What is a blog anyway? A blog is basically an index of “posts,” most commonly sorted in reverse chronological order and dated. However, many blogs are not merely blogs. Some blogs require the use of static pages. A static page is a singular page on a website that contains up-to-date informatin and is regularly updated. Read More >
Christopher Maiorana
Christopher Maiorana joined the InMotion community team in 2015 and regularly dispenses tips and tricks in the Support Center, Community Q&A, and the InMotion Hosting Blog.
Save Keyboard Macros as Functions in Emacs
There will be many instances in which a valuable sequence of commands may need to be repeated an indefinite amount of times. Instead of endlessly typing and re-typing the same set of commands, you can use keyboard macros in Emacs to record and save those key command sequences as functions that can be called upon Read More >
How to Transfer and Backup Files With Rsync
Rsync is a powerful tool for copying files to and from remote servers or between various networks machines. You can use it for copying files locally, or to backup your files to your remote server. You can also use it as a command line replacement for FTP when transferring your website files to a server. Read More >
What is Write Freely?
Write Freely is a content management system that focuses on long form written blog content. Write Freely also connects to the ActivityPub protocol, which means your user account on Write Freely can interact with other open source social network apps like Mastodon, GNU Social, Pleroma, and many others. Installing custom software like Write Freely requires Read More >
Essential Cloud Server Tools and Projects
When first starting out with your own cloud server, you might feel overwhelmed by all the freedom. You don’t have a cPanel or convenient interface for managing your server, but you do have a wide variety of cloud server tools at your disposal. You have to install and configure all the apps and services you’ll Read More >
How To Install a Write Freely Blog
Write Freely federated blogging software provides you with everything you would need to run a successful blog in the style of Medium or Substack, but it’s hosted on your own server, giving you more control and creative expression. Create a MySQL Database For Write Freely Setting Up The MySQL Database User Create A Database For Read More >
How to Move and Split Topics in SMF
At some point while managing your forum, you might notice that a certain topic would work better in a different board or category. Also, there may be instances in which a reply deserves to be split from the main topic and started as a new topic entirely. Split topics can take on a life of Read More >
How to Require Admin Approval For New Users in SMF
As you have learned in previous tutorials, your forum is open to the public by default, which means that new users can register their own accounts at any time. However, if you like to provide an extra layer of security for your forum, and avoid spammers, you can require admin approval for new user registration. Read More >
How to Block User With The SMF Ban List
Throughout the SMF education channel you have learned how to install your forum software, how to register users, create topics, and do all sorts of important management and moderation tasks. Now, it is time to learn how to block users from participation in the forum using the ban list in SMF. You can ban users Read More >
SMF Security Tips – How To Secure Your Forum
Managing an SMF forum is not all fun and games, even though moderating your forum can be a lot of fun. You must keep in the mind that your forum is coded in PHP and relies of an SQL database to serve content. PHP is very secure, but there is always a possible for code Read More >
How to Add Events to the SMF Calendar
The SMF calendar allows you to create a shared calendar among your users. You might be thinking, “Well, why not just use Google Calendar or some other app?” One clear advantage presents itself: if you use a third-party calendar, separate from your app, you will need to integrate that calendar with your SMF forum. This Read More >
How to Create Private Boards in SMF
In the course of managing and moderating your forum, you will probably identify a need for private forums, or, at least, exclusive forums where only members of a certain standing can participate. These might be maintenance or governance forums or anything requiring elite participation. How to Create Private Boards in SMF The important thing about Read More >
How to Register New Account in SMF
The main idea behind the SMF forum software is that it allows your set of users — whether that includes the whole world or a private network — to create (or, register) new accounts and contribute to the ongoing conversations via topic creation. The nice thing about account registration is that it happens automatically by Read More >
How to Log Into SMF Admin Area
The SMF admin account is the critical master account for the whole installation. You can have multiple admins or a single admin. In this article you’ll learn how you can log into your installation so that you can carry out all of your admin duties. But don’t let the “admin” part confuse you. If you Read More >
How to Create a Topic in SMF
Creating a topic is one of the fudamental actions in your SMF forum. Users, with the proper user privilege, will be creating topics for discussion with the click of a button. You, as the admin, can always create topics of your own as well. Create a Topic in SMF In order to create a topic Read More >
How to Create a Category in SMF Forum
In this article, you will learn how to craft a new category in SMF. The SMF category structure is an important part of the whole content hierarchy, and an integral part of organizing your forum properly. When crafting your forum with SMF, you need to make sure you understand the difference categories, board, and topics. Read More >
How to Create a Board in SMF Forum
Now that you know how to create categories in your SMF forum, it’s time to create some boards. Boards are where all the magic happens. A board is where your users can submit topics for discussion. This is what a forum is all about, creating discussions and discourse from the crowd. Don’t worry about a Read More >
How to Install Simple Machines Forum (SMF)
Having a Simple Machines Forum (SMF) installed on your site can offer you with an easy and secure way to engage with your website visitors. In this article, you will learn how to install SMF with the one-click Softaculous Apps Installer, available in your cPanel. SMF works great on all hosting packages, but for custom Read More >
How To Choose a WYSIWYG Website Builder
Choosing a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG, pronouned “wizzy-wig”) website builder is a personal choice. Much of the process is based on personal tastes and preferences. And yet, there are some logical processes you can run through in the cost/benefit analysis that might help inform your preferences. This article attempts to answer the question, “How do you choose Read More >
Be Case Sensitive With Case Conversion in Emacs
There are case conversion commands built into Emacs that convert the case (upper case or lower case) for individual words, words in a series (including words searched or selected by regular expressions), or complete highlighted regions of text (like paragraphs, or multiple paragraphs in a series, or even multiple paragraphs selected by regular expressions). Case Read More >
