coming soon …
Sign in to your Squarespace site
You can sign in to your Squarespace site using one of the following two methods.
Via your website
Visit yourdomain.com and hit the Escape key (NB: it is possible to turn off the login via escape key setting, so this might not work for all sites).
Via Squarespace.com
Visit login.squarespace.com and enter your credentials.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll see The Home Menu:
Need more help?
How to approve and reply to comments
When a user comments on one of your WordPress blog posts, it will be held for moderation allowing you to review the comment before making it public.
The administrator of your WordPress site (hey, that could be you!) will receive an email that looks a bit like this:
Please moderate: 'Blog post name'
A new comment on the post “Blog post name” is waiting for your approval
https://yourdomain.com/articles/blog-post-name/
https://yourdomain.com/articles/blog-post-name/
Author: John Smith (IP address: 158.96.47.38)
Email: john@smith.com.au
URL: http://www.johnsmith.com.au
Comment:
This is the comment I am leaving on your blog post.
Approve it: https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=approve&c=1976#wpbody-content
Trash it: https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=trash&c=1976#wpbody-content
Spam it: https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=spam&c=1976#wpbody-content
Currently 1 comment is waiting for approval. Please visit the moderation panel:
https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?comment_status=moderated#wpbody-content
As you can see, you have links to Approve, Trash, or Spam the comment. The process is the same, regardless of which option you choose.
View pending comments
As with most things WordPress, there are a couple of ways to view pending comments.
via email link
- Click the link in the email next to Approve it: NB: This doesn’t automatically approve the comment, it simply opens the Moderate Comment page on your WordPress site
via the Admin Bar
- When new comments are waiting for moderation you’ll see a number next to the speech bubble icon in the Admin Bar:
- Click the icon to navigate to the Comments section
- Pending comments are highlighted yellow
via the Sidebar
- Select Comments from the sidebar
- Pending comments are highlighted yellow
Edit/approve the comment
- If you need to edit the comment (eg, to fix a typo) click the Edit link below the comment, otherwise click the Approve comment button to post the comment to your website
- You’ll be returned to the Comments list for that blog post
Reply to a comment
- Once you have approved a comment, click the Reply link that appears when you hover over the comment in the Comments list
- This opens up an editing window where you can add your reply
- When you’ve finished your reply, click the Reply button
- You can view the comment, and your reply, by clicking the link to the blog post
For more information about moderating comments, how to turn comments off, and more, here is a great article from wpbeginner.com.
Need more help?
Replace an image in Microsoft Word
Have you ever wanted to swap an image in Microsoft Word? You may be tempted to delete the image, then insert a new image, but there’s a better way!
MacWindows
On a Mac
- Right-click the image you want to replace
- Select Change Picture, then From a File…:
- Choose the new image and click the Insert button
On a PC
- Click the picture you want to replace
- Click the Format tab, and then click Change Picture:
- Locate a new picture, and then double-click it
Need more help?
How to install a font
You’ve downloaded a new font, or your designer has sent you some font files, how do you install those on your computer? Individual font files usually have .ttf or .otf file extensions, but sometimes fonts will be included in a .zip file.
The first step, whether you are on a Mac or a PC, is to save the font file to your computer. It doesn’t really matter where, but I recommend saving it alongside your logo and other brand material. If it’s within a zip file, unzip it first, then follow the instructions below.
MacWindows
On a Mac
- Double-click the font file in Finder
- This will open the Font Book app and show you a preview of the font:
- Click the Install Font button (bottom right) to install the font
On a PC
- Double-click the font file in Windows File Explorer (formerly File Manager)
- This will open the Font Previewer window and show you a preview of the font:
- Click the Install button (top left) to install the font
That’s it!
Open your favourite program and select the font from the list.
Need more help?
What’s this auDA email?
