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blogging

blogging / cool places / howto / interesting / software / tutorials — 6 Comments
31
Oct 07

Feed Opera with Firefox :)

    One of my readers wanted to sign up to my feed using his favorite Opera browser. However failed to do that since Opera does not yet understand "feed://" protocol. Hence, I decided to drop this quick note on how to make Opera delegate feeds to others until the times it’s capable ;)

    In Opera go to "Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Programs", click on "Add…", and enter "feed" for Protocol and "firefox", or ANY preferred RSS reader in "Open with other application":

   

    Now click "Ok" followed by another "Ok" and enter a "feed://" address to the address bar, for example this one. Once you hit Enter, you favorite RSS Reader (Firefox in my case) will open this feed, and your Opera will feel much better, since it just delegated a heavy unit of a hard work to somebody else ;)

    Happy hacking people!

blogging / cool places / howto / money / software / tutorials — 9 Comments
19
Oct 07

Help Google to Generate Only Relevant Ads!

google money    I recently decided to participate in Google Adsense program where Google shows its ads on my blog, and I get paid when somebody clicks the ad. This tool from Google is far from being fresh and new, but I think it has a very cool idea behind it:
        – ad owner wins, because people go to her/his website,
        – Google wins, because ad owner pays Google for a click (through Google Adwords)
        – I win, because I keep writing stuff on my blog and get paid by Google for a click.

   One of the main challenges and the main thing about any kind of ads from any place is their relevance. Will you buy milk on a porno site? Or do you need a pack of Marlboro Lights, when searching for a Whitening Toothpaste? Probably not really…

    So you see the logic, the more relevant the ad is, the more chances people are going to pay their attention to it and, in the case of Adsense, "click it".

    Relevance is mostly achieved by the Google algorithm that analyzes your page (the page where ads are going to be displayed) by reading its content and "data mining" it. Then it makes a decision on what exactly "this" page is about, and what ads Google has on that topic. Once all is figured out, Google places the resulting ads on the page.

    But there are ways we can help Google not to "offer milk on the porno site" (although Google does not do porno sites – just a colorful example here :) ), but instead target its ads right to the point. One of such ways is "Section Targeting".

    how Google explains it:

    Section targeting allows you to suggest sections of your text and HTML content that you’d like us to emphasize or downplay when matching ads to your site’s content. By providing us with your suggestions, you can assist us in improving your ad targeting.

    You can read their short tutorial here. The idea is simple: your html page has a lot of text, including links, other advertisement, people comments, etc. but what you really want Google to focus on is your content ( in my case it is my blog post ). So you can use three HTML tags that will focus Google Adsense engine on your content. These tags are:

               Section start tag:               <!– google_ad_section_start –>

               Section end tag:                <!– google_ad_section_end –>

               Ignore section start tag:      <!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –>

    Sample from Google:

<html><head><title>Section targeting</title></head>
<body>
 
<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
 
This is the text of your webpage. Most of your content resides here.
 
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->
 
</body>
</html>

    From the sample above you can see how (start, end) tags can be used to focus Google only on the  main content. In order to ignore the content, wrap it with (ignore, end) tags as follows:

<html><head><title>Section targeting</title></head>
<body>
 
<!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->
 
This is the text of your webpage. Most of your content resides here.
 
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->
 
</body>
</html>

    But there is something interesting, that is not included in Google’s tutorial, that you can do with tags – you can nest them, as well as focus them on multiple sections! I have spoken to the Google Adsense representative, gave him a couple of examples I would liked to use the tags, and he confirmed that it works.

    So here is very cool and efficient things that you can do with adsense tags in addition to the usual stuff…

    nest those tags:

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
 
     my content I want to focus on
     .....
 
     <!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->
 
          content I would like to ignore
 
     <!-- google_ad_section_end(weight=ignore) -->
 
     my content I want to focus on
     .....
 
