Basic information on configuring MS Outlook 2010

First thing is first, all you have to do is add a new account. In Your Name field type in a name you are going to use. In this example I am using admin. Then you need to type in the email address. Do not forget to type in your password in both fields.

Basically, it is possible to configure your email account automatically but we are going to do it manually. If you have filled in all the fields do not click Next because we are going to do it manually. Now tick on Manually configure server settings or additional server types. When the new window appears tick on Internet E-mail and click next.

Now each of the settings are required to get your E-mail account working. There are three different types of information we have to use. User information is where you have to use your name and e-mail address. Server information is probably the most important here because if you use incorrect details you will not get your e-mail working. We are going to use POP3 account type. And Logon information is just your user name and password. Your e-mail account is set up and should be working fine now.

Can receive but cannot send e-mails?

If you are 3′s (Three UK) customer and trying to set up your e-mail account you might be experiencing some problems with the server information. The problem is that some ISP’s (Internet service providers) do not let using your hosting company’s SMTP server. When setting up an e-mail account use your hosting providers POP3 account settings for receiving mail. When it comes to sending mail it is absolutely different. There you need to use 3’s (Three UK) SMTP server. Use 3’s settings if you are 3’s (Three UK) customer only. However, you can use your own ISP’s SMTP server to send mail. Same rules apply.

SMTP server I am going to use is smtp-mbb.three.co.uk

Now click on more settings button. Then click on Outgoing server tab. Make sure you do not tick outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication because if you tick it, incoming mail server will be used.

Click on Advanced tab and make sure that incoming server port (POP3) number is 110. Do not tick SSL connection. Outgoing server (SMTP) port number has to be 25 as well. This is a default port number. You have to use the default port setting and for encrypted connection use NONE.

Hope this tutorial helps you get it working. If you like this tutorial share with others! You can also check my tutorial list.

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What comes to your mind when you visit an unique and interesting blog? You probably think of a quality blog. But to make it look great you need an exceptional blog’s theme. However, you can also use the WordPress plugins to achieve the best results. I am going to talk about the NextGEN Gallery plugin and explain how to adorn your blog using this WordPress tool.

This plugin is great for bloggers who host a lot of pictures on their blogs.

What can you do with this plugin?

1. Upload images in to a gallery.

2. Create a new gallery.

3.  You can also upload a .zip file with images.

4. Import images from server.

5. Create and manage galleries.

6. Create and manage albums.

7. Assign, change, overwrite or delete tags.

How to manage a gallery?

Once you click on manage gallery you will see the existing galleries and assigned ID numbers. ID number is important for showing a desired gallery in a post. You can also write a short description for every gallery. To show a gallery just use this code [ gallery=21 ]. Make sure you change a number because this is a number of your gallery you want to show on your blog.

You can also show two different galleries in the same post. Same rules apply. Just type in [ gallery=x ]  where X is a ID of your gallery. There is no difference if you use this [ gallery=21 ] or this [ nggallery id-21 ] code to show your gallery in a post. Both are fine.

Ipad 3 gallery

Iphone 5 gallery

How to create and manage an album?

Click on the Album link. In the new window you can create a new album by typing in the album name and clicking on Add. To manage an album, choose it form the drop down list. You can add as many galleries as you want into your album.  To show an album on your blog just place this code [ album=x ] where X is an ID number of your album. By Default it shows an extended album. However, you can show a compact album as well. Just use this code [ album id=x template=compact ].

Extended album

Iphone5

New Iphone5 design

5 Photos

Ipad3

New Ipad3 design and concept Ipad3 model.

5 Photos

Compact album

Iphone5

5 Photos

Ipad3

5 Photos

Tags

This part is important if you use tags for every picture, album or gallery. Basically this part is about renaming and editing the tags.

Options

No need to touch this part.

Share this post with others if you like it. Hope this helps you make your blog look nice.

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Types of services offered

The main premise behind Google’s educational applications is the ability for users, students and faculty to exchange information more easily. Google Apps for Education combine instant messaging, an interactive calendar program, Google’s own Gmail, Google Docs and Google Sites to help students and teachers to better communicate with one another.

With Google’s apps, teachers can message their students for free any time. Schools can set up interactive calendars, publish them online for parents to access and keep everyone up-to-date about what is happening at school. With Google Sites, students and teachers can work together to create class websites even if they have no technical expertise related to building sites. Google Docs allows for simple sharing of documents, so students can always turn their papers in on time and can collaborate with one another on group projects. Each of these tools meets a very specific need within schools and can help shape the way both students and instructors approach education.

