I use many different applications. I like using programs dedicated for one purpose, rather than the sort who uses a few applications to do many different things.  The Major reason I change from one app to another that I use is that they are either processor, disk or memory intensive.  What I have noticed is that these apps that have performance issues don’t tend to use databases.  What I can’t work out is why different systems come up with their own methods of data storage and don’t use proven methods with mathematical bases of performing quickly.  After talking to colleagues and friends there seem to be two camps, either those who grasp SQL and those who don’t.  Some of the apps that I have had problems with are Windows Live Messenger and RSS Bandit, Tiny Time Tracker and  all that work well until you overwhelm them with data and they stop performing.  For those who are unfamiliar, I would suggest that they look at sqllite (which I will be posting more on in the future) and data storage becomes easier, faster and more flexible; with an advantage that there is less programming (provided you learn the basics of SQL like this post (The Top Nine Most Important SQL Keywords; What they mean and how to use them)

Between state, local and federal elections, it seems that someone is always campaigning about something in Australia.  Whilst this means that we are nominally supposed to get representation based upon our geographical area, this does not seem to happen in practice.  Instead what we get is a government that is ruled by one authorative leader, who places their vision into all policy that is administered and how the executive and legislative branches of the government operate. 

I am not the biggest advocate of a complete separation of power, and provided there is representative responsibility then the system seems to work quite well.

One of the problems that I have seen lately is that not all leaders stay for the full term, when there is nothing left to achieve, like an elite athlete retiring after they have all the records then there is a void.  Other leadership transitions can occur through party room battles, death, illness or similar; the fact is that a leader that did not face the election is the leader of the government.  This individual then sets their own policies, agendas and ideas and starts to put them into motion. 

This assumption of power is not a problem if one assumes that each politician is only there to look after their own electorates, and because of this then if the majority of electorates support the new leader then everything is all good.  If however you see the government as being affirmed and the representatives are elected on a geographical area only for convenience of getting people to form the government and as a pool of ministers for the duly elected government.  where this view is taken then the leader is elected by proxy by the people at the previous election, and when they go, then there is a leader that the general populous did not agree upon.

I prefer the latter view, that the government, and their leader are elected by the people, regardless of the name on the voting card, they are voting for the leader.  This is evident as all the candidates have their photos with the leader on their how to vote cards and it is the leader who sets the policies and how they should campaign.  Therefore I feel that the next leader who takes over should hold an election as soon as practicable, continuing with the previous leader’s policies.  Anything else feels that they have subverted the mandate given by the people and feels undemocratic.

Why should there be a leader who the electorate does not know, implementing policies that they do not necessarily agree with? If they were that they were representing the wishes of the people then they should not have a problem submitting the scrutiny of the people via an election.  If they are not confident and are holding onto power because it has been won, not at the ballot box but by inferior means then they have no place being in government and should have a new election anyway.

Let me know what you think, is it fair that a new leader can lead without the will of the people behind them, or is this just democracy at work?

Sometimes the decision to host your own domain is not as easy as just going to blogger or wordpress.com and using a hosted blog.  My post count is down due to a break I have taken over recent weeks and a constant battle just to keep my blog operating.

Currently I am using byohosting.com as my hosting provider at $1 US per month.  As I make no income from my blogging this is an appropriate investment giving my limited finances.  My current experiences with this hosting company are that you get what you pay for.  I get email that does not work reliably (hence the move to google), technical support issues (like when my site is down for 2 days) and no response, excuses that there are hosting problems as their ISP has banned their IP’s and other annoying issues.

I can forgive them these issues, however I have discovered the keys to a good hosting solution, namely No Interference and good communication.  As a programmer, I expect my programs to keep on working unless there is an unpredictable third party that comes along and ruins things. 

With my blog, I have had it setup with the correct permissions, function calls, access records and databases.  I expected it to work in my absence from checking and updating it daily.  I was very wrong there.  Obviously my provider is making changes on their servers, this is only obvious because of the problems that have arisen and the way they were effected.  I have had the site down because they changed apache’s security logs, I have had disruptions because scripts that previously had access to my files and folders were suddenly locked out.  Some PHP functions ceased working because php had been upgraded and those functions had been depreciated, finally my database had other issues.

If I had my way then these changes would not have been made, as they were not necessary for my site to continually operate. If I had been told about what upgrades were going to go through and when I could have tested my site.  Hence, if they did not change things or told me about changes then I would not have such a negative opinion of this host.

if possible this is what i would do; I would engage one of the new VPS service providers.  For those who don’t know a VPS or virtual private server is a setup where you have access to a virtual machine that you have control over.  A virtual machine is where a server runs multiple instances of operating systems, each of which acts like an individual machine.  Basically this is unimportant to you, it means that the environment where you are hosting your files / applications is under your control.  You should be able to setup your own web server, databases, configuration files, libraries and routing.  This means that you will not get people fiddling with things and breaking them (when you leave your site it will be as you left it) and if there are changes; you make them and they will only be in your best interest.

Currently the problem with VPS is that for the amateur blogger / web site owner they are still too expensive, but I note they are coming down all the time.

Some of the other benefits, apart from stability is that they are centrally managed, centrally backed up and if necessary you can poach some of the memory that is being used by other virtual machines on the same box.  As you are not worried about hardware, you will not need to upgrade yourself and be stuck with co-lo fees or other negatives of servers. 

At the end of the day, if your site is important to you, and you can afford the fees then I would recommend a VPS over any shared hosted solution, as control, backups, lack of hardware support is something that all but the dedicated should need.

The title says it all… After a blogging holiday I am back with more spare time, fresh full of ideas and new enthusiasm, I did note however that it was hard to get windows live writer and start my first post back and I thought I’d share some of the reasons with you

1. Time - although some indicate it takes minutes to write hundreds of words, I’m not of that camp
2. Thinking - Knowing what to say is not that easy
3. Keeping up to date - Knowing what other people have said and not said
4. Comparison with previous posts - The pressure for me is to make sure each post is as good as the previous one.
5. Apathy - it is easier to do nothing than to do something
6. Wikipedia - The random function saps times from otherwise productive blogging
7. Work - Paying the bills is a priority and devoting time to that part of my life can be easier than writing comments for free.
8. People - People in the real world need attention too!
9. Projects - writing online is not one’s only passion
10. Fear - Fear from people seeing what you are thinking, judging what you have written and criticizing what you have to say - doing nothing and no one will say anything
11. Technology - This was added at the end, I have had major hosting problems and even this post was delayed by days becuase of server faults / issues / challenges

At the end of the day, my exams are over, I have time to blog and have got over my other issues to begin posting regularly.  Be a doer not a sayer; let people know what you have to say and you and they will benefit!

Although people like me have had hotmail email addresses for over ten years, it does not mean that using this address in the workplace is either credible or professional.  I do not think that using a common, free email looks good on a resume to a top tier law firm.  Nor does sending emails to prospective clients or even new social networking associates with an email that is littered with ads seem an approach that means that people will take you seriously.  Using the email address provided to you by your Internet Service provider does not look much better (In Australia the ominous bigpond.com.au address prevails) and both of these have the disadvantage that the services could end at any time.

I have found a solution (I have not been paid for this) that will provide you with reliable, free, professional looking email for the price of going to a movie once a year. It also means that you can get your own name at your domain (andrew rather than and0ew8492 or similar that you will get at hotmail).

After having a week full of study, exams, routers blowing up and work there has not been much that is positive - however I was able to solve one issue that has been bugging me. I have had email hosted at terabell.com however my hosting account does not give me much storage, nor is it entirely reliable.  I have found a service that provides me with up to 100 free email addresses; each with over 4GB of storage and run by one of the world’s biggest companies. (Disclosure; I have not been paid for this post nor will I benefit from it in any way)

Google is promoting its "Google Apps".  This is a collection of online tools such as calendar, documents and email that it is hoping will displace Microsoft’s dominance in the business world.  So What - I hear you ask, how does that help me create an email that looks professional so I can apply for that lucrative clerkship or job? They are also opening it up for small businesses to host your own email.  You do not even need to have a web page hosted; you just need control over a domain.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Find a Domain Name that is free, and sounds like your name or is professional in nature.  I would suggest that you go with a .com as they generally look the most professional to me.  You can find and register domains here, you can also find vouchers for this service at RetailMeNot - meaning you may get a domain for approx $6 for one year
2. You can go to https://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/editions_spe.html and sign up for a small business account with the domain name that you have just registered; creating an email address where you would like to receive updates.
3. You then need to Verify that you own the domain - Go to your registrar (where you bought your domain) and then follow Google’s instructions on how to verify
4. You then need to change your MX records with your registrar - Don’t worry this sounds complex but there seem to be instructions with Google for most registrars
5. You then need to setup as many emails as you like (you can also create a catch all email so all emails that are not to an address go to this email)
6. You can point things like mail.yourdomain.com to google so you can get to your mail easily - this just involves changing some more CNAME records as in step 3
7. If you are like me, you probably don’t want to login online each time and want an email client.  I use thunderbird.  To do this simply login to your email account and go to settings and activate IMAP - then follow the instructions located here to connect to your mail account (just substitute any emails in the example from gmail.com to whatever your email is you want to login with)

You will now have email that is reliable, ad free, comes from a domain that you control (so you are not in the same boat as all those spammers who use hotmail ) and is something that people will take seriously.

