Devir Kahan

My Inbox: This Time Filled With Cameras, Tweets, and Intros

// February 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog, Business, Community, Computer, Education, Electronics, Emails, General, Hardware, How To, Information, Internet, Software, Tech, TechKnowledgey

Who liked my impression of “The Count” from Sesame Street? Either way, it is time once more to take a look into My Inbox! This is the segment here on TechKnowledgey where I answer some user submitted questions publicly for the benefit of all you TechKnowledgists. If you have any questions email them to me at mail@devirkahan.com – I respond to every email, but if you’re lucky, you may also see it on the next ‘My Inbox’ segment too! I try to answer questions I get frequently, or ones that I think all you TechKnowledgists will benefit from or enjoy, for everyone to see.

I would also like to formerly introduce my good friend Avi who has been helping me with TechKnowledgey since day one. So, welcome Avi, and thank you for reading the questions! This time they range from cameras, all the way to twitter!

Questions answered in this episode:

1. What camera do I use to record my YouTube videos?
2. How to set up a WordPress blog without a domain.
3. How to make weekly Twitter posts.
4. How I made my TechKnowledgey intro.
5. What web-host do I use?

My web-host: http://alsonetworks.com

I, Tweet

// February 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Community, General, How To, Information, Internet, Ping.fm, Social Media, Software, Tech, TechKnowledgey

I am happy to announce on this episode of TechKnowledgey that you can now officially follow me on twitter! Many people have been asking me for a long time and I think many of you are as excited as I am.

Head on over to http://twitter.com/devirkahan and follow me there to receive my updates, retweets, cool links, news about me and TechKnowledgey, and anything else I share! Just a few things to keep in mind about my usage of Twitter:

• I will not automatically follow anyone that follows me. I’d be glad to take a look at your page though, so @devirkahan with your profile and I’ll be sure to take a look! If I like what I see, then I’ll follow you.
• I cannot respond to everything that I get through Twitter. If you want a definitive response from me, email me at mail@devirkahan.com, but there is just no way I can respond to everything I get on Twitter. I will read everything though, and I will try to respond (through Direct Message) to as many as I can.
• I would love to really take advantage of the great real-time networking of Twitter so be sure to pass along any great links you find, useful information, or anything worth sharing. If I think everyone can benefit from it then I’ll rewet it, or @reply to you for everyone to see. Again, just @devirkahan (or even DM me) with anything you would like me to see – I read everything :)

I would also like to open up to the community an opportunity to make me a background image for my Twitter page. If you would like to submit one, email it to me at mail@devirkahan.com

And that is really it! I would love to get as many followers as possible, so be sure to spread the word! I can’t wait to use Twitter’s great features with all you guys, so follow me at http://twitter.com/devirkahan/!

The Answer To The Yankee Doodle Problem

// January 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Comic, Community, Entertainment, Fun

I posed the question yesterday: What exactly did Yankee Doodle refer to when he called something “macaroni”? Well, you guys came up with some great answers and I thought (like I said) I would share a few of them with you in this video.

Here were just a few from various YouTubers (unedited, by the way – they appear as they were posted):

1. “The Macaroni Club consisted of young, wealthy British gentlemen who traveled
   to France and Italy and adopted the ostentatious and flamboyant fashions
   popular in those countries during the eighteenth century. The Macaronis, not members of a true club but rather a new generation of continental society, were often ridiculed by the British establishment.
   The joke was that a colonial—a Yankee “dandy”—would stick a feather in his tricorne or coonskin cap and think himself as fashionable as any man à la mode in Paris or Rome.”
2. “I always thought it was this:
   Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony, stuck a feather in HIS hat and called it macaroni”
3. it’s a type of fashion.
   see Macaroni_(fashion) in wikipedia :) ”The song Yankee Doodle, from the time of the American Revolutionary War, mentions a man who “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni,” the joke being that the Yankees were naive enough to believe that a feather in the hat was a sufficient mark of a macaroni. Whether or not these were alternative lyrics sung in the British army, they were enthusiastically taken up by the Yankees themselves.”

