Christina Sng dot com

Currently I have installed 4 programs on my laptop which is on Windows Vista Business, with one program running for each of the 4 blogs I have (to test them and to ensure there’s some redundancy in case there’s a bug in one of them, plus I like testing new programs).

CONTROLS:

Expectation: Programs should back up blogs to their own local folders in html format so they can be viewed independent of the programs.

Test conditions: I’ll be running one test on each program with one blog assigned unless otherwise specified. Interface is experienced without referring to the manuals to test for intuitiveness and usability. Tests were run at off peak period over 2 hours.

TEST RESULTS:

Backstreet Browser 3.1: Strange Machines appeared to have completed its download after 1 hour but the message panel was a little unclear. It said Done but also had 500 files queued. A bit of clicking to see what happened froze the program so I closed it.

Checking the folder, which was located within the Backstreet Browser folder under Data, the files looked good. Downloading 745 posts in 1 hour was no easy feat but the links were copied live so there was no smooth offline browsing for this blog!

I checked back on the program to see if I could set the links to link locally but I couldn’t find it. Moreover, my Workspace for this blog was gone after it crashed so I could not load it again since it doesn’t autosave.

Tried to download Five Cats Blog on it but it queued the blog, froze, and I had to force shut it down.

Conclusion: *** 3 stars for doing the job despite not much flexibility and being generous with the capacity on the trial version. * for stability *** for doing the job ** for interface design ** for usability

QuadSucker/Web: Despite downloading for a long time and never completing, the 5 year-old Five Cats Blog was not found in my computer after and it was hard to discern what was going on while the downloading was going on. Clicking the list of downloaded files in the program itself showed only unavailable pages.

Conclusion: * Poor interface, unclear navigation, failure to do the job.

PageNest: Started downloading an old blog which had one year worth of blog entries. Not very much, so I thought I would add Strange Machines but it seemed to be able to handle one blog at a time only.

Removed Strange Machines and stopped the first which shouldn’t have taken longer than Strange Machines on the BackStreet Browser.

Checking the files inside the Document folder, I don’t understand why all the files were saved as temp files and also why the program was saving files dated to the future. I had manually stopped the downloading but only because the file names were getting illogically far into the future (2011!).

Conclusion: * Files useless as temp files. Does not accomplish the job. Takes too long to download and places them in a queue.

Teleport Pro: Downloaded the newest TechBot quickly in a flourish (76 posts) with just enough space to spare on its trial version. Can’t use it for another.

However, opening the files was a breeze, it even links perfectly so you can browse and search as if online (that’s the purpose, isn’t it?). Two thumbs up for this program.

Conclusion: **** Very configurable, intuitive and easy to use, does the job pretty well. Pity the trial limits based on size, not time period. I’d love to test it more before buying although the way the others are going I might do that.

You can find all 4 programs on Download.com.

With every move, invariably one thinks of (or rather remembers to) backing up one’s blog. I have been tardy in this respect but now I set my mind to backing up all the years of blogging to my rather trusty Lenovo v100 laptop.

Unfortunately, HTTrack, which I’d used successfully before, does not like Vista. It starts collecting data, then pouts and stops the program, claiming it has finishing the mirroring. As if.

So I have no choice but to uninstall the dang thing and look for another solution to backup my blogs. I have downloaded 4 programs and will run them shortly to test them.

Despite an absence of marketed blog backup programs, offline browsers do the same job quickly and efficiently. It’s way better than copy and pasting each entry to back them up.

In Wordpress, you’ll need to find an alternative to the usual hspace and vspace tags.

Here’s a great suggestion from the Wordpress Codex. In the stylesheet, paste this:

img.left { padding: 4px; margin: 0 7px 2px 0; display: inline; }

And in your markup code in whichever file you’re editing, e.g. About, in my case, code it like this:

<img src=http://www.whereveryourpicis.com/pic.gif class=left>

Tweak the padding and margins till they align nicely. And you’re done!

