Testing

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iMP Auto Slimbox, A Lighter Lightbox

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 I came across the iMP Auto Slimbox in my Google Alerts yesterday, and it was a plugin that immediately caught my interest. I have tried a couple of Lightbox variants for my images over the last couple of months and must admit to having failed to gain any real success in using them. But they do look really cool, so I hadn't yet given up all hope. The first big advantage I saw I could gain with this particular lightest of the light Lightbox clones was that it would automatically add the "rel" attribute (rel=”lightbox”) to my images, even working retroactively to add the values to all my previous attempts. This was a bit problematic as I had fiddled quite a bit with some of the code for these images, some having the rel=”lightbox” attribute already added which I think caused some confusion. Having added it to my Sandbox site and finding it very easy to set up and use I have now added it to this site. This post is in part a test, I am writing it via BlogDesk and I will test this time whether the plugin will add the values to the picture in this post or if it only works in the online "Write" page of the blog.

iMP Auto Slimbox *Edit: Apparently it only applies to images posted directly from the Admin area*

iMP Auto Slimbox



Out With The Old, In With The New

Sunday, April 1st, 2007 So March has blown by, I cant say as my challenge for last month of a comment a day went totally according to plan, but I did post more comments than I otherwise would of done so that's not so bad. :wink: For April I have set myself the challenge of getting this blogs look more finalized, if you have visited before you will notice that I have changed themes again, this theme is based on the RockinSuckerfish by Nathan Rice of RockinThemes.com, but I have adapted it fairly extensively with my own preferred colours. I have also added "Sweet Titles" and I have moved around the RSS and changed the date/authors name layout. That was all in the CSS, I have also added a couple of extra plugins such as "smileys" for the comments and a tag cloud of my categories for my sidebar. Also as a final touch (for now) I moved Robs Translator from my Sandbox site to here, you can see it at the very top of the page on the left hand side. I hope you like the new look, please let me know what you think in the comments, also if you notice any problems that I may have overlooked. Thanks. :grin:

Adding Your Signature To Your Blog

Thursday, March 29th, 2007 Like most WordPress users I quite often pop over to Lorelle VanFossen’s blog for news and tips, and one of the nicest things that I first noticed when I went there was her signature at the end of every post. I wished I could have the same on my site but I thought that this was probably something she had paid quite highly for as a special feature on her blog, something that I would never be able to afford. Well now I have something similar on my own blog, and it’s free! My Live Signature (aff.) allows you to add your signature to your blogs, e-mails and forums. There are plenty of fonts to choose from and you can select the colour that best suits your blogs stylesheet. There is a WordPress plugin that makes the addition of your signature to your posts automatic and retro-active. The static versions are provided free of charge, if you feel the need to go for an animated version their prices are pretty reasonable ($19.95), and if you want to have a template made specially from your own hand writing they also provide this service for $9.95, though I would advise against using the same signature as you use to sign your cheques! I think they make a nifty addition to the blog and add a little more personalization. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
clipped from www.mylivesignature.com

MyLiveSignature - breathe life into your signature
MyLiveSignature offers the services of creating and animating personal signatures. You can use it to easily create your own signature using a set of templates or to allow our designers to create your signature based on a scanned image. At the same time, our animators will give you the true impression that you sign your message with your own hand in real time.Such signatures will allow you to easily and quickly breathe the energy of your personal presence into email messages, blogs, forums and websites and also they will serve as a pleasant present for your friends and relatives.
*EDIT: As an added bonus, there is a WordPress plugin that automatically adds your signature to the posts, thanks to Lorelle for pointing me to this*

Lost In Translation

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 There has been some discussion around the blogosphere of late about the need to add other languages to your blog, really allowing more people to "join the conversation"; see Lorelle Van Fossen's guest post at ProBlogger and catch up with what has been happening over at the "Weblog Tools Collection" site and "The Blog Herald". Well today I came across this plugin, Robs Translator, that does just that via the "Google" translator. This will allow you to add 11 languages to your blog and is based on the plugin created by Scott Trough, which can be found here. I will be adding this to my Sandbox blog at first and then hopefully adding it to my blog here if all goes well. Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments, or if you are using one of the other translators out there for your site feel free to recommend it. :-)

Sharing with divShare

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 The other day I had planned to write an article about divShare on WordPress, but being unable to get it to work in its Beta format I had to delay my article, but now they have released the full version 1.0 everything seems to be working right, for me anyways.
After three days of very productive Beta testing, the DivShare Uploader Plugin for Wordpress is officially moving up to version 1.0. Thanks to everyone who helped out!
So what is divShare? This plugin allows you to post your blog images directly from your divShare account or upload an image or file via a new interface on your admin "Write" page, as demonstrated in this capture: So far it seems to work better than the standard uploader that is provided with the WP install, though I will need to do a little more testing to see how I get on with accessing pictures on my account. Have you tried divShare? How have you got on with it so far?

