The Sun's Financial Diary » Blog

A New Look

Sun — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:22:22 +0000

If you get the contents of this blog via a feed reader, chances are you haven’t visited the site for some time (though I do have some related post links in my feed). If that’s the case, then I invite you to come back for a look because the site just got a facelift. It is totally different from what you saw when you became a subscriber

There are two major changes. The first one is a new logo, which was designed by Eat Breath Sleep Graphic Design. I worked with the designer for about a month in April to complete the product, which I think presents the name of this blog very well. The theme was from PremiumThemes. Though it isn’t custom-made, I am pretty happy with the layout and colors. After making some minor modifications myself over the Memorial Day weekend (since I am not really good at CSS and PHP, even the minor changes took me quite some time), the new design went live this Monday, so it has been there for several days already.

Come over and take a look at the new The Sun’s Financial Diary. Let me know what and where can be improved. You know your comments/suggestions are always appreciated

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A New Look

What to Do with Plagiarism?

Sun — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:34:23 +0000

When I was doing my Around PFBlogosphere Tuesday evening, I noticed a post on pfblogs.org with the title “Get Your $250 Bonus from Chase Freedom!” The post got my attention because I posted entry early in the day on the $200 bonus I received from Chase Freedom card. Could the deal come back again? Out of curiosity, I clicked the link and went to a website called Credit Card Blog (www.0-apr-creditcards.com) and what I saw really bothered me.

The following is a screenshot of the post I captured two days ago. It was almost entirely copied from my post and the image in the post was a hot link to my picture, yet there was no mention of the original post at all.

I have no problem for others using my material, texts or images, as long as a link to the original post is provided. In fact, I myself use published contents once in a while quite often when the topics really interest me (for example, those under Article category), but I always link to the original article and quote the part I use. The above post, however, doesn’t look right to me because one can’t simply copy and past other’s work and claim it’s his own. So I left a comment asking to link to my post otherwise remove the post. No response after two days.

Since I don’t like the author just use my image without even mentioning the source, I renamed the picture in my post yesterday morning, but not for long, the Credit Card Blog renewed the link in his post as well and pointed to the new image. So the author was aware of my complain, but refused to acknowledge it and make the change! That I don’t understand why. What does he get to lose?

Actually, the URL of the website looks familiar so I searched my email folder and found a message from the same author a couple of months ago asking for link exchange. Is it possible that since I didn’t reply the email (and didn’t agree for the link exchange of course) the author was mad about me so he decided to ignore my request this time ?

Hi,
My name is Adam xxxxxxxx and I am the webmaster for www.0-apr-creditcards.com/blog. Which is called Credit Card Blog and I was reading over some of your posts and really enjoyed what I read. I was wondering if you would like to add me to your blogroll and I will do the same back to you. I feel like our readers could benefit from each others posts. Please let me know what you think.

Have a Good Day
Adam

Well, Adam, if that’s the way you enjoyed my posts, you can stop it now!

BTW, when I went to Credit Card Blog again last night to see if the post was removed, I found it was still there yet with a new image! Since the picture was quite disturbing, I don’t want to show it here, but I did take another screenshot of the post (the picture is still there, so no link to my screenshot now).

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Today’s 10 Top 5’s

Sun — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:03:50 +0000

OK, time for a little entertainment from today’s Top 5:

Plannin’ on some kissin’? 5 Foods to Keep Your Breath Fresh! by Ross — I have been wasting my money on mint
Top Five Super-Fun Ways To Stay Super-Fun Fit! (Betcha didn’t think of these.) by Julie Alexander — Too bad I can’t do them while I am writing this post.
Joy’s Top 5 THAI FOOD Cooking Recipes from Thailand! (^v^) by Joy Buasi — I LOVE Thai food.
Top 5 Mother’s Day Gifts for a Homeschooling Mom by Summer M — I can use some tips.
5 Beauty Products Which Can Save Your Life by Andrea — Including soap made out of bamboo?
The Top Five Reasons NOT to Read This Blog by Kathy — I am guilty of spending too much time on blogging.
5 ways to get your kids to talk about school by Mike — One day I will have to use them.
The Power of the Future: Top 5 inventions of Nikola Tesla by Danica Radovanovic — It’s always good to know how we get here today.
Self Improvement Strategy: Top 5 Reasons to put a STOP to Top 5 Lists! by Aaron Potts — “Enough is Enough!”

