Now this might seem a bit egotistical but in reality it’s a very interesting exercise on how you can get yourself  “known” out there by the sites you have built, forums you have joined and other sites you are a member of.

Is it a kind of social proof? Well I’d say , yes! Hang on, I’ll just check if there is anything bad  mentioned about me – Nope – all is good!

It’s a bit of a history tour of what you’ve done and what you’ve been a part of! I know I’d forgotten I’d participated in the many sites that come show up as places I’m known in.

Fortunately for me, there isn’t that many Tim Brownlaw’s around , so I know what I get to see is actually about me. Big Ego rush!

I’d like to catch up with anyone that shares my own name. We could be related! Who knows…some lost relatives out there I’ve never met. (actually I have caught up with a branch of the family that stems back to my great grandfathers time.)

Go on – try it! All you need to do is enter in your name in double quotes in Google or any other search engine you prefer and see what comes up. ie “Tim Brownlaw” and Bingo!

One thing this does show regarding forums. If you participate in Forums ( and I hope that you do ) and you are promoting anything which you can mention in your Forum Signature  then you’ll definitely get “More Exposure” out there on the search engines.

It’s kind of nice to have your Own Personal Keywords – that being – your own name!

And on another very important note….

Today is the last day of 2009 here,  So I’d like to thank you for your support over 2009 and I hope that you continue to come along and have your mind messed with – whoops  – I mean – learn something useful, and I certainly hope you’ll continue to do so in 2010.

So to you and yours from myself and my family – a very sincere Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2010!

Let’s make it big in 2010! It’s got nice even numbers, that has to help – right?

Cheers

Tim Brownlaw

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Friend or Foe?

Well I must say that the first time I tried to setup an account on Thunderbird 3.0 running on  Windows XP , I was mentally creating a post that wasn’t going to be very nice!

They’ve changed it, and it’s going to throw a lot people out that had managed to figure it out on the older versions. For one thing, all my screen shots now need updating and I’ll need to add messages in big bold Red Characters that say “Do Not Panic”!

I’ve only tried using this on my HP netbook running XP (head hung in shame…) as I was called up on the phone by a mate that was struggling to get it running on his new laptop. So of course I installed it to see what all the fuss was about.

Summary of the phone call.

Does it work on your Desktop? -  Yes the older version works a treat…

Does it work on the old laptop? – Yes the older version works a treat…

But it’s not working on your new Laptop? – No, cause it’s all different!

So I installed it and looked at it myself and offered a few choice words I’ve learned from the kids. I was puzzled by the changes and this “Auto” Detection system – for some reason – smacked of M$ cleverness ( yes, that last word was sarcastic!).

I played with it instead of fighting it…

And I finally got it to work… Now I’ve got all my hosting with GVO ( formerly Kiosk ) on their titanium package so I can pretty much Create Websites to any size or shape at will. But it appears now, in hindsight, that my newer hosting accounts do indeed support IMAP.  Something I didn’t know and I was wondering why Thunderbird thought it was there and working…. After telling it that the SSL Certificates weren’t bogus it all worked.

I did find that my older  – pre Titanium accounts – dont play well and so I have to use my ISP mail server as my SMTP, and they use POP3.

Where did the Tick Box for Global Inbox Go?

On my Kubuntu 9.10, I do have Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 and I’m very used to creating lots of accounts for my various sites. One of those processes involved “Un ticking the Global Inbox” Box so that each account has it’s own folders.

Folder groupings have changed

Where each account used to have a separate  Inbox, Sent, Trash folders grouped under the account name,  it’s reversed!

Now the different email accounts Inboxes are grouped under the Inbox. The different email accounts Trash Folders are all grouped under the “Trash” Folder. And so forth, which at first seems a little strange. <pause for time to adjust> Hmm, I can kind of see the logic of what they’ve done.

It probably makes much more sense if you have a number of accounts to be able to view all the inboxes as a group. Usually you don’t need to see the other folders. One thing  I need to try though is what happens to those other folders that you sometimes create under an account – Where do they go? To Silicon heaven, where all the dead calculators go?

I’ve not been watching too much “Red Dwarf”!

