2011

WordPress 3.1 update and New standard , Aside , gallery post format and Thesis theme

April 9, 2011 by admin 1 Comment

Post format wordpress 3.1, the new feature of the latest version of wordpress 3.1, updated this February 2011. If you have upgraded to wordpress 3.1 ,you should be able to see the format button on the right of the panel “Format”, which has three options, standard, aside and gallery.

If you don’t have this post format wordpress 3.1 tab, it means your theme does not support this yet.

Format options with Thesis theme

you will need to add a code in your functions.php file, or in Thesis, custom_functions.php file, also need to tweak some files for the “aside” option, however if you use Twenty Ten theme, this tab should be there

Post Format wordpress 3.1 — Tutorials, and How to use them

The post format wordpress 3.1 official resources, you can find it here in this official wordpress codex website.

Aside functions, is actually putting your post without title, this is why it is stated to be a similar like face book. This is a cool feature which can tweak our files, such as sidebar.If we create an aside post using post format wordpress 3.1, you will not see the title in the home page.

The gallery option is my favorite, By adding gallery shortcode which was already available long time ago, you will be able to have a gallery page, in the post, and complete with previous and next pictures, as well as the dimension, and image details. By putting [gallery] shortcode in one of your post, and then upload some images, you will see gallery in your post. When you click one of the image, it will bring you to the one image with its details, such as size, and the file name

Go to the official –> wordpress support site to check out tutorials and support for installing and upgrading to get this feature and here are some nice tutorials, http://www.wpbeginner.com-post-formats-in-wordpress-3-1/ , http://www.960development.com/guide-to-new-features/

Post format in wordpress 3.1 on Vimeo.

Supported Themes for the new post formats

Here is the official, current listing of all themes that support post formats. To learn more about each format, visit the Post Formats support page.

Theme Name /Supported Formats

Twenty Ten/Standard, Aside, Gallery

Coraline/Standard, Aside, Gallery

Beach/Standard, Aside, Gallery, Quote, Status

Duster/Standard, Aside, Gallery, Link

Rusty Grunge/Standard, Aside, Gallery, Quote, Status

The Morning After/Standard, Aside

Toolbox/Standard, Aside, Gallery

Amazing free Collage maker

March 9, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

Ever wanted to make images like these with a freeware

The Best free Collage maker software

Vincent Chung, who has previously worked at Microsoft Research and Google, has developed an automatic photo collage maker software that can create extremely impressive collages / posters / photo mosaics in few mouse clicks. Here are some sample photo collages created using Vincent’s software.

Called Shape Collage, this software is absolutely free, lightweight (~300kb) and it’s written in Java so it works just the same on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux machines.
Try it and see and create somthing like this too and text collages also possible

Make collages in different shapes – Collage maker video

Download the free collage maker from here .

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/189212758X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=undermousearr-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=189212758X

Thanks Vincent

Control your PAY TV using Xbox Kinect and hand gesturess

February 21, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

Harishankar Narayan a mechanical engineer from Chennai ( india ) has managed to hack the Microsoft Xbox Kinnect to make watching pay tv easier. You get to use you hand movements to control the TV like a remote

Xbox kinect used to control pay tv, like remote

In a YouTube Video he showed how he controlled his indian pay tv (Tata Sky set top box) though Kinect gestures. He had been messing around with remote controls and wanted a remote free experience, which led him to hacking the Xbox Kinect.

Xbox kinect

How the Xbox Pay tV kinect hack was done

The hack was done using a device called the USB UIRP, which was connected to his MacMini. The USB UIRP acts like a universal remote control and detects any infrared signal which gave him access to the Tata Sky remote, from there he set gestures for the controls.

Harishankar who is also a coder ,wrote the code for the gestures through the USB UIRP and also stated different codes for different devices could be written including the PlayStation 3.

Here is a video of his exploits.

Harishankar, apart from being a geek also owns a gaming company called Smackall Games Private Limited.

Narayan said, I plan to have gesture based controls throughout my house, and stated the gesture based controls were not restricted to Tata Sky. He mentioned, The gesture based controls can be customized for any device that supports an infrared remote control and so can be used with, air-conditioners, DVD-players, Blu-Ray players and much more.

Xbox Kinect controls windows 7

No daddy or go daddy !! Don’t lose your domain

February 12, 2011 by admin 6 Comments

Today i was just glancing through my renewals of domains that keep popping up often and something caught my eye , i saw this little note telling me that i could lose my domain if i didn’t renew it by the 20th of the month

GO daddy domain renewal

Note at end of renewal email :

NOTE: For certain ccTLDs† you must renew no later than the 20th of the month prior to the expiration date. If you fail to do so, your domain name will be placed on non-renewal status and you will only be able to renew the name by calling Go Daddy.

