days to remember

UiTM may introduce courses related to blogging.

A friend sent me this news yesterday, which we had a good laugh. 

Have a read on the news:

UNIVERSITI Teknologi Mara (UiTM) may introduce courses related to blogging to enable bloggers to be more professional and ethical.

Utusan Malaysia quoted Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Seri Ibrahim Abu Shah as saying that the freedom in the alternative media was frightening because anyone could blog without any formal training in news writing.

Bloggers were also not bound by media ethics and seldom brought to court, he added.

Prof Ibrahim said he would support any proposal to conduct a course for bloggers.

“It is timely as we know that bloggers can write and this is only to assist them to be more professional,” he said after a seminar.

He was responding to a question on whether UiTM would consider offering a course on blogging as bloggers today were free to write without proper academic training.

So, bloggers and readers, what say you?

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My dear bloggers,

I am writing to promote to you all a website (blog directories)- BlogMalaysia.com, founded by my friend, Koh Kho King, who owns another few websites (ie. Shashinki.com [Malaysia First & Only Online Camera Store], and PhotoMalaysia [Malaysia First & Largest Online Photography Community].

BlogMalaysia.com is a human edited web directory that invite bloggers around Malaysia to submit their blog addresses help promoting their blogs to gain higher search engine results and publicity. All listings are reviewed by humans and listed on major search engine friendly web pages. Having your site listed in BlogMalaysia will ensure getting maximum exposure of your blog to the worldwide audience! The web was relaunched last week, after a database corruption and lost over hundred of entries in BlogMalaysia. (cited from the BlogMalaysia.com)

Please register your blog there (by registering an account at BlogMalaysia, you can later login to edit your Links if there is any changes to the descriptions or new URL of your blog), and get your blog published to more audience. Please kindly help to spread the web to all your blogger friends. You have nothing to lose by doing so, and I am not getting single cent by ‘advertising’ for him, but this is consider a win win situation, where you help to promote his web, at the same time, get more people to read your blog.

Popularity: 100% [?]

We have changed the banner of the blog to a photo taken in GION, Kyoto.

Please let us know if you have any comment(s) or suggestion(s).

Thank you very much and happy reading!

Popularity: 1% [?]

WordPress 2.3.2 is released! 

Few hours ago, WordPress 2.3.2 was officially released. It contains the urgent security update (fixes a bug that can be used to expose your draft posts). Since I seldom using the “save drafts option”, I am still considering whether to update my blog to this newly released version or to keep my recent working version (2.3.1).  

As you all can see from the picture I attached, WordPress 2.3.1 just released 64 days ago, in fact, I just start using it on 9 Dec 2006.  To be frank, I do not like to update my web application frequent, especially when it’s newly released version. I doubt it may have some bugs especially in dealing with existing DB. I still remember a release candidate version was released prior to final version of 2.3.1 been released about two months ago. This update is not the same with WordPress version 2.3.1 as WordPress 2.3.1 update is a MUST to most wordpress users as it fixes over twenty bugs.   

Let us have  some detailed look on bug fixes and new features of WordPress 2.3.2:

In general, new release of wordpress 2.3.2 fixes a bug that can be used to expose your draft posts. 2.3.2 also suppresses some error messages that can give away information about your database table structure and limits and stops some information leaks in the XML-RPC and APP implementations. Get 2.3.2 now to protect your blog from these disclosures.

As a little bonus, 2.3.2 allows you to define a custom DB error page. Place your custom template at wp-content/db-error.php. If WP has a problem connecting to your database, this page will displayed rather than the default error message.

 In details, the changes from tags/2.3.1 at r6528 to tags/2.3.2 at r6528 are as follow:

• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/query.php (modified) (2 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/wp-db.php (modified) (9 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/formatting.php (modified) (1 diff)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/taxonomy.php (modified) (1 diff)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/post.php (modified) (2 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/version.php (modified) (1 diff)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/pluggable.php (modified) (1 diff)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-includes/functions.php (modified) (5 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-app.php (modified) (6 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/xmlrpc.php (modified) (18 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-mail.php (modified) (3 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-settings.php (modified) (1 diff)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-admin/includes/file.php (modified) (1 diff)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-admin/admin.php (modified) (1 diff)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-admin/setup-config.php (modified) (2 diffs)
• tags/2.3.2/wp-admin/install.php (modified) (4 diffs)

(quoted from wordpress.org)

 If you were me, will you update the blog to latest version of wordpress?

