Today, we will cover several ways that can help you to reduce cost of your printing, whether you are running a home business or a company with 1000 employees.

Make sure to Preview your documents before printing:

A lot of people might think this is something they do all the time but the truth is that most people waste a lot of paper printing out the wrong portion of their content, including myself.

Use that “Preview” button to preview what you are printing. Almost all applications including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Photoshop, and MS Word have this feature.

At least think about how many million trees would be saved if “everyone” used the Preview button?

Here’s an example of print preview on Firefox: (Yes, it’s so simple, isn’t it? Your actions can save a tree.)

Use Draft mode and Black and White mode for Drafts:

You can save additional time and ink if you are still working on your draft versions by using the draft mode.

Simply click on “Properties” and you should be able to set your printer to “Draft” or “Fast Draft” mode as shown here:

Save even more ink by printing in Grayscale:

Scan all documents “digitally” into CD or DVDs

Have you thought about all the stuff that could be digitized into a Jpeg or PDF file into a single CD or a DVD?

A lot of times, people will ask you to fax some important documents in order to verify your information when doing business.

By having all documents “digitized” and accessible from a single CD or DVD (or even your G-mail), you no longer have to remember where you left that Social Security card, passport, Business License, etc…etc… Although it is good idea to keep the original copies, I find it easier to e-mail my digital copies straight from G-mail.

I could be anywhere in the world and have access to all my important documents with just 1 CD or DVD instead of lugging all your documents everywhere with you, especially going over-seas.

Best ways to digitize your documents?

Get a good office scanner. I use an HP Deskjet F380, which cost me about $70 to do printing, scanning, and copying all-in-one. Although it’s slower than a laserjet, I can do most office work using it and it scans reasonably fast. I use it to scan all my invoices, receipts, and anything that can be scanned.

If you can afford it, there are some really nice laser version of the Deskjet, LaserJet M5025, which can scan hundreds of documents at a time and send them to your e-mail when its done via a single PDF file. This can prove to be very handy for all those POs and Invoices you have stacked up in huge boxes. I remember on one of my first jobs, I digitized about 20 boxes of POs (around 100,000 letter sized papers) from Wal-mart. (Think of how many trees I saved for their future POs!)

Nowdays, that company can simply access every one of their POs via a DVD-ROM.

Buy ink cartridges online from 3rd party suppliers

Buy cheap ink cartridges from 3rd party suppliers like DataBazaar.com. I find that their prices are much cheaper even if you are buying an OEM brand.

CD and DVD Labels

Now, just make sure to label them right using good CD labels, especially if you do have a lot of data to digitize. You can download free CD templates over here. These templates are great if you actually want to organize your digitized documents. You can even get some really good discounts on CD/DVD labels here.

Label Printers

If you like to spend more money, you can always get a label printer too. I have tried Dymo label printers before and these work really good with address labels or CD/DVD labels.

Print Labels and get your mail delivered faster!

Instead of spending time writing the addresses, I use my printer to print out labels so I save time on my frequent mailings and my mail gets there faster.
(Did you know that US Postal Service actually uses a scanner to process mail? If you have handwritten addresses, your mail will could actually take 1-2 days more due to manual scan by human workers. I did learn this through an executive manager I talked to at Pitney Bowes.)

By using labels instead of handwriting, you will save yourself hassle of writing and your mail will get to your destination faster. (You can even print out the US Postal Service address bar code on the envelope itself to ensure super fast delivery.)

You can also save some money by ordering labels from online label shops such as WorldLabel.com, which I have used before and found 40-50% cheaper than retailers. They even have popular “size-compatible” Avery labels, much cheaper than buying the branded ones.

Now, if you think this blog post will “change” printing behaviors of our readers, please leave a comment on how many trees you think we saved today.

David, an affiliate manager from Etology.com, has given me a $25 coupon for FREE traffic for NEW affiliates.

To test out Etology.com and get $25 worth of free traffic from their advertising network, you can sign up for an affiliate account here, then use the coupon code “01KLSY” at ad checkout to get the $25 of free advertising.