I was shocked , imaging loosing a domain that you have worked hard on for the last 5 years. Off course do put it on auto renew and it gets renewed auto , bu then when you have so many domains you dont want to put all on auto re-new

Dont lose your Domain !! ACT NOW

Anyway i did a little more research and here is what i found

Go to here –> http://documents.secureserver.net/show/document.aspx?plvid=1&name=reg_sa

and there is further explanation

For certain ccTLDs (.am, .at, .be, .cn, .com.cn, .net.cn, .org.cn, .de, .eu, .fm, .gs, .it, .jp, .ms, .nu, .nz, .co.nz, .net.nz, .org.nz, .tc, .tk, .tw, .com.tw, .org.tw, .idv.tw, .uk, .co.uk, .me.uk, .org.uk, and .vg) You must renew no later than the 20th of the month prior to the expiration date, or Your domain name will be placed on non-renewal status. When the domain name is in non-renewal status, You can renew the domain name only by calling Go Daddy and requesting that the domain name be renewed. You cannot renew the domain name through your Account Manager . If You fail to manually implement the renewal before the expiration date, the domain name will be cancelled and You will no longer have use of that name.

You agree that Go Daddy will not be responsible for cancelled domain names that You fail to renew, either automatically or manually in the timeframes indicated in this Agreement. In any case, if You fail to renew Your domain name in a timely fashion, additional charges may apply. If You signed up for domain masking, domain forwarding, or any other similar service, with Your domain registration, these services will be automatically renewed when Your domain registration is up for renewal, and You will incur the applicable additional renewal fee unless You cancel in advance.

Therefore i feel this is sorta forcing you to get your domains on auto –renew for your safety as well as their profit.

Technorati Tags: Go daddy,No daddy,Domains australia,hosting provider,Aussie domains

New phone laws and media

February 6, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

Perhaps the media is living in the stone age of maybe (7) or then (9) Years ago. Ask most people today who got a new Smartphone or one of the newer phones and they will tell you that you dont even need to dial a number anymore to call a friend or contact on your phone, you just tell the phone “call Adam” or whatever name the contact is saved on your phone and the phone does it for you.

Infact the technology is so advanced nowadays that if you want to search Google on your phone “you can just tell the phone Vocally “search restaurant” and it will search a nearby restaurant”

Local media channels have recently trying to bash the government on its new phone laws for outdated reasons. Under the new changes to australian law , it will be legal to make a call by the driver as long as the motorist is not holding the phone. ( which is fine in many ways because with new technology and blue tooth ,people don’t even have to press the answer button on thier phone or interact with their phone buttons anymore to take a call) , ( perhaps the media needs to know how new technology works ).

Under the existing laws it is illegal to make a call from a mobile phone while driving if it involves dialing a phone number. ( this law does not cover taking a call while driving , which is automatic if you have Bluetooth on) nor does this la take into account the new technology which is getting inbuilt now into new European and possibly Australian cars soon , where you just command your car dashboard to call your friends mobile number and you car calls your friend via your mobile phone.

With old laws enforced and the political red tape involved to changing old laws to the current situation, we know how long sometimes it can take for relevant laws to be updated to take into account new technology.

Im glad they have taken a step forward and updated the laws in line with new technology and new smart phones that allow you to make calls while driving with the most minimum of fuss instead of being stuck with outdated laws while the world has moved forward.

Though on the same note I’m not glad that they have a funny law that does not allow you to touch a phone to use the GPS function , when many phones double up as a full GPS unit nowadays.

Links :

Road Safety : FAQs on mobile phone usage

Mobile phones | Department of Broadband, Communications and the

Mobile Phones – Office of Road and Safety

Australian Reviews

Technorati Tags: Australian phone laws,red tape,Mobile phone driving laws,mobile driving

Now blogger has a Mobile template

January 24, 2011 by admin 1 Comment

Blogger mobile template released

Yes that’s right , the much wanted feature of mobile enabled templates for blogger is now available in blogger.. Blogger has just upgraded their features to enable your blog to be seen on most new smartphones , so that you dont have to do extra work on your blog for it to show on a mobile properly ( like Iphone 4 or Samsung galaxy s or any new smartphones)

Blogger releases Mobile template to make blogger blogs Smartphone enabled

All you need to do is login to blogger , got to settings and enable the Blogger mobile template like in the figure below

You can check out these 2 blogs on your mobile ( http://bankrepossession.blogspot.com/ & http://nakedseo.blogspot.com/ ) to check out the new blogger Mobile template and have a idea of how the new “blogger mobile template” works

Here is a example of how your blogger blog will look like on a “Smartphone”

Blogger Mobile website

If you do like this post do bookmark us or leave a comment to share your thoughts. Find more details on this at the –>> blogger blog

WordPress 3.1 update and New standard , Aside , gallery post format and Thesis theme

Format options with Thesis theme