I fell back on using the More Fields plugin.

In WordPress 3 though, came the option for Custom Post Types. So, earlier in the week I rolled up my sleeves and, with the help of come excellent tutorials (mainly this one by Justin Tadlock), wrote a custom post type specifically for Book Reviews.

This basically adds fields for:

• Author
• Whether you recommend it
• Book cover (optional)
• Link to a site where people can buy the book (optional)
• Link to a site where people can buy your copy (optional)

Screenshot:

You can find an example of the usage on my personal blog (click through on one of the titles).

Installation instructions and what-not are included in a readme.txt file inside the zip.

If you have existing reviews you would like to convert to the book_review post type I can recommend the Convert Post Types plugin, although note you may be missing custom field data.

Download the files here

I recently ran a trial of Google Apps as a possible replacement for our incumbent solution of hosted Exchange and Sharepoint, along with normal copies of Microsoft Office.  I didn’t expect it to replace the desktop applications, but mainly replace our email, calendar and intranet services and possibly provide some extra functionality for light users.  Having completed my trial and made my decision I thought I would write up my experience here to make it more generally accessible.

Our situation

We weren’t unhappy with the existing solution, but the difference in cost was enough to convince me to take a trial and see what it was capable of.  The applications needed to match existing functionality in the core areas and be seamless.  It also needed to be very reliable.

I wasn’t entirely new to Apps, I use the free version for one of my personal domains.

We have a head office and a number of branches.  The branches only have one Office user, who primarily only uses email and calendaring with Outlook, in part because they don’t have Office installed.

At head office the use is much greater, everyone using Outlook email and calendars, shared documents on Sharepoint and use of many of the Office applications, using some of their power features.

The apps

Google Apps provides a number of functions:

• Hosted email (Gmail)
• Hosted calendar (GCal)
• Office document creation, editing and storage (Docs)
• Contacts hosting
• Web page creation, editing and hosting (Sites)
• Instant messaging (Chat)
• Video hosting

Some of the other key features for anyone using an Exchange solution:

• Easy mail, calendar and contacts migration
• Integration with Microsoft Outlook (email and calendar)
• Support for mobile devices (BlackBerry, iPhone, etc)

Email

We were looking to replicate working with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange.  This meant matching the functionality and allowing end users to control their mail in the same way they would as if Outlook was attached to an Exchange server.

Largely this worked, but if fell down in a couple of key areas.

What worked was the migration tool, it was easy to use and worked flawlessly.  As we used hosted Exchange it would mean installing and running this for each of our users though (because we didn’t have server access), with only 26 users this still would have been a very time consuming process.

Ongoing synchronisation required another tool, which would mean installing and maintaining another application, not something I was keen on.

There were some simple things too, the Global Address List, for example, took 24-hours to sync once you added a new user.  Outlook didn’t auto-complete from the GAL.

Another issue I found was that when I copied myself in on an email and then deleted the copy, it removed it from my sent items as well, making it very difficult to trace any emails I sent.

The other alternative was the web interface.  Although I use Gmail, I don’t like Labels as a way to organise (I only really use it with Thunderbird) or the way Gmail threads messages together and I was certain my users weren’t used to either so it would cause problems.

I also had a situation where it reported webmail was unavailable during the trial (at least once in what ended as about a 20 day trial).  It didn’t bode well for reliability.

On the plus side, the web interface would mean not having to install software which needed a licence or ongoing maintenance of the software.  We already had a web version with our existing solution though and users still preferred using Outlook, so I doubted it would get used much.

I have found Gmail’s spam filters to be the best I have come across, not much gets through.

Calendar

I’ve used Google Calendar (GCal) for a number of years and found it very good.  Using it in a business, however, presented some challenges, mainly around meeting invites.

There is no option for tentative responses, for example.  Not a major issue, but missing all the same.  Another thing that gets done fairly often is sharing calendars.  It’s fairly simple with Exchange/Outlook, but with GCal/Outlook you first had to login to the web UI and then make a change to the sync tool.  Such a departure would mean a lot of people not knowing how to do it and a lot of support time explaining or doing it for them.

Then there was attachments on meeting invites.  These got loaded into Google Docs but without any permissions for the recipient to see it (aside from the security risk of loading the document, to then have to remember to manually change the permissions was a no-no).  That was if the email was sent as an invite, sometimes the attachment caused the recipient to just receive the invite as an ordinary email.  Not a great impression for recipients outside the company.

The last was a show stopper though.  When I sent a meeting invite the appointment wasn’t added to my calendar.  So I could invite someone and unless I manually remembered to add it, I could miss my own meeting.  That was a serious problem.  (It’s fair to note we were using Outlook 2010 which wasn’t officially supported, but no-one could tell us if this was the reason.)

Documents

Google Docs has had a lot of hype, offering an alternative to some of the most popular apps in Microsoft Office.  It allows you to create and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents without installed applications.  Sounds great, but I knew we would not be able to give up our installed copies in many cases because the functionality we use is beyond what you can do online (connecting to databases, opening large spreadsheets, documents with background images).

So this was mainly for sharing documents with our remote users to access and give those users who didn’t have Office a chance to be able to open and edit Office docs.

