Apostolos Dountsis

How many times you have stumbled upon a theme or a plug-in that you want to test on your site? WordPress does not offer a preview feature so the only option is to make it live which should not be the prefered (and only) option while testing or in general experimenting with new features.

In this article, we will investigate how we can setup a copy of our WordPress powered site on a local machine will serve as a development and test environment.

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The stability of Microsoft Windows has improved hugely since the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2. However, the chance that the operating system may crash still exists. When that happens, earlier versions of Windows displayed a blue screen with an error code and some gibberish unpreventable to human beings outside the Microsoft Windows Team. This screen has been ginen the nickname Blue Screen Of Death or BSOD. BSOD has its own entry on Wikipedia.

Windows XP has “resolved” the issue by automatically restarting the computer when a BSOD occurs. So, instead of addressing the problem that causes the BSOD or displaying a user-friendly message, your computer now automatically restarts with no indication as to why this has happen.

A remedy exists in Windows XP. Open the Control Panel, select System. Under the Advanced tab, click on the Startup and Recovery Settings, untick the Automatically Restart option and press the OK button.

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If you don’t have (or don’t want to use) a Hotmail or Live account and you want to use MSN Messenger follow the instructions below:

1. Navigate to the Windows Live ID page.
2. Under the Sign up today header and subsection“Use an e-mail address you already have” section, click the Get started now link (it should be the second one).
3. Enter your personal details.
4. Click next, type in you email again and click accept.
5. You should now have an email on the inbox of your email account to validation the account.
6. Use the email address and specified password from step 3 to authenticate into MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger (as it is called these days).

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I am happy to announce that Social Bookmarks 4.0 is now available. The previous version had over 8500 downloads. I hope that the new version continues on the success of the previous versions.

Social Bookmarks 4 is possibly the biggest release of the plugin. For a start, it features a new look-and-feel with AJAX and new buttons. The code base has been completely re-written. Also, this version introduces localization to the plugin. You can now download additional language packs from the site to gain access to language specific sites. A template pack is also available so that you can write your own language packs. Finally, the number of included sites out of the box is now 50.

Just head to the Downloads section and grab it!

The next major revision of the Social Bookmarks plugin for WordPress is almost complete. Social Bookmarks 4 has a number of new features and fixes of existing problems that people have reported. The number of supported sites has increased exponentially even with the removal of a couple sites that are now history.

The changes do not affect only the behind the scene code (which has been completely re-written). Also, the front-end of the plugin (the part that your visitors see when they visit your posts and/or pages) has a new look-and-feel with new buttons and the use of AJAX. It is the first time that the front-end gets an overhaul but after 4 major revisions, I felt that a flesh look was a good idea.

Possibly the most exciting new feature is that the plugin now can be localized by downloading additional Language Packs. Social Bookmarks 4 ships with a list of English international social bookmarking sites. However, If you are running a German site then you may want to have German social sites included as well. With version 4, you can download a German Language pack which will give you the ability to have both the English international sites and the German ones on your disposal.

For those who want to create Language Packs, a Language Template Pack will be available for download which has all the files and information required to develop your pack. The separation of the Social Bookmarks core and the Language Packs will ease people that until now were re-bundling my plugin with their sites.

I am looking for volunteers who want to develop Language Packs. I could host the packs on the downloads section of the site so that there is one central place for the plugin and its language packs. If you are interested, then use the contact form in the about section of the site to contact me stating which language pack you want to develop for.

Update: The plugin is now available through the Download section of the site.