Tech Tips for Catholics

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a MyChurch.org tip.  Well, they have been doing some tinkering around and one the new features that I am pretty excited about is the ability to sinc your Twitter account to your MyChurch.org update status.  It is pretty easy to setup, but just in case you need a little guidance, I am posting this little how-to.

What will this do? When you post a tweet to Twitter, it will automatically update your MyChurch.org status as well.

Step 1: Log into MyChurch.org and sinc your Twitter by clicking the icon shown below from the status update page.  Then click the “Integrate Your Twitter Account” link and allow Twitter to share information with MyChurch.org.

Step 2: Post to Twitter.

Step 3: The tweet is then automatically posted to your MyChurch.org update status.

Simple as that!

Over a year ago, I suggested they figure out a way to integrate Ping.fm with MyChurch.org and they were going to look into it.  I think with this new sinc feature, there really is no need to integrate Ping.fm, unless of course the user only wanted certain key updates to their status (rather than posting all tweets to their status update).

Hope this tutorial has been beneficial to some of you.  God Bless.

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About a month ago, I participated in a blog discussion where the topic of Bishops, Priests, and the Religious posting blogs, but not having the know-how came up.  Many clergy are comfortable using word processing programs (e.g. Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, ect.), but get overwhelmed when they hear the term “blog”.  This is where the Sun Weblog Publisher extension for OpenOffice 3 can bridge the gap between word processing and the blogesphere.

This tutorial will walk you through the process of installing Sun Weblog Publisher (assuming you already have OpenOffice 3 or higher installed).

Let’s get started:

Step 1: From the Sun Weblog Publisher extension page, click the “Get it!” button.

Step 2: When the following window opens, just use the default setting and click OK.

Step 3: A box will pop up asking if you are sure that you want to install the extension.  Click OK.

Step 4: After you have agreed to the terms and the installations has taken place, click the “Options” button.

Step 5: Choose the type of blog you have (assuming you have already set up a blog on one of the supported blog formats), fill in the corresponding information, and click OK.

You should now be all setup.  Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section.

Here is a screenshot of the Extension in action.

Click Here to view other How-To’s.

Want to know how many visitors you have coming to your blog? Well, StBlogs recently installed a powerful tool called Google Analytics. This short tutorial is to show you how to set this feature up from within your StBlogs dashboard. I won’t get into all of the features that Google Analytics has to offer, but you can gladly watch these tour videos.

Using Google Analytics is free, and will provide you with very detailed reports on how many visitors have read your blog, which posts they have read, and other stats.

Let’s Begin.

Step 1: Login to your Dashboard and go to Setting > Google Analytics. Click on it.

Step 2: When the page loads, click on sign up for Analytics.  (I usually right-click and open the link in a new tab)

Step 3: You shuld now be at the Google Analytics Signup Page. If you do not already have a Google account, then you will need to create one.  If you already have a Google account, then simply sign in.

Step 4: Once you are signed in, find your tracking code (it usually begins with ‘AU-,’ followed by a series of numbers).  Next, you will want to copy the code to the clipboard.  To do this, highlight the entire code and right-click and go to Copy (or you can go up to Edit > Copy in the menu bar).

Step 5: Go back to your Google Analytics Settings page (see step 1).  Now paste the tracking code into the box by right-clicking and going down to Paste (or you can go up to Edit > Paste in the menu bar).  Click the “Save Changes” button.

That’s it!  Now you should be able to log into Google Analytics and view stats and other analytical stuff : )

As always, if you have any questions or run into any trouble, feel free to post a comment.

Windows XP does not allow the use of custom themes, which leaves you with the three color variations of the WindowsXP style and the endless colors of the good old Windows Classic style.

In order to install third party (non-Microsoft) themes, you will first need to patch the UXtheme.dll file.  If you do not do this, and try to install a custom theme, the result is not pretty.  You end up with a theme that looks like windows 3.1 or one that you would get in super safe mode.  While installing the patch Windows will try and convince you to insert your Windows Setup disc — just ignore this.  Once you have installed the patch you will need to restart your computer before you can use any new themes.