I found loading documents and setting permissions confusing and overly complicated, which made me fear for security of documents.  Sharing them was no guarantee people could find them either, you needed to know they were there and go look for them, they didn’t just appear in your shared list even if they were in a previously shared folder you had opened before.  Which basically makes it a waste of time (Google may be all about search, but most people browse for documents).

Editing documents wasn’t bad, but it only supports a limited amount of functionality and formats.  The ability to save/export in different formats was nice though.

I happened to try Microsoft’s Office Web Apps for a comparison and, as you would expect, it wiped the floor with Docs in terms of compatibility.  For basic documents Apps may work, but not for anything else (I opened one document with a background image and Docs put the image on one page and the text on another).

Sharing documents certainly wasn’t as easy as Sharepoint or using network folders and I found most functions confusing to setup and use.

Intranet (Sites)

We mainly use Sharepoint for shared document storage and a few things like wikis and task lists.  It’s sub-divided by department with only the relevant people having access.

The first issues with Sites then were that you couldn’t control access on a per page basis, only per site, so you had to create a separate site to control access to departmental materials.

Then there was the Document Library tool which doesn’t allow bulk uploads of documents, not ideal for migrating all our documents over.  No problem, I thought, I can bulk load with Google Docs (which can, bizarrely) and then just link to the folder, it’ll then show the whole list of documents.  This also saves having them in two places.  It would, except when you link a folder to the Document Library it only shows the folder name and a link, not what’s inside.  So you would have to link the files individually.

The one bonus was you could easily view and (with the correct permissions) edit all within the browser, even selecting from a range of formats to download.

I decided we’d stick with Sharepoint even if we moved everything else (and I am no fan of Sharepoint).

Instant Messaging

We don’t use it now (most of my users don’t understand what it is I don’t think) and I didn’t think that would change.

Video

We didn’t make use of this in the trial.

Administration

I found the administration interface was big and had lots of features and options, but was laid out in a way that made many of them hard to find.  There were times when I knew I had seen an option but couldn’t remember where, so I tried the obvious places but ended up having to google (ironic) or go through each page and check each option (not always obviously named).

Another issue was that, using Internet Explorer (which we have to for one of the web services we use) meant each time you opened an application (Gmail, Calendar, etc) or a document it opened in a new window.  Soon you were overwhelmed by them.

Conclusion

Overall I wasn’t impressed.  I felt that most of our users would get a worse, less integrated experience and that we could expose ourselves to looking bad in front of customers and external colleagues if our systems failed.

I wasn’t convinced by the system’s reliability either, which worried me as much as anything else.

The main advantage to Google Apps was price.  Even with setup fees and our small user base (26 users) we would save £2,000 first year and £2,400 in subsequent years.  That would cut our email/office costs by a third to a half.  No small figures.

Against that I weighed the added training, support and lost productivity and in the end decided against it.  Partly because it outweighed the costs and partly because there was too much that was too hard and places where too many corners had been cut for us to use it.

If I had a more technically-savvy user base I may have considered it, but for us the fit wasn’t right.  I think this may have been a case of engineers designing a system rather than someone thinking of an end user.

There was also the evidence that Google take their own time to fix problems, not unlike any major company, but I found cases of bugs that had been open for nine months or more.  That didn’t inspire confidence if something was affecting us.

The more I use non-Microsoft products the more you realise how good they are.  I was never a big MS fan, but if they could get a bit more joined up on some of their small business offerings and slash their prices they would have a great product that was unbeatable.

For me, Apps isn’t business ready yet.  Certainly not big business ready.  If your users are tech-savvy and light Office users, you can probably get away with it.  If they’re used to using Outlook and do more than use SUM in a spreadsheet, walk away would be my advice.

I had been thinking of giving Linux another try (I go back to Red Hat 5.2) to see whether it was yet suitable for people like me who have multiple home-built machines (so don’t get a copy of Windows with the machine) and for the average computer user who could save some money by buying a computer that didn’t come with Windows.  The first challenge was to pick a distro (distribution, i.e. version) of Linux.

Unlike Windows and OS X, which offer very few options, there are lots of variants of Linux.  The first call is the type of Linux; for example, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Slackware, SUSE.  Some of these are variants of the others and there are derivatives of these as well.  Even when you pick one there are different versions if you want to put it on a server, desktop or netbook.  The one that typically garners the most press is Ubuntu and it’s supposed to be the most user-friendly.

I’ve tried Ubuntu on several occasions so I thought I would give something else a try and I kept hearing about Linux Mint, which is actually based on Ubuntu.  Essentially it’s a customised release that is designed to have a look more analogous of Windows, some default software installed (web browser, email client, office suite) and codecs to playback common media formats (like Flash) so you can start using it right away.

