Choosing which email address to use for Google Groups

August 12, 2010 By

I’ve gotten a couple of variations on this question recently:

I’ve been invited to use a Google Group, but I want to use a different email address than the one used to invite me. Can I change my email address in my Google Group profile? Or add a different address?

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is that the way you accomplish this depends on the way your addresses are viewed by Google.

This post should help those of you with more than one email address. Especially since you probably have a darned good reason for having multiple email addresses (to filter specific types of email to specific accounts, for instance), and right now Google seems to be messing you up.

There are two scenarios that could give rise to this situation.

Scenario 1: You just want to add another email address to your existing Google account

You can add an alternate email address to your Google account (here are Google’s help pages for alternate email addresses), and then choose which of those emails to use for your Google Group stuff. Here are the steps to follow:

  1. When logged into any Google service (gmail, Groups, Blogger, Reader, Calendar, etc.) look in the top right corner of your screen. Click the link that says “My Account.” It might also be in a drop-down labeled “Settings.”
  2. Under Personal Settings (right column) of the Google Account page, you’ll see your email address. Click the small blue link below it that says “Edit.”
  3. On this page, you can enter an additional email address (it won’t replace your existing email address) to use with this Google Account. You could also change your address, but I’d recommend keeping the same main address and adding an alternate address as saner in the long run.
  4. Google will send a verification message to this alternate email address, containing a link you must click.
  5. After you’ve clicked the link, you should be able to log into any Google Group, click “Edit my membership,” and choose from a drop-down menu containing your verified email addresses to use for all notifications etc. for that group. Don’t forget to click “Save these settings.”

That should do it for most people.

Scenario 2: You have more than one Google account

You’ll know you fall into this category if you followed the Scenario 1 steps, but got stopped at Step 3 by Google telling you that you can’t use the additional email address because it’s already associated with a Google account.

This also happens if you try to use a gmail address as an alternate email address — because a gmail account is automatically a separate Google account. Gah!

Most people don’t need more than one Google account, but it’s quite easy to get there by accident. I’m actually one of those myself — I have an “old” Google account that I used to create blogs on Blogger long ago, and then somehow I ended up setting up a totally new one so I could use gmail. So if that’s what happened to you, rest assured, you’re not alone.

Google does not provide a way to merge two Google accounts. Here’s their official help page saying there’s no way to merge accounts.

So you can either choose to use the invited address for your Google Group (see Google’s help topic on using multiple Google accounts simultaneously), or you can join the group again with your preferred Google account (this might involve asking the Group administrator to re-invite or re-add you with a different address, if it’s an invitation-only Group).

Hope this helps!

Google is huge and mighty and sometimes quite confusing. Got more Google questions? Leave a comment here, and I’ll see if I can point you in the right direction!

Filed Under: From the Mailbag, General How-To's Tagged With: , , ,

Help! Someone hacked my Twitter account!

March 1, 2010 By

Here’s a timely question from the mailbag:

People on Twitter are reporting getting DMs from me with links that I didn’t send. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes, being on Twitter in the first place feels like a stretch — and now I feel like I need to wear some kind of sign saying Beware – I spread evil phishing crap. Help!

First of all: Big hugs for the worry and the shame. I’m so sorry the evil phishing crap slimed you. You don’t deserve that at all, and it’s completely not your fault. Not! Fair!

Next, here’s a 3-step plan to give you in-the-hard reassurance and info.

Three things to do immediately if you even slightly suspect that your Twitter account has been hacked

  1. Change your Twitter password (on the Twitter site itself, by really truly logging into your account). This will solve the vast majority of problems.
  2. Follow Twitter’s instructions to revoke connections to third-party services that may have obtained access to your password.
  3. Follow @spam and @safety, which are official Twitter accounts for phishing updates and info.

You can change your password again if you have any doubts at all about the timing or legitimacy of where you made the password change. There’s no downside to changing your password multiple times.

If you really want to (and it’s OK if not — if this is too much like wearing a scarlet letter) you can tweet a regular public tweet that says in a friendly way “hey everyone, please ignore any DMs that appear to be from me but contain a strange link. The phish-monster got me and I’ve fixed it now.”

And you can respond individually, if you want to and it feels right, to people who say they got such a message from you.

But don’t feel like you have to do that.

How did someone get into my Twitter account?

What happened to you is fairly common. I’m trying for reassurance-mode here, not meaning to diminish the reality or the pain of realizing someone is using your account for nefarious purposes.

