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The Best Of Facebook Apps!

tanya — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:06:00 +0000

Oh Facebook, how we love thee! Unless you are living under a rock, you would be part of the Facebook phenomena and most likely cannot imagine life without it. Raise your hand if you hit the panic mode when Facebook becomes inaccessible for five minutes or you now take pictures just to upload them on Facebook! I also made peace with my addiction and the fact that I have 200 plus friends who I didn’t even know existed before FB!

So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that we decided to dedicate a full post on Facebook. As who doesn’t like living vicariously through Facebook. Not on Facebook? Well, kudos to you for not succumbing to the dark side!

Best Facebook Game – YoVille

In Facebook you can be a farmer without the hard work or a Mafia Don without getting in trouble with the law. There are countless games on Facebook which will keep you hooked for hours. While I am hooked to Cafe World which is ironic since I can’t cook to save my life; however Yoville is one of the most popular games out on FB. Similar to SIMS, you lead an alternate reality in YoVille.

Best Mobile App – The iPhone Facebook App

iPhone and iPod Touch users have the best mobile version of Facebook in my opinion, though the BlackBerry version comes a close second. You can sync contacts, add profile pics and chat online too!

Best Word Game – Word Challenge

Word Challenge by Playfish will help you in the quest of being a wordsmith. It features animations, 40,000+ words, 20 vocabulary types and more.

Best iPhone App- Bump

Its hard to pick just one but we love the new feature that the Bump has incorporated. Those on Bump can just touch each others devices to share Facebook information!

Best Blogging App – Social RSS

With this app you can post your blog’s RSS feed to your Facebook profile and can also add Twitter feed, FriendFeed RSS , etc.

Best Ego-Boosting App – Face Double

Upload your photo or use your profile picture and see which celebrity you look like. My results were Irish singer Andrea Corr and Sophia Bush something which I can live with!

Best Movie App – Flixster

Find out which friends share your movie tastes and rate and review movies.

Best Casino Game – Texas HoldEm Poker by Zynga Poker

Hands down the best Poker game on Facebook with thousands of users. Play with virtual money and make real friends. Beware this one can be highly addictive and I speak from experience.

Most Noble App – Causes

Everyone should check this out as there are thousands of causes which you can support online or even donate.

Best Adventure App – Dungeons & Dragons

The Facebook version of Dungeons & Dragons is quite a hit with those who played this as kids. This traditional fantasy game has a number of adventures which you need to complete.

These are just some of the thousands of Facebook apps that caught our fancy. Do not forget to list down your favorites in the comments section.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

The Best Of Facebook Apps!

PDF Hack – How to Open Every PDF File with GoogleDocs!

max — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:05:02 +0000

Recently, I’ve stopped using Adobe reader simply because it’s slow and for GoogleDocs does a great job of letting you view PDF files much quicker than Adobe reader.

So, how do you open every PDF file you find online with GoogleDocs?

So long as the PDF file exists online, you can simply use GoogleDocs viewer and paste in the URL of the PDF you want to view.

Another great way to do this automatically is to get the gPDF add-on for your firefox and Chrome.

A lot of times you will find yourself on your friend’s computer or a public computer that doesn’t have Adobe reader installed. Instead of messing with fussy installation programs, just use GoogleDocs Viewer.

Also, if you want to make your PDF file friendly on your website so people can easily view it through GoogleDocs, you can use the following PHP code:

”>View PDF

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

PDF Hack – How to Open Every PDF File with GoogleDocs!

Webmaster Hack – How to Redirect your Multiple Pages using .Htaccess wildcard!

max — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:53:12 +0000

One of my friends Josh over at Unconventional Marketing asked me how to redirect his old website to a new URL using .htaccess file.

Well, I haven’t messed around much with .htaccess file since I’ve stopped using Apache web servers but I did figure it out in about 10 minutes.

For example, if you want to redirect all pages under your http://oldsite.com/thisdirectory to http://newsite.com/thisdirectory then you can edit your .htaccess file (of oldsite.com) and adding the following:

RewriteEngine On
redirectMatch 301 ^/thisdirectory(.*)$ http://newsite.com/thisdirectory$1
redirectMatch permanent ^/thisdirectory(.*)$ http://newsite.com/thisdirectory$1

This will effectively move each webpage under /thisdirectory to the the URL.

For example, this will redirect http://oldsite.com/thisdirectory/myfile.php to http://newsite.com/thisdirectory/myfile.php.

That way, you don’t need a redirect for each file, that would be a hassle for those of you with multiple web pages to move.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Webmaster Hack – How to Redirect your Multiple Pages using .Htaccess wildcard!

Webmaster DIY – How to Ping Your Website Worldwide!

max — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:41:28 +0000

Do you ever wonder how fast your website would load in other parts of the world?

Just Ping is a great service for that, you can check your website ping times from various different places in the world. You can also use WatchMouse.com to check the actual loading times for your website in various different parts of the world too.

And if loads way too slow, you might want to think about having a server in other parts of the world. Web hosting services such as VPS.net allow you to do this as you can choose a datacenter between UK and the US.

I am also looking into having another server in UK soon through VPS.net to serve faster webpages in the UK. Well, I will have a DIY on that too so watch out for that.

via webserverhacks

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Webmaster DIY – How to Ping Your Website Worldwide!

Twitter DIY – How to Automatically add Hashtags to your Blog RSS Feed Tweets!

max — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:07:25 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed, Google Feedburner has a great new Twitter feature that lets you automatically add hashtags to important keywords and categories. I think this is a great way to get more exposure for your blog rss feed tweets. The more hashtags you use, the more chances of your tweet being found/spread on the Twittersphere.

Adding hashtags to your tweets can certainly enhance the chances of your tweets being spread further into the Twittersphere. If you have a blog and you are using tools like TwitterFeed or a wordpress plug-in, chances are that your blog tweets aren’t getting the full hashtag exposure it can have.

Google has introduced a new “Socialize” section along with ability to add hash tags to your blog tweets. Not only that, there’s an “inline hash tag” mode which will automatically turn important keywords of your blog post title into hashtags.

Plus, Google Feedburner will automatically cut off enough characters so there’s room for retweets.

These simple features make Google Feedburner a great way to get your blog tweets “enhanced” with hashtags.

via tweethacking

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Twitter DIY – How to Automatically add Hashtags to your Blog RSS Feed Tweets!

DNS Hack – How to Check your Website on the New Server During DNS Delegation!

max — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:20:57 +0000

One of the biggest problems with moving your server to a new hosting company is when you move the DNS entries, it can take 12-24 hours before your DNS is fully transferred. During that time, it might not be possible to check if your website has been moved over to the new server correctly. Here, I show you how to point your computer’s DNS to your new server IP address in Windows so you can load your website on the new server while DNS is still being delegated throughout the interwebs.

Enjoy~

P.S. Mac or linux should be similar, just google “Mac hosts file” or “Linux hosts file”.

When you change your DNS records, your DNS delegation will usually take more than 12-24 hours on average. This means that during that time, it might be impossible to check your website.

This can be a big problem if you are moving a website to a new server and you can’t check if you’ve moved everything right.

So, how do you check your website on the new server during DNS delegation?

You can easily do this by changing the DNS servers on your computer.

For Windows, you can go into your network adaptor settings, then right-click on your adaptor, then select “Properties”.

You will see a bunch of options like the above screen shot. Simply double-click on “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4). This screenshot was from Windows 7 and on other Windows, I think it’s simply called “TCP/IP”.

Here, you can set your DNS server to your new web server’s IP address. In this example, I set it to “47.23.55.24″.

Click okay and try navigating to your URL such as mydomain.com. Now you should be able to see your website on your browser and make sure your website has been moved successfully before DNS delegation is finished.

Also, any images not from your own domain name (URL) will not load on your browser. This is because you can only load elements from your domain name as your DNS is set to your new web server.

Now, this might not work if you are on shared server or it could, it depends on your hosting provider. For dedicated servers, VPS, or hosting servers with your own unique IP address, it should work flawlessly.

Make sure you go through the above process and set your DNS back to “Obtain DNS server address automatically” when you are done testing your new server.

That is one of the ways of doin’ it but there’s also a better way if you want to be able to access the whole internet.

You can edit the hosts file under C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. Simply edit the file with a notepad program and add the following line at the end of the file:

47.23.55.24 mydomain.com

where 47.23.55.24 is the IP of your new server and mydomain.com is the domain name of your website.

