Archive for the ‘Info’ Category:
How to Make Random Header Images?
Written by Jai on May 2, 2008 – 12:14 pm - 1,211 views
You are using a neat WordPress theme with an image header but want to have multiple images that you can randomize on your blog? Here is how to go about it…
STEP 1 - Editing Images
Make all your header images that you want to randomize of the same size (dimensions) and format. For example, if you have GIF images then all should be of the same extension. I hope you get the point.
STEP 2 - Naming Images
All the names of your header images should follow a similar pattern. Here is an example we will use :-
blogtop-1.gif
blogtop-2.gif
blogtop-3.gif
blogtop-4.gif
We do this because when writing the code, we will try to randomize the number part (logically, randomization is done by numbers in any programming language) and keep the text part similar for all.
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Written by Jai on April 29, 2008 – 4:07 pm - 1,313 views
I am thankful to Google because it has made the Internet a better place for all of us by releasing a number of very useful utilities in the past few years. Almost all of us use Google.com for their every day search on the Internet, and also other Google services like Gmail, Gtalk, Orkut etc. But there are some Google products that you might have forgotten about or might not be aware of. Here is a list of those not-so-popular tools that can definitely make your life easier :-
- Google Hot Trends (May 2007)
I highly recommend this tool if you are a webmaster and looking for hot topics and keywords that people are searching for in their daily lives. This can even help you as a blogger to choose the most current topic in your niche to write on. The tool lists all the hot trends by date and its very easy to switch between dates as per the calendar. This Google product is still in the Labs (experimental phase), but I have been using it for a long time now.
- Google SketchUp (January 2007)
Google SketchUp is a 3D (3-dimensional) modeling program designed for professionals to use in their every day projects. SketchUp may also be used to design buildings to be displayed on Google Earth (another application from Google that allows you to view satellite maps of the earth). SketchUp has been developed to be more intuitive, flexible, and easier to use than other 3D modeling programs like 3D Studio Max, MAYA etc. which are often difficult to learn for an average user. Several features allow designers to play with their designs, unlike other 3D CAD programs.
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Written by Jai on April 24, 2008 – 10:19 am - 1,044 views
Every blogger has got two basic choices when building his own blog— Either he can sign up for a hosted solution, or he can install a serve-it-yourself solution and take care of it on your own. Signing up for a hosted solution is generally easier (especially if you don’t already have your own website and you’re not terribly interested in jumping through a hoop or two to get one), while installing a serve-it-yourself solution can be more powerful.
Popular hosted blogging CMS (Content Management Systems) include Blogger.com, Typepad.com, Vox.com, Squarespace.com, and others. With these services, you simply access the site, go through a registration process and, in some cases, enter your payment information to cover the monthly fee. (Some are free, some require payment.) These are hosted services - somebody else worries about the Internet server, setting up the Web addresses and all that sort of stuff. You’re given a URL for your site (mostly a sub-domain), some online tools for editing your blog (and, perhaps, for editing the template and making some minor changes to the functionality), and you’re ready to go. With a serve-it-yourself CMS (like WordPress) you’ll need to do a little legwork. First, you’ll need some sort of web hosting account from an Internet Service Provider. You might already have something along those lines from the Internet Service Provider that you use for Internet access, or you may need to shop for a web hosting account that will support the specifications of your blogging software.
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Written by Jai on April 19, 2008 – 11:45 pm - 1,224 views
If you are new to WordPress and looking for reasons to use WordPress as a CMS (content management system) in your new website, let me give you some.
Open Source Software
WordPress is an Open Source software which allows it to be used free of cost. You can use it on any kind of personal or commercial website without have to pay a single dime for it. It is built on PHP/MySQL (which is again Open Source) and licensed under GPL.
User Friendly
You don’t really have to be experienced to use WordPress on your website. Nowadays most of the hosting companies provide the ability to install WordPress on your site at a single click of the mouse. The administration section is easy to navigate and its even easy to add articles/content to your website.