It happens when someone or some outside service gets ahold of your Twitter password. Not through Twitter itself, but through some third-party service that asks you for it for what seems like a legitimate reason. There are certainly legitimate reasons to give your Twitter password to another service — for instance, if you use a Twitter client like Tweetdeck, or you have linked your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The evil hackers usually pose as a legitimate service or invent some reason you need to give out your Twitter password.

So if you change your password with Twitter and then don’t enter it anywhere else, their access to your account is cut off.

I get these DMs-with-weird-links from friends sometimes (I got one this morning, actually. Not from you!). And I usually DM them back to warn them that they should change their password — trying again for supportiveness and helpfulness and reassurance, which can be hard to get across in 140 characters!

But I never blame them or think they’re evil. I blame the evil phishers for being mean to my nice friends. And I think most experienced Twitter users feel the same way. We know it’s not your fault, and we know you’re not an evil phisher.

Filed Under: From the Mailbag, General How-To's Tagged With: , , ,

How to add an audio clip to your WordPress site

January 20, 2010 By

Here’s a timely question from the mailbag:

“How do I put an audio clip on my website?”

It’s timely because I just held a teleclass yesterday, and I wanted to post a quick clip on the blog today, now that I’ve sent the complete call recording out to people who signed up (and yes, you can still sign up and get the recording here).

Let’s assume that you’re not using a paid audio-hosting service (like AudioAcrobat), and would like to upload an audio file directly to your WordPress website so people can listen and download. Here’s an example:

(This is a 6-minute clip of me talking about three clues that might mean your website is ready for a shopping cart — and reassuring you that you might not need one, after all.)

To play this clip in your web browser, simply click the button. A new tab will open and begin playing the clip.

To download this clip to your computer, CTRL-click (Mac users) or right-click (PC users) the button and select “Save Link As” from the menu that pops up. Then give the file a name and location, and it will be downloaded to your hard drive.

Check it out: This is going to be so meta. I’m going to take screen shots of myself adding a clip to this very post. Whoa!

Step 1:Upload the audio file to WordPress

Figure 1: Uploading media from within the "Edit Post" screen

In the “Edit Post” screen, there’s a handy toolbar for adding pictures, videos, music, and other files (like, say, PDFs or PowerPoint files). Just click the button that looks like a musical note (if you hover over it, a tooltip saying “Add Audio” will pop up as shown in Figure 1). That triggers the popup window shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The "Select Files" popup window

There are three tabs at the top of this window:

  • From Computer is what we’re doing today: Uploading a file you have on your hard drive.
  • From URL is when you want to link to a file that’s already online somewhere else (like your Flickr stream, or your BlogTalkRadio account).
  • Media Library is a list of the files you’ve already uploaded to your WordPress site.

Clicking the “From Computer” tab and then the Select Files button lets you browse your hard drive and select files to upload, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Selecting an audio clip to upload from your hard drive

Important note: WordPress comes with a default size limit on uploads. So this easy-upload process only works for files that are smaller than 7Mb. Most images and PDFs easily fall under this limit, as will short mp3 audio clips (usually less than about 15 minutes — though this is highly variable depending on the recording and encoding settings).

If you want to upload a larger file, like a one-hour teleclass, the easiest way to do this is to use FTP to manually upload it. And that’s a whole nother post.

Step 2: Insert the file into your post

Figure 4: Inserting a file into a post

Once the file is uploaded (you’ll see a progress bar for a moment or two), you’ll see some information about the file, and at the bottom of the window, a button labeled “Insert into Post,” as shown in Figure 4.

Before you click that button, you probably want to edit the “Title” field in this window, because that text is going to show up as a clickable link in your published post. So instead of having a link to a possibly-cryptic file name, you might want to change that text to something relevant, like this:

Three clues that you’re ready for a shopping cart (6 minutes long, 2.9Mb)

Now you’re ready to click the Insert button to automagically insert a link to your audio file into your post. And if you clicked too soon or want to change the link text, you can still do that right in the editing window.

Or you can insert a button or graphic, as shown at the beginning of this post, and link it up to your audio clip so there’s a nice obvious place for your visitors to click.

Step 3: Test the link

OK, you got the link inserted, and it says what you want. You’re basically done.

But you should take the time to test the link anyway. You can do it by previewing your post, or you can do it after you publish the post. Just click the link and make sure that it works. Seriously, one click. Is that too much effort for a little peace of mind?

