Chaos Laboratory

The long wait is finally over. WordPress “Ella” 2.1, named after the famed jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald has been announced publicly just a couple of hours back.

This was certainly a very nice way to start the day. I’d just sat down with a steaming cup of tea and fired up my browser, when my news aggregator (FeedReader) popped up a message from one of my acquaintance’s blog regarding a post that outlined the upgrade process to WordPress 2.1. I was so totally taken aback !!! To be honest I wasn’t expecting it anytime before the month-end and in light of the last few security patches, I had even begun doubting whether it would be on schedule. Nevertheless, this came as a very pleasant surprise.

Going through the upgrade story I figured that most of the old plug-ins are still compatible with it and shouldn’t present any problems. I plan to perform the upgrade ASAP. Meanwhile, here’s a list of the goodies that comes bundled with the new version.

• Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
• New tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
• Completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.
• New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
• You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.
• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all the queries with a fine-toothed comb.
• Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
• Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
• More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. The comments page now lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
• Pages can now be drafts, or private.
• Admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
• The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background.
• Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
• Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.
• The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
• A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

There you go.. Terrific work from the guys at WordPress. Keep it up, yo !!

What are you waiting for ?? Go grab it…

Jan 23rd by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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Last week I’d written about a handy bundle of 37 essential PC Repair tools which easily fits on a 32MB USB Flash drive making it a really versatile and highly portable PC Recovery kit. I’ve been out on the hunt since then for more of such useful tools and recently came across this entire productivity suite which can be carried on a flash drive and worked on using any computer.

The suite is called Portable Apps and the tightly integrated bundle can be downloaded for free from their site. The bundle contains a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, anti-virus, sudoku game, backup utility and integrated menu, all pre-configured to work portably.

Installation is extremely easy. Simply unzip the package on your portable drive and you’re good to go. The full package even includes a XAMPP (Apache, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin) integrated web-server, portable GIMP, Media Players like Audacity & VLC and miscellaneous compression utilities.

What gives a big boost in the usability factor is that instead of being a loose bunch of utilities, you’re provided with a quick-access menu that acts as a central control / launch panel for all these apps. Moreover, these apps will work from literally any Windows compatible portable device like USB drives, iPod, portable hard drives etc.

Portable Apps suite comes in two flavours – Standard and Lite, none of which would fit on a measly 32MB flash drive. The Lite version, which is approx. 30MB in compressed form takes up around 105MB after installation. The Standard version can eat up almost 260MB space. While you just might be able to fit it on a 256MB drive, you’d be left with very little work space. The whole purpose of portability is defeated if you can’t carry your work around. I’d suggest at least a 512MB drive to give you some decent breathing room.

The advantages / conveniences of this suite are limitless. They’ve put up a nice summary on their site… to which I don’t think I can add much. So I’m going to quote it verbatim.

Possibilities

• Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks
• Carry your calendar with all your appointments
• Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
• Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
• Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations
• Carry your anti-virus program and other computer utilities
• Carry all your important passwords and account information securely

The Convenience Factor

• Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague
• Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting
• Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling
• Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems

If you’re a supporter of the Open Source movement, you’d be happy to know that all the applications included in this package are built around the very same concept.

Get Portable Apps rightaway…

Jan 22nd by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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A recent revision of Google’s AdSense Program Policies now enables you to place contextual advertisements from non-Google services along with AdSense ads on the same page. Till now you weren’t allowed to display ads from third-party services like Chitika eMiniMalls, IntelliTXT, Kontera etc. on the same page as AdSense ads.

However, restrictions still apply regarding the nature of ads shown. You can use any of the other services in conjunction with AdSense, as long as their ads don’t mimic the AdSense ads i.e. the visitors shouldn’t confuse them with AdSense ads.

In other words, services which by default, show ads in the same format as AdSense ads won’t be permitted. If on the other hand, your ad service provides you ad customisation tools with which you can alter the format of the ads (e.g. add a border, alter the colour palette) you are free to place their ads parallel to AdSense.

According to the Jensense Blog…

I have had a few questions regarding whether using the same ad unit sizes would constitute having the “same look and feel”, and some others are reporting that using anything in an ad unit in the same style as Google’s (such as using something that looks like YPN) would violate this policy. Fortunately for publishers, the answer is no, just the fact the ad units share the same styling (as nearly all contextual ad networks do) will not break the policy as long as you take care to change the color schemes used by each.

Bottom line, this means you can use the same ad unit sizes from two different programs, as long as there are clear differences in the color scheme (and things such as borders or backgrounds) used by your Google ads. It is also worth noting that proximity of the competitive ad units to each other also comes into factor when making changes to your site by adding competitive ads. I asked Brian Axe from AdSense to clear up just how different the ad units need to be so publishers do not inadvertently violate the policy.

Services like Chitika & Amazon serve ads in a different format by default – so you can go ahead and implement them directly without any alteration as such. You might require a bit of tweaking in case of IntelliTXT & Kontera.

As for YPN ads, be careful – it’s against Yahoo’s program policies to place contextual ads from multiple sources on the same page. But one might expect Yahoo to follow suit after Google’s policy revision.

All in all, the change is actually for the better as it’ll allow placement of ads of competitive products on the same page – and not just from a single source. All you need to ensure is that any other ads you use (whether contextually targeted or not) do not resemble the AdSense ads run anywhere on the same site.

Source: ProBlogger, Jensense

Jan 22nd by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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Couple of weeks back, I’d written an article on creating the .htaccess file visually using a free tool called HTAccessible. This time I present you two online tools that does a similar job for those who don’t want to go into the trouble of downloading yet another software.

