Blog archives: Personal - Orangescale.NET / Thomas Arie Setiawan

WordPress will be much better with your help

As WordPress users, we can contribute to its development in many ways. But, if you do not involve actively in the development, you can get involved by participating in a survey.

This survey will help WordPress developers to determine which features should be on the top priority for WordPress 2.8 (and/or 2.9 and beyond) . If you’re WordPress users, it’s recommended that you’re using WordPress latest stable release: WordPress 2.7. As a WordPress user, here few things I want to have (not in a particular order)

Sort by column on list-type screens. It will be useful!
Bulk edit on other screens. If it’s similar to bulk edit for entries, that would be great.
Choose number of items to display on list-type screens (20/50/100). When doing a batch edit, I can edit more posts at a time.
OpenID in core. Even I’m not using it for my blog, I think it will be useful for those who want to have an OpenID-enabled blog.
Site closed/maintenance mode. When working on the design, or something is broken, I want to have my blog displays a maintenance screen. Just a simple page, but can be handled from the dashboard.
Improve category management. Mmm… can I have built-in category thumbnail? :D
User permissions based on categories. Hey, this should be great for blogs with multiple users!
Bundle DB backup plugin. Backup is important, so I want to have this. Also, some other DB-related management features e.g. to optimize overhead tables?
Better custom fields management
Option to delete inactive plugins.
More built-in plugins for special purposes like videoblogging or podcast. Can we have podcast plugin like Podpress built-in shipped in the core?
Built-in search and replace for posts. Actually, there is a plugin for this purpose.
Additional user profile fields.
More settings managed from dashboard (web-based). For example to disable/enable Post Revisions. So, the wp-config.php should not need to be edited.

I don’t use widget extensively so I’m fine with widget-related features. Oops.. it’s a long list. I know, those list is based on my personal preferences. You can have different wishlist. :)

New design for this blog

I have been very busy in the last few weeks, many things to do. I needed to recharge my energy. And this is the result: a new design for my blog. I created this theme for fun, at least to keep my mood in balance, to bring my mood back to the other design work.

After upgrading to WordPress 2.7 few days ago, I wanted to have some changes here, especially by taking advantages from new features introduced in the latest WordPress, e.g. built-in threaded comment. Here are some notes on my new blog design.

Template tags

Still related to template tags, I try to take advantage from the way WordPress produces CSS selectors. Here is an example. Open index.php in default theme folder, you should see this for the entry loop:

<div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">

The code above will produce something like this:

<div class="post hentry category-services category-sites category-www category-webdev tag-htaccess tag-facebook tag-linkedin tag-service tag-twitter tag-url" id="post-1026">

Do you see the pattern? It will produce some post classes on the entry data (categories and tags). This function is called post_class(). By this, we can customize how each entry (inside the loop) should be displayed, just work with the stylesheet.

If you want to make you theme compatible well with WordPress 2.7, just head to Migrating Plugins and Themes to 2.7 article at WordPress Codex. There are some other useful information for theme designers — and also for you as bloggers.

Videoblogging, anyone?

I decided to start a videoblogging now. When I am with my camera digital, sometime I capture videos and photos. So, why not bring the videos online? I know it is probably not popular — especially in Indonesia. But, why not?

After doing comparison steps among some video hosting providers like Vimeo, YouTube, blip.tv, Yahoo! Video, Google Video, etc, I decided to host all my videos to Vimeo and embed to my videoblog. I capture all videos using both camera digital and my mobile phone Nokia. Just in case you find a low-quality videos, you know the reasons. :)

My videoblog is built using WordPress and Viper’s Video Quicktag plugin with template modifications — also some other plugins. Right now, not every video has a story/descrption, but I will add some later. Okey, here is my videoblog URL: http://video.orangescale.net

Podcast, videoblog and Pesta Blogger

Okey, let’s make it short. I have started a podcast channel and videoblog few days ago. If you visit my blog, you might have seen in on the sidebar. The reason was pretty simple: I like doing it, and I enjoy it. :)

Just go to my podcast channel and videoblog. About Pesta Blogger 2008 — I will join it! — you can listen to foreign bloggers’ comment during their trip to Indonesia few days ago. Some videos are also available.

