(Anti) Social-Lists 9/7/08

My (Anti) Social-List is shorter this week. I’ve been doing a lot of week in Wordpress and have not had much time to read articles. So readers, maybe you can help me out. If you read something this week that you think I would enjoy, please add the link in the commments.

• Enable Chrome’s Best Features in Firefox Google releases an early version of the Chrome web browser this week. Some of us were less then impressed, didn’t care for the Eula, and unwilling to give up our Firefox extensions and didn’t like way data was sent back to Google. Lifehacker wrote a great guide on how to get the best Chrome features in Firefox.
• 10 Wordpress Hacks to Make Your Life Easy - BlogOH!Blog lists 10 hacks to use on Wordpress. You need to be familiar with editing your theme files to implement these but they are fully explained and work great. I added the ‘Adding a “Subscribe to feed” message after every post’ hack, which you can see at the bottom of this article.
• Why I Don’t Want to be Added to Your LinkedIn Network and (What I Do Want) - Ari Herzog discusses the ways to not use LinkedIn, as well as the best usage of that social network.
• Why Doesn’t Anyone Comment on Your Blog? - Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer wrote an informative and helpful article about getting comments on your blog.
• Oosah - Would you like 1TB of free storage space? Head over to Oosah and sign up for a free account.

Scheduled Posts in Wordpress 2.5+ Fail For Some Users

**Note - I have found a fix for some users. Check back next week and all will be revealed.

It seems that for some users scheduling posts in Wordpress does not work in versions 2.5 and higher. This problem does not occur for all users and seems to be related to the web host they are using and possible security settings. Ultimately, however, the problem is in Wordpress as scheduled posts worked in earlier versions.

It is my understanding the the problem may be with the cron.php file that is in the wp-includes folder. Cron jobs deal with scheduled events and for some reason this file is not communicating properly with the server.

There is not simple fix or solution to this problem. Some fixes work for some users but not for others. I know of two people using the same webhost who currently can not schedule a post. Well, the can schedule it and set the time but when the time to publish arrives it doesn’t publish and the time starts counting backward. For example, a post is scheduled for 4:40PM. That time passes and 10 minutes later it will say scheduled to post on 10 mins. Forty minutes later it says scheduled to post in 40 minutes. The scheduled post, however, is never published until it is done manually.

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Wordpress - Sort Your Search Results by Relevance Rather Than By Date

Have you ever searched your own Wordpress site for an article you wrote a couple of months ago? Have you been dismayed that the article is not one of the first found results even when you know the title of the article? This is because Wordpress sorts search results by date rather than relevance. For example, when I search on ‘Environmental Resources’, I want the first result to be my article, ‘Green Twitter: Environmental Resources‘. Instead Wordpress will give me a list of all the articles that mention that title in descending order. Since, I frequently link to my own articles, I am given a list of search results that aren’t that useful.

The solution to this problem is provided by a simple plugin install. Search Reloaded, once installed and activated, will sort articles by relevance, so when I do the search mentioned above I get the expected results. The plugin does this by using the search algorithm in your MySQL database rather than the default Wordpress search algorithm. The results aren’t perfect but are SO much better than what is provided in Wordpress.

Search Reloaded requires Wordpress version 2.3 and higher.

To use:

1. Download
2. Extract file from zip
3. Upload to your plugins folder
4. Activate
5. Enjoy

I recommend searching the same term before and after installing the plugin so you can see what a difference it makes.

photo credit: g.originals

How to Backup Gmail via POP Email

Do you backup your Gmail? What if you account were hacked into? What if Google deleted your account? More recently Gmail has been completely unavailable and I have had a 502 error. This has made me nervous and worried about the stability of the service.

I save almost all of my emails and have thousands of items stored in gmail. I would be devastated if I lost all of this data.

I’ve been backing up Gmail for almost a year now. I use two methods for this; pop email and fetch via cygwin. The first method is easier to set-up but I prefer the second because I can set it as a scheduled task and don’t have to think about retrieving the email. Today, however, I am going to discuss the first method.

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Stuff This in Your RSS - Demo Girl 9/2/08

Demo Girl demonstrates new online tools and tips and tricks via screencasts rather than in an article. Demo Girl is Molly McDonald and she provides brief tours of new websites and tutorials that are designed to replace faqs of these items. By watching a demo you will learn enough about the product or tool to determine if is something you want to use.

Recent demos have included a tour of Ubiquity, 3 Firefox Extensions That Make Tabbed Browsing Better, and Make Your PC a Little Greener with Edison.

If your preferred method of learning is watching rather than reading this is definitely a feed to add to you reader.

RSS Feed: http://demogirl.com/feed/

photo credit: laenulfean

Hurricane Gustav - Social Networking Used for Disaster Planning and Relief Efforts

As Hurricane Gustav begins to bear down on the Gulf Coast, bright social media experts are quickly creating social networks in order to provide information, organize volunteers and assist those displaced from the storm.

Andy Carvin, along with a team of volunteers, has created the social network the Gustav Information Center on Ning.

The network includes just about every piece of information and media needed to assist with the hurricane. Some of them are; blog entries, links to other resources, a google map of evacuation routes, craiglists lists of volunteers, a twitter feed of hurricane information, photographs and videos from the Gulf Coast, and so much more.

If you want better information that you will get from Mainstream Media, join the network and obtain a more accurate picture of the situation. And, better yet, volunteer.

If we had had such robust social media tools three years ago, would we have used them to this extent? Or was the primary lesson learned three years ago from Hurricane Katrina that we can not count on our government and instead ordinary citizens must organize disaster relief efforts? Hurricane Katrina kicked me in the face as to how apathetic our goverment is toward ordinary citizens and I am SO glad that creative people like Andy Carvin are providing the resources and information that people need in times of crisis.

(Anti) Social-Lists 8/31/08

Here is the (Anti) Social List for the Labor Day Weekend.

• Make WordPress’ search function Suck Less - A look at plugins and code to enhance the default search in Wordpress. The Search Reloaded Plugin is very useful in that it posts search results based on relevance rather than date.
• Life’s Enough: Stop Comparing Yourself to Others - Comparing yourself to others can decrease your confidence and self esteem. Zen Habits discusses ways to break this habit and how to focus on what you are good at.
• Introducing Ubiquity - Mozilla Labs released a very early version of Ubiquity, a firefox extenstion. I wrote about it in my article, How to Use Twitter with the Ubiquity Firefox Extension.
• Most Desired WordPress Hacks: 11 Common Requests and Fixes - Noupe published an article of the most requested Wordpress hacks. One that is particularly useful is how to exclude certain categories from appearing in the loop.
• Have You Prepared Your Blog For Your Death - No one wants to think about death but have you ever considered what will happen to your blog and all of your online services after you are gone?
• 40 steps on the personal path to green - No impact man lists 40 steps to take in becoming more environmentally aware in your personal life.
• 20 Websites To Help You Learn and Master CSS - Six Revisions lists 20 sites that include tutorials on how to learn CSS.