This post has been very popular, so I have updated and re-posted it.

If you would like to purchase your own set of videos to view on your computer just send me an e-mail and we can arrange to get you a copy.  I have priced it right!

It has been a while since I have posted something that I would consider a tutorial.  I came upon this set of tutorials on the operation of cPanel.  Now I'm sure some are wondering, "What is cPanel".  These cPanel Video Tutorials will help you learn.

cPanel is the web hosting control panel that is widely used by web hosting companies.  It provides a graphical interface that enables the user to manage all aspects of a website.  cPanel is a commercial product and has a website here:  http://www.cpanel.net.

cPanel can be very intimidating to new webmasters.  It has a lot of functionality that takes some time to learn.  Sometimes it is scary to just dive in because many of the functions are a bit cryptic once you get in, and you must be careful so that you don't break your website. 

This set of videos is pretty useful, and covers what I would consider all the basics.  It does take some time to view them as most are around 4-5 minutes long.  They are in flash format, so you will need to have flash enabled in your browser (should not be an issue nowdays).  I also have the video links open in a new window.  It should not trigger your popup blocker, but if it does you may need to adjust your browser settings. 

In addition to these instructional videos I suggest you visit cPanelGuide.net as I consider it the foremost authority on all of the features of cPanel and the details behind their operation.

Now on to the Video Links!  

Video #1: Logging to cPanel®
In this video I'll walk you through the ways on how to login to your cPanel® account.

Video #2: Setup Email Accounts
This video will show you how to create and set up your email accounts.

Video #3: Outlook Express™
This video will show you on how I configure my email account with Outlook Express™.

Video #4: Yahoo™ Email
This video will show you on how I configure my email account with Yahoo™ Email .

Video #5: Change Password
This video will show you on how to change your password.

Video #6: Update Contact
This video will show you on how to update your contact information.

Video #7: Style
This video will show you on how to change the skin style of your account.

Video #8: Web Mail
This video will show you on how to setup, configure and use your Web Mail account.

Video #9: Forwarders
This video will show you on how to forward your email to another different email address.

Video #10: Autoresponder
This video will show you on how create your autoresponder accounts.

Video #11: Default Email
This video will show you on how to change your default account email.

Video #12: Mailing Lists
This video will show you on create and manage your mailing lists.

Video #13: Backups & Restore
This video will show you on how to backup and restore your databases.

Video #14: File Manager
This video will show you on how to work with your website files using File Manager.

Video #15: File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
This video will show you on how to use the ftp tool to transfer your files between your server and your computer.

Video #16: Sub-Domain
This video will show you on how to create your own sub-domain.

Video #17: Add-on Domain
This video will show you on how to add your own add-on domain.

Video #18: Parked Domain
This video will show you on how to create a parked domain.

Video #19: Redirect
This video will show you on how to redirect your website links to other different links.

Video #20: Password Directory
This video will show you on how to protect your directories and folders of your site.

Video #21: MySQL Database
This video will show you on how to create and manage mySQL Databases.

Video #22: Error Pages
This video will show you on how to change your error pages so that they will create profit for you.

Video #23: Fantastico™
This video will show you on how to work with Fantastico™ to install scripts easily.

Video #24: Crons
This video will show you on how to create your cron jobs.

I am positive you will not be able to view all these videos in one sitting.  You may not even want to view some of them as they are very basic.  I found the file manager (#14) quite useful.  Also the videos that deal with Domain manipulations (# 16, 17 and 18) will help you navigate some tricky functions in cPanel.  I also recommend #21 because sooner or later you will need to create SQL Databases. 

These videos are good quality and have decent resolution so you can see what is happening on the screen at all times.  Let me know what you think.  If you are interested in a copy of the entire video package for yourself or your website send me an e-mail.

Enjoy the show!

-Loren

iDevBooks

Esa Helttula contacted me through Twitter about reviewing these useful educational tools.  In the spirit of Education and Technology it is very fitting for TheTeachingBox to give Esa a quick review and send you back to his web site to check out these Cool Apps.

The best way to introduce Esa and his site is to use his own description:

This site is about my Math Apps for iPhone. It all started when I was looking for a Column Addition app for my daughter. I was surprised to find out that there were no apps that teach the basics like column addition, column subtraction, long division and long multiplication. I had experience about designing visualizing algorithms for computer science students. I decided to use that knowledge to make great teaching and learning apps for children and everybody who wants to study math. You will find my apps by choosing the my apps -link.

