Tutorials about combating comment spam and displaying Adsense and upgrading to WordPress 2.0 and other related stuff.
Archive for February, 2006
WordPress Help
Friday, February 17th, 2006Blogs to Riches
Thursday, February 16th, 2006New York Magazine article gives the blogosphere a reality check.
What’s more, a blog is like a shark: If it stops moving, it dies. Without fresh postings every day—hell, every few minutes—even the most well-linked blog will quickly lose its audience. The A-listers cannot rest on their laurels. Federated Media owner John Battelle recently published a book on Google, and while on the book tour, he neglected his own well-trafficked blog (No. 81 on Technorati’s rankings) for several days. “And suddenly I was getting all these e-mails going, ‘If you don’t get your shit together, I’m out of here,’ ” he recalls. He stayed up late that night frantically adding posts. “If you start sucking,” he says, “it’s through.”
Adding Site Meter to WordPress
Wednesday, February 15th, 2006I posted about site trackers over a year ago, when this was a Blogger based blog. We moved to WordPress in Novembert 2005. I use Site Meter over at DIY Wireless Antenna. If you wanted to add site tracking to your WordPress blog, here is what you would do:
- Select the JavaScript code (containing your sitemeter id “site=yourid”) with your mouse.
- Copy it to the clipboard.
(Press the CTRL key and the letter C at the same time.) - Login to WordPress.
- Click on the Presentations tab.
- Click on the Theme Editor tab.
- In the dropdown list at the top of the page, select the theme that you want to edit.
- Click on the Sidebar Template theme file from the list on the right side of the page.
- Paste the Site Meter code before the closing tag at the bottom of that template.
(Put the cursor in the field and then press the CTRL key and the letter V at the same time.). - Press the Update File button and Site Meter should show up on the pages of your weblog in the side bar.
Free Online File Storage & Sending
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
Some time ago I posted about YouSendIt, a free e-mail-based file sending service. If you’ve ever had to send large files and don’t have access to FTP, or the person you’re sending to doesn’t, this type of service is a great resource.
Other new web sites have emerged recently forover the net without attaching them to email. Usually these solutions work by sending an email with a link to the recepient. The link uploads the file from the company server to the recepient’s computer bypassing any email file size limitation.
Here are 3 examples of sites with larger file size limits than YouSendIt :
SendOver
File Size Limit: 2GB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 7 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 7 days)
URL: http://www.sendover.com
FileFactory
File Size Limit: 1.5GB
Download Limit: 25 Downloads
File Life: 7 Days
URL: http://www.filefactory.com
MegaShares
File Size Limit: 1.5GB
Download Limit: Unlimited
File Life: 25 Days (Deleted only if there is no download activity in 25 days)
URL: http://www.megashares.com
If those choices are not enough, there is a large list of similar services that you can wade through. They are free and require no e-mail registration to use. Included in the list are file size limits, download limits and the amount of time the file remains on the server for download.
iTunes Standalone?
Monday, February 13th, 2006You can download QuickTime 7 with 6 for Windows 2000/XP or you can download iTunes 6 with QuickTime 7 for Windows 2000/XP. You can call me Ray or you can call me Jay.
But what if you just want to download one or the other, a standalone version?
We were able to find the standalone installer, the one that’s not bundled with iTunes. FYI, the download link changes from time to time.
Which leads up to the question: Does a standalone version of iTunes exist or does it flat out require QuickTime to run?
UPDATE: March 12, 2006 – Checking my logs I see that a number of visitors here are searching for information. So I did a bit more research and discovered that the most recent version of iTunes does indeed need QuickTime, or the latest QT Alternative, to run.
To install QT Alternative:
1. Install iTunes. It will also install QuickTime.
2. Go to the Windows control panel (a.k.a. configuration) and click on add/remove programs (a.k.a. software).
3. Uninstall QuickTime
4. Install QuickTime Alternative or QTA
So basically, unless you have a burning desire to install QT Alternative, just run the standard iTunes/QT install.
UPDATE: March 25, 2006 – So you hate Quicktime or the fact that iTunes requires Quicktime or or you just don’t want to use either one of them.
