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Setting up SSH keys is a two step process.  First setup the key within cPanel. Then add the key to your SSH client.

Creating SSH Key Pairs With cPanel

First, login to your cpanel account.

Go to the Security section and click SSH Access.

Click Manage SSH Keys.

Click Generate a New Key.

The Key Name can be any text. I like to append the person’s name to it for quick identification. For example: id_rsa_brian.

Enter a strong password into the Key Password and Reenter Password fields.

Key Type and Key Size can remain at the default values.

Click Generate Key.

A success message will be displayed.  Click Go Back to return to the Manage SSH Keys area.

Enabling SSH Keys

The creation process only makes the SSH key pair.  For security, it defaults to being not authorized to access your account.

To activate the key, click the Manage link next to the key.

Click the Authorize button to enable the key pair.

Similarly, these steps can be reversed to Deauthorize the key.

Setting Up the SSH Key for Command Line Users

Now that we have the key created, we need to install it locally for our SSH client.

These instructions are for the ssh command line client — people using linux or macos terminals. The setup for putty on Windows is similar.

You will want the Private Key for your client.

Click the View/Download link next to the private key.

Click Download Key to download the key as a file. When saving the file, add a .pem extension to the file for easy management. (e.g. id_rsa_test.pem)

VERY IMPORTANT: Treat this key file like a password. Never upload it to a public site on the internet. (especially not github)

Move this file to the .ssh folder in your home directory. (aka ~/.ssh) If this folder does not exist, create it before moving the file.

You have the option of manually specifying the .pem key file when connecting each time:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_test.pem cpanelusername@your-domain.com

We can use the ssh client config file to automatically associate the private key to your domain-name.

Inside of the ~/.ssh folder, create or edit a file named config.

Add the following 2 lines to config:

Host your-domain.com
  IdentityFiles ~/.ssh/id_rsa_test.pem

SSH is very particular about file permissions. You will want to lock down the filesystem permissions to these files:

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa_test.pem
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config

Now connecting via ssh is as easy as standard password authentication:

ssh cpanelusername@your-domain.com

The password to use is the password associated with the private key. If the key password is forgotten, you need to restart by deleting the key and creating a new one.

Please note that while you can have multiple keys with different passwords, you will always use your cPanel username to sign-in to the account.

PuTTY Users

PuTTY users can also download and import the SSH private key.  The difference is that you will use the “Convert the “id_rsa_test” key to PPK format” feature on the Private Key Download page to obtain the file in a format the PuTTY understands.

The post How to create an RSA private key for SSH logins appeared first on DivyWeb LLC - Web Hosting for WordPress.

Visual Composer is a WordPress plugin that provides a page builder for editing pages and posts. It does fancy things with layout that the standard WordPress visual editor does not.

Often times, commercial themes from sites like ThemeForest bundle Visual Composer with the theme as a convenience to the website designer. A software licensing issue arises where you need to contact the theme developer for new versions of the plugins bundled within.

The bottom line is that WordPress sites with a bundled Visual Composer will need to download a new version of their theme from ThemeForest or contact their theme developer directly to get a theme update in order to use the latest version of WordPress.

The theme & Visual Composer update is not always an easy one.  In many cases, WordPress developers have said the Visual Composer plugin needs to be deactivated and deleted from your Plugins dashboard before your theme recognizes that a new version of the plugin needs to be installed. Deleting the VC plugin does not remove the formatting code from your posts so no layout will be lost in the update process. Contact a qualified WordPress developer if you need assistance with the update.

DivyWeb strongly recommends you follow the recommendation of the WordPress foundation and stay on the latest version of WordPress for security and bug fixes.

The post WPBakery Visual Composer 4.9 and WordPress 4.5 Incompatible appeared first on DivyWeb LLC - Web Hosting for WordPress.

This can be done by looking in the wp-config.php file at the base of your WordPress file directory. While sometimes you may have FTP setup to look at the files, this article uses the cPanel File Manager to get the information.

1. Sign into cPanel. (found at www.yourdomain.com/cpanel)
2. Click File Manager in the Files section
3. Navigate (e.g. double-click) to the folder containing your WordPress site. If you only have one WordPress installation as your main website, this will be the public_html folder.
4. Right-click on wp-config.php and select View
5. Several lines down will be a line for DB_NAME that looks like this:

define('DB_NAME', 'username_wrdp453');

The second quoted word, in this case username_wrdp453, is your MySQL database name.

You may safely close the file manager browser tabs after getting the database name.

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Email forwarders can point to a single address or multiple addresses. (e.g. info@example.com can go to person1@example.com and person2@example.com by adding the forwarder multiple times)

Here is how an email forwarder is set up.

Log into your cpanel account (visit yourdomain.com/cpanel)

Click on the Forwarders icon in the Email section

Click Add Forwarder

Type the name of the forwarding email account (the left part of the email address)

(Optional: Select the correct domain if you have several setup on your account)

Enter the full destination email address in the Forward to Email Address box (the person receiving the email)

Click the Add Forwarder button to save the settings

If the email address should be forwarded to multiple people, repeat the process using the other destination email addresses in the Forward to Email Address box.

