Robin Malau Dot Com - Rockstar now Geek

Read at Work is a fun geekery. The purpose of the website is to let people read at work and don’t let their boss know that they are actually reading and not working.

When you visit www.readatwork.com, you’ll be welcome by a Window start page designed web page and an instruction: To Begin, click your user name. Then you can click the user button that’ll lead to a full screen window, complete with folders and the taskbar.

The books are located in the folders, and you can choose from several categories. There are also default Recycle Bin and My Computer to make it look like real Windows but it’s actually not clickable.

When you choose a folder then click the file (it’s actually the book list), the web then process and show a Power Point start up, then soon after that, the book is opened which looks like a Power Point presentation.

The boss will think you’re working on your work but actually you are reading novel. That is jerky fun :D.

Found it via Computer Arts Daily.

Firefox is my default browser and have been using Firefox 3 release candidate since the day they launch and really in love with it. It has been said that there are 14,000 improvements since the version 2. I didn’t really dig it but from what i feel, the version 3 is so light and really make my internet life better.

Good news arrived that Firefox 3 stable release will announced soon and as always the community will held a cool event on the launch day which is called Download Day:

Set a Guinness World Record Enjoy a Better Web

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

By the way, the official date for the launch of Firefox 3 will be posted here soon - so check back! Join our community and this effort by pledging today.

You can join this cool effort by simply clicking this link, pledge yourself and help the community to set the world record.

It’s a good deal by the way…!

Update from the project website that this is a fictional project. I don’t feel cheated because i still think this is brilliant idea and hopefully somebody can make the project happen. Congrats to Erik Nordenankar that has successfully create the buzz.

The artist drawn a self portrait by sending special GPS device in a briefcase around the world. The path GPS device works as artist’s pen and with a designed instruction to DHL, the path generate his self portrait on earth.

Update: Soon after i published this post, i remember one of my friend who always interested in this kind of projects. I easily find him at IM and let him know about the project. Apparently, as the project’s name said, it’s THE BIGGEST DRAWING ON EARTH, and not about GPS drawing as this post’s title said. Of course it was done by GPS path, but the artist is talking about the scale of the project, which is, super duper massive. Back to my friend, he also has a GPS drawing artist friend that once cycling around Las Vegas in which the GPS path drawing a $. So, GPS drawing is not new, even though it’s new for me and make this night exciting finding that. Hehe.

I am not sure how on earth he can get the idea. Click here to visit the project site. Super brilliantly done.

Via Minding The Planet.

This is fun. Emma Watson converted into truck driver using a.viary, an online image editing (and more) tool. A little description about the service:

Aviary is a suite of web-based applications (RIAs) for people who create. From image editing to typography to music to 3D to video, we have a tool for artists of all genres.

To get to know more and use the service, you can sign up to their beta test here.

This video shows how the surgery process done, it’s fun. Heheh…

Amazon affiliate program is probably the oldest and the most successful internet affiliate program in the world. They provide a wide range of supporting tool for their affiliates. However, among those fancy and helpful tools, my favorite is always their aStore.

aStore is a program for Amazon affiliates, that wishes to have their own niche online store, without having to buy inventories, managing payment and shipping. Affiliates can choose on what products they want to sell in their aStore and able to customize the look to meet their website and niche look.

However, there are 3 ways to display aStore, whether it’s a (1) standalone site, and integrating to affiliates website using (2) inline frame and (3) a frame set. The 2nd and 3rd option is super cool. Imagine this, your visitors can shop on your aStore without leaving your website. How cool is that.

This tutorial is using the second option, by using inline frame, which can make your aStore look and feel match with your website as it still using the same Header and Footer. Now let’s see what we can do here.

Customize Your aStore look

The first step is of course you need to set up your aStore. Some notes on this step are:

1. Choose products that fit your niche for super wide range Amazon products.
2. In aStore set up wizard, don’t use the Header as it will be contrast with your blog’s default header.
3. If your blog’s sidebar located at left side, then choose the store’s sidebar, and vice versa if its at right.
4. It’s better to edit your store’s CSS to match the feel of your site.
5. When it’s all finish, choose to display your store using inline frame. Copy the code and put it to notepad.

