As I mentioned above, before trying to install any of these apps you need to enable “unknown sources”.  This setting will be found in the main settings, then either applications or security, then look for a setting that mentions unknown sources and enable it.  You can then either download directly on your phone and install from the download menu, or you can download on your PC, copy the APKs to your phone (e.g. via USB) and use a file-manager app (e.g. ES File Explorer) to install them.

AdFree

My personal favourite ad blocking app has always been AdFree by BigTinCan.  Finding the APK wasn’t very easy, but it turns out that it can be downloaded directly from BigTinCan.com.

AdBlock Plus

AdBlock Plus is also available directly from its home at AdBlockPlus.org but note that it only blocks ads when using WiFi.

AdAway

AdAway is available from the F-Droid app repository.

If you’re unable to get the apk files from any of the original locations then please let us know by commenting below.  You can visit our downloads page for mirrors, but we can’t guarantee to keep the mirrored copies bang up-to-date though so please try the official sources first.

Instead of having lots of separate articles for different themes I’ve decided to try to provide all the information in 1 guide. This makes it easier to keep up to date, and means there is just 1 central point for all requests and discussion. It also makes more sense as several of the steps are the same regardless of what theme you are using. I’m not going to cover all the optional extras in this article, just the basics to get your site to validate with the tool. Once you’ve managed that you should find adding extra markup is relatively easy. So lets get started…

Add a link from your google profile to your site

You will see on my google+ profile that I have a public link to http://diymediahome.org — you will need the same for your own site. Ideally you will need all of your authors to have a google profile that is linked to your site in the same way as this.

1. Log in to your google profile
2. Scroll down until you see the links section somewhere towards the bottom right of the page
3. Click on the edit link
4. Under the contributor to section click Add custom link
5. Make sure the box to the right of the text contributor to is set to public
6. Enter your site name (e.g. DIY Media Home) and address (e.g. http://diymediahome.org)
7. Click Save

Add a link from your site to your google profile

Now we need to add a link from your author page to your google profile. There are 2 alternative ways to do this, I highly recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin.

1. Install the Yoast SEO plugin OR add the following code to the functions.php file of your theme
   

   function update_contactmethods( $contactmethods ) {
   	// Add Google Profiles
   	$contactmethods['googleplus'] = 'Google+';
   	// Add Twitter
   	$contactmethods['twitter'] = __( 'Twitter username (without @)', 'wordpress-seo' );
   
   	return $contactmethods;
   }
   add_filter( 'user_contactmethods', 'update_contactmethods', 10, 1);

2. Go to your author profile in the wordpress admin interface (hover over Users in the left-hand menu, and click on Your Profile)
3. In the Google+ field add a link to your google profile (e.g. https://plus.google.com/104657888470728381512/)
4. Make sure either you, or your other site authors do the same thing, and each link to your own google profiles
5. Now, if you’re using the Yoast plugin, go to the SEO menu and select Titles and Metas, click on the Home menu at the top of the page and in the Author highlighting pulldown box select the user you want to use as the author of the homepage
6. If you’re insistent about not using the Yoast plugin you will need to manually add the following code to header.php (assuming you have one). Don’t forget to change my google profile url to yours.  This code will use the post author’s google profile url if there is a valid one, and will use a default (yours) if there isn’t.
   

   <link rel="author" href="<?php $gplus   = 'https://plus.google.com/115369062315673853712/posts'; if ( is_singular() ) {global $post; $gplus = get_the_author_meta( 'googleplus', $post->post_author );} echo $gplus; ?>"/>

Fix errors of a missing “updated” field

Most wordpress themes include information about when the post was published in the post information area, but very few also include when it was last updated. This is a pity, because updated is required whereas published actually isn’t! Adding it is easy though, and again, there are 2 ways, the proper way and the quick hack way. I recommend the proper way of course, but if necessary you can resort to the quick hack. We’re also going to change from microformats to microdata at the same time.

The proper way

We’re going to add some additional information to post headers, both for search engines and for our visitors. We will need to do this for posts, pages, archives and the homepage.