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

    so, in the above example we ignored a part of the section (content) we actually want Google to focus on – cool, right? :)

    That is not all, you can also focus on multiple sections, like this:

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
 
     my content A I want to focus on
     .....
 
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->
 
     some other irrelevant content
     .....
 
<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
 
     my content B I want to focus on
     .....
 
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

    This really opens the doors to finetune the relavence of your ads, which, who knows, maybe someday will make you a millionaire! ;)

blogging / howto / linux / software — 16 Comments
13
May 07

Configure Spell Check with FCKEditor Plugin for WordPress

fck editor logo

FCKEditor plugin is a very useful plugin for WordPress – no doubt about that. However spell check integration with this plugin takes a bit of hands on if you host your blog from non-Windows OS, and edit your posts with non-Microsoft Internet Browser (IE). Yes, Windows/IE are defaults that FCKEditor plugin comes with.

Below "how to" will guide you step-by-step on integrating spell checking capabilities with FCKEditor. Here I used Ubuntu Linux OS as an example, but these instructions are good for any Linux distro just replace Ubuntu’s "apt-get install" with analog in your Linux OS.

1.     First thing first, in order to integrate a spell checker we will NEED a spell checker. For that we will install "aspell", and appropriate (English, in this case) dictionary "aspell-en". There is an 85% percent chance that if you have a Linux OS installed, you have aspell. You can just search for it, or try to run it to see if you do. If you don’t then install it by:

sudo apt-get install aspell

At this point (whether you just installed it or had already installed) try to run it like this:

echo "I mispeled it" | /usr/bin/aspell -a --lang=en_US --encoding=utf-8 -H

If there is no English dictionary installed you should see:

Error: No word lists can be found for the language "en_US".
-bash: echo: write error: Broken pipe

Let’s fix that by installing the dictionary:

sudo apt-get install aspell-en

Now if you run the command above, you should see aspell looking up "mispeled" in its aspell-en dictionary, identifying that it is spelled wrong, and offering you choices of correct spelling from that dictionary:

echo "I mispeled it" | /usr/bin/aspell -a --lang=en_US --encoding=utf-8 -H
@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 (but really Aspell 0.60.4) * * * & mispeled 16 21: misspelled, misapplied, misled, dispelled, misfiled, misruled, mislead, spelled, spieled, misplaced, misplayed, misspell, misfield, misspend, simpled, misplay

Ok, so from Linux side, we are ready with Aspell, now let’s begin the integration.

2.   From WordPress FCKEditor’s plugin directory open
"wp-content/plugins/deans_fckeditor/custom_config_js.php" file* and set the following variable:

FCKConfig.SpellChecker = 'SpellerPages';

If you already have this variable set to something different, like "IESpell", just replace it with "SpellerPages"

This will do two things: it will redirect all the spelling requests to
"wp-content/plugins/deans_fckeditor/fckeditor/editor/dialog/fck_spellerpages/spellerpages/server-scripts/spellchecker.php", and, since "spellerchecker.php" exists (comes with plugin) it will enable the spell checker button:

fck editor toolbar

*NOTE: Depending on a version of the plugin, the file to edit might be "fckconfig.js" or "fckconfig_js.php"

3.   Almost there. The last thing to do is to tell "SpellerPages" to use Linux’s aspell, since by default it is configured to use it on Windows OS. For that edit
"wp-content/plugins/deans_fckeditor/fckeditor/editor/dialog/fck_spellerpages/spellerpages/server-scripts/spellcheker.php" by setting "$aspell_prog" variable to ‘aspell’ instead of "C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\aspell.exe". That is what it should look like after you make a change (comment/uncomment):

//$aspell_prog  = '"C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\aspell.exe"';   // by FredCK (for Windows)
$aspell_prog    = 'aspell';                                                        // by FredCK (for Linux)

Good job! Now you can login to your WordPress blog and enjoy the spell checking capabilities within your FCKEditor!

blogging / software — 1 Comment
24
Apr 07

Making Sure You Are Beautiful

A lot of times web designers, or even people who paid money to get a web design, wonder: "Does my website look good? Does my website look good on Firefox, but does not on Internet Explorer? Other way around? Does my web site look good on Firefox, Internet Explorer, but not on Safari? Does my web site loo…. etc."