Themes Support
You will never run short of templates when using WordPress. If you don’t like the themes that come with the default installation of WordPress, you can hunt on the Internet and you will find thousands of free themes that you can download and use for your website. There are themes which can even make your website look like a regular site instead of a blog.
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Written by Jai on April 4, 2008 – 7:38 am - 4,911 views
After the release of the WordPress version 2.5, a few people asked me if my themes were compatible with the new version. So, I decided to check this fact today and did a test run on majority of the WordPress themes on my local machine which is running the latest version of WordPress (2.5).
As a result, I will like to congratulate myself and inform everyone that all the WordPress themes available on Blog Oh! Blog are fully compatible and ready to use on WordPress 2.5. The reason why they are compatible is, because the new version of WordPress has mostly changed the administration section and ideally there shouldn’t be any problems with the themes that were working with the 2.3 version.
If you are getting any kind of errors or problems using my themes, it can be because of some redundant plugin that you are using. Many WordPress plugins need to be updated to work with WordPress 2.5. So, you might want to inform the plugin author to release an update.
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Written by Jai on April 3, 2008 – 6:23 am - 902 views
After beta testing their scrolling ads for months (we have been seeing them all over the Internet since last december), Google Adsense has eventually launched them for the publishers today. It lets you scroll vertically or horizontally according to what suits your websites. These ads are not browser dependent at all and will work in any browser. The “Show More” option at the end of the Adsense ads was not very convenient when you had to wait for the full page of ads to open, and finally try to find something relevant to our needs.
But there must have been some good reason as to why Google has launched these scrolling ads. A wild guess would be the page ads not generating the expected number of views or maybe Google desperately wants to show you more ads through this creative scroller. And I am not even kidding when I say the word “creative” for these ads as these have a nice fade in/fade out effect while you scroll through them.
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Written by Jai on March 29, 2008 – 12:29 am - 1,142 views
It is debatable by many but in my opinion Facebook is going to be increasing its online market share for years to come. Many say that Facebook is going to be the next Google as it eliminates the need for searching, by allowing users to rely on associate’s recommendations. Personally I think this is quite ridiculous and I never see Facebook actually stealing any of Google’s market share. On the other hand I do see Facebook replacing the need to many instant messenger services provided by such companies as
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Written by Jai on March 27, 2008 – 3:34 pm - 1,256 viewsTired of looking for content to post in your blog?
Recently, I came across an article at Techcrunch.com about a Firefox plugin called Zemanta which can ease your life by suggesting relevant links and related content to your post. This plugin integrates with your WordPress, Blogger or TypePad installations and helps you by providing links as and when you are creating a new post.
Let’s take a look at how it works.
When you start writing a new entry in your blog, it surfs the Internet for news based on your keywords and after every 300 characters, provides you with a list of related news links. You can then enter those links in your post by the simple click of a mouse button (you can see them at the bottom of this post too) or you can visit the particular website where that news has been published. Moreover, the extension also automates the process of adding tags to your posts.
Zemanta also has the ability to pull images from different sources based on your post keywords and lets you include them in your post in the same way like the news links. I am sure that this feature will save a lot of time for bloggers who have to hunt the Internet for relevant images to publish in their posts.
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Written by Jai on March 19, 2008 – 12:58 pm - 1,752 views
How many times have you wished that there was an online tool where you could test run your newly designed WordPress theme or the latest website that you have designed for cross browser compatibility?
How many times have you found yourself frowning upon IE or any other browser for not being standards compliant and showing messy designs?
I am sure that every designer or developer must have searched online for such a thing at some time or the other. So, after much searching I finally found a website that definitely comes to your rescue. Browser Shots, which is a free open-source service, lets you make screenshots of your website in different browsers that are available on the Internet. When you submit your URL, it will be added to the standard job queue. A number of different computers will open your website in their browser and then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server. Not only does this tool run your website on different browsers but also on different operating systems including Linux, Windows and Mac OS. The browsers included are MSIE (Versions 4.0 - 8.0), Firefox (Versions 1.0 - 3.0), Opera (Versions 9.23 - 9.26), Safari (Versions 1.3 - 3.1), Netscape Navigator and others.
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