Virginia Breeze

We have really taken a tour in this effort to install a super plugin for Wordpress. And there is only one thing left to do prior to reaching our goal.

It is time to install Plugin Central by Vladimir Prelovac. So go to this post and locate the plugin. And then use the tools we have discussed in Parts I through IV to install it.

As I have said many times this is a step by step process for seniors or whoever with no background in these things. So please go back and review if you need to be reminded of any steps.

Once Plugin Central and its companion Post-Plugin Library are safely installed and activated in your Plugin file go to the upper left corner of you browser just below the toolbar and click on Dashboard. Now look just below and Dashboard once again in red letters. Just to the right of it you should see Plugin Central. Click on this and the Plugin Central box will open giving you an option to click on and list all of your plugins or only your active plugins.

Now we are going to use this wonderful tool to install NextGen Gallery. Here is the location of the zip file.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/nextgen-gallery.zip

Right click on it and look for Copy Link Location. Left click on this and then go to the Plugin Central/ Easy Plugin Installation box we noted earlier in this post. Below the option to list plugins you will see the area we need. Right click and then paste your zip file in here. Click install plugin and watch as it does its work.

Total Commander is not needed here. In less than five seconds the plugin is installed and ready to use. Or if you are forgetful like me and already installed this plugin you will receive a message that goes something like this “Installation failed. Plugin already installed”.

Oftentimes you do not even need the zip file. Just type in NextGen Gallery and PC will locate it and install it anyway.

Another cool option is to click on the List all Plugins button and get your list of plugins. And then copy/paste any or all of them as you choose into your other Wordpress blogs. This tactic assumes you have installed PC in all your blogs. Just copy/paste into the PC box and click on Install. What could be simpler or easier than that?

It is such a wonderful time saving tool I know you will want to do this. But remember to always backup your database using the plugin we installed in a prior post or one of your own choice prior to any installation.

So you have now installed NextGen Gallery and our mission here is complete. Getting it up and running is a task beyond the scope of this set of posts. However instructions for doing this are in good supply.

Another David has gone into great detail about it. And here is the link.

http://dpotter.net/Technical/index.php/2008/03/04/nextgen-gallery-review-introduction/

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How can you be a sage if you’re pretty? You can’t get your wizard papers without wrinkles. ~Bill Veeck

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Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it. ~Doug Larson

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What? Unzipping the file is a very important part of the process. Nothing is going to happen until you do it. And it took me a long time to figure out how to do this in an effective manner. But after long experimentation I have found two effective ways to make it happen. Both work well. But only one way is free. You have to pay for the other.

Are you still here? Let’s move on. The paying method involves a guy in a cool maroon dress. Actually he is a wizard and he will take care of things in an effortless manner.

http://www.pc-shareware.com/unzipwiz.htm

The second program will do the same thing but it is not quite as intuitive. Still I have used it so we can’t say it is difficult.

http://www.camunzip.com/

Let’s start with this one. Download and open the program. Locate a zip file somewhere and click on it. Immediately the CAM UnZip program will appear with your zip file. In the top/left location it has Extract to: and the place it would like to go with your files. It would like to go to the desktop.

However you can create a file and put it in the file if you would like to do this. Right click on the START button down at the bottom/left of you monitor screen. Click on Explore. Click on your local disk (C:) and look below it until you come to your Documents and Settings files. Click on this and look on the right side of the window. Here are the files contained in Documents and Settings. Go there with your cursor and right click your mouse. Choose new and create New Files. Then click on New Files. You will see a lot of empty space on the right half of your window. Right click on your mouse three more times and create three files called Plugins, Themes and Misc.

Now go back to the CAM Unzip program and click on the half inch square box next to Extract to: and the files that are exhibited next to it. Your file tree should appear. Find C: and find Documents and Settings. Under it find New Files and the other three files you have created. Left click on Plugins and it should appear in the box next to Extract to:

That’s it! The Unzip Wizard has a similar and even easier process but we have run out of time and space. We have reached the point where we can actually unzip NextGen Gallery. I am sorry it has taken so long but I wanted to do this in a way that would demonstrated to someone with no computer knowledge how to do it. Things should go more quickly and perhaps be more interesting from this point. Later.

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More Writing About Blogging

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The Tudors on Showtime continues to provide rare Sunday evening enjoyment for those of us who have pretty much left the 2oth century medium of television to stew in its own reruns. Time has moved on a bit and Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth, future queen of England, looks to be around six years old.

Henry loves her very much but still would chop off his left arm for a son. Sorry. But chopping is such an integral part of this series. I am really hoping Ron Popeil will be making a guest appearance before it is over. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like when his wife  climbs those stairs and then look down into the hole on the eighteenth green for the last time.

Oh sorry once again. I am thinking about the upcoming British Open. This hole is large enough for a noggin and the director of this series thought it a nice touch to put a camera down below it so we can have a face to face with the soon to be departed.

But we have a ways to go before Ann lays out her lovely neck for the last time. She is ecstatic at the moment because she is pregnant and feels sure she will give Henry his son thus establishing her own position.

But Henry is a complicated guy and he doesn’t seem to be so happy. For one thing he misses Sir Thomas. And he blames Ann  for “making him” execute his friend and mentor. And then he gets a letter from his first wife who dies from lack of attention or something.