Clip-clopping around the ‘net

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 In my Google Alerts today I found an interesting article about clipmarks, a social network type site that is also a very useful Blogging tool, see the demo below of a clip from the article that led me to them:
clipped from home.nestor.minsk.by

The Clip-to-Blog feature makes it easy for people to add fresh content to their blogs. When users come across something on the Web that they want to add to their site, they can instantly Clip-to-Blog it, eliminating the back and forth of copy and paste. The service is compatible with all leading blogging platforms, including Blogger, Wordpress and all Six Apart services (TypePad, LiveJournal, Movable Type, and Vox).
It is a very easy to use little tool that can be added to your Firefox browser. When using the clipper you can customise the CSS to a certain extent, which helps to stop the clips you post to your blog being too jarring, note that the border and link colours are in line with my current theme. The version I am using is v2.0, so if you have used this service in the past you may want to update. The site itself does also act as a social network, a bit of a Digg type site that allows other members to vote on any publicly saved clips that you may make to your profile. All in all a pretty good tool to have in your box of tricks, though an option of whether to post or save as a draft would be a helpful addition. Give it a go yourselves and let me know what you think. Do you use a similar tool that you would recommend I try?

Open ID, your Passport to the net?

Friday, February 23rd, 2007

openID

Do you remember Microsoft's Passport.NET? It was a pretty good idea, create one user account that can be used at all websites, no need to make multiple accounts around the interweb, and best of all, just the one password to remember! But it didn't take off. It's still around, though it now mostly goes under the name LiveID. Not that many sites ever implemented it and those that did soon noted how under-used this service was and dropped it. These days it is really only usable in Micosoft's own services such as MSN (aka Windows Live Messenger) and Hotmail (aka Windows Live Mail). But in the virtual life of the web world good ideas never die, they just get a Web 2.0 makeover. ;-) And so we arrive at OpenID, the same basic tenet, one account and one password. In fact, though you may not realise it you could already have an openID account! Live Journal and Zooomr are just a couple of many sites that allow you to use your current account as an openID. Will this incarnation prove to be any more sustainable than Microsoft's attempt? At the moment it appears this may well be the case with Microsoft themselves still seeing the need for such a service and will be supporting openID:
On the heels of the Windows® CardSpace™ general availability launch in Windows Vista™, Microsoft demonstrated momentum with industry partners that are working to apply this technology to help consumers realize a more confident online experience. This includes the announcement of collaboration on use of Windows CardSpace with the OpenID 2.0 specification. Through the support of the WS-Trust-based Windows CardSpace experience, consumers can take advantage of increased security against phishing attacks without adding complexity to their identity management experience. Also at the conference, Wachovia Corp., Arcot Systems Inc. and Corillian Corp. showcased a proof of concept demonstration using Windows CardSpace to deliver a simpler and safer online banking experience for customers.
With AOL signing on, Firefox 3.0 promising integrated OpenID support, Yahoo getting in on the act and up-and-coming sites such as Digg, NetVibes and SmugMug signing on it looks as though this one might be here to stay. Some still have worries over the security of the project but most concerns appear to of been addressed, so I went and signed myself up with an account at MyOpenID.com. General Info. Brad Fitzpatrick who kicked off LiveJournal is the original developer of the current system. Simon Willison has posted a Quicktime Video demo of how openID works that you can view here. As a P.S. for those who feel they will miss the opportunity to create all those new accounts in the future, don't despair, go get yourself a Useless Account, which does. . . absolutely nothing! :-)

wp-amazon plugin

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 A little while ago I came across an article on the wp-amazon plugin, though for the life of me I can't remember where. Anyways, I made a mental note to give this one a try at some point as it looked like a very useful tool. What is it good for?
Have you ever wanted an easy way to link to a book, movie, or product that’s relevant to what you’re writing about? Typically, this is a pretty cumbersome task—open up a browser, go to Amazon, look for the product you’re interested in, copy the URL, then paste the link to your entry. Not anymore. With WP-Amazon, the Amazon product catalog is available right from WordPress. This plugin will allow you to search Amazon as you compose your post or page entry.
Sounded pretty good to me, so I have now added it to my site. Check out the demo video on their page too, it's a surprisingly easy and versatile tool. If you have an associate id with Amazon this can be integrated in the "Options" area of your admin. It is now fully functional for WordPress v 2.1 but there are still other versions available here for those who may have chosen not to upgrade yet, or maybe can't due to some problem with their website host. There is also a Google Group support forum. So, here is my first attempt, and if I can do it, so can you. Wordpress Complete Do you use a similar tool on your blog? Do you use it to monetise your site or just to add a feature to your posts?

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