Category Archives: Internet

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!

Which is the Most Popular Carpool Karaoke?

Automotive, Entertainment, Fun Stuff, Internet, Music, Social Networks & Online Communities

When James Corden took over the Late Late Show he was openly scared that the show would fail and he would have to return to the UK with his tail between his legs.

It seems that nothing could be further from the truth and one of the most popular segments on the show is the carpool karaoke where he takes a ride with some very famous celebrities and sings along with them to their own hits.

The videos are very popular and James Corden is also actually quite good at singing along with the passenger!

The most popular carpool karaoke videos have been shared not just millions of times but tens of millions via YouTube – so which do you think are the most popular carpool karaoke videos?

We checked out the videos and how many views each of them had and these were the ones that had been viewed the most times…

Number 1

OK at the top of the list with over 110 million views is the Adele carpool karaoke, so this one is top of the list. Obviously one reason this was very popular was that it was done at the time of her big hit ‘Hello’ that had just been released:

Number 2

Next on the carpool karaoke most popular list if the Justin Bieber carpool karaoke with over 80 million views. Everything to do with Justin Bieber is usually incredibly popular as he has a huge fan base so this is no surprise really!

Number 3

At number 3 on the most popular carpool karaoke videos is Iggy Azalea carpool karaoke with over 37 million views to date. So this is a big jump down on the top 2 videos which look like they will take a lot of catching up:

Number 4

At the number 4 spot is the Mariah Carey carpool karaoke with over 25 million views:

Number 5

At 5th place on the list is the Stevie Wonder carpool karaoke with over 22 million views. With the video starting with James Corden saying ‘are you sure you are safe to drive?’ this was always destined to be a hit and was a very funny one:

Obviously as the carpool karaoke continues on the Late Late show there is a chance for future videos to overtake this top 5.

In fact the Selena Gomez carpool karaoke has at the time of writing only been released for a day and already has 9 million views, so that could well be a future contender:

With 5 million subscribers these videos are always going to be really popular and will likely always get millions of views so it will be interesting to see which one ends up on top when they finally end.

Which one is your favorite carpool karaoke video? Is it one that is not in the top 5 list? Feel free to comment below.