So I downloaded the ISO and created an installable USB stick using UNetbootin.  I loaded it onto my Acer Revo as a second OS and it installed quickly, without issue and with everything working fine out of the box.  It even let me rotate one of my monitors (I have one portrait) without issue.  Took me a while to figure out how to put the taskbar on the second monitor (right-click and select move) and create quick launch shortcuts.  Then I got on with setting it up for my basic needs.  It already had the latest copy of Firefox, which is still my preferred browser (too many add-ins Chrome doesn’t have), so I just installed the relevant add-ins I wanted as I would on Windows.  I use Thunderbird as my email client, tasks and calendar (linked to my Google Calendar) manager and that was installed too.  I did a bit of research for apps to fill some time-saving functions I use: application launching using key combinations and text replacement.

Again, Mint already had a keyboard shortcut app built-in, but for text replacement I needed to download Autokey.  This is where you encounter what is, for me, still a major drawback of Linux.  Installing applications is still a pain.  Linux deals in packages, which can be bits of functionality or entire applications.  Technically you can download a package and double-click to execute, but there are different versions for different distros.  RPM, for example, works on Fedora, DEB is used for Debian-based versions (which Ubuntu and Linux Mint are) and there are others.  Sometimes you can’t get a package and need to use some commands in the terminal to build them first.  On top of this there are different window managers in Linux, the two biggest being Gnome and KDE, and software doesn’t always work in both.

Most distros get around this by having a package manager installed.  Essentially this is an app that will search a list of pre-compiled packages, download and install them for you (think of it like Windows Update).  Even if something is in this list it doesn’t guarantee it’ll work though.  Plus package managers are usually a pain to search and they don’t always have the latest version.  I want to be able to download from a website and install by double-clicking like I can with Windows and OS X.  I don’t mind if I have to click through various screens with options as I do with Windows, though simply dragging it into an apps folder as with OS X would be better.

On a side note, love Apple or hate them, but they get the user interface (UI) right:

"Then Steve comes in," Evangelist recalls. "He doesn’t look at any of our work. He picks up a marker and goes over to the whiteboard. He draws a rectangle. ‘Here’s the new application,’ he says. ‘It’s got one window. You drag your video into the window. Then you click the button that says burn. That’s it. That’s what we’re going to make.’ "

Programmers are great, the Linux community is largely made up of them, I have a lot of respect for them, but most of them don’t have a clue about UI.

Autokey was fine and did what I was after, but Celtx, which I use for various writing tasks, didn’t install from the package manager (despite being listed).  I found a downloadable DEB package which installed, but I couldn’t see anyway to add it to the Start Menu-like list of apps (and it didn’t add itself).  In fact, finding it was a challenge as none of the Linux folders make a huge amount of sense.  No Applications folder as with OS X or Program Files as with Windows.  It was tucked in /usr/etc/bin – how hard would it be to alias that to something more usable?  It becomes an issue when you’re trying to find an app to open a file with.  Another example of programmer vs user.

I have found writing articles in Windows Live Writer is better than using the browser, so I looked for something similar on Linux.  I found some suggestions and they were in the software library so I installed BloGTK and Drivel.  The former installed, but for some reason when I try to launch it nothing happens.  The latter is basic to the extreme but seems to work (aside from not posting to the category I pick).

There are some software omissions, no iTunes for example, which is not a real issue (there are other apps that will work with an iPod) unless you download from the iTunes store, which I do.  Likewise, no Spotify, which I don’t use much, but I have found a reasonable replacement for when iTunes’ heavy resource requirements make the machine struggle, especially when using the Atom-powered Revo (it was Apple saying Adobe’s Flash was bloated wasn’t it?  What about iTunes!).  The pre-installed Rhythmbox software plays music OK.

As for Linux in use, well, the main criticism has been the performance, strangely.  While it boots much faster than Windows and shuts down or hibernates in seconds, it struggles on the Revo when playing back Flash (even with the latest version of Flash) and Quicktime, even with lots of tabs open the fans on the Revo strain much more than under Windows.  It doesn’t seem quite as snappy either.  That’s not to say it’s not usable.

The big questions are whether it is something I could use day-to-day and whether it’s suitable for an average user to use as their main operating system.  The answer is, maybe.  Once I got all the apps installed it worked fine and, as things like an email client and web browser are pre-installed if all you want to do is surf, most people will be OK.  In that instance it works well.  The problem, one of the few remaining, is installing applications.  Now it’s setup I’d happily use it (if I could shut the fan noise up, which is bad under Windows too to be fair).

Regarding the install issue, the entire Linux community needs to decide on one package standard.  I don’t care if it’s DEB, RPM or whatever.  Pick one and everyone move to it.  Next, the window managers need to be taken out of the equation.  Either applications need to work with them all, always, or there needs to be a move to one, whichever it may be.  Lastly, the installation process needs to work like it does on other operating systems; I download the app, double-click and install and it gets added to my applications folder and applications menu.

There’s some areas of usability that could be looked at; making it obvious how to add quick launch apps or put something on the Start Menu, for example.  It’s still up against the issues of familiarity with Windows and the availability of applications on Windows (due to it being the dominant platform) and OS X (due to it being favoured by a certain segment).  Linux has certainly come on a great deal in recent years and if all you do is surf and check email it’s actually a perfectly serviceable OS.  It’ll run on much older hardware than Windows or OS X, it’s much less susceptible to malware than either (apparently) and it’s free.  I’m not sure it ticks every box if you only have one computer and have to pick one OS though, Windows is still too ubiquitous.  If you want to save some money on a second computer though, a netbook or nettop, or repurpose an old machine, then it’s definitely worth a try, just be prepared for a bit of a learning curve.