Create a new Custom Page for your aStore

This step is pretty tricky. But if you follow step by step, then you should be ok. I use this technique found at Kristarella’s blog (more info on developing pages at Wordpress.org)

1. Copy your page.php file using FTP, rename the file to store.php or whatever you like.

2. Edit the store.php file using your text editor. To remove the sidebar (because you’ll be using your aStore’s sidebar), find this line of codes and delete it:

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

After that, add this codes at the beginning of store.php file:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Store
*/
?>

Finish? Save it and FTP the store.php file to your template folder.

3. Now find this (or by the likes):

<div class="post">

And change it to sort of like:

<div class="post store">

and then styled in the CSS using:

.store { width:30em; } (my aStore was 70em)

4. Back to your Wordpress Dashboard, write a new page, name it Store.

5. Scroll down and find Page Template drop down, choose Store template. You might need also to set the Page Order for your store page.

6. Now copy your inline frame code from Amazon, and paste it to your new page (don’t use Visual mode, use HTML mode instead).

7. Publish your Store Page and you’re done.

Final Result

I implement this to my Manchester United Blog. As the football club has just finished their season in high as Champions of England and Europe with super dramatic fashion, i figure what can be a better moment to put the aStore to my blog as its traffic reach the all time high from Manchester United fans all around the internet. Before i integrate the store, it was a standalone site which look like this:

Now, it’s integrated with my blog and look like this. Much cooler aight?

I installed most major browsers in my computer. The main objective is to check how web layouts work in other browsers (Firefox is my default browser).But testing the site in different browser is impractical, and also i can’t test websites in different Operating Systems. However, the nice people in Browsershots can help me to overcome these problems.

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.

Since it’s free and volunteer based project, you can also take a sneak at current screeshots taken (Also in the list, you can take a look at upcoming Chris Pirillo’s free Wordpress theme here). There are 83 computers run by volunteers to make browser screenshots and us happy, you can find the list, OS and systems used here and also stats request queue here.

You can also support BrowserShots by paying a very cheap price here and get your priority processing which includes:

1. Screenshot requests will be processed immediately.
2. You will often get 30 to 50 screenshots within 2 to 5 minutes.
3. Get screenshots of any web address, as often as you want.
4. Instant activation when you pay with PayPal.
5. No need to extend requests to avoid expiration.
6. Your screenshots are private (only you will see them, or somebody who already knows your URL).
7. Ad-free web interface.
8. Dedicated email support from johann@browsershots.org.
9. Your payment supports an open-source project.The price for one month is €10 EUR or $15 USD.
   If you purchase priority for a whole year, you’ll get 12 months for the price of 10.

Result of Robin Malau Dot Com is here. And it’s also available as downloadable zipped file. It’s a surprise to see the site in different browsers and Operating Systems, it doesn’t work in some of them!

However my mistakes which you don’t need to repeat is that I choose too many web browsers (a default option) which many of its never even come to my blog. By sneaking to your Analytics tools (mine is Woopra and Google Analytics) ahead of using BrowserShots, you can prioritize which browsers and Operating System you would like to test against.

This tool come right on time when i decided to move another blog from Blogger to self-hosted Wordpress.

When updating DNS (changing servers etc), most of the times it’s just painful to wait up to 72 hours just to see your DNS propagate to the internet. The thing is, it might happen anytime soon and you wouldn’t notice. I usually wait and check back often just to make sure that the DNS is updated. It’s a waste of time, really.

However, the good people at WebResourceDepot comes to rescue. They provide DNS Pinger to save webmaster’s time. DNSPinger is a web-based tool that pings the website you mentioned every 3 minutes for 24 hours and e-mails you when the Ip is updated (new DNS is activated)..

Here’s the address: http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/dnspinger/

Now before the DNS is up, you can sit back, tweet or open your RSS Reader.

After WP-Premiums and WeLoveWP, now Robin Malau Dot Com featured at The Web Index, a webdesign gallery runs by few employees of Vast HTML. Please stop by and give Robin Malau Dot Com a good rate :-D.

Click here (or the picture) to go to The Web Index.