These instructions may sound complex but I have been through it twice and it took me 15min the second time.  Best of all - provided you pay for your domain each year you should be able to use this forever without having to go through those instructions again.

I doub’t that you will use the 4GB but if you want more you can pay for more.

I think that it is doubly impressive as most people will think what you have done is very difficult and you will increase your technical abilities in their eyes without much effort as all. 

So…. I urge you to loose your old daggy hotmail - and use your own email - it is close enough to free and will be something you will not regret.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed.

If you have had problems implementing this or understanding my instructions please comment below.

Completely avoiding the double entendres that could be drawn out of being a blogger that Does Follow; I have now decided to open all comments on this blog to let their url’s not be shielded by a "link condom".  I really like the idea of people commenting on my blog and encourage anyone to do so.  To enable this I have not put any measures to prevent people posting, save akismet which has caught over 3,000 spam posts in three months.

I have decided to remove the "nofollow" that is automatically added to posts by wordpress.  If you are unfamiliar this is a property that is added to a link that tells a search engine not to give any credence to the links within.  This is supposedly to combat more spam and I feel that it is cheating the system.  There are many different people who have done research saying that these links are still taken into account and the amount of spam since this has been implemented has only increased.

I feel that this means that sites that should be recognized because of their quality are not being indexed and spammers are being rewarded.  If you have a comment on my blog - any links will be picked up by searches and recognized accordingly.

I could go into this in more detail but there are some excellent resources online mentioning what nofollow means and the damage it is doing; please see the sites below;

• http://andybeard.eu/2007/02/ultimate-list-of-dofollow-plugins-banish-nofollow-from-comments-and-trackbacks.html
• http://courtneytuttle.com/blogs-that-follow/
• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/13-reasons-why-nofollow-tags-suck/4410/
• http://www.bumpzee.com/no-nofollow/
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Nofollow

I encourage you if you have your own blog to do the right thing and make sure your links can be followed. 

If you want to comment on my blog in the future, please review my new Comment Policy

What is Mind mapping?
Mind mapping is method of brainstorming that uses visual cues for putting thoughts onto paper.  This produces an easy to read result that is visual, fun, fast and creative.  Many different ideas and unexpected connections can be easily drawn limiting words and increasing understanding.  A picture, idea or central word is used to begin with, branches are then drawn out, free associations and other words are added as they appear in one’s brain as they arise in the course of thinking about or studying the topic.  From these nodes, further branches are drawn.  This can create a web like image, ideas can further be linked via arrows - In a short period of time many connections can be drawn for a single word.

What Does Mind Mapping Look Like?

Here is some of my study notes in a mind map.  I have contracted the branches using my software - but as can be seen many ideas can be easily linked

What is Mind mapping Good For?
This technique can be used for:

• Summarizing Meetings
• Lecture Notes
• Coming Up With Marketing Ideas
• Creating Web Site Layouts
• Beating Blogger’s Block
• Mapping Out Goals
• Resume Creation
• Formulating Plans
• Trying To Remember Forgotten Things

Why Mention It In This Blog?

The reason that Mention this is that I have recently been told how effective this technique can be, and am experimenting with it for my current studying.  I have found that it is very quick to be able to look things up, and in open book exams looks like a great way of quickly navigating to where I want to go.  I think it is also good for finding patterns from lectures and topics that seem otherwise completely disconnected.

Can I Use Software For Mindmapping?

There is many free and commercial programs for creating mind maps.  I have downloaded and tested some, and the easiest and most versatile that I have used is Freemind.   This can be located here.  This is a free java based program that can create maps such as my example above..  It is easy to import and export to and from a variety of formats, You can expand nodes and its printing options are flexible.  Please find a quality pdf here.

Where Can I find More information?

• Mind Mapping Co; http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/mind-maps-examples.htm
• http://www.ufh.ac.za/library/InfoLit/mindmap6.html
• Lawmaps - An excellent law related site with plenty of legal related mind maps to download, it is a pity they dont have any Australian maps and are not as current as they should be - http://www.lawmaps.org/

Where Can I download Mind Maps?

There do not appear to be any sites to download mind maps on any topic.  I am considering building a site that is a repository of ideas represented in mind maps, If you have any mind maps you would like to donate please contact me above.

If you like this post please read some of my other articles; comment below and Don’t Forget to Subscribe to my RSS Feed.

You may have seen boxes appear in the last few months on people’s blogs that look like:

I have one on the right hand side of my blog.  This service is called Blogrush.  The idea is that you sign up your blog and they will display your posts headlines on other people’s blogs the same amount of times as you display the widget.  This is a good idea and I would like to do anything that will get people to read what I have written and to contribute to my blog.  They have had all sorts of problems with not initially having any quality standards for the blogs that are displayed and have had problems with reporting and dashboards.

Today, they have upgraded their dashboard and you can view statistics in numbers and graphs about how many times you have displayed their widget and how many people have clicked on them.  I have included some of the images about what it looks like after the refurbishment on either side.

I love the idea of this service the reciprocal nature and the way of getting my headlines seen- I also like that you can get bonus credits if you refer people to use their service.  The thing that I don’t like is that it takes up a lot of real estate on your blog which I could be using for other things.  I don’t like that the super large blogs have so many credits that often you see the same thing when you view the widget.  I also dislike that it looks like an ad, I’m not sure how to make it different - maybe as a news ticker; but I would not have clicked on it if I did not know what it was.  I also find that most people hide it on their sites, so you are getting your headlines displayed is rather redundant, so it dissuades you putting it in a prime position on your site.

Basically, My stats are - over the past month I have earned 40,000 credits (that many times my headlines have been displayed on people’s sites) and I have had people click on my links 7 times.  For my money this is a pretty poor conversion ratio.

Do you know of a way to attract more people to my blog? What tactics do you use? Have you had any good results from blog rush?

I am going to leave my judgement until I see the results of your feedback, but I think that I am going to stop displaying the widget.

If you liked this post or have any suggestions please contact me or Subscribe to my RSS Feed.

 It may be possible that some questions can not be answered, others are those that are not impossible but there is nothing that you have ever heard to explain the phenomenon, below are some of the questions I have been asking myself for some time where I can not find answers…. Are they answerable - you decide!

1. Why Can’t Delivery People and Installation Staff Give you an exact time? Why do they have to give you an 8 hour window when they may be available? it is not as if anyone else is able to do this… imagine going to the doctor and waiting 8 hours when you made an appointment.
2. Why is it that politicians give more money to pensioners than they do to students? Surely those who are about to contribute to the economy are more important investments than those who have finished contributing?
3. Why is it that just because something sounds easy to explain; people think it is easy to program? considering that the same people who expect you to build things like clicking your fingers have trouble doing simple things like email and turning on their computers.
4. How come that every year you get less food and products for more money? Have you noticed that there is less grams in cans every year, but the price goes up? This is more than inflation, this is just trying to scam people; I don’t think that this has always happened so why is it happening now?
5. Why don’t people write business correspondence, technical papers and essays like a blog post? I think there needs to be more pictures and better presentation to keep the reader interested and have a hook to make them want to turn the page (increase click through rate) - I think that I am going to try this and gauge my success; I will let you know the outcome.
6. If it is vain to google yourself; Does it mean you are ugly if you can not find any reference to yourself in the first 20 pages of google results? Also is it bad if you google your online handle and find 52,000 pages all that are referring to yourself?  What do I need to do to get people to link to me short of asking people to put a link to my blog with the anchor text being Andrew Bell
7. Why are acquaintances on social networking sites always called friends? surely if it were really about friends then you would have multiple categories for the level friend.  I have not met that many people online who even want to talk to me via email but will add me as a friend anyway; maybe that should be a "level 5" friend - and as you get better acquainted - ie you know their name then you can become a level 4 and so on - until you have met or spoken many times and they liked you and you like them (an actual friend).
8. Is it possible to find people who belong to the largest sporting club in Australia to sponsor you for membership online?  I have been trying for eighteen months for a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club by asking all of my friends and colleagues and posting requests online for someone to sponsor myself and some family members for membership and can not even find one to talk to - If you are a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club or know one who may be able to help me please let me know.

If you have any answers to these questions or have questions that you would like answered please post below - if you liked this post please subscribe to my RSS feed or have my posts sent to you via email.

There are many different Smilies or Emoticons -Some in the Picture form above, and others in the traditional Text

…..:)…:-)…*<;-}=

However - When you use a smiley or emoticon - do people really know what you are saying?  There seem to be many problems in communication / conveying mesasges that arise because of the lack of consistency in the use of smilies and emoticons.  I propose that there needs to be a standard usage across the board.

