How to Upgrade WordPress (.org) Blogs

ZPZorba Press is moving from the hand-coded website, to a WordPress blog, at http://www.Zorba.us. The website is expanding, and we are keeping the best of the old site, and adding many new features to the new one. Why use WordPress? ... WordPress allows the publishing of "pages", rather than blog posts only. WP has has many useful plug-ins that make the site easier to manage, and add features for your blog readers. Best of all: there is an active community of very intelligent WordPress users, who will cheerfully answer your questions whenever you need technical help.

The inevitable happens when you least expect it: Soon after we added tons of content to the new website, a new version of WordPress arrived, version 2.85.

Do you let things be? or Do you upgrade to the latest, and risk losing your data?

First you backup everything (WordPress files and Database files) — and then you upgrade.

There are many ways to do this: here's mine.

1. Contact the creator of your WordPress Theme, and ask if it is compatible with the latest version of WordPress (at the time of this writing, that is WordPress 2.85).

2. Back up your WordPress files, using an an FTP program, such as FileZilla. Copy the files from your web host to your computer desktop.

It would be nice if that backed up everything: but it doesn't. Lots of important stuff is stored in your MySQL database.

3. Log in to your web hosting company's Control Panel. Access the database section. Find the database that is associated with your WordPress Blog. Now, using PHPadmin, download a zipped copy of your database files.

Details about that process, from better geeks than me, are here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database

4. Confirm that everything has been backed up. Look inside your WordPress folder; and peek into the zipped file with a zip preview program, such as Zipeg.

5. Now go to your WordPress blog Dashboard. You will see that near the top is a convenient reminder to Upgrade.

I tried "Automatic Upgrade" but nothing happened.

6. Download the zipped version of the latest WordPress. Unzip it, and you get a folder that says "WordPress".

7. Open FileZilla, and copy this latest version to the same directory on your web server as your current version of WordPress.

When FileZilla asks "Should it overwrite ... "

I changed the settings to Yes, if newer; only during this queue.

Files begin to upload before your eyes.

8. Now, before the test to see if you've just ruined the entire blog you've worked on for three weeks, leave your computer, and then make a strong cup of tea.

9. When all the files have been uploaded via FileZilla, look at your blog's Dashboard.

Does it say: You are using version 2.85 ? (latest version number).

Good! ... Something happened.

10. Now check your blog, starting with the home page.

All the pages, posts, images in the right place? ... Nothing disappeared without a trace, like money invested on Wall Street?

Congratulations! ... You have successfully upgraded your WordPress.org blog.

Here's a suggestion for WordPress 3.0:
A successful upgrade should be celebrated with an animated screen containing fireworks and stirring music.

Thanks, WordPress, for making upgrading relatively simple -- and without a problem.

What is the key step in this process? ... Back up all your files and database data before you begin to upgrade.

Michael Pastore
http://www.Zorba.us


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Ebooks Save Millions of Trees: 10 Ideas For Sustainable Publishing

Is print publishing an environmental catastrophe?

Summary:
This article, about sustainable publishing, provides an overview of the environmental benefits of ebooks, and offers ideas and resources for reducing print publishing's environmental impact.

Ebooks save trees. That is one of the many environmental benefits of digital publishing and reading. A larger list of the environmental benefits of reading ebooks includes:

• saving trees;


• reducing paper consumption;


• saving energy used in book production;


• eliminating packaging materials, and all the energy and cash costs associated with those materials;


• saving fuel used for transporting paper books: from the printing company to the warehouse, and then from the warehouse to the customer;


• eliminating the pollution caused by producing and shipping books;


• reducing the energy, cash costs, and pollution required to dispose of books;


• saving money. These days, money is a "scarce green resource." If the 2 billion books sold in the USA last year had been sold as ebooks — at five dollars less per book — we might have saved about 10 billion dollars.
  

Environmental Benefits of Free Ebooks

In just over three years (the 37 months from July 4, 2006 to August 4, 2009) more than 200 million free ebooks were downloaded from two websites: Project Gutenberg (PG), and the World Public Library's annual event, the World eBook Fair (WEF).

Had these 200 million books been made made of paper, how many trees would have been saved?



