If you don’t have the luxury of a second computer or on-line Virtual Server it’s a good idea to have a local instance of WordPress for mirrored back and related development, under OSX Leopard this is quite easy to configure.

Firstly you need to install the server side of things (Apache, MySQL, php & phpMyAdmin), this is quite straightforward and I’ve a separate quick and easy ‘How To’ for that HERE.

Once you have the back-end sorted go into phpMyAdmin and create a new database called wordpress with global full privilege access for the root user

Next, download the latest version of WordPress from HERE, expand it and copy the contents (not the full folder) to your /sites directory, either into the root or to a created/named sub-folder depending on your preference for access (i.e http://localhost/ or http://localhost/<blogname>).

Look for wp-config.sample.php amongst the wordpress files and open it with a text editor, input the database name, user and password you created earlier (DB_HOST will invariably stay as localhost, I’ve never had to change it even for a server side install), re-save the file as wp-config.php.

To start the actual installation, access the location of the WP install file through your browser at either the root – http://localhost/wp-admin/install.php or at the named sub-folder location you created – i.e http://localhost/<blogname>/wp-admin/install.php), the installation will start and you’ll be presented with a login password for the admin account when it’s done, it literally takes but a few seconds.

To log in use the same URL but omit the install.php tag, once in you can manage and create just as you would for your web based version.

To mirror-import your blog out of it’s web location just use the export/import feature under the tools side menu (export from the web version & import to your local installation), you’ll have to manually set up your matched theme and plugins for a truly visual mirrored copy but the import procedure will offer the option to pull in your images which is quite cool. Bear in mind also that all pre-created hyperlinks are relational to your online instance only so won’t be relative locally, however this is merely a backup we’re working with as oppose to a fully functional live web facing version so it’s no big deal.

Even if you don’t fancy a fully mirrored local instance of your blog site it’s a VERY good idea to keep a periodic copy of just the exported .XML file for peace of mind in case the worst happens, it’s so quick and easy to do and the file takes up no space, I religiously save a fresh copy after every new post.

In the absence of any more imminent Ubuntu releases for a while today I’ve moved back to my other source  of amusement, the iPod Touch, and in particular mobile ‘Document Management’.

Today I’ve discovered the Mobile Studio app from the guys at PixioTech, but what is it, why is it so useful, how does it work, what can you use it for, and how come I’ve only just discovered it?

What is it? Well, it’s an iPhone/iPod Touch app (obviously) and although it’s not free at £1.19 I don’t think it’ll break the bank.

Why is it useful? Mobile studio utilises your devices wi-fi connection and enables you to transfer files to and from your device using any network enabled computer running any flavour of operating system, yes that’s right, OSX, Linux or Microsoft. The iPod/iPhone needs a wireless connection to your network but the client computer can be either hard wired or wi-fi’d.

How does it work? Download and install it to your device from the App store, fire it up and you’ll see five folders – Docs, Movies, Music, Pictures & Sample files (you can edit these, alter  RW options etc, or delete them), you’ll also see a green bi-directional arrow transfer button down the bottom right hand corner of the Touch screen, this is the key to it all, tap it and you’re taken into the sharing screen, tap start from there and you’re shown your iPhone (or Touch’s) wireless ftp address & access port number (mine for example is ftp://192.168.1.11:2121), just use this address in the ftp program on your computer to access the folders on the iPod Touch/iPhone (obviously both devices must be on the same IP subnet). I use ‘Transmit‘ for ftp on my Mac because I like it but Cyberduck is a great free alternative. Just drag and drop, or whatever you do .

What can you use it for? Well not only can you easily transfer non-iTunes based files over from your desktop computer for storage, backup and viewing but you can now edit them later while you’re out and about, yes, I know, cool huh, but there’s more, you can also email them on when you’re done. Mobile studio can handle a multitude of workable file formats from MS Office to iWork to image & audio, basic text and PDF viewing, iPhone users can also take photos from inside the application and edit/mail them straight off, most useful. Unfortunately there’s no method (as yet) for transferring received email files into Mobile Studio however development is an ongoing process and I’m sure it’ll come, for now it’s a huge step up from the standard offering and what with this and now being able to SKYPE from the iPod Touch it seems things are really coming together.