The apps are quite unique.  There is a total collection of 10 apps covering such topics as:

• Long Division
• Long Multiplication
• Column Addition
• Column Subtraction

Esa is easily accessible through email or you can follow him on Twitter.  Stop by his page and give the iPhone Math Apps a try.  You will not be disappointed.

-Loren

I have purchased and installed a program on my companion website PageRankToday called RankChecker. 

RankChecker is a great program written as a php script and is easily installed on a webserver.  It is hosted on a site called GetRank.org.  You can get to the website by clicking on the picture to the right.  The author has a great demo of the front page as well as the administrative area. 

This script gives a tremendous amount of information about any website you wish to explore.  Straight from the website, here are the tools and information it displays.

TOOLS:

• Domain Age
• Google Pagerank
• Alexa Rank
• Google Backlinks
• Yahoo Backlinks
• Alexa Backlinks
• Altavista Backlinks
• AllTheWeb Backlinks
• DMOZ Directory
• Yahoo Directory
• Google Indexed Pages
• Yahoo Indexed Pages
• Bing Indexed Pages
• ASK Indexed Pages
• Digg Links
• Delicious Links
• Google Bot Last Visit
• Site Value
• Pagerank Button

I am looking forward to having RankChecker as part of my SEO toolkit.  I have made it available on PageRankToday as one of my SEO Tools, but I would encourage you to purchase a copy for yourself if you would like to host it on your site.  The $10 cost is minimal. 

If you aren't really sure, there is a free version that doesn't have all of the features, but would give a good "test drive".  You can access the free version from the GetRank.org main page, or just click -> HERE.

I have only good things to say about this script and its author.  There were a couple of small issues with the script running on my hosting server, but they were quickly fixed.  I would rate the Script and Support outstanding.  

RankChecker is a great way to learn many details about any website, not just your own.

Enjoy!

-Loren

Leo Is absolutely the GO TO GUY for computers and technology.  I have been following him for years.  You may recognize his name from the show he had years ago on Tech TV called Call for Help.

His weekly Radio Show on KFI out of San Francisco is awesome.  I recommend that you download and listen. 

Here is a link to the shows web page.

http://techguylabs.com/radio/pmwiki.php

Enjoy!

-Loren

The Tech Guy for Sunday 14 February 2010 – Show 640

Host: Leo Laporte

Google Buzz and privacy, cable vs. DSL, new computer buying advice, the latest anti-virus software, and your calls.

For detailed show notes, visit techguylabs.com.

Bandwidth for the Tech Guy podcast is provided by Cachefly.

Running time: 1:59:47

More Info: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/ttg0640.mp3

I get lots of requests for my suggestions on software for antivirus and spyware.  There are many good programs out there.
These are the ones I personally use and have had success:

You need Anti virus protection AND Spyware / Mal ware protection, generally a single product won't do both.  You only need a single anti virus program, but as for spyware / malware no program has a 100% detection rate, so you need more than a single program.

I don't like to spend money if I don't have to, these days for me $$$ are tight, so I like FREE.

If you are running windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 I would recommend looking at Microsoft Security Essentials.  It is a good stand alone antivirus and spyware suite.  Since it is made by Microsoft it will integrate very well into your system.  I have found it to be pretty good.

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

Anti virus -
I have used AVG anti virus for over 2 years and have had good success. It is totally free, and will automatically update and protect you very well.

http://free.avg.com/

Spyware Protection -
First you need to protect your computer from even going to sites that are known to be unsafe. Use Spyware blaster to do this (you need to manually update the free version)

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/

Second you need to use real time protection as well as scanning of your computer to prevent infection by malware or spyware. For this I recommend SuperAntiSpyware. The free version requires you to do updates manually, but it will do automatic scans and provide real time protection. (consider purchasing the Pro version…I did)

http://www.superantispyware.com/

The other free spyware protection I use is Spy Bot Search and Destroy. It does an excellent job finding the real insidious spyware and removing it if you become infected. It is free as well, and has a real time protection.

http://www.safer-networking.org

The combination of these programs will provide very good protection for your computer. The main thing to remember is that you MUST keep the definitions updated. Anti virus and Spyware protection that is not updated is the same as using Nothing at all.

If you need any other help, or have questions, just send me an e-mail.

I hope this information helps, be sure to pass this along to all your firends.

Good Luck!

-Loren

Welcome to the final video in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Video Series.  This video has a rather long running time of 24 minutes, but it is well worth it. 

You will learn how to increase your website traffic using:

Search Engine Optimization – Video 3

As with the other two video tutorials, this final clip has some great tips on getting more relevant visitors to your blog or website.  The instructor gives out ideas and theories, and then follows up with practical examples. 