I will be going to Jakarta this evening using Mandala Airlines with Lala, depart from Adisutjipto International Airport at 5:15 PM. If you subscribe to my blog, you probably did not get updates from my feed. I’m enjoying Twitter very much now.

Have a nice weekend all, and… Jakarta, I’m coming!

Mud eruption ’caused by drilling’

porong_lapindo

A further 16 scientists believed the evidence was inconclusive, and the remaining 13 felt that a combination of earthquake and drilling was to blame.
“The geologists voted overwhelmingly that drilling was the most likely cause,” said Prof Underhill.
“The atmosphere was very tense, so all credit to them for not sitting on their hands. (read more)

via Aku Ingin Hijau. Photo by REUTERS/Sigit Pamungkas, taken from The Big Picture.

Canon EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi / Kiss X2 Digital)

No, no. I haven’t bought it. It’s still in my wishlist. (specifications/review)

Blocking More Twitter Users

Today, I blocked many Twitter users who followed me. I already did it before. I have some spammy followers. They just published some links to visit their websites or other sites. I don’t know.

Searching using Come OR visit gives me lots of spammy tweets (hat tip @budip). Sometime I did not check every followers directly after I got a notification from Twitter. Luckily, my “followers” page shows me the recent followers. So, it’s easier to check.

Seven Years of Movable Type

Movable Type celebrates its 7th anniversary this month. Happy birthday Movable Type! Even now I’m not using Movable Type, I used Movable Type for few years. I want to make few posts related to Movable Type. I think I used Movable Type when it was Movable Type 2.6x.

Dec 22, 2003 — Why: Migration from one to another. I write about why choosing Movable Type, at that time.
May 14, 2004 — MT 3.0 is ready, I am not. I was lucky to be one of the Movable Type 3.0 beta testers. And, it was the first time Movable Type introduced a new pricing scheme.
May 16, 2004 — WordPress vs. MovableType. Since I tried many blogging tools before, I wrote a small comparisons between two leading platform.
Aug 15, 2004 — Removing .php in permalinks. Movable Type already had a built-in permalink structures. And, I tried to make it nicer.
Aug 26, 2004 — Upgrading to Personal License. Hey, I purchased a Personal License. And I think it was the first time I received a comment from a person at Six Apart. It was Mr. Anil Dash.
Oct 06, 2004 — MovableStyle. I mentioned about Movable Style.
Oct 16, 2004 — Why I still use Movable Type? Here, Movable Type probably is not popular among other blogging engines. But, I still use it. So, I wrote some reasons why I sticked to Movable Type.
Jul 26, 2005 — Post to MT (3.2) from del.icio.us. As del.icio.us (now delicious) user, I wanted to post my delicious links directly to Movable Type. And, it was soooo easy. It’s still easy right now.
Sep 22, 2006 — Combining entries from two weblogs (Movable Type 3.3x). One of the best features from Movable Type is that it support multiple weblogs. Was it difficult to combine multiple weblogs and display them in the order we wanted? No, it’s easy.

The stories continues…

I learn many things from Movable Type. Not only Movable Type, but also the company behind it: Six Apart. There was a joke between Ikhlasul Amal (he’s still using Movable Type now). He said that Six Apart should here hire me for Indonesian market. Hehe!

Okey, need to stop writing. Happy birthday Movable Type!

Pesta Blogger 2008

Last year, I joined Pesta Blogger (Indonesian Bloggers Gathering — official site). It was a great event (Flickr photoset). More than 500 bloggers gathered at Blitz Megaplex. This year (2008), Pesta Blogger will be hold in Jakarta again. At first, it was scheduled on October 25th. The commitee announced that it will be hold in November. Still haven’t got valid info about “when” and “where”. Ayway, this-year theme is: blogging for society.