Now save the file and try loading your site on the browser, it will load from your new server.

One more thing, you can also check the IP address of your website (to make sure it’s coming from the new server) by going to command prompt (type cmd under Start->Search programs and files) then typing ping mydomain.com.

By being able to check that everything is working correctly on your new server, you will lose ZERO traffic during DNS delegation because your website will load flawlessly whether on the old server or the new server.

How cool is that?

Well, for those of you who didn’t know, now you know! Make sure to subscribe for more great free tips on hacking your web server!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DNS Hack – How to Check your Website on the New Server During DNS Delegation!

PHP Hack – How to Detect iPhone, iPod, Andoird, Palm Pre Browsers!

max — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:03:13 +0000

One of our readers Titus just alerted me that Zedomax.com on smartphone browsers such as his iPhone will cause our e-mail newsletter lightbox to appear and make it almost impossible to get rid of.

Therefore, I’ve just put in a simple PHP code that will detect iPhone, iPod, Android, and Palm Pre browsers so there’s no more of that.
Try PHP code something like below:

$iphone = strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],”iPhone”);
$android = strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],”Android”);
$palmpre = strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],”webOS”);
$ipod = strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],”iPod”);
if(!$iphone && !$android && !$palmpre && !$ipod) {
?>
Your code goes here that you want only executed when it’s not a smartphone.

Btw, strpos is a simple PHP command that will search for the specified string and return true of false if it exists.

And $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] returns the user agent, you can read more about that here.

Of course, you can also use this code to serve mobile-friendly version of your website. So far, I actually haven’t found a good workaround for this site so I will just stick with the regular website until I do.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

PHP Hack – How to Detect iPhone, iPod, Andoird, Palm Pre Browsers!

jQuery Hack – How to Automatically Re-size Background Images!

max — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:52:10 +0000

For web designers out there who use photos as background images, you might want to learn how to automatically re-size background images, matching the size of the browser of the user.

You can probably use a complicated javascript for that but there’s a better way, you can use a simple jQuery hack for that, see Bavota’s hack here.

I just really dig how versatile the jQuery library is and all the amazing things you can do to a Web site with it. I had to create a resizing background image that would fit the full size of the browser window and this little plugin does just that.

I have to agree, jQuery can do some things rather quickly and simple, awesome hack bud!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

jQuery Hack – How to Automatically Re-size Background Images!

Website Design Hack – How to Test your Website for IE6 Browser Compatibility!

max — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:29:18 +0000

Thanks to invent of Windows 7, I no longer complain about how Vista sucks but I ran into one problem, that of testing my new blog designs on IE6 browsers. I do have an Eee PC netbook that runs IE6 still but it’s a pain to boot my netbook just to check my blog designs on the IE6.

For those of you already enjoying Windows 7, there’s a cool little free program called IETester that will let you check your website’s compatibility across all types of Internet Explorer browsers including IE 5.5, 6, 7, and 8.

I like this program a lot because I can also do testing for IE 5.5.

Why is testing for IE6 so important?

You have to realize that still a majority of people on public computers (such as libraries) are on IE6, not because they want to but because they don’t have a choice.

For example, if you still receive 10% of your web traffic from IE6 browsers and your site doesn’t load in IE6, you might be losing out on that valuable 10%. This actually happened to me recently and I lost about $2000/month because some of my blogs would cause a bunch of error messages on IE6. So, just a tip!

I am sure in a few years IE6 will eventually die out but you need to still make sure your website runs flawlessly on IE6.

I have also found out that the IETester picks up bugs better than the regular IE6. For example, you might not pick up bugs on an IE6 SP3 while you do on IE6 SP1. But IETester will pick up all of those and more.

Also, if you want to test it on a real IE6 browser, you can always install virtual machines like VMware or VirtualBox then load an old WinXP into it. I actually do all of the above since I am fanatic about making sure my site runs well on all types of browser.

There’s many website compatibility testing sites out there such as BrowserShots and NetRenderer. I find that BrowserShots take way too long to actually render (making it useless unless you want to pay for its priority service) and plus, you really need to focus on IE6, Firefox, and Safari. If your site loads well on IE6, Firefox, and Safari, the chances are that your website will load well on all other browsers.

I find NetRenderer a great way to do a quick-check on your IE6 compatibility if you don’t have access to IETester or virtual machines.

Well, I hope you make sure your site loads well in all types of browsers and make sure they do because otherwise, you are losing some free web traffic.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Website Design Hack – How to Test your Website for IE6 Browser Compatibility!

Top 10 Best GMail HOWTOs!

tanya — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:03:29 +0000

Unless you are still stuck in the nineties and using email clients like Hotmail, chances are, you on Gmail. It goes without saying that Google’s Gmail is the king of email and an imperative part of our daily cyber existence. But there is so much more to this client than just receiving and sending emails. So if you want to know some of the best Gmail tricks, you have come to the right place. So without further ado we bring you the 10 Best Gmail HOWTOs.

Delete Shortcut

Hate when your Inbox gets flooded with useless mail? To lazy to move that mouse? Well then check out the delete mail shortcut here and see if your browser supports it.

If you are reading a message in GMail, press the # key (Shift+3) and that message will instantly move to Trash.
Alternatively, select one or more email messages in the GMail list view, press the same # hash key and all the selected GMail conversations will be deleted in one batch.
We tested this on Internet Explorer and Firefox but it should work just fine on Opera, Safari and other browsers.

Feed for Unread Gmail Messages

Create a RSS Feed for your unread mail that doesn’t necessary has a label like the “unread label”. The fact that only Gmail supports this feature makes the whole effort so much sweeter. Check out the instructions here.

For example, the feed http://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/ shows the most recent unread items from your inbox. Gmail also offers feeds for your labels: http://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/labelname/, but it would be nice to have a comprehensive listing of all the unread messages, not just the ones that have a certain label.

Access Denied

Don’t panic or shoot emails to customer care if you cannot access your precious account. Sometimes all you need is a little patience and some skill. Check out all the steps you can take to regain access here.

Watch It

Watch videos on Youtube and Google Videos right from you Gmail Chat. No more opening new tabs to watch some visual action. Check out the steps here.

Filter and Organize

Control your inbox and keep mailing lists out of your inbox. Learn how to add filters like “If the email is to some-mailinglist, skip the inbox” and clean the clutter. Instructions here.

Fast PDF Viewing

Loading and reading pdf files no longer has to be a pain. Learn how to view pdf files right in your browser by adapting to the settings listed here.

Stay Secure and Safe

No more nightmares about phishing or hacking as now you can tweak the Gmail settings and select “always use https” which will redirect you the secure version.

Nifty Shortcuts

Be the Gmail Shortcut King/Queen and never stumble when trying to perform certain actions. Here is an one page list of all Gmail keyboard shortcuts.

Multi-Tasking with Gmail Tasks

Firefox users can add Gmail Tasks to the sidebar of their browser so that you can easily view, create, edit, delete, and complete tasks. Instructions listed here.

Glow With Gmail

This one requires a lot of hard work and some mechanical skills. But the result is superb. Make your own Gmail Notifier cube that lights up everytime you got mail! Told you it cool. Here are the instructions.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Top 10 Best GMail HOWTOs!

Linux Hack – SSH/SCP HOWTOs for More Secure/Faster Linux!

max — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:44:55 +0000

As a person who manages about 10 web servers on a daily basis (yes, that’s the overworked poor me), SSH/SCP has been invaluable in having me get things done faster while keeping things secure.

For those of you who don’t know, SSH is basically a secure shell for linux systems (my web servers run linux) so you can connect to it remotely and get things done. Of course, you will need a dedicated server of some sort because most shared web hosting companies don’t allow for SSH connections. (or VPS would work too such as MediaTemple or VPS.net, both which I use on my smaller-scale sites, read my web hosting review here for that)

Why SSH?

For one, you can transfer files much faster between two computers using scp, which is a secure copying command you can use under SSH. Also, you can download files from websites at lightening speeds using wget, which is a command for downloading any web page or file on the interwebs.

These two tools help me save a ton of time doing things like upgrading my Wordpress or installing new Wordpress plug-ins.

For example, I can upgrade my Wordpress to a new version in about 15 seconds literally.

How to SSH?

SSH on Windows

For windows, you will need to download an SSH client which allows you to connect to your web server via SSH. You will also need your server SSH login and password, something your hosting provider should give you.