Well thanks to everyone for helping me answer up this ridiculously weird question! If you got any others, send them to me at mail@devirkahan.com.

Help With WordPress Themes

// December 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog, Emails, How To, Tech

The other day I got an email from Anthony asking me about my WordPress theme. Anthony said that he did not know much about WordPress, but just wanted me to give him a quick rundown about my theme.

Hi. My name is Anthony. I recently saw your Chris Pirillo screencast. You
were very funny in that video, so I decided to check out your channel. I
subscribed (ynkno13) and I checked out your website. I see you are using the
WicketPixie theme. I am a WordPress N00b, and I was wondering how you add
themes to WordPress? Do you have to download some software or is the editor
online. Also does the Wibiya toolbar come with it?

Thanks
- Anthony Guidetti

Well, thank you for your compliment and the subscription. I really appreciate it.

Now, here is the deal; the theme I am running is indeed WicketPixie. Now, WicketPixie was created by Chris Pirillo (he himself did not code it, but it is his theme). Since then, the community has developed newer versions, improving upon the first. WicketPixie is currently in version 1.2. Recently, I jumped on to the wagon of WicketPixie developers and started working on version 2.0 along with a recently acquired friend of mine, Eddie Ringle. Eddie is a lot more versed in code than I am, and he is actually doing most of the work. I myself, though, am doing a bit of the design, ad placement, error pages, and other smaller things like that. 2.0 is nearing it’s final stages and should be released sometime in 2010. I’m really excited about it, and it has a ton of awesome new features, and a much newer, cleaner look. I will, of course, talk more about it when it gets closer to being released.

Anthony also asked how to install a theme. The answer is actually fairly simple; WordPress.org has a huge selection of themes in their online database. You can browse that and download any theme that you would like. As it happens, there are a number of themes that are not in the database. Take for instance WicketPixie – you can’t download WicketPixie from WordPress’s database. You can only get it where Chris decided to host it – on Oholo. And that is the route that some theme developers choose. Some developers would prefer to host their theme on their own site, and not on WordPress’s. No matter where you download the theme from though, you will find that what you have downloaded is a folder, inside of which are all of the files that tell WordPress how to display your theme on your site. You will need to upload this folder to your ‘/themes’ folder inside of your ‘/wp-content’ folder, which would be found in your site’s root directory (sometimes though, it will be in a separate folder in the root directory if you want the WordPress blog to be located at a sub directory).

If you really don’t know much at all about FTP (server files) or code at all, then what I just explained may seem a little complicated. If that is the case, I would recommend starting out on WordPress.com (different from WordPress.org) where you can register a free blog, and change themes without any code, or need of uploading files. When you register your blog, it will look something like ‘blogname.wordpress.com’, but you can pay to get rid of the ‘.wordpress’ part and register your domain so it will be just ‘blogname.com’ like most sites. WordPress.com is an easy to use, simpler way to use WordPress for those that don’t want to deal with the hassle of code and such – and believe me – it’s a hassle.

If you did understand what I explained about uploading folders, then go ahead and find and enable a theme that you like that way. And, yes, you do need to actually enable the theme from your WordPress Admin page.

Either route you choose to take, you’ll have yourself a nice looking blog. I hope I helped and I would love to see what your site looks like once you have set it up, so be sure to let me know when it’s done.

As to the Wibiya toolbar, no – it doesn’t come with WicketPixie. You need to request an invitation (it’s in Beta), but I got one within a day or two after I requested one, so it’s not that big a deal. I will say this though: We are working on an awesome footer for WicketPixie 2.0, so you won’t necessarily need the toolbar then, although it will always be personal preference.

My email address is mail@devirkahan.com, so if any of you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, just drop me a line. With any luck, you’ll see your question answered right here on my blog. And if not, I’ll be sure to answer you just through email. Whatever the case though – my inbox is always open.