Organizing My Feed Subscriptions

I use RSS reader to follow updates from my favorite sites. When I subscribed for the first time, I just loved those sites. I found them useful. But, right now I am thinking of re-organizing my subscriptions. Even the feedreader — I use Google Reader — has ability to keep the headlines, I don’t think that I can follow them all. I tried, and I was failed.

I ask myself about those feeds:

Do I need them? I mean, I really need to read those updates?
If I do not subscribe to those feeds, will I get impact? I mean, my work, my job, etc.
Do I need to subscribe to multiple feeds having similar contents?
Can I get updates using other methods? For example, having combined feeds using Yahoo! Pipes or RSS Mixer so that I only need to read contents I really need?

Those are some reasons. Right now, I review my subscriptions. Will delete some.

IDR 100K to Update Domain Registrant Contact and Domain Transfer for .ID Domains

If you’re having .ID domains — I do have some, you might heard about the news. That’s right, the news (it’s official!) said that starting from November 1, 2008, we need to pay IDR 100,000 (around US $10) to update Registrant Contact and/or Admin domain information. And, what makes it even better is that we need an formal letter. But, if we only need to update billing, technical contact and nameservers… it’s free.

Anyway, I posted about my experience about .ID domain renewal last year. With this new policy, I think I’ll avoid using .ID. If my clients want to register .ID domains, they should know about this first. It’s much cheaper — and easier — to have .COM!

Back to Ubuntu

More than a year ago, I installed Ubuntu as another operating system in my computer. During that time, I tried to explore its features and got some new experiences using many open source softwares.

I did not know when I finally decided to remove my Ubuntu installation. After that, I tried another distro. It was OpenSUSE. Anyway, I feel so lucky because I have some friends who are also using some distros. Thanks to Yan Arief and Redy! I bugged them with many basic questions. How to do this? How to do that? And many other HOW-TO’s. :)

In the last two months, I went back to Ubuntu again. I removed OpenSUSE on my PC and installed Ubuntu (Hardy Heron). When I bought a new laptop, I also installed OpenSUSE. But, I have some problem with the network settings. Not major, but sometime it’s annoying.

Right now, I am using Ubuntu for my PC and laptop. So far, I like it. Again, big thanks to Yan Arief and Redy for their supports and patience!

Road to 2,000 Flickr Photos

Last June, we marched to reach 1,000 photos in our photostream — and we made it! Now, we’re close to 2,000. Last month (August), we posted more than 860 photos. Blame Jogja Fashion Week 2008 and Jogja Food Festival! :)

I think, we’re just addicted to Flickr more, and more.

Do You Block Other Twitter Users?

My short answer is: Yes. Sometimes, I do block some Twitter users (followers). The main reason is pretty simple. I think they’re spammy users. For example, here are their ‘condition’:

I could not even see his/her profile. No URL, no short bio.
He/she follows too-many users, but only have little followers.
He/she only promote what he/she’s doing. Okey, I am not talking about @cnnbrk — it’s a different story.

So, I blocked them. In Twitter, blocking a person means:

You will no longer show up in the blocked person’s list of friends.
Your updates won’t show up on the blocked person’s profile page.
The blocked person will not be able to add you as a friend.
You can unblock people. You’ll have to add them as a friend after unblocking, though.

I’m fine with that. I’m just curious, are you also blocking other users?

Fight Global Warming and White Roofs

A recent study found that there is a connection between global warming and white roofs.

A can of white paint should be part of the planet’s arsenal against global warming, say California researchers, who have calculated that installing white roofs in the world’s cities could offset 1.5 years of man-made carbon emissions. (source)

For related article in Bahasa Indonesia, please go to akuinginhijau.wordpres.com, a very informative blog about environment. Anyway, I painted my room green. Just curious, if I painted white, does it help to lower the room temperature? Please don’t suggest to get air conditioner. :)

When and Why I Need RSS Reader

Some people might want to read information by going directly to the original websites. Even nowadays. But, for me I can’t live with that kind of strategy. So, when RSS technology was found around 10 years ago (#1, #2), it might not be popular. But, it was 10 years ago. With the fast information flow, I think RSS is the technology people must experience.