1. We need to find the file that contains the code which generates the published link. This will almost certainly use the wordpress function get_the_date(). You can search through your theme files, or refer to theme specific details below where I have provided details for lots of themes
2. We are going to check if the published and updated dates are the same. If they are we will just add the extra dateUpdated itemprop but if they are different we will output some extra text to the visitor
3. We’re going to add the following  (and modify it as it explains)
   

   <?php if(get_the_date()==get_the_modified_date()): ?>
   
   //we're going to use the original code just with the updated class added
   //put your theme's original code here
   //remove any class=""
   //add itemprop="datePublished dateCreated dateModified" to the HTML tag surrounding the get_the_date() function
   
   <?php else: ?>
   
   //we're going to use slightly code just with the updated date added
   //copy your theme's original code to here and then modify it as below
   //remove any class=""
   //add itemprop="datePublished dateCreated" to the HTML tag surrounding the get_the_date() function
   //add in a new html tag into the line where you want it to appear as below
   //Updated <?php echo get_the_modified_date() ?>
   
   <?php endif; ?>

4. You’ll either have to figure out the original theme’s code and edit it, or refer to the details for specific themes below.
5. You may have to repeat this edit for multiple files

The quick hack

We’re going to cheat and supply the published date as the updated date, even if the post has actually been updated more recently. If the post has been updated then we’ll actually be supplying incorrect information, but it will still validate. It really is better to do it properly if possible, but if you’re insistent on doing it this way read on. As above we will need to do this for posts, pages, archives and the homepage.

1. As above we need to find the file that contains the code which generates the published link. This will almost certainly use the wordpress function get_the_date(). You can search through your theme files, or refer to the table below where I have provided details for lots of themes
2. Find the HTML element that surrounds the date (often it will have class="published").
3. Edit the element by removing the class and adding the following instead itemprop="datePublished dateCreated dateUpdated"
4. As above, you may need to repeat this edit in multiple files

Replacing the built-in microformats (because mixing rich snippet formats breaks things)

By default wordpress is still using microformat markup for comments, which sadly seems to break microdata markup of things like recipes. The best way to fix this is to remove the microformat markup and replace it with microdata markup. Unfortunately, the wordpress core functions that produce this markup don’t have a conveniently located filter or hook so this requires a bit of tinkering about.

Replacing vcard in the comments section

1. What we’re going to do is use a comment callback to change the output of comments. Many themes already use a callback which we can modify, and for those that don’t we’ll add one based on the wordpress default
2. Check if you theme already has a comment callback — search your theme files for the function wp_list_comments. If it includes the code callback= or 'callback' => then it is using a callback which you should be able to find (probably in functions.php) by looking for the name of the callback function, which is the part after the = sign or arrow, e.g. wp_list_comments( array( 'callback' => 'twentyten_comment' ) ); or wp_list_comments('type=comment&callback=bones_comments');. If it doesn’t then we will need to add one by adding callback=diymh_comment or array( 'callback' => 'diymh_comment' ) to the line.
3. If you needed to add a comment callback then you will need to add the following code to functions.php
   

   function diymh_comment($comment, $args, $depth) {
   	$GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment; ?>
   	<li <?php comment_class(); ?> id="li-comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
   	  <div id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>">
   		<div class="comment-author novcard">
   			<?php echo get_avatar($comment,$size='48',$default='<path_to_url>' ); ?>
   
   			<?php printf(__('<cite class="fn">%s</cite> <span class="says">says:</span>'), get_comment_author_link()) ?>
   		</div>
   		<?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
   			<em><?php _e('Your comment is awaiting moderation.') ?></em>
   			<br />
   		<?php endif; ?>
   
   		<div class="comment-meta commentmetadata"><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars( get_comment_link( $comment->comment_ID ) ) ?>"><?php printf(__('%1$s at %2$s'), get_comment_date(),  get_comment_time()) ?></a><?php edit_comment_link(__('(Edit)'),'  ','') ?></div>
   
   		<?php comment_text() ?>
   
   		<div class="reply">
   			<?php comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?>
   		</div>
   	  </div>
   <?php
   }

4. You will notice that this code has a class="novcard" instead of the original class="vcard".
5. If your theme did have its own callback you need to find the callback function and replace any instances of class="vcard" with class="novcard"

Replacing hfeed in the header

1. Next, we need to also remove any instances of class="hfeed", which are usually found in header.php. Replace all occurrences of hfeed with nohfeed