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1. Setup Billing with Google
2. Add additional accounts (if needed)

Logging in to your Google Apps Account

First, if you already have a gmail account, please logout of it.

• Go to gmail.com
• Click the round circle icon in the top right
• Click the Sign out button

Next, login to your new Google Apps for Business account.

• Visit http://admin.google.com
• Sign in with the new email address & password DivyWeb provided in the account setup email

The Admin Console is for managing the account. For regular email usage, please visit gmail.com directly.

The Google Apps Admin Console

The account admin dashboard navigates and behaves like a standard web application.

If at any point you wish to return to the admin home screen, click the Google logo at the top left of the screen.

The 3 line icon next to the words “Admin console” is called the hamburger menu.  The hamburger menu is a quick way to navigate to the various sections of the admin console.

Google Apps Billing Setup

Billing for Google Apps is performed by Google. It is separate from your DivyWeb LLC accounts.

Click the red Setup Billing icon on the right sidebar:

You will have the choice of the standard Google Apps plan or the unlimited plan.

Please select the option that best suits your business needs.

A shopping cart process will walk you through the billing signup.  Answer the questions and click Continue until you complete the steps.

Adding Google Apps Users

Each person with an email address on your domain will need a Google Apps user account.  The accounts are managed in the Users section.

DivyWeb creates the first email address for you. If that is the only account you need, your gmail is ready and you may skip to the Using Your Account section of this document.

From the Google Apps Admin console, click the Users icon.

New users are created by clicking the Plus icon in the lower right of the screen.

A popup window will prompt you for the User’s first, last and username.

You have the option of manually setting a password for the user by clicking “Set Password”.  If you do not manually set a password, Google will assign a randomly generated password to the account.

Click the CREATE link when you are done.

Repeat the account creation steps as necessary until all of your people have accounts.

Using your Google Apps account

Your Google Apps for Business account works exactly like a personal gmail account.  The difference is that your company branding is used on outgoing emails.  This is more professional than having an @gmail.com email address.  You also have more control over the privacy of Calendars and Docs.

To use the account, visit gmail.com.

Sign in with your new company email address  (username@yourcompanyname.com) and password.

Gmail is the default app.  To switch to other Google Apps such as Calendar or Drive, click the square grid icon in the top right of the screen.

A drop down menu will appear that will allow you to switch apps.  The app switching icon will appear across all of the various Google apps.

Mail Clients & Mobile Devices

If you would like to configure your account with mobile devices or 3rd party email clients like Outlook, use the Add Account function on your device, select Gmail as your account type and sign in with your Google Apps for Business email address and password.

iPhone and iPad users can use the gmail app as an option but the recommended process is to create a new outlook style account. This is fully documented in Google’s support pages:

https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/138740?hl=en

Android users setup G Suite accounts as regular Gmail accounts. Google has a support page for Android users here:

https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/1738362?hl=en

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DivyWeb LLC has partnered with Enom for domain registration services.  Your domain name settings are fully managed through your accounts with us.  Enom handles the WHOIS registration and ICANN policy oversight.

You may notice that your company name and street address is associated with your domain.  If you want to hide this information from spammers, DivyWeb offers a domain privacy add-on to your domain registration.  A fake forwarding email address is used so that you still receive important notices but your personal information is protected.

The post Why are my domain names showing Enom as the Registrar? appeared first on DivyWeb LLC - Web Hosting for WordPress.

Many content management systems have backup plugins to automate the work for you.  BackupBuddy and UpdraftPlus are two popular backup plugins for WordPress.  Other CMS systems like Joomla also have backup add-ons.  Using a backup tool designed for your website platform is the best way to ensure that the files and your database are saved properly.

Since websites typically change with time as new pages are added, taking a regular backup is important so that you have a recent copy of the site.  Backup plugins typically have a way to automate backups to Dropbox, Google Drive, S3, and other dedicated online storage providers.

DivyWeb keeps backups of the servers for disaster recovery purposes. If for some reason your backup copy has failed, our support team can check our saved copies.  It is best to contact us right away if you need something restored because our systems automatically delete old copies after several days so that we don’t run out of storage space.

The post Why backup your data? appeared first on DivyWeb LLC - Web Hosting for WordPress.

There are several benefits to creating a plugin versus adding the code into your theme’s functions.php file.

First, plugins are theme independent.  Your code will run regardless of which theme you are using.  If down the road you decide to refresh the look of your website with a new theme, your custom modifications won’t have to be ported to the new theme.

Another reason is that plugins can compartmentalize your modifications.  It is easy to look at the plugins page in your WordPress dashboard to activate and deactivate a feature.  If you paste 1000 lines of PHP code into your functions.php file from a dozen different sources, management and comprehension of your functions.php is harder.