These devices are relatively new compared to the history of the written English language and different people interpret their use differently.

If you think about when we are communicating with each other in person, much of that communication is not just with the words we say, it is expressed in the way we talk (tone and inflection) about the gestures we use (both facial and with our bodies) how quickly we say what we are saying, and by using the actual language we are using.

If you take away all the visual and audible cues, look at something that has been posted to convey emotion.  If you think about the words there can be multiple meanings attributed to each word (this is what I enjoy about studying the law) - there is also tone and inflection, there is no pace, there is no body gestures, and there is not necessarily any familiarity with who is writing.  The words are supposed to stand on their own.  Some things can try to show the emotion, and meaning to supplement the ambiguous nature of the words and sentence construction - this can be achieved with USING CAPITAL LETTERS or bold or italics to try to show differences or it can be used with the subtle smiley ;->.

I am a big fan of sarcasm.  This may be because of the mischievous nature inside me or my Australian upbringing.  This is one of the most difficult things to convey when you are in an instant messenger conversation - or especially when writing a blog post.  There does not seem to be any standard ways that people can look at your text and see what you mean.  Some suggestions I have for this is to:

• Mention that you are about to be sarcastic (sort of spoils the fun)
• Put a Smiley face at the end of the sentence
• Surround your comment with tags (<sarcastic> </sarcastic>)
• Use italics and assume the people who are reading assume that you are being sarcastic
• You can use the word just joking afterwards
• You can create another blog post after this one clarifying what you meant to appease any angry readers
• Not Be Sarcastic

There are problems with each of these approaches.  The first spoils the fun and people may not understand, the second may be interpreted to be just saying I hope you have a happy day, or that what you are saying is a bit devilish, or that the whole text was sarcastic or people may just ignore it.  Surrounding comments with tags is very geeky and people may not understand the relevance and think you have broken code - however personally I surround sarcastic comments with a * * with people i know.  There is no convention for italics and people may think that you are quoting someone.  Joking is something that has the same problems as a smiley face as this is ambiguous.  I don’t think that anyone wants to post an apology.  And not using sarcastic is definitely not an option (at least for me)

What is the Emoticon etiquette?  There does not seem to be one and I think there should be.  I propose that people put any sarcastic comments in their own paragraph, where they are proceeded with an opening smiley :-/ and closing smiley :-\ meaning that it is sarcastic.  What do you think?? Should it say it all - should it be used for a whole paragraph, sentence - how does one look at it

What do you think? Please post your opinions below.

p.s. I was inspired for this article by the Problogger mishap (

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/25/pagerankadsense-clarification-im-not-funny/) where numerous bloggers misunderstood something that I thought was pretty obvious because it was surrounded first by a smiley and secondly by the words joking.

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It is exam time once again.  Last exams for the year and gosh it feels like time for a holiday, not studying the nuances of mortgages or working out the standard deviation and variances of a population. 

It interests me that I always seem to be most productive when I am supposed to be studying.  Not productive in terms of what I should be doing, rather things that I normally avoid but would rather do than study.  I detest cleaning, abhor any physical labor, don’t like filing but do not like studying either.  Here is what I almost always end up doing when I should be studying.

• Cleaning
• Filing
• Exercising
• Playing Online Pacman, Tetris and Stick Cricket
• Programming Things that I have been putting off for some time
• Using the random button on wikipedia to see what I can learn
• Sharpening Pencils
• Surfing the Internet
• Staying Later at Work
• Ringing People I have not Spoken to in ages
• Watching Moves I have watched before and hated
• Planning What I am going to do once exams have finished
• Fantasizing about quitting all of my subjects
• Panicking because I have not done any study
• Ferociously Reading Books I have not read in ages
• Pretending that I do not have to study because I know everything.
• Listening to Music
• Playing Music
• Washing and Grooming the Dog
• Basically any bad jobs I would normally avoid
• Basically anything I love to do with my spare time - but it is not really spare at all

If you have any other things that you do when you are supposed to be doing something else - please leave a comment below;

Before beginning to blog, I did not think that it would be much of an effort to post every day.  I was wrong; to write quality material that is not merely saying what another blogger has said and coming up with well written (well I think it is) original content takes a lot of time.  I spend on average three hours per post and whilst this is good in terms of my content, it means that unless I have a lot of time to commit to writing I don’t post that day.

I have been suffering from serious computer problems, a heavy workload, cramming for exams and trying to keep the blog filled with unique and original content.  John Chow reckons that his average posts take him ten minutes to write and although this is reflected in the quality of the content it is something that I am going to do until my exams are finished. I am going to put ideas that I would normally flesh out into a long post into a shorter one and invite comments.  The best posts over this period I will then take the effort to re-write and encapsulate the ideas that are left in the comments.

In the words of Yaro from Entrepreneur’s Journey (Another Brisbane Blogger) I am going to be going from Expert to Reporter.  Instead of creating the news it is more interpreting it and writing about the ramifications.   I will try to post as frequently as I can, from whatever sources catch my eye…. For Example I found out yesterday that if a tenant acts in all respects like they are the owner of a property they are renting then it is an immediate excuse for the landlord to terminate the lease….

If you have any programming questions or tutorials please continue to email me and I’ll post the answers to your questions on the blog as well.

Catch you soon

The Australian Federal Government instituted a Do Not Call Register earlier this year.  This is a system where you register your personal details and telemarketers are forbidden to call (except for charities and political parties).  This is something that I have felt that was needed for some time and it was about time it was implemented, even if it cost a fortune for something that could have been done by professionals at a fraction of the price.  Although I never give out my phone number and have a silent number so I don’t have this problem. It is nice to know that the only people you will be talking to on the phone you pay for are those that you may actually be interested in speaking to.

Today I read about an interesting start-up in America where ProQuo will stop you getting junk mail sent to you - please read more At TechCrunch. 

This raises an interesting point about how could a private company make money from this program? Even more interesting is why can’t the government legislate against unwanted marketing promotions being sent to indivuals?  It should not be left up to individuals to regulate this, when it would be more effective for the government to prescribe what should be done.

The Spam Act prevents people from sending electronic messages to people that are unsolicited, and requires messages to have unsubscribe options easily and freely available.  This does not work with the Nigerian scams, but at least you are shielded from legitimate companies hassling you when you don’t want them to.  The Do Not Call Register serves the same purposes with phones so I think that you should have the same option with mail.  Considering that the government already has my name and address details for the electoral roll, which you can verify online - then why can’t I include an option saying that unless I have requested mail in writing then don’t send it to me?

One of the reasons that I think that this should be legislated is that for many services you have to give your actual address.  With emails you can spoof the real address and you can avoid giving your phone number, but if you want things sent to you then people may be able to trace you.  Giving me a way to stop people using my address for nefarious means is something that should be federally sponsored.  This also would be an environmentally friendly means of controlling paper waste.

This may sound like an unqualified rant, however I think that the control over mail is more important than phone calls and emails because of the potential for identity theft.  Phone calls and Emails may be annoying but will not end up in your car being repossessed.  Mail is being intercepted to either use the applications to get credit, or for people to assume your identity.  This mail is often just stolen from people’s mail boxes. Even mail that you want to receive can be used against you - earlier this year I closed a bank account, all I needed to do was provide them with a statement and they handed me over the contents of the account in cash and closed the account - no pin number - no id - nothing.  After that moment I purchased a PO box so no one would steal my mail.  My home address however is still getting credit card applications in the mail, that I will not sign up for - but a fraudster might.

The cost of such an operation should be small and the benefits enormous - Although this is never going to be an election issue, it would be a nice touch.

I have been trying to come up with something interesting to write, on the topic of law and less of technology and programming that I have been writing about recently.  I have noticed however that I am not sure what is the best thing to write about, and was inspired by a recent post that I read - that was outlining different ideas taht they had had which were worth discussing but insufficient for a full blog post so they listed 30 of them on their own site.  This is my attempt, and if you, the readers are in favour may become a regular part of this blog (I have attached a poll at the end for you to have your say)

1. If Bert is really evil - is Ernie his accomplice or is he suffering from Stockholm syndrome?

2. Is it undemocratic for the leader of a country or organization to determine when elections are to be held? Because if it is to be the people’s will, why should the leader be able to choose when to measure that will?

3. Is there morality on the internet? is it ok to bend social networks to your own will? I have listened to a fair few SEO podcasts lately and it seems that gaming and manipulating social networking phenomenon, such as stumbleupon, digg and wikipedia are all fair game.  Knowing that what you are seeing may not have just organically grown affect the way you view these sites? One prime example is Subvert and Profit, where users are paid to digg or to stumble particular posts.  Although this may subsidize the user for the simple process of clicking a few buttons, does it destroy the network for everyone else?

4.

