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Way of the Peaceful Warrior February 19, 2007

Posted by The Probabilist in : [Books], Consciousness, Exercise, Gratitude, Goals, Personal Growth, Philosophy, Purpose , 8 comments

Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior is the first book I’ve read this year that can be labeled as fiction. First published in the early 80s it’s a autobiographical novel blending in the author’s own experiences as well as fiction to remind us of life’s greater purpose and possibilities.

It is the story of Dan, a young gymnast moving to San Francisco for University studies and starting life on his own in ways he could not have imagined. Although very successful in acrobatics, his overall life does not offer any remarkable and memorable moments. Instead, he only seems to find some degree of peace and satisfaction from his training while all the rest is just blending in with indifference, mediocrity and unawareness of what awaits him.

Troubled by a reoccurring dream, he takes off into the night and stops by a 24/7 gas station where he meets an old, but swift man whose words and answers perplex and frustrate Dan. Still quite intrigued of the man’s behaviour, he decides to return to the gas station each night to find out why the old man seems to be the one in his dreams and why he constantly manages to outwit and outperform Dan who is three, four times younger than him.

Slowly but steadily Dan begins to listen to the man’s teachings, whom he calls by the name Socrates. Dan’s gymnast career seems to come to an end when he severely injures his foot, but given the newly awakened spirit, he starts to push his limits to not only start exercising his athletic abilities again, but also to become a master of life and unreasonable happiness. The path of the peaceful warrior doesn’t appear easily, quickly or rationally, and Dan gets to live through quite a number of demanding tasks and tests in order to reach his ultimate calling and be who he is meant to be.

There’s a great message to be found in this book and I enjoyed every page of it. As the tagline goes “A book that changes lives”, I’m inclined to agree with that statement and also recommend this book to anyone of any age. It speaks of the course and meaning of life, how we should relate to different occurrences in our lives and how to face the inevitable destiny we all have to one day. Get your own copy and find out if your level of consciousness is in balance with the way of the peaceful warrior.

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How to Blog - 2/8 Go Online February 16, 2007

Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Productivity, Technology, Blogging , 5 comments

Step 2 is a short and easy step and serves the purpose of providing the basics for those of you who still haven’t had a blog online. That being said, here’s today’s agenda. We’ll look into what you need to be able to run WordPress, what kind of a host you might choose, how to upload your files and how to go from there. Yes, it’s quite a beginner’s tutorial today. But let’s get on with it so we can get to the more advanced details later on.

The first part is easy. Your web host provider must have PHP and MySQL support, or else your WordPress installation won’t work because it uses the MySQL database to function. Remember to check this when you choose your web host provider and service package. If you’re aiming really high and intend to drive lots of traffic to your blog, remember that a cheap alternative on a shared server might not stand up to it. Storage space shouldn’t be an issue unless you’ll be using lots of pictures, audio and video files to spice up your blog.

I have provided a list of web host candidates that you may choose from. I can’t really vouch for any of these except the last one, since it’s the only one I’ve personally used and still using.

Once you’ve signed up, you should get the necessary login details to be able to start uploading WordPress to your web host. Make the decision if you want your home page to be your blog (insert WordPress files to the root directory) or if you want the url to be yourpage.com/blog for instance instead (upload the wordpress folder to the root and rename it to “blog” or your word of choice.

To do this, you first need an FTP application. My choice is FileZilla, which you can download from SourceForge. Run the installation and place it where you want. Run the program, choose File > Site Manager and enter the following details:

This is where different web host providers have different category listings. Find out which is your root directory and upload your WordPress files or your wordpress directory there by dragging them from the left window to the right. I suggest clicking on the “Advanced” button and inserting the wordpress folder directory in the “Default remote directory” to save you some time by always landing where the action is when you connect to your web host. Remember now that your wp-config.php file must have the information that works with your web host database. Run the install.php file to install your online WordPress version and pick up the login details.

Here’s a tip. I recommend having a duplicate of both your online and offline wp-config.php files in separate directories. This way you’ve got an easy copy paste solution whenever you’ve done something wrong on either your offline or online WordPress directory and choose to upload or download it all from one host to the other to get it all working back as normal again.

Whenever you upgrade WordPress to a newer version, just copy all the files to your existing wordpress folder. Refresh your admin panel and the few steps are easy to just click through.

Checklist for step 2 - starting offline

Pretty basic, huh? In the third step of this workshop (Monday, February the 19th), I’m listing the most essential WordPress plugins that you should know about, how to install them, how to use them and why. They may not all suite the context of your specific blog, but there’s bound to be something new to everyone who is following along with this tutorial. I hope I haven’t bored you too much, the rest of the steps provide more value to established bloggers.

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