Archive for the ‘Other stuff’ Category
| 5 Nov 2008 |
Open Web Awards 2008 Officially Started! |
What is the Open Web Awards ?
Open Web Awards is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology organized by Mashable and currently at the 2nd edition. Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements in 26 categories.
The competition has 3 rounds which last a predefined amount of time:
Round 1 – Nominations: Start Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
Round 2 – Online Voting Round 1: Starts Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Round 3 – Final Round Voting: Starts Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
The winners will be announced on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
Nominations Round is on!
If you look at your calendar you will notice that today is November 5th, meaning that the Nominations started. Each blog partner (we’ll get a bit later to what they do) got their hands on the voting widget. If you take a closer look to my sidebar you will notice it(it’s that big blue thingy).
Nominations:
1. A website can be submitted in as many categories as seen fit.
2. Each person will be able to submit One site per Category.
3. Nominees with the most submissions and/or determined by Mashable will move to the voting round
Voting:
Mashable took extra security measures to avoid cheating and partnered up with Polldaddy to validate all votes.
A) Voting is one vote per Category per person (validated through PollDaddy)
B) Your IP will be logged and you will have to confirm your vote by email.
C) You will get periodical emails regarding the Open Web Awards.
D) The winners will be determined after voting is closed and data is analized.
Winners:
The winners of both People’s choice and Blogger’s Choice sections will be validated by Mashable and Polldady before announcements are made.
The Blog Partners
Last year Mashable had 50 blogs as partners, and this year they’ve almost hit 100. I’m also a blog partner(notice the badge in the sidebar).
A Blog partner’s job is to keep its readers up to date with fresh news regarding Open Web Awards. We(the blog partners) get the updates from Adam and we blog about them in our own style, in the same time keeping the information accurate and precise.
The posts about Open Web Awards will be agregated on the Official News page next to the Updates posted on Mashable and the Twitter Mentions.
If you consider that your website/or a website you like deserves to be nominated head over to the sidebar and submit your nomination! Really, there’s nothing to loose, only to gain.
| 3 Nov 2008 |
November Namecheap Coupon |
Use the following coupon to discount $9.69 to $8.81 on new domain registration (doesn’t work for renewals)
The coupon code is: FIRSTSNOW
Along with the discount you can get the Comodo PositiveSSL for free:
Enjoy!
| 1 Nov 2008 |
Tim got his hands on the free hosting and he’s already a blogger! |
As I mentioned in a Previous post i gave the 1 year of free hosting won at the Lunarpages contest to Tim, a.k.a Freeky 8, who already started blogging and posting on his new blog freeky8′s blog.
In the past day’s i’ve been teaching him the basics of blogging,and how to manage stuff in the admin panel like installing new themes,plugins editing the settings etc. Of course i could have done it for him but that wouldn’t have been fun at all! So i made him install the new theme and a set of plugins which i told him to download/upload/ and install. After that with my help he setup the plugins, and now he has a fully functional, entertaining and seo friendly blog.
What’s left is to explain to him what widgets actually are and how to manage/use them and to introduce him to Gravatar, Flickr and other services used by bloggers, after which i will teach him how to pump up a brand new blog to get some traffic and audience.
His blog will be mostly about movie and music reviews and gaming combined with general life events.
I’m also thinking of making a guide to new bloggers exatly about these things: how to make a successful startup blog and how to make it evolve, but we’ll see, because at this point i’m busy way over my head.
Congratulations Tim, and welcome to the world of blogging!
| 30 Oct 2008 |
My StumbleUpon account got frozen |
I woke up this morning to find out that my Stumbleupon Account got frozen(heh, not that i care about it,lol) for breaching the TOS. This is yet a huge LOL, because i haven’t logged into my SU account for more than half a year now, because in my opinion SU can’t deliver quality traffic. Visitors come, and go, absolutely no conversion.
Either way the weird thing is that My stumbleupon page is still active and accessible
Your StumbleUpon account privileges have been restricted and the account is under review.
The most common cause for account suspension is a contravention of the clauses which forbid the use of personal accounts for the promotion of a business, product or service, and also with regard to the sending of ‘spam’ messages to other members.
If you wish to appeal this suspension, having first reviewed the TOS, then you may contact us here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/feedback.php but be aware that we will only have imposed the suspension if we believe it to be warranted.
-The SU Team
O yeah, i will contact them and find out why my account got suspended, just out of curiosity. I hate if when a website terminates your account without letting you know the actual reason why you got suspended.
Here’s my mail(i tried to keep it as decent as possible):
Hello,
today i got a “cool” email saying that my stumbleupon account(username:ThaSlayer) was frozen because i breached the TOS.