"Skype and UK cellphone operator 3 are currently working on a new handset that promises to "make Internet calls mobile." According to Reuters, the phone is expected to "work in the normal way," but also include an option to let users bypass all those hefty cellphone charges and contact other Skype users directly in order to save a few bucks. We assume that means Skype will operate over 3G data"  http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/12/skype-and-3-team-up-for-mobile-internet-phone/

I like Skype it is reliable, cheap and easy to use. I like the ability to have cheap land line calls, and free calls skype to skype, will this be the VoIP killer to crush the other networks.  Could you put skype in numbers from all over the world into one phone, and and receive the calls for free?

5. Recently I blogged about Copyright Violation (here), Asking the question, does the punishment fit the crime? My conclusion was that the punishment should only put the victim in the same position as if there was no violation. The difficulties of this were also discussed.  Reading in the news about the $220,000 (US) fine awarded for hosting a few pirate songs is a bit over the top (*).  Who did this really hurt? I think that this is a case of "justice" putting one person (the perpetrator of the crime) in a much worse situation than should really be the case.  This is not just about putting the victim in the same situation as if the crime had never occurred, that is impossible to tell, but unlikely.  Is this truly the way the "justice system" is designed to operate, I think not? It is not about hurting people, it is about rectifying legal disputes.  If rectifying disputes is truly hurting people then the whole system should be rethought.

6. Why is is it that the things that you loose are always in the last place that you look for them?

7. Am I the only one that the more an advertising jinjle sticks in your mind, the less you wish to purchase it. 

8. Enemybook and Snubster are parodies on the online friendships that people accumulate though social networks.  I tend to agree that these seem to be shallow, even though I have been on some social networks for a while - i have not actually found any friends, or people that actually want to talk to me, thus are they really social networks, or just disjointed networks of people who are actually just sitting around?

9. Previously I blogged about the ethics of blogging (more), I have had some further thoughts on this, once concerning advertising of blogs and the subtle advertising that I was not aware of until I actually started blogging, affiliate marketing - Affiliate marketing is where people are paid to promote a particular product or link, and where the owner of the link pays the blog or promotor depending on what you do.  This is acheived by putting cookies on your computer and having special codes in links.  Although I considered myself pretty technologically savvy I was not aware of this practice until recently.  Is this ethical? Is selling people’s comments for cash something that really should be done if blogging is to compete as a news and reputable source? Is there any way to prevent it - and should there be a disclosure? I am still unsure, and am toying with the idea of using it on my own blog, but do not want my copy to be affected. 

10. The other is the the ethics of the no follow.  This is where a link is changed, such that search engines will not index the page that is mentioned nor give it any credit in its standings.  In my blog I have tried to reduce my use of these for everything except for comments (to reduce my spam) I however have a problem with people using it.  I use experts-exchange, a large service where I am one of its top 100 experts of all time.  What I am annoyed about is that in my profile I can not link to my blog without these tags being added, I think that if they are to be used it should be to reduce spam.  If you have a trusted person (an expert for example) then their links should be allowed to go where you want them to.  I think that this is artifical gaming of links and that should only be done to prevent spam and that is it - what do other people think?

11. 

AUSTRALIANS would feel "let down" if the Bali bombers on death row were not executed, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday.

He said a shift from capital punishment had "been festering" for some time in Indonesia, where a legal challenge to the death penalty was under way. "I think there would be a sense of letdown if that was the sentence delivered, but not carried out," Mr Howard said on the anniversary of the 2002 bombings, in which 88 Australians were killed. (here)

I am strictly against the death penalty - I feel that it is against my idea of what justice should be.  I hate the idea personally that if you were innocent and accused of a crime wrongly that you may be killed, I think it sets a bad example and have not seen evidence that it is an effective deterrent.  for this reason I can not expect that people will be killing people in other countries - i also think that there is problems that Australia is outraged at sentences for drug dealer,s at the same time in the same legal system that they expect the same outcome for other convicted criminals - is an election time to tell people what they want to hear rather than what is the truth

12.

Tens of thousands of people have been taken to a pro-government rally in Rangoon in a show of strength by Burma’s junta, as a United Nations envoy returns to south-east Asia to pile pressure on the regime.  (here)

Although I do get disappointed with our government and what it does - and how it treats people - and how it professes to e a democracy, but the people’s opinions do not seem to be garnered all the time - and that at least we in Australia and other western democracies have freedoms that are not available to people in more oppressive regimes - the fact that I can write this, and I do not have to join the army if I dont want to, that I do not have to fear when walking outside or working each day, makes me happy and makes me want everyone to have the same opportunities that I do.

13. As I am still an IT guy; an interesting comment was posted on my post - 1001 posts to read before you die, about 10 Things your IT guy wants you to know, I especially like the line;

Not everything you ask me to do is “urgent”. In fact, by marking things as “urgent” every time, you almost ensure that I treat none of it as a priority. http://thinksmarter.wordpress.com/2007/08/04/10-things-your-it-guy-wants-you-to-know/

14. Why is my house always tidiest and I am at work for longer hours when exams are coming up and I am supposed to be studying?

15. Is having templates the best thing for people’s licensing models.  I notice that much of the content on the internet is going towards the creative commons licensing

  Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

However - I notice that most people do not mention how they want to be attributed.  This causes a real problem - Do I need to list at the bottom of each post, or in the alt text or do I have to hyperlink - it says in the manner specified, but if there is no policy to saying exactly what that specification method is then I am a a loss to know what is appropriate - I do not want to break people’s licenses, but if they make it hard…. putting a licence stamp is probably not enough

  16. Do licences mean anything online anyway - I say this because my content seems to be copied in numerous places across the Internet, and even if I email the owners saying please remove it they don’t - why should my work be used to make other people money? it is probably where I draw the line, but then if it is online then it is fair game? I don’t know - and probably need to work out what to do with it in the future - I am nto sure if imitation is flattery or if it is just cheating

17. Is blogging going to get much bigger? The number of blogs is estimated to be in the millions, but this is really a small number compared with the estimated Internet users across the world - also if one considers the number of hits and subscribers, from say Scoble, there are not that many readers (much more than mine though)- think about even a modest program in Australia, and the numbers, then look at a blog with international exposure - I say the only direction for blog subscriptions is up.

18. Why do games that you once thought to be really fun, years later appear really stupid? Having played stunts, civ 1, and tetrinet over the last few days - I can not believe that I spend hours playing them in the past, about the only game that appears to be timeless is solitare.

19. What is the best way to exercise your brain? This is not seen to be a big thing, but what happens if you are not using a skill that you trained yourself in for some time? it will atrophy - well how to do you keep up with past skills, while learning new ones? This is particularly relevant for people in management who are not doing the skills that they are managing people to do - and for those things like languages that we would hate to loose? I am not sure if there is a correct answer, but would be willing to develop a solution with anyone who is willing to help.

20. What is the best way to make people comment on your blog? Since I want discussions and people coming back, comments are the best way to do this, but even if I ask, the number of comments compared with the number of readers is a shocking conversion rate.  Is this something I should not be caring about - or should I ignore it? The point of me spending hours on each post is for people to read it and to consider what I have said and to provoke questions of their own.  This does not seem to be happening.

21.  Blog Etiquette - is there such a thing, should I be commenting on similar posts to what I have written and putting up my own link or is this spamming? Since I am not sure what I should write and what I should not on other people’s comments, it makes me err on the caution of not writing anything at all, but this I feel is rather destroying the point of everything.

22. What is the best way to put advertisements on a blog - should I introduce them now (as it may be my eventual plan to do so) even though I know that I will not make any money from them?; also what is the best network to go with -

• clixGalore
• ReviewMe
• BlogsVertise
• AuctionAds
• LinkWorth
• WidgetBucks
• Adsense
• TTZ Media
• Commission Junction
• Ad-Brite
• Bidvertiser
• Kontera
• Text Link Ads

Are there any others I have not listed? What is your opinion of each?

23. Do people make random calls on Skype? I was woken at 1am by a seemingly random skype call (they did not leave a voicemail message)

ok - those are some of my thoughts, I’m happy to discuss any of them and look forward to your comments; please fill in the below poll to express Your thoughts on if this is the right thing for this blog - and additionally can you please let me know if you want more information or expansion of these ideas in future posts?

24. Am I the only one that does not have posts appear on blogs because they think I am spam? I’m not sure why - it is not as if I send out thousands of comments about Viagra, but try as I may, the bigger the site the more chance I don’t have of appearing (only about 25% of my comments get out there)

25. Am I the only one that has great trouble keeping track of time? The more I am supposed to be keeping timesheets, the less I am able to actually fill them in.  I am not sure if it is the distraction of writing down, or commitment issues.  I need to develop a working solution to tracking where I am spending my time.

26. I would like to say how much I appreciate KeyPass Password Safe, I had been looking for a password manager for some time but had been too lazy to implement it, I am really glad that I did.  Keeping all my passwords and information in one secure place has really improved my productivity.  I just wish it integrated with firefox better.

27. I still want to get my blog mentoring scheme off the ground but am currently at a dead end about where to start.  This should be like a pyramid scheme, where a successful blogger teaches someone with drive and aptitude about how to blog, those apprentices then become the master and take on their own contacts and help them.  This is not going to be a huge investment of time for anyone but really would inspire the community, and also create lasting friendships and real social networks (as opposed to the online ones) - any ideas would be appreciated.