If you’ve just registered a new .au domain name (yes! from March 2022 you can register yourdomain.au style domain names!), you may have also received an email from some weird address/company (auDA) that you don’t recognise. Not to worry, it’s a standard welcome email from the big guys (auDA or .au Domain Administration Limited is the .au managing registry), and it probably looks a little like this:
Sample email as provided by auDA that registrants now receive upon new .au domain registrations
From: .au Support
Subject: Congratulations on registering example.com.au & welcome to the .au TLD!
Subject: Congratulations on registering example.com.au & welcome to the .au TLD!
On behalf of .au Domain Administration Limited (auDA), Congratulations! You’ve successfully registered example.com.au and your domain is now active in the .au registry.
auDA is a not-for-profit membership- based organisation that works with industry and government to administer the .au domain name system for all Australians. We accredit IT companies as registrars to provide domain name registration services to the public. They in turn may appoint other IT companies as their resellers.
Questions about your domain name?
Please contact your registrar of record as shown in the public WHOIS service at: https://whois.auda.org.au/, or their reseller.
Want to be kept informed? Join auDA today.
auDA membership is complimentary and is your connection to regular updates on industry research, domain name trends and innovations in Australia’s digital landscape. You will also have a voice in the evolution of the registration rules for the .au domain. With your support and input, auDA can continue to administer the .au domain and keep it a safe, accessible, trusted and uniquely Australian asset for all Internet users.
Congratulations again on registering example.com.au and we look forward to formally welcoming you as an auDA member.
Kind regards,
The auDA team.
Rest assured … the auDA email is a simple welcome message, with no further action required on your part! If you have any questions about your domain name, or you receive other suspicious looking emails relating to your domain name, reach out directly to me first.
Need more help?
Manage roles on Facebook Pages
You need to be an admin to manage roles for your Facebook Page. Haven’t set up your page yet?
To add someone as an admin on your Page, follow these steps:
- Navigate to your Facebook Page
- In the left sidebar click Page Settings (down the bottom)
- Then click Page Roles
- In the Assign a New Page Role section, type a name or email address to select the person you want to add
- Click Editor to select the role from the dropdown menu (if you’re adding me, please select Admin)
- Click Add
Need more help?
Add a new user to your WordPress site
At some point you may want to add a new user to your WordPress site. Maybe you’ve got a new web person (hey, that could be me!), or maybe you have a contributing author on your blog, whatever the reason, it’s super easy to add a new user!
- Login to your WordPress site
- Click on Users > Add New
- At minimum, you’ll need to enter a Username and an Email address, and you can choose to fill in the rest of the info if you like
- WordPress will generate a good, strong password for your new user, you may want to copy it and save it somewhere safe (the user will be able to reset their own password in any case)
- Ensure the Send the new user an email about their account. box is checked
- Select the required Role for your new user (NB: If it’s me you’re adding, please select Administrator!)
- Click Add New User
User Roles
Here is a basic overview of the different user roles and the permissions associated with each one:
- Subscribers can read comments/comment/receive newsletters, etc. but cannot create regular site content.
- Contributors can write and manage their posts but not publish posts or upload media files.
- Authors can publish and manage their own posts, and are able to upload files.
- Editors can publish posts, manage posts as well as manage other people’s posts, etc.
- Administrators have access to all the administration features.
Using a different website platform?
- Invite a contributor to your Squarespace site
- Add a collaborator to your Weebly site
- Add a collaborator to your Wix website
Need more help?
WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping plugin
If you’re using the WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping plugin on your WordPress site, you can adjust the settings to suit your needs. My recommendation is to use their Satchel Rates, as these work really well with prepaid Australia Post satchels. You’ll need to add an adjustment amount to each service.
Installing the plugin
- Purchase the plugin directly from WooCommerce here
- Installation instructions can be found here
- I recommend installing and testing your plugin on a staging/test site prior to launching it on your live site
- You can use the Australia Post API key
- Lastly, enable debug mode while you test!