The weird thing is that i haven’t logged into SU for exactly 7 months now, the conclusion being that i couldn’t have done anything good or wrong in the past 7 months.
I checked out the TOS and couldn’t find anything that could have inflicted the account suspension.
I don’t mind if my account stays frozen, but i’m just curious what caused my account to be suspended.
Cheers,
Tom
For some reason i have the strange feeling that i won’t get a reply.
| 24 Oct 2008 |
Got 3rd place at the Lunarpages Theme Contest |
Before everything I want to thank everyone who voted for me in the contest, thanks a lot for your support. Thanks also go out to the bloggers who blogged about the contest and vouched for me: Mihaita, Lorzz, Dever.
Instead of winning first place with 1,000$ + hosting i won 3rd place and 100$ + hosting . Even if it’s not first place i think it’s a good debut in the contest series, because it seems that Lunarpages will organize Theme series 4, where i will try to get a higher rank than 3, and some more loot(money) for development.
Either way, regardless that i didn’t win the first place i will keep my promises:
The money will be used to release a new theme, and i will give away the hosting. Unfortunately $100 isn’t enough to cover a prize in a contest, so we’ll stick just to the theme for now.
I already have a theme in mind for next week’s release which needs a few more changes and coding, so you can be sure that a new theme will be added to the free themes section till the end of next week. Till then feel free to take a look at my latest WordPress plugin Custom Widgets. You will also find a video in the release post which will 99% help you understand what the plugin actually does.
The prize money will be sent as a check, so this means that i’ll have to wait a while until it arrives, after which i will go to cash it in, which means more waiting time, but what the heck, what matters is that sooner or later i’ll have the money.
I have talked to Tiara from Lunarpages, and she gladly approved my idea of giving away the hosting:
“Regarding the hosting, that’s a great idea!”
The hosting will go to Tim Garcia, i owe him this much for the help he gave me in the past 4 years when i needed it, and his reliability fully deserves it.
Stay tuned! The new theme will be released next week!
| 15 Oct 2008 |
Slayer’s Custom Widgets WordPress plugin release postponed for 24 hours |
Because this piece of shit Windows encountered several errors and i can’t make Photoshop to function correctly, and can’t reboot because i’m getting a 8GB file from FTP the release will be postponed for 24 hours.
You might say that i could make its presentation without images, but here comes the bubu. This is a complex plugin, and without images not many WordPress users will understand what it actually does and especially how to use it.
You have my word that in max 24 hours the release post will be up and you will be able to download and use the plugin.
| 14 Oct 2008 |
A late happy birthday to me, gifts for you guys |
My birthday was yesterday, October the 13th, and i was either busy, or half drunk or at college so i wasn’t able to post on the blog.
Here’s a quick overview of yesterday
- Woke up at 7 AM, drank some coffee, talked to TIM
- At 9 AM girlfriend came over, we went out to buy some food and groceries.
- At 10 AM i opened the bottle of hungarian red vine “Egribikaver” – meaning Bull blood translated to english. Its a very strong wine which can knock you out easily.
- At 1 PM Robbie came over, i gave him some cake and some wine(yeah i drank some more), we had a chat and he left at about 2PM
- Me and my girlfriend went down to the hypermarket to buy 6 pounds of sugar, because the price of the suggar will go up with 30%, so its better to have supplies than to spend extra. It was warm outsite and the sun was shining on the bright sky which made me see the world in a whole different perspective after the lots of glasses of wine which i drank. I didn’t speak funny, i walked straight, the only difference was that the world was a bit distorted and i had a smile on my face all the time.
- By the time we got homeeverything sort-of got back to normal, so my girlfriend went home and i went to college.
- I was in college till 8PM(had english writing skills class) and when i got home the only thing i could think of was the bed.
The gifts
The gifts consist in 3 packages.
1) Now Available gift
- I completely redid the Free Themes Section
Many people drew my attention that the themes can’t be downloaded and that the live demos dont work. I fixed all the issues, and added Maro theme to the list along with Installation notes.
I also added an entry with the Monthly theme releases from 3rd party designers.
- The Free Plugins Section is now live!
My first plugin was added to the plugins showcase. That page has been empty for such a long time, this is what happens if you postpone something so many times.
- Brand new Advertising Section
The advertising section was also redone with new images and graphs to give a better overall overview of the blog’s stats. Hopefully this will raise the income from my blog.
- Know me better
I rewrote the About Me Section which will hopefully help you to know me better. The old about me page was simply too old with an outdated picture and text, so now it got freshened up.
