Fintel social network site
We are proud to announce the all new Fintel Financial Intelligence website. Heavily focused on the Fintel community members, one of the site’s main feature is a fully featured social networking section. The launch beginning of this month was an instant success and hit rates have been up since. Fintel offers a range of financial education products from live classes to recorded training DVDs.
B Balanced now online
The latest addition to my portfolio is the new website of a local thriving health business owned and operated by Leisa Rocker. B Balanced is focusing on homeopathy, a gentle alternative to traditional western medicine. Needless to say that her site too has been done in WordPress with the use of the beautiful theme Azul 1.51 by Switchroyale which of course I had to tweak so that it would fit just the way I wanted it.
B Balanced’s website www.bb6.com is a typical example of a simple content management system, where the website owner has maximum flexibility in creating pages and posts as well as maintaining them without having to worry about breaking anything.
I am very grateful to all who made this an all the other WordPress sites that I have built possible. My thanks goes to all contributors of WordPress and the various plugins, the author of the Azul theme and last but not least Leisa for giving me the oportunity to create this wonderful website.
MBA Queensland website redesigned
In 2007 I desinged the website for the Medical Benevolent Association Queensland in Australia on Joomla 1.1, which was a pretty good option at the time. But, since I hadn’t done any upgrades to the site, it was well an truly out of date by now. So I decided to take the time and do the usual pre-upgrade tests only to find out that Joomla 1.5 was not what I expected it to be.
Nothing worked, the template was broken, plugins did not run any more and upgrades were not available.
The bottom line was that I would have had to re-build the whole site again from scratch on a platform which I wasn’t too familiar with any more.
By that time, WordPress was already my best friend when it came to web development tools. So the decision was not difficult to build the new MBA Qld site on this excellent platform. It did not take me all that long and with my new helper Artisteer I had had found a tool which is great for people like me who just can’t seem to find a good enough of-the-shelf theme.
How to transfer your WordPress site manually between hosts
Here is the Scenario:
Your WordPress website is currently hosted on Linux with a company, lets call it OldHost. They do not use cPanel. This website needs to be transferred to your new company with a minimum of interruptions to e-mail and to the actual site. We call the new company NewHost and they provide you with cPanel on Linux.
Note this is a procedure that does not include full testing of the site. Additional steps may be required if uptime and full functionality is critical. If you do not have registered a domain name with your new hosting provider yet or if you want to use the same domain name you may be able to access your site using your ip address and the username preceeded by the tilde (~) charachter. However if you use WordPress you cannot test the site fully with this preliminary domain name as WP will throw a 404 on any virtual subfolders. But your home page should still show correctly as long as you use the correct path in your database (step 15)
Steps:
- Create user account with NewHost (cPanel)
- Create the domain name, which in this procedure is to be assumed the same as the one on the existing site with OldHost
- Create a blank database with a unique password on NewHost
- Setup an FTP connection using the IP address (since there is no domain name assigned yet) see also http://www.netlogistics.com.au/support/pre_ip/
- Access OldHost’s file manager and zip the entire site folder content.
- Using an FTP program (I use FileZilla) copy the zip file onto your desktop.
- Upload the zip file to the NewHost’s server.
- While it is uploading go to OldHost’s MySQL Database and log onto your users’s phpMyAdmin account.
- Export the database (not the information_schema) to SQL. The default settings should be fine. No need to save it as a file.
- Copy the resulting SQL code into the clipboard and paste it into a simple text editor e.g. Windows Notepad.
- Log into the new user’s NL cPanel and open phpMyAdmin
- Click on SQL or click on the database name and then click on the SQL tab.
- Take note of the database name.
- Back in the open Notepad delete the line starting with CREATE DATABASE and replace the database name in the next line (USE …) with the new name.
- If you use a different domain name (e.g. for testing purposes) use the Replace command to replace all occurrences of www.oldDomainName.com with www.newDomainName.com
- Copy the entire text into the clipboard
- Go back to NewHost phpMyAdmin and paste it into the Run SQL query field and click Go
- Go back to the NewHost cPanel, open the File Manager (choose to show hidden files) and locate the zip file you uploaded.
- Unzip the zip file into the www folder.
- Delete the zip files as they are no longer needed.
- Make sure the folder structure is the same as on the old server (e.g. it is not in another subfolder). Important: if you need to move things around you want to see & select hidden files as well.