Let's do some math. In the USA in one year, 2 billion books are produced. To get the paper for these books requires consuming 32 million trees. We can estimate that one tree yields enough paper for 62.5 books. (Of course, these numbers vary depending on which expert you choose to believe.)

The 200 million free ebooks downloaded from Project Gutenberg and the WEF saved three million and two hundred thousand (3,200,000) trees.

This number (200 million free ebooks downloaded) is from two free ebook sources only; there are many other sources of free ebooks, including Google Books, the Internet Archive, Feedbooks, Manybooks, Scribd, and many more.

Paper and Newspapers

Every year, the world produces more than 300 million tons of paper. Books are not the only source of paper consumption.

How many trees are used to produce on week's worth of paper for the Sunday edition of the New York Times newspaper?

• One Sunday issue of the New York Times consumes 75,000 trees.


• One year of Sunday newspapers , produced by the New York Times, is responsible for the destruction and consumption of more than 3,900,000 trees.

The newspaper industry in the USA, each year, consumes 95 million trees.

And is the U.S. recycling all its paper? ... Hardly. According the website Rainforestmaker.org, 40 percent of our garbage is paper and paper products.

The Impact of Published Books

There's an old story about a man who was trying to save money for his company. Instead of taking the bus to work, every day he walked. After a year, he told his boss that he had saved the company more than one thousand dollars.
The boss replied: "You are fired!"
"What?" said the loyal employee. "I didn't take the bus for a year and I saved the company more than a thousand bucks!"
"That's right!" said the boss. "But if you would have not taken a taxi cab to work for a year, you would have saved us thousands more!"

Similarly, we of course cannot assume that every free ebook downloaded means that the person downloading the ebook would have bought a paper copy. In this section we focus on paper books that have been actually sold.

(Note: At this time we are not examining the environmental impact of dedicated ebook reading devices. Most people now are reading ebooks on their desktop or laptop computers, or on iPhones, iPod Touches, or mobile devices that they already own.)

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

How many trees are used to make books published in the USA?

The blog Eco-libris tells us that the book publishing industry in the USA uses 16 million tons of paper every year. They estimate that about 20 trees yield one ton of paper. Therefore, the USA book publishing industry consumes 32 million trees per year.

In addition to the paper for the books, there are many other cash and environmental costs of book production, described in the beginning of this article.

According the website of the Green Press Initiative (more about the GPI, below),
"The U.S. book and newspaper industries combined require the harvest of 125 million trees each year and emit over 40 million metric tons of CO2 annually; equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of 7.3 million cars."

Ten Steps For Sustainable Publishing

I love paper books, and I am not calling for a boycott. Instead, let us find a more thoughtful approach to paper book and periodical publishing, an approach that might be called "sustainable publishing."

There are many ways that publishers can make book publishing more environmentally friendly. Readers should be aware of these options, and support publishers who are practicing them.

1. Offer a Cost-effective and Environmentally-Friendly Option: Ebooks

Print publishers can offer ebook versions of their paper books -- in universal formats such as PDF and EPUB -- at a lower price than the paper editions.
This is not only a sound environmental practice, it is a forward-thinking business strategy for the future. O'Reilly Media CEO Tim O'Reilly recently wrote:
"We are no longer a print publisher that happens to sell digital books too. We're a digital publisher that also sells print books. All publishing is now digital publishing, and all writing is writing for the Web. Books must behave like the web they're now a part of."

Book buyers do not need any special devices to read ebooks. Ebooks can be read on your personal computer, or on your Smartphone or iPhone, or iPod Touch.
Multi-purpose ebook reading devices are coming in the future, devices that would do more than just read ebooks. For a glimpse into that possible future, take a look at this French video, with English subtitles.

Note: the first 60 seconds of this video are blank: it gets better after that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vBb3_aZN7g&feature=player_embedded

2. Buy and Sell Books Using Print on Demand.

Instead of printing thousands of books at once from a printer (a book printing company), a publisher or an author can use a Print-On-Demand (P.O.D.) company, such as Lulu or Lightning Source. P.O.D. is a method for printing and binding books (using a digital printing machine) as they are ordered, one book at a time. For most books, the quality of P.O.D. now equals the quality of books printed from an offset press. P.O.D. not only reduces the risks of unsold books, it saves energy and costs regarding shipping and transportation of the books sold. The P.O.D. books are not shipped to a warehouse, they are shipped directly from "the factory" to the customer.
This will become an even more viable option when P.O.D. technology advances, so that we see a steep fall in the price per printed book.