Here’s an interview with David from Etology.com:

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

(Thanks again David for the interview and your time!)

Etology.com offers a wide range of advertising/publisher’s programs including text ads, banners, thumbnails, and more. They offer a wide range of banner ads, which I liked since I need to be flexible when I am offering advertising on my blog.

The greatest feature about Etology.com is that they allow you to set your own prices for your ads.

For mine, I chose a 125×125 pixel ad, I haven’t put it on this blog yet, but I will do that later this week to test out the effectiveness and also conversion rate of Etology.com.

You can also set your ad to be sold at market prices, which is great since there’s a standard price for the advertisers.

For advertisers, it seems like you will have tough time finding the right site to advertise on as there are so many sites at Etology.com as shown in this screenshot of their marketplace:

But Etology.com does offer personal support so you don’t have to do the work and let the affiliate manager find good ones for you.

Another great thing about Etology.com is that they offer 5% commissions on any affiliates you refer. So you can make 5% of any advertising that your friends sell.

I will be trying out Etology.com for banner advertising on my blog later this week and also a breakdown of all affiliate programs will be given at the end of all AdTech 2008 reviews.

Warning, please read Part I of How to make your own Firefox extension from scratch before trying this DIY.

In this Part II of How to make your own Firefox extension, we will change the icon button to something we like instead of the dumb looking blue default button.

Now, you will want to open up the overlay.css file under the skin directory of where you unzipped your extension files.

The default should look somewhat like this:

/* This is just an example. You shouldn’t do this. */
#shtoolbar-hello
{
color: red ! important;
}
#shtoolbar-toolbar-button
{
list-style-image: url(”chrome://shtoolbar/skin/toolbar-button.png”);
-moz-image-region: rect(0px 24px 24px 0px);
}
#shtoolbar-toolbar-button:hover
{
-moz-image-region: rect(24px 24px 48px 0px);
}
[iconsize="small"] #shtoolbar-toolbar-button
{
-moz-image-region: rect( 0px 40px 16px 24px);
}
[iconsize="small"] #shtoolbar-toolbar-button:hover
{
-moz-image-region: rect(24px 40px 40px 24px);
}

Now, you can change the button’s image by editing the toolbar-button.png. I actually simply replaced with another file name.

So first, I made my own logo. You will need one with height of 24 pixels and the other with 16 pixels.

I also made a “hovering” graphic so the logo will change and have the kangaroo holding a beer when you hover the mouse over it.

Here’s an example Png file I made using Photoshop:

As you can see, you the can use just 1 file to store all the logo images you need.

In my case, I made a 165×24 pixel icon button and 100×16 pixel icon button.

The 100×16 pixel icon button is actually used for the toolbar and the 165×24 pixel icon button is used when you tried to customize your toolbar.

So in total, the size of my file was 265×48 pixels.

Now comes the fun part. You simply need to mess with the -moz-image-region values so you grab the right parts of your customized PNG file.

So after all that, here’s the file I have for overlay.css:

/* This is just an example. You shouldn’t do this. */
#shtoolbar-hello
{
color: black ! important;
}
#shtoolbar-toolbar-button
{
list-style-image: url(”chrome://shtoolbar/skin/shtoolbar.png“);
-moz-image-region: rect(0px 165px 24px 0px);
}
#shtoolbar-toolbar-button:hover
{
-moz-image-region: rect(24px 165px 48px 0px);
}
[iconsize="small"] #shtoolbar-toolbar-button
{
-moz-image-region: rect( 0px 275px 16px 165px);
}
[iconsize="small"] #shtoolbar-toolbar-button:hover
{
-moz-image-region: rect(24px 275px 40px 165px);
}

I’ve highlighted the changes I made in BOLD.

You simply need to remember 4 things when editing the -moz-image-region:

TOP RIGHT BOTTOM LEFT

That’s right, for the first line:

-moz-image-region: rect(0px 165px 24px 0px);

I am simply telling the CSS file to grab the portion of the image from 0 to 24px from TOP to BOTTOM, and from 0 to 165px from LEFT to RIGHT.

