Michael Sync

I have good news for today. Joseph Scott, the newest member of the Automattic team, announced that new Tag Cloud widget and a few new options for categories/achieves have been added to wordpress.com.

Clouds and Drop Downs said that ~

Now on to the news: another new widget, and a new option for a few others.

For those of you who are really into tag clouds you’re in luck, now you can display your blog categories as cloud using the new Tag Cloud widget.

If you aren’t into tag clouds, but still looking for something a little different in the way you display categories we have something for you too. The Categories and Archives widgets now have options to use a drop down menu. This will be especially helpful to those of you who want your categories and archives list to take up less room on the sidebar.

We, all wp bloggers, are waiting this widget for long time. Initially, engTech came up with his own program called Tag Cloud Generator that can generate a cloud of tags or categories for blogs which are hosted in wordpress.com. His/her (I’m not sure whether engtech is a guy or girl so “his/her” ) program is really cool and I like it. (you may check the demo here.) But the weak point of this generator is that it require manual synchronization between your categories of your blogs and the tag cloud that you have generated. I do understand that it has to be synchronize manually since wp.com doesn’t allow users to add any scripts in our blogs.

Now, brand new widget called Tag Cloud is available in widget panel as below pic. As wordpress guys added this widget into wp system, this widget doesn’t require any manual synchronizing and it already integrate with Wordpress MU system. how cool it is!

(You can find this widget in Presentation of Admin-Bar>Widgets as usual. The term “Side bar” has been changed to “Widgets” in Presentation section of Wordpress MU started from yesterday.)

Here is preview of Tag Cloud and new options of Categories/Archieves. (Ref: Clouds and Drop Downs)

I hope that you all have great time with this widget “tag cloud” in your blogs today.

Happy blogging!

More Informations about Tags/Tag Cloud ~

• Tag Cloud
• Tag (metadata)

Updated: I have tried to add tag cloud in my blog but it doesn’t look good. It’s so sad.)

Updated:

As Joseph Scott commented as below

Michael,

Post a screen shot of what the tag cloud widget looked like, what was wrong with it, what you expected it to look like and what theme you were using.

Then drop me a note at http://joseph.randomnetworks.com/contact/ with the details. I’ll see what I can do.

I have posted a screenshot as below of what my tagcloud look like.

Actually, I would like to get a tagcloud like this one.

Thanks a lot. Joseph. I’m really glad that I got a comment from you. Josept. I used to post some of my wordpress problems in my blog but I never get any comment or reply from wordpress guys except wp guys did reply if I send a mail via feedback. Thanks again for your comment. and hope, there will be more cool ppl like you in Automattic team.

Did you know that Box.net Widget has been added to the sidebar of your blog?

Box.net Official blog announced this news on April 13, 2007. But I didn’t know about that since I’m not used to visit their blog. Anyway, I’m really glad to hear that news and I’m really appreciate it.

Presentation>Sidebar Widgets

Box.net File Sharing Widget

Update:

Unfortunately, this widget seems doesn’t work well so far. I have tried to add two or three times but it doesn’t work. It just keep on showing the following message ~

No files!
If you are the owner of this widget, click below to upload

It’s so sad.. I hope that wp.com will fix this issue as soon as possible.. maybe. that’s why wp.com hasn’t announced about this in their blog.

Have you tried to add it? What do u think about this brand new widget??

Update:

Wordpress announced about Box.net Filesharing Widget yesterday. If you wanna see how this widget looks like, check-out here. WP also provided the detailed FAQ [link] about how to use this widget in wp.com blogs. I haven;’t tested yet. Hope, it will work..

When I posted this post in my blog, it reminds me one of the new features of Outlook 2007 called RSS Feed Reader. I started using this feature last month and I think that it’s not bad. You can simply add any RSS Feed to Feed reader of Outlook 2007. It will download all of your posts including comments as attachment in your pst file.

Let’s take a look how to do it.

