Welcome to VicLovan.com!
After you've installed Windows, the following link will give instructions and links for almost everything you will need for a completely up to date computer. Fully tweaked for performance and functionality. Most of the rest of the downloads can be found on the "Downloads and Tips" page linked to from the menu buttons.
START HERE!!! - How To: For new computers or computers with a fresh Windows installation.
The downloads and pics will continue to be updated so you'll just have to check back at least monthly. I've come across quite a few tips and tricks over the years and as I can I'll try to put them online. I'll probably try to put them in their own corner of the site.
There are links to pages and programs that are hosted on this site and on their own servers. Some of the bigger files are hosted here, such as the AutoPatcher files so that I can contribute to cut down on their bandwidth, for convenience, and faster downloads. I have quite a bit of bandwidth now so I don't mind sharing, and if the load gets to be too much I'll throttle it back. Basically that means that you should be able to download from here anytime. As I get time I'll be adding files for download directly from this site. The AutoPatcher files come out monthly so you'll just have to come back to get the updates.
One important thing to note about the programs I link to are that they are almost all free. Some of the programs may have extra options that do have a small cost, for instance Picasa Web Albums are free for the first 1GB (and counting!), but if you would like more space they offer it for an additional $5per year for 10 Gigabytes, or $20per year for 80 Gigabytes all the way up to $4k+ for 16Terabytes! I will try to always find programs that are free if possible.
If you have any suggestions, please email me at vic@viclovan.com and let me know. Thanks for visiting.
Vic
Updates about the site(s).
2010.03.13 The site has been a little "wobbly" lately. I have been back and forth with my web hosting company, IXWebhosting, to try to determine what is causing the slow downs. I have cut down on the number of unused plugins to the absolute minimum and have had the admins watch what is going on. I suspect something wrong with the database server, but they have not seen the issue in real time yet. If the site does not load at certain times, please hit the refresh button and try back in a minute or two. Most of the time the site will load, if a bit slow sometimes. I will keep working on this.
2009.09.09 The site seems to be working again. I reinstalled WordPress, the Atahualpa WP Theme, ran the backup, restore, and repair database utilities, saved every option for Athaualpa, saw a witch doctor, cussed my web host, and prayed a bit. If only I could figure out just what got it to work again I would feel better about it.
And then, while making this very post...
From my Twitter post
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!From my Twitter post
My web host has caught 2 "abusers" on my server in the last week. And now ALL of my sites are down! Just when my site started to work again.
I went to the web host and started a chat which took a long time and then I called. The phone support was much more informative and filled me in about what was going on with the server and the problem was resolved in about 20 minutes like he said. Good job server admins!
2009.09.06 Yes, something is broken on the site and some of the navigation is missing from the sidebar on the right and the pictures in the top of each page. I am still not sure what it is and am working to find it. If you do a search for something you have seen on the site then you will see the navigation and everything working. That may be a clue for me but I do not yet know. Sounds like the database is broken again but at least most all of the rest of the site is functional.
2009.08.23 The site was reverted to the old html site and now is back to the WordPress version of the site! Wow that blew(tech speak)! Something on the database server went wrong and the databases that basically run the sites got corrupted and nothing worked. I spent the most time with Jeremy(Thanks!) from IXwebhosting getting everything back up and not linking to other sites. There is still no word on what exactly went wrong but we'll keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't every happen again. I will be much more paranoid about doing backups in the future because at this point I am going to have to go back through the site to try to update what was un-done by using an older database. Some of the site changes and page updates simply are going to be lost. Hopefully it is not something that you linked to. If so let me know and I'll see if I can find or fix it.
2009.07.28 Sitemap is working again! There was a conflict with two plug-ins that create sitemaps. The one you see on the sitemap page is generated by Dagon Design Sitemap Generator and the other is the XML Sitemap Generator. It is possible that it may be a function of the new server and the settings there, but these two did not want to play together after the move and updates to both plug-ins. I really wanted both since the DD gives a very nice display of all the links on the site in an easy to read format, and the other submits all the pages to the search engines in a way they can understand and does it automatically. When you see that there are thousands of posts and many pages, you can understand why I want them.
2009.07.23 Hopefully all of the kinks are worked out of all the sites! A bit of SSL trouble had to be worked out this morning for this site. And I changed and double checked DNS pointers for all the sites. The last fix needed is to fix one pesky plug-in each for WordPress on this site and www.flannelstl.com.
2009.07.20 The site has been moved to an upgraded server with a newer back end and OS. Hopefully it will be a bit faster and more secure. I will link to a picture showing the number of files (49002) for all of the sites I host, and I had to transfer, once I get it uploaded.
2009.07.13 The "Atahualpa" theme this site uses, has been updated to "version 3.4.2" and there may be a few bugs here and there. I have slowly but surly been updating pages from the "old" site to the new WordPress version of VicLovan.com and I think I have about 1/4 of the old pages moved. If you find a link that does not work or points to the old page, send me an email from the contact me page and I will get it fixed.
2009.06.15 The News is moving! Once I get everything figured out this should work much smoother but for now the link to the news is http://www.viclovan.com/news/ and it will open in a new page. If I can get all the links working right it will be just another link but for now it is as if it is on a different site. This will clean up the site map for the main site quite a bit. I have left a couple of feeds on the main site and they will be duplicated on the news site also. - Thanks for the suggestion to move the feeds, Joe!
2009.06.10 Upgrade to WordPress 2.8 in progress. So far a couple of plugins are no longer compatible but everything else seems fine. If you see something please comment or email me to let me know. - Vic
2009.06.05 New Site Layout and Design!
If you have been here before you can see the site has gone through a MAJOR update. Once all of the pages have been converted over there will many more listings from page links navigation bar at the very top of the page. Just under that bar is a darker bar for posts. Pages and posts are similar on this site with the exception that the pages are static and the posts may change or go away. There still may be a few changes to the navigation so if you bookmark the site, you best bet is just to use "www.viclovan.com" since that will always work.
For the next few days the site is bound to be just a bit wobbly and have quite a few broken links as well as links that point back to the original site. Hopefully it is not too confusing for you. If nothing else try the search boxes to find what you are looking for. I will try to get everything running smoothly as soon as possible and if you are still unable to find something, just send me an email at vic@viclovan.com and I will try to assist you.
I am still working on the site and most likely will be for some time. I have added a fairly large number of posts via RSS (Really Simple Syndication). They are from some, but not all of the sites and stories I try to keep up on. Since I love almost all things Google, their Gmail Blog is listed under the How To and Tips listed listed in the posts bar. There are a lot of posts from Engadget.com, pcworld.com, techcrunch.com, and Neowin.net. They may well have some overlap, but for the most part they all have interesting stories and views in and about the tech world.