- Edit wp-config.php and change the database details to the new values: DB_NAME, DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD
- At this point you can bring up the website using the ip address if you don’t have assigned the domain name yet. You should see your theme and a bunch of error messages. That means it’s all good. Once you can access the site with the proper domain name it should all work.
- Back on the NewHost cPanel, set up all e-mail accounts that you have on the old server.
- Flick the big switch: With your registrar change the name servers to your own name servers and then wait. They say it takes 24-48 hours but I found that I can access the site already within a view hours. I think it takes that long until the last server on the globe has updated. Therefore it is a good idea to wait a couple of days before starting to delete files on the old location.
- Don’t forget to setup your e-mail program with the new details and keep checking the old e-mail box for a day or two in case there are any late arrivals.
I would be gratefull for any feedback or contributions to this topic.
Spinning Earth now available as plugin
The little 3D Spinning Earth Flash video clip that has impressed so many is now available as a WordPress plugin. Its official name is Utech Spinning Earth and it can be implemented by simple WordPress shortcode. There are a number of settings that can be changed, to make it look exactly the way it is desired. The initial response from WordPress users was overwhelming with positve comments from all over the world.
For more information please visit the Utech Spinning Earth plugin page or the WordPress Plugin Directory entry where you can also rate it.
New version of Spinning Earth 3D animation
A new version of the free 3D animation of our spinning earth globe is now available for download. Special algorithms have been used to achieve excellent graphis while staying extremely small in file size to ensure fast download times for any website. This version now allows the modification of the background of the animated flash file. To find out more and to download a free copy of the Spinning Earth animation visit the Spinning Earth page
World Clock plugin for WordPress launched
Today we launched our first free WordPress plugin called Utech World Time for WP, after successfully adopting WordPress as our preferred Internet publishing platform. The plugin creates simple digital world clocks from any of over 600 locations. (For a full list of available location see www.utechworld.com/locations/).
TheUtech World Time for wp plugin utilizes services provided by timeanddate.com as well as from us inside an iframe. This is the first one in a row of planned plugins for WordPress. For more information or to download this free plugin please visit our plugin page or the WordPress Plugin Directory entry.
Current Newsletter
coming soon
New websites
Utech Computer Solutions is proud to announce the official release of the new World Time Manager website under its own domain www.WorldTimeManager.com. One of the new features allows visitors to contribute by leaving comments. Furthermore the company website has been completely redesigned. It has received a new modern look in alignement with the the new World Time Manager site. It is more streamlined and is easier to use than before.
World Clock Application from Down Under
Press release February/March 2010
For Immediate Release
Contact: Meini, Utech Computer Solutions
World Clock Application from Down Under
Utech Computer Solutions has released version 2.7 of World Time Manager, a Windows based software package that offers more than just world time clocks on the computer desktop.
Utech has been producing world clock software since 2002 and has announced this current version as the most stable one ever. “The new version is also fully compatible with Windows 7″, the company says.
A closer look at World Time Manager
You are first presented with a world map showing the earth in real-time view even with night time areas. It is quite interesting to see the lights of New York and the darkness of the Australian desert, while Europe is engulfed in daylight. As you move the mouse over the map, the fun starts as different names and time zones pop up while a clock tells you the time in that location. All it takes then to create clocks on the desktop, is a simple drag and drop action.
There is no limit in the number of clocks that can be created, and they can be moved around individually or in clusters. They dock onto the edges of the screen and automatically hide, ready for when they are needed. It is also possible to minimize them to the task bar.
Clocks can be resized and customized to satisfy even the most demanding user. There is a large number of color combinations, clock shapes and types available. Clocks can also be turned into count down timers for e-bay auctions, or with the inbuilt alarm feature they can remind you when the stock market closes or more trivial things like when it is time to take the rubbish out . Clocks even change their color depending if the sun is up or down at that particular location.
Time Travel
Do you want to ring a business partner in Australia or another country at say 10:15 AM their time? Time offset, daylight saving and the fact that it is the night before – no worries! World Time Manager lets you move through time with the World Time Machine. This is a feature that fast forwards all clocks simultaneously so that you can turn your business partner’s clock to 10:15 AM and see what time it will be at home and anywhere else in the world for that matter.
This is a useful application not only for people with international contacts but also those who are after a versatile and easy to use clock program. World Time Manager costs US$24.95 and is available from WorldTimeManager.com as a 14 day fully functional trial version. It comes with free automatic database updates for the lifetime of the product.