Replacing hentry and title rich snippets

1. We can replace these elements with a couple of neat functions added to functions.php
   

   function diymh_replace_hentry($classes){
   	if(($key = array_search('hentry', $classes)) !== false) $classes[$key]='nohentry';
   	return $classes;
   }
   add_filter('post_class','diymh_replace_hentry');
   
   function diymh_microdata_title($title) {
       return '<span itemprop="name">'.$title.'</span>';
   }
   add_filter('the_title', 'diymh_microdata_title', 10, 2);

Adding the information type (e.g. Article, Recipe, etc.) to the article header

1. First, decide what type of work you are publishing — most likely an article.  Have a look at the list at schema.org
2. Find the HTML tag which contains the function post_class()
3. Add the code itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article" (replace article if you picked a different type of work)

Finally, to avoid breaking any styles

1. You will need to edit your theme’s style.css and do a search/replace operation to replace all instances of .vcard with .novcard and replace all instances of .hfeed with .nohfeed so that our changes don’t mess up any CSS styling of our comments

Fixing any other errors

Any other changes necessary will be detailed on a per theme basis below. If you have a theme which you are unable to fix please post a comment. If its a free theme please let me know the theme name, and if it is a premium theme please let me know so I can provide you with an e-mail address to send a zipped copy to.

Theme specific details

Before just carrying out these edits don’t forget to carry out the steps to link your google profile and your site to each other, and install Yoast SEO, or add the code provides above.

function twentyten_posted_on() {
	printf( __( '<span class="%1$s">Posted on</span> %2$s <span class="meta-sep">by</span> %3$s', 'twentyten' ),
		'meta-prep meta-prep-author',
		sprintf( '<a href="%1$s" title="%2$s" rel="bookmark"><span class="entry-date">%3$s</span></a>',
			get_permalink(),
			esc_attr( get_the_time() ),
			get_the_date()
		),
		sprintf( '<span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="%1$s" title="%2$s">%3$s</a></span>',
			get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) ),
			esc_attr( sprintf( __( 'View all posts by %s', 'twentyten' ), get_the_author() ) ),
			get_the_author()
		)
	);
}

function twentyten_posted_on() {
	if(get_the_date()==get_the_modified_date()){
		printf( __( '<span class="%1$s">Posted on</span> %2$s <span class="meta-sep">by</span> %3$s', 'twentyten' ),
			'meta-prep meta-prep-author',
			sprintf( '<a href="%1$s" title="%2$s" rel="bookmark"><span itemprop="datePublished dateCreated dateModified">%3$s</span></a>',
				get_permalink(),
				esc_attr( get_the_time() ),
				get_the_date()
			),
			sprintf( '<span class="author vcard"><a itemprop="author" href="%1$s" title="%2$s">%3$s</a></span>',
				get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) ),
				esc_attr( sprintf( __( 'View all posts by %s', 'twentyten' ), get_the_author() ) ),
				get_the_author()
			)
		);
	}
	else{
		printf( __( '<span class="%1$s">Posted on</span> %2$s <span class="meta-sep">by</span> %3$s.  Updated <span itemprop="dateModified">%4$s</span>.', 'twentyten' ),
			'meta-prep meta-prep-author',
			sprintf( '<a href="%1$s" title="%2$s" rel="bookmark"><span itemprop="datePublished dateCreated">%3$s</span></a>',
				get_permalink(),
				esc_attr( get_the_time() ),
				get_the_date()
			),
			sprintf( '<span class="author vcard"><a itemprop="author" href="%1$s" title="%2$s">%3$s</a></span>',
				get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) ),
				esc_attr( sprintf( __( 'View all posts by %s', 'twentyten' ), get_the_author() ) ),
				get_the_author()
			),
			get_the_modified_date()
		);
	}
}

<div class="comment-author vcard">

<div class="comment-author novcard">

<div id="wrapper" class="hfeed">

<div id="wrapper" class="nohfeed">

<div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>

<div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?> itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">