And why haven’t I discovered this sooner? Well it’s a big place the internet, it takes some getting round, I do my best.

Indeed, it’s all very well and good having all this data flying about, data on your USB key, data in the Drop Box cloud, data on your hard disk, data here, data there….but how secure is it? What if you lose your USB key? It wasn’t password protected was it, no, I didn’t think so, don’t berate yourselves though, I’m invariably slack too sometimes (although only ‘sometimes’ I may add).

If you’re a Mac OSX user there’s a super quick, super efficient and super clean way to keep things in check and secure, it just involves dropping a level, let me explain.

OSX uses a format called the Disk Image File (.DMG), you may have seen these when you’ve downloaded software and installed it, clicking the DMG *mounts* the image on the desktop so you can work with it (it’s a legacy UNIX thing), anyway, what you may not be aware of is that you can create your own DMG file of more or less any size which once mounted you can drag files to and from just like you would to any drive. Once closed (un-mounted) all files are contained inside it as a single entity which you can copy to your cloud storage, USB key or anywhere you like, cool huh, however here’s the real killer – you can encrypt and password protect it using 256-bit AES encryption, sounds impressive? It is, it’s the top level encryption standard as used by the US Government (and we all know those guys don’t mess about).

Interested? Fancy a go? Here’s the procedure, it’s very easy, check the image above and reference with the following bullet points (gotta love a few bullets..!) >

• Open Disk Utility (this is in /Applications/Utilities/)
• Click “New Image” in the toolbar
• In the “Save As” field choose a name for your DMG
• The “Volume Name” is what the name of the disk will be when it’s mounted.
• Choosing a size depends on what you want to store, for general document storage 100 MB should be more than adequate.
• Choose “Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)“
• Choose “256-bit AES encryption“
• Choose “No partition map“
• Choose “read/write disk image“
• And finally click “Create“

When asked for a password make sure it’s a secure one (it will tell you) and DON’T check the box to save it in your keychain (obviously, doh…!). Disk Utility will mount the image once it’s finished creating it, just drag your files into it and un-mount when your done (ctrl + click & ‘eject’), to re-mount just click the DMG and enter that secure password.

And that’s it, a secure, portable and secure software container for all your sensitive data, and don’t worry if you need to add more stuff, you can easily re-size it later in Disk Utility (mine grew to 250GB due to some scanned docs, say no more).

It would be reassuring if certain people paid more attention to data security as it’s an obvious area of widespread and shameful neglect. Here of course I’m referring to the spate of ‘Government’ owned laptops abundantly stolen from cars over the past few years and the resulting data leakages, there are no excuses, as I’ve shown here data security is both easy and free, well, if you’re a Mac user anyway.

I know I rattle on about the advantages of using the cloud for application delivery and yes, I do believe it’s the future of computing as we know it (once the interweb catches up with our needs that is) however for complete integration as a storage repository for our larger bits and bobs of data cloud dumping is presently just too slow and too expensive.

Docs from Google, or a Business Management suite from JING are all presently well and good, of that there’s no doubt, and both are already sat waiting for *us* to catch up however at an average of $12 per 1GB per year you’d need a pretty good reason to shell out for a decent sized off-site pot for your dynamic personal data, especially with upload speeds averaging around 500k (that’s half a megabyte in real money), it  would take forever to upload that 2.3GB Adobe CS3 .DMG file let alone work with it dynamically, so, what gives? You need backup, you want to get as much data as possible off that stupidly pointless 16GB Netbook SSD but don’t fancy lugging around a USB hard drive, even if it is only a 2.5 inch jobbie, what’s the option? Is there one? Well yes, you just need to think a bit laterally, not look ‘too’ technically far ahead and maybe revisit an old favourite who’s been with us for a few years now steadily growing in the background, I’m taking about that little fella the USB key….!