Now you do the same for the hovering and the smaller image.

After you made those changes, Save and then restart the browser.

Your default blue button should now look like this:

Looks great doesn’t it?

And when you hover the mouse, you get a nice beer bottle for the sober kangaroo.

Next time, we will mess with more Javascripts that can be used for the icon button to actually do something…

Have fun and have a greeeeat weekend!

Well, since I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.5, I’ve had to let go of Ultimate Tag Warrior. Actually, I thought Ultimate Tag Warrior was working until today, when I found out every URL such as http://zedomax.com/tag/lasers, was giving me a 404 error.

Well, being an old school I am, I did even try to downgrade back to my favorite Wordpress 2.2.3, which results in catastrophic failure with the wp-categories… Damn it!

So I did look through the internet and basically Wordpress 2.5 has a built-in function to let you import Ultimate Tag Warrior tags.

Even though it should have gone smoothly, I did encounter LOTS of problems as the built-in function was very basic and did not support importing of 47,000 tags, which is what this site has.

The first problem I had was that I keep getting the following message:

Done! 13331 tags were read.
Reading UTW Post Tags…
Done! 45824 tags to post relationships were read.
Adding Tags to Posts…
Done! 0 tags were added!

Now, as you can see everything worked until the last line, “Done! 0 tags were added!”. I was so furious to know why it wasn’t working, so I even downgraded to Wordpress 2.3.1-RC, which others were saying that it worked.

Now when I tried to import, I did get this error message:

WordPress database error: [Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes]

This one is easy, this simply means your MySQL server is not set to handle large amount of data.

So I did change the max_allowed_packet size to 1 gigabyte like this by add this line:

set-variable = max_allowed_packet=1024M

(Yes, 1 gig should do the job I thought…)

Well, it turns out that after this change, I don’t get the “0 tags were added” message, but the screen “hangs” at the last step of the import screen…

As a more of a good hacker than a developer I am, I finally decided it was time to hack the Wordpress itself.

When I looked into the import php file, utw.php which is under wp-admin/import directory of your Wordpress blog.

It turns out that the import program is very basic at most and the programmer didn’t even consider large chunks of data.

So instead of doing 1 MySQL query, I changed it so it only fetches 100 data bits at a time.

If you are having problems like me with a large tag database, you can change the following function in utw.php like this:

function tag2post ( ) {

// get the tags and posts we imported in the last 2 steps
$tags = get_option(’utwimp_tags’);
$posts = get_option(’utwimp_posts’);

global $wpdb;
$startvalue=0;
$endvalue=1000;
$ct=$startvalue;

$tags_added = 0;
while($ct<$endvalue) {

$posts_query = “SELECT tag_id, post_id FROM ” . $wpdb->prefix . “post2tag”.” LIMIT “.$ct.”,100″;
$posts = $wpdb->get_results($posts_query);

if($posts) {
// null out our results

// loop through each post and add its tags to the db
foreach ( $posts as $this_post ) {

$the_post = (int) $this_post->post_id;
$the_tag = (int) $this_post->tag_id;

// what’s the tag name for that id?
$the_tag = $tags[$the_tag];

// screw it, just try to add the tag
wp_add_post_tags($the_post, $the_tag);
$tags_added++;
echo “Num: “.$tags_added.” - “.$the_tag.”<br />”;

}

}
$ct=$ct+100;
sleep(0.1);
}
echo “HACKED by Max Lee from http://zedomax.com yey!”;

// that’s it, all posts should be linked to their tags properly, pending any errors we just spit out!
return $tags_added;

}

Download my UTW.php here (rename utw.txt as utw.php)

Now, my recommendation is to run the Step 3 of the UTW import by taking 2000 tags at a time. You can change the value of $startvalue and $endvalue to control the range of your imports.

FInally, I did get all my precious tags imported, now you can install the Tag Suggest Thing and some other cool stuff from the UTW.

