Category Archives: Internet

WordPress Plugin for Managing a Rota

Internet, Technology, ,

I recently had the situation where I wanted to install a plugin on one of my WordPress sites that would enable a number of people to volunteer to man an art exhibition for various shifts on a rota basis.

I searched around for a rota plugin but the only one I found had only been updated 8 years ago so that was not something I was happy with using.

There were a bunch of plugins that came up for managing employee shifts etc but it took me a while to find a plugin that seemed to do what I wanted it to.

In the end I found a great plugin for a simple rota system which is called Sign-up Sheets and you can create an entry for each shift and for each date and also add how many spots there are available for that rota spot.

An except from the sign up view front end

To show the rota on the front end you need to add the code [sign_up_sheet] to a page you have created (this was not immediately obvious!) and that will show you all the available slots for the dates and times you have created.

Another good thing is that when someone signs up for a slot they get sent an email confirming that slot so that they know what they have signed up for.

I have only used this so far for the one exhibition and it seems that I will need to delete any old data if I want a new rota to be the only thing to show on the website but that is fine, once the date is gone then I won’t need it to show any more.

There is also a pro version of the plugin with extra functionality which I have not tried but will do if I need it.

I just wanted to share the info about this plugin being useful for rotas as it did not come up initially in my searches.

Free SSL For Hostgator Customers

Internet, Technology, , ,

Following recent announcements by Google, some Hostgator customers may have received an email telling them that they could get a free SSL Certificate for their websites (although I was not one of them!).

Activate Free SSL on WordPress

I thought it would be useful to show how this free SSL certificate could be activated on your WordPress sites on Hostgator in case anyone was not aware of this offering.

But first a small amount of background. For the last couple of years Google has been saying that it will highlight sites that do not have an SSL certificate by flagging up a message on Google Chrome to say that your site is insecure if you do not have a certificate on it.

This has led to some people clicking away from sites that say this under the impression that their details may be stolen etc of they continue which is obviously a bad thing for website owners.

Google Announcement

In February 2018 they made this announcement that from 1st July 2018 this would happen to all sites, thus making it pretty important to have the SSL certificate installed from tomorrow.

However, up until then, only business customers could have a free SSL for their websites on Hostgator and anyone else had to pay from $39 upwards to buy a certificate via Hostgator.

Hostgator Announcement

On 31st May Hostgator posted this on their blog which said that there would be a free SSL for Hostgator customers for their sites.

The blog post did not go into much detail about how to activate the free SSL certificate which is also available to those on shared hosting and reseller plans so if you are wondering if this applies to you, try the following:

Check Your Site

Firstly, to check that your site has the certificate, type in https in front of your website URL. You can see if the site will load over https as well as http.

If it does then you will need to force the site to use https by using an SSL Plugin. The most popular one to use is ‘Really Simple SSL’ which does what it says on the tin. Check it out in the plugin directory:

Obviously, before you make any major changes to your site you should take a back up.

really simple ssl

How to Activate Free Hostgator SSL

Click on ‘Install Now’ and then ‘Activate’

You may be lucky and the Plugin activates automatically with no issues or you may have to go through a couple of other steps (our sites varied even though they are all on the same server).

You may get the message ‘Detected possible certificate issues’ if the SSL certificate fails to activate:

detected possible certificate issues ssl

If this is the case then click on ‘Reload over https’ – you will likely have to logon again to your website.

If you repeatedly get issues with this not working just keep trying! Try loading the site with https before clicking, or if possible logon as another admin user. Otherwise close your browser and try again and it should work eventually.

Once this works you should get this message:

almost ready to migrate to SSL

or you may bypass the first error message and get this one straight away. If so, click on ‘Go ahead, activate SSL!’

You should be all set to go and your site will default to your free SSL certificate when you load it.

Can’t Get in to eBay

Internet, Shopping, Social Networks & Online Communities

April 23rd – I can’t get in to eBay (the UK version, I can’t test the US version as the problem seems to be with logging in).

The issue isn’t with the home page which I can get to fine, but when I try and log in and see what is happening with My eBay it just hangs – on my phone and my PC.

All other websites seem OK so I don’t think it is a problem with my internet or devices.

I have a few things for sale and I’m not able to get to the selling page or to the My eBay summary page.

I’m also unable to accept a special offer that they emailed me about reduced selling fees so won’t be able to put anything else up for sale until this is sorted.

Unfortunately I also can’t get to the eBay help pages to see if this is a general issue or to ask about it!

Is anyone else having issues with eBay?

How to Create a Custom Map with Multiple Pins

Automotive, Internet, Recreation, Travel,

Are you trying to create a custom map or trail with multiple points so that you can post it to other people to see?

If you are trying to create a custom map in Google maps that has multiple pins then you may have found some tutorials that don’t really help of you may have just gone to Google maps and not found any menu items that allow you to do this, in which case I can give you a pointer to the easiest way to create a custom map.

If you want a map that has multiple pins, but the previous pin disappears when you add a new one then basically you need to go to a different Google maps location.

If you go to Google- My Maps then that enables you to create your own custom maps and to save them so that you can either just view them yourself or enable them to be viewed by anyone.

The easiest way to add the pins is to create an excel spreadsheet with 2 headings – Name (this will be the name that appears on the pin) and location (this can be address, postcode, co-ordinates or whatever is recognised in Google Maps).

You can then easily import this spreadsheet and it will add all the pins for you.

Alternatively, perhaps if you only want a couple of pins, you can add the pins manually by using the tools at the top of the page. You can add a title and description to each pin (and it doesn’t need to be an address as you can just drop the pin where you choose to).

You can also change the icons and the color of the pins that are showing for each location by clicking on the edit button for each location. you can add driving or walking routes between 2 places as well by using the inbuilt tools.

In fact there are a lot of functions you can add and once you are done you need to decide whether you want the map to be private or whether you want to share it with the outside word. Click on the share button to see these options.

 

eBay Listing Has the Wrong Location

Internet, Shopping, Social Networks & Online Communities,

If you are trying to sell something on eBay, you have put in the correct postcode on the selling form but it is still coming up with the wrong location when you view the listing then you are not alone!

Sometimes even when you have entered the right postcode the wrong location might be shown
Sometimes even when you have entered the right postcode the wrong location might be shown

Perhaps you have recently moved house or else you are trying to sell something that belongs to a friend or is just located with someone else and the location is showing incorrectly.

The solution to this problem is to use the advanced selling tool. Unfortunate when you list stuff in a standard manner you get the quick listing tool which usually would do everything you wanted to but in this case you will need to switch.

If you have already listed the item then you may find that you have to end the listing and start again (this is what I found I had to do). Although I saw a post that said you could change the listing form when you were revising an item, when I did this it just took me to a new listing.

So I think we can safely assume that if you have this problem you have already listed your item. So to get to the advanced tool you need to start the listing again – once you have entered the title (just copy and paste everything from the old listing) – and you get to the category section, then you will be given the opportunity to switch to the advanced listing tool in the top right hand corner of the page.

Once you are in this listing tool a pop up box will come up for the postcode location and you will need to hit the ‘apply’ button for it to change the location description that will be shown.

Go through adding all the details to your listing again and then end the old listing, yes it is a pain but hopefully once this is done you won’t need to do it again!