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今天在晚餐前，我发现了一个陌生人留言给我的帖子“部落格找到好归宿了”。我以为又可以交新朋友了，去仔细看了下，原来是广告来的。开始有那么一点点的兴奋。被人丢了“垃圾”，为什么还会兴奋呢？因为这人肯往我这’倒垃圾’，就是证明我这部落格还有些人拜访。被这’广告商’看中是个“福气”。哈哈。。。

今天还发觉有人因为在谷歌搜索“tokyo disneyland”而来到我的部落格，还有一个是搜索canon s5 is，这年头，谷歌真的威力真的是没话说。

此外，mylovepress有两个成员开张了！

http://andrew.mylovepress.com/blog/ 

http://daniel.mylovepress.com/ 

一个是开张了也没打算做生意，好几天了，还是那么一个“缘”， 看来这“缘”要变“怨”了。另外一个就不同，可以看得出日后生意肯定是不错。其实结庐兄如果要努力的话，这人气是肯定有的。两位加油咯！

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还记得在我前两篇部落格当中有提到正烦着没有一个好的部落格hosting网站，这问题就在我教会一个弟兄看了我的部落格后慢慢的解决了。怎么说慢慢的解决呢？请慢慢的看下去你就懂了。。。

他联络了我，告诉我有兴趣一起联合注册一个网站，然后搞些我们想搞的东西。就这么一谈，我们兴起了三分钟热度(其实到现在还热着的，只是大家都在忙，暂时只好慢慢来咯)，马上开始搜索谷歌，找啊找，竟然给我找到一个很不错的Excite plan，5GB的space，10GB的monthly bandwidth，1 parked domain，20 subdomains，2 SQL Databases。(http://www.3ix.org/one_dollar_web_hosting.php)，每个月只需USD $1元美金，换句话说，一年需要马币40(USD1x12x3.40)，这还未包括domain，一个最便宜的domain需要USD $3.99，马币13.60，两个总共加起来一年要马币53.60，比起之前我说的一年马币RM 150以内便宜多了。基本上，这给我们刚起步，算是足够了(虽然我嫌SQL少，space有点不够)。但是我们还是不是很满意，所以继续寻找，同时，我们拉拢了另外一个朋友来问他是否有兴趣，他说当天会给我们回复，过后忙就走了。这是Part 01 (7 DEC)。

 接下来，告诉你Part 02 (7 DEC) 。。。

就在我们继续搜索的当儿，突然我看到一个网站(坦白说我不是很记得怎么找到这东西，我只知道我的IE开启了很多的tab，整个IE都密密麻麻了，所以事实并不是稍后你们看到我对那客户服务专员说的，在谷歌’特别’搜索到的:P)。。。

(http://www.tophostingcenter.com/rudolf.html?OVRAW=web%20hosting&OVKEY=web%20hosting&OVMTC=standard&OVADID=11472434022&OVKWID=86424442522)

开始我以为我眼花了，但是的的确确，是有这样的东西。我们犹豫了，我们不知道是否该花多点钱，一次过注册这网站。试想想，如果一年马币54，我需要7年才能算回本。7年后我就赚了，越久我就赚越多。或者从另一方面想，这5GB跟这250GB简直不能比嘛。。。一年都值得。话虽然这么说，我们还是等到晚上才一起三个人(看另外一个弟兄是否要参与，如果不要这95美金是有点重本，当然过后他答应了加入)讨论，然后我们花了好久的时间想domain的名字。因为三个都是教友，我们都同意主页保留为教会做些东西，也由于是三人共同享有这网站，所以名字不能以我的名字或任何能明确代表我个人的来注册。也因为这样，这domain的名字从英文到拉丁，我的好几个朋友，我家人都被我问了，大家都挖尽心思，还是想不出一个头绪。不想了，当晚就带着这’继续想’的任务入睡。

Part 03 (08 DEC)

睡了一觉醒来，我还是在想，也陆续试了很多。多数都给人用了。突然脑袋有个想法，这网站其中一个主要的目的，是用来host我们的部落格，这部落格当中，wordpress算是蛮有名气的，这有了wordpress，我就来试worldpress，不过给人用了，然后就想啊想，突然有个想法，反正有计划做些教会的东西，用爱准没错，就试了lovepress，但是也不行，过后突然我老婆说，加个my在前面试试看，一试，还真的available。于是，我开始尝试注册。。。