So after the initial shock and the internal battle to resist these  changes  I never asked for, I must say that now I can come to terms with it and even go as far as saying – “Not bad”!

That’s about as far as I’ve got with it so far… So next step is to get back to my mate and get him sorted out. Now I know a bit more of what’s going on….

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WordPress  has come a long way over the years.

It’s now at the point where it’s simple to knock up a website in a matter of moments, literally.

It sure beats my old templating system I developed and teach in my classes. Well the templating system is a  good introduction to using PHP at least and has some applications for small sites.

It’s probably how WordPress started out. I’m just way too late…

Anyway, WordPress has now got my full attention to the point that I’m learning how to throw in all my past PHP code snippets into it via Plugins. Which at the beginning, like most things, has a wee learning curve. But there is a lot of good information available on the internet to help out.

I’ve even gone and bought a domain name and have been slowly building the website up.  It’s a place where I’ll be providing all my new found WordPress Knowledge and providing links back to some good sources.

Which leads me to a dilemma. I’ve got this website where I ramble on about things. I’ve also got http://www.LookingOverMyShoulder.com which I use as my base site for  my teaching ( Note to self:  It needs a major revamp – hey install  WordPress on it  – what a great idea! ).

And the tutorial site for WordPress is http://www.AdvancedWordpressTutorials.com.  So my thinking is to stick with these sites and use them as they do cover some of the different areas I’m working in.

I use these sites to “record” what I’ve learned so I guess they work like my own personal reference sites. Sites where I can collect all the vast resources available and hopefully merge them into a central location.  Something to consider when you create your own websites. And don’t go pillaging  from other sites. Link to them and provide any extra useful information to make things clearer if need be.

So when I go – “umm where did I see that” I can go to one of my sites and dig up the information. Plus it helps you build your website.

I’m just creating a new plugin – my first – at the request of a mate that wanted a new plugin.  So I’m busy learning up on the ins and outs of WordPress. The plugin – actually works – but there is a bit more to do on it. Umm , yeah I am being a bit vague on what it is!

Still, with all the little snippets I’ve developed for my hand coded sites, it’ll be a great adventure to turn them into plugins and add their abilities to WordPress. Why reinvent the wheel? It’s better just to make new ones!

Have a very happy New Year and I’ll keep plodding along.

Cheers

Tim Brownlaw

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Well in my last post I raved on about my new HP Mini 5105 Netbook that comes with Windows XP.

So I installed XP, which was a very simple process, and even went as far as installing Firefox and a few other little thing I like.

So I was deciding whether to trash XP and install Linux on it… Along comes NoMachine. NoMachine is a suite of applications you can install on Linux running it as a server and then you just get the Windows Client, log into the Linux Box with it and Bingo! A lovely Linux Desktop session running on my XP box.

NoMachine is a great thing for us great people who want to use Linux from Windows remotely. Plus I dont have to worry about Synching files etc… Yes, this only works if I’m within wireless range at home (at the moment) but at least I can wonder anywhere around the house and not be stuck at my desktop in the study.

I’m actually outside right now under the verandah enjoying the fresh,the noises of the birds and the occasional car driving by. Ahh what a life

In short.

I’m going to keep XP on this netbook, use my nomachine login into my Linux Box and that’s about it for now. If I do wonder off away from home, I still  have WAMP installed for my website development and notepad++ for my text editor. OpenOffice for all my Documentation,Ebook creation etc. So I’ll still have what I need to do what I have to do. So it’s all good!

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Well we are just getting over Christmas which was full of surprises this year.

Santa ( my wife) decided I needed a new laptop and so here I am typing away on my new HP Mini 5105 Netbook.

My experience with Netbooks so far…

I had bought myself an ASUS EEEPC 701SD from Ebay ( paid $200 AUD  for it) and it’s been a great little workhorse. It came installed with ASUS’s own flavour of Linux which was very useable as far as surfing, writing etc. All the normal stuff one does. The 701SD is a 7 inch screen, 8Gig of SD Ram for the Harddrive, 512MbRam and I added in a 4Gig SD Card into the slot to give it a little extra. It was never intended to be anything more than something I could take with me and write stuff when the mood took me.