Setup and configuration
- Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping
- By default, you’ll have two shipping zones – Australia and Locations not covered by your other zones – and you want to add the Australia Post shipping method to both
- Click Edit underneath Australia to edit the shipping zone
- Click the Add shipping method button in the Shipping methods section
- Select Australia Post from the drop down menu and click the Add shipping method button to confirm
- Click Edit underneath Australia Post to edit the shipping method
Recommended settings
Feel free to adjust to suit your needs!
- Origin Postcode: this is your postcode (or the postcode of where you will be sending items from)
- Parcel Packing Method: Weight of all items
- Maximum weight (kg): 20kg
- Satchel Rates: Prioritze Satchel Rates
- Offer Rates: Offer the customer all returned rates
- Services: Enable the following:
- Regular/Parcel Post
- Express Post
- Courier Post
- International Standard
- International Express
- International Courier
- Uncheck Extra Cover and Signature/Registered (NB: selected services already offer email and SMS Tracking, and Express offers additional signature on delivery. You may consider using Extra Cover if your product is worth more than $100.)
- Adjustment amounts: For domestic services add $0.25; for international services add $3.00.
- Click Save Changes
Repeat steps for any other Shipping Zones you have set up.
Edit your Product Shipping information
Edit the Shipping information for any physical product that needs to be shipped via Australia Post:
- Click on Products > All Products
- Click Edit under the relevant product name
- Scroll down Product data > Shipping
- Enter the Weight and Dimensions
- Click on Update to save the changes
TEST YOUR SHIPPING COSTS THOROUGHLY PRIOR TO LAUNCHING ON YOUR LIVE SITE!! Use the Calculate postage & delivery times calculator on the Australia Post website to double check shipping calculations on your website.
Need more help?
“Your connection is not private” error messages
Since 30 September 2021, a LOT of you are seeing that all too familiar “Your connection is not private” error message, something like this:
Some of you are experiencing the issue with your own sites, but the reality is, it’s causing issues with a LOT of sites.
Before we get into the fix it’s important to note … this message does not mean you’ve been hacked!! All it means is that your computer is unable to view the site securely.
Why is it happening?
On 30 September 2021 the root certificate used by Let’s Encrypt expired. Huh? What does that mean?! This article explains it in a very techy way, but the more important question is … how do I fix it?
How do I fix it?
Users with the latest devices will be unaffected, but you may need to upgrade.
Depending on the model and year of your computer, you may be able to update your operating system. If you can’t upgrade the OS, you may need to consider buying a new device.
If you’re on a new supported operating system, you may also want to check that you are using one of the latest browsers too. You can do this by visiting https://updatemybrowser.org/. Here you can check which browser you are using, and whether it is up to date. In summary, if you’re not using one of these major browser versions, then you are probably not up-to-date:
- Chrome 94
- Safari 15
- Edge 94
- Firefox 92
- Opera 79
I asked SureSupport, this is what they said …
The warnings you see are related to a change that one of the global SSL certificate providers (Let’s Encrypt) made on Oct 1, 2021. One of their root certificates expired. As a result, some older software packages are not able to trust the certificates through their current root certificate as they do not have it in their repositories. Some details about this are available at:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/21/lets-encrypt-root-expiry/
https://letsencrypt.org/docs/dst-root-ca-x3-expiration-september-2021/
Basically, some outdated operating systems, browsers, and email software applications appear to be affected. To resolve this on your end, you should update the operating system/browser/email software application where you have this issue to the latest available version.
I asked Squarespace, this is what they said …
Hello there, thanks for reaching out to us. I see some of your clients are seeing SSL issues across their sites- I can help here.
Recently, Let’s Encrypt, our SSL provider, expired their root CA certificate. Root certificates are built into a device’s operating system and they’re generally updated as part of the process to update a device’s OS.
Because some older devices don’t automatically receive the new certificates, this means that some users with older operating systems and browsers may now experience site loading issues or run into security warnings and SSL errors when viewing or editing their sites.
To ensure that your clients are using the latest version of their browsers and operating systems, they can visit this guide:
Need more help?
Webmail
You can access your webmail via any web browser! Particularly handy if you need to check your Junk Mail for a lost email.
