Splash of Style...Macs, Photography, Design, and other Passions

Amazon Call Me!

September 16, 2009 by debbie T | Internet

I was having a little problem with my Amazon purchase this morning, and I wanted to contact them about it. I clicked the “contact us” link at the bottom of the page.

contact us - amazon

A new windows opens, and your account name & password can be entered. (not required)

I figured I would just email them, since it wasn’t a big problem. But when I saw the contact options I was intrigued.

amazon-phone2

I clicked on the “Phone” tab and found a feature that calls you instead of you calling them! I had to try it! (I am pretty sure this feature isn’t necessarily new, but it’s been a long time since I had any issues with Amazon, so I am behind the times!)

After typing in my account password again, it opens another new window where you need to type your phone number. The default is to call you right away, but there is an option to choose a 5, 10, or 15 minute delay.

amazon-phone3

Once you submit your phone number info, your phone will ring immediately! Pick it up, and an automated voice tells you to hang on, etc…I figured it might be a bit of a wait, but nope! I was talking to Jennifer within a minute and she helped me with my problem. I don’t think I was on the phone for longer than 5 minutes from start to finish.

Why would you want to use this feature instead of just calling them yourself? Well, probably because your account info is immediately known by the customer service associate and it saves a lot of time! Plus it’s soo freakin’ cool!

AppleStore Robbed

September 3, 2009 by debbie T | Mac Corner • Ramblings

No, it isn’t funny that an Applestore was robbed, but the guy doing the voice over on the survellence tape sure is a riot. Who talks like that anymore?

“Leaving only the price tags behind!!!!” LOL. What a pompous jerk! I hate newscasters that sound like that!

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/video?id=6996090

(Note: I tried to embed the video, but for some reason, the code won’t work, so a link will have to do. Sorry)

Changing Admin User Name for Better Security in WordPress

August 31, 2009 by debbie T | WordPress

It’s been advised to change the default “admin” user name on WordPress installs, and it sounded like a great idea, until I tried to do it.

I found instructions, but details on how to actually edit the mySQL table were not explained. I tried to figure it out, but it just seemed too complicated.

The instructions over at guvnr.com were very helpful, but I didn’t want to start a new admin username, and delete the default user name, when I had so many older posts.

Well, I figured it out. WordPress allows you to move your posts, pages, etc to a different user! Yay!

Add a new user with Admin privileges.
Go to Edit Posts and select all posts on the first page
Choose “Edit” from the Bulk Edit pull down menu and hit the Apply button
In the Bulk Edit editing area, choose your new user account from the Author pull down menu.
And lastly, hit the “Apply” button.

Go through each page of posts and repeat.

Awesome! I love WordPress!

ETA: hahaa, okay, I admit I am a big dope. I went through the above steps on one of my WordPress. After all posts were moved to the new user, it was time for me to delete my original admin user account.

I guess when you delete a user, WordPress asks you if you want to attribute all posts to a new user, and gives you the opportunity to do so.

Oh well, I guess you all can ignore this post! haha!

One last note: Just make sure before you delete that you are logged out of the original admin account and logged in to the new one. And for safety, BACK UP your database first!!! Just in case!

WordPress Security

August 31, 2009 by debbie T | WordPress

Slowly, I am working through all my WordPress blogs and trying to make them more secure. I have found several web site articles and WordPress plugins that have been very helpful.

New blog article from Matt – UPGRADING is the only way to keep yourself safe!

Good Mornin’

July 31, 2009 by debbie T | Digital Photography

Happy Friday!

Good morning bug on a wet leaf

Don’t Be Afraid to Think Big!

July 12, 2009 by debbie T | Digital Photography

We found this teenie tiny little guy this morning. Isn’t he adorable?

teenie tiny frog toad creature

Flight to Heaven

July 8, 2009 by debbie T | Digital Photography

Taken on our July 4th Holiday weekend. We were eating lunch by a little airport near Lake Winnipesaukee.

flying a plane to heaven

Importing Plain Text Into Excel Spreadsheet

July 5, 2009 by debbie T | Content Management • Mac Software • Windows on the Mac

I needed to convert a text document with personal data to an Excel spreadsheet. I wanted to use Neo Office (Open Office) but couldn’t find a way to import text, so I fired up my Windows XP virtual machine, and installed an old copy of Office 2000.

So, here’s the dilemma, the data was pasted into a text file from a web page and it was formatted with line breaks. There were 180 blocks of data like this:

first last
title
address
phone
email

first last
title
address
phone
email

After googling, I found that it’s fairly easy to import text as long as there is some sort of delimiter like tab, comma, semi-colon separating the data.

In excel, choose Data>Get External Data>Import Text File

import text file into excel

Initially, I tried comma, but didn’t work well, since some of the text data already had commas, so I decided to use a semi-colon delimiter.

I typed a semi-colon after each section & painstakenly removed each line break.

first ;last;title;address;phone;email
first ;last;title;address;phone;email
first ;last;title;address;phone;email

I worked in small chunks, importing after a few sections. This was taking forever. I needed a short cut!

Since I was using Text Wrangler, I figured there might be a way to automatically remove the line breaks. Yay! Found it. Text>Remove Line Breaks. Couldn’t be easier!

excel-import-breaks

Okay, now if only there was a way to somehow add a semi-colon after each line. Whoo-hooo, how about this:

Text>Prefix/Suffix Lines

I selected each section, added the suffix of “;” then removed the line breaks.

Text Wrangler cut my work in half!

NOTE: When Text Wrangler removed the line breaks, it added a space in between the items, so that messed up my spreadsheet by adding a space before each item in the cell. Before I imported, I did a “find/replace” and replaced all the ;(space) with ; and that worked!

Do I Love the iPhone?

July 2, 2009 by debbie T | Digital Photography • iTunes & iPhone • Wireless

So, I did pick up my new iPhone 3GS last weekend. Black, 32gb.

And I adore it! I love love love that I am able to have internet where ever I am. I loved the iPod Touch, but it was limited to only wifi, so I missed out on a lot. But the iPhone, oh I am in heaven!

I really love the camera, both still photographs and video are wonderful. And again, being able to upload or email immediately is so cool. (Can you guess this is my first Smart Phone? My husband has had a Blackberry for awhile, but this is MINE!)

iphone 3GS - photo of Mindy

The true test will be when we travel up north to New Hampshire or Maine. Don’t know how the AT&T service will fair in the boonies. I have a feeling I won’t be connecting on 3G, but it’ll be okay. My expectations are low, so I hope they will surprise me!

Wiscasset, Maine

July 1, 2009 by debbie T | Aperture 2 • Art and Graphics • Digital Photography

I love when we vacation on the Maine coast. It’s one of my favorite places!

Unfortunately, we won’t be traveling to the Maine coast this summer, but we do have plenty of other areas to visit!

Here is a photo from last year, taken in Wiscasset, Maine – edited in Lightzone and Aperture 2 (click for slightly larger version):

Wiscasset Maine coastal ocean photo

(all photos are copyright protected. Do not use or copy without written permission)