We have seen the New Zealand WordPress community when we have attended WordCamps, the large unconferences that happen each year in NZ to discuss all thibgs WordPress (and some no WordPress specific topics)

The closest local community (Meetup) to Kerikeri was in Auckland and try as we might, it was too difficult to get to one of these events.

After support and encouragement from the organisers of the Auckland event, we decided to start one in the North.

WordPress Meetups are open events, open to all who are interested in WordPress: people who code for it, people who design for it and people who use it daily to run their business.

We had an initial get together earlier this month and have been wonderfully supported by Judy at BizSpace (https://www.bizspace.nz/) who is providing us the venue.

Next month is all about Security, and we will talk about the best way to secure your website and some of the plugins you can use to achieve this, we\’ll also talk about other security aspects like passwords to help protect your site.

If you are interested in coming along, we have a Meetup Group here: https://www.meetup.com/Northland-WordPress-Meetup/ Sign up and you will get notifications about when the next Meetup will be.

It will be great to see you there.

The post WordPress Meetups in Northland first appeared on SAJE.

Join plenty of others who seem to be having the same issue.

If you are running the latest version of Outlook (Office 365 subscription users like me are upgrade to the latest version automatically) then a change to the way Microsoft displays account settings has hidden the more advanced settings with no clear way to get to them.

In the past you would go into your Account Settings and look for the \”More Settings\” button, this would give you a popup window with port numbers, SSL choices and the ability to save emails on the server.

Now you get the following:

As you can see it provides a very limited set of options.

So if you see the above screen, don\’t worry, the real settings are a few keystrokes away.

Where are they Hidden?

To get to the settings, press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the Send/Receive Groups settings

Ckick on Edit to take you to pleace where you can choose the account you want to edit eg:

Highlight the email account on the left and click on the Account Properties button at the top right and low and behold, our friendly settings screen of olde appears:

Now you can make you changes as before and save/apply when finished

The post Where have my Outlook Settings Gone? first appeared on SAJE.

One of the limitations of Dropbox is it is all under a single folder, which is all fine if you start from that, but in our situation we had legacy locations for data on our PC.

So along comes Boxifier, a neat application that allows you to choose as many folder around your PC to be added to the Dropbox folder.

It\’s a simple solution that just seems to work.

But then it didn\’t.

We had a drive crash on the drive that had these folders that Boxifier was enabling for Dropbox.

I wanted to change the location of my Dropbox folder to a new drive and re-sync the data, unfortunately it came up with Access denied. After a bit of mucking around, I realised that there is a setting in Boxifier that prevents Dropbox from editing those folders you have enabled in Boxifier.

Given my situation, I removed that restriction and Dropbox started syncing again.

This also prevented me from moving my Dropbox folder from it\’s default location to my new drive.

So hopefully if anyone else has the same set of variables, there is a solution.

The post Access Denied Error in Dropbox first appeared on SAJE.

This has only happened in the last few weeks and confirmed by their techs. From the text of their email to us when we notified them of the error, they do not have a fix and only suggested a starting point for some potential solutions.

It appears that it is the HAL module that is the sticking point.

Following the Adobe link provided, correctly mentions that the HAL module is the missing piece, but the instructions to install it do not work. It appears that the HAL module is no longer available. A \”HAL-INFO\” package was available, but this did not solve the problem.

After trying all of the solutions proposed by Adobe, I tried a few additional options, such as installing the Flash plugin provided as an installable package from within Mint (this did not work either)

I did some more research on the net and found the following page

http://linuxg.net/how-to-enable-the-playback-of-flash-content-protected-by-drm/

Specifically this to install a package including HAL

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mjblenner/ppa-hal
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install hal

The key thing here is that there is a PPA in the repository that contains HAL. Since trying to install HAL by itself fails, this packaged version includes the HAL libraries.

Interestingly, there was a mention in the output of the installer about \”Keeping HAL alive\” so it does seemt o be in response to the demise of HAL as an installable piece in it\’s own right

With all of my trial and error, I have not gone to a clean system and installed just the above PPA to test it outright. However, I am pretty confident that this PPA will resolve the issue.

The post How to fix DRM playback issues on Linux first appeared on SAJE.

During this time we have learnt by trial and error the best ways to present an auction, to pay for a purchase, to deal with postage and much more.

We have had the privilege of trading with wonderful people up and down this beautiful country also the profound privilege of trading with overseas buyers too.

Over the years we have used Trade Me as a Sales and Marketing tool for our business too. With products Trade Me can be an interesting a fun vechicle to reach customers. It is more difficult to auction services because there is no tangable item but an inventive marketing type could create something that could work for you.

I would like to outline just a few things we have learnt as part of the Trade Me community. 

12 Things we have learnt

FEEDBACK First and foremost..Always give feedback for every single trade. 
This is how the Trade Me community knows who to deal with and who to blacklist. This is how you will determine yourself who to trade with.

RULES Read the Trade Me rules and abide by them. 
You can\’t do any trading if you break the rules. If you see some else breaking the rules use the Community Watch and report what you see. This is how the Website stays safe for the whole community. It is everybody\’s responsibility to look after the running of Trade Me.