I even got it a car charger so I could it’s battery topped up when I was “out”.

The plan was to upgrade it to Kubuntu 9.10, but I never got that far… The kids have sort of taken ownership of it these days…

The reason I bought it was I had seen my (now old ) boss using one, and I was very impressed with a few things about it.

1. It’s small
2. There are no mechanical parts to it ( ie the HD is all semiconductor) so it can take a bit or rough handling.
3. The Keyboard is very useable, unless you have massive fingers.Otherwise it’s very easy to type away on.
4. The screen is extremely readable. At only 7inches you would think you would need a magnifying glass to see anything, but the opposite is true. It’s not the size that matters it’s how you use it…..and it’s used in a way that you don’t think – gee that’s small!
5. Battery life with the standard battery is about 2 hours…from memory. I might be wrong there, but then mine had been used and batteries get a bit tired with a bit of use. Still it’s not bad. You can upgrade the battery and get something like – 7 hours. I’ve not bought one so I’m going off the quoted figures on that.

So the Netbook, over a full blown laptop, held it’s own in my book. It’s not a replacement for a Laptop. It’s never intended to be,but as a mobile device that gives you the ability to email, write wonderful blog posts etc, it does the job just fine.

The HP Mini 5101

My wife decided I needed a bigger one! A Netbook that is! And I’m thinking it was more because she got a good deal on it (Santa won’t spill on how much) . Plus I’m starting a new job in January on contract… So it was decided this was the way to go. I must say I was very surprised and shocked and flabbergasted  all at the same time as I unwrapped “the present”.

For one thing, I knew nothing about any HP Netbook. I’ve only been following the ASUS netbooks in regards to what they had and what was selling on EBay…Ebay is an interesting place to watch how much things sell for. I must say, some people pay near or over retail price on netbooks. They are certainly popular, even the old ones…

So when I opened the box and took out this small, slimline netbook I was amazed at how light it was. Then on opening the lid, I saw the Keyboard….. Ok, I was initially shocked by it! Why?  Well I’m used to a keyboard where the keys are snug to it’s friend. Like a normal keyboard… But the keyboard on the HP Mini 5101 has padddocks of room between each key. Plus the keys themselves are huge…

It’s a bit like, Ok we’ve got lots of room here guys, let’s shift all the keys about to make it fill up the room we have…At first I thought it was going to be really annoying… but I must admit, as a bit of a touch typist, it works.

For anyone a bit slow and unsure of what keys to hit..It does give them a very good chance to hit the right ones . So I’ve come to accept the “paddocks” of room between the keys.

Functions are the wrong way

One complaint about the Function Keys like the F1, F2 etc… For some silly reason HP decided to make the special functions the main keys . If you want to use the F1 keys etc you need to hit the fn key…In my opinion this is the wrong way around… I’m more likely to want to Hit the F5 key to update something than change the contrast…

So to use the F5 key I need to press the fn key then the F5 key to get it to work…If I don’t I’ll put the machine to sleep. That even makes it more stupid! Want to refresh a page, Whoops I’ve just put the thing to sleep. Not good!

I’m not yet sure if this can be “reversed” by some setting. If someone knows, please feel free to let me know in the comments.

EDIT: I have found in my investigations (to make it sound terribly formal ) you can change this behavior of the “Arse about” Function Keys in the bios. So I am going there now so I won’t be cursing this otherwise brilliant netbook for going “to sleep” instead.

The Screen.

This is a 10.1 inch LED screen, nice and big. The resolution is the HD option of 1366 x 768. Which makes the text small, but it’s very crisp and clear. So I can get a whole lot of stuff showing on the screen. I’m quite impressed. Initially it all seems like “ant writing” but you do get used to it. Even with my shocking eyesight.

Operating System

This unit comes with Windows XP.  Ok ,I’m not a big Windows fan but…

Now HP, in their wisdom, actually provide the OS and all support stuff on physical CD’s.  So in the case of  a catastrophe, you’ve still got what you paid for. The question is, these units have no CD drive so how would you get the stuff back on it? There are a few ways, but nothing terribly simple. The main thing is, you won’t have a trashed system with no way to recover it. Although I think there is a built in restore  system if things go “pear shaped!”.

