Being a Google search addict, I eventually searched for a solution.  It turns out that widgets you have used on one theme are lost when you switch to a different theme unless you disable those widgets in the them from which you are disabling.

Since one is likely to change themes and try different widgets within themes during the set-up time for your blog, this little idiosyncracy can drive the Wordpress un-initiated a little crazy – I actually reinstalled Wordpress my first time around.

Of course, the open source nature of Wordpress eventually produced a solution and the enterprising php developer Justin Tadlock has provided one – called not coincidentally the “Widgets Reset”.  It is a quite simple plugin to use as you just install it, and follow the directions on the “readme” inclusion included in the download which reads:

“a new menu item will appear under Appearance in your WordPress dashboard. It will be labeled Widgets Reset.

Click on it. On the new page, all you must do is click the button that reads Reset All Widgets. This will remove all widgets from active status on your site.

After this, you can disable the plugin unless you want to keep it around to use later.”

That is about one of the simplest solutions I have found for any problem I have encountered in my web publishing background.

The widget can be found at Justin’s site. 

Click Here to Get Widgets Reset

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In essence, in our due diligence on the site and an attempt to arrive at a valuation for it, we really needed to nail down how page rank and/or trust rank was passed on by Google to our page should we decide to simply redirect the domain to our existing domain.  Rather than regurgitate what is said on the post we found, you can read it at Patrick Altofts’ excellent SEO blog called Blogstorm – Google stops passing anchor text through certain 301 redirects.

The news about Google’s new treatment of Page Rank and Trust for redirected pages and domains was very helpful to us in the following way….

The fact that Google is taking a real world, business focused approach to this issue is good news indeed.  Whether you are a small independent webmaster or a large company, the fact that you are an acquirer of an asset means that you should get credit for that asset.  I would also suspect that such credit will change over time and could fall or rise depending, logically, on how that trust and rank are treated by the new “main” website.

It is also logical that they will not simply pass along anchor text to page not relevant to that anchor.

After close to 12 years on the web, we continue to be encouraged by the development and maturation of the major players in the industry and their approach to search and the logic they are using.

As a postscript, we bought the site and are planning on redirecting it and our existing site to a new site under construction that is focused on the web hosting industry.  We will let you know when the launch is complete and the results we attain from this fairly radical strategy.

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My personal history with anti-virus programs goes back to the early days of Internet access.  My frustration with this most essential of software also goes back equally as long.  Some of most memorable moments of virtual smashing have taken place as a consequence of mal-formed anti-virus software code, interfaces, and integration.

I long ago swore off any software with the  McAfee name.  Sometime in the 90’s – and I forget the exact year – I had done considerable research on a  new personal computer.  In the days before Dell’s total ascendance, there were many choices.  My normal practice is to buy just about the highest specification at the time of purchase because with a few RAM, OS, and power supply upgrades throughout the years, I get more use per dollar by following this practice…

I was thrilled to bring home a new HP that was loaded for the time and was anxious to fire it up.  Once properly wired and ready to go, I turned it on.  I was immediately confronted by a “jumpy” and “sticky” mouse that I could not move around with ease – a difficult issue for someone working with Photoshop often.

Suffice it to say, that several days of research identified the McAfee anti-virus installation as the cause whereby I tried to remove it – using the common and safe software removal practices for windows of the time – and found it not so easy.  To make a long story short, about 9 days after I had brought my new computer home, McAfee was gone and my new pc was working, well, like a new pc.  That was a bit of lost productivity, and, suffice it to say, the last time a McAfee product appeared on my computer.

I bring that horror story because of some experiences I have had with Symantec today…

I have had Symantec’s Norton anti-virus on several PC’s over the years.  At some point, however, they have all become corrupt and required removal in favor of a non-McAfee alternative.  Although I have 5 pc’s in my home and own a business with many, I traditionally use Bit Defender (more about that in a moment).

The PC I am using now, however, was an emergency purchase that was store bought and came pre-installed with Norton 360.  I decided to give it a try and, admittedly, it has been relatively problem free.  Yes, the scans eat up the disk and make the computer unusable while scanning, but I typical do a daily scan while sleeping.

Well, today I had to update a driver which resulted in a reboot and my Symantec settings changes upon the reboot.  In effect it was not scanning email or online surfing.  There  was no real time protection. Symantec has this little button called “Fix”.  The problem with that is, if you have ever stored something on their “back-up”, it takes you through a whole back-up process to try to sell you more space and also does a scan – and a Norton Scan makes mince meat out of your productivity by cranking your hard drive as hard as it can.  I don’t want to do this, so I explore other options.

First, I go to settings and try to turn on the protections that were inexplicably turned off.  It will not let me.

I try to close and reopen Norton 360 and go to settings again to manually turn them on.  The program stops and crashes.

I try to restart Norton 360; it will not start again.

I reboot, and Norton comes up sans the settings for real time protection again.

I then decide to go to their “back up” settings to turn the pesky “back up” command thing off.  There is no option to do this.  Once activated, apparently, Symantec keeps wanting to run it no matter what your choice.