There is a strange and unbelievable scene where he sits on the floor reading this letter and holding his knees. Then he falls over and starts to cry. What’s that all about? Artistic license? Let’s not go overboard with all this sensitive king stuff.

Henry is quick to anger but he forgives his few friends after awhile because he is so isolated in his role of king and head of the new church. He would like to be sitting around with Sir Thomas and laughing about it all.

“Seriously, Sir Thomas. Do you really think you will burn eternally in flames if you whisper in my ear that I am who I think I am? You can be telling yourself I am a philandering miscreant at the same time as long as I can’t hear you. Isn’t it what’s in your heart that is important Sir Thomas. Hahahaha. Here! Have another drink. Don’t you feel even a little twinge when you see one of those beautiful young women we have around here? Hahahha.”

Henry kicks himself for depriving himself of all these wonderful moments. He feels so bad about it he sometimes sees Sir Thomas hiding behind the curtains in his room at night. He has nightmares too. And they all seem to center around his habit of beheading those who disagree with him.

He’s a gentle person at heart. Ann is the cruel one. It’s all her fault. She is an ambitious b**ch and quite shallow too.

You can tell this is the case because she is so happy at the moment. She has even stopped running her hand around her neck. And there is one more scene I must share with you. Ann and some of her friends are having a dance in a small tavern or room with a romantic fire in one corner. It is very dark. She runs into the arms of someone who picks her up and twirls her about the room just as Henry walks through the door.

Talk about your awkward moment. You can hear a pin or a pinhead drop as he walks around having a look at his “competition”. Then he grabs Ann and they start this long, passionate, angry and overly choreographed dance that ends up with a shot of them in bed.

Ann sinks one of her royal fingernails about a half inch into Henry’s back and then lets it wander down to his butt in an attempt I suppose to see if he really does have a spine. She must not have found it because then she smacks him in the face a couple of times!

Talk about pressing your luck. Henry started doing a slow burn a long time ago where Ann is concerned. He is isolated in the geopolitical sense and in the sense that he executed his best bud! How much more of this can he take?

A lot is riding on whatever is baking in the royal oven. If this does not turn out well we may see Henry’s fingernails revealed. They are very long and sharp. And they are attached to ten foot long poles in the possession of some very scary and masked avengers.

So tune in and see what happens next. And don’t forget to grab a feed so that we can discuss the finer details here when it is over.

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Here are some photos from the Showtime series

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While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging, freely and openly, the most uninhibited, intimate and, yes, shocking details about our config.sys settings. ~Dave Barry

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There are really not enough simple explanations happening in cyberspace for someone who wants to blog but has no background that would be helpful in this regard.

In other words “I’M AN IDIOT !!” (and this is why “Idiots guides” proliferate).

Perhaps it would be helpful if I broke down some of the knowledge I have gained in this area. Because it is easy for me to explain things in simple language and not leave out any important little details. I need those details too!

THIS is what sinks ships. Those tiny little bits of information that are just so OBVIOUS to the knowledgeable may sometimes be left out. And that can leave us floating on a raft. Lost, lost, lost and waving good-bye to our new love as he sinks out of sight. Sorry Leonardo but you should have climbed up there with your true love. Being a gentleman will only get you so far.

But perhaps you were too tired after your adventure in the car.

So here is how I installed NextGen Gallery into my Wordpress blog from the word GO!

First we are going to upload some files.

I have a couple of tools for doing this. And the first one will allow us to bring the second one on board. So let’s begin with the first one. It is called Total Commander 7.03

Here is a download location

http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/totalcmd.html

Follow the directions and open the software package.

This is shareware and in order to use it you have to play a little game. It will give you a number and you will have to click on the same number in order to get in. It’s very simple. It’s a confidence booster really.

Each time you want to use this program all you have to do is hit Control-F and it will spring into action.

A window opens. It says Connect to ftp server on top. And on the right is a button to click that says Connect. But before you can connect you have to set up a New Connection. New Connection is the second box.

So click on New connection. This brings up another window called FTP:connection details. We only need to worry about a few of the boxes here (repeat this exercise for each of your blogs).

The first box is entitled Session. Put the name of your blog in here.

The second box is entitled Host Name (Port). Put ftp.davidnotes.com in there. LOL. Actually you need to put the name of Your Domain in there. Sometimes it is written ftp.yourdomain.com but I used to find that to be slightly confusing. If you do too then we are maybe from the same planet.

The next box should have Anonymous login etc in it already.

Next is User name. Do you know your user name? Do you have as many of these per chance as I do? Well this one is the one you use to get into your Cpanel. It’s the one that came with your domain. If you didn’t write it down I can’t help you. Try looking in your admin panel/settings/writing. Look down there under Post via e-mail. There is a Login Name. That could be it! Or you may need to email your hosting company and have them help you.

And then we have the inevitable Password. You have many of these floating around too no doubt. This one is also associated with your cpanel. Same deal as the username. It could be down there with the Login Name.

In any case it pays to write things down.

But even more important than this it pays to write them all down in the same small notebook and then.. . . . .

DON’T LOSE THE NOTEBOOK! Always know where it is so you can find it at a moment’s notice.

And that concludes our first lesson boys and girls. We will move on in a day or two. But we don’t want to overtax ourselves with this stuff. It’s “Keep It Simple Sweetheart” all the way! And for now. . .

As Paul Harvey used to say

Bye Bye!