Note: If you ever want to revert back to the original UXtheme.dll file, simply re-run the Uxtheme Multi-patcher and it will be set back to normal.

Once you have installed the patch and have rebooted your computer, you are ready to change your theme.  Where do I find custom themes? Great Question!  If you are interested in the theme shown in this tutorial, you can find it here.  You can find other visual theme styles here.

If you have any questions, post them in the comments section.

Below are some related links to this topic:

• How to Change/Customize Your Desktop Icons
• Using Fences to Organize Your Desktop

Every Friday I normally post the top 5 favorite blogposts that I’ve come across throughout the week, however this week I have decided to post my top 5 links about Twitter API (and creating Twitter Apps)  So, What is an API you ask?  It stands for application programming interface and it controls the behavior of various functions of an operating system, library or web service.  An API protocol or language can support the building of third-party applications.

The following five links can help those whom are interested in building a Twitter App (hopefully one that will help build up God’s kingdom).

1.  Twitter API wiki.
2.  “Twitter API: Up and Running” by Kevin Makice (Book)
3.  50 Twitter Tools and Tutorials For Designers and Developers
4.  Twitter API for Dummies
5.  Send message from a PHP page using Twitter API

You can see what others are doing with the Twitter API for some inspiration.  Perhaps you have some ideas of your own!  If you build a Christian App, let us know about it and we’ll feature it on our blog.

Have a great weekend!

Joshua

You may remember my post titled “Clean Up Your Desktop, for Pete’s sake!”? Well, there is now an even better way to organize your desktop icons! It is called Fences™ and is put out by Stardock.

It works on both Windows Vista, as well as Windows XP, and perhaps Windows 7 when it is released.  If you are using Windows XP, however, you must first download Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 for Fences to work properly.

Once you’ve installed Fences, it is as simple as right-click dragging around the icons that you want to fence in. Then give it a name. Play around with it a bit, for it has a few options you can tweak with.

Share this with your friends and co-workers who have messy desktops!

Below are some related links to this topic:

• How to Change/Customize Your Desktop Icons
• Get Virtually Organized!
• How to Launch Vista Flip 3D with a Click of the Mouse (scroll-wheel)

If you use MyYahoo! as your homepage, then you may be interested in this little tutorial I’ve put together.

Step 1: Go to Twitter.com (Either log in or go to the desired profile you would like to add)

Step 2: On the bottom right hand side of the Twitter page, you will see the RSS feed logo. Click this link and copy the url of the feed page.

Step 3: Go to MyYahoo! (Log in first to save your settings. You don’t have to log in, but if you later delete your cookies you will lose your settings)

Step 4: Click the “Add Content” button. Then click “Add RSS Feed.” Paste the copied url into the textbox and click the “Add” button.

Step 5: Once the feed has been verified, click the “App Options” button.  Under the Preferences tab, you can select the number of items you’d like displayed, the expiration date, and how you would like the title displayed (I like to display up to 3 items from the past 24 hours and display the headline only).  Click Save.

Step 6: Move this specific Feed App where you’d like it to appear on your MyYahoo! page by dragging the header.

Helpful Tips:

Tip #1: If you are at your Twitter Home Page and copy the RSS Feed you will be subscribing to all the people you are following.  If you go to someone that you are following’s page and copy their RSS Feed then you are subscribing to only that persons tweets.

Tip #2: You can also subscribe to a specific Tweet search!  This is kind of cool really.  What you do is, do a Twitter Search and then copy the RSS Feed url for that particular query .  Then repeat steps 3-6.

Feel free to post a comment if you have any questions or other ways to use MyYahoo!

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StBlogs has begun using gravatars next to comments and elsewhere on the site. This will really help your comments and posts stand out!

Uploading Your Gravatar:

Step 1: Go to www.Gravatar.com and click “Sign Up.”

Step 2: Enter a valid e-mail address.

Step 3: Next, click on “My Account” and go down to “Add an Image.”

Step 4: Select where you’d like to get the image from (for the sake of this tutorial, I chose “My computer’s hard drive”).