Phew, that was a long 4 hours of hacking Wordpress. Although I am very impressed at the new Wordpress 2.5, functions like the Ultimate Tag Warrior import could be improved dramatically through use of smarter programming and AJAX.

What I do recommend that Wordpress developers do is use AJAX to fetch at most 1000 tags at a time and then update the screen and the database to protect again freezing or users having to re-configure their MySQL server.

I also found out that if your PHP setttings for max_execution_time is low, (mine was at 10 seconds), this can be a problem as the import process takes longer than 10 seconds for big databases.

So change it like this in your /etc/php.ini file:

max_execution_time = 90 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 95 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 128M

Then you can change it back after import.

Now, I’ve outlined all the possible problems you can have while importing your “large” number of tags.

For blogs with little or less than 2000 tags, the default Wordpress importer shouldn’t be a problem but for people like me with over 10,000 tags, this is a big problem but I am sure Wordpress developers will update it in the future. Check me out as I tried to get help from Wordpress Forum, but I did figure it out eventually myself.

Well, there’s a flood of Firefox Toolbar makers out there, but I feel that is too much cheating and you don’t actually learn anything.  Plus, those toolbars are very chubby and don’t run fast as it could when you make them from scratch.

In this session, I will teach you how to make your own Firefox extension and make it say, “Hello World!” from scratch.  (Not exactly from scratch but…)

It’s pretty easy actually. You can use this Firefox/Thunderbird Extension Wizard to get the skeleton code for your new Firefox extension.

Simply fill in the blanks like below and make sure to note the Extension ID, you can probably put your favorite e-mail address here:

After unzipping the downloaded files, simple unzip the files into a directory such as c:\mytoolbar.

After that, you can create a text file called, “zedomax@gmail.com”, which is what you put for Extension ID earlier. Simply put “c:\mytoolbar” in the text file and save it. (Yes, you need to simply set the path and save it…)

Now put that text file in your profile directory, usually something like, “c:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxx.default\extensions\” where Username is your username and xxx will be variable depending on your computer.

After that, simply restart your Firefox and then go to Tools->Add-Ons and you will see your Firefox extension as seen here:

In my case, I named it “SiteHoppin Toolbar”, since I am making a SiteHoppin Toolbar.

Now that’s the basics to be able to edit your extension with Javascript and other great stuff. Greatest thing or the easiest thing about Firefox extensions is that it supports Javascript. Even if you turn off your Javascript support for browsing, Javascript for extensions still work, the real beauty behind Firefox extensions.

Now, you don’t see any buttons other than this new menu button called, “Your localized menuItem” under Tools. Press on it and you will get a “Hello World!” message.

But you can also go add your first icon button by going to View->Toolbars->Customize, then find your icon and drag it anywhere you want.

Now you should see your very first ever Firefox extension button like here:

Yey, congratulations!

You can now go play with the DTD files in your plugin folder OR you can go to this Mozilla Help for further instructions OR simply check back in couple days as we will have part II of this DIY.

C’ ya, have great coding weekend!

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

This has got to be the most awesome sky-diving experience with a wing and jet that lasts up to 4 minutes at 200 kilometers per hour.

The jet-pack consists of wings with a total three meter span with four model engines built under the wings. Speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour are possible. So far, the device does not allow powered take-offs. So, he jumps out of a plane, stabilizes his flight, and then powers up. Up to four minutes of powered flight at speeds of one hundred knots have been achieved.

via HackedGadgets

VHi All,

This week we will be featuring review of affiliate programs from AdTech 2008 and try out 6 affiliate programs we hand pick and test them out over the next 2 months.

(AdTech is a tradeshow that covers the latest trends in online marketing, advertising, publishing, and social media.)

For the reviews, we actually went out and hand picked the smaller or less known affiliate companies among the bloggers, who provide better customer support while giving you better affiliate payouts.

We are also planning to gather about 200 bloggers over at Zedomax.Net to launch a big blog/affiliate network so stay tuned.

So far, we got about 50 bloggers so if you want to get in early, make sure to shoot us an e-mail at zedomax [at] gmail.com and benefit fro