Putty is a great free SSH client and SecureCRT is another good option although it’s a paid app.

Once you have your SSH client software running, you can set your hostname to your domain name where the web server lies or use its IP address plus the login/password.

SSH Client on Linux

For those of you on linux computers, you are in luck because SSH is usually included as a basic package. For SSH command line, you can do a simple command like “ssh myserver.com” to connect to another server.

Now this can get annoying if you have to type your password everytime you connect. Therefore, you can setup SSH authentication keys on your linux computer, which will allow you to connect without a password.

I won’t get into that in this post but let me point to you in the right direction for great sites to learn more about SSH in general and setting up the authentication.

SSH Client on Mac

Macs should be almost identical as Linux as there’s a Unix terminal, you can read up on SSH in Mac OS X here if above HOWTOs don’t work for you.

SSH Client on iPhone/Android

For iPhones, there’s iSSH, pTerm, TouchTerm, or SSH as SSH Client apps. You can read up on the round-up review for each of those here.

For Android-based phones such as the Nexus One, try ConnectBot.

Why do you need an SSH client on your smartphone? Because you could be doing things like rebooting your web server or even backing up all your data while you in the bus, train, whatever. How cool is that?

Why SCP?

SCP is a linux command you can use under SSH secure shell to transfer files between servers.

For example let’s say you have a Mac or linux computer at home, you can use SSH to transfer files to your Mac/linux more faster and secure than typical FTP. FTP programs can get a bit hairy when you start transferring large files over like 15 GB. SCP is great because it’s a lot more stable than FTP plus it’s simply way faster.

Plus, you can write up a simple bash script to automate the backing up of your web server using scp.

Basically, you can do something like this:

scp * root@myhomeserver.com:/mybackups/.

This would transfer all files in current directory to your homeserver at myhomeserver.com under the /mybackups directory.

The beauty of scp is that it works like a regular cp command and you can do the opposite too.

scp root@myhomeserver.com:/mybackups/* .

This would transfer all your files in your homeserver at myhomeserver.com to the current directory of the web server.

Remember you can also use IP address instead of a domain name. Personally, I use a dynamic DNS setup on my linux server so I don’t have to know my own IP address. (Read up on how to setup free dynamic DNS for your Ubuntu here, all other linux distros should be similar)

Also, remember to change “root” to your username.

There’s a bunch of more great stuff you can learn about scp, here’s some links to more SCP HOWTO tutorials:

One more thing, sometimes on slow VPS sites, your scp transfer can come to a halt during transfer (although it doesn’t happen often). For those times, you can actually use a neat little hack to resume your file transfer using alias and rsync.

Extra – SSH Tunneling

SSH tunneling is a super powerful concept that allows you to connect two servers as if they were connected locally. You can use SSH tunneling to have your web server pull MySQL database from your home server for instance (although that’d be slow). It’s simply a great skill to learn if you are a webmaster.

Or even share internet access between linux/Mac computers if you want.

Also see this article on more SSH Tunneling.

Well, I just covered two of the most important things you should know as a webmaster who manages SSH-enabled web servers. And if you are not on SSH-enabled servers, you should be. It’s simply faster, more secure, and what the professional webmasters use. And yes, I am claiming myself a pro now.

Hopefully these tips will help you become better webmaster and don’t forget to re-tweet my post plz!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Linux Hack – SSH/SCP HOWTOs for More Secure/Faster Linux!

Wordpress DIY – How to Upgrade Wordpress in 15 seconds!

max — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:02:16 +0000

For most of my life, I have been rather fond of doing things faster than every else as evidenced my the very first blog (arr HTML) post on Zedomax.com.

Upgrading my Wordpress is no exception, I am always in a race with time plus I manage about 20 blogs, meaning I need to get them upgraded FAST if I want to have some time to kill later.

So, without delay, I’ve posted exactly how to upgrade a Wordpress blog in 15 seconds using SSH and Wget:

I’ve been upgrading Wordpress for almost 4 years now and since I manage about 20 blogs, I have learned to figure out how to upgrade your Wordpress faster than ever using SSH and wget command.

For one, you will need a dedicated server/VPS that supports SSH. Otherwise you won’t be able to do it.

Here’s exactly how I do it.

1) I go to my Wordpress directory using the command cd. ~ 2 seconds

2) I use wget to pull the latest wordpress files, “wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz” ~ 3 seconds

3) Then I unzip the tar file using “tar xvf latest.tar.gz” ~ 5 seconds (see tar command howto here)

4) Then I remove the wp-admin and wp-includes directories by doing “rm wp-admin -rf” and “rm wp-includes -rf“. ~ 3 seconds

5) Next I will copy over the old Wordpress files with the new ones using commands, “cp wordress/* . -rf –reply=yes” ~ 2 seconds.

6) I am done, that’s 2+3+5+3+2=15 seconds. If you are on at least a quad-core CPU server, downloading and unzipping should be rather fast but for those of you on slower servers, give it couple more seconds as download/unzip will take longer.

This is lightening fast compared to downloading Wordpress files to your computer, unzipping it then uploading them to your website via FTP. And if you are on shared hosting, sometimes uploading FTP can take forever.

Even if you use built-in upgrade functions in Wordpress, you are not going to beat SSH, not even a chance.

Of course, even better than this is to write a simple bash shell script that will do all the above for you. Then you could probably do it in just about 5 seconds. I will try to write a script soon and let you know on that btw. (I just realize it!)

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Wordpress DIY – How to Upgrade Wordpress in 15 seconds!

HowTweets – How to Find Great HOWTO/DIY Tweets on Twitter!

max — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:51:31 +0000

Well, it seems like yesterday that I launched TwitLi.st, a site that helps you find good people to follow on Twitter. I was playing with PHP and Twitter API the other day (btw, I should have an in-depth tutorial post on that too soon), and made HowTweets.com. (it’s basically the same code running on TwitLi.st but simpler)

Basically it’s a site where Twitter users can hashtag their tweets with #HWT, which HowTweets.com will collect and organize them according to the hashtags used.

For example, you can do a tweet such as, “How to make good Twitter Lists http://bit.ly/xyz #HOWTO #DIY #HWT“.

Then your tweets should get listed under HowTweets.com #HOWTO, #DIY, and #HWT tag pages.

Why in the hell did I make such a site?

Because lately I’ve been finding some great HOWTOs and DIYs on Twitter to blog about. I can use the regular Twitter search function for finding great HOWTO tweets but the problem lies when I try to search for the HOWTOs in my own Twitter account. In short, you can’t, Twitter Search only lets you search for all tweets, not just yours.

Well, actually if you use the advanced feature on Twitter Search, you can do a search but also only up to a certain point, you can go back more than like 500 tweets or somethin’.

HowTweets.com basically lets me “archive” all my tweets plus any tweets that other Twitter recommend me by adding #HWT hashtag to their tweets.

Btw, I am thinking this could some great open-source software, Twitter-archiving/Tweet-collecting PHP/MySQL software. If any of you guys are interested, let me know, I might develop it further for public use so you can archive your own tweets and easily find your own hashtags.

The more I am building these types of sites the more I realize that Twitter can be a great way to “bookmark” interesting sites you find on Twitter. (along with my new Twitter archiver, it’s AWESOME!)

For example, I can tweet a bunch of stuff and find it later such as #Photography, #Ubuntu, or whatever. Also since it runs on my own web server and it’s only the tweets I want (that I’ve tweeted), the hashtag function is super fast.

Well, check it out, it’s a fun little site. I try to keep minimalist graphic design to it, let me know what your comments on the web design part too, I am always striving to get better so….

I find that Twitter is a great, big, giant mass of real-time information that can’t be searched well, especially with time, so I made a simple site that will search it well and archive the stuff you are interested in most. For me, that was HOWTO/DIY stuff.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

HowTweets – How to Find Great HOWTO/DIY Tweets on Twitter!

Twitter Chick! [Video]

max — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:19:13 +0000

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

I just spotted Twitter Chick video on YouTube, this is hilarious!

(Thanks @YunaPark for the tweet!)

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Twitter Chick! [Video]

Japanese T-Shirt Company Allows DIY Custom Designs via Twitter!

max — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:49:53 +0000

Can you imagine if you could “tweet” and be able to make custom T-shirt designs? Well, that seems highly unlikely but that’s exactly a Japanese T-shirt company is doing now.

You will have to use the custom T-shirt making language which allows you to make patterns and move them anywhere you’d like.