I must compliment the developers of Wordpress for a logical and immensely intuitive user interface addition.

I have consulted no manuals or codexes. Just good old-fashioned tinkering around with, like how people in the 1950s loved to tinker with their cars.

Understanding the compulsion of people to test theme after theme, they have made it possible for any modifications to a theme to be saved in your blog system while you test others.

This, as far as I know, isn’t possible with other blogs. You lose the edits you make in the CSS when you change themes. Of course, you can save the main templates but this one does it for you.

Kudos, designers.

Aside from your branding, your design (and in this case for Wordpress, theme) is the most important part of your blog.

Your brand, and I may cite John Chow, who successfully marketed himself as a “dot com mogul” alluding to wealth and prosperity, is the most important thing about your blog. That makes people come back. At one glance they recognise what you stand for, and if that resonates with you, you will most likely go.

And what is my brand? It is:

1. Good, clean, usable information design from a programmer/information architect/producer who has worked in the industry for over 8 years, rode the boom and the bust and stayed till I decided to quit my job to stay home and raise my son (and that’s another blog).

2. Straight-talking advice and reviews from real user testing in real life situations.

3. Some fun and entertainment (from a pro writer too - that’s my other specialty so I never starve) while we’re at it.

The second, your design. Because that is the first thing a first time visitor to your site sees. And that is what I am having trouble with today.

Because we are still in beta, and I’ll confess, I am still pondering the branding since this idea to go domainy was sparked during a very recent late night convo with my best friend Shen. As with the best travel plans, the most exciting way to embark on any adventure is to plunge right into it without much notice. Improvising is a real high and to be honest, it is safer than skydiving into a jungle on a moment’s notice. But I digress.

I am not a designer. I’ll state that much. I used to architect how content was to be laid out in a page and what sort of information, and how that information should be categorised and accessed and through how many paths. So all websites I designed myself are simple, clean, load quickly (for the lowest common denominator - and this is before mobile web took off), and contain very few, if any, images.

While choosing a theme, I seem to be veering toward the same, although I must say I enjoy the super high tech ones that have come my way. Still. If you like any I have chosen, feel free to say so. Meanwhile, the search continues.

I have to confess. Shen convinced me to move. I’d been enjoying free hosting from Blogdrive and Atspace for many years now and have been happy with those services. But, Shen said, for better control and SEO it was better to have my own hosting and run my blog off my own domain.

The clincher, was the opportunity to fiddle and lose myself in some new content management system.

So here I am, migrating from my sweet old TechBot, hurriedly named when I decided to run my own tech blog, to this yet beta named “Web Antics of a Tech Goddess”. Now this might change, because you’re not supposed to be reading this yet. This time I plan on thinking more about the branding of the blog before officially releasing this.

I’m a one-day (actually 5 hours old) Wordpress virgin. During that time I spent half of it reading up while nursing my baby to sleep, and the other half actually applying what I learnt. Okay, I confess, half of the time I was surfing themes. The rest was thinking about what I wanted to write and what content categories to include and how it is relevant to my current sites.

While I am doing this, thinking, breathing, drinking in the web and a spanking new blog (okay, my green tea really), I can’t help but grin, it’s good to be back.

A very useful plugin for anyone who needs to count the number of words (and characters) in a textarea.

Go check out the Text Area Word Counter by Gina Trapani.

(Source: Blogger for Dollars)

1. Create your desired image 16×16px in an image editor and save it as a gif, jpg, png, or ico file, depending on which version your web host or blog provider supports. (Wordpress uses favicon.ico).

2. Upload it into your root folder.

3. Insert this code between your <head></head> tags.

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://domain.com/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”icon” href=”http://domain.com/favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>

In Wordpress, this would be your Header (header.php) file but you insert this code instead:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”<?php bloginfo(’template_directory’); ?>/favicon.ico” />

4. Save and reload. Your icon should appear next to your address bar now!

1. Decide what you want your laptop for.

Is it for work, school, design, gaming, or just surfing and email? Each function requires a slightly different configuration.

