Site Updates at GreenCross.ch and Weggis.net

Monday, July 24, 2006 @ 11:49 pm by Sofie Hofmann

This morning, I updated the “Publications” pages of Green Cross Switzerland. The new issue, particularly the August issue, of the newsletter of Green Cross Switzerland is now available in German (Nachrichten 03/2006 – PDF 153 KB) and French (Les Nouvelles 03/2006 – PDF 162 KB) languages.

Then I finally finished resizing the remaining pictures I took during the Weggis Rose Festival 2006. I uploaded more photos at Weggis.net, the presentation of the Rose Queen 2006 together with the Rose Princesses on July 09, 2006 at the Weggis Pavilion.

I also updated my blog at Simply Sofie SofieHofmann.com. We had a week vacation, played golf and went to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn, the most popular mountain in Switzerland. I will upload some of the photos later.

Weggis Rose Festival 2006 Photos

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 @ 3:28 pm by Sofie Hofmann

I just updated Weggis.net site. Weggis had its Rose Festival on July 7-9, 2006. Rose Festival, called “Rosenfest” in German, is a yearly event in Weggis normally being held during the first weekend of July. Photos during the Rose Festival 2006 in Weggis are now online. You can view the photos at Weggis.net Rose Festival 2006 Photos.

Photos of the Rose Princesses and the Rose Queen 2006 are not yet available but I will try to upload them later.

New Weggis.net, WordPress, WP Widgets

Thursday, July 6, 2006 @ 2:43 pm by Sofie Hofmann

Finally, I was able to revise Weggis.net Web site. The look is not really different from the old web design. I just improved it a little bit. I changed all the pages from HTML to XHTML and PHP but then realized that I’d better integrate it with WordPress.

I integrated my own coded XHTML and PHP pages with WordPress. I redirected HTML pages to the new pages. Weggis.net is now more interactive. I just designed my own theme based on the original site.

I installed the latest version of WordPress 2.0.3 and also used WordPress Widgets. The Widgets make the sidebar easy to tweak. If what you want is not included in the original zip file, just download that particular Widget Plugin, upload it at the Plugins folder and activate it. Once activated, you’ll see the Sidebar Widgets along with the Themes, Theme Editor at the Site Admin Presentation. If the Widget Plugin is not activated, then you will not see any change at the Site Admin Presentation.

I started revising it last week, exactly seven days ago. So I was quite busy for the past few days. But even before that, I was already quite busy then. I was busy revising my other websites and doing the donation pages of Green Cross Switzerland.

Speaking of Green Cross Switzerland, we haven’t finalized the donation pages yet. I’m still waiting for the English, Italian and French translations as the pages were done in German language.

Yesterday, I updated Green Cross Switzerland Media pages regarding the 1st National Nuclear Dialogue in Moscow on July 3-4, 2006. The Nuclear and Disarmament Experts emphasize the importance of the demilitarization of the materials and weapons of mass destruction.

The National Nuclear Dialogue was held 10 days before the 2006 G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia where efforts of the G8 led “Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction” will be highly prioritized.

Read the reports in German and French languages at the website of Green Cross Switzerland for more information.

PHP, MySQL, HTML, External Hard Disk Drive

Friday, June 30, 2006 @ 11:57 pm by Sofie Hofmann

I’ve been too busy lately. Few days ago, I revised the PHP codes of my personal site Simply Sofie at SofieHofmann.com. It’s better now and easier to update. I also updated some data.

I didn’t really appreciate PHP before because of MySQL. I just hated the idea that I always have to back-up my database and if ever I forget to do it, and then something happened (i.e. lost database), then I will be left with nothing and have to do it all over again.

I am not a programmer just a simple hobby web designer but if I would like to be more effective, I need to know PHP. So I learned PHP through reading tutorials on the net.

One way or another, I have learn to love PHP and MySQL but I will never forget HTML. If you would like to start designing a website, I will always recommend to start with HTML. Until now, I write my codes using notepad. I still use HTML/XHTML combined with PHP and MySQL.

Since I have to download a lot all the time, considering that I also take a lot of pictures, I’m now running out of space in my hard disk drive. I still have a lot of pending hobby projects and I couldn’t really clean up my computer because I need to back up my data first.

Finally, my husband bought a 300 GB external hard disk drive today. He bought it for me. I was really so happy when I saw it. I can finally transfer my other data and erase some unnecessary files. What a relief!