28. Am I the only one who is sick of people talking about the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray battle? Basically, they are expensive and not very common, I am just going to buy whatever the winner is, at the last possible moment, when sticking with DVD is no longer a good idea.  I also think that I will do the same with Vista (yuck)

29. I would just like to urge all Australians to register to vote if you have not done already - you have until 8pm on Wednesday 7th October, otherwise your voice won’t count - according to the radio news today 400,000 young australians have not registered, this is so many that it could really influence the next election.

30. People who have been through real trauma say that they should live each day like it was their last, the thing is if it were my last day, I would not be at work.

 Thankyou for reading my 30 ideas of the week.  If you have any feedback I would really appreciate it in comments below, If you like this you may like other articles, which are available through my RSS feed.

Please vote below about if you want to see more articles like this:

 [poll=3]

Recently I was contemplating redesigning my blog, and was told by a regular reader that I need a really Large RSS icon to make sure readers have somewhere to subscribe to.  This made me feel rather Inadequate and I decided to ignore the comment.

Days Later, as a point of interest I went out looking for some Beautiful and Large RSS images for my blog.  I found some of these;

The Big

The Not So Big

However, being insatiably curious I decided to see what the celebrity and A-List bloggers use for their subscription options.  Looking at the top 50 on technorati I went through an analyzed what they use to encourage people to subscribe.  Below you are able to see the RSS feed link, the name of the blog and its address. Do You Notice Any Similarities?:

1. RSS Feed Engadget http://www.engadget.com 
2.  Full Content (ad supported) Gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.com
3.   Boing Boing Boing Boing  http://boingboing.net
4. Tech Crunch http://www.techcrunch.com

5. Featured Blog Posts Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

6.  http://arstechnica.com/site/subscribe.ars Ars Technica
7. Could Not Find… http://us.lifehacker.com/ LifeHacker
8. Mashable Feed Mashable http://mashable.com/ 
9.  http://www.beppegrillo.it/english.php Beppe Grillo’s Blog
10.  http://www.dailykos.com/
11.  http://icanhascheezburger.com/ I Can Has Cheezburger
12. TMZ.com http://www.tmz.com/ 
13. Perez Hilton http://perezhilton.com/ 
14. Post Secret http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
15. Seth’s Blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
16. Site Feed Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
17. Tree Hugger (None On Main Page) http://www.treehugger.com/
18.    Subscribe to Problogger via RSS Problogger http://www.problogger.net/ 
19. Could Not Find…. Kotaku http://us.kotaku.com/
20. Could Not Find…. Blogcu http://www.blogcu.com/
21. http://www.readwriteweb.com/ Read Write Web http://www.readwriteweb.com/
22. Entries RSS Peterandrej http://www.peterandrej.com/wordpress/
23.   RSS 2.0 Think Progress http://thinkprogress.org/
24.   Crooks and Liars http://www.crooksandliars.com/
25.  Full Content (with ads) Gawker, Manhattan Media Network http://gawker.com/
26. RSS 1.0 Gigazine http://gigazine.net/
27. Subscribe to RSS Feed How to change the world http://blog.guykawasaki.com/
28. Could Not Find…. The Consumerist http://consumerist.com/
29.  RSS feed My Church http://www.mychurch.org/mychurchteam/blog
30. Subscribe to the RSS Feed Ancora Imparo http://scottwater.com/blog/
31. RSS Michelle Malkin http://michellemalkin.com/
32. Could Not Find… DRUDGE REPORT 2007® http://www.drudgereport.com/
33.   Smashing Magazine http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
34.   Feed GigaOM http://gigaom.com/
35. Comment RSS Feed  Scobleizer http://scobleizer.com/
36. Full RSS Blog Feed Make Money Online with Dosh Dosh http://www.doshdosh.com/
37.   LifeHacker http://www.lifehack.org/
38. Subscribe The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/ 
39.   CopyBlogger http://www.copyblogger.com/
40. Feed A List Apart http://www.alistapart.com/
41. Explosm http://www.explosm.net/
42.  Full Content (with ads) Valleywag http://valleywag.com/
43. Main RSS Joystiq http://www.joystiq.com/
44.   HotAir http://hotair.com/
45. xujinglei http://blog.sina.com.cn/xujinglei
46. 
47. Radar RSS feed  O’Reilly Radar http://radar.oreilly.com/
48. Subscribe Telegraph Blogs http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/
49. RSS Netorama http://www.neatorama.com/
50. RSS Feed MozillaZine http://www.mozillazine.org/

Conclusion - Big Is NOT Better (For RSS Images at Least)

I have found that many of these A-List blogs do not have RSS images, and if they do they are generally tiny.  It feels that if you have quality content then people will want to read what you have written and search out your RSS button or icon (Many were hard to find).  People with many RSS subscriptions know how to subscribe without a button, and those who do not may not know what the image means anyway.

Make up your own mind - I think that my medium RSS will be perfectly sufficient.  If you liked this post Please Use My RSS Button to Subscribe to My Feed

My last post indicated the plugins that I use on my blog.  These are fine but some require that you change code in the actual blog.  Changing code is not something that I think people should have to do when all they want to do is publish their thoughts and ideas in their CMS platform.  Not all of us have degrees in programming or understand the nuances of HTML and PHP (ok I do but…) It is also painful if you wish to change themes or have multiple sites and have to do the same setup repeatedly.

To solve three specific problems I have written three different widgets.  I wrote these quickly and have not read any of the Wordpress documentation, I have just gleaned from other widgets that I have downloaded.  If you wish to review these, make comments or contribute yourself please feel free to do so.

Translation Widget

The Global Translation Plugin (see last post) Requires code to be inserted into the sidebar to see it in action.  This code changing may present problems if you do not use the default sidebar or alternatively if you wish to have more flexibility about when and where it is displayed.  The Translation widget allows you to place the translator into your sidebar and drag it where you see fit.  An example of this in action can be seen in the sidebar of this blog.

Please Download this plugin here: Translation Widget

Installation is as per the majority of wordpress plugins.  Download it, unzip it, upload it to your plugins folder and then activate it in the plugins section of your admin area.  You can then drag it into your sidebar.  Note this has been tested on Wordpress 2.2.1 and 2.3 only.

Popularity Contest Widget

The Previous Post I linked to Alex King’s Popularity Contest plugin.  This enables you to be able to rate the popularity of posts and you can use code changes to be able to display a limited number of posts into your sidebar.  Unfortunately this popularity contest does not come with a widget that easily allows you to incorporate it into your sidebar and forces you to change your template code.  This Popularity Contest Widget allows you to place the translator into your sidebar and drag it where you see fit.  An example of this in action can be seen in the sidebar of this blog.  This will display posts from all categories and you can specify the number of posts to link to.

Please Download this plugin here: Popularity Contest Widget

Installation is as per the majority of wordpress plugins.  Download it, unzip it, upload it to your plugins folder and then activate it in the plugins section of your admin area.  You can then drag it into your sidebar.  Note this has been tested on Wordpress 2.2.1 and 2.3 only.

Feedburner RSS By Email Widget

Not everyone wants to receive their RSS in a feed reader, some want to be able to refer to their favorite posts through email.  Yesterday, John Chow wrote about Subscribing to RSS with Feedburner and how you may be able to subscribe to set up an existing feedburner RSS subscription and increase your reader base.

The Below Image Indicates How to Setup this Email Subscription:

Enable your subscription, it then gives you the ability to create some code to display in your sidebar.  You could copy this and put it into a text widget, or - so you do not use all your text widgets and you can see and control exactly how your email subscription will appear you can use this widget.  All you need is your feed id - which is located in many places including in the url where you activated your subscription

ie; https://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailsyndication?divToShow=subscriptionMgmt&id=1073845

Here the id is 1073845.  Just enter this id, the title of the widget, what you want before the email field and after and you are set to go.  An example of this in action can be seen in the sidebar of this blog.

Please Download this plugin here: Feedburner Subscribe By Email Widget

Installation is as per the majority of wordpress plugins.  Download it, unzip it, upload it to your plugins folder and then activate it in the plugins section of your admin area.  You can then drag it into your sidebar.  Note this has been tested on Wordpress 2.2.1 and 2.3 only.

Use These Plugins;

Please use these plugins and give me feedback on your experiences and I will endeavor to make any suggested changes.  I would appreciate if you want to modify the code for yourself that you credit my original creation, and if you find it really useful to buy me a beer.

If you like this post please comment below, share it with friends, submit to social networks and Subscribe to My RSS feed, or Subscribe to My Email Updates

Plugins extend and expand the functionality of WordPress. If you are hosting your own blog and want to have complete control over its appearance and functionality then plugins are for you.  They are generally very easy to install and what they will do make it easy for someone who can’t or don’t want to touch the code to create a site that really rocks.