3. Use 100% Recycled Paper In Your Paper Books.

Book buyers: Tell your publisher and bookstore owner that you would prefer to buy books printed on 100% recycled paper.

Publishers: Ask your printing company about their options for recycled paper. For more information about recycled paper, a great place to begin is the Green Peace Book Campaign
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/


4. Join the Green Press Initiative.

The Green Press Initiative (GPI) is an invaluable resource for everyone in the book industry. Individuals and businesses may join for a reasonable yearly fee.

According to their website:

"Green Press Initiative (GPI) is a non-profit program which takes a collaborative approach towards working with publishers, printers, paper manufacturers and others in the book and newspaper industries to minimize social and environmental impacts, including impacts on endangered forests, impacts on climate change, and impacts on communities where paper fiber is sourced."

GPI members not only use recycled paper, they use paper that has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). FSC paper is made from trees that are not grown in endangered forests.

Currently, more than 180 book publishers have joined GPI -- these are many of the large publishers, comprising 42% of the market share of in the U.S. book publishing industry.

5. Support Your Local Book Exchange or Library Book Sale

At the town dump in Greenwich, Connecticut, there is a shed where dump patrons can donate books, or take them home. It is a free bookstore.

Another way to reuse unwanted paper books is to donate them to your local library book sale.

6. Ensure that your unsold books are reused or recycled, not banished to a landfill.

It is difficult to find information about the fate of America's unsold books. That makes me suspect the worst: there are a lot of them, and they are not being recycled.

In the Netherlands, every year, more than a million paper books are shredded, and transformed into toilet paper.

The book Thirteen Moons was published in October 2006. It was written by Charles Frazier, whose first novel, Cold Mountain, enjoyed a stunning success. A bidding war for Thirteen Moons had resulted in a cash advance for the author of more than 8 million dollars. From the initial print run of 750,000 books, about 368,000 books were sold. The publishers lost 5.5 million dollars.

Who knows the fate of the remaining books?

7. Support the unofficial standard Ebook Format: Unencrypted EPUB

Ebooks were never meant to be hidden like the lost city of Atlantis, buried like the treasures of Monte Cristo, or guarded like the gold in Fort Knox.

Unfortunately, many ebooks are sold in proprietary formats that prevent sharing. Even the new format, EPUB, that is quickly becoming the industry standard format, may be unfriendly for sharing, if the EPUB is encrypted with DRM.
Before buying an ebook, check with the publisher or ebook seller about your rights to reuse the work.

8. Support Your Local Library

Sometimes it's better to borrow than to buy.

9. For each paper book bought or sold, plant a tree.

Book buyers and publishers should consider planting one tree for every book bought or sold.

To plant your own trees, get advice from the Arbor Day Foundation; or Trees Forever.
www.arborday.org
www.treesforever.org

The United Nations will be happy to plant some trees for you, through their excellent project:

Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign
http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/about/index.asp

From the website:

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a major worldwide tree planting campaign. Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments are encouraged to enter tree planting pledges online with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide each year. In a call to further individual and collective action, UNEP has set a new goal of planting 7 billion trees by the end of 2009. The campaign strongly encourages the planting of indigenous trees and trees that are appropriate to the local environment.

10. For each *ebook* sold, plant a tree.

Why not plant a tree for every ebook sold?
And plant a tree for every free ebook downloaded?

Learn More About Sustainable Publishing and Sustainable Living

For sources of this article, and for more information about green living and sustainable publishing, see our page of resources. (Which will be linked here, and coming soon!)

Page of Resources: Coming Soon.

Credits:
The image of chopped tree trunks (which we have remixed onto the book) comes to us courtesy of the photographer Wagner T. Cassimiro.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wagnertc/ / CC BY 2.0

— Michael Pastore, a long-time advocate for the sustainable society, is a novelist and a non-fiction author who lives in Ithaca, New York. His latest book is 50 Benefits of Ebooks: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution. Pastore is the Editorial Director of Zorba Press.