Desktop PCs

My Revo cost about £190 (you can currently get them for about £180) as I bought the Linux version. There are a few other machines for that price, but they’re mainly above £200. The Linux version is fine if you either have a copy of Windows lying around (a retail copy, OEM copies are tied to the hardware, technically) or are happy to run Linux (not necessarily the one installed) and competent enough to get hold of a copy (or use the supplied one). Most people, though, will want to run Windows. Now you can buy a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium (the most popular version) for about £75 (for OEM, retail will be £83). The only problem is then you can’t install it as the Revo has no DVD drive, you’d need to buy an external one if you don’t already have one, you’re looking at £30-40. So now we’re talking about a total cost of £285 (180+75+30).

You can of course buy a Windows version of the Revo. There are three versions: one with 2GB RAM and 250GB hard drive, which costs £240; one with 2GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive, which costs £285; and one with 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive, which costs £299. Personally, I think the smallest model is more than enough for most people (in terms of RAM and drive space). So now we’re only looking at £240, but we still don’t have a DVD drive, so if you want to install any software, rip music or movies or do any one of the other things a DVD drive is useful for, you’ll still need to buy an external one. Assuming this is going to be the only machine in the house, most people need one I would say, so you’re looking at £270-280.

For that money you can find alternative machines out there with a lot more CPU power (and therefore longevity), expandability and are all in one box (instead of having a DVD drive trailing off it). For example, Dell currently has its base model Inspiron desktop with either an Intel Dual Core 2.7Ghz processor or an AMD dual-core Athlon II 240 X2 processor available for £299 (£279 if you opt for a Celeron or Semperon chip, both quicker than an Atom). You still get 2GB of RAM, plus a 320GB hard drive, and the larger case provides a lot more potential for future upgrades and expansion should you need it. It’s not all rosy, it doesn’t come with WIFI like the Revo. I found an Acer Veriton with 1GB RAM (I’d recommend 2GB as a minimum but it’s an easy upgrade for about £25), 160GB hard drive and Windows 7 Pro for £255.

If you’re not fussed about the OS there’s the Acer Aspire X1301 for £284 which comes with 4GB RAM, a 1TB hard drive and a dual-core Athlon 215 X2 processor. I found a 2.7Ghz Dual Core Pentium Lenovo with only 1GB RAM and a 250GB hard drive. eBuyer even have some ‘Extra Value’ machines with no OS that start at £228 for a 2.9Ghz Dual Core Pentium with 2GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive.

Now these are big box machines, the Revo is small (though not especially quiet I found) and probably don’t use great quality parts, but I’d still bet they’ll out last the Revo. If you want something smaller, there’s a smaller Inspiron model from Dell for £50 more. The Advent Firefly with a 2.6Ghz processor Pentium Dual Core comes in at £320 and looks nice and small. There all likely to draw more power than the Revo, though most manufacturers are being very hot on this at the moment so I wouldn’t expect them to draw a huge amount and most people don’t leave them on all day so the extra cost will be negligible.

Laptop PCs

It’s a similar situation with laptops as well.  Using PC World as a pricing example, you can grab a netbook, which is typically powered by an atom processor, for £199.  For that you get an eMachines device with a single-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive.  It also has four hours of battery life and weighs just 1.1Kg.  You only get a 10.1” screen though and no optical drive, and it comes with Windows XP.  There’s plenty more in the £240-£300 bracket.  They don’t even stock a dual-core netbook.

Ignoring the refurbished laptops, they start at £300 for a EI Systems Sorrento, which has a 2.2 Ghz Celeron 900 processor and 2GB of RAM with a 15.6” screen.  It weighs 2.4 Kg though and there’s no mention of batter life.  It does come with Windows 7 though.  The Celerons are the lower end of Intel’s processor range but are still much faster than any Atom (about twice looking at some benchmarks).

Not a brand I’ve heard of, so come up a bit further (£380) and you can get a Compaq Presario with an AMD Athlon II M320 processor which clocks in about four times faster.  Comes with 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and a 15.6” screen.  Again, you sacrifice weight and no mention on battery life.  It comes with Windows 7.

It looks like £400 is where you start getting the full dual-core processors, generally with 2-3 GB of RAM and 250-320GB hard drives.  These are the more popular 15.6” size, smaller ones come in a bit more (13.3” Toshiba for £420).

Shop around though and you can get that Presario with the AMD Athlon for £360.

OK, so these machines are nearly twice as expensive, but computers are not just about the initial cost.  The benefits of the other machines are that they come with an optical drive, making it easier to install software, bigger screens which make them easier to use and, more importantly, they’ll be capable of running software happily for several years, which the Atom-powered netbooks won’t.  And that’s before you consider they usually allow for upgrades to memory and hard drives that could keep them going even longer.

Conclusion

My original question was whether an Atom-powered PC is worth buying for the average user. The answer is no, it’s not. For less and certainly not much more money there are a range of machines that offer vastly more processing power and future proofing than any computer that runs the Atom platform. Personally, I think it makes the Atom machines a false economy.

