Category Archives: Technology

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.

Kindle Fire Kids Volume Stuck on Mute

Children, Entertainment, Technology, ,

Recently we had an issue in our house where my son’s Kindle Fire was stuck on mute and I couldn’t get the volume back up whatever I tried. He, funnily enough was happy to watch his Fire with no volume! I guess it was better than nothing.

It is the kids Fire with the sturdy blue cover that it happened to but I guess maybe it could happen to other Fires too if they work the same way.

I dragged down the settings from the top and sure enough the mute button was on, so I tried dragging the volume slider and it dragged fine but still the mute button was on. I tried holding the mute button to turn it off but that also had no effect.

Even the volume buttons on the side of the Fire did not make any difference, the volume was still off.

I couldn’t figure out what my son had done to turn off the volume and I couldn’t find any answers online. I did find something talking about some settings that may have caused it but I couldn’t find what they were talking about.

Anyway, I found an answer (it is not ideal but it works so I guess it is an answer), and it was the age old answer where technology was concerned, a hard reboot. I turned the Fire off by holding down the power button until it asked if I wanted to turn it off and then turned it back on again by holding the button again and sure enough when I tried it again the volume was back on again.

no volume on kindle fire
Eventually I managed to unmute the Fire!

I have had the problem of no sound on the Fire a couple of times now. I can only assume that my son presses something somewhere along the line to do this. It doesn’t seem to be a simple mute as this should then come back on again when you unmute it, but it doesn’t.

Oh well, at least there is a solution that will not drive me completely crazy!

Update: We now have a new Fire and the same thing happens with this too. Apparently there may be a certain app that causes this issue but I don’t know which one so that doesn’t really help! In any case the reboot does still work and the mute problem does not happen so much that this gets annoying.

 

External Hard Drive Not Deleting Files

Computers & Electronics, Technology,

external hard driveI recently had the problem where my external back up drive was nearly full so I deleted a bunch of files off it. However, even after deleting these files no more space seemed to become available on the external hard drive.

Why No More Space?

I couldn’t figure out why I was not getting any more space on the drive even after deleting the files. I was planning on buying a new hard drive at some point anyway but I knew that there were files on the hard drive that I didn’t really need so I might as well delete those first.

Recycle Bin

I searched around for a recycle bin on the hard drive to empty to make the space but there didn’t seem to be one.

Anyway, after a bit of searching, I realised that all of the files that I had deleted were in the Recycle Bin on my PC. This actually took a bit of finding in itself as the recycle bin now does not show in Windows Explorer which was what I was used to and how I used to find it!

(If you also can’t find the recycle bin then check for a link on your desktop and it is probably accessible from there).

Yay, Free Space!

So, once I deleted the files from my recycle bin on my PC the space did indeed get freed up on my external hard drive.

Hopefully this will help someone else who might be in the same situation!

 

Where Can I Get a Waterproof iPod?

Computers & Electronics, Entertainment, Fun Stuff, Lifestyles, Music, Recreation, Shopping, Sports, Technology,

So I have recently taken up swimming as a great form of exercise both to keep fit and also to keep my back flexible and stop my back pain. I am not a great swimmer but I can keep going for a bit doing breaststroke and although that is not as good as doing front crawl I’m sure the swimming helps as part of my exercise regime.

However, the more I swim and the more lengths I do, the slightly more boring the swimming gets so I decided to see if I could get a waterproof iPod or some kind of music device to help stop the boredom and keep me swimming for longer.

I am a big music fan and I find that it helps in the gym, particularly on the treadmill to make the time go quicker. However, my everyday iPod will was obviously not going to be any good for swimming and so I had a look for a waterproof iPod, as I wasn’t sure if there was one, and found that there was indeed such a thing.

Actually there are two options for getting music in your ears while you swim and one is to buy a custom waterproof iPod or MP3 player and the other is to buy a waterproof case for your existing iPod or MP3 player. There are companies that take standard iPod shuffles and waterproof them with a 2 year guarantee.

Waterproof iPods

Waterproof iPod Shuffle options
 

Obviously there are pros and cons to each and it is a personal decision as to which one will be better for you but I would suggest the following:

If you are a frequent swimmer then maybe a waterproof iPod would be better then you don’t need to keep taking your iPod out of the waterproof case and also you can load up some songs that are perfect for swimming to. You can also get hold of a smaller iPod shuffle that is easy to attach when you are in the pool.

Waterproof MP3s can also be used in snow and for other watersports and not only for swimming. In fact obviously you can use them whenever but they are designed to work in water so you might as well use them for that!

The iPod can be attached to your goggles and you will also need waterproof headphones or earbuds to go with it. A waterproof iPod can also be used just like a normal iPod.

Waterproof Cases

If you just want to waterproof your iPod for going on holiday then think about getting a waterproof case, there are plenty available and the majority of these are cheaper than buying a waterproof ipod or MP3 player so you don’t have to shell out a lot of money.

You can also just get waterproof cases that will protect your iPhone or other smartphone for when you are at the pool or the beach so that your phone doesn’t get damaged by water.

However, if you are planning to swim with music then it is probably better to get something much smaller and easier to use than using your iPod or iPhone.