To backup your database you can either opt to do it the easy way or the hard way.

This tutorial details methods both and lets you decide which option to use.

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Wordpress Tutorials | 2 Comments »

Blackboard - A Quick Guide for Tutors

This tutorial gives tutors a very quick introduction about using Blackboard

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E-Learning Tutorials, Blackboard Tutorials | 2 Comments »

Want to improve your search engine visibility for your Word-press BLOG ? If so follow this tutorial to create a Google Sitemap

Google Sitemaps will improve your search engine visibility by allowing Google-bots to crawl your blog easily and quickly keeping it up-to date with new posts and comments on your BLOG.

The easiest way to create a Google Sitemap is to follow this procedure:

1. Download the Plug-in

The plug-in can be found here

2. Upload to your Plug-in Folder

Unzip the folder and then ftp the unzipped folder to your plug-ins folder on your web-space

3. Verify Plug-in has been installed

Log-in to your BLOG’s site admin and goto the Plug-in Management page. You should be able to see your newly installed plug-in called “Google Sitemaps”

4. Activate the Plug-in

Activate the plug-in by clicking activate. If successful the status should now show Deactivate to indicate it has been activated ok.

5. Configure Sitemap

Go to Options and then Sitemap. From here you can configure the sitemap to include additional pages or specify the location of where the sitemap.xml file will be created.

6. Build Sitemap

Once you have happily configured the plug-in simple click “Rebuild Sitemap” If successful at the top of the page you will three messages saying:

Successfully built sitemap file:
- URL: http://**yourdomainname**/sitemap.xml
- Path: /home/fhlinux165/b/**yourdomainname**/user

/htdocs/sitemap.xml

Successfully built gzipped sitemap file:
- URL: http://**yourdomainname**/sitemap.xml.gz
- Path: /home/fhlinux165/b/**yourdomainname**/user

/htdocs/sitemap.xml.gz

Successfully pinged Google at

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap

=http%3A%2F%2F**yourdomainname**%2Fsitemap.xml.gz

Congratulations you have now generated your google sitemap and are on your way to search engine visibility for your BLOG.

7. Submit Sitemap with Google

The final step is to submit your Google Sitemap with Google. This is done by logging into your Google Webmaster Tools account Click on your site which you have added to your dashboard (if you haven’t added your site you will need to do this first, and then verify the site - see the instructions within Google webmaster tools as to how to do this). Then click the Sitemaps tab and Add Sitemap. Once submitted it will probably take Google a while to update.

That’s it ! well done if you got to this point your on your way to better SEO !

Keep watching for step three in the Word-press SEO series.

Wordpress Tutorials | No Comments »

The first step in optimising your BLOG to be search engine friendly is to update your permalink structure(your BLOG URLs)

This tutorial will show you how to update your Permalink Structure

1. Check your current Permalink Structure

The first thing to do is click on a post and look at the page title in the address bar. Does is it resemble something like this http://**your blog address**/?p=121 if so then you are using the default permalink structure and the first thing we must do is change this.

2. Log in to Site Admin

Log-in into you BLOG back-end with your admin password

3. Go to Permalinks Tab

Go to Options then Permalinks

4. Change Permalink Structure

If you have not configured your Permalinks structure then will more than likely be sitting at the default setting which is: Default http://**your blog address**/?p=123 (Or something similar).

This setting allows Word-press to dictate what your page title will be and usually means your page title ends with a lot of numbers and characters at the end.

Whilst this works fine it doesn’t really make them very search engine friendly The first thing we are going to do is create a custom structure (click custom structure) to make our page titles more search engine friendly and easy to work with. I suggest using the following structure /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ as this will keep your page title fairly small and allow it to be found in search engines.

5. Update Permalink Structure

Click Update Permalink Structure to save these settings.

6. Confirm BlOG is using new Permalink Structure

Now view your blog and you should now find your page titles of your posts have changed and look something like this http://**your blog address**/2007/08/tutorial-windows-2003-cd-based-server-image/ notice it is now nice and easy to read without all the strange characters at the end.

Keep watching for step two in the Word-press SEO series.

Wordpress Tutorials | 8 Comments »

Have you ever wondered how you can use all your great Widgets in Blackboard ? This tutorial will show how to Widgetise your Blackboard Course.

1. Find a Widget

The first step is to find a widget or create a widget with the content you would like to add to blackboard. For the purpose of this Tutorial I will be using Widgetbox to find a widget however there are loads of widget websites so feel free to use a different one.

It’s a good idea to signup for a username and password as this will allow you to save widgets in your favourites so you can easily access them later rather than searching or creating them again.

2. Search Widget Gallery

Search the Gallery for a widget you would like to use and click details to look at the details of the widget, here is an example of the details screen you will see when you click to view the details button. Chris McDermott Blog widget .

3. Get the Widget

From the details screen of your chosen widget click the Get widget (<>) button at the top right hand side of the screen to get the widget. A pop up window will now appear. Click Get winget code and copy the code in the top box (Ctrl + C or Edit/Copy) for use later.

4. Log in to Blackboard

Now login into Blackboard and find the course and content area where you would like to import the widget.

5. Add Widget as content

In your desired content area add a content item as normal. Before you add any text in the text box click the toggle button (<>) to change from normal mode to html source mode.

6. Paste the code

Paste the code that you copied in step 3 into this text box

7. Click the toggle button

Click the toggle button (<>) again to switch back to normal mode

8. Name your Widget

Give your widget a name in the Name field at the top of the page and configure any other parameters as required.

9. Submit your Widget

Click the Submit button to submit your new content item,

10. Check it looks ok

Check what your widget looks like by going back to Display view and viewing the widget.

Congratulations you have just Widgetised your Blackboard course. Your widget should now be displayed in Blackboard.

Note: I will try and add a few screen dumps later to help this tutorial

E-Learning Tutorials, Blackboard Tutorials | No Comments »