- If your domain is pointed to our servers, add “mbox” to the start of your domain like this (replacing “yourdomain.com.au” with your actual domain name): mbox.yourdomain.com.au
- Enter your email and password, and click on the Login button:
- Use the sidebar links to navigate to specific folders:
Need more help?
Upload a file and add a download link
Files can be uploaded to your Squarespace site via the Link Editor and you can add a download link so people can download the file. There are a few different ways to add a link, for example:
- text link
- navigation link
- button link
- image link
Create a link
Create a text link
- Navigate to the page you want to add the link to, and click Edit
- Type the text you want to use as the link, eg, download the form here
- Select the text, then click on the Link icon (Cmd/Ctrl-K)
- Click on the wheel icon to open the Link Editor
- Follow the steps under Upload a file to the Link Editor (below)
Create a button link
- Edit your page
- Edit/insert your button
- Edit the button text
- Click on the wheel icon to open the Link Editor
- Follow the steps under Upload a file to the Link Editor (below)
Create a navigation link
- Navigate to the Pages section
- Click the “+” icon next to Main Navigation
- Scroll down to the More section at the bottom and click on Link
- Add your link title (this is what will appear in the menu)
- Click on the wheel icon to open the Link Editor
- Follow the steps under Upload a file to the Link Editor (below)
Create an image link
- Edit/insert your image
- Click on the wheel icon to open the Link Editor
- Follow the steps under Upload a file to the Link Editor (below)
Upload a file to the Link Editor
These steps are the same regardless of the link type! NB: Squarespace has an upload limit of 20MB. If your file is larger than 20MB, use this method instead.
First you gotta create the link, then you can upload the file using the Link Editor.
- Click on File
- Click on Upload File and select the file from your computer
- Once the file has uploaded, you’ll see it listed there – click the filename to select it
- Click the Open in New Window toggle to turn it on
- Click Save to close the Link Editor
- Click Apply to save the link settings
Upload a file to cloud storage
These steps are the same regardless of the link type! NB: Squarespace has an upload limit of 20MB. If your file is smaller than 20MB, use this method instead.
Cloud storage
There are many different options for cloud storage, some of the more popular ones include Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud. Each service has it’s own method of upload, which you are most likely familiar with if you’re already using cloud storage! Refer to your cloud storage service provider’s help articles if not.
Things to remember when uploading a file to be accessed via your Squarespace site
- Upload the file to a public directory within your cloud storage
- You may need to edit the individual file sharing settings as well
- Copy the URL of your file and test it before adding it to your website
You can test the URL by logging out of your cloud storage, then pasting the URL into a browser window. If you don’t want to log out of your cloud storage, you could open a different browser instead, eg, if you use Chrome by default, open Firefox instead (presuming you’re not logged into your cloud storage in Firefox as well!).
Adding the file URL to your Squarespace site via the Link Editor
-
- Follow the steps above to create a link
- Click on Web Address
- Paste the file URL into the Link field
- Click the Open in New Window toggle to turn it on
- Click Save to close the Link Editor
- Click Apply to save the link settings
Need more help?
What’s my password?
I’m not gonna lie … this is one of our least favourite questions!! While we do keep a record of the passwords we create for you (securely of course), it really is best practice for you to keep track of your own passwords (securely of course).
Online Password Managers
I use an online password manager called LastPass but there are many others out there, so pick your favourite and get cracking!
But we don’t want to leave you high and dry so …
Help, I can’t remember my password!
If you find yourself locked out of a program and you can’t locate your password, the best thing to do is reset your password.
Pretty much every login screen will have some kind of link:
- Forgot your password?
- Having trouble logging in?
- Reset your password
Don’t be afraid … click the link!
Usually it will send you an email with a reset password link (you might have to enter the email address or username associated with the account). It might ask you to jump through some hoops like a Captcha, or an “I’m not a Robot” link. Follow the steps and check your Inbox!
Resetting your password on some sites can be more complex, so if you really do get stuck, get in touch. But please do give it a go yourself first!
