Michael Sync

UPDATED:: This competition is over. The official website ["www.sndbx.org"] for this competition is no longer available.

What is it all about?

This competition is all about customizing the Sandbox theme by using CSS and images without touching PHP code. It’s like Wordpress theme competition but its focusing on designing thing so that it’s good for web designers. (You don’t need to know anything about PHP code, Wordpress Template API and etc)

Deadline : 12:00 AM UTC, July 29, 2007

Purpose of this competition

• Promoting Premium CSS upgrade in wordpress.com
• Promoting Sandbox Theme
• And ~
  

  * To be transparent, organized, and fun;
  * To solicit new, excellent designs to benefit the WordPress community;
  * To reinvigorate the creative energy present in the WordPress community; and,
  * To provide a challenging competition appropriate for experienced and novice designers.

Prizes

* Total Competition Prizes: US $1000 or $1950.00

• 1st prize: US$850
• 2nd prize: US$550
• 3rd prize: US$400
• First three (3) runner-ups will receive US$50 honorarium and a copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle each

1. First prize. The Contest champion will win US$500.
2. Second prize. The Contest second-place winner will win US$300.
3. Third prize. The Contest third-place winner will win US$200.
4. Runner-ups. The Contest runner-ups will receive honorariums.

Odds of winning a prize will vary depending upon the number of actual Contest participants. In the event any entry is deemed ineligible, the Administrator may award the prizes to alternate entries as it deems suitable. Winners may be required to pay customs, duty charges and/or taxes.

Note: It’s better if you check the latest news about prizes in this site since it keep on changing all the time.

Who launched this competition?

The competition is lunched by Scott of plaintxt.org, who is the cocreator of the Sandbox along with Andy of Automattic.

Rules

• All designs will be limited to style sheets (CSS) and images (no theme PHP mods)
• Designs must be released with GNU General Public License or compatible license. (Keep in mind that it’s not CC license. So, no one is gonna give you any credit even they are using your design.)
• Designs may only be released publicly after submissions close (You are NOT allowed to attach your theme as a zip file in your blog. but you can show how your theme looks like in your blog. )
• You are allowed to submit multiple entries in different emails (eg: Submission: My Theme1, Submission: My Theme2 and so on.)
• Everything (icons, images or etc) that are used in your theme should be under GNU. (Don’t forget to check the license before copying the image from websites or search engines.)

- Send to submissions@sndbx.org with the subject “Submission: [Title]“, where [Title] is the name of the design.

The submission attachment must be a ZIP archive with the following file structure:

-sandbox-[title].zip:
–/sandbox-[title]/
—- style.css
—- image01.png
—- image02.jpg
—- other-style.css
—- readme.txt
—- screenshot.png (400px by 300px)

A few important points before submitting your design:

• Submissions containing a screenshot in a format other than PNG will be ignored.
• Submissions containing a screenshot not 400px (w) by 300px (h) will be ignored.
• Submissions in archive formats other than ZIP will be ignored.
• Submissions lacking an explicit GNU General Public License license (or compatible) will be ignored.

Prize delivery

Results will be announced on www.sndbx.org by 12:00 AM (UTC), Monday, August 6, 2007. Winners will be issued their cash awards via Paypal within 48 hours of final results.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Are you ready for this competition? I will post some useful links for images, icons and sample css of sandbox theme.. Let me know if you have any resource that can be used for this competition. Feel free to discuss with me if you have any idea or comment about this competition.

All the best!!

Wolfgang Bartelme’s “dark” theme is finally out. (The author is the one who created Freshy theme, very popular wordpress theme.) You all can download it here. I think this theme looks really great and I have been waiting this for very long time.

It said,

The theme has been tested on WordPress 2.1.3 with Firefox and Safari, may play well with IE6/7 too. It validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.0, and supports the following plugins:

* flickrRSS
* Gravatar
* Ultimate Tag Warrior
* WP-PageNavi

Download and Demo : http://www.ilemoned.com/wordpress/wptheme-dark

Thanks a lot. iLEMONed

Related ~

• Wordpress Theme: Best of the Best

This is a post that I wrote as a guest blogger in Myo Kyaw Htu’s blog.