It’s probably going to annoy hell out of your fellow twitters but this seems like a radical idea for future machines, Twitter can become an efficient middle-man.

This art installation, originally designed by Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi, allows Twitter-users to tweet instructions to web site that replies with an example output. Upon approval it sends the design to a bank of industrial sewing machines which then embroider the resulting pattern onto a t-shirt. The web site still works, but not sure if you can still buy the shirt you create.

via make

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Japanese T-Shirt Company Allows DIY Custom Designs via Twitter!

iPhone DIY – How to Make Your First Mobile iPhone Website!

max — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:45:32 +0000

For people who want to customize their website for iPhone and other smartphone users, you might want to take a look at this great guide on how to get started. Basically, it shows you how to blend the mobile CSS into your mobile website so it loads fast on the iPhone instead of loading the full website.

I think this is great reference as more people in the world are using smartphones. Most good smartphones can now access your full website but in my experience, the loading times are still ridiculously slow compared to a laptop/desktop so in some cases, making your website into mobile format could be very helpful indeed. (for sites such as banking)

Also, if you run a Wordpress blog, you might want to consider the WordPress Mobile Pack. I’ve played with it but didn’t really like it much so…

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

iPhone DIY – How to Make Your First Mobile iPhone Website!

Javascript DIY – How to Code Faster with jQuery Plugins!

max — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:27:49 +0000

jQuery is basically javascript extended, helping you get things done faster instead of you trying to code javascript from scratch. I just noticed on Twitter TripWireMagazine.com has a great blog post on Top 25 jQuery plugins that can help you finish your web project faster.

I’ve been working hard on TwitLi.st for last few weeks and regret I didn’t use any jQuery libraries instead I coded every single line of AJAX myself.

For those of you who don’t know about jQuery, you can read/learn about it here.

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Javascript DIY – How to Code Faster with jQuery Plugins!

Twitter DIY – How to Set Up Your Twitter Social Media Marketing!

max — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:26:49 +0000

Recently, I have been twittering a LOT (spending like 10 hours a day), and learned couple tricks that can help you set up your Twitter social media marketing.

I am no social media “guru” like some people on Twitter represent themselves but I think I know whole lot more than most of these social media experts as “social media” used to be once called “social networks”.

I remember when people started using the term “social media” when Twitter came to the masses about a year ago, kinda offended that anyone could become a “social media expert” when there were many “social network experts” who’s been doing it for years.

Anyways, never mind those social media experts, let’s see how you can setup your Twitter social media marketing effectively.

This guide if for total Twitter newbies but if you are already a “guru” please just re-tweet for other newbies out there.

First off, you will want to set up your Twitter account. Yes, sign up for one.

Second, you will want to follow conversations that interest you. To do that, you will want to “find” the people that interest you. I just launched TwitLi.st, a site that helps you find existing Twitter Lists recommended by other people. You can head over there and hopefully find a category that interests you. Follow all of them or just follow ones that interest you.

Plus, most websites now have Twitter links to their Twitter feeds, you can start adding all of your favorite blogs/websites that way too.

Once you have followed people and you are “listening” to conversations that interest you, simply engage in the conversations by meeting new people, RT-ing interesting articles, and using Twitter as your 3rd communication medium like e-mail.

After using Twitter for about a year, I feel that it’s most useful stay updated on the most current news around the world. For example, if there’s an earthquake in Haiti, I will first hear about it on Twitter, then blogs, then on TV.

Plus, Twitter is great for meeting new people. I have talked to many famous people I would have not a got a chance to in real life such as @GuyKawasaki (Author of How to Drive Your Competition Crazy), @PGA_JohnDaly (One of my long-time golf idols), @EtSeng (Head of Nexus One), and many more.

Every book I read now, I can tweet the authors and actually get a tweet back. I just found that really cool.

Likewise, having a “personal” presence on Twitter can help your blog’s online presence.

Now, how do we “measure” our performance? For example, you might want to measure how well you are doing on Twitter otherwise there’s no telling where your efforts are going.

For measuring clicks received on your tweets, there’s a bunch of free URL shortening sites with stats. The best one to use if Bit.ly, there’s more chance people will click if you use Bit.ly. Bit.ly has a great stats dashboard and it’s free so go sign up for an account.

Every time you are going to tweet out a link, make sure use your Bit.ly account to shorten and to get the best results.

Now, there’s also free tools out there to help you schedule your tweets such as HootSuite. I use this service to tweet every hour. Of course, for best results, you need to actually engage and communicate with others, don’t just schedule all your tweets. No one likes receiving automated tweets but you can use automated tweets for your new blog posts or regularly updated news.

HootSuite also has URL shortening service of its own Ow.ly but I think Bit.ly works better because it has no iframes.

Anyways, by using Bit.ly stats, you will know how effective your message gets across Twitterverse by measuring number of clicks.

Below is a sample of my Bit.ly dashboard that shows you how many clicks I am receiving on the URLs I shortened myself:

There’s many other sophisticated ways to measure your results but I won’t get into that here, you could do well by starting with stats.

If you can measure your success, you can keep applying your efforts for more results.

I see a lot of bloggers out there still not effective using Twitter for the extra online exposure and online camaraderie. Seriously, you should because you don’t want to feel left out when Twitter replaces e-mail in year 2015.

How does the traffic compared to other social networking traffic such as Digg, StumbleUpon, etc…etc…?

I think it does actually better because a lot of Twitter users are people that wouldn’t normally use services like Digg or StumbleUpon. You get a lot of new audience that you wouldn’t get otherwise through other social media networks.

Plus, people are more engaged, meaning they are more connected to you rather than simply another “reader” of your site.

As far as web traffic, Twitter is a lot harder to build up on because it’s more about engaging in conversations with others, not just voting on the best topics. In the long run though, you will get to meet more interesting people and even people who can help you promote your online business simply by being your friend.

Think of it this way, you don’t go to a party to talk about your company, you go to parties to meet new people or party with your friends. Same thing on Twitter, don’t just go tweet about your stuff, actually go meet some new people on a daily basis. Have fun, and once you meet new people who become your friends, they will be more than willing to help you with anything you need help with, just like in real life.

Simply put it, go meet new people, make friends, and have fun. The rest will take care of itself if you have a ton of Twitter friends. But don’t be another dull, automated Tweeple out there, no one needs more of that.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Twitter DIY – How to Set Up Your Twitter Social Media Marketing!

TwitList Launched! – User Recommended Twitter Lists!

max — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:28:07 +0000

Well, finally I launched a new website. This one is called TwitList, actually the domain is TwitLi.st to be exact.

TwitLi.st is a site for Twitter users who want to recommend their Twitter Lists to others. For example, I have a good blogger list, I can recommend it to TwitLi.st.

What does it do?

Basically, it’s a Twitter list recommendation engine. Whoever’s list gets most recommended, will show up higher under the category. There’s currently about 50 categories made but it’s going to get crazier as more people recommend new Twitter Lists into new categories (or tags).

I’ve put in all kinds of crazy hours into this project, hence I haven’t had much time to blog nor eat. I am actually on the brink of going crazy actually because my mind is filled with a lot of PHP and Javascript code. Does that ever happen to you?

I haven’t really made a site like this since last year when I launched StumbleTweets.com. Honestly, the reason I haven’t been promoting StumbleTweets as much is because I didn’t build it right. What I mean is that I didn’t set up the MySQL database structure right so when it got filled up with a lot of data, the site just slowed down. I didn’t want to keep promoting something that wasn’t going to work in the end. Eventually I will re-haul that site too but I like pushing new projects, that’s just my personality.

Anyways, TwitLi.st is my new baby. If you are a Twitter addict, you should recommend couple Twitter lists for me as we are just getting started and we need more lists!

My future plan is to turn TwitLi.st into a Twitter List search engine. Well, I need more recommendations first.

I haven’t really been stressed out this much in a long time and I haven’t really coded in about a year either. My head is just spinning everyday and today I just kinda broke down so. I am gonna take some rest before I work on the site again but you can use it because it’s working now. I think seriously I need to get back to blogging, it’s more relaxing. Why am I pushing myself so hard when I could be playing golf? Only God knows why.

L8R!

Oh yeah, if it wasn’t for Josh I wouldn’t have polished the idea for this project, huge thanks to Josh!

