Tag: Writing

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How to clean up a .CSV file by splitting data into columns?

Thomas just downloaded a list from Bittrex showing him his latest trades on the platform. It is a CSV file. But, as he opens the file it is a complete mess. All the data is stored in one single column, making it impossible to read and get the overview he wanted to get.

Thomas doesn’t like the CSV file, and wonders if there is an easy way to make sure that the data is divided into different columns. Or is CSV a completely useless format? Since so many people use it, there has got to be a way to create order in the mess.

How can Thomas create order in this messy CSV file?
How can Thomas create order in this messy CSV file?

Thomas finds a way to fix the mess in the CSV file

After looking around and trying different methods, Thomas has found one he is satisfied with and that he likes. It is quite easy. Want to find out how Thomas cleans up the mess in the CSV file? Take a look at the video beneath, or read the further instructions beneath the video.

  • First of all, Thomas creates a brand new Microsoft Excel file.
  • He then clicks the Data text in the Menu and chooses From Text.
  • He finds the CSV file he is interested in and opens it.
  • Now he has to set the import settings.
  • The data in the CSV file is mostly separated by comma or semi-colon. Find out which is used in your file, and set this to be the divider in the import settings.
  • He then sets text-qualifier to NONE.
  • After this, he clicks Finish and OK, and the data from the CSV file has been beautifully imported to his excel file.

If you had trouble following the steps above, watch the video to see it step-by-step!

Hopefully, you will be able to enjoy the data from your CSV file just like Thomas is at the moment.

Should you have trouble or maybe a question, please write a comment, and Thomas will do his uttermost to help you out!

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How to find out if Google has indexed your website?

Thomas has created an article and would like to know if Google has indexed it already, or if he needs to manually submit it for indexing. Is there an easy way to discover if Google has indexed your website or not?

One of the most annoying things on earth is to have a fantastic product, but nobody knows about it, and thus the success keeps its distance. And, Thomas is afraid that all his brilliant articles will fail to succeed, at least if people cannot find them in Google. But, how can Thomas find out if Google has actually indexed his articles or not? Is there an easy way to find out?

Has Google indexed my website?

It is very easy to find out if Google has indexed your website or your articles? Here are two methods you can use easily.

Ask Google

This is probably the easiest and quickest version. All you need to do is to visit www.google.com and to search for the address/article/website you are curious about.

search google
Enter the exact address in Google and press search.

If your site has been indexed, you will find it in the search results. If you cannot find any content, then it hasn’t been indexed yet.

Visit Google Search Console and do an URL inspection

Make sure to register your website in the Google Search Console. Once it is registered, use the URL inspection tool and search for the address you would like to know more about.

URL inspection
Type the exact address of the article you are interested in…

If the article has been indexed, you will see something like this.

The URL is on Google and has been indexed
The URL is on Google and has been indexed

If the article hasn’t been indexed, the Search Console will tell you so, and it will also offer to index it so that it can be found in the search results.

Thomas now knows that Google has indexed his article

Thomas has discovered that Google has in fact indexed all his articles, and he is happy to see that Google is quick to index his new content.

Has Google indexed your content as well? Did this article help you? Make sure to bookmark the site, and to follow The Thomas Stories on your favorite social media sites.

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How to smile on a sad day?

Thomas woke up and immediately felt something. This wasn’t his day. He couldn’t explain exactly why, but this was a grey day, even if the sun was shining. 

He felt frustrated, he felt annoyed, and he didn’t have his typical good mood and uplifted spirit. Now, this might be okay if you live alone in the forest, but Thomas doesn’t live alone. He meets people all the day, and he is frequently having family around him. What should he do? Is there a method Thomas can use to get in a better mood on one of those bad-hair-days?

Fighting bad mood
Thomas has a bad mood – Source: Pixabay

Thomas wants to get in a better mood

As Thomas wants to get in a better mood, he has to think of what normally makes him happy. He gets a lot of ideas, and maybe some of them will inspire you as well.

Five methods that might cheer Thomas up on a bad day

  1. Thomas finds a chocolate and something good to drink
    This is a method that might work, sometimes. But, it might have exactly the opposite effect, all depending on his mood. Eating chocolate might make him happy, but it might also pull him down, making him feel crappier than ever. On this specific day, Thomas starts it all with some diet-Coke and a Daim chocolate. It feels good, but Thomas can’t stop there.
  2. Hey-hey-hey – Biiiiiitcooooooonnnneeeecccccttttt
    There are some legendary movies on YouTube, and Thomas has some special clips that he loves to watch. One example is the Carlos Matos video, a guy totally crazy about BitConnect, one of the biggest scams in the cryptocurrency history. It is a sad story, but Thomas cannot watch this video without smiling and laughing. So, time to watch some Carlos Matos!
  3. What, chlamydia in Norway?
    Thomas has one stand-up comedian that he likes a lot, and that is John Oliver. He has spoken about lots of topics, like cryptocurrencies, religion, politics, and all there is. It is enough to watch John Oliver to watch Thomas smile, but since he loves the nature of the country of Norway, he has a special favorite (at the moment), and that is the story of Norwegian Chlamydia ads. It is impossible to watch this without laughing (hard).
  4. Time to move the body a bit
    There are several ways to interpret what it means to move the body. Thomas can think of several ways to move his body. He can, for example, turn on music and start dancing around in the room. Why is that so fun? Thomas cannot dance. He was born without any talent when it comes to moving his body to music, so anyone who would watch Thomas dance would think he belongs in some sort of house for insane people.
    Instead of dancing, Thomas could go out in the garden to do some work there, or go for a run. Moving the body often gives you a better mood and attitude, simply because you know that you do something useful. This has a great effect on your body, and that is often reflected by a better mood as well!
  5. Thomas finds the source of his bad mood
    Throughout the years, Thomas has discovered that bad mood often originates from some sort of inner trouble. Maybe he is worried about something, or maybe something is irritating him. Sometimes he feels bad if he knows there is work to be done, but instead of doing it, he just forgets about it. Maybe there are problems in the family, or financial trouble… and solving these might solve his bad-mood problem.

