Category: Technology

Creating and Maintaining a Personal Website

As a response to Suon Dondi‘s query here:

Personal Websites and Blogs

Most people maintain personal websites through blogs. A blog is what makes a personal website pertinent by posting updates every now and then.

When it comes to blogs, the first thing that should come to mind is WordPress. This is so far, in my opinion (and I’m sure a lot of bloggers will share my opinion), the best blogging platform.

A .com, .net, or .org domain name usually costs around $10 per year. That’s around P470 a year — cheap!:D

Blogger/blogspot actually permits mapping of domain names into your blogger blog. Say, you have a domain name at example.com, you can make it map to your existing blog at blogger.com so all your posts will appear within your domain name (example.com) and all your former permalinks (e.g., example.blogspot.com) will automatically redirect to your new domain name. This service is called Custom Domains. Refer to this documentation to set-up a custom domain at blogger.com.

But blogger.com alone does not offer that much flexibility as compared to when you host your own website. Hosting puts you in total control of your website. But hosting entails additional cost on top of what you paid for the domain name.
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Friendster Introduces a New Blogging Platform

Hello deuts,

We’d like to introduce you to your new blog on Friendster! We’ve been very busy building out Friendster Blogs 2.0 and your blog has been moved to the new blogging platform. It’s ready for you to customize, edit, and add even more content to it!

Some things you should know about your new blog:

  • Your blog has been moved to the new platform.
  • It is likely that your blog layout or colors may not appear exactly as they were on your old blog, you can edit or add new customizations to your blog by clicking the ‘Design’ tab or ‘Change Theme’ button when you access your blog from your home page.
  • All of the photos you’ve uploaded to your old blog will soon be moved to your new blog. When they are moved, they will be in your Blogs Media Library (Manage –> Media Library). Don’t worry, we’ll move all your photos for you! We plan to have this complete by September 17th.
  • If you experience any inconsistencies with your blog during the next few weeks, please bear with us and please do let us know what you find so we can build a better product!

To get started with your new blog, please go to:

http://jotuvillo.blog.friendster.com/

We look forward to your participation and your feedback on our new blogs property. We value our global community and members like you who make Friendster the success that it is!

If you have questions or need additional assistance, please contact Customer Support by clicking “Send us a Question” from our Help page.

Thanks!
The Friendster Blogs Team

The message from my inbox the other day. After some time, Friendster eventually migrated the blogs it used to offer from Typepad to WordPress Mu. Could it be another proof that WordPress is winning the blogging platform market against its closest rival, Movable Type?

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Bullet Points: Facebook, Friendster, Tumblr, Prime Lenses

Tumblr Search

Good news for Tumblr users. Now we don’t have to wait anymore for Google to index our pages in tumblr in order for Google Custom Search to actually display search results from our tumblr archives. Tumblr now has a built-in search.

Wait, now how am I gonna implement this in my tumblelog?

The Power of Prime Lenses

Oftentimes, beginners dismiss prime lenses as inconvenient. And they overlook the positive side of it:

  • They are usually cheaper as compared to equivalent zooms, as they are less complicated to design and manufacture.
  • They usually produce better pictures. No rotating elements as for zooms, so usually no setbacks for the convenience of zooms. I don’t really have no pictures as evidence to back that argument. Just better ask the experts. But, really, based on experience, one usually makes the most our of his/her DSLR while using prime lenses.
  • It helps you become more creative with your composition, as you zoom by your feet.

Not convinced yet? Read more from here.

Continue reading Bullet Points: Facebook, Friendster, Tumblr, Prime Lenses

Tumblelogging at Obeertym.com (Update: at deuts.org)

What’s a tumblelog, in the first place:

A tumblelog (also known as a tlog or tumblog) is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, tumblelogs are frequently used to share the author’s creations, discoveries, or experiences while providing little or no commentary.

