Month: February 2013

Reading Digital Magazines via Text-to-Speech with NOOK app on iPad or iPhone

If you would like to read a digital magazine with text-to-speech, this is how to do it on an iPad or iPhone using  iOS’s built-in Voice Over features.

Since this is Apple technology, I’m pretty sure this will work for Apple’s Newsstand magazines as well, but I think it depends on magazine publishers and how they choose to deliver their magazines.

For the purposes of this how-to, I will describe how this works with Barnes and Noble’s NOOK app on the iPad or iPhone. The magazines that I have read with this app include a text-mode that the NOOK app refers to as their “Article View”.

How to Activate iOS’s Voice Over

  1. Go to SETTINGS > GENERAL > ACCESSIBILITY
  2. Turn Voice Over ON
  3. Be sure to read the text below the main Voice Over switch.

With Voice Over on, the way you interact with the iPad/iPhone will change. Keep in mind that Voice Over is predominantly intended for the visually impaired. Having Voice Over on all the time might be frustrating. If that’s the case, apply the following setting to make it easy to enable and disable Voice Over as you need it:

Set Triple-click of the Home Button to Enable/Disable Voice Over

  1. Go to SETTINGS > GENERAL > ACCESSIBILITY > TRIPLE-CLICK
  2. Select VOICE OVER for the Triple-click feature.

Finally, launch the NOOK app and open a given issue of a magazine. When looking at any page of that magazine you should see a button in the top-right that says “Article View”.

Tell Voice Over to Read Your Magazine

  1.  Click “Article View” to switch from the “Layout View” that resembles the actual magazine to a layout that is more like a web page with “real” text and an image or two.
  2. If necessary, triple-click the home button to enable Voice Over.
  3. With Voice Over enabled, touch the first line of text that you would like to have read for you.
  4. Swipe downward with two fingers. Voice Over will begin reading the text.
  5. Tap with two fingers to pause reading. Tap with two fingers again to continue reading.

Good luck. I hope this is helpful

WordPress Multisite and Domain Mapping on 1and1.com Shared Hosting

These are just some notes about how I got WordPress Multisite and Domain Mapping running on a 1and1.com shared hosting account.

WordPress Multisite Setup

  1. Follow instructions on this page: WordPress Codex – Create a Network
  2. If you are planning to map independent domains to the various sites on your network, I recommend using the sub-directories for addresses of network sites. As far as I know, wildcard DNS isn’t an option on 1and1.com shared hosting packages.
  3. Ignore the bit about the WordPress files needing to be installed in the root directory/folder of your hosting file-space. It merely needs to be in the root folder of whatever directory/folder your primary network domain name is assigned to.

WordPress MU Domain Mapping – Installation

  1. Install the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin in the usual way.
  2. Once the plugin is installed, some manual configuration is necessary. Follow instructions here: wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/installation/

WordPress MU Domain Mapping – Map Domain Name to Network Site

  1. Create new network-child site (examplenetwork.com/newsite)
  2. Log in to 1and1.com admin > Domains
  3. Click the checkbox of domain name (mynewsite.com) > Destination > Edit Destination
  4. Set “Destination” to “Home Directory”
  5. Set “Home Directory” to the root folder of the network site “/examplenetwork/”
  6. Click OK
  7. Return to examplenetwork.com/wp-admin
  8. Go to the top navigation “My Sites” > “Network Admin” > “Dashboard”
  9. Go to “Settings” > “Domain Mapping”
  10. Set “Server CNAME domain” to “examplenetwork.com”
  11. Under “Domain Options” check
    • Remote Login
    • Permanent Redirect
    • User Domain Mapping Page
    • Redirect administration pages to site’s original domain
  12. Click SAVE
  13. Go to “Sites” > “All Sites”
  14. Hover on “/newsite/” and click “Dashboard”
  15. Go to “Tools” > “Domain Mapping”
  16. Under “Add New Domain” enter “mynewsite.com”
  17. Check “Primary domain for this blog”
  18. Click ADD

NOW SIT BACK AND PATIENTLY WAIT TO SEE IF IT WORKS