<article <?php post_class('article-full'); ?>>

<article <?php post_class('article-full'); ?> itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">

function ads_added_above_last_p($text) {
	if( is_single() ) :
		$ads_text = '<div class="a" style="text-align: center;"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
			google_ad_client = "ca-pub-0754629982287605";
			/* DMH-PostsMini */
			google_ad_slot = "5138459326";
			google_ad_width = 468;
			google_ad_height = 15;
			//-->
			</script>
			<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
			</script></div>';
		if($pos1 = strrpos($text, '<p>')){
			$text1 = substr($text, 0, $pos1);
			$text2 = substr($text, $pos1);
			$text = $text1 . $ads_text . $text2;
		}
	endif;
	return $text;
	}
add_filter('the_content', 'ads_added_above_last_p');

function comment_parent_meta_box()
{
	add_meta_box( 'comment_parent', __( 'Parent ID' ), 'comment_parent_cb', 'comment', 'normal', 'high' );
}
add_action( 'add_meta_boxes_comment', 'comment_parent_meta_box' );
	
function comment_parent_cb( $comment )
{
    $parent = get_comment_meta( $comment->comment_ID, 'comment_parent', true );
    wp_nonce_field( 'parent_comment_update', 'parent_comment_update', false );
    ?>
    
    < ?php
}

function comment_parent_edit( $comment_id )
{
    if( ! isset( $_POST['parent_comment_update'] ) || ! wp_verify_nonce( $_POST['parent_comment_update'], 'parent_comment_update' ) ) return;
    if( isset( $_POST['comment_parent'] ) )
        update_comment_meta( $comment_id, 'comment_parent', esc_attr( $_POST['comment_parent'] ) );
}
add_action( 'edit_comment', 'comment_parent_edit' );

After extensive research I settled on a program called AVStoDVD, another free program which is being actively developed.  This isn’t quite as streamlined and simple to use as DVD–Flick but its not too far off.  Whilst it utilises lots of other third party tools to work, this is all done automatically behind the scenes.  Simply dragging the required files into a list, editing their “titles” and then using the wizard to generate a menu took under a minute.  You have the option to create standard single layer 4.5Gb DVDs or dual-layer 9Gb DVDs.  I’ve tested both successfully and found that even on my rather aging Core2Duo PC I could carry out the whole process, including burning to disk, in a little bit under the playback time.  So — for example, archiving 3 episodes of a TV series which are each 1 hour long took about 2 hours and 40 minutes.  I was also impressed that I could fit 3 hours of content onto a single-layer standard DVD at quite impressive quality.  Last but not least, I was very pleased to see that I could select audio streams, and choose to have AC3 and DTS streams automatically passed through unmodified (AC3 and DTS are DVD–compliant).

If you need to archive video content to compliant DVD’s, especially HD content or content encoded in newer MPEG–4 formats, I highly recommend giving AVStoDVD a try.

There are several advantages to conversion beyond the problems with security warnings.  Documents saved in the newer formats are significantly smaller, and as they are based on open formats, are much more compatible, e.g. with google docs and open office.  This may prove very advantageous in the future.  I discovered that the size reduction alone makes going to the trouble worthwhile - first 220 word documents i converted were reduced from 63Mb to 25Mb.  You may think saving 175k per file isn’t worthwhile, but if you have 110,000 files (as I did) you will save around 18Gb — a big saving if you’re using a a USB Thumbdrive, older external HDD or SSD systemdrive.

Microsoft offer a utility called OFC to batch convert office documents so this seemed the obvious way to proceed.  OFC is part of the Microsoft Office Migration Planning Manager.  To utilise it fully you will also need to download the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack, which includes lots of file-format converters.  Install the compatibility pack first, then run the installer for the migration planning manager.  You will be prompted to pick a location to extract to — I’d put it in your documents or downloads folder as it makes file editing easier.

To run the converter you simply open the extracted path, open the tools directory and run ofc.exe.  However, You wont achieve much this way as OFC doesn’t have a GUI — it uses ini files.  There will be an OFC.ini file included in the tools folder as an example.  You will need to edit it — you can use notepad or any text editor to do so.

There are actually lots of options for configuring ofc.ini, but I’m just interested in converting all the files in a particular folder (and subfolders) into newer file formats.  To do this make the following edits. This will owrk with path-depths up to 9 subfolders deep — there seems to be a bug that prevents it working beyond that.

[ConversionOptions]
FullUpgradeOnOpen=1
CABLogs=0
MacroControl=0

[FoldersToConvert]
fldr=full-path-to-your-folder-with-trailing-slash
ConvertSubfolders=1

[ConversionInfo]
SourcePathTemplate=*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\
DestinationPathTemplate=*1\*2\*3\*4\*5\*6\*7\*8\*9\

Note — If you just want to disable security warnings (e.g. in word) then please refer to the helpful instructions provided by Microsoft.

