Spirit of Change » Wordpress http://vavai.net Masim "Vavai" Sugianto Personal Blog Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:26:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Day #2 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog http://vavai.net/2010/01/18/day-2-of-31-days-to-build-a-better-blog/ http://vavai.net/2010/01/18/day-2-of-31-days-to-build-a-better-blog/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:12:21 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=1096 This is the second day of my journey to build a better blog. Actually, this post has slip out of my schedule because I have an offline agenda on Saturday and Sunday and I have no chance to post any blog post.

Second advice to build a better blog is trying to write a list post. So, what a list post is talking about?

List post is a set of summary, tips, technique, how-to, etc that written on a group of bullet or numbering. List post is a nice tips and  convenient way to attract your visitor about the content summarize. You may found so many list post all around blogosphere, with or without explicitly pick a number in post title as below :

  1. 20 Linux Server Hardening Security Tips
  2. Improving Zimbra Anti Spam on openSUSE
  3. 20 More Free First-Class WordPress Themes
  4. 10 Essential Tricks for Admin, How to be a more productive Linux systems administrator
  5. Popular Digital Camera & Gear

You may found similar post type as above on a list of popular site like Digg, Delicious, Technorati, etc. People may like it because it looks neat, easy to understand, easy to share and simple. Beware that list post may attract your visitor attention but it may becoming unusable if you bombing them with so many list post. Write list post as a variation of our regular post.

Second advice of 31 days to build a better blog give me an insight how to make a proper title to get visitor attention and then refer them to our list post. I’ve published the #2 homework for the project : an article about 7 Lightweight Linux Browsers You may want to Consider for Fast Browsing Experience :-)

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]]> http://vavai.net/2010/01/18/day-2-of-31-days-to-build-a-better-blog/feed/ 0 Day #1 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog : Elevator Pitch http://vavai.net/2010/01/16/day-1-of-31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-elevator-pitch/ http://vavai.net/2010/01/16/day-1-of-31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-elevator-pitch/#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:14:38 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=1061 Day #1 of 31 days to build a better blog started with an unknown phrase (for me :-P ), Write an Elevator Pitch !

What is Elevator Pitch?

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100–150 words).

The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist or angel investor to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitches to quickly weed out bad ideas and weak teams.

A variety of other people, including entrepreneurs, project managers, salespeople, evangelists, policy-makers, job seekers, and speed daters commonly use elevator pitches to get their point across quickly.” — Wikipedia

In other words, elevator pitch is a statement is what your blog about, describing your blog in a few words, something like your blog’s tag line. Actually, elevator pitch may also written in your about page, your business card, your conversation with your friend or to answer the question of new visitor.

If someone else ask you, “OK, I have URL of your website and will try to browse it, but could you please tell me what is your blog, uhmm, maybe in a simple word”, you may answer him with your elevator pitch and then describe the overall website in details.

Below are an example of elevator pitch, taken from 31dbbb forum :

  • ProBlogger helps Bloggers Build Exceptional Blogs
  • Designer Daily helps designers with design resources and inspiration. Get inspired!
  • Rough Review is a blog based website dedicated to reviewing, commenting on and picking apart the world around us
  • Helping guys interact with web and world

Darren provide some insight how to write an elevator pitch as below :

  • Elevator pitch may contain your passion to help others or fulfill real needs. Something like “Helping others simplify their difficult work” :-)
  • Elevator pitch defines for your target audience. Elevator pitch is a conversation between you and your reader
  • Elevator pitch should be clear. Simple word but clear. If you have familiar with Twitter or SMS :-D , you may experience with simplify your word to describing your idea
  • Elevator pitch should be written in a few words to attract your visitor. If you need to describe your idea or mission in your elevator pitch, make your elevator pitch as part of your about page
  • Elevator pitch should be intriguing, doesn’t cover at all but visitor remember what is your blog about
  • Elevator pitch should be energetic but don’t try to make it too hyped
  • Elevator pitch may also written in a question term to increase visitor attention
  • Elevator pitch is not a mantra or bible or qur’an (koran). You may change the elevator pitch to suitable with your blog content and condition

So, what is my elevator pitch? Haha, it seems that I could not find a simple words to define what is my blog about but finally I write it as my tag line and meta tags :  Spirit of Change : Resources for Tips & Tutorial about Blog, Linux and Open Source

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]]> http://vavai.net/2010/01/16/day-1-of-31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-elevator-pitch/feed/ 1 How To Add PHP Code into WordPress Widgets http://vavai.net/2010/01/12/how-to-add-php-code-into-wordpress-widgets/ http://vavai.net/2010/01/12/how-to-add-php-code-into-wordpress-widgets/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 04:29:32 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=1023 I’ve change my blog template and quite satisfied with the combination between WordPress and a brand new BlogNews themes. BlogNews themes came with fully customization option, with flexible widget on every part of template layout. WordPress widget give me a simple way to add some content on the selected place.