Finally, a little bit about China (sort of)

China’s Top 5 Most Beautiful Girls by fiLi

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Today’s 10 Top 5’s

Sun — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:03:31 +0000

Today is the second day of the Top 5 Group Writing Project at Problogger.net and there are a total of 243 submissions (wow). Here are my findings:

Top Five to Do While You Live by Mark — And it includes “Go Nowhere, Do Nothing?”
Top 5 Reasons Personal Finance Blogs Are Better Than The Media by Canadian Dream — I wonder.
Top 5 Cutest Gadgets Ever by Cutie — Gee, they ARE cute.
Top 5 Physical Therapist Recommended Body Hacks by Eric Robertson — Could be very helpful.
Do You Know These 5 Easy Ways of Making Online Friends? by kayliz — Only if that’s what you want.
Top 5 Hottest Blogger Fantasies by Sharon Sarmiento — I don’t know how much my blog worth. Or do I really care?
Top 5 most entertaining foreign films of the last decade by Jithin Jerald — Have you seen any?
Five Keys to Developing the Heart of a Champion by Ian McKenzie — The 5C approach.
Top 5 Reasons to NOT Get Married by Kerri Aldrich — Somebody must have top 5 reasons to get married )

And finally

Top 5 videos to take the edge off of a long day by pearl — At least it worked for me.

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Today’s 10 Top 5’s

Sun — Tue, 08 May 2007 16:36:04 +0000

I went through the first batch of Top 5 Group Writing Project hosted at ProBlogger.net and found 10 Top 5 articles that are very interesting:

Top 5 Healthy Relaxation Techniques by Jacob — Now I don’t have to go to the gym.
Top 5 Steps to Securing your Data by Geoff — Make sure your data is safe and secure. I like the “Encrypt sensitive data” tip.
Top Five Ways To Creatively Acheive Your Goal by Lexi Sundell — To acheive your goal, you have to “Take action on your best ideas.”
How To Figure Out What To Read Next–Top Five Resources by Superfast Reader — I found Amazon.com recommendations are quite valuable as well, not just for books.
Top 5 freeware PC utilities by Gili — I have been using Adobe all the time and just found Foxit Reader is an alternative.
Top 5 WordPress Plugins That Help Increase Comments by JohnTP — I will have to use them myself.
Five Super-Duper Easy Ways to “Green” Your Life by lornadoone — Reduce, reuse indeed.
Make Your Children Healthier by Feeding Them More Sugar by Allen Holman — What? But don’t let the title fool you!
The Top 5 Time Savers in My Kitchen by Maricar — And I have a thermal cooker.
5 Gifts for Mom That Won’t Ever Go Out of Fashion by ispf — Now I know what I should do, )

And here’s my submission: Top 5 Reasons I Started and Continue A Personal Finance Blog

Enjoy!

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Today’s 10 Top 5’s

Amazon.com Introduces Context Link Program

Sun — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:20:29 +0000

Amazon.com today announces its own Context Link program. The program is still in the beta stage and what it does is to find the phrase in your posts and match it with certain Amazon products. Though Amazon allows user to customize the appearance of their context link ads, you have to be careful not to make the ads look identical as Google AdSense ads if you are also running AdSense on your site. Google allows competitive context ads to be served on the same page, but the condition is they don’t have the same appearance as AdSense ads:

In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.

The good news is that the ad link appears in the post and a preview window will appear if you also have Amazon.com Product Preview enabled. So the ad will show up in a different format from Google AdSense ads. With this program, it is convenient to bloggers who want to promote Amazon.com products because now you don’t have to build individual link for each product.