I then uncheck all the files I am backing up – this takes some time for Norton to bring up your configuration to actually alter it.  I figured that not backing anything up will at least shorten that function should I click the “Fix” button.

Now, I am two hours into this and I click the dreaded “Fix” button.  First it shows that my settings have been fixed – why I cannot go into the settings area and configure them myself is beyond me.  But, then, in the middle of my workday, the dreaded scan starts and completely destroys my ability to constructively work on the web or my pc as most things I do require speed.  But, I think I can just stop the scan.  Nope, the software crashes.

Ok, I reboot again and see my settings have not been updated.  I have two choices now, try again and let the scan run or go to my traditional default.  Although I remember past fiascos from Symantec products eventually not updating or crashing, I give it another try.  I hit the “Fix” button and go to lunch. 

Two hours later, the thing is still scanning.  So, I do some paperwork.  Two more hours (I have a big disk), and paperwork done, I need to get some work done online.  Ooops, Norton is still scanning and every java drop down menu I go to online takes 2-3 minutes to show the menu items.

At this point, I am ready to smash the pc and anyone and everything around me, but I remembered my old stand-by solution:  Bit Defender.  So, I go to the Bit Defender site, download it, install it, and uninstall Norton 360.  The whole process takes 30 minutes, Bit Defender is running, I am protected from incursions and viruses, and I can configure the settings the way I want to and run the scan at my leisure.

Which leads me to a conclusion that I have long ago reached, use Bit Defender as your anti-virus software and uninstall any thing MacAfee or Symantec related.  For what it is worth, I normally have experienced better virus protection from Bit Defender as well.  Even PC World has called it “the best value for your money” amongst anti-virus programs.

But, I am not here to give you a sales pitch.  And, I apologize for the length of the message.  But, if you are having similar frustrations with Symantec and McAfee products, Bit Defender is a lighter code, runs more effortlessly in the background, has arguably more up to date definitions, and is easy to buy.  In fact, when going to buy it, I found this link that includes a special discount offer that I will provide for your convenience…

Click Here for Bit Defender Discount Link

Regardless of whether you are looking for a solution now or in the future, my best recommendation to eliminate uneeded frustrations experienced due to a balky anti-virus program is to try Bit Defender..

Rant over, thanks for you patience.

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Starting out with what is on my mind is easy, but I am uncomfortable that it presupposes knowledge and information that is possessed by the reader that may not actually be present.  I, therefore, often start out by building a store of information, often containing the basics of the subject matter at hand, that I can refer to in subsequent posts.

One of the foundations of publishing or transacting something online is web-hosting.  Because my mission with this blog is to help the non-technical web savvy person navigate through their frustrations, I am going to assume for the purposes of this post that the reader is someone with a working familiarity of the web, at the very least having published something on a free blog host.

One of the first steps in the development of your web presence is the choosing of a web-host.  Those of us who have been on the web for a period of time, and we have also had a web hosting business, have all experienced the pratfalls of hosting problems.  In order to help you avoid those, the following guidelines and hosting specifications should alleviate future frustrations and feelings of smashing…..

For this post, we are also going to assume you are a relative newbie to the world of hosting and web publishing and require an entry level host to publish a blog or a simple html site that will be a store of information.  If that is the case, you will require a relatively entry level hosting account.

Entry level, however, does not mean that you do not require robust specifications in order to implement your new concept.  Most hosts today have relatively robust settings for all customers on their servers, so this should be no problem to find.  With a plethora of offerings in the market, however, I would suggest the following minimum specifications in order to begin winnowing your choices down:

Key Specifications for a Web Host:

1. Low Introductory Price:  Most hosts today will offer a fairly richly specified hosting package for an introductory price which today falls around $5.00 to $7.00 per month should you choose to pay six months or one year in advance.
2. Host Operating System:  Unless it is for a specific, specialty need (which we intend to address in a subsequent post), we overwhelmingly recommend that you go with a host that uses a Unix platform and a Linux or Linux derivative operating system.  This is by far the most common configuration on the web, and you will not only find the most informational resources regarding this platform but also the most web specific applications for it.   Windows based servers are also quite good platforms, but unless you have a specific reason for wanting to use Windows, you life will be easier with the Unix/Linux/Apache (the webserver software) than with any other configuration.
3. Domains:  Obviously, you wish to run your own domain name.  Many hosts have introductory plans that allow you to have one domain with scalable plans that allow unlimited domains to be hosted on your plan.
4. Email Accounts:  You want to make certain that your host will offer multiple email accounts with your package.  Many offer unlimited email accounts even with their introductory packages.
5. MySQL Databases:  If you intend to run Wordpress, Drupal or any other blog or CMS software package on your website, you absolutely need MySQL databased capability. 
6. PHP:  Again, PHP functionality – which is a scripting language – is absolutely essential for any starter web package.
7. IP Address:  Although not absolutely essential if you are just beginning to publish your new concept, it is desirable to have your own, individual ip address for your account.  Having your own ip protects you against potentially abusive business practices by others you may share an ip with in a shared hosting environment.
8. Bandwidth:  Many hosts today claim that they offer “unlimited bandwidth” on your account.  These are always offered with the caveat that you must comply with their terms and conditions which almost always state in some indirect language that your account may be cancelled for using excessive bandwidth.  Should your new site be picked up #1 on a valuable keyword by Google or your blog featured at Technorati, you might just find your site inaccessible.  The best way to avoid this is to make certain that your host has scalable plans that would include a VPS solution – Virtual Private Server. A VPS is, in effect, similar to having your own server but you really have a walled off portion of a server.
9. CGI (Common Gateway Interface):  This controls what your site looks like in response to common scripting and computer language codes.  Your host must offer it.
10. Perl:  Like PHP, it is a programming language.  It used to be the main language of the Internet to enable dynamic content, but is largely being replaced by PHP.  Regardless, it is necessary to run many applications you may have on your site.
11. Cron:  Almost all web-hosts have cron enabled, which allows you to do prescheduled routines on your webservices and software, but make sure that the host has it enabled.
12. GD Library:  This is a graphics package that needs to be installed on the server by your host.  It is critical to run image imports into Wordpress and just about any other automated web publishing environment.
13. ImageMagick:  This is an extension of GD Library and is again needed for many of you plugins to Wordpress and other web publishing programs.
14. Curl:  Curl is a php script optimizer that you will find required by many plugins to your web publishing software.  Discovering that your host does not have it installed when implementing new capabilities to your site is indeed frustrating.
15. Zend Optimizer:  Very similar to Curl in that it will be required by some of your scripts and/or plugins and it is better if you know it to be installed by your future host than to find it not there at 2 am when installing a new application.
16. CPanel:  many people would not say that CPanel is a requirement.  But, Capanel is a web interface that allows you to manage your hosting account.  It enables you to manage your own email addresses, add-on domains, install pre-approved scripts, check your webstats, create MySQL databases, and, if extended with Fantastico, allows you to one-click install wordpress and a variety of other applications.  There are alternative management panels in the market, but it is our experience that having Cpanel will make your life easier.

The above are what I would call basic and minimum requirements of a new hosting account, even at the entry level.  There are other modules like Curl and Zend that are desirable, and required for more advanced hosting solutions, but the normal person publishing on the web should be well served with the above specifications. 

Two hosts that we recommend that have both exceptional reputations and provide the the level of specification that we consider to be the minimum – in fact they are both more robust – are Host Gator and Blue Host.

Blue Hostis an excellent host for the person buying their first domain hosting package.  They specialize in hosting Wordpress run sites and their servers are optimized for the unique usage demands that the most widely used web publishing software places on MySQL databases.  Click Here to see Blue Host’s phenomenal hosting plans that start at $6.95 per month for some very robust solutions.

Host Gator is run by a iconoclastic guy who actually helps his competitors optimize their services.  They are specialists in scalability and have helped a wide range of new sites introduce themselves and grow phenomenally.  Click Here to review their excellent introductory packages that feature exceptional scalability.

There are certainly many fine hosts in the marketplace that can meet the requirements that we recommend.  Host Gator and Blue Host are the two, however, with whom we are most familiar and have a high level of confidence in.

Regardless of your choice, it is our hope that taking the time to document the minimum specifications that you should look for has been helpful.

For those looking for more advanced solutions and have more experience on the web and with hosts, look for Part 2 of our web-hosting recommendations for a review of the essentials of VPS (Virtual Private Servers) and Managed Dedicated Hosting.

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We selected of course, a free wordpress theme.  Although we are skilled in css and templating, our mission with this site is to share easy methods of operating a website.  Thus, we selected one of the thousands of free themes available at the wordpress site.

Secondly, we are a believer in keeping things relatively simple.  We also believe that mimalist design that emphasizes content and the message are important.  Given these beliefs and the mission of the site, we selected the Winter Styled theme done by a gentleman named Paul Andrew.  It features a clean, minimalist design that is relatively code free so that we knew what kind of coding is added to the site.  You may visit Paul’s site – Specky Boy –  for more information on this clean theme, some of his other work on theme and internet site development, as well as some great tips on web design and development.

The theme can be found at the Winter Styled Page on Paul’s site.

As true believers in thin code, fast loading pages, and simplicity of the Web 2.0 message, we thank Paul for a great template to use.

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Basically, as we descibe in the page About, I am a serial entrepreneur with plenty of past web businesses behind me.  The mission of this site is to provide a storehouse of information that will assist people assigned with the responsibility managing their organizations web prescence or for those starting their own web based enterprise.

As we describe in the intro above, the inspiration is from those sites and people who have assisted us in times of dire frustration.  It is our hope, to provide sufficient information and assistance to those who are on the verge of smashing anything in their prescence. 

In other words, when you are screaming at Wordpress, ready to trash your new blog theme, on the verge of tossing your pc out the window, and swearing off all things technical, you can turn to our site for some direction on a solution to your frustration.

I hope that you find our new resource helpful.

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