Sometimes I post sourcecode accompanying my posts which are long and makes the length of the post unnecessarily long. The wordpress.com sourcecode shortcode has an option collapse which you can make “true” to collapse the sourcecode box when the page loads. If you post a long code, when the code box is expanded it will be inconvenient to scroll through the page and read. Also sometimes you might not want to collapse the codebox when the page loads. For this I have a solution. Add vertical bars to the codebox using the div tags.
In this way the length of the code portion in the page remains fixed and to read the code one requires just to scroll in the code box. Checkout what I am talking about in some of the code posts, for example in the posts here and here. Here is how it is done. Continue reading “Add vertical scrollbar in wordpress.com sourcecode blocks”
WordPress.com Stats API
WordPress.com has a very nice stat plugin showing the overall post views data and also post by post, but it would be always great if there was more. A lot of people talk about introducing Google Analytics. A lot of people save the data offline by copying the summary tables into files to save the site data. I had an idea to process the data of my site a bit differently and find trends in the data. I thought except copy-pasting the site summary data, there should be a cleaner manner to store the data. First I made a brief Google search, then made a wordpress.com forums thread. Then i had a short chat with Mark in wordpress.com freenode IRC and was redirected to wp.com email support. The first result came from email support telling that there is no data export feature. But another email followed to correct the previous one which told about the wordpress.com stats API with which you can get your wordpress.com site’s stats data in CSV or XML format.
Continue reading “WordPress.com Stats API”
See what is behind the shortened URLs
Short URLs are all over the web with many URL shortning services, like tinyurl.com , bit.ly , tr.im and even the wordpress.com blogging service has their own URL shortening service for the blog posts : wp.me. This is a very convenient feature and best suitable for social networking, by keeping messages short and cleaning the mess of long URL’s. This comes with a cost. You cannot know what is the final destination of the shortened URL, where it will take your after resolving. It can be a malicious site with scripts running behind which can do damage to the system or anything. But until today i did not think it was necessary. I just got a scrap in Orkut containing a shortened URL which was suspicious as it was sent to 246 people. I wanted to see what’s behind it without clicking it.
Continue reading to know how to elongate the URLs
WordPress.com IRC Channel
Support is one of the best features in wordpress.com . The official documentation, the email support and the mainly volunteer driven forums make a very strong and fast support system. Except these three there is another support system in wordpress.com which almost no one is aware of. The freenode IRC channel of wordpress.com .
IRC is a text-based chat system that allows millions of people around the world to communicate in real time.
The IRC chat will enables you to communicate with other people in the chat room and get direct support, discuss about topics and a lot more.
Read more to know how to configure wp.com IRC
Do Really ALL of us want to Reblog ?
After a huge wave of excellent features and themes from wordpress.com in the last months, wordpress.com included a new feature what they call “Reblogging”. At the fist look i thought it was something like the facebookish “Like” button on the top for bookmarking, or subscribing it in readomattic, or like in StumbleUpon. But it read like this :
If you decide that you want to share the post with your own readers, you can click the “Reblog this post” link and you’ll be taken to the new QuickPress tab on the WordPress.com home page. This will auto-fill a snippet of the post text, a link back to the original post, and a link to the blog. If the post includes any images we’ll also automatically add a thumbnail image to the reblog post. Finally you can add your own comments to the reblog post then select which blog you’d like to post it to (if you have more than one).
I thought okay, wordpress.com is trying to get “social” (were we unsocial or anti-social before?), but i discovered the feature was like this:
Continue reading my view about the wp.com Reblog feature
WordPress.com Top 10 Features
WordPress.com is a free web-blogging service which uses WordPress CMS software as their blogging platform. Here are the free blog feature list : http://en.wordpress.com/features/
Before starting a blog in wordpress.com , I tried some CMS softwares offline. I used Joomla, Drupal, Vox, Plone, etc. WordPress CMS matched my exact needs. Self hosting was a tedious task with the work of creating content as well as an extra burden of administration. I decided to go with the free blogging services. I registered with blogger.com and spent some time testing it. Although it is feature rich with allowing editing theme XML, CSS, allowing JavaScript, Flash embeds, but somehow it was not a match for me. At last I finally tried wordpress.com . After starting it felt a bit bad as there was no manual theme customization options which became a habit that time, no free CSS editing, no JavaScript, and had limitations. As time passed, I was getting into wordpress.com the more I discovered the features and adjusted myself, and started to post more content. At last I am now fixed in wordperess.com, and mapped a domain with their domain upgrade feature.
Re-Enable WordPress.com random blog surfing
Wordpress.com blogs you have Tag and subscribed Blog surfing features with which you can surf your subscribed blogs, and get the update information from the blogs. You can also have the list of Blog of The Day in here http://botd.wordpress.com/ . There seems to be no random blog surfing, and blog hopping and just hovering over different blogs in wordpress.com at this time. Earlier WordPress.com had a Next Blog link on the admin bar on the top, when you are logged in into your wordpress.com account, (http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2006/02/08/blogs-where-to-next/). But it was removed. But although the link was taken out, the feature is still there. This post will describe how to re-enable the Next Blog feature, and let you visit blogs randomly .
Firefox Easter Eggs
Easter Eggs are small fun stuffs hidden inside the software, you have to find to get it, or google it. Here is two Easter Eggs from firefox3 . Check them out, they are fun.
Talking About Google Buzz
I logged into my Gmail account and instead of landing in my Gmail Inbox page I landed in a some other page talking about something called Google Buzz. . A quick glance told that it is a new service of Google which integrates itself in Gmail and has social networking features. Google has started rolling this service gradually to the Gmail users. On the left hand side column the new Google Buzz link with a typical Google type logo indicates that it is integrated in my Gmail account. So what’s buzzing in the Buzz?
Read more to listen to the buzz in the Buzz
Unmute Muted Google Buzz
I just started using Google Buzz after noticing the tag on the left side of my Gmail account. I read what is it about and started to use it. When testing the features, I ended up selecting the “Mute this post” option from the corner drop down menu of a Buzz. And it was gone, from by Buzz update list. Reading the help said that muting a Buzz would not show any more in your Buzz list / inbox when some comments or updates are there on that Buzz, that is, the Buzz has new comments it will not appear in upstream on the top of the list. While you are reading the ‘m’ shortcut could also make a post to mute. A short Googling dropped me in Google Forums and i got this link . I read that Muted Buzzes could not yet be searched.
Playing around with Buzz lead me to a simple solution which i posted on that thread and also presenting below.
Read more to Unmute a Google Buzz
Phoxis 