Just in case you missed them, here are links to the first two Videos in in the SEO Series.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is widely know is a key concept that all webmasters and bloggers need to understand.  TheTeachingBox is proud to present a 5 Part Tutorial series on SEO. 

I came across these videos a while back, and thought that they would be a good fit for Technology and Education.  Granted SEO Optimization is a bit more on the advanced side, but everyone could learn from these videos.

As with my other video series, I will present the 5 videos one at a time so that you are able to focus on the content and think about how you will implement the information on your own website.  As we cover each of the videos, I will make sure to include the links to all previous videos so that you can easily go back and review.

The presentation of these video tutorials is well done, and I was able to learn a quite a few tips on how to make my Blog Posts pop to the top of the online Search Engines.  They are all in Flash (.swf) format and will open in a new browser window.  You should have the latest flash viewer to watch them, but if not, your browser should prompt you for the appropriate plugin download.

Search Engine Optimization – Video 1

In this first video you will get an introduction to the Top 10 On Site SEO Fundamentals and how to implement them on your site.  They include the types of HTML formatting, and content you need to make your pages and posts search engine friendly.  The running time for this video is around 24 Minutes. 

In this tutorial I learned about the Traffic Travis tool for Keyword Research and SEO.  He spends almost half of the tutorial talking about it.  It is free and could prove to be a very valuable tool in your webmaster arsenal.

The author of this video knows his stuff, and gives evidence.  Let me know what you think about this series in the comments, or send me an e-mail.  What are your favorite SEO tips and tricks?

If you are interested I can make the set available to you.  They are in .swf format and the .zip files are still quite large.  Drop me an e-mail and we can work something out.

-Loren

 In this final video you will learn about speeding up your computer by eliminating unwanted startup programs, Defragmenting your hard drive, and why you need more RAM.

The video starts out explaining what the startup programs are, and why you need to minimize them.  I am a firm believer in eliminating unwanted programs from starting.  Nearly every piece of software want to make sure it starts up when you boot your computer.  Be aware of this, and remove them from the startup menu.

The second part of the video talks about defragmenting your Hard Drive, why you need to do it, and how to access the proper utility to make it happen.  A simple, yet VERY important maintenance task you need to perform. 

Finally you will learn a bit about RAM, and why you always need more.  You will learn about what things you need to know before you upgrade, and the benefits of adding RAM to your computer.

 This is the Final Video in the series.  I hope you have enjoyed them.  As I said when I rolled out the first one, these are basic videos, but I feel that everyone, even the computer expert might learn something.  I have added links below to all six videos below, and I have also put it on my Tutorials Page.

Speeding up:  Start Up Programs, Defragging, Buy More RAM

In this last video, we will explore more options for you to speed your computer up faster than ever… 

I agree with the author in this video.  He says that it is best NOT to use Internet Explorer, although it is already installed it is the slowest of all browsers.  He recommends Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera.  I personally have not used Opera, I have tested Google Chrome, and found it pretty good.  I use Firefox almost exclusively.  This is mainly due to the extensive variety of Plugins that are available. 

I would recommend that you try them all and see what you like.  They are all web browsers, but they do have subtle feature differences.  The bottom line is that to have the Fastest computer Do NOT use Internet Explorer. 

The second half of this video talks about cleaning up your Internet Browsing.  Cleaning up your browser history is a good practice from a speed perspective as well as a security one.  The author of the video talks about Internet Cleaner.  It it a good program, although it is Not free.  This program consolidates the cleaning of your internet browsers across all the browser platforms.  If you are not willing to pay for such a program of course all of the browsers have internal utilities to clean up.  A little searching around the internet and you can discover how to perform this task manually. 

So here is the video, only one more left to go in the series!

Speeding it up: Internet Browsers and Internet Cleaners

The type of Internet Browser you use can make a huge difference in how fast your computer can respond to the Internet.  We’ll explore how using other types of browsers will allow you to have a faster surfing experience, and yet a more secure one.  Did you know that everytime you visit the internet, your computer saves all those pictures and data to your computer?  Eventually your computer becomes this huge wasteland of files you don’t need.  Learn how to remove those unwanted files.

 Here are the Six Video Topics with links to the ones we have covered thus far:

1. Introduction
2. Spyware, Malware, Trojan Horses
3. Antivirus and Firewalls
4. Speeding it up:  How to speed Vista up
5. Speeding it up: Internet Browsers and Internet Cleaners
6. Speeding up:  Start Up Programs, Defragging, Buy More RAM