2) Tomorrow’s gift
It’s already 10:16 PM, and i was in college till 8 PM so currently i feel really really tired, and i’m saving all of my strength to be able to watch the newest episode of Heroes.
Tomorrow keep a close eye on the blog(Especially if your a WordPress user and own a blog), because tomorrow’s gift for you will simply BLOW YOUR MIND!
3) The November Gift (if available)
Believe it or not, but i got into the top 15 Finalists in the Lunarpages WordPress theme contest. Now i can say with no doubt that Styleicious is my most famous theme so far(it also got accepted in the wordpress.org themes section).
If you’re using my themes, or if you’re a fan of my blog, or if you simply like me please vote for Styleicious by thaslayer(the 3rd in the list).
If I win i will make a special contest with a very special prize(i’m, thinking of a very cool and trendy gadget). I know there are many IFs, but me winning depends on YOU!
For this event I made some banners for you to put on your blog or website or simply to show to your friends:
Banner #1
<a href="http://blog.lunarpages.com/2008/10/13/wordpress-series-3-design-contest-the-15-best-free-wordpress-themes/"><img src="http://static.thaslayer.com/vote_oct_static.gif" alt="Vote for ThaSlayer" border="0" /></a>
Banner #2
<a href="http://blog.lunarpages.com/2008/10/13/wordpress-series-3-design-contest-the-15-best-free-wordpress-themes/"><img src="http://static.thaslayer.com/vote_oct_anim.gif" alt="Vote for ThaSlayer" border="0"/></a>
Thanks for your support!
| 9 Oct 2008 |
Got my Jinx shirts WOOT!!! |
Well, i got my hands on the shirts on tuesday, a day when i was a bit grumpy for having to get up early to go and get them. At the post office the guy stuck a knife in the package to open it. He was lucky that he didn’t cut any of the shirts because if he would have than the presence of the security guard would have been a bit useless and he still would have gotten a few punches. I hate these retarded people, how on earth can you stick a knife into a plasticly wrapped package to open it?
Anyway, i got home and showed Tim the shirts, he commented on them after which i critiqued him for not ordering some shirts for himself also durring the promotion.
Instead of posting lots and lots of pictures with the shirts i made a video in which you can view all of my shirts along with narration(remember: don’t consider my accent, i’m not a native english speaker, but i’m doing my best to talk properly).
(click the video and select Watch in High quality on youtube)
If you have any comments go ahead and post them up!
| 5 Oct 2008 |
October Namecheap Coupon |
This month things are a bit different than at the previous months because Namecheap increased the domain registration price to $9.69, the coupon will discount it to $8.81
The coupon code is: INDIANSUMMER
On 9th September Namecheap sent a mail to all its customers regarding the price change:
Because select registries are increasing the prices of domains to us, the prices of .com, .net, .org and .info domains are going up 40 cents to $9.69. This will be an industry wide change and will affect all registrars effective in October.
This is an increase that is being forced upon us by the registries that handle these extensions. NameCheap does and always will try to bring you the lowest, honest and up front pricing possible. It is for this reason we want to make it clear that this was not a decision we at NameCheap took on our own.
The free COMODO PositiveSSL offer is still up, this meaning you can still get a free SSL Certificate next to the FREE Whoisguard subscription.
Damn…why didn’t good expired names pop up before the price change and not after? 
| 5 Oct 2008 |
Tutorial: Manually install Noah’s Classifieds |
This tutorial is part of the Install scripts that are present in fantastico tutorials category.
Noah’s Classifieds V8 is a Great PHP, MySQL based highly customizable classified ad application that allows users to post advertisements to unlimited categories and subcategories. This new and Hot Web 2.0 Look , Feel and Performance Features: easy install, image upload for categories and advertisements, custom fields for advertisements, customizable email notifications, category locking, pending ads, ad expiration, template and stylesheet based, most popular ads, and more.
Main Website: http://www.noahsclassifieds.org/
Demo Website: http://noahsclassifieds.org/v8rss/
Support Forums: http://forum.noahsclassifieds.org/
Installation
Step 1: Head over to the Noah’s Classifieds download center and get the latest release.
Step 2: Upload the files from the archive on your web server using a ftp client (e.g. Smart FTP)
Step 3: Create a fresh new database name.
Step 4: Go to yoursite.com/install.php to begin the installation.
Step 5: Enter your database info and click OK.
Step 6: Read the license and if you agree with it check “I have read through and accept the below terms and conditions:” and click Install.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Noah’s Classifieds! Now you can go to yoursite.com/index.php to view your site!
