Monthly Archive
Browsing entries posted on September 2007
Protect yourself; Tips on Forwarding Emails.
Forwarding emails become a norm to most people nowadays. I received like 5 to 6 forwarded emails every week. All types of emails are forwarded, from informative mails to junk chain mails. And to tell you the truth, I kinda hate forwarded emails too. I don’t read them unless the subject grabs my attention.
Now here’s the deal. Email forwarding actually helps spammer to get your email without even paying for it. And for your information, people can actually sell lists of emails for money. That’s why you will notice that most websites that requires you to register and provide your email address have a privacy policy, stating that they will not sell your email address to any third party. While most of us don’t really read this kind of small wording policies and crap, but I think we should know this kind of thing, and why do they state their policy.
People usually enter their friends’ email address when forwarding emails in the ‘To’ field. When you’re forwarding emails, you know that you’re not forwarding to one friend only, but usually ALL (if not, MOST) the people in your contacts. And what happens here is that all the email addresses to the one you’re forwarding to will appear in the forwarded emails.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Upgraded Wordpress 2.3!
I’ve upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.3! Among the notable feature in this new version are:
- Native Tagging Support. Now this is one feature that I’ve been waiting for. Although UTW did a great job on this, but I always think that it is good to do the tagging without going through a plugin. However, the tagging feature is not so great after all. More details on this further down.
- Update Notification. I am someone who’s lazy to check plugin’s site to see any updates. With this, I can see it in my dashboard and download ‘em immediately. Though it doesn’t update for you automatically, this notification is sufficient
- Canonical URLs. I’ve been using some
.htaccesstrick to achieve this, but looks like the devs manage to put in the core. - Better Post Management. There’s this new filter thing in your post management, and you can easily filter your drafts. Nifty.
There are more features in the developement blog.
The Upgrade Process
I thought the schema changes would kill my blog. I even created a testbed to test if the upgrades will work smoothly. I tried running the upgrades on the testbed. Everything works fine. Not as dramatic as Edrei’s case 
The upgrade is a breeze if your plugin does not a direct call to the deprecated tables in your database. In my case, only KGArchives and Tan Tan Wordpress Report fails. Author of KGArchives may be doing some updates on the plugin released a WP2.3 compatible KGArchives, but there’s no news on Tan Tan Wordpress Report. UTW fails to work too, but there’s a UTW importer in WP2.3. Popular Post plugin have problem in the admin interface, but it works without a problem in the user end.
The transition from UTW to WP2.3 native tagging is rather painless, though there’s some iffy-ness somewhere in between. Now here’s a few things I don like about tagging in WP2.3:
- There’s no proper tag management. It is said that the devs are waiting for the community to create plugins to further extend the tagging capabilities, and they can steal the idea and put them in the next release. So, I guess I have to wait for a while for a better tag management plugin to pop out.
- Two words tagging fails. Space doesn’t work. All spaces in two words or more tags are replaced with a dash. UTW handles the presentation purpose with no problems, because I don’t see the dash in any tag titles, although there is in the admin area and slugs. Perhaps I have to make myself used to one word tagging.
- The function to call out tags in a post,
the_tags(), fails. I MUST use it in The Loop, which is kinda annoying because I have tags in the sidebar. Which is why, at the moment, I am not showing tags. Couldn’t something be done so thatthe_tagscan be called anywhere in single.php?
Overall, WP2.3 is satisfactory, but not up to my liking. 
Popularity: 5% [?]
Blogger’s Block
I am having a blogger’s block. Which is why I haven’t write anything for the past weeks. I’ll be back when WP2.3 is release, and I will probably do a write up on the preparation for this major upgrade. Cheers
Created a Beta site to play around with WP2.3. Looks like the schema changes won’t affect my blog too much
Popularity: 3% [?]
If Google Disappears All of a Sudden…
If Google one day disappear or go bankrupt just like that, I think will go insane. I rely so much on Google’s service. GMail, Adsense, Youtube, you name it, I enjoy using it.
If there’s no Google Search Engine
I use Google all the time. To do web searching, looking for definition, imperial/metric conversion, currency conversion, and a whole lot more. Just look at the features in Google. There’s a lot you can do with Google, not just web searches. And I think those features are not available in other search engines.
