I am NOT Spam!

When I was making the last post, I noticed something that was not there before - a word verification for posting. It was a rude shock for me - like a surcharge in a formerly surcharge free ATM. Turns out, the great Google bots think that this is a spam blog. Guys, this is not a spam blog! I have a spam blog - but this is not it.

Your blog requires word verification

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

Luckily there was an option to say that this blog is not spam. Needless to say, I used that option, and they sent out real humans to test my site. Before long, I was cleared of all wrong doings :-)

We received your unlock request on April 5, 2007. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

All jokes aside, I appreciate the fact that the Blogger team is working hard to get rid of the spam blogs in blogger. Blogger is just infected with those. A side effect of this is that I cannot comment on other people's blog using my blog's address(http://binnyva.blogspot.com/) as the URL. Akismet thinks that since I use a blogger site, my comment must be spam.

Just a friendly reminder to the guys using Akismet Plugin - its great for blocking spam - I use it myself. But there is quite a few instance of false positives - ie. legitimate comments marked as spam. So make sure you check the spam folder often. False negatives I can stand - but not false positives. That's bad.

Filed Under...

• spam
• blog
• blogging
• blogger
• comment
• akismet

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Using Twitter, Part 2 - The Use of Twitter

Why do one use twitter? Why do you have to inform others about what you are doing? There are many answers to this question.

Intermittent variable reward

Kathy Sierra is of the opinion that a 'slot machine' like reward system exists for twitter users. That is, they get a reward sometimes(not always) - so they keep on using the system for that reward.

Addictive

Many people have described twitter as addictive. But, I still have not found it addictive - I only remember to make an update once in a while. Maybe that is because I have turned off the IM feature.

Keeping in touch

A lot of people have said that they can keep in touch with their friends using twitter. This reason is not for me. I am a geek. And by definition, I am a loner(or was that 'nerd' - I get those two confused). So, I don't what to be connected with others - if anything, I want to be disconnected from them.

Keeping track of Time

Twitter can be used to keep track of your activities. But it is not a tool made for this - so it is very limited for this purpose. But, this is the reason why I use twitter.

Ever since I resigned from my job, I have been noticing a huge time leak. I cannot understand how my time is disappearing - but it is doing that with great efficiency. So I have turned to twitter to make things better.

More on this topic in the next post.

• Twits Twittering for the sake of Tweets: or that’s not why I twitter
• Twitter… again
• Twitter, Human Attention and Moore's Law

Filed Under...

• twitter
• addiction
• web
• sites
• blogging

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Saving Code Snippets - Part 2

In the last post, we saw various methods of storing text snippets. Each of the discussed methods had its advantages and disadvantages. I could not use any of those methods. But eventually I found one method that was perfect. It was WordPress.

My requirements for a text snippets storing system are simple...

• Must be able to store text snippets (Duh!)
• Searchable
• Tagging support
• Easy to use interface
• Backupable

After looking at the list for a few moments, I had an epiphany. I don't need a custom solution for this problem - all I have to do is make a few adjustments to a system I am already using. I already have experience using WordPress - so there is no learning curve.

So, I created a new domain and installed WordPress using Dreamhost's One Click install system. I made a few adjustments to the default configuration, installed a few plugins, customized the theme - and I have a shiny new site...

txt - Text Snippets collection of BinnyVA

Go on, click on that link and play around on my Text Snippets collection for a while - I'll wait.

Storing Text Snippets using WordPress

Advantages

New Site

You have a new site which will be updated frequently - without having to put much effort into it. Another plus point is that your collection is useful for others also.

Stable/Supported Platform

WordPress is an industry standard Platform - used by thousands of people world wide. If you run into a problem, you will be able to get help.

Open Source

You can modify the software - and make it 'just right' for your need.

Offline Access Possible

Just install the WordPress on your system and sync the database once in a while.

Multiple Clients can be used

You are not forced to use the WordPress's web interface to add/edit snippets - there are a lot of clients that support WordPress. I prefer ScribeFire(was known as Performancing earlier).

Disadvantages

• Added overhead of managing a new site
• Need Hosting
• Need net access
• Need a web/database server for Offline site
• The purpose of the tool is different

Tagging Problem

There was one problem associated with using WordPress for this purpose - tagging. Sure, you could use categories to tag each snippet - but that is nowhere as intuitive as, say, tagging on del.icio.us. To add a new category, you have to use a separate text field - instead of just typing it after a ','. That is when I found out about a great WordPress plugin - Ultimate Tag Warriors.

Ultimate Tag Warrior

Using Ultimate Tag Warrior you can tag your post with multiple tags. These are completely independent of the 'Categories' feature of wordpress. Two important features for this plugin makes it perfect for our purpose.

Friendly Link support

del.icio.us style links makes it easier for us to find the snippets later on. For example, the URL for all the text snippets with the tag 'perl' is http://txt.binnyva.com/tag/perl.

Can embed tags inside the content

You can specify the tags within the content of the post - you are not forced to use the web panel's tags field to do it. This makes it possible to tag the text snippets even if you are posting from a client.