Hello my name is Michael Sync. I’m currently running my personal blog on wordpress.com. I was invited by Myo Kyaw Htun to write one post about why I do blogging.

Sharing things

The reason why I blog is simple. I’m the one who believes in the concepts of sharing. And I believe that blogging is the best way of sharing things with everybody over the World. Before I had no idea about blogging, I used to email to my friends with the subject of “Sharing our knowledge” for sharing things if I think those are useful or cool. The most of emails that I sent at that time were the tip/trick, problems and solutions that I found in my real projects. I believe that all of my emails will help when they are in the same situation that I faced. So, you can say that I’m blogging for sharing things with everybody.

Keeping things as references

The another advantage for posting those tips/tricks in my own blog is that I can use them as a reference when I forget.. Initially, I used to keep as a note in text files or word files. but I lost everything when my harddisk crashed. I wanted a place where I put all of my valuable things that I loved without worrying anything. Blog came across for this need. I can put everything and it will serve me back immediately no matter where I’m. So, this is the second reason. I’m blogging for keeping things for my owns references.

Improving my writing skill

Another reason why I’m blogging is that it’s for improving my writing skill. Honestly, I’m not that interest in memorizing the vocabularies and a tons of rules of grammar. (maybe, there are a lot of mistakes in this article too. did you notice that? ) So, I know that I’m not gonna write anything if I don’t do blogging. (No writing means no improvement.) Now, I have a blog so that I could write something.

Expressing my feeling, thoughts and opinions.

Everybody has feeling. Sometimes, we feel so happy. but sometimes, sad. We need someone to talk and share the feeling and things. I would say that blogging is very good for that purpose too. You don’t need to kick the dog if you angry with your boss. You can go and blog about your feeling. There will be somebody who wanna share your feeling. At least, it will make you feel better. So, I’m blogging for expressing my feeling, thoughts and opinions.

Exploring the world and different cultures

I have a dream to go around the World. I wanna know with people from different countries and I wanna learn about their different cultures. Because, it make me see things from different points of view and it will make my life better. But going around the world is not that easy. The easy way to get to know with people from different locations is blogging. Now, I got a lot of friends from different countries because of my blog. So, I would say that I’m blogging for exploring the world and different cultures.

Source of extra income

Blogging is the source of extra income. but I haven’t done anything to earn money with my blog.However, I’m kinda interest about it..
Okay. That is all about. I would like to say thank you to Ko Phyo for inviting me to write this post here. And, thank you all for reading my post.

This article is written for those who wanna install Wordpress software as a backup of their blogs on their windows machines. It is just one shot installation for all required softwares such as PHP, MySQL, Apache and etc without individual downloading or manual configuring.

Normally, it’s kinda hard to install and configure PHP, MySQL, Apache on Windows. You have to download each and every packages. You may need to download the separated packages (eg: UI and Service) for some softwares. You may need to configure some files (eg: *.ini) manually. It’s kinda troublesome.

Now, the way that I show you is very simple. You only need to download one package and this package will install and configure all softwares that you need. This post is not just for installing Wordpress locally. You can use this post as a reference for installing PHP, MySQL , Perl and Apache on your windows.

Okay. Let’s start!

First, you need to download one useful tool called XAMPP.

What is XAMPP?

XAMPP website said that ~

Many people know from their own experience that it’s not easy to install an Apache web server and it gets harder if you want to add MySQL, PHP and Perl.

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start.

XAMPP is a tool that helps you to install MySQL, PHP, Perl, Apache and some more useful PHP applications (eg: phpMyAdmin) on your OS in very easy way without configuring anything. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris. However, this post is created for Windows users only and all screenshots are captured on Windows Vista.

Installing XAMPP ver 1.6.2 (PHP 5.2.2 and 4.7.7, MySQL 5.0.41, Perl and Apache)

Note for those who has installed IIS on your machine: Before installing XAMPP, it is better if you stop IIS (Internet Information Service ) because Apache Web Server will be used port 80 so that if IIS is currently using that port then Apache won’t be able to start the Service.