The closest replacement? I guess the 2nd most popular search engine is Yahoo! and Ask. I used to use Yahoo search when it was still powered by Google search engine. And I occasionally use Ask for my school projects research last time. Dictionary.com should be the best to replace the “define:” feature in Google. Xe.com’s UCC should be the closest site if I were looking for currency exchange.
If there’s No Gmail
If there’s no Gmail, I guess I can’t be contacted online. My Gmail is my primary email. My MSN Passport uses my Gmail address. Any emails sent to my domain webmail is forwarded to my Gmail. All my registration to any web services, forums, portal, or anything that requires email are registered using my Gmail address. Imagine if Gmail gone just like that? I think I will go insane the moment Gmail announce shut down for some reason.
The closest replacement? For email, I think Yahoo! Mail is comparable to Gmail, though I still prefer Gmail’s labeling and conversation feature. Hotmail is popular, but I don’t like it. Hah, screw you Microsoft. You have enough market shares when it comes to OS 
If there’s no Google Reader
I only started using Google Reader few months ago. Back then when Google Reader was just introduced, it totally suck, which is why it never comes to my mind to use itr. I was using a free FeedReader, and pretty satisfied with it. I never thought of using web feed reader. But since my monitor overheated, I thought it’s better to use online feed reader rather than offline version because you get to read your feeds on any computer. I learnt my lesson after being unable to read my feeds because my subscribed feeds is on my PC. That’s when I start using Google Reader and never turn back since.
The closest replacement? No doubt it’s Bloglines. I’ve never use Bloglines before, but there are certain people who says that Bloglines are better. It is said that Bloglines updates the feed almost instantly, unlike Google Reader where there’s a delay.
If there’s no iGoogle
iGoogle is my home page at the moment. I have a Digg widget, TokyoToshokan feeds, Google Reader widget, and also Gmail widget in my iGoogle homepage. Then, I have a tab where I put all those flash game in it. So when I’m bored, I will just go there and play some games. iGoogle loads pretty fast, and it looks cool with its theme.
That’s the feature I like the most in iGoogle. I can read feeds in my Google Reader in within iGoogle! Nifty eh? Oh yeah, I am a fan of AppleGeeks
The closest replacement? I know Netvibes is popular. It looks great. Not much comment on it, other than it has no Google Reader widgets 
I think it’s a lot better to read all my subscribed feeds in a widget or module rather than having individual feeds spread in within a homepage.
Conclusion
I can’t live without Google. Can you?
Popularity: 3% [?]
Minor Site Revision and some Updates
I have just updated my About page. It took me a few days just to write a short biography on myself. The result? A short and detailed biography, but not to the extend where people can start stalking me. 
I am fairly satisfied with it.
I have also created a Contact page. This page holds information on how to contact me, and also a contact form if you want something more formal. That serves as a facility for people to contact me more easily and formally. And besides, I’ve decided to do freelancing on web design and accounts book-keeping more aggresively.
Other than that, I’ve did some minor visual enhancement to my site. The most notable one is the comments listing. Instead of alternating backgrounds, I changed it to alternating left border colour. I use the magic of :hover so that the comments backgrounds highlights as mouse over. I’ve also placed comment number so that replying comments can be a little bit easier because I’ve recently remove the comments quoting system.
And lastly, I’ve added a few 2 new emoticons, and 4 icons for commentors, and also myself to use. The 6 new icons are:
:love: :sweat: :heart: 
:nuke:
Well, it’s fun to have new icons to play with
My Future Plans
Get employed and settle down until next year to further my ACCA studies. If I happen to fail to secure a job, I will be doing freelance aggressively. At the moment, I offer affordable web design and web development service for individuals or companies who wants a website. I will also give consultations for those who needs to get their website up and running.
Other than that, I am also offering accounts book keeping service. I believe this is the first time for someone who’s doing web design and book-keeping at the same time! Well, the reason I’m doing book-keeping is because I have a partner who have the experience and is looking for opportunity. And me here, will help her to get clients and at the same time, help her and learn book-keeping for the commercial world. I am, after all a CAT graduate. It shouldn’t be weird for me to do this. However, I am accepting clients from Miri only for this book-keeping service.
Popularity: 3% [?]