My advice would be to buy a more powerful machine rather than splash out on a netbook or nettop (as they’re called). As a second machine an Atom-powered device may be suitable, for fairly light activities, but not as a general computer for most users. In that respect they have their uses, but a smartphone or a tablet would provide most of the functionality.  A second-hand machine would be better in most cases. Don’t be fooled by the hype.

I didn’t buy the Linux version because I wanted Linux, but the Windows version was significantly dearer and I had a three-computer licence for Windows 7 Home Premium that was only installed on one machine. The machine obviously doesn’t come with a monitor, but does have a keyboard and mouse (mine were wired, some have wireless). The keyboard is OK (no number pad) but the mouse is a bit cheap, they work OK though. It’s kitted out with gigabit LAN, wireless-N, eSATA port, a raft of USB ports, HDMI and VGA (which you can hook up at the same time for dual monitor support) outputs, SD card reader and SPDIF audio.

Initially I was using it as a trial machine to see if the Atom processor and ION graphics could take over from my big Bertha of an HTPC (mainly with a view to building my own Atom-based one in the future). It runs Windows 7 perfectly (drivers are available from the Acer site). It worked OK as a media centre (though it struggled with the nifty effects in Windows Media Centre) but I had a few problems (mainly because I was using a networked HDHomerun that kept losing signal, or the network was dropping despite using gigabit powerline adapters, I also used a cheap USB stick which did no better, I may try it with a better one at some point).

I wasn’t particularly impressed, especially as the standard hard drive was very noisy and made some worrying clicking and clunking. So I moved it to my desk with an eye to seeing if I could replace my main desktop PC with it. I have a Mac Pro that runs Vista but as, these days, I spent most of my time on it surfing the internet, writing blog articles, reading email and little else it seemed overkill, as did the 200 watts of power it drew.

I installed all my usual apps and, as a desktop machine it’s been good. It’s largely quiet (though the fans kick in when under load and it’s noisier than both my HTPC and the Pro) and it still makes the ominous clunking and clicking from the drive. It also starts to struggle when you push it. Multiple tabs aren’t really and issue, but playing Apple trailers sometimes takes a bit of time to get going and stutters at the start. Likewise having iTunes open along with a lot of tabs and a couple of other applications causes it to struggle. All in all though I’m very impressed. Especially as the light power draw (apparently 25 watts, I haven’t measured it) means I could leave it on permanently without it draining the bank (I do tend to sleep it more often than turn it off).

Going back to the price it’s even better, assuming you already have a copy of Windows or are happy to run Linux on it (it’ll run most versions no problem) it’s a desktop PC for under £200 (at the time of writing eBuyer was doing them for £180) that is more than capable for most people’s basic needs. Even as a second machine or a server it would be ideal. Stick a USB (or eSATA) drive into the back and it’ll happily serve media files and be more adaptable than a NAS as you could get it to host all sorts, from web servers to iTunes servers, anything you wanted, without drawing huge power and someone can always use it as an ordinary PC. All in all I’m impressed, I think there’s going to be more applications for cheaper computers that offer just enough processing power.

You, your company, your club, whatever, could have a great website that’s easy to maintain in no time, read on to find out how.

What You’ll Need

To host your own website you need four things:

1. A domain name (i.e. www.yourwebsite.com)
2. A web host to host your website (store the files and make them available for people to see)
3. Static HTML files or a Content Management System to display your content
4. Some content

This article will run through setting up the first three, the last one is up to you.

Step 1 – Register a domain

The first thing you’ll need is a domain name.  This allows people to find your website.  To register a domain you need to buy one from a domain registrar.  Some web hosts will offer them as part of hosting packages, but I recommend setting one up on your own to give you more control (some web hosts don’t let you take them with you).

Personally, I’d recommend 123-Reg for any UK domains (e.g .co.uk) and Go Daddy for generic/US domains (e.g .com) as they offer good prices and flexibility in how you handle your domain name.  There are plenty of others out there.

On the registrar’s site you’ll be able to search for a domain name and it will tell you if it’s available (and typically what other variations are too).  You may find your preferred domain name is taken, if so you may need to get creative.  Some sites will offer suggestions for alternatives too.

I’d recommend only sticking to .com, .net, .org and .co.uk domains unless you have no choice (they’re the ones people are likely to try if they can’t remember which it was).

At the time of writing, a .com domain will cost you about £7.50 for a year while a .co.uk will set you back £5.98 for two years (minimum is two years).

Step 2 – Get a web host

Once you’ve registered a domain you’ll have a name, but it won’t point to anywhere, so the next is to get some hosted web space.  Again, there are a lot of companies that do this.  If you’re just hosting a basic personal site or one for your business then practically any package will suffice, you don’t need huge amounts of space or transfer allowance.

There are (broadly) two types of web hosting: Linux and Windows.  I recommend Linux as there are generally more hosts around, they’re cheaper and it supports a wider range of (free) software.  Due to the software we’re going to install in the next steps we need a Linux host and, ideally, one with Fantastico or similar automated install options.