The concept is very similar to plugins for applications like firefox, where you can download code that increase what they can do see The Top 50 Lightweight Firefox Add-Ons. Powerful plugins and extensions that will not kill your computer for information about other plugins that I find extremely useful.

I have noticed that it is hard to find what actual plugins people use on their blogs and how they actually look when they are installed.  Here is what I have currently installed on my blog and why I chose those plugins.  Note that currently the only code changes to Wordpress and my template that I have made, with the exception of plugins are just to implement the threaded comments (just overwriting a file) everything else is as a result of the theme that I am using and the configuration of the plugins I have installed.

In one sentence plugins let you do cool stuff that you can’t do with a default Wordpress install or by changing the code yourself.

The Plugins below are in no particular order and I am using all of them..

If you are using something else you think I should try -  please post below, also consider subscribing to my RSS feed (either in your newsreader or via email) and share this with others.

Akismet

Akismet checks all the comments that are made against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. This is normally part of a default install.  Although when first starting I thought that spam was not going to be an issue, I have already received over 2000 spam comments.  This will save you much time and frustration, you can review the much of the spam it catches under “Comments” in case it makes a mistake, which happens rarely. Plugin is Written By Matt Mullenweg.

All in One SEO Pack

 All in One SEO Pack is Out-of-the-box Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your Wordpress blog. For those who are unaware SEO is the art of building a site that google and the like will be high in the rankings for given terms.  Sometimes this is a dark art but this plugin adds some fields that can be completed before publishing your posts.  It has great reviews, but as I do not appear highly (even for my own name) am not sure how effective it is.  The Plugin is Written By uberdose.

Brian’s Threaded Comments

 Brian’s Threaded Comments makes comments more like a forum.  My aim is to have as many people discuss things on my blog as possible.  If people are replying to a comment it is easier if you can see that comment below the next one.  This also lets readers collapse or expand trees of comments depending on their requirements.  You can see this in use on all of my comment forms.  The author refers this as a “wandering” comment form.  The Plugin is Written By Brian Meidell.

Code Snippet

 Code Snippet allows people who want to display code on their posts appear nicely colored and setout.  If you are not a programmer then this is probably not that exciting to you, but if you want code to stand out and not get hacked by wordpress then this is a great plugin for you.  The Plugin is Written By Roman Roan.

Contextual Related Posts

 Contextual Related Posts

In my research for getting bloggers to notice me and how to encourage people to stay on my site, a common theme occurred that showing relevant posts will encourage repeat visitors.  This will show last 5 contextually related posts on single blog posts, and hopefully increase exposure.  As I am just starting out, not all its results are that relevant, however the more I post, the more relevant the posts it links to are.  The Plugin is Written By Mark Ghosh (LaughingLizard).

Dean’s FCKEditor For Wordpress

 Dean’s FCKEditor For Wordpress

I do not particularly like the default Wordpress Post Editor I think it is a bit clunky.  For this reason I use oflline blog editing tools, however if I need to edit something on my blog, I want something I am rather familiar with.  This plugin gives me something very much akin to microsoft word by replacing the default Wordpress editor with FCKeditor 2.4.3.  The Plugin is Written By Dean Lee.

Democracy

 Democracy is a plugin that hopes to increase participation on your blog.  Polls are something that make people feel involved.  This poll plugin is easy to use, install, and manage. It uses AJAX to load data, making it quick and fun to use. The Plugin is Written By Andrew Sutherland.

Email Users

 Email Users Allows the administrator to send an e-mail to the blog users who have registered or subscribed to parts of the blog.  This is a useful time changer and can be used to great effect when required.  The Plugin is Written By Vincent Prat (email : vpratfr@yahoo.fr).

FeedBurner FeedSmith

 FeedBurner FeedSmith  Originally authored by Steve Smith, detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.  FeedBurner is a great alternative to hosting your own RSS feed as it has excellent statistics and may be more reliable than your own hosting solution (mine was down for 1.5 days last week).The Plugin is Written By FeedBurner.  Note however that the overall comment threads is hosted with FeedBurner but the RSS for a particular post are not independent and are actually still hosted on your blog.

Global Translator

 Global Translator

I do not know many languages, but should not be a reason to prevent people reading my content.  Although I speak fluent French, posting at all is a big time challenge.  This great plugin dynamically translates a blog in thirteen different languages (English, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Greek, Dutch) by wrapping the Google Translation Engine or the Babelfish Translation Engine.  The Plugin is Written By Davide Pozza.  Note however it does not incorporate a widget to display the actual translations.

Google Analyticator

 Google Analyticator is something I have only recently added.  This adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google’s Analytics. Google Analytics is a service that allows you to track who is viting your site, where they have come from and where they are going to.  Previously I had to add code to my template to enable this functionality (and remember to do it again if I was changing themes).  After enabling this plugin if you enter your Google Analytics’ UID it will enable logging.  The Plugin is Written By Ronald Heft, Jr..

Gregarious

 Gregarious is a plugin that encourages emailing posts and spreading the word through social networking sites.   The majority of my visitors come from social networking sites and not via search engines.  Anything I can do to encourage people to spread the word about terabell is a great thing, this plugin gives you javascript and the words Email, Rate, Bookmark this and the digg buttons used on this page.  The Plugin is Written By Ankur Kothari.

Homepage Excerpts

 Homepage Excerpts

If you want a dynamic front page and you do not want to display the thousands of words from all your recent pots, Homepage Excerpts will give your readers a teaser about theh posts that they will hopefully click through to.  You can select a select number of words or a specifically defined extract to show.  The Plugin is Written By http://www.dailyblogtips.com.

KB Robots.txt

 KB Robots.txt

Manage your robots.txt file from within Wordpress. This means you can do things through your admin console and do not need to venture into ftp every time you wish to make a robots change.  The Plugin is Written By Adam R. Brown.

Notify Unconfirmed Subscribers

 Notify Unconfirmed Subscribers allows you to notify unconfirmed subscribers from FeedBurner email subscriptions and more that.  Feedburner requires users to confirm their email addresses, if they do not confirm they will not be notified of your posts.  This allows you to send a gentle reminder for them to confirm their emails with feedburner, so they can read what you have written.  The Plugin is Written By Keith Dsouza.

OpenID Registration

 OpenID Registration allows people to sign into your blog using Open ID.  Open ID is a great idea where you can have one signin for each site that subscribes to the concept.  Although I have enabled this, noone is using it to date.  The Plugin is Written By Alan J Castonguay, Hans Granqvist.

Optimal Title

 Optimal Title is another SEO tool that makes sure the title of the posts are moved to make them more easily recognized by the search engines.  The Plugin is Written By Aaron Schaefer.

Popularity Contest

 Popularity Contest

This will enable ranking of your posts by popularity; using the behavior of your visitors to determine each post’s popularity. You set a value (or use the default value) for every post view, comment, etc. and the popularity of your posts is calculated based on those values. Once you have activated the plugin, you can configure the popularity values and view reports.  This does not have any widgets to put its popular posts in your sidebar, however I have built one for this purpose.  The Plugin is Written By Alex King.

Quick Stats

 Quick Stats

Logs hits with referrer, ip, host, client and url information. RSS tracker feature lets you tracker your visitors in near realtime using an RSS reader software.  If you want to know if anyone is visiting and can not wait 24 hours to see what google has tracked for you, then you can use this to help you out.  The Plugin is Written By Jim Qode.

reCAPTCHA

 reCAPTCHA is a great project that I want to support, but Ok, You Got Me technically I lied above, This is one that I love but do not have activated.  If been on the web for a while you will have had to enter those CAPTCHA images on web pages where they want you to type a random series of letters and they are hard to read, so then the user can assume that there was a human entering the numbers.  Much of this is wasted energy and does no great good for anyone, if this plugin is enabled, then a central server gives you images that are taken from books that have been scanned and  the user’s effort to decipher the text will let the blog owner know they are people and old manuscripts will be available for the public.  As akismet works so well for me I do not need to sort the bots from the people, but I really like the concept and will turn it on if I get swamped by a bot army.  The Plugin is Written By Ben Maurer & Mike Crawford.

Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form

 Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form

This powerful yet easy-to-install contact form features exceptional accessibility and usability while still providing extensive anti-spam and anti-exploit security features. A marriage of communication and peace-of-mind.  If you use it I will get an email, so please give it a try. The Plugin is Written By Mike Cherim and Mike Jolley.

Sociable

 Sociable Automatically adds links on your posts to popular social networks and bookmarking sites. This is the images at the bottom of each of my posts. The Plugin is Written By Peter Harkins.

Subscribe To Comments

 Subscribe To Comments Allows readers to receive email notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. As I want people to be engaged in discussions on my site, any way I can (rss and this) will let people stay informed on what people are saying about their comments and the site itself.  The Plugin is Written By Mark Jaquith.