1. Download xampp-win32-1.6.2-installer.exe from this link. and Click the installer.

( The Wranning Messagebox will be shown if your OS is Windows Vista. Just click “OK” but Ensure that you install this package in the location that you have “Write” permission. If you are not sure about that, please just install “C:\xampp\”)

2. Click “Next”

3. Click “Next”

4. Check all three checkedboxes under Service Section. And Click “Install”

(Wait 1 or 2 minutes while installing. )

5. Click “Finish” button to finish the installation.

This is all about installing PHP, MySQL and Apache on your machine. The picture below is the directory structure of XAMPP that you just install in your machine.

Let’s start installing Wordpress in your machine.

Installing Wordpress in your machine

1. Download zip file from http://wordpress.org. And Extract it in your machine. Then, Copy and Paste it under htdocs folder of XAMPP installation. (eg: C:\xampp\htdocs\)

2. Type “http://localhost/phpmyadmin/” in your favorite browser.

3. Type “wordpress” in “Create New Database” textbox and click “Create” button. (The new database called “wordpress” will be created in MySQL database.)

4. Type “http://localhost/wordpress/” in browser (The following screen will be shown in your browser.) Click “create a wp-config file through a web interface”.

5. Click “Lets go” link

6. Click “Submit” button. (You should note that the default password of MySQL Server is blank and the default user name is “root”. If you have the custom user name and password then please fill accordingly.And ensure that you have “Write” permission to wp-config file and Wordpress folder.)

7. Now, you have finished configuring wp-config file and you are ready to start installing Wordpress in your machine. In order to start the installation, click “run the install” link.

8. Fill the title of your blog and your Email address. You can also check whether you want your blog to be visible in Search Engines. This option is not important since you are installing Wordpress in your local machine with the purpose of backing-up your blog or personal uses. Then, Click “Continue to Second Step” button.

9. It will show you that the database has been created and the default has been filled. It will give you the admin user name and the generated password for admin user. (I would suggest you to change this generated password to something that is easy to memorize for you.)

Now, the installation is done with a few steps. You can start log-in to your wordpress.

Thats all about installing php, mysql, apache and wordpress installation on Windows. It is sooo easy, isn’t it? Let me know if you have any idea or comment for this post… Thanks for reading..

Introduction
[digg=http://digg.com/software/Blogging_Tips_for_Novice_Bloggers]

This article is a collection of useful links for those who are new to blogging. Initially, I was thinking to write each and every tips by myself but there are a lot of cool articles about blogging so that I don’t need to repeat again. (I don’t want my blog to be a clone blog.) What I’m going to do here is that I will give you a collection links of useful articles written by professional bloggers (such as Lorelle VanFossen (Lorelle on WordPress), Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) and so on). One thing you should know is that it’s NOT like I just read one article and give it to you. I was spending so much time for reading about this in different blogs. All links that I’m giving you here are the best and my favorite. I believe that you will find it useful.

What is a blog/weblog?

• Introduction to blogging by Wordpress Codex : This article covers everything about blogging. It mentions very clear definition of blog, the differences between a blog and CMS, some important blogging vocabularies, some blogging tips and etc.

• What is a blog? by ProBlogger : If you are still confused, I wanna suggest you to read this article written by Darren Rowse, the owner of problogger.net. He shares his own opinion and other people’s opinions about what a blog is in this article. You can get the definition of blog from different point of view.

The History of Blogging

• Weblogs: a history and perspective by rebecca’s pocket

Very important points you should know before start blogging

• Blogging is kinda hard. Blogging is not for everybody. Blogging is harder than you think.I have seem a lot of people who left their blogs. They just lost their interest of blogging due to a lot of reasons. Actually, building a successful blog is really hard. It need time to build it up.