Yes, the little fella is actually no longer such a *little fella*, he’s been in the gym pumping iron. Check out the crazy 64GB Jet Flash drive from Transcend (as pictured above), cool huh, not only for it’s mental storage capacity but don’t you think it would look at home in any Sci-Fi movie? (I’ve just watched Wall-E – LOL). They’re cheap too, under £100 ($150), not bad, equivalent cloud storage would set you back £520 ($768) and you’d have to renew it every year.

I’ve been using a 16GB USB key for 6 months now and am continually amazed at just how much use it gets. It just hangs off my keyring and goes everywhere I go, I literally use it daily (you never know when you’re going to need some data storage on the beach). Seriously though it IS incredibly (and surprisingly) useful. I’ve just been to Florida for example and forgot to take my Freecom USB Hard drive to transfer some (*cough*) ‘important’ files from my mate Andy, not a problem – USB key to the rescue..! It’s so small it’s always with me and always ready, you just don’t have to think about it, I love it and having a whopping 64GB instead would be even more awesome. We’re back in the UK in 10 weeks and I’ll most definitely be ordering (they’ll be even cheaper then too, bonus).

Free cloud storage anyone?

I’ve only being able to find a maximum of 10GB for free up until now, mostly a 50/50 split of synchronised media/other data from the likes of Humyo and had settled on the 2GB allocation from the wonderful people at Dropbox, however a possible alternative seems to have sprung up from a rather controversial source, the monolithic IT giant themselves Microsoft who are offering a free 25GB ‘Skydrive‘ to all and sundry.

Too Much Green aims to highlight cost effective alternatives from the stable world of open standards and see no reason at all for running an expensive virus prone Microsoft operating system on your desktop PC merely to access the ever increasing world of browser based cloud apps when there’s Ubuntu to choose from, it’s a no brainer, however you can’t ignore a free 25GB of cloud storage, you just can’t, so I haven’t, hell has frozen over and I now have a Windows Live ID….

So what’s it like to use? Well, not ideal unfortunately, it’s certainly no FTP offering, you can’t upload folders and there’s a 50MB limit on file sizes, good effort, close – but no cigar I’m afraid, I’ll see how it pans out but as my main requirement for cloud storage is for use as an archive software library I can’t see it being much use above my existing DropBox space.

Will I EVER manage to upload my 2.3GBG Adobe CS3 .DMG? I must admit it’s not looking promising.

In todays global financial meltdown we’ve never been as aware of our cashflow, I’m certainly more on the case than I’ve ever been although do suspect moving from a regular job with a regular wage dropping in month in month out to a more *interesting* income stream may have contributed somewhat, in fact yes, most definitely.

Online Banking is the norm these days but if you’re like me you may also keep your own separate tally (I’m the sort of guy who keeps all his ATM slips for weekly input into my own records). There’s a whole shedload of personal finance packages out there with the apparent best ones obviously to pay for if you want to install them onto your computer (“Quicken” for example, admittedly free online but only US based as they request a ZIP code, plus it’s all listed in $) however me being me and this being Too Much Green I do of course have a really nice free alternative from the cloud (where else), this post will not only save you money it will help you to keep track of the cash you already have.

I use an online (cloud) service called ‘Moneytrackin‘ which is clean, simple and intuitive, however it’s other big pull for me is it’s total anonymity (depending on how you configure it). You can set yourself up as Yogi Bear if you wanted with an account named “Yogis Picnic Basket Fund”, it doesn’t matter as you’re only keeping a tally of numbers, it’s simple and effective (to coin a phrase).

You can set up as many accounts as you like in multiple currencies (Boo Boo’s college fund or Ranger Smiths Retirement), you can add tags and categories, view graphs and expenditure forecasts, set up periodic transactions, transfer between accounts and projects, set monthly limits and both export and import data in CSV or XLS format, the service also provides a public API should you wish to link in with third party applications.

I really like it, it’s free, it’s cloud based and there’s an iPhone/iPod Touch app, what more could you want.

It’s just a shame the Picnic Basket Fund isn’t doing as well as it was, ING emailed this morning with their new interest rate – a whopping 1%, jesus, this time last year I was pulling 6.5, mind you that was from an Icelandic institution, what fun I had when that all went tits up.