Some website designers will warn about having too many plugins installed on your website.  The fear is that including too many plugins will slow down your website.  This is only true if the code within the plugin is slow.  Slow code will slow your website regardless of where it is placed.  Fast code spread over 100 plugins will not.

This morning I saw a woocommerce tip on twitter.  It supplied a piece of code to use the customer’s email address as their username. I can’t tell you how many times customers forget their username.  Being able to sign-in with an email/password instead of a username/password is a much better user experience.

Want to use the customer’s email address for their username in WooCommerce? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. https://t.co/sgolOkUlDH

— Justin Sainton (@JS_Zao) January 27, 2016

For your convenience here is the code suggested by the tweet:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_new_customer_data', function( $data ) {
	$data['user_login'] = $data['user_email'];
	return $data;
} );

While you could paste it into your functions.php, this is a perfect example of something that can exist independent of your theme.

To convert this PHP code into a WordPress plugin, all you have to do is add a special comment header.

Here is what the plugin version of the code looks like:

<?php
/* Plugin Name: Woocommerce Add Email For Login
 * Description: Use the customer's email address for their username
 * Version: 1.0
 * Author: Justin Sainton
 *
 * Original code by Justin Sainton - https://gist.github.com/JustinSainton/b5551532dc6034d25f38
 * Adapted as a plugin by DivyWeb LLC.
 */

add_filter( 'woocommerce_new_customer_data', function( $data ) {
	$data['user_login'] = $data['user_email'];
	return $data;
} );

Save this into a descriptive filename (e.g. woocommerce-add-email-for-login.php) and upload it to your wp-content/plugins folder. Now you can manage this email for login feature through your WordPress plugins page!

As you can see, it’s easy to create a WordPress plugin.  The extra few minutes it takes to build a plugin pays off over the lifetime of your website.

The post Adding WordPress Code to Plugins appeared first on DivyWeb LLC - Web Hosting for WordPress.

The Big Picture

I know my fair share of CSS and am comfortable using the browser developer tools to inspect, tweak and debug to my heart’s content.  I was unsure if attending the conference would have value.

My biggest point is that you don’t know it all.  It is good to go out into your field of peers with an open mind to learn new tips and keep relationships strong.  Even if you pickup one good idea from attending, your time is well spent.  I was able to spend time with out friends and new people who I barely knew.  Each interaction had value.

This conference brought in national speakers.  Hearing what the larger community outside of your city is doing can open your eyes to new ideas and also confirm that many of the issues you see are universal.

Specifically with technologies like CSS, you can learn enough to be proficient, perhaps even to an expert level, but the technology is always improving.  It is easy to become complacent with your skills.  Attending events with advanced users like CSSDay is a way to remind you that the industry has been moving forward while you were busy in your day to day grind.

Specific CSS Tips from the Event

Frameworks

We all love frameworks for their ability to make hard stuff easy for us.  The downside is that you may only use 5% of the framework that you have included.  What about the other 95%?  The browser still has to load it.  This is why many frameworks are criticized for bloat.

A theme among the presenters was to not be afraid of customizing frameworks for your needs.  You get all of the benefit of well tested code and the ability to strip out the parts that you don’t need.  This greatly appeals to developers who are accustomed to writing things from scratch.

I agree if you do it with your eyes wide open.  There is a downside to customizing a framework — you now need to maintain the code as if it is your own.  This means when the upstream source releases updates, it will become your job to merge the good parts of the update into your customized version.  A case by case choice will have to be made on whether forking the upstream files yields sufficient benefits for your case.  I would say for common files that don’t change much like normalize.css it won’t be much of a headache.  For larger projects like bootstrap, be more cautious.

Set Good Defaults

Certain HTML tags such as ul have their intended purpose for lists but also get used in many more creative ways such as portfolio layouts, tabs and navigation menus.  Set the default style to be the most commonly used style (padding-left:0; list-style:none) and then override only when needed.  This will prevent having to duplicate yourself each time that you want the common use of the tag.

Selector Support in Browsers has Improved

Selectors are the basis for css.  Selecting tags, classes, IDs, and even descendants (eg: .content h3) are so common that we no longer think about them.  Do you know what >, +, and * do?  Using child selectors to only select the direct descendant or the adjacent selector can quickly up your CSS game.

The lobotomized owl is one such selector pattern that you are sure to see more of.

Tutsplus has a great summary of CSS selectors to refresh your memory.

Animations Add to the User Experience

The judicious application of animations to your website can vastly improve the user experience.  No longer is your website a static page but something that the user can interact with.  I’m not talking about cartoon animations.  Adding a quick half second easing of a color, image, button, or moving element on a page will make it feel more natural.  Of course it is hard to account for taste.  Generally, don’t make too much of the page bounce and if your transitions have a long duration, the page will feel sluggish.

Conclusion

Brad Westfall, the volunteers, and the sponsors all worked together to create an excellent event.  It is no small undertaking to create a 300 person conference with a national presence.  Breaking out of your comfort zone, networking and learning by attending such an event is a valuable way to supplement your trade skills and business.

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