One drawback with WordPress widgets is that we couldn’t add plugins or call PHP code within widgets. If you get same problem, the following plugins may help you to manage PHP code within widgets :

  1. PHP-Code-Widget
  2. PHP-Widgetify
  3. Daiko’s Text Widget

Install one of the above plugins (I choose the first choice) with WordPress plugins page, activate it and then voila, you have a new widget, the one like text widget but it can handle PHP code. Don’t forget to insert PHP code inside PHP tags (<? and ?>) if you wish to add PHP function. The widget should also supporting standard plain text and HTML code.

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]]> http://vavai.net/2010/01/12/how-to-add-php-code-into-wordpress-widgets/feed/ 8 New Year : New Blog Themes & New Layout http://vavai.net/2010/01/09/new-year-new-blog-themes-new-layout/ http://vavai.net/2010/01/09/new-year-new-blog-themes-new-layout/#comments Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:01:31 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=992 New year means new lay out :-) . I planned a new themes for my personal blog since December 2009 but I’m quite busy to prepare an end year report and a project roadmap for next year, so I put it as lower priority.

This week I have a spare time, so I decided to starting the project : Buy a new themes, backup current data (blog content and comment) and then activating a new layout.  I got it changes last night, the overall change took about 2 hours to be completed.

My old themes using WordPress premium themes, NewsPro, created by Mehmet Ozekinci from Gabfire themes. A new one using the premium themes BlogNews, also created by Mehmet from Gabfire themes.

Old Themes : NewsPro (Screenshot using my ID blog)


New Themes : BlogNews


I’m quite satisfied with BlogNews themes. It came with pretty much customization, with a fresh look and multi color option inside themes admin.

I hope it looks better than the previous one. Please put a comment if you think an annoying layout with my new themes.

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]]> http://vavai.net/2010/01/09/new-year-new-blog-themes-new-layout/feed/ 1 Upgrading into WordPress 2.9.1 http://vavai.net/2010/01/06/upgrading-into-wordpress-2-9-1/ http://vavai.net/2010/01/06/upgrading-into-wordpress-2-9-1/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:07:11 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=957

WordPress 2.9.1 has been released. The latest update fix some minor bug and annoying issue. If you found some problem regarding previous version, WordPress 2.9.1 may fix your problem.

Download the latest version or update online from Tools | Upgrade menu.

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]]> http://vavai.net/2010/01/06/upgrading-into-wordpress-2-9-1/feed/ 0 Upgrading to WordPress 2.9 http://vavai.net/2009/12/20/upgrading-to-wordpress-2-9/ http://vavai.net/2009/12/20/upgrading-to-wordpress-2-9/#comments Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:39:46 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=790 WordPress has been announced the availability of WordPress 2.9, “Carmen”. The name was taken as honor to magical jazz vocalist, “Carmen McRae” (sadly, I don’t know him. Colin McRae instead of Carmen sound more familiar to me :-P ).

What is the coolest features from the latest update of WordPress ?

    The coolest new stuff from a user point of view is:

  1. Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.
  2. Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.
  3. Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.
  4. Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

Beside the above features, the latest update also noticed a number of improvement and bug fixes.

I’m upgrading the blog engine by using online upgrading from dashboard menu. The upgrading process from previous version (WP 2.8.6) took a few seconds and overall seems to be run smoothly. What’s make me happy, my current themes didn’t find any problem with this update.

If you wish to upgrade the blog engine, don’t forget to backup current configuration to prevent any trouble with your themes or plugins.

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]]> http://vavai.net/2009/12/20/upgrading-to-wordpress-2-9/feed/ 1 Deactivating WordPress Statistic Plugin : StatPress Reloaded http://vavai.net/2009/09/04/deactivating-wordpress-statistic-plugin-statpress-reloaded/ http://vavai.net/2009/09/04/deactivating-wordpress-statistic-plugin-statpress-reloaded/#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:57:42 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=710 statpress

A few days ago, I’m noticed that my blog  is  run very slow. It’s take more than 5 minutes to display all of content and need more again to go to the admin panel. I didn’t realize what’s the problem because I found nothing important on the error log of the server. After investigating the error log and the connection, I’m thinking to checked th MySQL database and found that one table has biggest size compared to others.

The table name was wp_statpress , used by StatPress plugin for saving the statistic history. What’s make surprise, it has more than 90% of database size. It has 93 MB of size while my database has about 101 MB. I installed the plugin to watching the statistic of visitor, to give more information about which topic are popular, what’s their reference and where the visitor came from.

After backing up the database, I’m trying to clear the table content so my database size drop until 10 MB and my blog loads faster. I don’t know if the size of StatPress table has an impact with the performance or no but I think it would better to balancing the statistic requirement with the loading process of blog.

What’s a stupid behaviour :-) , after manually clear the table content, I found out that there is an option to “Automatically delete visits & spider statitistics older than…”. The option set as “never” by default on initial installation so it’s the answer why the statistics more and more bigger over the time.