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50 Benefits of Ebooks is Published in a Revised and Expanded Edition (September 2009)

!A new edition of our popular book about ebooks is now available.

50 Benefits of Ebooks is a lively introduction to the brave new worlds of ebooks and electronic publishing. This revised September 2009 edition (now 51,000 words) is 25% larger than the March edition, contains new chapters, and features an inspiring Afterword by Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg.

A PDF version and an EPUB version are available for sale right now.

The paperback book (374 pages) will be released on October 14.

The price is $ 2 — one-tenth of the paperback price.

There is a special discount for senior citizens and for buyers of the March edition: $ 1.

Michael S. Hart, who has been called 'the inventor of ebooks', says about the book: "This book is pretty much a 'must read' and a 'ready reference' for anyone considering eBooks."

In addition to the essay by Mr. Hart, new chapters have been added, and other chapters have been expanded and updated, including the chapter about How and Where to Find Free Ebooks. An article "The Google Book Search Settlement Demystified", offers a clear and simple explanation of this boggling issue.

For more information, please visit the book's companion blog-site, at

http://www.EpublishersWeekly.net

To buy the ebook for $ 2, visit the book's page on our Lulu storefront:

PDF format: http://www.lulu.com/content/multimedia/7657277

EPUB format: http://www.lulu.com/content/multimedia/7716765


More About the book:

Written for a wide audience — from ebook newcomers to experts — in 28 chapters, the book explores 5 essential aspects of ebook reading, writing and publishing: A. Benefits of Ebooks and Paper Books; B. Reading Ebooks; C. Ebooks for Authors & Publishers; D. The Value of Reading; and E. The Education of An Ebooklover. Ebook newcomers will find all the basics here. Ebook experts can debate and debunk the author’s wild predictions for the rosy and thorny future of ebooks, by reading the essay, “Publishing Ebooks: Ten Tremendous Trends in 2009.” Authors will discover tips and resources for ebook publishing. Library professionals will enjoy the book’s glossary, Index, and links to leading ebook sites.

For more information, visit the book's companion blog-site:
EpublishersWeekly.net



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Living Green by Nancy Conner (book review)

Living Green: The Missing Manual
by Nancy Conner
Published by O'Reilly Media
August 2009
ISBN: 9780596801724
Paperback, 312 pages, $ 19.99
Ebook (Mobi, PDF, ePub), $15.99
Book preview: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596801731/preview

This morning I read an article about the Greek island of Icaria. It stated that one of every three persons on the island reaches the age of 90. (That is more than three times as much as the American rate for reaching nine decades.) Furthermore — and this should astound you — senior citizens on Icaria are healthy and vigorous, and almost never develop Alzheimer's disease or dementia.

What's the secret? ... A cynic might say that mental degeneration is caused by a ceaseless barrage of mind-numbing commercial messages. But more likely, these Greek islanders are healthy and alert because they are living — with a Mediterranean accent — a green lifestyle.

The green lifestyle not only helps our planet live long and prosper, it vastly improves our personal lives. Living greenly increases our health, longevity, mental powers, and happiness.

Living Green: The Missing Manual is an outstanding hands-on guide about the environmentally-friendly lifestyle.

"Nature," wrote Leonardo da Vinci, "is beautiful, simple and direct — for in her, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous." Living Green contains 300 pages of useful ideas — there is no waste and not a page of fluff. At first glance, this book appears to be a departure from the Missing Manual series, which usually produces how-to books about popular software and hardware. Fortunately, the same clarity and thoughtful information design that characterizes this line of tech books also permeates Living Green.

The eleven chapters provide a treasure of information, a veritable encyclopedia of smart living. You'll find chapters about the green home; saving energy; recycling; raising your family; shopping; transportation; and renewable energy.

The chapter about Green Building — a hot topic these days — explains the LEED Green Building Rating System; the principles of green building design; remodeling problems; and how to finance green construction. Everything you need to know about how to begin dreaming about your dream house.

I was especially interested in the chapter about eating, because the typical American diet — so far removed from the longevitous diet in Icaria — is such a tremendous force defining the American quality of life. Conner's chapter begins with a section titled "What's In That Cheeseburger?" When you read this list of fatal ingredients — that contaminate your beef, cheese, lettuce-tomato, and buns — you will either give up fast-food eating, or give up reading.