If you need it for work or school, you’ll probably carry it around. So portability is a concern. You’d probably want to look at the laptops with a weight under 2.5kg (including battery pack - ah this they don’t always tell you in the specs).

If you want it for design, get one with a large screen and the best graphics card you can afford.

Similarly for gaming, you’ll want a large screen (minimum 14″ - come on, how are you going to PvP on a 12″) and a good graphics card.

In fact for the above two categories, get a desktop if you can afford the space and don’t need the portability. The price you pay for a laptop can buy you two desktops already. Or else just get an external 20″ screen. I have one. It is very very nice.

If you’re a light user, just surfing, blogging, and email, get a basic model with some scalability so you can expand with your growing needs. After all, with photo storage, everyone needs more than 100GB.

2. Decide on a budget.

Sigh… this is the part when reality bites. Perhaps I should retitle this, “decide on a realistic budget”.

Laptops are expensive. As I mentioned before, you can get 2 desktops for the price of 1 laptop, and usually with similar specs.

But there is nothing like a laptop nice and warm on your lap, beside you while you sleep, and greeting you with a startup when you wake.

Okay, I digress.

Yes, decide on how much you can afford and then match it to your needs.

3. Do some research.

So now you know roughly what you want, visit some review sites to see what you can get for that price and range. Then isolate your selection to let’s say 3 models and search online to see what peeps are saying about them. Read in particular what users say.

CNET Reviews
Epinions

or just Google it.

4. Go touch them.

This is what I call the “touch test”. You’ll be touching it, holding it, day in, day out. You have to like touching it. Hence, the touch test.

With technology, you can read the reviews and be absolutely certain you want something but then at the store, when you handle it for the first time, you become sorely disappointed. It is almost like having an online romance (not from personal experience but I can relate) and then meeting that person IRL.

Anyway, be prepared to be surprised.

I was, with my first digital camera purchase. I spent a month and a year deciding to get the Canon A70 but the moment I touched it I cringed. It felt so heavy, chunky, and plasticky. Vincent immediately passed me the Panasonic Lumix F1 and the moment I touched it, I was in love. Never mind I never read a word about it before the “touch test”. I bought it and spent many wonderful months with it.

So head to the store and touch the laptops. See if you like how the keyboard feels when you touch it. See if you like the touchpad or prefer the pointer (little nub thing). See if you like how it looks in real life.

5. Go haggle.

First, know the market price. Check them online. Browse the retail stores. Have an idea the margin with which you can wiggle.

Then after talking to the salesperson for a while, ask politely what is the best price they can offer you. Once you’re happy with the price (or if they can’t budge but you’re still happy with it), try to get the salesperson to throw in some goodies like free memory cards, DVD-Rs, an extra battery, and a nicer laptop bag.

Note: Computer fairs often throw in the goodies for free although prices are rarely that much lower, so if you can wait and don’t mind shoving thousands of other sweaty people, go then. Or, better yet, call the shops if they offer the same deal during the computer fair season at their shop and just go to their pleasantly empty shop then and buy it.

6. Sleep on it.

If you’re unsure, tell the salesperson you’ll sleep on it (maybe he or she will throw in the goodies at this point), and see if you can sleep at all. If you can’t, get up and surf a bit, look at its picture, and return to get it tomorrow.

Some of you who have the (mis)fortune of buying a computer or laptop with Vista already installed may have experienced this when a new update was installed.

At the login screen you see a duplicate of your login ids. I saw 2 pairs of cats and dogs for several weeks till I decided to search for a solution.

It appears that the fingerprint recognition software Omnipass may have had incompatibilities with the latest Vista upgrade.

The solution is simply to uninstall Omnipass, restart computer (and voila, a restoration of single user ids), and reinstall Omnipass.