Upload +

 Upload+ helps rectify some of the annoying ways that Wordpress uploads files.  This plugin provides a more secure, cleaner uploading and customizes file names for uploaded files.  The Plugin is Written By Pixline.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

 Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions. Go to Wordpress Automatic Upgrade to upgrade your installation Thanks to Ronald Huereca for making the plugin run in automatic mode.  The Plugin is Written By Keith Dsouza.  I blogged about this yesterday and would reccomend it to anyone who wants to keep their blog up to date but does not want to worry about editing, downloadning backing up, and managing plugins.  I would like it however if it checked the compatibility of plugins with the new version. 

WP-CACHE

 wp-cache is a very fast cache module. This is quick and easy to use, and means that the database that wordpress is built upon is not queries with each visitor, rather at regular intervals.  The Plugin is Written By Ricardo Galli Granada.

Users Online

 WP-UserOnline and WP-UserOnline Widget Enable you to display how many users are online on your Wordpress blog with detailed statistics of where they are and who there are(Members/Guests/Search Bots).  The Plugin is Written By Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan.

Other Plugins and Widgets

 I have built three of my own widgets for use in the sidebar that make implementing my blog easier, meaning I do not have to change the code of Wordpress or my template.  I plan on releasing the code for these blogs in a later post.  For everything else I am able to use text widgets (pasting html code into text) to get the desired effect.

Please feel free to comment on this thread, I look forward to hearing your discussion

After Working in IT for what seems a very long time, I do not generally like upgrading things. I have read the good things about the newest version of WordPress, and thought that added security and functionality are the things that I would like for my own peace of mind and that of my readers.

Yesterday I had some spare time and decided that I would take the plunge and upgrade WordPress from 2.2.1 to 2.3.  As readers of this blog will know, it has not been around for too long, but in this time Wordpress has wanted to upgrade two minor versions and now to 2.3, it seems that everything moves very quickly and I had better keep up with the times.

This is an account of what I did in upgrading and the experiences that I encountered.

Automatic Upgrade Plugin

I downloaded the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin as I have read that it does a pretty good job.  I was rather impressed with how well it actually worked.  It took me through the following steps:

1. Located and Found the upgrade
2. Downloaded the Upgrade
3. Backed up my files
4. Backed up my database
5. De-Activated Plugins and put site in maintenance mode
6. Upgraded Wordpress
7. Restored Plugins

The end result was that all plugins worked as previously except for gregarious, which had a slight error being turned back on.

The log said there should be no errors but my template did not like the change.

Upgrading Plugins

I worked out that the only code that I had to have inserted in my code was that for google analytics and my translator.  To get around this I downloaded Google Analyticator Plugin which means that I do not need to modify the source to get that working.  This was downloaded and installed with no visible problems.

One of the nice things of the 2.3 in conjunction with the automatic upgrade plugin is that it mentions when my plugins are out of date, I guess that some had been lagging behind for some time but I was unaware of this.  I deactivated all these plugins, downloaded their latest versions and then unzipped, uploaded and installed them.  I turned them back on and have had no compatibility problems.  I will give a list of the excellent plugins and widgets I am using in a later post.

My Own Plugin v Upgrade

Previously I have built my own widget to display the popular posts in the sidebar; this still is working fine after the upgrade.

Modifying Plugins

After upgrading the plugins I noticed that things I did not like about some of these plugins in the past had come back to haunt me.  I use a popularity plugin and a social media one.  Both of these were inserting [?] after my posts which is not what I wanted to see.  I had to then download the source for the plugins, edit them to remove this functionality and upload them again.  I think that this functionality should be in their options screen so those who are less PHP literate than I am can do the same thing easily and safely.

Changing Theme

As mentioned above my template / theme was not behaving correctly after the upgrade.  I was getting warnings about in_category function calls and other miscellaneous errors relating to non-existent mysql tables and other SQL errors.  Also I read about adding support for tags and resolving calls to functions that are not relevant to pre-existing themes and decided that if i was going to go to that hassle I may as well find a new theme that natively supported this as I thought the previous one looked a bit amateurish.  I think that in the future I am going to use my professional PHP experience and write my own themes.  Additionally the old theme did not handle wrapping my text, did not like my windows live writer detecting the theme and I had changed so many things that did not work I had forgotten what I have done and thought it would be best to start again.

So, although this was not a prescribed part of the upgrade it was a casualty and necessary evil.  I felt it was necessary as otherwise I would have a site that was not working properly.

After analyzing all the available themes I finally settled upon http://blogdesignsolutions.com/ ’s X-Mark theme

This I promptly downloaded and installed.  It had none of the issues of my other theme.  However It presented me with other issues that I forgot that I had handled in my other themes. 

I use the following plugins that require changes to the theme:

1. Brian’s Threaded Comments
2. Extended Live Archives
3. Global Translator
4. Limit Posts
5. Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form

Trying to limit the changes that I had to make, I made the following changes:

1. Replaced Comments.php with the one supplied by Brian’s Threaded Comments

2. This page requires a template for the page, I took the single.php, used WinMerge to look at my old template and my new one and then removed anything that was not required for the page, and then added the required code for Extended Live Archives.  I then uploaded this file and it worked first go

5. Using the Contact form is just like #2 where I just removed the Extended Live Archives code and substituted in the code for the contact form, and this worked well too.

So Far everything was quite straight forward, but was time consuming.  Now I needed to stop my main page listing the tens of thousands of words of my last posts.  For this I substituted the_content with the following;

4.      the_content_limit(1100, "<- Click Here To Read The Complete Post ->");

This then shows click here (which is supposed to increase the click through rate) and is only going to show the first 1100 words of the post.  Again this integrated well into the new theme.

3.  The global translator was quite a problem.  The new theme has a background which means that other pictures will not appear above it.  After much trial and error I gave up on editing the theme.  I created my own widget that allows the translation flags to appear in the side bar.  This is now working fine.  Meaning that my next theme I will not have to change much at all, having removed the code for analytics and translations it is just changing templates and the limit posts code.

Final Changes

I now had a blog that was using Wordpress 2.3, was using the most up to date plugins available, was displaying my posts the way I wanted to display them (btw this theme has nice things about displaying the author and time of posts) but was missing something.

Using Paint.Net (unfortunatley not photoshop) I was able to give my blog its first logo.  The dark silhouette merged with the lightening with a background of a rising sun.  I quite like it… what do you think.

Integration with Live Writer

The only problem I have now is that I have tried to integrate the style into windows live writer but it will not detect my changes.  I am yet to determine why this is, but it is quite frustrating.

Conclusion

Migrating was not that hard, I now have a blog that looks more professional, should be more SEO compiant and takes tags.  The time involved would not have been that bad If I was using a better theme to begin with.  If you get the chance I would reccomend that you take the dive and install Wordpress 2.3 for yourself.

If you want any of the template pages or widget code please post below and I will get back to you

If you liked this post please share it with others, bookmark it and subscribe to my RSS feed.  All Comments on this post and my blog in general are much appreciated.

I was at O’Riellys yesterday, Nestled in the Gold Coast Hinterland.  They have wild parrots and other birds that you can hand Feed.  It was lots of fun, but they have very sharp claws and all of us had many cuts and scratches afterwards.  Here is one of hundreds of Great Photos I took yesterday:

What surprised me was how difficult it was to get an in focus, well framed image of a bird in flight.  I managed to get some - but the static pictures generally turned out best.

Also Note that I am hosting this photo on Zooomr http://www.zooomr.com/ - note that this has three ‘o’s , this is a great photo sharing site, that has some great sets.  Currently I have just put up the one photo, but will be posting more shortly.

 After contributing to thousands of requests for programming help online and in person I have many theories and ideas about how people should learn programming and how they should consider the problems that they find themselves in.  This post is the first of many that will look into commonly asked problems and give tips that if read should solve some of them. 

Much of my experience centers around SQL databases and as such is one of the areas where I think people should understand the central ideas before they begin to ask questions of others. Conceptually, there are ten main keywords in all variants of the SQL language that are used to create alter and destroy tables and databases; and to  input, modify and remove data from those tables.

You are only ready to progress with your SQL if you can read this whole article and be able to identify the words below, write more than is written, explain what they mean and use them in your database of choice without reference to other sources.  (most of my examples will be aimed at ANSI standard SQL or mySQL)  There is much more that can be read on these topics but below are the bare necessities needed to get you by.

1. CREATE TABLE

Before you can start with working with data, you need a container to store it in.  The container in an SQL database is called a table.  This is a series of rows (where each item of data is stored) and columns which are of various data-types that are used to identify the particular row and contain the data.  The CREATE statement enables a table to be made, specifying any rules about what can be contained in the table (and how it can be indexed). 

As this is a basic guide; I will just outline a simple create statement and what the components mean;

CREATE TABLE your_table_name (a INT NOT NULL, b VARCHAR(20));

This will create a table called your_table_name with two columns, a which is an integer, which will not allow any null values and b which is a string that can contain characters up to a length of 20.