Inserting an audio player

OK. That method works. But what if you want your visitors to be able to play the file without leaving your post or opening a new window or tab?

That’s a whole nother post: How to use the WPAudio plugin to embed an audio clip in WordPress. If you want to do a lot of work with audio files, the method I’ve described in this post will get clunky pretty fast, but if you’re at the hey-I-want-to-try-this-out stage, it will work fine for your first few clips.

Filed Under: From the Mailbag, WordPress How-To's Tagged With: , ,

Do I really need WordPress? Can’t I just start with Blogger?

December 8, 2009 By

This question comes straight from the mailbag:

Is it okay to just start on Blogger? I tried WordPress but it frustrated the heck out of me.

I’m so glad you asked. It’s true that I’ve been hyping WordPress for its power, flexibility, and ease of use. But there are a couple of practical barriers to getting started:

  • Even though the WordPress software itself is free, you’ll need a web hosting account and a domain name, both of which you’ll have to pay for.
  • Even though WordPress can be very easy to use once it’s set up properly, you still have to figure out how to get it installed and configured, which honestly isn’t that easy if you’re just starting out.

Now, I’ve got the solution to the second problem: You can hire me to install and configure WordPress so you can start blogging without having to tear your hair out trying to figure out how to get your site set up.

But that doesn’t help with the first problem (in fact, it adds to it, because in addition to buying hosting and a domain name, you’re now paying my fees).

When Blogger is better

So, if your website budget is somewhere between hahahahahaha what budget? and $500 per year (I’ll break this down in tomorrow’s post), or if you’re simply a little — or completely — freaked out by the idea of having a hosting account and running your own blog, Blogger is an ideal solution.

Here’s why.

  • Blogger is free. As in completely free. No hidden charges, no paid upgrades for pro versions, no fees of any kind.
  • Blogger is totally web-based. You don’t need a hosting account, and to manage your blog all you need to do is login to your Blogger.com account. This also means that your site is backed up so it’s difficult to lose anything.
  • You never have to worry about upgrading or reinstalling anything, because Blogger takes care of all of that behind the scenes for you.
  • Blogger’s interface is completely visual (the jargony term is WYSIWYG, for What You See Is What You Get). Move stuff around by dragging and dropping, change settings by typing and clicking checkboxes, and never worry about the underlying (and scary) code.
  • At the same time, you have access to the code if you really want to get under the hood (see the flip side of this below).
  • Blogger is owned by the mighty Google, which means that it is seamlessly integrated with other Google-owned goodies like Feedburner, AdSense, and Google Analytics.

Be the master of your own domain

So, yes, absolutely, go with Blogger if that’s what works for you right now, especially if your budget is zero.

There are lots of free resources and tutorials out there, and I plan to add some Blogger how-to’s to this very blog (if you want to ask a question or suggest a Blogger how-to, leave a comment here or drop me a line).

That said, as soon as you can spare $10, you should immediately buy yourself a domain name. If you can spare slightly more than $10, lock in your domain registration for a couple of years.

You can use your domain name with your Blogger account (no extra fees from Blogger for this), so instead of yourblogname.blogspot.com, you can now point people to www.yourblogname.com, which is much much better for your business and also provides for a seamless transition if and when you decide to move to WordPress.

When you realize that Blogger is a gateway drug

You can blog happily along on Blogger for quite awhile. And if it’s working for you, there’s no reason to fix what ain’t broke. You can even skip the rest of this post. Honest.

But if you notice any of these symptoms:

  • You wish you could have a customized theme, because you can’t quite tweak your Blogger template to give you the exact look you want
  • You’re looking at a premium theme like Thesis or Headway, both of which are exclusive to WordPress
  • You’re considering paying someone to customize your Blogger template or design a custom header for you
  • You want advanced functionality, like setting up a membership site, a forum, or a complex online store
  • You want your blog to be a part of a “regular” website, or you want your site to have a front page that’s not bloggy-looking

…you might be ready to move from Blogger.com to a self-hosted WordPress site.

If you’re going to drop any bucks on customizing your site, you’d be better off going with WordPress where you have complete and total control. You want to make sure you have the resources to set it up properly and get the help you need, though. And that’s the subject of tomorrow’s post, so stay tuned.

Have a question for my mailbag? Leave a comment or drop me a line.

Filed Under: From the Mailbag Tagged With: , , , ,