Step #1: Open “Folder List” panel in Outlook. then, Right Click on RSS Feed Note as picture below. And Choose “Add a New RSS Feed”

Step #2: Type the url of RSS Feed that you wanna subscribe. And Click “Add”

Step #3: Click “Advanced..” button in this dialog.

Step #4: Check “Download the full article as an .html attachement to each item” in “RSS Feed Option” dialog. Then, Click “OK”.

Step #5: After clicking “OK” button in “Feed Option” dialog, you will see the previous dialog that you see in step #3. then, Click “Yes”. Then, Outlook will automatically start downloading all of items that are shown in RSS Feed to your Outlook.

After downloading, you can check each item by clicking “View article…” link.

That’s all. What do you think?

Note that you should set maximum number to RSS Count in “Syndication Feeds” option of your blog because Outlook is gonna download ONLY posts which are shown in the feed that you give.

As conclusion, it’s just alternative way of backing up our blog. It’s not very good way. As we, wordpress blogger, already have build-in “Import/Export” functionality in our blog, the best way would be exporting all of our posts as a xml file manually and save it in our machines. (But yes, people used to forget to do that. )

More Info ~

• [Microsoft] What’s new in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
  
• [Microsoft] Introduction to RSS
• [Microsoft] Get our RSS Feeds for Outlook
• Microsoft Outlook 2007 RSS Feed Reader

Hey. Check-out this article “Backup your blog with BlogBackupOnline“. I think it is very interesting.

Related ~

• BlogBackupOnline - Back up your blog online
• BlogBackupOnline - Sign Up

[digg=http://digg.com/software/Wordpress_Theme_Best_of_the_Best/]

Dark Theme

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

Note: This screenshot doesn’t look nice since the resolution is very low. I suggest you to check the demo in the link above. It’s awesome.. I mean it..

So Suechti

Demo and Download : http://www.sosuechtig.de/wordpress/

Freshy v1.2

Download : http://www.ilemoned.com/wordpress/wptheme-fresh

Freshy v1.0

Download : http://www.jide.fr/english/downloads/template-freshy-wordpress/

Freshy ( Not so fresh )

Download : http://www.xsized.de/wordpress-theme-not-so-fresh/

iTheme

Download | Demo

Note: Better take some time if the demo is not refresh because Wordpress Theme Switcher doesn’t like to do so quick.

GlossyBlue

Download | Demo

Note: Better take some time if the demo is not refresh because Wordpress Theme Switcher doesn’t like to do so quick.

Sunburn 1.1

Download ~ Sunburn 1.1 in Theme Viewer

Note: This theme is created by Sunburn and Jim Whimpey. But I found very interesting thing as below in Sunburn’s site.

Sunburn was ugly and I hate it. So now it’s gone.

There’s far too much on my plate. If I really want to get something significant done I have to do less insignificant things. Sunburn was one of those things. I never even liked Sunburn. I can’t believe it made Wordpress.com and to to honest, I hate it being on Wordpress.com. It’s no longer available for download here. If you’re interested in the significant things you should visit The Jim Whimpey Weblog and Brisbane Creative.

Garland

Download | Demo ( it’s really nice demo.***)

Vertigo

WordPress Theme w6003

That’s all for now.

Feel free to let me know if you have any favorite theme or template. If your favorite theme is not wordpress theme, it’s okay. We can at least check the design. and maybe, we can port it to wp theme..

Thanks.Updated (19th April, 2007): I like the design of the following sites. Those designs are superb.

1. iLEMONed
2. Bartelme Design

Update (21st April, 2007) :

Just Skin

Download and Demo : http://www.justskins.com/

Thanks to Myo Chau Htun.

Update: @1Smmerburst

Download and Demo : @1Summerburst: Hot Web2.0 WordPress Theme!

PressRow (Update)

Cultline

Download ~

• PressRow: http://www.findcreditcards.org/pressrow/
• Cultine: http://www.pearsonified.com/themes/

Thanks to Ashish.C.

