February 2nd, 2010
Google Voice is one of the most practical Web apps I have ever found, it’s just amazing. A few days ago, I decided to add the Google Voice Gadget on my iGoogle page and I encountered a problem with it. I would just get a blank white box. The box was empty, there was no data. I’m using Safari 4.0.3 on a Mac OS X, but I have seen people reporting this problem on the Chrome browser too.
Blank Google Voice Gadget
To make it work (at least for now), just add an “s” to “http://www.google.com/ig” on the Address Bar of your browser, like this: “https://www.google.com/ig”
Google Voice Gadget
Posted in Google, Troubleshooting | No Comments »
January 15th, 2010
If there ever comes the time when you redesign your Website completely, unfortunately search engines will not be very sympathetic about that. Suppose you move a page from http://mysite.com/news/iphone to http://mynewdomain.com/tech-news/iphone. If the search engines already indexed your original Website hyperlinks and your Website’s fans bookmarked some of your Webpages, you will want to redirect them to the new URL.
One of the best ways to redirect search engines and Website visitors to a new Webpage location is by using 301 redirects. You can configure Apache with the Redirect directive to redirect traffic from an old url to a new one. The Redirect directive takes several arguments
- redirect code
- original URL location
- destination URL
You can set the status as a numeric HTTP code. HTTP code 301 represents a permanent change.
By using 301 Redirects you will let the search engines know that this is a new, permanent location and you might keep your search engine ranking. Keep in mind that any changes to your Website navigation structure can negatively influence your search engine rankings.
Create a new .htaccess or in your current .htaccess file.
To redirect a specific URL to a new URL
Redirect 301 /news/iphone http://mynewdomain.com/tech-news/iphone
To redirect everything from your original domain name to a new domain name.
Redirect 301 / http://mynewdomain.com
Upload the .htaccess file to your server. Make sure do include the dot on the filename “.htaccess”
Posted in Apache, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »
January 15th, 2010
Today, I was trying to make a copy a MySQL database that resides in my laptop with Windows Vista. I ran the mysql dump command but I got an error: “Access is denied”.
The mysqldump command is simple. I never forgot it’s basic syntax.
mysqldump -u username -p dbname > dbbackup.sql
The reason why I never did is because the first time I tried it on a Windows XP machine, I logged in to MySQL prompt and tried to run the mysqldump command. It took me a couple hours to find out that I didn’t need to login to MySQL before running the command. I was just supposed to go to the MySQL bin directory and run the executable command.
Anyways, I suppose you are not making the same mistake because you are already getting the frustrating “Access is denied” error. Why?
Well, one of the differences between XP and Windows Vista you may have noticed first is that Vista keeps on asking for your permission when you try to do certain tasks. “Windows needs your permission to continue”.
Seems that Vista doesn’t let you create new files using the Command Prompt. So it’s a Windows error rather than a MySQL error.
So here is what you do: specify you are an Administrator for Vista by right-clicking the Command Prompt icon and select “Run as administrator” from the menu. That’s it. Navigate to the MySQL bin directory, run the mysqldump command and it should work.
Posted in Troubleshooting, Windows | No Comments »