The best part of WordPress is the ease with which you can do anything and everything. Being easy to use is often misunderstood as having less features. WordPress offers a range of powerful tools at the blog owner’s disposal. I say this in reference to how I upgraded my blog. All I needed to do was upload the updated version of WordPress, overwriting the older copy present on my web-host. Once that was complete, I logged in to the Dashboard to see an “Upgrade the database” notice. With just a click of a button, the database was changed to the newer version without any hassles whatsoever!

Not only upgrading, WordPress is also great in it’s first installation. All you need is to click “Install” and you’re done.
Of course, if  you don’t have a pre-populated config file, you might have to enter your database details, but that is pretty much everything

Writing entries with a powerful WYSIWYG editor with a versatile ‘kitchen sink’ is really fun. I never actually felt the need of installing a blogging software as it is always convenient to drop in the blog admin area and make a new post. Plus, with the right combination of plugins and themes, you can create a nice output, like I have the front page gallery featuring the jQuery carousel plugin.

Last but not the least, WordPress has a wonderful community both at wordpress.org and on IRC. I have to say, the performance shown by WordPress is not only impressive, but nothing IMHO stands a chance before this wonderful blogging software. I strongly recommend everyone who is looking for a blogging framework to go for WordPress without any hesitations.

Changelog:
* Added guided posting utility (view)
* Added a more prominent global PM notification
* Added a What’s new notification for new members
* Updates to KDialogue, the engine behind the forum’s KDialogue and KDE Contests areas.
* Numerous performance fixes.

Please report all bugs at bugs.kde.org under the component forum.kde.org.
You can find the official announcement here: http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=88621

Enjoy!

1. Ivan (ivan@kdeforum): Of course, Ivan doesn’t need an introduction. Apart from his outstanding work with plasma, especially Lancelot, Ivan is an active contributor at the forums as well. Taking into account his urge to help out users despite of having a busy schedule, Ivan has perfectly fitted into the forum team structure as a global moderator.

2. Svein (Oceanwatcher@kdeforum): Previously a forum moderator at the KDE forums, Svein has shown significant activity in the core team discussions as well. A person who upholds the CoC and is helpful at the same time, Svein is now a part of the global moderator team at the forums.

3. Bill (google01103@kdeforum): Bill has been an active contributor at the forums since the very beginning. He is not only involved with user support but has been a participant at the KDE Brainstorm area as well. Considering his quality of response and sincerity, Bill is a great addition to the KDE forum staff.

In addition to the team restructure, we, as always have a lot of other things coming up as well. We’ve introduced some new utilities that would further improve user experience and ease-of-usage. Read here for details on this

• Apache:- http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi (download the latest stable release. You need the latest win32-x86-no_ssl.msi package. My file was named httpd-2.2.15-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi)
• MySQL:- http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/ (download the appropriate MySQL MSI installer. Even the essentials one is fine)
• PHP:- http://php.net/downloads.php (download the php installer from the windows binaries section. Do not download the zip package)

Once you have the required setup files, all you need is start installing!

Installing Apache

1. Start with the installation and follow the instructions. When you reach the “Server Information” dialog, you can use the following settings there:

   
   Apache Server Settings

2. Once finished, you will see the icon in your system tray. You may otherwise see the icon, which means that “Monitor Apache Servers” is running, but Apache2 isn’t started.
   You can easily start/stop/restart Apache and Apache2 via that icon in your System Tray. If you get “The requested operation has failed!” error while starting apache use the “Test Configuration” shortcut in the Start Menu to find the error (if the text window pops up then closes before you can read it, your config file is fine).
3. Now to check if apache is running. Normally, apache should start listening to port 80. In some cases, it might bind to port 8080 instead.
   Open your browser and visit http://localhost/ or http://localhost:8080/
   If it shows the It works! you have your server software installed and running. If it doesn’t, you may log on to http://webchat.freenode.net and join #httpd to ask your queries.
   We will be configuring apache later in this tutorial.

Installing MySQL

1. Run the MySQL installer and choose Typical installation and proceed.
2. Once installation is complete and you are on the Wizard Completed window, make sure you have the checkboxes as indicated below:
   

   MySQL setup

3. Upon clicking Finish, the MySQL Server Instance Configuration Wizard window will open.
4. Select Standard Configuration when asked for as shown:
   

   MySQL configuration

5. In the next window, make sure to:
   a. Check the Install as Windows Service checkbox. Service name should me MySQL. You may also want to check Launch MySQL server automatically checkbox.
   b. Check the Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH checkbox as well. Click on Next button.
   