P.S. One more thang, I don’t know why but people don’t leave too many recommendations. Perhaps our form is too complicated. If you can figure it out, please leave in the comments line, I’d highly appreciated!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

TwitList Launched! – User Recommended Twitter Lists!

Wordpress DIY – How to Manage Your Wordpress Blog on Your Nexus One!

max — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:50:20 +0000

As a recent buyer of a Nexus One phone, Matt and the Wordpress team just released Wordpress app for Android, which comes to be at the perfect time as I happen to be away from my desktop computer often. Although I can still manage my site using the default browser on my Nexus One, having an app for it makes it so much easier and usable. (and so much faster!)

Features include the ability to:

Configure and manage multiple blogs

Comment moderation including the ability to reply to comments

Create and Edit Posts including categories, tags and photos

Create and Edit Pages

Get notified of new com

What does mean this mean for Zedomax.com readers? I should be able to get back on the comments sooner since I can check it from my phone. Yey!
Thanks Ma.tt!

via mashable

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Wordpress DIY – How to Manage Your Wordpress Blog on Your Nexus One!

PHP Hack – How to Run Background Processes!

max — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:09:50 +0000

Sometimes in web programming, you might need to run (or fork as they say) processes in the background so the web user doesn’t see all of the processing time plus it can potentially “freeze” the webpage on long data processing features of the site.

For that, you can always fork more processes.

The usual line I use is:
exec ("/usr/bin/php proc.php >/dev/null 2<&1");

The problem I incurred with above line was that processes were forked except there was still some delay that the visitors saw.

To fix the issue so there’s absolutely no delay, I found this great article on how to run background processes, the line that helped is:

exec ("/usr/bin/php proc.php >/dev/null &");

There’s also a section on how to “talk” to the background processes but I won’t get into that here.

Another great way to run processes in the background is to make a “looping” PHP file that will keep forking itself. (or creating forking processes) I actually used this method just now to solve a big headache problem of PHP file taking too long. Since the PHP code was repeating itself only with difference of one variable, I was able to make a new PHP file that would keep forking itself until the processes were done.

The greatest part about this is that the processes run almost in parallel because there’s no delay.

If you want to know more about this, leave a comment and I can make a new blog post about it.

For grabbing values off command line PHP, just use $_SERVER['argv'][1] values to grab it.

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PHP Hack – How to Run Background Processes!

Javascript Hack – How to Hide/Show Div Elements!

max — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:10:18 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of PHP/Javascript/AJAX programming for a new Twitter site and I have to say, there’s a REALLY easy way to hide and show your entire div elements without doing much with Javascript but using the document.getElementById(‘whateveridhere’).removeAttribute(‘id’);.

Whatever you want to hide, (for example a questionnaire that you want to show on the top of the webpage if user clicks a button), you can easily do so by putting ALL your code under a

element with “display:none” tag.

So, here’s an example code:

your code goes here… whatever code it is, it will be “hidden” from user

Enter Questionnaire

Now for some javascript code under your javascript file:

function removeid() {

document.getElementById(‘whateveridhere’).removeAttribute(‘id’);

}

That’s it! Now when your users click on “Enter Questionnaire”, all of your questionnaire HTML code suddenly shows up.

I like this method because you don’t have to worry about using Javascript to pass PHP values. Your PHP code can stay inside the hidden DIV and when your users want to see it, they click a button.

How simple is that?

This could be helpful if you are a web programmer/designer, save you a TON of time. Of course, don’t forget to tweet, retweet, and tweet this blog post if you find it helpful!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Javascript Hack – How to Hide/Show Div Elements!

Mobile Browser Hack – Android, WebKit and Javascript/AJAX Trim() Functions!

max — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:55:46 +0000

Here’s a quick note on mobile browsers like Android, WebKit. Based on my testing, it seems that string trim() function is not supported.

I was trying to do something like:

if(mystring.trim()==”0″) etc…etc…

That won’t work in mobile browsers for some reason but you can do something like it using match instead:
if(mystring.match(/0/)) etc…etc…

I don’t know exactly why trim() isn’t supported fully on mobile browsers but for those of you who have problems with your website that works on desktop browsers but not on mobile ones, this could possibly be your solution.

For the weirdest reasons, trim() function breaks everything in Android and WebKit. Don’t ask me why, just don’t use it. Of course, it’s probably not the most efficient function anyways. Instead use match() to match whatever you need.

There’s also a great guide on regex for Javascript, which is pretty much same as PHP but maybe slightly different.

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Mobile Browser Hack – Android, WebKit and Javascript/AJAX Trim() Functions!

Twitter API DIY – How to Get Started with Twitter API and PHP!

max — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:36:45 +0000

Over the last whole week, I’ve been super busy developing my new Twitter app site, I think it will be HUGE and a very useful site for Twitters.

Along the way, my coding for Twitter API has improved and I wanted to share you all the details on the resources I used. I wrote the “Complete HOWTO Guide to Twitter API and PHP/AJAX” over at my TweetHacking blog so check it out for those of you trying your debut at a new Twitter site.

First off, you will want to start learning how to use the Twitter API via curl. Curl is basically a linux/PHP command that allows you to retrieve other web pages to the web server. This would be way your web server actually communicates with Twitter API.

Simply put it, your web server ask for a webpage such as http://twitter.com/user/statuses and would get back some of of user statuses in the format of XML and JSON. (Btw, the webpage URL is just made up in this example.)

XML and JSON are simply how data are formatted so you can easily access it. I have used both XML and JSON for receiving data and I would have to say to learn both but use JSON if you can as it’s faster. (Plus Twitter team also recommends JSON over XML)

So the very first thing I want you to do (if you don’t know how already), is to learn how to use the Twitter API via Curl. Try this guide on MoreThanSeven.Net. It should only take you 15-30 minutes to try out the code and get somewhat familiar with how simply Twitter API is and how it works.

Of course, don’t forget, you need “Curl” installed on your web server. From linux command line, simply do “yum install curl” for Fedora/CentOS and probably “sudo apt-get install curl” on Ubuntu/Debian.

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Twitter API DIY – How to Get Started with Twitter API and PHP!

Linux Hack – How to Install DNS Cache!

max — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:45:11 +0000

Yesterday, I was doing some researching on a new Twitter app site I was making. Since I was going to be dealing with a heap of data, I needed to make sure the web server was optimized as much as it can. One of the way to optimize your web server (or even your Linux desktop), is to install “DNS Cache”.

DNS Cache basically caches your DNS queries so if you try to access the same domain name again later, it’s retrieved from the cache in less than 1ms instead of taking another 20 to 500ms. (This depends but usually, it takes anywhere between 20 to 500ms for a DNS fetch.)

Especially for servers that do a lot of aggregating, (like this site does about 8 RSS aggregates for other blogs in the network) installing DNS cache will save you a lot of time in your website loading faster. After I installed DNS cache on this site, the site loads about 0.10 seconds faster. You might not notice it but it’s still a lot of time you save.

If you want to learn how to do this, (and btw, it’s very simple as couple lines of code and editing couple files), check out the article on WebUpD8.org here.

Some notes on CentOS users:

You can do “yum install bind-utils” to get the dig program.

Also, if you are on the new servers, you might want to edit the “/etc/dhcp6.conf” file instead of the dhpclient.conf.

via webserverhacks

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Linux Hack – How to Install DNS Cache!

DIY Web-Powered Robot!

max — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:21:20 +0000

Thinking of building a DIY web-powered robot that you can control through your browser or smartphone? You might want to check out ioBridge ethernet control modules and this DIY web-powered robot made using them.

The robot uses a pair of serial bluetooth adapters to form a wireless link with the ioBridge IO-204. The serial levels of the IO-204 are TTL and a circuit using the MAX-232 was required to allow the serial interface work properly. On the robot is a set of serial servo drivers that control the steering and speed.

via hackedgadgets

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

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DIY Web-Powered Robot!

Twitter API DIY – How to Use Twitter API in PHP/JSON!

max — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:51:38 +0000

Lately, I have been building a new Twitter site and it has been literally taking ALL of my time (and thus less blog posts) but let me give you TWO great sites that can help you get a head-start on making your own Twitter site too.

First, you will need to learn that Twitter API basically relies on RESTful HTTP protocol. Don’t worry about the funky name, it’s actually rather simple. You send a message to Twitter API and then you get a message back.

Now, there’s two ways to receive data back, one of XML and the other is JSON. JSON is supposedly better for AJAX application and faster as far as I know. (If I am wrong, please feel free to correct me in the comments please.)

