Over the years I’ve built and repaired more computers than I care to remember, both professionally and while helping out friends and family. This is the second article in my “Hardware issues” series where I’ll try to point out some common symptoms, what’s causing it and the most likely solution.

Note! Please don’t try to solve hardware issues yourself if you can’t name at least three components inside your PC and/or are familiar with a screwdriver (not the drink). You should also be very cautious about static electricity as this might short-circuit your PC (kill it), so use special gloves or keep one hand at the side of the cabinet (at least occasionally) while working inside.

You might want to read “Hardware issues part I” before you continue reading.

Up until IE7 Microsoft haven’t provided support for PNG images which in turn makes it difficult to apply transparent page effects. In CSS you can set the transparency in different ways. To ensure that it works on most browsers use all of the styles listed below:

• opacity: 0.5;
  This one is the official CSS3 method, at the moment it works in most newer browsers.
• -moz-opacity: 0.5;
  This one works in older versions of Mozilla and Phoenix/FireBird/FireFox.
• -khtml-opacity: 0.5;
  This is used by browsers that use the KHTML rendering engine, namely Konquerer on Linux and Safari on MacOS.
• filter: alpha(opacity=50);
  This one works only in MSIE.

Updated 16th May, and should now work fine with WordPress 2.2. Please report any bugs if found!

In order to get the Quicktags add-on displayed above your comment form start by downloading a copy of comment_quicktags.zip, unzip it and upload the 2 files to your theme directory:

Download comment_quicktags version 1.1

The lightbox image add-on is already packed and ready to use with my new theme Blogvaria. However including this to your existing theme shouldn’t take to long. Start by downloading the original source code from Lokesh Dhakar’s website. Unzip the archived files and upload them to your theme folder:

• ../yourtheme/css/ (1 file)
• ../yourtheme/images/ (10 files)
• ../yourtheme/js/ (4 files)

This article will try to explain how you can modify the included add-ons “Quicktags” and “Lightbox” found in the new theme “Blogvaria“. It will also provide information about the plugins currently used to run all features “pre-installed” in the Blogvaria WP theme.

Featured plugins that works with WP theme “Blogvaria”

• Akismet Spam Count
• Fuzzy Recent Comments
• Fuzzy Recent Posts
• Inline Ajax (front) Page
• Live Comment Preview
• Popularity Contest
• Share This
• Sociable
• WeatherIcon