• Your blog is not your diary. This is very important point that you should know before start blogging. Some people might say that blog is like online diary or something. I’m not agreed with that. There are some people who lost their jobs cuz of their blogs. EngTech wrote excellent post about 5 Reasons Blogging Leads to the Unemployment Line (You’re Fired!). ( I don’t wanna hear that you have arrested cuz of your blog. )

• Copyright Copyright is very important thing that you need to keep in mind. You need to respect other’s creation or work. The same way, you should know what to do when someone is stealing your work. Finding Stolen Content and Copyright Infringements and What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content from Lorelle’s blog are the best for this issue.

Okay. Now, you have some ideas about what you should know before jumping into blogging world.

Think about blogging platform

• Chossing a blog platform : This article is written by the owner of problogger.net. It will give nice idea about which blog platform is right for you.

Are you gonna use free blogging software?

If you are gonna use free blogging software then the following list are very popular blogging platform. You can choose one of them.

• Wordpress.com
• Blogger.com
• Windows Live™ Space
• LiveJournal

Maybe, you might wanna read the comparison between those blogging service. Unfortunately, I don’t have the completed list. If you are interest about wordpress.com and blogger version 2, you can read my article “Wordpress.com Vs Blogger2“.

Note: If you choose to use Wordpress.com then you can ask me if you have any problem in using wordpress. I’ve been here over 1 year. I think I might able to help you.

Paid-hosting?

Paid-hosting is nice but not suitable for novice bloggers since you have to take care of everything. You have to know how to instal your blog, how to use FTP, security, bandwidth, domain name and configuration, budget and etc. However, you can do it if you want to. Don’t forget to read this article “Chossing a blog platform” again.

The following links might be useful for you ~

• Choosing the Domain Name for your Blog : If you are launching a blog for yourself, it’s easy. You just need to register your name. But if you are creating a blog for specific thing then it’s very important to have the right domain name which is match with your content. The article above will guide you everything about choosing the domain name for your blog.
• Genealogy Blog: The Blog Budget - How Much Does a Blog Cost? This article covers all expensive such as buying domain name, hosting, tools (camera, scanner, printer), software (photo editing software) and so on.
• Blog Building: Who Controls Your Blog? You? Your Host? The most of people think that if we buy a hosting, we can do everything. Sometimes, it’s not like that. There are a lot of hidden pain with hosting service provider. Who controls your blog? By lorelle and Do you own your website? by Dawud Miracle are the best for you to read for this point.

Advantages of having a blog (Why blog?)

As Engtech said in this post,

• Blogging makes you stand out from the crowd
• Blogs are the modern resume (ask Doug)
• Blogging helps you expand your network of contacts
• Blogging is a great way to learn new skills
• Blogging can be a career of its own

Conclusion

Those are the things that you should know before blogging. I believe that blogging is really nice. At least, you have something to do in your spare time.

There is one point that doesn’t include in this article. This is about driving traffic to you blog or promoting your blog or building a relationship with blog reader. I will write about this in another post. Please keep on waiting.

Feel free to let me know if you have any suggestion.
[digg=http://digg.com/software/Blogging_Tips_for_Novice_Bloggers]
Thanks a lot.

StumbleUpon Rocks! Someone submits one of my fav jokes to StumbleUpon on April 24, 2007. I got 1,312 page views on that day. Wow! (Chk-out my stat below!). This is the very first time that I got that much page views for a day. I’d like to say thank you so much to the one who submitted my post to Stumble and I wanna thank for those who are visiting my blog.

Why don’t you sign-up in StumbleUpon and submit your favorite post? Wishing you to get a million of visitors for your blog. Good Luck!

~ Mike

Updated on April 28th, 2007:

People on StumbleUpon like funny?

I think, Yes!. I created an account in StumbleUpon. I submitted some of my posts related to programming things. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that much page views. then, I realized that people from StumbleUpon may like jokes or funny things very much. It’s good anyway. I have a lot of jokes in blog. (here goes.) this one and that one are the most commented posts in my blog.

Updated on 3rd April, 2007

Updated on 21st May, 2007

LittleGreenFootballs Rocks too!! I got 4711 pageviews on 13rd May, 2007.. Thanks a lot. littlegreenfootballs!!