Anyways, I have built StumbleTweets all based on XML but in trying JSON for my new Twitter site, I’ve had to resort to reading these two great articles for PHP:

Digital-Web.com goes into detail of how easy it is to communicate with Twitter API plus the examples are explained well.
After reading above, you will want to read Marks Kolich’s guide to JSON/PHP method to Twitter API. His method also includes file caching so you can save your Twitter API bandwidth. (Btw, Twitter API only allows up to so many API calls a day so you need to implement some kind of caching.)

As for Twitter API Caching, I think the best way to do it is actually cache the JSON/XML results first and limit your API calls to let’s say 5 minutes. Then you should really run any database MYSQL calls in the background so the user of the site doesn’t see any lag. I’ve tried to do it the other way where I would first store in the MySQL database but this turns out to be a no-no because when your database gets large, it takes virtually forever for the site to load.

Remember, I think using both file caching/database caching is required for most data-intensive Twitter sites but try to cache the data first then process it later.

Also, I see a lot of Twitter app sites that don’t cache the Twitter profile images. They really should just in case Twitter experiences fail whale.

Your Twitter app site should be built so it doesn’t go down just because Twitter goes down. It should have a back-up copy of everything(as cache), at least for another 2-3 hours.

Well, just some tips for those building a Twitter app site.

Also read Twitter API documentation here.

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Twitter API DIY – How to Use Twitter API in PHP/JSON!

Germany Warns Against Use of Internet Explorer!

max — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:13:42 +0000

Recently, I’ve been hearing a ton of tweets on Twitter about Google’s accounts being hacked by Chinese hackers. I guess it turns out security flaws in IE has been at fault. My suggestion? Use Firefox or Google Chrome, I find these new browser are faster and better than IE.

Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security is urging people to stop using Internet Explorer because it isn’t safe and to find another web browser instead.

The warning comes after Microsoft admitted that it was a flaw in Internet Explorer that allowed Chinese hackers to get into Google sites recently.

Microsoft, however, maintain that there is nothing to worry about for the general user and do not support the warning from the German government.

via geekwithlaptop

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Germany Warns Against Use of Internet Explorer!

CoolPreviews 3.0 Brings In-page Previews! [Firefox Plugin]

max — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:16:59 +0000

CoolIris, a Firefox plugin that lets you view media faster while browsing with Firefox, has just released CoolPreviews 3.0, which allows you to “preview” sites before clicking through them. I just installed it, it works pretty well, we will see how well it works for the next few weeks. (Download the CoolPreview 3.0 Firefox plug-in here)

Say, you want to search the Web to see everything about Avatar, the new James Cameron movie. You query “avatar” in Google web search as usual. You then use CoolPreviews to browse the official Avatar movie site, without even leaving your Google results page. To see what Wikipedia says about Avatar, you just mouseover that link, too.

But what if you want to see a lot more related images and videos of Avatar? No problem. Simply click the “Cooliris” button in the built-in search bar of CoolPreviews. Literally thousands of multimedia results will then display on the infinite Cooliris Wall within the CoolPreviews frame. (Press F8 on PC or Alt+Esc on Mac to hide the Cooliris chrome for a bigger picture.)

via cooliris blog

(Thanks Jenny for the tip!)

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

CoolPreviews 3.0 Brings In-page Previews! [Firefox Plugin]

Google Refuses Chinese Censorship! [GO GOOGLE]

max — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:42:54 +0000

Well, it’s been a great day since I just received my new Google Nexus One phone, the first “official” phone that Google has started selling as of last week. Btw, this phone is freakin’ JESUS-AWESOME, I will have a bunch of videos on that soon.

The point of this blog post is the Google’s latest move on Chinese government’s censorship. Instead of obliging to Chinese government to keep Google going in China, Google has determined that they will no longer cooperate to censor information at Google China. (Google.cn)

I think this is a great move on Google’s part, plus Google’s mission is to find “unfiltered” results for people, not “biased” or “prejudiced” information. Personally, I have to give it to Google, this is the best move they have made in a century.

I have told you about the ginseng story couple months back when Koreans decided to burn their ginseng in order to save their ginseng trade. Well, it’s the same thing here I believe, China has everything to lose if they want Google out of their country. My prediction is that China has to start upgrading their censorship policies to keep up with social demands of the world.

China is the biggest country who’s going to grow internationally through commerce and whatnot, if they keep censoring and trying to wheel the world to their will, eventually, everyone is going to start boycotting Chinese-made products. Even me, I am having doubts if China decides to go against Google.

Death Marketing Strategy, did Google read my blog posts?

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

via gizmodo

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Google Refuses Chinese Censorship! [GO GOOGLE]

Best Offline Blogging Client Software – Zoundry Raven Review!

max — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:16:57 +0000

For last couple years, I have been using Zoundry Raven, which is an open source “offline” blogging software that let’s you write blog posts without being online. As of today, my internet connection has been failing badly over here at Luxor hotel, I think it’s because they gave me a room that’s not “high” enough and blocked by some buildings.

Anyways, on those days, I turn to my Zoundry Raven, it works flawlessly with my Wordpress, plus the tags can be tagged, something sometimes missing or not working well with other offline blogging software.

Also, there’s an option for you to upload images to an FTP server, Google Picasa, and others among things. But the Wordpress image upload works flawlessly too.

Even this blog post, I am using Zounry Raven.

One thing to remember, make sure to turn off “Affiliate Links” which are turned off by default if you are already running your own affiliate campaigns for site revenue.

I’ve tried countless number of Blogging Client software and have to say, this one is the best for Windows users. (I heard Ecto is great for Mac users although I haven’t tried the Mac version. The PC Ecto kinda sucks.)

Download Zoundry Raven Here

One more note, Zoundry can also serve as “back-up” for all your blog posts as you can download all your blog posts, which is great.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Best Offline Blogging Client Software – Zoundry Raven Review!

Twitter Hack – How to Make a Laser-Trip Webcam Security System!

max — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:17:53 +0000

Here’s a great Twitter Hack that involves Arduino, Linux, webcam, and a laser pointer to make it a complete Twitter Security System! Awesome, this is the best use of Twitter I have seen so far, simple yet effective webcam security system!

See Video:

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

This instructable will show you how to construct a laser tripwire that can twitter and grab an image from a webcam, as well as execute any command you can put in a bash script.
This instructable is actually quite simple and is even suitable as a beginner arduino project. It requires a GNU/linux (or possibly Mac) operating system with the arduino IDE and Processing IDE working properly. This project could also be implemented in Windows if you created a more complex processing application.

via instructables

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Twitter Hack – How to Make a Laser-Trip Webcam Security System!

Top 5 Free Christmas E-Cards!

max — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:46:47 +0000

For this Christmas, you might have friends or family living far away where you cannot send them gifts or you simply ran out of time.

Of course, don’t fret as free Christmas E-cards are here to rescue. These are never going to be as good as real gifts but they may be great Christmas cards that you can even send on Christmas Eve.

So without delay, here’s some great free sites you can use to send virtual Christmas cards. Plus, why not save some trees by sending E-cards that look better anyways and last longer?

1. Care2.com has a large selection of interactive Christmas E-cards like the Merry Mice Christmas card shown above.

2. 123Greetings.com has a slew of great, unique Christmas E-cards with different themes such as for love, Santa, kids, and more.

3. BlueMountain.com also has some really great animated Christmas cards you can send for free or even sign up for membership to access premium E-cards.

4. Funny-Ecards.com is the place to go if you want to send funny Christmas cards with a sense of humor.

5. TheOWorlds.com has a great custmizable, gingerbread-themed interactive Christmas Card you can send to your friend and family. Customization makes this one special for gingerbread-house lovers.

That should be enough ideas to get you started and quickly send Christmas E-cards to everyone you know.

I know my friends are still old school, I usually get a nice, simple SMS text, “Merry Christmas” from bunch of people. But come on, if you know how to use a computer and these E-card sites are free, you should be able to send some E-cards this year. Plus, they make you stand out.

Even better, if you have some Photoshop skills, you might want to make your own Christmas E-cards, that would be super, duper special. I will be taking that route as I am really strapped for time and cash this year plus many of my relatives live overseas. It’s virtually impossible for me to send everyone a Christmas gift unless I was Santa Claus himself. But yes, the Christmas E-cards will at least be better than nothing. A message to my family overseas, “I am ALIVE and Merry Christmas!” LMAO.