Note; there are other options,

• you can have arguments that specify to create the table if it does not already exist.
• Tables can be created that are like other tables (copying their definition)
• Tables can be created by using a select statement and copying the data returned from it
• Temporary tables are those that are not written to the disk and kept permanently like tables without the temporary keyword, and are not designed to be permanent.
• Constraints and comments can be added to columns and to the table as a whole
• A Primary key and other indexes can be added; limiting duplication of data and increasing its searchability.
• Foreign keys can be added restricting values to be inserted depending on the values contained within other tables.
• There are many different datatypes that can be used to hold data for columns
• Default values can be set for data.
• If a table already exists then you can not create it - and an error may occur.
• Some databases need to specify the owner as part of the table name (dbo for example ie dbo.your_table_name)

2. ALTER TABLE

Once a table has been created, it may become necessary to change how data can be input into the table or how the data is stored.  Alter table is the mechanism through which these changes

ALTER TABLE your_table_name ADD ColumnName VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL;

ALTER TABLE your_table_name DROP ColumnName;

ALTER TABLE your_table_name DROP PRIMARY KEY;

If you are adding columns or adding things to the table then the same rules apply as for Create.  The same declaration options can be given, as with the same index types and restrictions.

You can remove columns by referring to them by name.

You can remove indexes and restrictions by specifying that in the drop.

Some Things To Note:

• You can not normally have two columns with the same name (this is relevant to create and alter)
• You may have problems removing certain columns if they area referenced by other foreign keys
• Problems can occur when indexes depend on columns intended to be dropped.
• Indexes can not necessarily be added if the data contained in the table does not reflect the restrictions imposed by the change.

3. DROP TABLE

DROP TABLE your_table_name;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS your_table_name; 

Discarding tables is as easy as referring to the table you want to remove and saying drop table.  Make sure you have permissions to drop the table or it may not go that easily.  Some SQL databases support the IF exists syntax meaning that it will not give an error if the table does not exist and you try to remove it, but if it does exist then it is removed.  Similarly if you are removing tables that have dependencies upon them ie foreign keys then they may not go that quickly.

4. INSERT INTO

Normally, the point of all your SQL database skills is to work with data.  There are many statements that enable the population of data, but the most commonly used would be the insert statement.  This does exactly what it implies, it inserts rows of data into the table.  There are three major variants.  The first variation specifies the columns that data will be inserted into, including their order and the other specifies the data that will go into those columns.

INSERT INTO your_table_name ( first_column_name, another_column_name, …. ) 

VALUES ( first_value, second_value, …. )

Another method of isolating the data to be inserted is by referring to data contained within the database already.  This uses a normal select statement as defined below:

INSERT INTO your_table_name ( col_name1, col_name2, …. )  SELECT … 

The final method is to use a statement that sets each column’s value that needs to be altered to another values using an equals assignment.  I would not recommend using this method.

Things To Note:

• Some SQL databases allow the insertion of multiple rows in the execution of one statement.
• Inserting data is controlled by dependencies, checks and relationships and if the data fails these checks then errors may result.
• Make sure the data is in the type defined by the column type.
• Not all columns need necessarily be populated
• There are many functions that can manipulate the form of the data.
• Data needs to be in a format that can be converted to the correct data type - things like ‘23′ may be interpreted differently than 23
• Inverted commas within the data can present insertion problems and there are functions that can handle this.
• Always validate any data that comes from untrusted sources (ie users)
• If AutoIncrement or Identity fields are not specified then they will generally default to the highest value in the table and add one.
• Note that conversion functions may also need to be used if selecting from columns in a database that are not the same as their destination.
• Columns can be selected in a different order than they appear in the destination table also - not all need to be specified.
• Data can be changed from the input before being inserted, using functions inherent in sql for the purpose.
• You can generally use parameters to insert values into tables.

5. UPDATE

UPDATE your_table_name  SET first_column = value1, second_column = value2, ….  WHERE criteriaExists

Columns of data can contain information that is incorrect or needs to be modified.  The mechanism that SQL gives you is the update statement.  Typically this will involve only modifying the data in one table, even if other tables are used for criteria.  Above will update the table called your_table_name and assign the value in the first column equal to "value1" and second_column to value2 where there is specific criteria (elaborated in where below).  If there are no criteria then every row is updated.

Things To Note:

• Limits can be applied so only a given number of rows is effected
• Other tables can be joined in the where condition
• It is not generally a good idea to alias the tables in the update statement.
• The value does not have to be fixed and can refer to a manipulation of the current or different columns or constants.
• Not all columns need be effected by the update.

6. DELETE

DELETE FROM your_table_name WHERE criteriaExists

Removing rows from tables is achieved using the delete statement.  This is as simple as identifying the table and criteria the rows should meet and then specifying that you want to delete, using a statement similar to above.  The criteria is explained below.

Things To Note:

• Limits can be applied specifying a maximum number of rows to be removed
• Deletes can have problems referring to other rows within the same table and as such temporary tables may need to be utilised.
• Deletes normally can only effect one table at a time (even if another is linked for criteria purposes)
• Deletion can have problems if they remove foreign key dependencies relied upon with other tables.

7. SELECT

A normal select statement will appear similar to the following

SELECT   definition_for_First_column as fc, t1.second_column, ….  FROM tableName as t1  WHERE criteria_exists

Select simply identifys the data to be displayed across the columns.  Note that this may appear more than once in a query if you have an embedded query (sub query) either as part of a column definition (if it only returns one column and one row) or as part of the from (using the query like it was a table) or in the where condition (using it to prove or disprove a set of criteria)

Things To Note:

 

• Often mistakes occur because there is not one data definition between each (except for the last)
• Some databases have a 256 or 1024 column limit
• The DISTINCT keyword after select will only give unique rows (the whole row must be unique)
• GROUP BY at the end of the statement can effect what can be displayed in the select
• Columns do not have to be from tables, they can be constants
• Columns can also represent mathematics between constants
• Columns can be passed through functions
• It is not good practice to have multiple columns with the same name
• Columns can be aliased by using a word to give it a name after a space after the column definition ie (tableName.t1 as field1 or by doing tablename.t2 xxx) which would create two columns called field1 (1st example) and xxx as the second example
• The tablename does not necessarily need to be used to address a field, provided the field name is unique to that table or subquery
• There does not necessarily need a from or where criteria depending on the database

8. FROM

  FROM table_name

  FROM (subquery)

  This is normally seen where a statement requires information pertaining to a table or a set of data.  In first instances you may only want to use this relating to given tables, in more advanced scenarios you can select from an embedded query.  This is amongst the most straight forward - where basically everything after the from must be either a table, view or something that appears like a table or view (ie has rows and columns)

Things To Note:

• There can be multiple tables or subqueries in the from definition
• Tables or subqueries can be given names ie FROM table_name as t1 would mean wherever t1 was referenced it referenced that table
• The same table or subquery can be included multiple times and each is treated independently
• Everything listed as part of the from clause will impact the query (even if it is not specifically addressed) as there is joining between each of these data sets.

9. WHERE

 Ordinarily You do not want to see every piece of data in a database.  Restricting what is returned, based upon criteria is the whole point of the where keyword.

In essence Where statements read like their English equivalents.  Such that for each row - the database asks, does applying this statement return true, if so then display the row - otherwise don’t.  You can have or statements and use complex logic but every where statement boils down this simplification.

Examples such as:

WHERE  t1.currency = "AUD"

WHERE  t1.field1 > t2.field3

WHERE (t1.field1 + t2.field3) = (t2.field2 * t2.field7)

WHERE your_table_name.firstName = "Andrew" or your_table_name.firstName = "Becky"

WHERE your_table_name.Gender = "Male" and your_table_name.age between 18 and 25

 If you can read these statements they seem to make sense.  The first will only return values that are in Australian Dollars and the second will only show rows where a given field is greater than another one.  Any of these statements must evaluate to true to return rows. 

Things To Note:

•  There are many functions that can be used to evaluate to true or false in a where condition - signs such as > >= < <= / \ != in() (+)between % and many more can be used - if you are unsure and they are in a where condition then look up what they mean, for the statement to work they will always be used in a manner that can give either a true or a false after they are evaluated.

• Some databases join tables in their where conditions and others dont.
• It is possible to have statements that will never return true ie WHERE 1 != 1 will always be false as 1 is never going not to be equal to 1 (some databases use <> for not equals)
• Sub Queries can be returned to check if a particular value does or does not exist within that sub query
• Errors may occur if you are trying to compare values that are not of the same type ie "1" is unequal to 1 in many databases as the first is the character and the second is the value
• Where conditions are normally evaluated using BOMDAS ie Brackets Of Multiply Divide Add and Subtract.
• Where statements may use the quirk that true and false are treated as numbers in some databases -ie false may = 0 and true is any other number
• Conditional logic may be used to evaluate conditions - ie iif, if and case statements

Conclusion:

Understanding these statements is important.  There are many nuances and subtleties that were not covered by this introductory document.  If you want one or more details examined in more depth, please contact me and I will write another post addressing your concerns.

SQL was something I hated when first learning it, nowadays I think its possibilities and use are awesome.

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