USE THE HELP information that is provided on the Website, as a phone call to Trade Me will cost $1.99/minute + GST. 
Don\’t waste your money asking questions that are already answered for you. The Help feature even has a calculator to work out the Success Fees which stays open even if you close out of Trade Me..it is excellent.

PAYMENTS The best way to pay and receive payment for an item is on-line banking. 
If you don\’t already have internet banking arrange it, it will save you a lot of time, money and hassle. Fantastic not just for Trade Me too. For international trading the best payment method we have found is Paypal..I am not keen to except Credit Cards from Overseas buyers but using Paypal they handle all of the exchange and banking for you. Very worth it and very easy.

POSTAGE When listing an auction always have the buyer pay for postage and packaging.. 
You are not a charity and you can\’t guarantee the final selling price.This caught us out a goodie when we listed one of our first auctions for $1 and it sold for $1…the catch was .it was a printer and had been sold out of town.

PACKAGING When packaging goods that you have sold always pack them like they are going to be thrown out of a plane to their destination. Neither a courier company nor NZ Post are 100% infallible but don\’t let this stop you. Know what insurance your postal company provides so you can take advantage of it if required. A pair of scales can come in handy for weighing parcels that go by NZ Post. The NZ Post website.www.nzpost.co.nz has a weight, price, destination calculator. Use it so you can get the right money for the postage and do not forget to add at least $1.50 to cover the packaging. Some sellers add more, it depends on what the item is. If you think the postage and packaging is unreasonable, say so but consider the costs first.

AUCTION LENGTH I tend to stick with the 7 day auction offered for free. 
It gives a good amount of time for many different buyers to find and bid on your auction. Use the other date options if you are going away and need a sooner finishing date. Don\’t list an auction and then go away on holiday when it is about to close. This will get you bad feedback as a buyer wants contact within the first couple of days of winning. The same goes for buying..don\’t bid on something that you are not able to complete the transaction on..read the Trade Me rules.

START PRICE Start your auction near the price that you want for it. 
I have found the most effective auction is one where the start price and the reserve price are the same. It also means that the first bid is a buying bid and you will not lose the sale because the reserve price has not been met. With Trade Me there maybe only one or two collectors for your item so if you start your price too low it will not go any further unless there is more than one interested party.

BUYER QUESTIONS As a buyer ask as many questions about an auction as you need to decide if you will bid or not. 
If you have no intention for making a bid refrain from asking questions. Only ask for a Buy Now price if you intent to buy the item straight away and be prepared for the seller to say no. It is an auction not a shop! It is important that your questions are relevant and appropriate. When you ask a question you are added to the list of interested buyers that an offer can be given to after the auction has completed.

SELLER ANSWERS As a seller try and answer all the questions HOWEVER you do not have to answer questions that break the Trade Me rules. 
You also do not have to answer any questions that are inappropriate. You do not have to add a Buy Now price if asked, it is your choice. Describe the item you are selling warts and all. This will earn you respect and good feedback

FREE LISTINGS Don\’t be tempted to do a Free Listing.. 
While this sounds great you limit severely who will look at your listing. A .45cent gallery listing will very much improve your chances of selling your item. A buyer will search for key words but will look at the pictures first then the words in the title and then the listing itself.

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH Finally, research what you are buying and selling. 
Know what you are dealing with it is key to getting the best out of a system like this. $1 Auctions can make you some good money if you did not want anything for your item in the first place.but if you do want something for your item research it\’s value so you can choose a good starting price. Some good places to do research are:

• Google search engine or indeed any other search engine
• Trade Me
• Ebay
• Local shops that sell your item already
• Trade and exchange

So, with all the above advice under your belt.. don\’t forget to research, measure, describe and photograph your item. Add maker\’s marks, stamps, certificates and anything else that will prove authenticity. Be courteous in your questions and answers. Be generous in your feedback. Most of all treat others, as you would like to be treated and expect nothing in return. You will be pleasantly surprised at the kindness and generosity that exists in New Zealand and in the Trade Me community. Finally, do not exclude overseas customers as they bring a Global Market dimension that does not exist in normal retail shop or auction house. Some of my best money has come from Overseas buyers.

We continue with Trade Me as a vehicle for our endeavours and recommend it to all as a great place to buy and sell. Have a go it could work for you too.

The post Online auctions – Trade Me Advice first appeared on SAJE.

All thanks to those that have provided these resources, it seems silly to replicate these over and over on the web.

If you know of a better one than what I have listed, let me know in the comments and I can look at them and add them in.

I am only listing one set of instructions for each Mail program version that I think is the easiest to follow.

Remember, these instructions will need to be supplemented with your own specific settings such as login / password and mail server settings. Contact your hosting provider for these things.

Mac OS

• Mac Mail
• Outlook

Windows

• Thunderbird
• Outlook 2003
• Outlook 2007
• Outlook 2010
• Outlook 2013
• Outlook Express
• Windows Live Mail

So if you have other clients, other operating systems, let me know and I\’ll add them to the list.

The post Instructions for Adding an Email Account first appeared on SAJE.