Here is a wonderful tool – browsershots – that checks any website against multiple (and here multiple means a lot of) browsers and their versions, and returns screenshots of this website exactly as it appears in those browsers.

Here is a choice of browsers that ‘browsershots’ uses to test a website:

Browsershots Browsers' choice

After a website is entered for testing, it takes up to 30 minutes to get all the screenshots, but this time is definitely worth it, since the creator/owner of the website is sure that "Yes – I am Definitely Beautiful!"

 

blogging / me — 1 Comment
13
Apr 07

Great Minds Blog Alike

You wake up and think "hmm.. what should I blog about today?" Not that you don’t have anything to blog about, you just have so many ideas, and can’t choose the right one, ’cause your brain just don’t digest those waves of ideas…

In the middle of something important at work (e.g. meeting), you think "hmm… what does my blog statistic look like? how many people visited?", you go online and check – it is so easy to do…

Before you go to sleep, you think "hmm.. I’ll just take a very quick look, and see my technorati rating – do I have any new links? How about trying different Google searches?"..

sounds familiar? – well, then I think I am not alone out there in www universe :)

Having a good psychological understanding behind the above "addiction" (and that is exactly what it is – "opium for the masses") I came to realize that it really is "reigning over me", and I just have to acknowledge this fact in order to come back from a "stuffed and screaming brain" to the "peace of mind". And guess what, I did find a very simple and working, at least for me, approach.

I woke up yesterday, and the wise, and often very silent, part of me suddenly spoke:

   Toly, define you purpose, you are loosing it, just because your purpose is not defined. What exactly do you want from this blog? Do you want to make money on it, is that it? Would you like an overall world recognition? Do you like to share your insides with outer existence? Do you keep notes for yourself? Are you trying to open up, by ‘writing  you brain’ out?  Define it – only then shall we speak again

And you know what, that was a real discovery for two weeks of my blogging period, so I decided to follow my wise insides, and define that hidden purpose.

 Make money? – I am making money. That is never a burden to have more, but definitely not the purpose, so heck with all that "make money’, "I’ll teach you how to blog for profit", "marketing your blog" websites. As my Italian friend says "Fooo ged a but it!" And the truth is, if you have a common sense, and know how people think and act, then to get those google ads blend in with a blog, so visitors click on them and to choose expensive key words is NOT all that hard. Screw those million cheesy "I know it all" articles out there – have a common sense – you’ll be just all right!

Word ranking and recognition? – sure! who does not want that? But what does blog has to do with it? My take on it would be to implement a great idea – give it a life, and get all that "good-for-nothing" world recognition. Why "good-for-nothing"? Well it is very simple: you see the need for more (than already is) recognition is inversely proportional to the level of self-confidence and self-happiness, so if you want more that only means that those two "selfs" do not satisfy you. Why "good-for-nothing" again? :) ’cause even if you get it, self-confidence and self-happiness will still not satisfy you – this is a wrong way to boost those.

I look at ranking as I look at the game that many people know the rules to, but very few know how to play. But you know what? You learn by doing – so just play it, if you like the game! There is no penalty for loosing, in fact loosing is not even well defined in this game. :)

So the verdict is "to share my insides with outer existence, to keep notes for myself, and to open up, by ‘writing  myself’ out"! that would be, and that is my purpose.

The funny thing is,  I am currently "writing myself out", by creating this article, and I do feel "peace of mind" coming back to me. I wish, my dear reader (if you anybody else but me :) ) you define your purpose, and join me in peace!

Great minds think alike – Great minds in peace are alike…