I found a handful of such online tools but barring a few most of them were functional mirrors of each other. Thus I decided to narrow down my list to only two of them. Using these tools you can entirely do away with .htaccess nightmares.

The first tool from CoolTips.de is the best & most flexible one I dug up and gives you the widest range of options. However, you need to have a bit of idea about the functional components of .htaccess to figure out what-does-what in here.

The second one from DynamicDrive is geared more towards protecting specific files / folders on your web-server.

Here you go…

• .htaccess Generator
• .htaccess Password Generator

Here’s a screenshot of .htaccess Generator…

For absolute beginners, I’d still recommend using HTAccessible as it presents you with somewhat more homely interface.

Jan 22nd by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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This is the first post in a new series of tips & tricks that I’m going to run henceforth on my blog. The series will deal with accessorising Windows XP and enjoying a Vista like experience. The series will be called XP’rience Vista.

Vista is still going to take some time before it hits the general consumer market and even after it does so, it’ll take a good while to convert the majority of users out there. Till then, why not enjoy tasty bits of Vista delivered right on to your XP desktop !!

Here’s you first XP >> Vista transformation toy – Visual Task Tips. Windows Vista has got a new function integrated into it’s shell to display a miniaturised screenshot of a running application when you hover your mouse on the application tabs in your taskbar. This comes in handy when you have multiple instances of an application open (say multiple browser windows) and want to figure out what’s running where.

Instead of sending you off on a wild goose chase, the thumbnail previews actually helps you pin-point the application you wish to switch to, thus causing a big boost in your productivity.

The software has a few known limitations though. Certain applications like MS Word, MS Visual Studio, Windows Media Player, Autodesk 3DS Max etc. render themselves in unusual ways to improve performance. The thumbnails for such software may turn up as black, incomplete or corrupted. On the same note, it’s unable to show the previews for minimised windows. However, if a previous cached copy exists that is displayed instead.

The handy piece of code comes in a surprisingly small bundle – an installer 90KB in size or a zip package which is only 69KB. My advise is the don’t use a Download Manager to grab this utility. Since it uses a PHP based redirection script for the download, you might end up downloading a file called download.php and not the software itself. Employ your browser-based download mechanism instead.

Get Visual Task Tips today…

Jan 18th by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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Recently, I came across this post in the Stupid Random and Hilarious blog that depicted the digits 0-9 composed of various strange combinations of human postures. Following the trail, I came upon this real-time clock that utilises these figures to display the current time.

The clock has been designed by Billy Chasen who’s a Long Island (New York) based freelance graphics designer as well as a web designer. Billy’s site had another bunch of surprises in store. Billy is an accomplished artist who dabbles in innovative artwork revolving around technology. He always comes up with ingenuous ideas to incorporate technology “either directly or figuratively” into all his pieces giving birth to some really cool fusion art.

What really caught my attention at his site was this Lava Lamp made out of an aquarium with live fish placed on top of a computer monitor. According to Billy, “the fish do not mind the monitor and are sometimes entranced by it.” He’s even got a short video of the lamp in action at his site. I simply loved the concept and admired Billy’s work even more after watching the video.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

A couple of more examples of his work, which include a portrait made out of acrylic strips and a still-life composition using a rusty anvil which is supported mid-air by a quilt pen dipped in an inkwell which rests on the Bible. The piece is called “Weight of Words“.

Here’s more from the beautiful mind of Billy Chasen.

P.S. This is an introductory post which comes in the wake of a new section in my blog named “Trend-Setters“.

Jan 18th by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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A quick-tip for all the aspiring plug-in or theme developers for WordPress – I dug up two very handy cheat sheets (references) that contain summarised information on the Theme & Plug-in (WordPress 2.x) API hooks. Both are in 1280×1024 pixels PNG format and can be found at the 480x blog.

I couldn’t figure out the name of creator from his blog – but the guy’s probably a U.S. marine and has been posted in places like Iraq, Korea & Japan. Whoever he is, thanks to him for these great pieces of work.

Here are the direct links to those cheat sheets:

• WordPress Theme Cheat Sheet
• WordPress Plug-in API Cheat Sheet

You can get them for free and they’re are worth every bit of it !!

Jan 17th by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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A little known fact is that while Google places strict limitations on how you shouldn’t draw attention towards AdSense ad units, they encourage you to actively endorse the downloading and usage of products you refer through Google Referrals.

You earn a lot better (upto $1) than clicks on your average AdSense ads, if you can gain a convert – i.e. get a new user to start using any of the listed products (AdWords, AdSense, Firefox with Google Toolbar and Picassa) for the first time. To increase your chances of getting a visitor to click the referral link, Google tells you to devote a write-up on the usefulness of the product and then draw a visitor’s attention to the referral button. To the left is an example provided by Google.

Moreover, instead of placing the referral link in the spots where you place your standard ads, try and include them somewhere in the actual content of your site, thus enabling the visitors to follow your preachings and arrive directly at the link in one smooth flow.

They even advise you to keep rotating the referrals and try and make them relevant to your content in order to further increase the chances of a click.

Incidentally, if you’re using WordPress 2.x and are interested in placing a such referral unit in the sidebar of a widget enabled theme, I’ve created a drag-and-droppable widget called GARR (Google AdSense Referral Rotator), which will keep rotating between the available referrals on every page load. You can see it in action on the right-most sidebar on my home page.

A whole set of such advices and trips & tricks on AdSense Referrals (compiled by Google) can be found here.

Jan 17th by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

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