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]]> http://vavai.net/2009/09/04/deactivating-wordpress-statistic-plugin-statpress-reloaded/feed/ 3 Launching Infothemes.com http://vavai.net/2009/03/13/launching-infothemescom/ http://vavai.net/2009/03/13/launching-infothemescom/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 04:35:00 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=593 I’m off for about 1-2 weeks from Indonesian openSUSE Community activity regarding new hobby as describe below :-)

After blogging for about 4 years, I’m going to addict with blog themes & templates. I’m occasionally browsing only for finding beautiful templates for my own blog or for community blog. Some are free and others are premium themes. The one which I used for Indonesian openSUSE Community website is a good example of free magazine themes. I’m using WordPress as blog engine  and used BrandFord Magazine WordPress Themes by Michael Oeser as default template.

My Personal blog both Indonesian and English are using NewsPro Magazine Themes from Mehmet Ozekinci. It’s a premium themes, cost me some cash but I’m quite satisfied with it’s quality. Easy to manage and have many options for changing layout or adding an optional content.

Premium themes or templates  may have an additional add ons, support and professional layout but I often found a good & professional themes or templates provided for free of charge. So, it’s maybe a good idea to re-thinking your blog layout if you wish to attract your blog visitor. Good quality content is the king and I absolutely agree with this but it always be true that a good quality layout will increase your chance to let new user read our good quality content.

I always bookmarking a good layout, a blog post which listing some good themes or templates, a templates and themes review or even a new post regarding same topics about beautiful blog design. I think it would be a good idea to bookmark the good design with my own, so it would also useful for everyone who has same interest.

Based on my hobby and the above reason, I’m thinking to build a special blog for my own purposes (and also for anyone who interested to themes/templates highlight). Blog has been successfully setup and launched begining this week. It’s the main cause why I didn’t update my blog post.

Infothemes.com, I think the purpose o this blog has been describe successfully with it’s name It’s a special blog based on digg-style, specifically intended to blog themes and templates and will be updated regularly. You may find a gallery about good design, good themes and good templates, both free or premium (commercial) which maybe suitable for your interest.

infothemes1

Beside standard posting from me as an infothemes admin, you could also submit your own interest or vote for such good design. If you worked as web designer and need to promote your product or finding a review, please let me know. I’ll submit your themes/templates into infothemes.com

If you have any suggestion regarding infothemes, please let me know. I’ll be back to writing activities, especially openSUSE tutorial & tips after completing this project…

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]]> http://vavai.net/2009/03/13/launching-infothemescom/feed/ 2 Beautiful Blogger Template : Part 1 http://vavai.net/2009/02/24/beautiful-blogger-template-part-1/ http://vavai.net/2009/02/24/beautiful-blogger-template-part-1/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:36:45 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=519 Making a blog or website with our domain and hosting has a lot of advantage. We can choose themes, create different layouts and other flexibility. The same experience will be hard to find if we use the free blog service like Blogger, WordPress, Multiply and other similar blog service.

So, why have so many people choose a free blog than using their own hosted blog? There are enough reasons for it and some of them are as follows:

  1. Free. Although the price of the domain and hosting is cheap, certainly much cheaper if we choose the free service, isn’t it ?
  2. Simple. We do not need any manual configuration for preparing domain and hosting
  3. Not worried about expired time of domain and hosting service
  4. We could create so many blog/website

Although we have only a limited functionality if we decided to use free blog service, it doesn’t mean we could not modify the layout for better interactivity and professional look. Below is some beautiful blogger themes that can be used to styling your blog service at blogspot:

The Daily Inspired – Antonio Lupetti

the-daily-inspired

It was a good themes for professional service. Using magazine style and well known as popular themes for blogger.

Download themes

Transparency – Falcon Hive

screen-shot01-feb-23-1157

Download themes

WP Polaroid- eBlog Templates

wp-polaroid-blogger-med

WP Polaroid is one of a few beautiful blogger themes. It has a header for displaying headline news or featured article

Download themes

Zinmag Primus – Falcon Hive

zinmagprimus_thumb13

Download themes

FTW – Flisterz

ftw-med

Simple but effective. It’s a good themes for ads oriented blog.

Download themes

Outdoorsy – Falcon Hive

outdoorsy

I love Outdoorsy. 2 column themes with customized navigation at the header and give as a natural fresh style

Download themes

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]]> http://vavai.net/2009/02/24/beautiful-blogger-template-part-1/feed/ 1 Akismet Error : Cannot load akismet-admin page http://vavai.net/2008/10/27/akismet-error-cannot-load-akismet-admin-page/ http://vavai.net/2008/10/27/akismet-error-cannot-load-akismet-admin-page/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:32:51 +0000 Masim "Vavai" Sugianto http://vavai.net/?p=198

I got an error after upgrading WordPress into ver 2.6.3 and updating Akismet plugin into ver 2.2.1

I could I can no longer access the Akismet spam queue and got the error message :

“Cannot load akismet-admin?page=akismet-admin”

Finding same problem on this thread and waiting for the solution.

Updated : 2008-10-29, 03:46 AM (GMT+7)

Fixed now. The problem is about hyperlink of the button, it said : …wp-admin/edit-comments.php?page=akismet-admin?page=akismet-admin and should be change as …wp-admin/edit-comments.php?page=akismet-admin

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]]> http://vavai.net/2008/10/27/akismet-error-cannot-load-akismet-admin-page/feed/ 3