不试还好，试了有点失望，因为到了domain setting时，只能注册3rd party domain，我又开始盘算了，之前说好了USD 95平分，假如又加了这每年马币10多，不懂他们俩会赞同吗？算了，就算不赞同就自己给算了。想着想着，我就点击了广告主页有个Dedicated Support Online，原来点击了要我输入名字，及我要问的问题，按了enter，竟然是个Live Chat box，有人现场回复我叻！神奇，这customer support可以做到这样真的不错了。聊天内容我懒惰写了，我拷贝出来，你们自己看：

Alvin Lau: QUESTION: Wish to ask is that only 3rd party domain is being offered to customer with Free Domains as advertised. Thank you very much.
Mike: Good day! Welcome to THC Support.
Mike: Now for your question…
Mike: No.
Alvin Lau: but I am only allowed to choose 3rd party domain during my registration
Alvin Lau: that’s why I didn’t proceed further until I get an answer from THC
Mike: Can I know which hosting plan did you sign up?
Alvin Lau: I plan to sign up special xmas Rudolf plan
Alvin Lau: but I try to sign up from normal plan, the same thing applied
Mike: In the Domain Information section of the signup, choose “Register Without Domain”
Alvin Lau: oh? then how I get a domain later? someone will contact me or after the payment is made, will proceed to further page to configure about the domain registration?
Mike: You will have to send an email along with your desired domain name and contact information (important) to customercare@tophostingcenter.com
Mike: we will process it and it will be available 3 hours upon email reception
Alvin Lau: ok, that’s great!
Alvin Lau: thanks for your kind advice
Alvin Lau: that offer will be applied with any of the package, including the one i mentioned earlier is it? just to double cofirm. thanks!
Mike: This offer is only applicable to Rudolf hosting plans
Alvin Lau: ok, thank you very much
Mike: Can I ask a question before you leave?
Alvin Lau: I will proceed to registration soon
Alvin Lau: sure, what is that?
Mike: Can I know where you heard THC or Rudolf plan? (search engine, blog, or any website, or friend)
Mike: *heard about THC or Rudolf plan
Alvin Lau: I manage to browse your THC web from google, then from there I notice there is such a great offer
Mike: Okay. Can I know what keywords you used during search?
Alvin Lau: I can’t really remember, something like top hosting company or similar keywords
Mike: Okay. Thank you very much.
Mike: Is there anything else you need to know?
Alvin Lau: actually I shouldn’t ask about this, but is this plan will bill me after 1 year, or having problem to continue? since i still hard to believe such a nice offer
Mike: Many people are still incredulous like you and our subscribers couldnt believe also of such offer. We will not ask for payment again after you purchase Rudolf. We will pay for the annual renewal fees as promised. Rudolf special plan is a promotional package and is limited only to 1000 very lucky people.
Mike: The promo ends when the 1000 slots run out.
Alvin Lau: ok
Alvin Lau: thanks for your kind info
Alvin Lau: I am registering, thanks once again
Mike: Your welcome. Thank you very much and welcome to THC.

—注册后我不懂该从哪里login，也不确定是否过帐了—
Alvin Lau: excuse me, are you still there?
Mike: Yes, Alvin. THC Support is ready when you need it.
Alvin Lau: I have registered, and receive a email on payment receipt, where should i proceed next?
Mike: What payment option did you use? Paypal?
Alvin Lau: nope
Alvin Lau: 2checkout
Alvin Lau: I do not have paypal account
Mike: Okay, please wait while I verify your payment and activate your account.
Alvin Lau: thank you
Mike: Your account name is “Alvin Lau”?
Alvin Lau: username you mean?
Alvin Lau: if username is XXXXXXXX
Mike: yes
Mike: okay
Mike: your account is activated
Mike: you can login to your control panel now
Alvin Lau: where to login? I cannot find the page from the THC main page
Mike: http://login.tophostingcenter.com — a notification email has been sent to your email address
Mike: it tells there instructions on how and where to login
Mike: By the way, please dont forget to send your desired name along with your complete contact information to customercare@tophostingcenter.com
Alvin Lau: ok, thanks
Alvin Lau: I am yet to receive the mail from THC
Alvin Lau: I can login without problem, thanks
Mike: Your welcome. Is there anything else you want to know?
Alvin Lau: no, at this moment
Mike: Okay.
Alvin Lau: have a nice day
Mike: Have a great day. Thanks for contacting us.