   MySQL configuration

6. In the next window, enter and confirm a root password. Write this down somewhere as you might need it later. I recommend to keep Enable root access from remote machines unchecked. Also, Create an anonymous account checkbox should be kept unchecked. Click on Next and then Execute buttons.
7. Once finished, open cmd (Command Prompt) and type in the following to go to the MySQL prompt:

mysql -u root -p

Installing PHP

1. Launch the installation wizard. When you reach the Destination Folder window, choose “C:\PHP”.
2. In the next window, you have to select your web server setup. Choose Apache 2.2.x Module and click next.
3. In the Apache configuration directory window, browse to the folder where httpd.conf file is stored. For me, it is in C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\
4. In the Choose items to install window, select the following:
   a. Script executables
   b. GD2, MySQL and MySQLi (you can find these after expanding Extensions)
5. Click Next and begin the installation. Everything will be done automatically!

Configuring Apache

Now all you are left with the configuration part. Open the httpd.conf files usually located inside Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\
Windows Vista/7 users make sure you open your text editor with administrator privileges before doing that. You can open notepad (or any other text editor by right clicking on it’s start menu entry and selecting Run as Administrator).
Once you’ve opened httpd.conf, make the following changes:

1. You can make apache point to your own folder. To do that, search for DocumentRoot and change it from the default htdocs folder to whatever of your choice. You also need to make another change.. scroll down or search for <Directory> tags. You’ll need to change the directory tag with the htdocs path to the same one you specified above.
2. Remember, I said that apache may bind to 8080 in some cases. If your localhost opens only when you specify localhost:8080 try searching for the Listen directive in httpd.conf and change the port number to 80.

Finally, click on the apache icon in the system tray and restart apache.

That’s all! Get a beer, sit back and enjoy!

If you face any configuration issues, feel free to ask here.

1. In your google account, goto Contacts.
2. Click on the “Export” link on the top right side of the box.
3. Export it in “Outlook CSV” format and save the file to a desirable location.
4. Open Microsoft Outlook (2007 in my case) and goto File -> Import and Export.
5. Make sure “Import  from another program or file” is highlighted and click “Next”
6. Select “Comma separated values (Windows)” and click “Next”
7. Select the downloaded file and click “Next”
8. In the “Select destination folder” area, highlight the “Contacts” entry and click “Next”
9. Click the “Finish button”. Outlook will import all contact, please wait while it does that.
10. Once finished, close Outlook and launch Thunderbird.
11. In the Thunderbird window, goto Tools -> Import
12. Select “Address Books” option and click “Next”
13. Select “Outlook” from the menu and click “Next”
14. Click the “Finish” button and you’re done!

That should be all. This is just a 10 minute procedure that will import all your Google mail contacts to Thunderbird. Enjoy!

To begin with, download the trial reset program from here: http://www.mediafire.com/?moiy0wnzywz

Please turn off the Kaspersky auto protect when you do this, as KIS/KAV would detect this as a Trojan (yea, spicy huh?).

Anyway, once you have the file, you would need to disable the  ”Self Defense” option from the Kaspersky Settings > Options. You should also disable the auto protect feature by using “Pause protection” from the Kaspersky context menu. Once done, execute this program and click the “Trial reset” button. This will give you a 30 day trial license, whenever you run it. So execute it once every 30 days and enjoy using Kaspersky forever!

PS: Don’t forget to add this to your exclusions list as you don’t want KIS to delete this file, do you?

1. The taskbar text doesn’t have a dark border or a dark colored cloud. So in cases where the background becomes white, the text is almost unreadable:

Taskbar

Start Menu

I feel that the text should have a dark color with a white cloud around it, or vice versa.

2. The control panel window when maximized lacks a much needed left panel. I wonder why the left panel has been removed.

3. Small icon mode isn’t very pretty for the taskbar. The taskbar overall lacks a 3D view and looks somehow – broken..

4. Windows Media Player 12 lacks the glass background at the controls area. As you can see in the following picture, the WMP window at the front doesn’t have the glass controls like the Windows photo viewer window at the background.

Media Player

I wonder if there’s a way I can convey these to Microsoft.

PS: I’ve become a fan of the Aero peek functions. Also, loving the new taskbar thumbnails!