– Wikipedia

Tumblelogs usually consist of a stream of ideas (and media) while one is online or even offline. While blogs usually are long post, tumblelogs are short–just anything you want to share.

In the words of Tumblr:

To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.

I particularly loved the system behind tumblr to build my tumblelog upon. I received an invitation to try out tumblr long before, but I actually tried out the service only since last week. Having some spare domain names, I decided to put them up to good use and give tumblr a try.

Continue reading Tumblelogging at Obeertym.com (Update: at deuts.org)

New Yahoo! Mail Email Addresses

You sure already have that [email protected] Yahoo! email account, but that username is not really what you always wanted, because it was already taken when you signed up for your first Yahoo! account. You don’t want numbers like your birthday or combinations of your favorite numbers populating your email account either.

Now, this is your chance to grab that favorite username of yours. Yahoo! is offering two more domain names to associate with your user account, ymail and rocketmail. Same Yahoo! Mail technology, same inbox look, same storage space and spam protection. You can have that [email protected] and [email protected], and transfer all your contacts from your previous Yahoo! account.

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Mozilla Firefox Download Day 2008

Download Day 2008Within the next 24 hours, the download fest for the final release of Firefox 3 will be on. For all you Firefox fans out there, let’s join the community in setting the Guinness World Record for the most software download in 24 hours.

About Firefox 3

  • New Features

    Firefox 3 sets the innovation bar very high with exciting new features, including one-click bookmarking, the smart location bar and lightning fast performance.

  • Security

    Keeping you and your personal information safe is our top priority. Firefox 3 includes phishing and malware protection, plus our new instant site ID info.

  • Productivity

    With features like built-in spell checking, session restore and full zoom, Firefox 3 makes it possible to work faster and more efficiently on the Web.

  • Customization

    Your taste and needs set you apart from the rest. With Firefox 3 you can choose from over 5,000 add-ons that help you customize your browsing experience.

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WordPress Plugins in Use

A lot of friends I have converted into blogging lately and use WordPress. From uploading themes via ftp, changing themes and installing plugins, there are still a lot of things to be learned. Customizing themes to suit your personal preferences is a real challenge.

I prepared this post to showcase the WordPress plugins that I use in this site. I don’t say that they are the best or the top plugins out there, but at least they served helpful to me.

Check them out and see for yourself which may prove helpful to you as well: Otherwise, just browse the plugins directory for more.

UPDATE: For security reasons, I’m disabling the WordPress Plugins in Use plugin, and leave this page/post to be a static page. Hence, you might find versions here outdated.

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The Fedora Experience

FedoraI’m currently in fedora. And I’m starting to like it.

My taste of Linux started with the Ubuntu experience. Then when my wireless card failed to work with the latest version Hardy, I tried PCLinuxOS and then OpenSuse. Some more disappointments with Suse and I found myself downloading the latest release of Fedora (Fedora 9, Sulphur).

My wireless card didn’t initially work with the live media booting from the cd, but worked like a breeze when it was installed into the harddrive. And now I’m liking the interface (with GNOME). Two concerns:

  • Installing Adobe Flash Plugin for Firefox – which you really can’t install from within Firefox. You’ll need to install it manually. No problem, though, with some tutorials in the web like this link, which also includes other items one may want to install.
  • Desktop Effects – It looks like my hardware (NVIDIA) does not work with the new xorg. No problem, though. I just can’t have that eyecandy effect yet, which I don’t really care. It’s just aesthetic.

So, for all ye Linux fans out there, the new Fedora is surely a great fresh release distro to try out.

The Heron Refused to Fly

Honestly, I’m disappointed with the latest release of Ubuntu, the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS otherwise known as Hardy Heron.

I became quite excited when the final version was about to be released. As soon as it was available, I didn’t waste time and downloaded it at once. Installed the same over the previous version (v7.10, Gutsy Gibbon) in the extended partition.

However, much to my disappointment, my wireless network card didn’t work!

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