One other consideration is whether to host in the UK or elsewhere (typically US).  I’ve hosted in both and it doesn’t really make a difference (US hosting is generally cheaper) but be aware of any data protection rules you may need to adhere to.

You can find some of my suggestions for hosting here, I’ve previously used Meir Hosting and their ‘Personal’ plan should be fine for most people (you can always upgrade at a later date).  For £1 a month (at the time of writing) you can’t really go wrong.

During the sign-up process don’t forget to indicate you already have a domain and fill in the relevant details.

Once completed you should get details of how to point your domain at their servers so your website appears when you type in the address.  This will be in the form of an IP address or domain name for their nameservers (typically two are specified).  You’ll need to login to the account with your domain registrar, go to the control panel and modify the nameserver addresses (it may be under DNS controls/settings).  Check the FAQs for your registrar if you’re not sure.  Note that it may take up to 48hrs for it to come into effect (although usually much quicker).

Step 3 – Install WordPress

The first question is probably: Why WordPress?  Well, it’s a mature platform that’s easy to use and has a big user and support base.  That means anyone should be able to pick it up quickly and if you want to add functionality there’s probably already a plugin that does it.  By example, this site runs WordPress.

You can visit the WordPress website and download the files, unpack and upload, manually create the database, update the config file and install.  The easier option is to find a host that offers single-click install of WordPress (as many hosts do, check their features).

This will differ slightly depending on the host.  One common platform is Fantastico.  Vidahost, one of the hosts I use, offers a video about installing WordPress using Fantastico that should be relevant to any host that has it.

Make sure you install it in the main directory and not a subfolder/directory.

Step 4 – Find a theme

Once you have WordPress installed it’s time to find a theme for your site.  WordPress comes with some default themes but they’re fairly lame and there are plenty of more exciting/relevant ones out there.

You have two options:

1. A free theme.
2. A paid (premium) theme.

A premium theme will cost money, typically not that much depending on the source and type.  For a non-exclusive theme (one that other people besides you could use) you’re probably looking at $20-$150.

There are plenty of free templates out there though, which are perfectly good quality for a great-looking website.  You may need to check the terms for the theme if you want to use it for a business as a few are not for commercial use.

There are plenty of places to find themes, just stick “wordpress templates” into your favourite search engine, but a few to get you started:

• The official WordPress themes directory
• WordPress Themes Base
• Top WP Themes
• Free WP Themes

You can usually search by type or colour and other options and preview the them so you can see in detail what it looks like.  Note that for a standard website you’re interested in how the pages look more than things like blog posts.

Once you’ve found one you’re happy with, download it.  You should end up with a saved zip file.

To install it, login to your copy of WordPress (typically www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin) and pick the Appearance tab, then the Add New Themes link.  Select the option to Upload and Browse to the zip file you downloaded.  WordPress will then upload the theme and present some options.  Select Activate to make the the theme live.  Click the Visit Site link at the top and you should see your website now sports the new look.

Some themes may offer you some options to customise as well, you may need to play with these to get the results you want.

Step 5 – Customise WordPress

Okay, we’re nearly there.  We have the theme installed, but we need do a few things before we can start adding content.  First, WordPress adds some default content we need to delete.

In your copy of WordPress, click Comments on the menu, hover over the single comment and select the Trash link (or tick the checkbox next to it and select Move to Trash from the Bulk Actions dropdown at the top).  Now click the link for Trash at the top and click the button to Empty Trash.

Next, click the Posts option on the menu.  Same here, hover and click Trash.  Then click the link to Trash and empty it. 

Now on to the Links menu option.  Select all of the links (use the box at the top above all the options to select them all) and pick Delete from the Bulk Actions dropdown, then hit Apply.

Right, nice and clean.

Now click the Pages link on the menu.  There should be a default page called About.  Click the page title or the Edit link to open it up.  Where it says About, delete it and put Home as this is going to be the home page.  You can change the text now or wait until later.  You also need to untick the ‘Allow Comments’ and ‘Allow trackbacks…’ options under Discussion.  Hit Update on the right to save it.

Now click the Settings link on the menu.  Under General Settings, change the blog title to the title of your website (your name, company name, etc), modify or delete the tagline, update the email address and pick your timezone.  Then hit Save Changes.

Now click the link under Settings for Reading.  Modify the ‘Front page displays’ option to select ‘A static page’ and pick Home from the dropdown list.  Hit Save Changes.

Again under Settings, pick Discussion.  Untick the boxes for ‘Atempt to notify…’, ‘Allow link notifications…’ and ‘Allow people to post comments…’ and hit Save Changes.

Lastly, also under settings, hit Permalinks.  This controls how the URLs of your pages appear.  As you’re only creating pages, just pick ‘Day and name’ and hit Save Changes.

If you use the Visit Site link at the top you should now see your domain with your theme and the home page you modified.

Step 6 – Add content

Next is to add some content.  Back into WordPress.  If you didn’t update the Home page earlier, click the Pages link in the menu and modify the Home page, the text editor is similar to Word.  You can make text bold, italic, add links, lists, etc.  Hit Update when you’re done.