See for yourself:

Beef. The antibiotics and hormones used on cattle (page 177) can get into the meat you consume. According to the Center for Food Safety, several of these hormones likely have bad effects on people ...

There follows some fact-filled pages about hormones in hamburgers, and the perils of factory-farmed food. After some words about GM (genetically modified) foods, the chapter concludes more optimistically with an explanation of the benefits of food that is organic.

The passionate vegetarian in me wishes that the book would have taken the final leap and fully endorse vegetarianism, since meat-eating (even organic meat) is still — as the book acknowledges — an enormous drain on the planet's resources. (And since animals don't deserve to be eaten.) Nevertheless, there is enough food for thought in this chapter, and sensible warnings, to hint that a vegetarian lifestyle is a viable choice.

The book concludes with a brief chapter titled "Getting Involved", which explores environmental activism towards the goal of greening your neighborhood and community. The personal actions in the first ten chapters are essential but not quite enough; this participation is another necessary element for transforming America into a sustainable society.

Living Green: The Missing Manual is an information-rich, factually-accurate and friendly guide to a greener, healthier, and better life. The paperback is made of 100% recycled paper, but you might consider buying an ebook version and help the environment even more.

— Michael Pastore, author
50 Benefits of Ebooks

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Uncompress Your Files With the Freeware Unarchiver: Zipeg

When your files take up too much space, or when you want to combine a number of files into one file — like putting all your groceries into one bag — you can use data compression software, and "zip" them into one convenient package.
There are many data compression formats, such as zip, 7zip, tar, and (for Mac computers) dmg. To open a compressed file, you double-click its icon, or drag it into your unarchiving software. It's usually a simple process, but sometimes it doesn't work.

Recently I received a compressed file with a password. I was surprised that it couldn't be opened with the unarchiver that comes with my Mac and Leopard. Fortunately, I found a solution, in an excellent freeware unarchiver named Zipeg.

Zipeg — available in versions for Mac and Windows computers — can extract compressed files in many formats, including ZIP, RAR, ARJ, LHA/LZH, 7z, TAR, GZ, TGZ, BZIP2, CPIO, RPM, ISO, CHM, Z, CBR, CBZ, WAR, EAR and possibly more. In addition, Zipeg lets you look into the compressed file, see what's inside, and extract only the file or files that you need. And Zipeg easily let me open my password-protected compressed file, the moment that I entered the password.

Zipeg has been created by Leo Kuznetsov, who obviously has a great sense of humor: read about him on the Zipeg website, or look at the Zipeg icon, or listen the lighthearted jingle that plays when you use Zipeg to extract a file. Zipeg works great, and it's fun!

For more information, and to download a Windows- or Mac-compatible copy of the latest version of Zipeg, visit the website: http://www.Zipeg.com

Zipeg is freeware, but you are welcome to make a donation to help to continue development.

—Michael Pastore


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Abraham Maslow's Words Are Now Available in Audio MP3

Abraham Maslow's electrifying talks have now been collected into two volumes of audio.

This project, more than two years in the making, is now complete!

The Abraham Maslow Audio Collection

is now available for download in mp3 format. Volumes One and Two include a total of 28 and a half hours of Abraham Maslow's talks and workshops at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, from the mid and late-1960s.

The individual programs include:
Volume One:

• Self-Actualization (1 mp3 file, total playing time 1 hour)


• Psychology and Religious Awareness (1 mp3 file, total playing time 1 hour)


• The Aims of Education (1 mp3 file, total playing time 1 hour)


• The B-language Workshop (5 mp3 files, total playing time 5 hours, 35 minutes)


• Weekend with Maslow (9 mp3 files, total playing time 4 hours, 25 minutes)

Volume Two:

• The Eupsychian Ethic (6 mp3 files, total playing time 5 hours, 45 minutes)


• The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (10 mp3 files, total playing time 9 hours, 45 minutes)

Samples of the recordings are available via:

http://www.abrahammaslow.com/audio.html

For more information, visit the web page:
http://www.abrahammaslow.com/audio.html

or contact the publisher, Maurice Bassett:
ReinventingYourself@gmail.com


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Health Care Reform: A Commentary by Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann delivers an intelligent, impassioned comment about health care reform.

Watch it here:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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