Oh, one thing I didn’t mention yet. When you first start the netbook up , it asks you a few questions and installs the OS for you. In fact it couldn’t be any simpler and you are up and running in no time flat. Yes I was impatient and plugged in the battery and plugged in the charger and got  it up… Very well done HP.

Some Specifications.

• Screen, LED 1366 x 768.
• CPU is a 1.6GHz,  Intel Atom E280
• Ram : 1G
• HD : 160G, 7200rpm.

I’m going to have to come back to finish this as the Kids are pestering me to take them down the street to use their gift vouchers….Till then take care and happy netbooking.

Cheers

Tim

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New FTC laws will be in force from Dec 1st 2009. Now I am not a legal eagle so this is my own personal summary of what I understand these new laws to be.

They are regarding the requirement to disclose any financial gain that will be made by any person making a product or service review/endorsement. In our case, on a website platform. Again, that’s my gist of the situation and I hope it’s close to the mark.

Is it Fair?

I think so…

For one thing, it gives the “would be purchaser” something to ponder before splashing their cash on something based upon someones recommendation. ie If this person is going to make a commission from this review, is it the truth or are they just wanting to make a quick buck?

Personally, I only review things I would and do use myself. It’s only those things that are worthy of the words I spend time writing about it. I do know there are those who will write anything to make a quick buck. Well I’ve got my name and contact details out in front here, so if I’m giving glowing reviews on anything that is going to end up with someone making a purchase and being pissed off… then I aint going to be very popular. And I don’t like pissing anyone off. It’s just bad business. I’ve also been at the other end, having had both good and bad experiences.

So again, these new laws will help increase the protection of the buyer, by having any reviewer give a really honest review, dirt and all, so the potential buyer can make an informed purchase.

Well that’s the idea anyway, as to whether some dishonest people find a way to work this to their favor, only time will tell.

As long as the FTC doesn’t go too crazy and start turning peoples worlds upside down unfairly…. The word’s still getting out guys and we’re doing our best!

Who does this affect?

Anyone that has a website, blog etc that talks about other peoples stuff and has an affiliate link. So if you have an affiliate link, you stand to make a commission and you need to have this stated on your website to that effect. That’s in my own simple terms… Remember I’m not able to give legal advice and this is just my own opinion.

What can you do to implement this?

I did find this website…http://disclosurepolicy.org ( I will not make any financial gain if you click on that link and use the service! After all its FREE! )

While it’s probably a good start and better than nothing, I can’t say for sure that this will “please” the FTC but hey, we are trying!

Now how do I put this on a WordPress Site.

This is something I’m a little more qualified to talk about. But I must state that there will be other, maybe better, ways to do this. ( I love disclaimers too).

So I’ve already gone to http://disclosurepolicy.org and checked the boxes and answered the questions and generated the resulting disclosure statements…Now I have to  put it somewhere! Well that’s what you are wanting to know.. where do you put it?

I created a New Page, ( not a post ) but a New Page. Called it disclaimer – all lower case – and saved the generated text in it…

Beware of having Your Email Addresses on Your Websites!

One thing and this is a major peeve I have with Email Addresses on anything out there that can be scanned by the “aholes that use our emails addresses for evil“. Never Ever have your email address written in it’s natural form. Now at the site http://disclosurepolicy.org, you will be asked to enter your address to add into the disclosure statement. This is solely up to you, but personally, I put mine in BUT I altered it a wee bit…

Never put your HTML Email Address on Your Site

Here’s what you DONT DO – Never Write your email address in it’s Pure HTML Form.

For Example ( and I hope this is a really bogus email address… ) thorax1099@theweebitinthemiddleofinsects1099.com

That’s a No No! You could use thorax1099 ‘AT’ theweebitinthemiddleofinsects1099 ‘DOT’ com with a note ( replace the words in ” with their symbols ). For one thing, this kind of email address has to be typed in… If it’s read ( scanned ) the “aholes that use our emails addresses for evil” software has to do some work… I’m not saying that their software does or doesn’t but it if it hinders them, I’m all for it…

There is way number 2 which looks more appealing. In the actual HTML – you can replace the ‘@’ with the characters ;#064 so you’d write thorax1099;#064theweebitinthemiddleofinsects1099.com

There are also javascript type solutions, but if your visitor has javascript disabled, well it’s not going to show up correctly at all!