As you know I’m presently a big fan of the mobile lifestyle, partly through need and related ease of transportation but also partly due to the mental clarity and lack of conscious clutter it brings, it’s quick, compact and cathartic being able to pack all my worldly possessions into a Caterpillar travel case and a Crumpler backpack – clothes, toiletries, books and tech, it’s all in there.

Admittedly I could do it all with even less as I hang on to a few nice to haves. I have two cameras for example, the little robust W60 is the one for travel proofing and the E-410, although a DSLR, in it’s defence (and mine) is the smallest of it’s kind, I also only have the kit lens so it’s no real hardship to lug about for higher end photo-projects such as KONEKTION:KOMUTE. As for computing, my needs are a notch above a regular traveler due to the nature of my work with JINGSOFTWARE but even so are trimmed to the bone by the wonderfully lightweight and inversely powerful MacBook Air, however for anyone without the need for full blown development I.T resources en-route there are some superb options available for basic e-mail, web & SKYPE/Twitter-ing, it depends how low you want to go and how much you’ve refined your addiction/need for compulsive on line activity (I struggle with that, I know it and admit it).

Across the modern connected world of today there’s an abundance of internet cafes which negate completely the need to carry any personal tech at all, coupled with the increasing use of cloud computing it’s logical and  easy to keep copies of important documents online with photographs uploaded into the likes of Flickr or Picasa, everything’s accessible but you are of course tied to the cafes with their hourly surfing costs, so, what are the options?

Let’s pass over netbooks for a start, although portable (and fashionable) they’re still no more than a small laptop, we can get much more compact and a great place to start is the iPod Touch.

Basically the Touch is a Wi-Fi enabled mini AppleMac computer running OSX, as such it runs the Safari browser for 640×480 web surfing, will connect to Twitter & Faceache and will allow you to check your e-mail, it’ll even play MP3′s (remember it IS an iPod..!), with the addition of an inline headset mic the 2nd gen units will also function as a verbal comms device using apps such as TruPhone, if SKYPE got their act together and brought out a native client for the Touch’s we’d really be motoring.
The Touch’s are a great little device but as WYGIWYH units (what you get is what you have) the lack of any data manipulation can be restrictive, you’re also limited to the availability of Wi-Fi and although it’s getting better free hotspots are still substantially in the minority…….plus…….we can go even smaller, not only that but smaller with more options, how about a computer on your keyring? If you need data manipulation & local file access coupled with uber portability in the extreme you could always consider a PenDrive computer.

A PenDrive computer isn’t exactly as it sounds, of course not, a USB stick sized computer would obviously be too small to use. What a PenDrive computer does is to hold the operating system and your data files only, you have your own personal configuration and information all ready to roll, all you need is a host to plug it into and boot from, it’s much easier to ask someone for a loan of their computer if you’re not going to be touching their installed operating system (and reading their emails). Data on the host computer isn’t accessed or modified in anyway and once done the files you were working on are saved, the stick goes back on your keyring and the host grinds itself away booting it’s virus riddled instance of Windows XP from it’s rattly old IDE hard disk (ha ha).

All operating systems these days have configurable options for creation of a USB PenDrive computer however to keep things cheap, robust, cross platform and fun I’d recommend a flavour of Linux from the world of open source, specifically Linux Mint, or the even cooler cat in the club – Dreamlinux, the swish OSX-ey style desktop release from Brazil (yep, Brazil…!). Both are freely available distributions based on the Debian>Ubuntu version of Linux but with an even more desktop orientated experience and comprehensive range of ready to roll applications, they both look superb and PenDrive creation is a breeze.

PenDrive computing is an embryonically exciting area with huge potential due to the increasingly mobile human demographic and our related computing requirements, admittedly it doesn’t offer the flexibility of personal web access from your room in the hotel like the iPod Touch but hey – use both, that’s the beauty of the whole solution. A USB PenDrive computer needs a footprint of around 2GB max, add an extra couple more for extremes of data storage and you still won’t break the bank, I use a 16GB USB stick from Play.Com which cost me under £20, it doesn’t break the bank, or my back.