XHTML, PHP, WordPress, YM, Yahoo! 360

Wednesday, June 21, 2006 @ 6:28 pm by Sofie Hofmann

Today, I changed the codes of my web design site, Sehdi.com – Sofie Estolloso Hofmann Designs International, from XHTML to PHP. I enhanced the index page with rotating images of my web designs with URL links and added the Latest Blog Posts, and so if you are regularly visiting my site, you will know right away if I updated my blog. I redirected the HTML pages to PHP pages using .htaccess. Then, I upgraded my sehdi.com blog from WordPress 1.5 to WordPress 2.0.3. Everything seems to be working fine.

That’s what good about WordPress, it’s not difficult to understand so you can configure it easily.

Yesterday, I revised the PHP codes of the donation pages of Green Cross Switzerland. I just need the translation of the German version to English, French and Italian languages, then everything will be in place and Green Cross Switzerland will finally be able to receive donations online through its site.

On other matters, Yahoo improved its Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.

According to Yahoo! 360 Team:

Yahoo! Messenger & Yahoo! 360° Working Together

The new version of Yahoo! Messenger has a great new feature called “plug-ins.”

Plug-ins are free, mini-applications that can be easily added to Yahoo! Messenger with Voice so that Messenger becomes more personal and interactive for you.

There’s a Yahoo! 360° plug-in on Messenger that lets you do some pretty cool stuff. You can read updates from your friends, see if you have new blog comments, and even write a blast or a blog entry – all from within Yahoo! Messenger.

Last night, I downloaded and installed the new beta version of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice (BETA) (8.0.0.505) with MyYahoo Module (7.5.0.1).

The new version is ok except for the Yahoo! Toolbar and Yahoo! Browser Services which are no longer optional if you want to install it or not. But you can uninstall the Yahoo! Toolbar if you don’t like it at all. (Updated on June 22, 2006 at 11:49 pm regarding the phrase that I just erased, see my next blog entry)

How do you uninstall it? It’s easy, just locate the “Edit” button, which appears like a pencil, click it and you will see “Uninstall” almost at the bottom. Just click it and the Yahoo! Toolbar is gone.

For more information, read the following at the Yahoo! Toolbar Help.

How do I remove Yahoo! Toolbar for Internet Explorer?

How do I remove Yahoo! Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox?

If you decide to install the new version of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice but don’t want the Yahoo! Toolbar, you just uninstall the toolbar after installing the new YM beta version.

That’s all and good luck!

Golf Update at SofieHofmann.com

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 @ 4:19 pm by Sofie Hofmann

I am sort of regularly updating my personal blog, Simply Sofie Blog at SofieHofmann.com these past few days despite my busy schedule. I think I will probably get the hang of it. Check out my personal blog and leave a note if you like.

Last night, I updated my blog and the Golf section of my personal website at Simply Sofie Sofiehofmann.com, added Source du Rhône Golf Club and Valley Golf & Country Club.

Source du Rhône Golf Club

Source du Rhône Golf Club Hole No. 4 Par 4

Green Cross Donation Page

Thursday, June 8, 2006 @ 9:13 pm by Sofie Hofmann

I finally finished the online donation pages of Green Cross Switzerland. I was configuring those pages day and night for more than a week before I left for the Philippines on April 16, 2006 but I was not able to finish them. For a week now, I started configuring them again and finally was able to finish them today. Thanks goodness, they’re finished!

I uploaded the pages and they’re actually available in 4 languages but still have to be checked by Green Cross Switzerland. If everything is ok, then Green Cross can now receive donations using credit card via Internet.

I also updated the media pages, the press releases are only available in German and French languages. In 2005, even without the online donation pages, Green Cross received donations in the amount of 6.7M Swiss Francs, a 26 percent increase from the previous year. Considering what Green Cross Switzerland had been doing for the past few years, I’m quite happy for those people responsible for it. To add to that, end of the year 2005, Green Cross Switzerland had 31,500 members. They need that kind of support. They deserved it.

Regarding the other sites, I decided to discontinue the guest book of my personal website, SofieHofmann.com, as well as the guest book of Pandan.gov.ph, the Official Website of the Municipality of Pandan, Antique, Philippines because of spams. I thought of upgrading to a higher version but I decided not to do it. Spammers will always find a way to spam the guest books.

MySQL and Few Site Updates

Wednesday, May 31, 2006 @ 2:24 pm by Sofie Hofmann

I was on vacation for a month and came back here in Switzerland 2 weeks ago. I felt exhausted just thinking about the work I left behind that I could not even do some updating to the sites.

Well, I finally updated the sites of Swiss Big Game Fishing and Green Cross Switzerland.

Last Saturday, the 27th of May, I added few photos at the Swiss Big Game Fishing and you can see those pictures at the “Fangerfolge” page. Literally, “Fang” as a noun means “Catch”, and “Erfolg” as a noun means “Success”.