Step 5: Click the “Browse…” button and find the image that you would like to upload.  Once you have done so, click “Next.”

Step 6: Now, you can choose to crop only a selection of the image or select the entire image by moving and stretching the dotted bounding box.  Once you are satisfied, simply click on the “Crop and Finish” button.

Step 7: Next, choose a rating for your gravatar based on the image itself (As a blog administrator you may set how high of a rating to allow and other blogs that you post comments to can do the same.  For instance, StBlogs.com has their rating set to “G” and thus, any gravatar that is higher than a “G” rating will be replaced with a generic icon).

Step 8: Choose the image that you would like to set as your default gravatar by clicking on it.

Activating Your Gravatar Settings:

Step 9: Login to your StBlogs Dashboard and click on the “Design” tab.  Then click on the “Gravatar” link.  Make sure that the “Enable Gravatars on your blog” is checked and then click the “Update Gravatars” button.

Step 10: Next, click on the “Settings” tab…

…and followed by the “Discussion” link.

This is where you can set how your blog handles avatars (Remember when I mentioned above how you can set the rating of gravatars for your own blogs?  Well, here is where you can do this, along with how your blog handles non-gravatar users).

And your done!

As always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if I have confused you ; )

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Do you use your mouse’s scroll-wheel a lot? I mean really a lot? If I don’t have a mouse with a scroll-wheel, I go crazy! So, I was thinking the other day, Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to press down the scroll-wheel and have it activate Vista’s Flip 3D to switch between windows? Why Microsoft didn’t include this feature with Vista is beyond me. It is not a built-in option, which means you’ll need to download a program. There are a couple different programs out there that allow you to assign a specific action to a certain button, however I prefer Flip 3D Activator. It is the most simple way to achieve what I wanted to do (plus it’s clean and doesn’t take up a lot of your computer’s resources).

Step 1: First, you’ll need to download Flip 3D Activator.

Step 2: Next, unzip the contents of the Zip file to any folder.

Step 3: Run Flip3D_Setup.exe and follow the guided instructions.

Step 4: Open the program (It should look like the screenshot below).

Step 5: Click the box that says “Activate Flip 3D with a mouse button.” The following message should appear.

Step 6: Click the mouse button you wish to use to activate Flip 3D (I clicked down on the scroll-wheel, but you can assign a different button if you’d like).

Step 7: Click the box that says “Start Flip3D with Windows” if you want the feature to always be enabled.

Step 8: Click “OK” or “Apply.”

Step 9: Right-Click the Vista Flip 3D Activator icon located in the system tray.  Then click on “Hide Icon” (this step is optional).

Here is a video showing the new settings in action.

Here is a list of Flip 3D Activator features:

• You can designate one or more corners of your screen as hotspots.
• You can choose any mouse button you’d like to activate Flip 3D.
• You can hide the notification icon and forget that it’s running.
• You can set it to automatically start when Windows starts.
• It’s tiny! It only uses about 800k of RAM when running.

Below are some related links to this topic:

• How to Change/Customize Your Desktop Icons
• Get more Vista Sidebar Gadgets

This is a short tutorial that will show you how to change your desktop icons in Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Step 1: Start by either creating your own icon (future tutorial to come)  or download some from the internet (be sure to choose sites that are trustworthy).  It helps to put them in a folder called “Icons,” somewhere you can find them.

Step 2: Right-click the desktop and select “Personalize” (Windows XP users: right-click the desktop and go to “Properties,” followed by “Desktop” tab, and then click “Customize Desktop” in XP).

Step 3: Next, click on “Change desktop icons” under the Task menu (Windows XP users can skip this step).

Step 4: Choose the desktop icon that you would like to change and click the “Change Icon” button.

Step 5: Locate the folder where you have saved your custom icons, choose the icon you want to replace the default icon, and click “OK.”

Note: If you change the empty or full recycling bin, you’ll want to change the other.

Below are some related links to this topic:

• Question: How do I get back my accidentally deleted recycling bin?
• Clean Up Your Desktop, for Pete’s sake!