My Desktop
Everyone’s been posting their desktop. Then I guess I might just post mine too, a filler post before I write something on Building GeminiGeek’s Online Journal.
Click for the full size
My wallpaper: Saber and BMW
My Visual Style: Luna Element Black
My desktop resolution is 1280 x 1024, using Large Icons and Large Font Size. I don’t like to strain my eyes when reading, in fact, I always enlarge the font size whenever I am reading from any websites. Don’t ask why I am still playing games as old as Red Alert 2, and not C&C 3. You don’t want to know why 
Popularity: 6% [?]
My New Toy, the Sony Ericsson K550i
I just got myself a new phone. It’s a Sony Ericsson K550i. I bought it using my hard earned advertising income. But the feeling is great. This is my first purchase of something this expensive, and somehow there’s this “hard earned money” feeling to it. Ah, I’m so dramatic 
That’s my new toy. The picture is taken with my sister’s W810i. I wanted to shoot more picture of my new K550i, but my digicam is dead. Well, erm, the battery is dead. I’m too lazy to buy new battery to replace it, so this is the only shot of my new phone.
The K550i Review
I was using a Motorola C350 (or was it C310, kinda forgot), and it was a disaster. The button is stiff and hard to press, the screen is small, the SMS Dictionary is crap, it’s inherited, and the battery drains real fast. That’s why I buy a new phone as I got my money. 
Popularity: 7% [?]
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: 5% [?]
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: 4% [?]
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: 2% [?]