你看了以上的对话，你是否觉得他们的customer service真的很好？有幸注册到这网站，真的是太好了。如果谁有兴趣注册可以联络我，我可以告诉你更多的详情，不过只有1000个噢，要快，完了就没了。(好像他们给了我钱打广告，嘻。。。)

Part 04 (08 DEC-09 DEC) 

这过后的故事，就是我花了将近两天的时间来setup wordpress。原本对wordpress不熟悉，发觉这open source版本跟wordpress.com里头有点不一样。原本早上可以弄好了的，因为当初没enable shared SSL，害我做了双倍的工(import进wordpress.com，然后再export到XML document，再import到我自己的网站)，原本以为import了就好了，去看了我自己的post，天啊。。。所有的中文都变了’?????’。我简直要晕了。开始我还到处找chinese encoding的support files，后来我越想越不对劲，应该不是这问题，于是慢慢的摸，终于给我发觉原来是SQL database的问题，由于这是个加拿大的公司，他们很聪明的把我的SQL database 里头的language设定到不懂什么拉丁＋英文(差不多是这样)，我花了差不多一个小时才改好。改好了，去看那些已经import的post，全部还是弯豆芽，没办法，只好重新import过。就这样，到blog可以运作，差不多已是傍晚了。

这整理版位又花了半天的时间。单单这Hit Counter就花了我很多的时间。没办法，又不熟悉wordpress，又不熟悉php，搞了半天，终于把要放的(其实还有一些slideshow的gadget要找，暂时算了)都给放上了。

花了很多的时间，终于给这部落格找到了一个归宿。而这篇，算是搬入新家后的第一篇帖。嘻嘻。。。

Popularity: 1% [?]

这几天一直在寻找一个比blogspot更适合的blog space，也想过把我老婆跟我的post放在同一个blog里，一来，写过的不用再重复，再来，给有看我俩部落格习惯人的方便。不容易。找到了好几个，都没有十全十美的。做了个比较，也做了个’分析’，简略如下：

BLOGSPOT-
优点：有1GB的空间，上传照片，影片非常的容易。容许html的elements(别小看这，可以做很多事的)。除了这1GB，还可以注册其他picasaweb的account，然后link照片、相册过来，真的很方便。
不足之处：formatting一直跑位。有时真的为了formatting就差没发火了。不知道为什么会这样。在compose里头明明是好好的，一publish，或insert新的picture，formatting全走位了。真的很烦！！！(哪个部落格高手可以指点一下有什么办法可以解决，我是用IE，有关系到吗？应该没吧)。除了formatting，还有一个美中不足的就是blogspot不能自动显示最新的comment，虽然我设定了可以从电邮当中知道是否有新comment，但对游览我部落格的人来说就不会注意到了。此外，如果blogspot本身有自己的page stat就好了，我就不需要引进别的page counter了。

WORDPRESS-
优点：wordpress没有所谓的formatting问题。
不足之处“只有50MB放照片。。。天啊，50MB太少了吧！虽然可以从picasaweb或photobucket或其他的地方link过来，但是很麻烦也！除了这，我朋友告诉我说wordpress只可以选由他们提供的templete(不过这不是我考虑的主要因素，我看过所提供的templete，很不错了)。除了这些，对于他们提供的gadget，我不是很喜欢(很不user friendly，当中很多我都不知道是什么，莫名其妙！)。

iloveblog.com-
优点：界面很干净，loading speed很快(我不懂在马来西亚怎样，但在这里他算是3个当中最快的了)。这是exabytes，一个大马的hosting company提供的。我常游览的天主教论坛就是停放在这server的。
不足之处：100MB的webspace，1GB的bandwitdh加上本身是beta版本。。。唉。。。算了吧

还有一个alternative:找个地方，自己host自己的部落格。如此，我还可以自己建立属于我的网站、论坛等等等。这当中的优点是数不完的。但是这美中不足的只有一个，hosting加domain一年大概要马币150。这是我找到最便宜的了。有谁愿意资助我可以告诉我，我们还可以一起分享这space。哈哈。。。

Popularity: 1% [?]