Security concerns

Any time a school brings in a new technology, the administration is concerned with the technology’s security. Their students need to be protected from potential predators and hackers, and the school’s confidential information also needs to be secure. As reported directly by Google, these apps have a significant amount of security built into their systems.

Google’s Apps for Education bring data into the cloud to help keep it contained and secure. Google has the technology to detect malware, spam and viruses and stop them quickly, so they don’t even reach the firewall within the school’s system.

Google also uses the Postini email security service on all of its email programs. This protects from inappropriate use, spam and viruses. It also gives much of the control to the schools, allowing them to go so far as to block certain words, phrases or content as it applies to their in-school policies.

Security doesn’t stop with protecting the school from malware and viruses. Schools also have a responsibility to protect their students from inappropriate websites. Google’s tools are easy to customize and give schools the ability to control the websites that their students can access, including the ability to block URL categories or specific content. The tools even allow for separate policies for faculty and student users.

Cost-effective way to implement technology

With Google, schools now have a cost-effective way to engage their students through technology. What makes Google Apps for Education different from similar programs is that, for many schools, it’s completely free. Google has also designed their programs to easily integrate with existing software and technology, so most schools that decide to start implementing these apps are able to do so without too much stress.

Google has made it possible to improve students’ technological skills, increase collaboration and communication across the board and streamline some administrative tasks, all while keeping information secure and costs down. This is what makes Google’s Apps for Education a valuable tool set for the modern educator.

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First thing’s first. Go to Performance menu and click on General Settings.

W3 Total Cashe – General Settings

• Page Cashe - enable this function.
• Minify – enable. This is very important part. We will look into later.
• Database Cashe – disable. ( Do not tick this option)
• Object Cashe – disable.
• Browser Cashe -enable.
• CDN (Content delivery network) – disable. Can be enabled but I will talk about it later.
• Varnish – disable.
• Network performance and security powered by CloudFlare – enable.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

• 

  

  

  
• Google Page Speed dashboard widget – enable it. You will find this function in the Miscellaneous tab. When enabled you will get Google page speed results on the WP dashboard. Using this widget is easy to see what has to be modified and improved. The more points you get the better and faster your blog is.

Network performance powered by CloudFlare

Acording to ClaudFlare they can increase website’s speed. I’ve been trying to sign up and configure my account but when I wanted to activate CloudFlare I had to change my Name Servers. I can’t provide you more information on this. If you change your Name Servers CloudFlare will become your new DNS provider.  It’s up to you if you want to change your Name Servers.

W3TC – Page Cashe Settings

• Cashe Home Page – enable.
• Cashe feeds – should be enabled as well.
• Do not cashe pages for logged in users – enable it.
• Cashe requests only for [Your] hostname – enable it as well.

Four functions that have to be enabled in the Page Cashe settings tab.

• Cashe 404 pages – disable
• Cashe URls with query string variables – disable
• Cashe SSl requests – disable

The rest of them have to be disabled.

Advanced Page Cashe settings

Do not modify, add or remove anything here. Leave this section untouched.

Page Cashe – Cashe Preload settings

Basically, you can leave this option disabled. But if you want to cash all your pages and posts using sitemap URL – enable it. You can enable it and use the default options. However, to avoid preformance problems it is recomended to change the values. Pages per interval – this option might cause performance problems. Default value is 10 but try using a value of 7.

• Automatically prime the page cache – enable.
• Update interval – 900 (can be higher as well).
• Pages per interval – 7 (default is 10). Increasing the value may cause you performance problems.

When you enable it a PGCASHE folder in yourdomain.com/wpcontent/w3tc/ directory will be empty. I have checked my pgcashe folder in 10 hours and noticed that all posts and pages were cashed.

W3TC settings – Minify

Skip HTML and JS settings for now and enable CSS. Scroll down to CSS section. Now everything depends on your theme. When i have changed these settings my theme stopped loading so I had to roll back and change all settings to default. If you have a good coded CSS try using these CSS minify settings:

• Enable – checked
• Combine only – uncecked.
• Preserved comment removal – checked.
• Line break removal – checked.

If you have a good coded CSS you will not have any problems enabling the last two options. However, if your CSS is bad coded you will have to disable them. You can enable preserved comment removal and line break removal then deploy it. After that check if your blog is loading up and theme is showing as usual. If you see no changes you can save these settings.