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Top 5 Free Christmas E-Cards!

Wordpress Hacks – Hacking Wordpress 2.9!

max — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:20:35 +0000

Here’s quick two Wordpress hacks in the new Wordpress version 2.9:

First hack is hacking the Simple Tags Wordpress plug-in so it works with 2.9. Apparently, the plug-in developers didn’t expect version 2.9. I am sure they will fix it soon but for those of you in a hurry like me, use the hack.

The second hack involves new the_post_thumbnail() function, which can be used to display thumbnails for your posts along with test. We are already doing this on Zedomax.com and it’s simply not compatible with thousands of blog posts we have done in the last few years but it might work well for new blogs you are working on.

Enjoy~

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Wordpress Hacks – Hacking Wordpress 2.9!

Wordpress 2.9 Download!

max — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:43:21 +0000

Wordpress 2.9 is finally here with bunch of great new features, I won’t tell you what’s new but this blog post does have some great insights into what new.

Some of the new features that might interest you:

Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.
Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.
Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.
Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

Oh yeah, download Wordpress 2.9 here.

For Wordpress theme developers, the new Wordpress 2.9 will be a whole new ball game as it features ability to add post thumbnails. For Zedomax.com, we have been using our own custom-code post thumbnails for the last 2 years but the new Wordpress 2.9 means that we can use the built-in post thumbnails functionality to make the blog run faster. This will of course happen relatively fast, let me go try it NOW!

Oh yeah, kudos to Matt the founder of Wordpress for making it happen!

via wordpress

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Wordpress 2.9 Download!

Wordpress DIY – How to Install Nginx to Run Wordpress!

max — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:33:33 +0000

As I promised in my last blog post about Nginx versus Lighttpd, I have written a step-by-step guide for those of you webmasters who want to be able to handle more web traffic by switching your Wordpress blog to Nginx.

So far, based on 24 hour testing, it seems like Nginx does have a slight memory leak but clearly a lot better than Lighttpd. It will take couple more days to figure out if there’s more memory leak or not.

So far, switching to Nginx has had some dramatic speed improvements over Lighttpd on most of our websites.

Well, it’s been a long couple days trying to get this site running smoothly but here’s the guide to installing Nginx on your Wordpress Blog!

Included are configuration settings for also running Wordpress pretty-permalinks, WP Super Cache, and I’ve also included my own hack for running MediaWiki wikis on Nginx which our wiki runs on. (I couldn’t get our wiki running right on Lighttpd but finally figured it out how to run it flawlessly on Nginx!)

Hope that helps!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Wordpress DIY – How to Install Nginx to Run Wordpress!

Lighttpd Versus Nginx!

max — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:02:51 +0000

Today(or yesterday now), I spent like 10 hours trying to figure out why my web server kept going down.

Well, I did upgrade to Lighttpd couple months back, which is much better web server than Apache. (YouTube runs on Lighttpd btw.)

One of the problems I encountered even with the latest version of Lighttpd is “memory leak”.

For server with light traffic, this memory leak isn’t too awful as it can take a year or so before you need to reboot your web server.

But for high-trafficked web sites this one (which gets good 28K pageviews on a high day), the memory leak proved to be fatal as it took about a period of 24 hours before memory would all be used up. Especially since our web traffic has been rather going out of control lately. Yes, it’s a good thing and a bad thing since I can’t blog while I am fixing it.

Well, I have always heard that Nginx web server, which is now used on Wordpress.com, has no memory leak. Btw, Nginx is a web server developed by a Russian guy named Igor, a really good/fast server.

So I spend the WHOLE DAY trying to make Nginx web server work on Zedomax.com.

The mod rewrite stuff was the hardest to implement but gladly, I got it done.

So we will see in about a day, see if Nginx has no memory leak. So far, it seems a whole lot better than Lighttpd. We will see…

Anyways, more blog posts coming soon after I recover from continuous web server hacking.

Also, I should have a detailed Nginx install guide for Wordpress and MediaWiki.

Dang it, I missed a whole day of blogging! Oh well, you guys will live…

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Lighttpd Versus Nginx!

Google Hack – I am Feeling Lucky New Years Countdown!

max — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:23:44 +0000

Do you want to know how many seconds are left until the next year?

Well, simply go to Google’s homepage and hit the “I am Feeling Lucky” button, you will get the New Years Countdown in seconds at the bottom of the screen. Make sure your javascript is turned on your browser for it to work!

(Thanks James for the tip!)

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Google Hack – I am Feeling Lucky New Years Countdown!

DIY WiFi Netbook RC Car!

max — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:27:17 +0000

What do you get when you mix an RC car, netbook, and WiFi? You get the DIY WiFi Netbook RC car that you can control over WiFi and also stream video/audio via ethernet.

This could be a fun project for those of you who want to make a WiFi robot with your old netbook.

This project is basically an RC car that you can control over a local network or the Internet. Real time video and audio feeds are available to the operator and observers of the car. Unlike many other solutions for allowing this kind of communication and interactivity; this platform provides a seamless experience for clients because it requires no installation or configuration. This solution can be controlled from any platform that supports the Adobe Flash Player.

via make

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY WiFi Netbook RC Car!

Google Hack – How to Get Real-Time Twitter Results on Google Search!

max — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:44:40 +0000

Google has just announced their new addition of real-time search. Although it will be implemented on the regular Google search over the next couple days or access Hot Trends on Google Trends to see a demo, you can also get real-time results on your Google search query by adding the parameter &esrch=RTSearch to end of your URL.

So a Google search “GM”,

http://www.google.com/search?q=gm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGGL_en

I added the &esrch=RTSearch to the end of the search results URL:

http://www.google.com/search?q=gm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGGL_en&esrch=RTSearch

And in the middle of the search results page, I got the screenshot posted above.

Also you can see real-time updates of web search here.

http://www.google.com/search?q=gm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGGL_en&esrch=RTSearch

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Google Hack – How to Get Real-Time Twitter Results on Google Search!

Browser Equality Might Actually Come Soon to Europe

max — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:22:23 +0000

For awhile now, Europe has finally been trying to get things straight with Microsoft, who has been monopolizing browser market for as long as we can remember.

The EU’s antitrust case, which kicked off last January, had been sparked by complaints filed by Opera in December 2007, when the Norwegian browser maker accused Microsoft of shielding IE from real competition by bundling it with Windows. To level the playing field, the commission wants Microsoft to let consumers decide which browser they use.

I think it’s fair to say that operating system manufacturers including Microsoft, Linux, and others, should now include options for computer users to select their own browser.

For example, every time I get a new Windows computer or install Windows, the first thing I do is to install Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome while dumping Internet Explorer. That sorta gets annoying and to think others who are not computer-competent (those who don’t know how to download and install new browsers) are our stuck with Microsoft’s proprietary technology makes me mad. And think of the additional benefits of not using vulnerable IE such as not getting worms and the chances of your computer being hacked decreasing.

Of course, this is only the case in Europe. At best, this is not likely to happen overnight in other parts of the world including Asia and here in America. (where it really needs to happen)

I do highly like the idea of randomizing the browsers, that will make fair play for the browser market.

Hakon Wium Lie, Opera’s chief technology officer, agreed with Mozilla that randomizing the browsers on the ballot would be a better solution than Microsoft’s original idea, which was to list them alphabetically by maker, a move that would put Apple’s Safari in the preferred left-hand position. “Alphabetizing would just lead to opportunistic naming,” Lie said in early November. “We could call ourselves AAA Browser Maker and get the first spot.”

Still, too many people in the world have familiarized themselves with IE (as a result of Microsoft’s monopoly) and I don’t think it’s a fair game unless we take IE out completely for as long as they have taken out the competition.

via engadget

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Browser Equality Might Actually Come Soon to Europe

Twitter Hack – How to Back Up Your Tweets with Google Calendar!

max — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:20:44 +0000

Here’s a free site you can use to back up all your tweets on Google Calendar so you never have to blame Twitter itself for not having back-up options:

Twistory, is a new Twitter-app site that lets you back-up your valuable tweets on Google Calendar through Google API. It’s simple to use and all you have to do is enter your Twitter username to get started. Of course, if you use your Google Calendar for other purposes, we suggest you to make a new Twitter-backup account for Google Calendar so it stays separate.

via twitter hacks

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Twitter Hack – How to Back Up Your Tweets with Google Calendar!