And yeah, the best bet is to sign up to a password manager!
How do I get more help?
The best way to get help is to use the search box on the main page. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, or you got stuck with one of the existing articles you may require further help. Have you tried Google? Sometimes the easiest way to get answers is to search the interwebs.
Failing that, some other options are listed below. Before we get to that … it’s really important to know what information any Help Desk will need to diagnose and subsequently fix your issue.
What’s the issue?
Be as descriptive as possible when you email us, or when you log a support ticket with a third-party. Saying “it’s not working” isn’t very helpful. Here’s a list of extremely helpful things to note when asking for help:
- listing the exact steps you took to get to where you ran into the issue
- are you following steps in a help article? which one? send us the URL
- screenshots that include the URL of the page you are on
- screenshots of error messages (or copy and paste the error message into the ticket description)
- what were you expecting? what happened instead?
- what browser were you using – Firefox, Chrome, Safari? (if you were using Internet Explorer, then I’d highly recommend downloading a different browser and never using IE ever again!)
- are you on a PC or a Mac?
All of these things (and more) are helpful for the person who is diagnosing the issue!
Client Support
If you’re a client of Accurate Expressions, the best way to get help is to email us! Tell us what’s going on (see What’s the issue above!) and we’ll do our best to help you. Don’t be surprised if we refer you to a third-party support desk, there’s no need for us to reinvent the wheel, sometimes others are better equipped to help!
Is it hosting related?
If it has anything to do with Email Accounts, Website Backups, SSL Certificates, FTP, MySQL Databases, DNS Management, PHP Settings, or anything else hosting related, AND your website is hosted with Accurate Expressions, you can reach out to SureSupport.
Is it related to Squarespace?
If your website is built using the Squarespace platform, you can search their support articles.
You can also log a ticket with them (you’ll need to sign in first).
Is it related to WordPress?
If you’re having trouble with a particular plugin, you can try contacting the plugin developer. Each Plugin has a link to it’s developer (or at the very least, the Plugin page on WordPress.org) which you can find in your list of Installed Plugins (Dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins).
You can search WordPress.org Support although that can get quite techy, so be warned!
I find the best answers usually come from a good ole Google search …
Got an error message? Copy it into a search and see what comes up. Looking for a new plugin to take online bookings? Type “best wordpress plugin online booking system” or something similar. You get the idea.
WordPress is a massive world of plugins, themes, developers and more … when it all gets too much, reach out to us and we can steer you in the right direction!
Is it related to Mailchimp?
If you’re a paying customer of Mailchimp you can log a ticket with them by clicking the Help & Insights icon in the bottom right corner of any Mailchimp screen. (Don’t be tempted to ask Help Bot unless you enjoy stabbing your eyes with a fork! Choose Email Us or Chat With Us.)
If you’re on a free plan you can search their support articles.
Is it related to Microsoft Office?
You can search for help at support.microsoft.com or post a question at Ask the Microsoft Community.
Replace a media file
One of my favourite WordPress plugins is Enable Media Replace which allows you to replace an image by uploading a new one to replace it in the Media Library. That way you won’t end up with multiple versions of images you no longer need!
- From your WordPress Dashboard, click on Media in left sidebar
- Search for the file you want to replace
- Click to select the file
- In the right column you’ll see a bunch of fields, look for the button Upload a new file next to Replace media:
- Click to display the Replace Media Upload screen:
- Click on Choose File to select the new file (ensure new file is the same file type, ie, .pdf, .jpg, .png etc)
- Choose your Replacement Options:
- Just replace the file; or
- Replace the file, use new file name and update all links
- Choose your Date Options:
- Replace the date
- Keep the date
- Set a Custom Date
- Click Upload
Once you’ve replaced your media file, double check your site to ensure the new media is visible/downloadable. You’ll probably need to refresh your screen (Cmd-R on a Mac / Ctrl-F5 of a PC)
Need more help?
The WordPress Dashboard
coming soon