Advanced Minify settings

Default settings are fine. Values depends on how busy your site is. If you have a busy site you can try using these settings:

• Update external files every – 86400 seconds.
• Garbage collection interval – 86400 secconds.

However, if your site isn’t very busy you can change both values to 216000. You can also use default settings. Lower value is better for busy sites.

General Minify settings

• Rewrite URL structure – checked.
• Disable Minify settings for logged in users – unchecked.
• Minify error notification – it will notify you if any cashe creation error occur. Choose both Admin and email notification.

JS (Java Script) settings

If you don’t have Google adsense adds on your blog you can enable it. I don’t have many JS codes running on my site so I leave it disabled.

HTML and XML settings

• Enable – checked
• Inline CSS minification – enable
• Inline JS minification – enable
• Don’t minify feeds – enable
• Line break removal – enable

These settings will bost your blog’s loading speed. But you need to be cautious. If you have Google adsense adds on your blog  disable Inline JS minification and line break removal to avoid violation of Google adsense policy. Any modification of JS script code is not allowed. If you change the code in any way you will get banned from Google Adsense.

Database Cashe settings

Should be disabled. Don’t change anything here.

Object Cashe settings

Same here. Do not touch anything here.

Browser Cashe general settings

• Set expires header – enable
• Set cashe control header – enable
• set etag – disable
• Set W3TC Cashe header – enable
• Gzip compression – enable
• do not proccess 404 errors… – disable

CSS and JS

Do not change anything here.

HTML and XML

Leave it untouched.

Media and other files

Same here. Do not change anything.

Save all settings and check your htaccess file. You will see a lot of codes running but the main code is still untouched.

CDN – Content Delivery Network

If you enable and configure it properly your site will load much faster. If you want to read more on CDN visit maxcdn.com.

All you have to do is save your settings by clicking on deploy. From now your site should run much faster.

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Be Regular

Possibly the most important part about maintaining a blog is to update it regularly so your readers keep coming back to see what is new. Some people do best when they set a goal of posting once or twice a week on any topic related to the blog. Other may find it easiest to have a more rigid pattern. For example, you might choose to review new products on Mondays, discuss new teaching methods for specific subjects, such as history or math, on Tuesdays, describe ongoing projects in your class on Wednesdays, have a student or another teacher post on Thursdays, and leave Fridays flexible.

Experiment

You need to have experience with a variety of strategies if you want to give credible advice to your readers about how to use technology in the classroom. To authoritatively recommend which products to choose, you need to be familiar with many of them. Keep trying new methodologies and products. Some manufacturers of software and other technological aids may be willing to let you try their products for free in exchange for the publicity you will give on your blog. Once you have established a reputation, you may even be able to preview new products before they are publicly available.

Involve Your Students

Even the most enthusiastic bloggers can run into writer’s block or time constraints, but as a teacher, you have an advantageous resource: your students. Bright and eager to please, your students can be invaluable sources of inspiration. You can ask them to submit blog posts, and they will likely provide endless ideas. They have first-hand experience of new technology, and they are brutally honest.

By assisting you in maintaining your blog, your students can benefit at least as much as you. Blogging allows them to develop their writing skills. If they leave and respond to comments on the blog, they will improve their abilities to communicate online. They can also perform research online to find new products to review. All of these skills introduce students to methods of learning online. For some students who would not otherwise consider higher education, involvement in this project can persuade them to continue their education in online programs.

Hook Your Audience

Since visitors see the latest post in your blog first, each of your blog posts is critical. Newcomers will judge you based on your most recent post, so each must be worthwhile. Gain and retain regulars by making sure your posts are interesting and have novel content. Guest bloggers, such as your students, other educators, and industry representatives provide fresh perspectives and styles to maintain interest. Encourage discussion about blog posts, and be sure to respond if readers leave comments. Provide practical information in your blog.

Your blog is a commentary of a personal interest, but you can blog with a wider purpose in mind. You can use your blog to share your passion for technology in teaching with new or student teachers who need a strategy or two to add to their arsenal in the classroom. The keys to developing a popular and influential blog are to be consistent with your post frequency, to provide relevant and current information, and to increase the appeal by recruiting guest bloggers.

About the author: Lindsey Harper Mac is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in education and social media articles. Lindsey is currently completing work on her graduate degree.

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