These are some of the methods Thomas use to cheer himself up on a bad day. The methods don’t work all the time, but often he will find himself cheered up by one or more of these methods.

Did you wake up with bad mood today? How do you get rid of that bad mood? Have you got some method, strategy, or a good idea that Thomas can use the next time he wakes up feeling like crap?

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How to delete a video from YouTube?

Thomas wants to get the best YouTube channel on the Internet. He uploads new videos frequently, and always enjoys watching his own productions.

He uses a cool application to create his videos, and he can upload the videos directly from the application to his YouTube channel. He normally looks through his videos several times before uploading, but sometimes errors get in any way. And that is just what has happened to Thomas.

He looked through his most recent YouTube video and suddenly discovered several typos and a few other things he didn’t like. The problem now is that he cannot edit the video itself on YouTube, and even worse, he doesn’t find a way to delete the video. He tries to find a way to edit the video and delete it but doesn’t succeed (at once).

How to delete a video from my YouTube channel?

Thomas keeps looking around, and finally, he managed to find a method that will let him delete any video from his YouTube channel. This is what he needs to do!

  1. Thomas visits the Creator Studio inside his YouTube channel!

    Thomas visits the Creator Studio on YouTube
    Thomas visits the Creator Studio on YouTube
  2. Thomas selects “Video Manager” and “Videos” in the menu.

    Thomas selects the video he wants to delete and presses Edit
    Thomas selects the video he wants to delete and presses “Edit”
  3. Thomas selects “Delete” from the drop-down menu

    Thomas deletes his YouTube video by pressing Delete.
    Thomas deletes his YouTube video by pressing Delete.
  4. The YouTube video has now been deleted.

The video has now been deleted from YouTube, and Thomas starts making the changes to the video in his video-editor, before uploading it to YouTube over again.

Hopefully, these instructions from Thomas will help you delete your YouTube video as well. Should you have more trouble, or need some help on the way, please write a comment, and Thomas will do his uttermost to help you out!

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How to include a Medium feed in your WordPress blog?

Thomas has published quite a lot of articles on Medium in the last weeks. Many of the articles are copies of the articles published on www.thethomastories.com, but some of them are original content, written for Medium only.

thethomasstories on medium

Thomas would like to give more attention to the Medium articles, and therefore he wants to add a “latest posts on Medium” widget on his WordPress blog. How can that be done? He has been looking for a good plugin, but he didn’t really find one that satisfied him. So, what can Thomas do to include the latest posts from his Medium blog in a widget on his website?

There are a couple of solutions that do the job, and here Thomas will list some of them.

How to show the latest Medium posts in a WordPress blog!

First of all, the most important thing is to know the address of your Medium feed. Your feed is not the same as your Medium profile, but it is somewhat different. The address to your Medium feed is:

www.medium.com/feed/@profilename

For Thomas, the link to his Medium feed is: http://www.medium.com/feed/@thethomasstorie

Now that Thomas knows the address of his Medium feed, he copies this link, or stores it in an easily accessible place.

Include the Medium feed in WordPress

The next thing Thomas does is to enter the Widget settings under Appearance in WordPress. There is a basic widget there named RSS. But, unfortunately, RSS did not work with the Medium feed, it only gave him an error message. It said: “feed could not be found at https://medium.com/feed/@thethomasstorie. A feed with an invalid mime type may fall victim to this error, or SimplePie was unable to auto-discover it. Use force_feed() if you are certain this URL is a real feed.”

Instead of trying to understand this, Thomas went on and tried another plugin. He downloaded Feedzy RSS Feeds Lite, and activated the plugin.

Once again he entered the widgets menu, and he added Feedzy RSS to his widget bar. He added the Medium feed address, set the number of posts to show, and set the image size to 40. He then pressed save, and then what happened? The latest three Medium posts could be seen in the widget area of his WordPress blog.

Visitors can now see a widget presenting the latest Medium posts on Thomas' WordPress blog
Visitors can now see a widget presenting the latest Medium posts on Thomas’ WordPress blog

Thomas has fixed yet another problem, and he is very happy about it. Hopefully, he has been able to help you as well.

Should you have further comments or questions, use the comment field.

Want to read more interesting articles from Thomas? Make sure to follow him on Steemit, on Facebook, on Medium, on Twitter, on YouTube, and do not forget to visit www.thethomasstories.com.