Last night, I updated the site of Green Cross Switzerland, took the pop-ups, changed something on the pages that they updated when I was on vacation, and still working on some of the pages.

Regarding MySQL, I installed MySQL before in my computer and it was running ok, but few days ago I accidentally did something that I could not access my database afterwards. I could not fix it properly so I decided to uninstall it. I was able to re-install it last night.

I read these resources when I installed MySQL in my computer and thought that after what happened to me, I might as well write the links here for your reference. I have IIS (Internet Information Services) running in my computer and configure it so PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) would work aside from ASP (Active Server Pages).

Advice on setting up and configuring MySQL and mysqlcc
SwoofWare » How to be a WordPress WIMP
MySQL 5.0 Reference Manual
TUTORIAL: How to install PHP and MySQL on IIS
Installing MySQL to run with IIS
Free Workshop: How to Install PHP 5, Apache 2, MySQL 4.1, SQLite, SQLite Manager and XSLT on Windows
How to Install Apache, PHP and MySQL on Linux
MySQL Tutorial – Uninstalling MySQL as a Service
Mysql: How do you uninstall MySQL completely?

Some other resources that are very useful are Apache, Linux and Microsoft Windows.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to write all these so we have something to read.

Site Updates

Saturday, April 8, 2006 @ 12:43 am by Sofie Hofmann

I have been too busy lately. I updated several sites that I never had the time to update this blog. I hope you’ll try to find the time to visit the sites. You might find out that these updates are indeed informative.

I updated Green Cross Switzerland several times. It is always related to the fact that Green Cross will have a big event on April 26, 2006. PR-articles in German and French are available at the Publications pages in both languages. The pop-ups at the main pages were changed adding some new information regarding the event. Press releases in German and French were uploaded at the Media pages.

I updated the site of Pagtatap Foundation. I uploaded few photos of the Manggyan Medical Mission 2006 at the Activities section. Check out the 2006 Activities, Medical Mission page.

I updated the site of Philippine Seafarers Assistance Programme. Check out the Site / PSAP Updates page, quite interesting. Find out the story about Captain Roman Alcantara and his crew when the ship was arrested in Australia. There’s a Kuhang Marino Exhibit at the U.P. Vargas Museum until April 9, 2006. Singing Mate, a pioneering HIV/AIDS information material for seafarers can be downloaded at the site. It is a very popular education material in comics form published in 1999.

I also updated Bulalakaw, Pandan Antique Newsletter on the Net. This year’s issue of Bulalakaw is now available on the internet. Why don’t you visit the site, the stories are inspiring.

I updated the Official Website of the Municipality of Pandan, Antique, Philippines. Bugang River Cultural, Nature and Adventure Tour of Pandan, Antique, Region VI, was declared 1st runner-up of the “Hiyas ng Turismo 2006” nationwide search for new and undiscovered tourist destinations in the Philippines.

I actually updated a lot of sites but just wrote the latest updates here. Enjoy reading!

Bugang, Hiyas ng Turismo 2006 Finalist

Thursday, March 9, 2006 @ 4:57 pm by Sofie Hofmann

I just updated Pandan.gov.ph, Official Website of the Municipality of Pandan, Antique, Philippines and will update other sites as well to let you know that Bugang River was nominated as one of the Philippines’ 9 Best New Tourist Destinations.

Bugang, Hiyas ng Turismo 2006 Finalist

Bugang, One of the Philippines’ 9 Best New Tourist Destinations

Bugang River, Pandan, Antique, Philippines, Photo by Arvy Ocheda
March 09, 2006 – Bugang River of Pandan, Antique in Panay Island of the Visayas Region (Region VI) is one of the nine (9) finalists in a nationwide search for new and undiscovered tourist destinations dubbed as “Hiyas ng Turismo 2006”.

The search for the country’s best new destination was launched last year by the Women in Travel Manila and the Philippines’ Department of Tourism (DOT).

You can help Bugang River to win “Hiyas ng Turismo 2006” and become the Philippines’ best new tourist destination by sending your votes. To vote, just text: HIYAS(space)VOTE(space)BUGANG and send it to 2308 for Globe, 2951 for Smart and 2315 for Sun Cellular subscribers. Voting period is until March 16, 2006.

Text votes will comprise 30 percent of the total score and the remaining 70 percent will be coming from the national judges. Final judging will be on March 17, 2006 at 3 o’clock in the afternoon at the the Department of Tourism Auditorium. Awarding ceremony will be on March 28, 2006 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Pasay City, Philipines.

Read more at the Official Website of the Municipality of Pandan, Antique, Philippines dated March 09, 2006, Thursday
URL: http://www.pandan.gov.ph/news/flash/2006_03_09march2006.html