[digg=http://digg.com/software/Wordpress_Theme_Best_of_the_Best/]

References ~

1. 83 beautiful wordpress themes you probably haven’t seen (Thanks to Myo Kyaw Htun for giving this link to me)
2. Wordpress: Theme Viewer

It’s so sad for me to hear that SiteMeter, a well-known web stats providers, is pushing specificclick tracking and advertising cookies on to visitors of sites using their service. (You may already heard about this since it was happened last month.) For me, that news is pretty new. Actually, I came to know about this when I read this post in Wordpress Support Forum.

When it was started?

Actually, nobody noticed about specificclick tracking or cookies of SiteMeter before StatCounter published this post “StatCounter Says NO!” as below in their Official blog on March 25, 2007.

A few months back, StatCounter was approached by an advertiser, offered lots of $$$, and asked to include a spyware cookie on all of our member sites…we refused on the spot.

You install StatCounter to track visitors to your site NOT to open yourself and your visitors up to being spied upon by phantom advertising corporations.

It appears, however, that other players in the world of webstats were happy to take up this offer…

We were shocked to discover just today that another well known stats provider is allowing up to 9 cookies to be installed in the browser of every visitor that hits one of their member websites. This means that the provider is making money by transmitting data on you and your visitors to a third party advertiser. Not only that, but to add insult to injury, the cookies are causing the member websites to load very slowly too.

But StatCounter didn’t mention the exact name of web stats provider.

Sitemeter?

Eric Odom came up with this post as below after doing some reaseaches on different stat trackers.

I use several different stat trackers on all of my sites and blogs, so naturally, I went on a frantic hunt to figure out who had sold out.

In comes Sitemeter…

I have indeed been able to confirm, on two of my own sites, that Sitemeter is sending specificclick cookies onto websites hosting the counter. I immediately removed the counter and now have all of my sites using StatCounter or Google Analytics.

Sitemeter has gone silent today. Not a peep has been mentioned on their blog, and so far my e-mail has not been responded to.

I certainly hope Sitemeter will confront this, bail out on the spam advertiser, and get back on track. If not, users will be sure there is hell to pay.

So yes, it has been confirmed, Sitemeter has apparently sold out to Spyware.

What a shame.

UPDATE: A Digger just e-mailed me the following information.

The parent company of specificclick.net is Specific Media. This was originally spotted by a Digger who noticed the Specific Media logo on the specificclick homepage, which oddly enough, has vanished from the web.

Another interesting tidbit as pointed out on Digg is that at the time of posting this, Sitemeter has NOT YET updated its privacy policy to reflect the deal they did with Specific Media.

I believe that there are a lot of people who are really disappointed with Sitemeter. I wonder how come Sitemeter wanna do like that. Money is an issue? I think, Money should not be an issue for them since they have really nice and popular service and they also have a lot of paid users. Anyway, they are gonna lost a lot of both free users or paid users because of that.

Sitemeter didn’t say anything?

No. Here is the reply from SiteMeter.

Hello,

Thanks for your email.

The cookie you are seeing is from a trusted partner who we are working with to provide more intelligence to you about your visitors. In the past few days we’ve begun beta testing this cookie.

Over the next few months we will be rolling out enhancements to our service that will offer you more information about your users like their other content interests and demographics (a la Quantcast). In addition this cookie will allow us to offer other new useful features in the future, including tracking Unique Visitors, Heat Mapping etc.

We believe that this new information along with our current services we already provide will be of great benefit to our users. Keep watching our page for announcements regarding these upgrades and changes. We would also ask that you use discretion in sharing this information. We are trying not to show our hand to our competitors.

If you would rather not participate in this process we can offer you a couple options -

1 - If you replace your current Java code with the standard HTML Sitemeter code the cookie will no longer be issued.
2 - We can move you to a new server that will be restricted from the cookie process.

If you would like to move to the restricted server please let us know and we will create a new FREE upgraded account for you. We won’t be able to transfer any historical data, but you will still be able to log into your old account and view your old account stats.