To add other pages, under the Pages header in the menu select Add New.  Type in the name of the page (e.g. Contact, About) and put the content in the box below, hit Publish when you’re done.

If you visit the site again you should see your new page listed, click on the link and it should display the content you just entered.

Add more in the same way until you have your site (you can also upload images and other media).

Step 7 – Bonus features

So you’re all there, with a website built and ready to go.  The benefit of doing this on your own domain with your own domain name means there are some other benefits:

• You have your own branded email addresses (i.e. you@yourdomain.com), which look far more professional than one from your ISP or a free email service, you can also take it with you should you need to change.  You can either set this up as a mailbox where you can access mail online or download to your favourite email client (e.g. Outlook) or you set it to forward to any other email service.
• You can integrate other social media services into your website (such as Twitter and Facebook) using some of the many plugins available.
• Easily add a contact form to your site, to save advertising your email address to spammers.

Conclusion

So there you go, how to get a website up and running quickly that anyone can edit and update (so no need to keep going back and getting charged by a pro) that hopefully looks professional.  No more need to use terrible FrontPage templates or web pages created in Word.

My only concern is that there aren’t many templates for WordPress designed just to act as a website instead of blogs and even making a page your home page you end up with static content that implies blog content.  I’m thinking of knocking up some more flexible templates to get around that.

Anyway, it won’t end the number of bad sites out there, but maybe it’ll help someone.

That’s not to say it’s perfect, especially where text files are concerned.  Some of the features available in screenplay mode just aren’t there, and some simple tools are missing (global word count across all of your files – I use a separate file per chapter – for instance).

So, I rolled up my sleeves and put together a little app.  Originally I was going to do it as an extension, but after leafing though the docs for a while and making no progress I went back to good ol’ WinForms.

I haven’t done much testing but it seems to work OK on Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit and XP 32-bit.

Features

The app comes with three features:

1. Global Word Count – this will extract all of the documents (text or screenplay at least) and perform a word count, then display the total.
2. Export Selected Docs – this will display a list of the text documents (and screenplays) in your project and allow you to select which ones to convert to plain text, merge and save as a single file.
3. Export to Final Draft – this is designed for screenplays and will export it to Final Draft 8’s .fdx XML format.  It will only bring over the screenplay, not characters or notes or anything else, but it will preserve the formatting.

Installation

To use the application, just download the zip file below, extract all the files to the same folder and double-click the CeltxTools.exe file.  No need to install.

The application uses the .Net framework and is best used with .Net Framework 3.5.

Usage

Once you have started the application:

• Click the Select File button to browse for your Celtx file.
• Once you have selected it, pick what task you would like to perform:
• • Do a Global Word Count: this will display the total words of any text documents in the gap below the button.
  • Export Selected Docs: this will display a pop-up window with a list of the text documents in your project, check those you want to export and it will merge them and export them to a text file and save it in the same directory as the original Celtx file, but with a .txt extension.
  • Export to Final Draft: this will convert the screenplay part of your project to FD8’s format and save it in the same directory as the original Celtx file, but with a .fdx extension.

Release History

• 0.9 – 4/5/2010 – Initial release.
• 0.91 – 22/5/2010 – Added ability to do word count on selected files.

Download

Get Celtx Tools here

Music and Videos

There are quite a few applications out there which claim to allow you to ‘backup your iPod’ but most of them (like Yet Another iPod Manager AKA Yamipod and SharePod) haven’t been updated in a while and either didn’t work for me, or didn’t work with the later versions of the iPod (e.g. 3rd gen Nanos).

In the end, the easiest solution I’ve found is to use a copy of WinAmp.  You only need the free version, you shouldn’t need any plugins.  Just download, run, connect your iPod, select the tracks, right-click and select ‘copy to local media’ and voila, job done.  Note that you can set the location is copies to in the preferences (it defaults to your My Music folder).

Quick, simple and fairly painless.

Photos

Photos are another matter, for two reasons.  One, I haven’t found a free solution to copy them, all the software I’ve seen is shareware.  Second, unless you selected the option to copy the originals over, you’ve probably only got thumbnails (small versions) of the images that are designed to be displayed on the small iPod screen and therefore don’t need to be very big, so you may only get postage-stamp-size images even if you do retrieve them.

Conclusion

The main points are that you can copy your music and videos easily, but photos you’ll need to pay for.  Perhaps the best recommendation is it’s much easier just to back up your music, videos, photos and anything else before you need to rely on your iPod.  External hard drives are pretty cheap and you can get a few GB of storage online for free from a number of different providers, so make use of it and save yourself the agro.

1. Silence is Golden
   Making a PC totally silent is hard and can be expensive, but well worth it.  My top tips are to pick a good case and case fans, don’t scrimp on these.  Another rule of thumb is that if it’s got a fan it’ll never be silent (CPU coolers and PSUs) no matter what they say.  Fan controllers are a great way to help reduce noise to a minimum though.
2. It’s All About the Case
   Definitely don’t scrimp on your case, but research it well first, my Silverstone LC17 wasn’t cheap and is nice (if big), but I built an HTPC for my brother using an Antec NSK 2480, which is their budget HTPC case and it was infinitely easier to build, had nice separation of PSU and main compartment (to keep heat down) and vibration dampening mounts for the HDDs as standard (not quite as quiet as mine, but it didn’t take a fanless CPU fan, fanless PSU and some fan controllers to get it that way).