EphPod is a full-featured, easy-to-use Windows application that connects with Apple’s iPod. With a FireWire card and EphPod on a PC, it takes under 30 minutes to transfer 1,000 songs to an iPod.
Originally there was a plugin called mliPod that allowed winamp to copy songs to your copy songs (MP3 & MP4 AAC) to your Windows formatted iPod. Since then, Winamp 5.2 has been released, which has its own portable music player support.
UPDATE: October 8, 2006 – YamiPod is a freeware application to efficiently manage your under Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation.
Here’s a brief description of the features in YamiPod (Yet Another iPod Manager):
# stand alone program, no installation required
# iPod is automatically recognized
# mp3 and AAC files can be copied to/from iPod
# read/write access to mp3 id3 and AAC infos
# playlist support (On-The-Go included)
# playlists import (PLS,M3U)
# playlists export (PLS,M3U)
# full unicode support
# auto-download new versions
# advanced song import/export settings
# 2 restore features
# built in music player
# iPod informations
# 2 search features
# remove duplicated tracks
# find lost music files
# easy ratings edit
# PC to iPod synchronization
# create and edit notes (with unicode support)
# automatically update song playcounts
# News RSS and podcasts to iPod upload
# Growl support (Apple only)
# export song lists to HTML or plain text files
# multiple iPods support
# Last.fm support
UPDATE: April 6, 2009 – Install iTunes Without the Extra Bloat
A custom installer for iTunes 8 that installs iTunes only, leaving the bloat at the door. Since QuickTime is a requirement for playing media in iTunes, you’ll still need to install QuickTime Alternative and the QuickTime Alternative iTunes Compatability Add-on. (Note: The compatibility add-on claims to be for version 2.7 of QuickTime alternative, so you may want to stick with the 2.7 version instead of the current QuickTime Alternative 2.8.)
Before installing iTunes sans QuickTime and all the other bloat, you’ll need to install each piece of software in this order: Install the lightweight QuickTime Alternative then the iTunes Compatibility Add-on, and finally, you’re ready for iTunes on its own.
One other possible solution is to unzip the iTunes setup .exe and extract the proper msi.
What We Throw Away
Saturday, February 11th, 2006
I’ve been on the mailing list of San Diego Freecycle for quite some time. It’s a busy list.
With SDFreecycle you can help the environment by diverting useful items from landfills while helping members of our community. Please note we aren’t about trading, bartering, borrowing or making announcements. We’re a recycling group concerned for the environment.
So naturally I was intrigued by the use of the Google Maps API by the New York based website, GarbageScout.
New York City’s streets are full of interesting and potentially useful things that have been thrown out. If you see something good, snap a picture of it with your camera phone, and email it to GarbageScout. It will go up on the home page and others can go and get it. This will reduce landfill, save people money, and clean up the streets.
The programmer behind GarbageScout describes his site as a found treasure map to New York City, a recycler’s dream, a cheapskate’s best friend, and a dumpster diver’s companion. A combination of freecycle and google maps would be very cool.
FON Sharing WiFi Broadband
Friday, February 10th, 2006FON was in the news recently because it received some venture capital from Google and Skype. Its stated goal is to create a global network of access points run by home users. The users can choose to either offer access for free or resell their bandwidth. The Wall Street Jounal article Blog Buzz on High-Tech Start-Ups Causes Some Static, highlights the rising influence of blogs in shaping opinions about tech start-ups, like FON, particularly in Silicon Valley. It also reveals the possible conflicts of interest such complicated relationships can dredge up.
FON is a Global Community of people who share WiFi. Share your WiFi broadband access at home/work and enjoy WiFi all over the world! FON, small cost, great benefit!
To become a Fonero, all you need to do is register with us on our website, have broadband connection, and download the FON Software onto your WiFi router. It’s that simple. Just share your connection and the rest of the Community shares back with you. Join FON and enjoy connecting from anywhere within the WiFi World.
To start sharing, set up your access point where you can receive the most coverage, generally close to the window or outside your home. The rest of the Community will be thankful.
FON is selling 3,000 Linksys WRT54GL routers with their software pre-installed for $25USD (50% discount) plus shipping.