For the last 2 weeks, i start to use another Blog Editor. I use it because i need to overcome these constraints on running and authoring self-hosted Wordpress blogs:

1. I’m authoring multi blogs.
2. I use hosting plans with its limited shared resources. At slow loading times, i can spend mostly an hour only to publish a single post!
3. I need to always logged in to Wordpress Dashboard only to publish a post (then usually look around see if i can tweak something :-D).
4. Add Media feature in Wordpress 2.5.1. suck. Find it freeze all the time and mostly ends with Firefox crashes.
5. I have many drafts in my blog admin and if any MF find security leaks in WP, maybe they can explore it like in the past version. I don’t want to give them that job.

In the past, i’ve been using several blogging editors but i stop using it:

1. Flock default Blog Editor. I use Firefox as my default browser.
2. ScribeFire. I don’t like the interface and since i have to limit my add ons since Firefox crash at many critical (important) times.
3. Windows Live Writer. I’m looking forward to Microsoft products free computer.

After a fair research on search, i found Qumana, another free blog editor software. So i install and try it out. So far i’m impressed with its feature which also has its limit. But things going better as i can spend most of my times doing more reading which i can opt to add more to the writings.  

Advantage

1. I don’t have to log in to Wordpress Dashboard all the time.
2. I can insert and upload picture directly from the blog editor and escaping buggy Add Media feature.
3. Can insert HTML tags directly in WYSIWYG editor.
4. Can edit old posts directly from Blog Manager.
5. Other standard Blog Editor Formatting Features.
6. Can send pings to several services at once.
7. Promted to save post if closing a new post window without saving.

Disadvantage

1. Can’t use Custom Field so i still can’t use Qumana in a couple of blogs of mine since i use Custom Field a lot.
2. Can’t use post excerpt but i overcome this by installing a post excerpt plug in.
3. Can’t integrate with Zemanta, so i need to find tags manually (Zemanta saves lazy tagger like me :-D).
4. Can’t manage or add new categories.

Some Notes:

1. After using it, you will close the program through File > Quit or simply push Ctrl + Q. Check your system tray see if it still runs, eat your memory and slow down your computer.
2. Sometimes uploading and inserting images don’t work, but usually it’s succesfully added. Repeat by clicking insert image button, and insert it by linking to it’s uploaded directory (for example http://www.yourdomain/wp-content/uploads/year/month/imagefile.jpg).

Conclusion:

1. Before decide to use blog editor, the main thing to do is to make the blog fix. It means, everything at the blog must set up right so you don’t need to do tweaks just to make the blog ‘look better’ in supposedly posting session.
2. By not logging in to dashboard everytime, as i’m also designing websites, i can resist the temptation to tweak my blog settings all the time :-D.
3. The happiest result i can get by using Qumana is that i can escape slow loading times so i can spend most of my time reading, writing and do more research before posting articles.

You can download Qumana here.

Note: This is too much geeky if you don’t run your own Wordpress blog, an active Twitter account and setting up your name/aliases at Google Alerts.

Somehow Twitter and Google Alerts can be very annoying if i get too much updates. But i found this interesting that connect the 2 services (and a Wordpress blog) in a very cool way.

The scenario:

1. My id in Twitter is lowrobb (follow me here, if you are not spam, bot or ‘internet money maker’, promise i’ll follow you back!).
2. I also set up lowrobb on Google Alerts.

Today, a twitter friend ThePunk (who runs a Wordpress blog) twitted this, and i replied this. I didn’t notice that he replied to my latest tweet until a Google Alert arrive in my inbox that look like below:

Twitter Updates for 2008-05-06
… Murphys - Wicked Sensitive Crew http://tinyurl.com/5a45f9 # @utvolfan one of my others, from my coffee shop days is "expresso" # I am loving the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin. # @lowrobb does it work for plugin upgrades as [. …

Actually @thepunk, he really replied to my tweet and i only recognize it via Google Alert. So i went to his blog posting his latest twitter status (as in the Google Alert) and i finally respond his latest tweet through the blog post comment.

How fun and useful if you can connect several social media services, and make the most of them to controlling your name and get connected to people in the internet.