   There’s also a massive range of sizes and styles out there, so take a look around.  Silverstone, Antec, Thermaltake and Lian Li are a few quality makers but are by no means a complete list.

3. Trade Horsepower for Less Power
   HTPCs need very little processing power, playing back even HD video is not CPU intensive, just make sure you have reasonable graphics, onboard generally suffices depending on the type.  Recording TV likewise takes very little power.  Where you’ll need it is transcoding (changing the format of recorded material) or ripping DVDs.  An Atom processor on the ION platform works perfectly well to deliver content, so it doesn’t need to be a beast.

   Review your CPU choice to see if there are lower-power options available, some of the new processors require 95+w to run, mine works fine and only draws 45w, the Atoms only draw 10w.  That means less heat is being generated so you need less cooling, which means the computer can run quieter (and you can have a smaller case).

   If you plan on doing any transcoding (and some of the add-ons to strip adverts do this too) bear that in mind when picking your CPU, you can get around this by scheduling the work to be done overnight to minimise impact too.

4. Regular Servicing
   HTPCs are not for the faint-hearted, this isn’t a ‘set it and forget it’ piece of kit, it’ll need you to keep it running (installing updates, rebooting, finding drivers, etc) and it will freeze and crash occasionally, it’s not as slick as a bought solution.  The pay-off is you can do a lot more with it and the options are endless, plus you can upgrade at will, rather than being locked to the hardware.  

   I’m not sure I’d recommend one to someone who isn’t prepared for that and knows what to do when you find it non-responsive after a Windows Update or it blue screens midway through playing back a movie (i.e. the relatives, you’ll be doing endless support).

Anyway, I thought it was time to get around to writing up my experience with that build. 

This build came in for under £400, I could have shaved more off if I had used the included remote that came with the tuner (but I wanted to be able to wake the machine using it) and had bought cheaper case fans.

The Hardware

Case: Antec NSK 2480
PSU: 380w included in the case
Mobo: Asus M4A78-VM 
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e
Cooler: Stock AMD supplied with CPU
RAM: 2 * Kingston 1gb DDR2 800mhz
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green 500Gb
DVD: LG GH22NS40 SATA Black
TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV Nova-TD 500 (dual tuner)
Keyboard: Nexos 2.4Ghz Wireless Multimedia Keyboard with TouchPad
Remote: Generic Windows MCE IR remote look-a-like
Other: 2 * 120mm Sharkoon ‘golfball’ case fans

Comments on the Build

I preferred the 2480 case to another option (the Antec Minuet 350) and I was very impressed, it was well made and had good segregation of PSU and motherboard as well as excellent mounting (vertical, on their side) of the HDDs, which had silicon/rubber grommets on the mounts to insulate vibration.

I was worried about using the stock cooler, thinking it would be too noisy, but decided to try it and was pleasantly surprised. I went with the Hauppauge tuner as I have had good experience with them over the years, but my older model seems to be struggling in Win7, not sure who’s to blame though. I went with a wireless keyboard as I’m not massively thrilled with my IR one, this was OK but it didn’t make me change mine.

The motherboard only came with one SATA cable and due to the placement of the DVD and HDD drives I had to get a SATA power extension to reach the HDD, I bought a kit which had a molex-to-SATA power converter on it and a SATA cable in the end.

I went with the WD drive as I’ve had good experience with WD and my two 1Tb drives have been excellent, they are extremely quiet. I’d also seen some reports of reliability issues on the Samsungs, which seemed to be the main competition. A colleague of mine had two 500Gb Samsung drives fail in the same week well inside a year (replaced under warranty thankfully).

The Sharkoon fans were expensive, but they are awesome. If money’s no object and you want total silence I’d recommend them. There’s probably a better balance of noise vs cost out there though.

The Software

I went with Windows 7 RC (this was sometime last year) as it was free (for a while) and it uses Windows Media Centre.

I also installed Media Browser (why wouldn’t you?).

As with mine, I went with a black theme.

Codec support came courtesy of Shark007′s pack.

I also installed DVD Shrink and AnyDVD for ripping DVDs to the HDD.

Problems

Apart from finding the lack of SATA cables and the reach of the PSU power a bit short, generally all went smoothly.

Windows 7 was fun to install at first, initially I was using a PATA DVD drive with a SATA HDD and this seems to be a problem. Once installed I was very impressed with 7mc, less so after upgrading mine, but that might be a hardware issue. The biggest problem I had was when I hooked up a spare Belkin USB wireless-N stick my brother had to enable internet access (an N1 Wireless USB Adapter – F5D8051uk – I think). I could not get Win7 to connect to the internet (it connected to the router fine). After a lot of trial and error, plenty of head-scratching, swearing and trawling of the interwebs I found an updated driver fixed it.

Conclusion

Generally a fairly easy build, aside from a few quirks with the hardware/software interface and it was working well when I left it (although they had issues with the strength of their TV signal which caused problems, obviously).