I’ll just step off my High Horse on email addresses…..

Next…

Ok, so we have our disclosure statement, we’ve put it in a new page called disclosure ( you can call it what you like but I’m guessing it’s more search engine friendly ) and what about Where will this page live… Well I made my about me page the “parent” to the disclosure page. For no real reason but to tie it to something… I’m also going to be adding a “privacy” and “terms and conditions” pages as well. So they’ll be hanging off the about me page…. Which means – the “about me” page is the Parent. You’ll see this in your WordPress Admin area when you create this new disclosure page.

I Want it in the Footer!

Well it’s where all this kind of stuff should live! Isn’t it? Now this involves a bit of “tinkering” with your worpdress files. While not for the feint hearted, hopefully I’ll explain this well enough that you won’t be too scared to attempt this if you are a bit hesitant to start altering things… Hey, this was made for changing…So let’s change it…

Now this depends upon the theme you are using ( I’ll write more on the details later, I’m thinking a video is required… Have you joined my news letter yet? ) Most Themes have a footer.php file. You can access this in your WordPress Admin section and if you go to…

Appearance -> Edit  and select the footer.php file. ( yep this needs some pictures at least <insert images here…> ) and I added in this line…

Now my Footer looks like this….

<div id="footer">
<?php wp_footer();?>
</div><!-- footer -->
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
<div><p>Copyright &copy; 2009 <a href="<?php bloginfo("url"); ?>"><?php bloginfo("title");?> </a>| Powered by <a href="http://www.wordpress.org">Wordpress</a> | Designed by <a href="http://www.bingowebdesign.info">Bingo</a> - The Web Design Experts</p>
</div>

and I added in this line…

<br /><a href="<?php $page = get_page_by_path('/about/disclosure');echo $page->URL?>" title="disclosure">Disclosure</a>

For some reason the above wasn’t working….So to keep it simple (KISS)

<br /><a href="/blog/about/disclosure" title="disclosure">Disclosure</a>

Which I’m showing in the next section in Bold, so you can see where I placed it.

<div id="footer">
<?php wp_footer();?>
</div><!-- footer -->
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
<div><p>Copyright &copy; 2009 <a href="<?php bloginfo("url"); ?>"><?php bloginfo("title");?> </a>| Powered by <a href="http://www.wordpress.org">Wordpress</a> | Designed by <a href="http://www.bingowebdesign.info">Bingo</a> - The Web Design Experts</p>

<br /><a href="/blog/about/disclosure" title="disclosure">Disclosure</a>

<br /><a href="<?php $page = get_page_by_path('/about/disclosure');echo $page->URL?>" title="disclosure">Disclosure</a>
</div>

The WordPress Function get_page_by_path(‘/about/disclosure’) gives us the advantage of not needing to know anything more than where the pages lives. Remembering that I created the disclosure page with the about page being the parent. So there is no need to worry about the websites URL and under what path the blog is located. On this site, wordpress is installed under http://www.timbrownlaw.com/blog and I don’t need to worry about that as the function get’s than information internally when wordpress was installed.

I’ve had to put in the path msyelf. Now my wordpress installation hangs of the folder called blog ( yours might be different.) It may even be straight from the public_html folder in which case you will only need “/about/disclosure”.

Try it and see. It’ll get you going.

Just note that the disclosure page will be a menu item under your about page menu item if you have that functionality on your menus. That’s not a bad thing! We had set the about page to be the parent to the disclosure page. You can use the very same methods to add in any other pages you wish… for example a “privacy” and “terms and conditions” page. I would recommend you name the “terms and conditions page” with hyphens between the words – never use spaces ( although WordPress will fix it if you do use spaces ) . So you’ll end up with terms-and-condtions.

If you have any questions or it’s just not clear, please leave a comment!

See the result!

And don’t forget to Check out my Disclosure page – see the link at the end of the page…..

[UPDATE] – Here is something I’ve seen on some sites that sits bold and proud at the end of every page…

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