WMA, Ogg, FLAC to MP4, 3GP,XVID and many more. Also, Converter can strip your DRM protected audio files to give you freedom.

Additional Features
Audials One allows you to burn your multimedia files to CD, with the choice of a standard audio CD or Data disc. Using the audio files in the library, you can make your own ringtones, allowing you to customize each ringtone as much as you like. You can also synchronize your selected songs to your MP3 player.

Summary
Audials One contains a huge amount of features which have been packaged very well into a easy-to-use interface. It’s suited to a wide audience of people, but mostly those who want to download music and videos. Those who want to free their music from DRM will be in on this too. Audials One represents excellent value for money for people whom love audio and videos. Grab your copy of AudialsOne today.

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Whether you are a PC enthusiast or not, chances are you have had to transfer files to either a USB stick, another hard disk or even another computer. Generally speaking, Windows “does the job”, but that’s it. Especially when you’re transferring large files, a small hiccup can cause the transfer to halt.

Thanks to the folks at Code Sector, they have invented a piece of software that integrates into the Windows shell and that will transfer files faster and safer: TeraCopy. What I mean by safer is that you can pause the transfer at anytime you like, then resume at a later time.

You know, I think Code Sector should contact Microsoft and ask them if they can integrate their software into Windows 7. Seriously, everyone should own a copy of TeraCopy.

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