Thanks,
The Sitemeter Team

Even thought they replied like that, there are a lot of people who stopped using their service.

Debbie’s Blatherings said that ~

Even if Sitemeter somehow manages to pull itself out of this mess, I have chosen to remove Sitemeter from my blogs because:

1. That little multi-coloured logo is no longer going to be a relatively neutral addition to sites; many are going to associate it with spyware, and may actively avoid sites that display it.

2. I no longer trust the company.

Update:You don’t believe Sitemeter did like that?

Okay. Let me show you one thing. Please follow the steps below. (Note: if you are gonna remove all cookies in your browser then some of websites won’t remember you so that you have to log-in again to your account.)

1. Open your browser (I used Firefox 2.0.0.3 in this demostration)
2. Remove All Cookies (Tools>Options>Privacy>Show Cookies>Remove All Cookies)
3. Browse this page “Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services” (Note: This site is using sitemeter stat counter until now (April 4th, 2007. 10:54 AM <TimeZone: (GMT + 06:30)> ))
4. Wait til the time loading is completed
5. then, check the Cookies again (Tools>Options>Privacy>Show Cookies>) (Observe: you will see specificclick.net in Cookie List as the screenshot below.)

Note: I have tested those steps above and capture the screenshot on April 4th, 2007. 10:54 AM <TimeZone: (GMT + 06:30)>

Future Plan

Okay. It happened already. So, lets discuss about what things we should do next.

As a lot of people are using Sitemeter for so long, I’m sure that those cookies has been installed in our browsers. So, we should start cleaning all cookies in our browser(s) . (Note: if you are gonna clear all cookies then some of websites won’t remember you so that you have to log-in again to your account.)

1. How to clear cookies in Firefox 2.0.0.3

1. Go to Tools -> Options
2. Go to Privacy tab on Options dialog
3. Click “Show Cookies” button
4. Click “Remove All Cookies” button in “Cookie” dialog ( if you wanna remove all cookies )

If you are not Firefox user, please read here.

2. How to block Specificclick tacking cookies (Thanks to the author of this post.)

1. Open the “Tools” menu.
2. Select “Options”.
3. Select the “Privacy” tab to open sub-menu.
4. Click “Show cookies”.
5. In the search box provided type in Specificclick to narrow down your results.
6. Remove all cookies that remaining by selecting them and clicking “Remove Cookie”.
7. Click “Close”
8. Click “Exceptions”.
9. Type specificclick.net under Address of website:
10. Click “Block”
11. Type adopt.specificclick.net under Address of website Update
12. Click “Block”
13. Close all remaining Dialog boxes.

If you are not a fun of firebox, you may read the instruction of other browsers here.

3. Which stats provider should I use instead of Sitemeter?

Google Analytics : Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. Focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors. (Plus. Integrated with AdWords.)

StatCounter offers free and paid stat tracker service. They also support an invisible web tracker for free users and paid users.

4. How to verify whether a particular web tracker is safe to use?

1. Open your browser
2. Clear your cookies in your browser
3. Browse your site that is using web tracker

You should see any other cookies except the one that you use (eg: statcounter) .

Conclusion

One thing that I learn from this is that we should not just so happy if we got something as free. We should check whether those free stuffs are safe to use or not. And we all should know that there might be something behind those free stuffs.

Another thing that I learn is that don’t do it if you don’t want other people to know. cuz Internet is too small to hide.

References ~

• Wordpress Forum: “SiteMeter” - It was only a matter of time I guess!
• StatCounter Says NO!
• SiteMeter Sending Your Readers’ Data to Specific Media
• Did Sitemeter sell out to Spyware?
• Sitemeter responds
• Sitemeter.com, spyware cookies, and bad PR
• Betrayal of Trust is SiteMeter.com Planting 3rd Party Cookie?
• So-long to SiteMeter You Wont Be Missed
• SiteMeter and Spyware (Sort of)
• HTTP cookie
• Spyware Cookies