Almost regularly-updated sites offer their contents in RSS format, not only read-from-the-browser format. By this, peole do not have to visit the site only to check whether there are new updates available or not. Thanks to the other technology: RSS Reader or Aggregator! Okey, I will not talk why they should provide RSS for their content or how RSS affects their content readership. Here, I will write some reasons why I need/prefer to use/have RSS readers.

I only have 24 hours a day. It’s not impossible for me to sit in front of the computer, reading all information. RSS readers keeps the new updates (from sites I subscribed to) for me so that I can read them later.
I have limited internet connection. I do not expect the sites designed as I wanted. So, other than visiting all sites one by one, loading not-the-real-content elements on a site, I only need to read the real content. When the RSS does not provide me the details and I need those details, I can easily go to the original article sources. Easy.
I only want to read what I like. News portals, blogs, and other resources sometime provides too-much information. But, I do not need them all. Sometime, I feel lucky to have sites that offers many types of RSS so that I can have flexibility. The control is in my hands. I can read what I need and what I reall like.

Of course, you have your own considerations whether you decide to use RSS reader or not.

Google Reader Problems

Today, I had problem opening Google Reader. I am not sure what caused it, because I did nothing unusual using my laptop. I noticed that it happened after I had Google Chrome installed. But, I am NOT saying that Google Chrome caused this issue. Not sure about this (Thanks Yogi for the correction).

The problem was that I have my browsers stopped loading. I even tried almost all browsers installed on my laptop. No luck. Doh! I am sure it’s not about the internet connection. Because I could not figure out how to solve this issue, I tried to re-install Google Gears. Before I did that, I disabled Greasemonkey script used by Google Reader (in Firefox).

After having Google Reader re-installed, I opened Google Reader page again. Surprise! It’s back to normal again now. At least I do not have to switch to another web-based RSS reader.

Some Opera Features I Don’t Use

Even Opera offeres many features to get the most from a web browser, I do not use all of them on my daily basis. Sometime, I do not use them at all. This is similar to other technologies like mobile phone. There are many features, but usually, we do not use them all even they’re all there. So, here are some Opera features I do not use (or, I only use some of its features):

Opera Built-in Email Client — I like reading email from the web (using browser). This is because email client does not suit me — especially related to my internet connection speed.
Feed Reader — I already have hundreds of feeds in my Google Reader.
Chat — I am not comfortable using Opera built-in chat.
Opera Widgets — I use it but only some (less than 10 widgets).

There are still many Opera capabilities, of course. I just like when I use Opera to browse the internet; using Opera as web browser.

Road to 1,000 Flickr Photos

flickr1000

We‘re about to reach 1,000 photos in our Flickr Photostream. When we upgraded our Flickr account last February 2008, we added more photos into our sets and collections. Yeah, we do not have super camera, lenses, or any other great gadgets. But, we want to capture moments. We believe that we can reach 1,000 photos this month. It should be easy, because there is Yogyakarta Art Festival 2008. It means: more photos!

Joining FAM Trip Journalist as bloggers

Last week, Yan Arief told me that we’re invited to join an event called FAM Trip Journalist. Yan Arief got the news from Pak Octo Lampito from Kedaulatan Rakyat, the biggest newspaper in Jogjakarta. Anyway, what is FAM Trip?

A FAM (familiarization) is a trip offered to meeting professionals (including planners, journalists and travel agents) in which event venues and destinations highlight–and, thus, give attendees first-hand experience with–their products. FAMs may be fully or partially sponsored by venues or destinations. (source)

We’re invited as bloggers. Yes, as bloggers. Yan Arief already knew Pak Octo for long time, but I just met him (Pak Octo) when Yan Arief took me to Kedaulatan Rakyat in last February. At that time, we introduced our unofficial TransJogja.NET website. (Read more about it — in Bahasa Indonesia). Luckily, Pak Octo already knew a bit about blogger and he told us that there would be an event that would involved bloggers. Great!
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