Thanks to Eric White for the initial links and clues

The simple fact is that as a social species our existence depends on communication, the clearer the better.  When their only contact with you is virtual other people will make judgements about you based on what is available to them — including your SPG.  I correct spellings on Facebook for 2 reasons: 1. because I’m a teacher so it’s a habit; 2. because with modern web-browsers there is quite simply no excuse for incorrect spelling.  So, to help everyone, here is a quick guide to enabling an automatic ‘Microsoft word like” spell-checker in your web-browser…

A quick note — I speak “the original” English, so this guide is for British English, but it is equally applicable to other languages.  This guide is also aimed at users of Windows, although options may well be similar in other OSes

Firefox

• Install the appropriate dictionary “addon”.  e.g. British English Dictionary
• Restart Firefox if prompted

Chrome

It’s built-in!  However, if it isn’t working, check the settings…

• Click on the icon with 3 horizontal lines at the top right
• Select ‘settings’
• Click on “+ Show advanced settings” at the bottom of the page
• Scroll down to the “Languages” section
• Click on “Languages and spellchecker settings…”
• Ensure “English (United Kingdom)” is highlighted
• Ensure “Enable spellchecking” is ticked

Internet explorer

• Install Speckie
• Load Internet Explorer
• If you get a prompt “The ‘Speckie’ add-on from ‘Versoworks Pty Ltd’ is ready for use.” click “Enable”
• In the address bar enter “about:speckie”
• Click “Get more dictionaries”
• Click on the link to “English Great Britain”
• Click “Open”
• Click “OK”
• Close Internet Explorer
• Reload Internet Explorer
• In the address bar enter “about:speckie”
• Untick “English (United States)”
• Click Apply
• Close Internet Explorer
• Reload Internet Explorer

Safari

• Right click on a misspelled word in a form
• Go down to “Spelling and grammar”
• Select “Show spelling and grammar”
• In the pull-down menu at the bottom select “British English”
• Close the mini window
• When a word is misspelled (shown with the red line) double click on it to highlight it, then right click for correction options.  The correction options don’t appear on some forms, e.g. google search, which implement their own suggestions.

Opera

• Right click on a misspelled word
• Scroll down to “dictionaries”
• Select “Add/remove dictionaries…”
• Tick “English (UK)”
• Click “Next”
• Tick “Accept license”
• Click “Next”
• Select “English (UK) [en–GB]” as the default dictionary
• Click Finish

Next up was figuring out how to change the built-in wordpress comment form function (funnily enough called comment_form()).  I’ll provide more detail later if anyone requests it, for now just find the relevant code below…

comments.php (in theme folder)

<!-- You can start editing here. -->

<?php if ( comments_open() ) : ?>

<section id="respond" class="respond-form">
<?php comment_form(); ?>

<script>
document.getElementById('hidden-form-area').style.display = 'none';
function myFunction()
{
document.getElementById('hidden-form-area').style.display = 'block';
}
</script>

</section>

<?php endif; // if you delete this the sky will fall on your head ?>

functions.php (in theme folder)

function my_fields($fields)
{
    $fields['author'] = '<p class="comment-form-author"><input type="text" name="author" id="author" size="22" tabindex="1" placeholder="Name (required)" /></p>';
    $fields['email'] = '<p class="comment-form-email"><input type="text" name="email" id="email" size="22" tabindex="2" placeholder="E-mail (required - never shared with anyone)" /></p>';
    $fields['url'] = '<p class="comment-form-url"><input type="text" name="url" id="url" size="22" tabindex="2" placeholder="Website" /></p>';
    return $fields;
}
add_filter('comment_form_default_fields','my_fields');

function remove_notice($defaults)
{
    $defaults['comment_notes_before'] = '';
    $defaults['comment_notes_after'] = '';
    return $defaults;
}
add_filter( 'comment_form_defaults', 'remove_notice' );

function remove_textarea($defaults)
{
    $defaults['comment_field'] = '';
    return $defaults;
}
add_filter( 'comment_form_defaults', 'remove_textarea' );

function add_textarea()
{
    echo '<p class="comment-form-comment"><textarea id="comment" name="comment" placeholder="Enter your comment here..." onfocus="myFunction()"></textarea></p><div id="hidden-form-area">';
}
add_action( 'comment_form_top', 'add_textarea', 1 );

function add_hideend()
{
    echo '</div>';
}
add_action( 'comment_form_after', 'add_hideend' );