Facebook DIY – How to Customize your Facebook Page!

max — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:04:30 +0000

Recently, I have been trying to customize my own Facebook Page and have found this great tutorial on how to customize your Facebook Page!

The author details the use of FBML Static Page App that helps you to add your own custom code:

Do a search for “static FBML” on Facebook (or just click here), and click “Add to my Page” in the upper-left. A dialog pop-over will appear with a list of Pages you administer. Select the Page you want to customize by clicking the “Add to Page” button next to the Page, and when you click the button it will disappear from the list. Now click “Close”.

And some basic info on FBML code:

Beyond simple HTML you can also enter very simple FBML tags to simplify some of the process. FBML stands for “Facebook Markup Language”, and is meant to be a shortcut for use in Facebook applications. Facebook has also enabled the use of a subset of FBML in the Static FBML application. FBML can be a great way to reduce the amount of HTML you need to enter, while at the same time keeping Facebook’s own look and feel. The format is very simple, and if you are familiar with HTML or XML you’ll pick it up very quickly.

via techipedia

Also, don’t forget to play with Facebook Circles!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Facebook DIY – How to Customize your Facebook Page!

Google Analytics Hack – How to Track Outbound Links in Wordpress!

max — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:21:05 +0000

For those of you who want to track outbound links of your web traffic in Google Analytics, there is a free and easy way to do it using Google Analytics Plugin for Wordpress.

There’s other ways to do this by implementing your own javascript code to a href tags but this plug-in does it for you automatically for Wordpress blogs.

This plugin adds the possibility to tag and segment all outgoing links, so you can see whether a click came from a comment or an article. You can choose where it tracks those links too! It also adds the possibility to track just the domain, instead of the complete link, so you get a better view of how much traffic you’re sending where.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Google Analytics Hack – How to Track Outbound Links in Wordpress!

South Koreans and their Online Banking System on Windows Internet Explorer!

max — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:47:51 +0000

The South Koreans have practically built all of their web-based businesses on IE. I know this for a fact because I used to intern at a South Korean company back in about ‘99 when I was forced to learn Microsoft’s ASP, good thing I quit after couple days, what a useless pile of technology. (in comparison to PHP that is)

For one, the South Koreans do online-banking over their cellphones, smartphones, and the Windows computer. The difference between the Koreans and Americans is that Korean online banking allows instant transfers. Koreans use online banking to do most of their business while most U.S. businesses will still use checks and credit cards. No credit needed, instant transfers from my bank to the other person is the norm in Korea.

Okay, we do have electronic transfers here in America but it takes actual authorization, signatures, and forms. In Korea, it’s only couple clicks on your computer or couple buttons on your cellphones.

This isn’t necessarily good and part of the reason why their online banking system has been hacked by hackers. Due to this, Koreans have built a “highly-secure” app on top of Windows Internet Explorer. If you try to log-in to your online banking in Korea, the first thing the website will do is to install anti-virus and anti-spyware on your computer. This is another layer of software on top of the browser.

Another quirk, you cannot use browsers other than Internet Explorer, online banking doesn’t support Firefox.

How can you change the system? Well, you really can’t. As they say, “don’t break what ain’t broke.” Perhaps Windows IE will eventually fall out popularity here in America (I hope) but it may still live through support of international countries like South Korea.

I know this is also true in many other Asian countries such as Thailand and others. The amount of monopolization Microsoft has done outside the U.S. probably amounts to more money and there’s nothing that the Supreme Court can do about it. (really) That is perhaps what Microsoft will live on for another decade. (if it hasn’t for the last decade)

So what?

I am just telling you that Microsoft is (sorta illegally) monopolized businesses elsewhere and there’s nothing U.S. government can do. The oddest part about this whole take-over-the-world-domination is that most Koreans actually enjoy Microsoft’s IE so much, they are “happy” that Microsoft has monopolized their businesses, never mind suing them.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

South Koreans and their Online Banking System on Windows Internet Explorer!

Mozilla Firefox Quickly Gaining the Browser Market and Doing Well in Recession!

max — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:42:18 +0000

Mozilla, the company behind my favorite web browser Firefox, is quickly gaining in the browser market (especially here in the U.S.) and reportedly, doing very well in recession:

Mozilla has published its audited financial statements from 2008, reporting $78.6 million in revenue for the fiscal year—a five percent increase from 2007. Aside from a weakened investment portfolio, the browser maker has not been hit hard by the economic recession.

I don’t think Mozilla will be impacted much by recession mostly because their business in the internet/search arena, plus they have been gaining more market share of the browser market over the last couple years. (while Microsoft is losing the browser war with its slow Internet Explorer)

I think in the end (or in another 10 years), Google’s Chrome and Mozilla Firefox will still be around (at least in the U.S.) while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer becomes obsolete (I hope so). I truly wish Microsoft only focused on making operating systems and leave the browser market to Google and Mozilla.

I support open source, which both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are, while MS IE is not. Duh! Perhaps if MS goes open source one day, I might change my mind about using IE again.

Some view the emergence of Google’s Chrome Web browser as a potential risk to Mozilla’s long-term sustainability, because the organization depends heavily on revenue from the search giant to fund its operations. There is no immediate risk, however, as Google recently committed to extending its contract with Mozilla to 2011. Although Google’s browser is gaining traction, the search giant still has plenty of incentive to pay for privileged placement in Firefox, which has considerably higher marketshare. According to Baker, the competition is a win for the open Web.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Mozilla Firefox Quickly Gaining the Browser Market and Doing Well in Recession!

Firefox DIY – How to Auto Hide the Status Bar!

max — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:45:37 +0000

Did you know you can download the autoHideStatusbar Firefox experimental extension to auto hide the annoying status bar once its done loading a website?

Well, now you do!

via howtogeek

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Firefox DIY – How to Auto Hide the Status Bar!

GMail Hack – How to Block Annoying Emails that Makes if Through your Spam Filter!

max — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:44:43 +0000

You know in GMail, there’s sometimes annoying emails you get from spammers who don’t care about CAN SPAM Act?

Even if you mark it spam, sometimes they keep making it through your spam filter.

There’s a way to block those e-mails (or send them an automated reply to annoy them back).

First, simply check off the e-mails you don’t want to receive anymore then click on More Actions->Filter messages like these.

Then, simply click on Delete It or perhaps forward it to another e-mail of your liking that will auto-respond.

I get hundreds of e-mails per day from spammy Chinese manufacturers. I never open them because they keep sending e-mails that I never asked for.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

GMail Hack – How to Block Annoying Emails that Makes if Through your Spam Filter!

Web Server Hack – How To Install Lighttpd with WebDAV!

max — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:12:04 +0000

Last time I mentioned how you can run Lighttpd with Wordpress to handle bunch more web traffic and save on server hosting costs. Well, here’s another great tutorial on HowToForge.com that shows you how to setup WebDav with Lighttpd. – link

This guide explains how to set up WebDAV with lighttpd on a Fedora 11 server. WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning and is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol that allow users to directly edit files on the lighttpd server so that they do not need to be downloaded/uploaded via FTP. Of course, WebDAV can also be used to upload and download files.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Web Server Hack – How To Install Lighttpd with WebDAV!

Firefox Hack – How To Stop Automatic Plugin/Firefox Installations In Firefox!

max — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:34:25 +0000

I have recently noticed that some plugins in my Firefox keeps updating by itself and it’s annoying because I didn’t allow this to happen as a user.

To easily fix these updates from automatically updating you (or bugging you), go to Tools->Options->Update then unclick all the boxes so your Firefox browser never wastes any bandwidth to check for updates.

I think updates are great but I don’t want my Firefox to keep checking for them every time I start my browser, it also takes a lot more time to load your browser when you are checking for updates. And yes, even 1 or 2 extra seconds is annoying as hell for bloggers like me who need that extra 1 or 2 seconds in life.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Firefox Hack – How To Stop Automatic Plugin/Firefox Installations In Firefox!

zedomax.com » Featured Web

The Best Of Facebook Apps!

Best Facebook Game – YoVille

Best Mobile App – The iPhone Facebook App

Best Word Game – Word Challenge

Best iPhone App- Bump

Best Blogging App – Social RSS

Best Ego-Boosting App – Face Double

Best Movie App – Flixster

Best Casino Game – Texas HoldEm Poker by Zynga Poker

Most Noble App – Causes

Best Adventure App – Dungeons & Dragons

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