All you have to do is is enclose the tags within '[tags]...[/tags]'. For example, say you wish to tag a snippet, with database, mysql, sql. So you put this at the end of the snippet...

[tags]database, mysql, sql[/tags]

txt

My Text Snippets collection site have been running for two months. As of yet, I don't have a single complaint about it. In my opinion, this is the best method to store text snippets. If you know a better way of doing this, please let me know.

Most of the saved snippets on txt are Linux Commands. There are some code snippets as well. This is a site where I store script snippets, Linux commands and other such tidbits of information. The posts will be minimal and often crude.

Before leaving you, I want to highlight some cool snippets in that site...

• Shortest way to create an XMLHttpRequest object
• Using PHP's Curl functions behind a Proxy

And for Linux users...

• Using CVS Through Proxy
• Download Entire Site/Folder using Wget Command in Linux
• MySQL Database Backup/Restore

Filed Under...

• web
• development
• text
• snippet
• code
• wordpress

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Saving Code Snippets - Part 1

All programmers have their own ways of storing useful code for future use. Some don't do anything special for it. They can remember which project they had used the code - all they have to do is call up the source code for that project, search around a bit and they have the code they wanted. I used to be in this class - but now, I have too much projects and too much code for that to work. So I am exploring alternative methods to do this.

Text Files

The simplest methods are often the best - storing all the text snippets as text files. You can arrange it into folders for easier management. I have tried this approach - but it did not work for me. Searching gets a bit hard after some time. Another problem with this method is that the data is limited to one computer - you will have to carry all these files around if you want to use it in other systems.

Single Text file

You can save all the code snippets in one big text file - this will make searching easier. Another advantage of this method is that you can carry this file around - so it is more portable approch. I have not tried this method - if I find multiple text files hard to manage, there is no way I can do it with a single text file. But there are people who have done it - and swear by it.

• Living in text files
• Example of one such text file

Single (Some format) File

You don't have to use text - you can use excel or LaTeX or some other format to store everything you need in a single file. As long as the data is findable, its possible.

Special Application

There are many applications that can be used to store text snippets. I have not used any applications for this purpose - so I cannot recommend any specific tool. I am sure that a google search will reveal many such software. In Linux, you could use KJots and BasKet to do this. Do you know any application that could be used for this?

Database

If you have done a bit of Database Designing, I am sure you are already working on a design to store the code in a Database - locally or on the web. This method will involve making an interface to input, search and display the snippets as well. If you are using a database like Access, you can use the 'Forms' feature to do it. But if you are using MySQL, SQLite or something like that, you may have to create a custom application. This could be a web application or a desktop application. I almost went this way - but my work with Nexty prevented me from doing much.

Online Services

There are sites that could be used store snippets. One such site is Text Snippets. It supports all features necessary for storing code snippets -

• Syntax Highlight for the code
• Easy Interface
• Tagging
• And more..

I tried it out - but did not find it very useful...

• The Syntax Highlighting expects all code to be in ruby
• No way to backup the data
• You have to use the web interface to enter the data.
• No way to get the data if you are offline

Other sites that could be used to do this are...

• Snipplr - Code 2.0
• Dzone Snippets

And the best method is...

I tried most of the above methods - but none matched my requirements. After much searching I found a method thats perfect. I will talk about that in the next post.

Update : Saving Code Snippets - Part 2 Ready!

Filed Under...

• web
• development
• text
• snippet
• code
• programming

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Top 5 Features Missing in Google Reader

I am using Google Reader as my RSS Aggregator. After using this for some time, I am still unsure of how to do some things. I don't even know weather its possible or not. And since Google Reader is publishing usage stats, I know that 35% of my readers uses Google Reader - so I want to ask these doubts to you.

1. Can I search through my subscribed feeds?

There are many times when I wanted to find an old post I have read. Is there any way to search through my subscribed posts? Its ironic that Google fails to provide this option.

2. Can I nest folders?

Can I put a folder inside another folder? I know that this is a tagging generation and hierarchical structures are outdated - that's how I like it.

3. How do I change a URL of a feed?

Some sites change the feed URL. It is a bad thing - but it happens. My question is how do I update the URL of a subscribed feed using Google Reader. The last time I had to do this, I had to delete the feed in question and subscribe to it again.

4. Is there a more efficient way to subscribe a feed from Firefox?

Is there any way I can click the subscribe button in Firefox - and get the feed subscribed without any additional clicks? I had outlined one method to make the handling of feed subscription better in Firefox. But that still requires one additional click. I know Google Reader provides a bookmarklet for this - but is it possible to subscribe using the Firefox's default way? Plus, even after clicking bookmarklet you should click the subscribe button.

5. Can I put the tags in one folder?

I like to use a lot of tags to mark a post - but I hate the fact that each new tag makes a new entry in the left side 'Subscriptions' column. I want that column small and manageable.

If any of these are not possible, I am sure that Google Reader engineers will find this post. Maybe they will add these features. So, if you are from google, please implement these features in Google Reader. Oh, and, leave a comment.

Filed Under...

• web
• development
• google
• reader
• features
• rss
• atom
• feed

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