The following are some description about the program from the email I received from Amazon.com and don’t forget to check out their FAQ page for more details about this program:

Who Should Use Context Links?

Context Links are for people looking for an easy way to generate money from the content they write. Bloggers, review sites, and people that have archived pages that are currently not monetized are excellent candidates for Context Link.

Why Should I Use Context Links?

Earn Additional Referral Fees – By identifying and linking relevant phrases in your content, Context Links will unlock new advertising inventory, thereby providing the opportunity to earn incremental referral fees.

Convenience – Embed a piece of code on your page one time and automatically monetize both current and future content. This saves you the time from having to manually create Text Links.

Delight Your Site Visitors – Context Links provide your site visitors links to relevant products on Amazon.com, and the interactive preview functionality allows them to view these products in the context of your website without having to leave it.
Why Launch With a Beta?

We want your feedback. We have just completed a closed Beta, and we are proud of the results. An open Beta will allow us to gather more feedback that will be instrumental as we continue to improve Context Links.

How Do Context Links Work?

After you embed one simple piece of code on your pages, Context Links will identify and link contextually relevant phrases within your content to Amazon.com products. If you enable the preview functionality your site visitors will see a preview of an Amazon.com product relevant to the phrase we selected. Clicking on the link will send your site visitors to the product detail page on Amazon.com, and you will earn referral fees just as you would with any link you hand-picked.

Setting up Context Links for your website is quick and easy. Simply:

Visit Associates Central->Build Links->Context Links
Specify the maximum number of links you’d like on each page
Optionally customize the display of the links with a couple clicks
Copy/paste the generated code into your pages

Can I Customize the Links?

Yes, we have provided numerous customization options for Context Links allowing you to control:

the number of links on each page
which portion of the page will be linked
which Amazon product categories are linked
the matching of exact product names only
if preview windows will appear when your site visitors hover over the links, and the style of those windows
the options of single underline, dashed underline, and double underline link formats to indicate to your site visitors that they are Context Links

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A Couple of Firefox Extensions for Blogging

Sun — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:16:41 +0000

These are in addition to those popular Firefox extensions for blogging and social networks, such as del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Performancing. The first one is SEO for Firefox. The second one is AdSense Notifier.

SEO for Firefox is tool that will let you check your Google PageRank as well as links with search engines such as Yahoo, MSN. It also shows Alexa traffic ranking and del.icio.us and Technorati links. It's a very convenient tool for bloggers who want to get some statistics about their blogs. However, the developer of this extension suggests that

If you are casually surfing please turn this extension off. Only turn it on if you are actively researching a market.

So if you want to use it, only use it when it's necessary. This extension can be turned on and off and configured to display only the data that you are interested in. Of course, Google Toolbar for Firefox can also display the PageRank information.

If you installed AdSense and to check how you are doing today, AdSense Notifier can simplify your task. It's a tool that displays page impressions, clicks, and earnings of the day for both ads and search. The extension automatically refreshes very 15 minutes (the minimum interval) and by a simple click, you can log in you AdSense account.

These extensions may not enhance your blog, but they are very convenient.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

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A Couple of Firefox Extensions for Blogging

PayPerPost Buys Parts of Performancing.com

Sun — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:59:05 +0000

PayPerPost announced today that it is acquiring Performancing LLC, operator of Performancing.com. According the press release,

PayPerPost gains a number of powerful blogger support tools including Performancing Metrics, the leading, free blog analytics service, and Performancing Exchange, an online "classifieds" for bloggers.

However, PayPerPost doesn't "acquire the Performancing for Firefox blog editor technology and the Performancing Partners ad technology." Therefore, I think the Performancing Partners ad on your blog (if you have one) will not be affected by this deal, at least for now.

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Now I’m Done

Sun — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 05:53:31 +0000

After I posted the "Merry Christmas!" entry, Golbguru suggested I should catch up some sleep instead of staying late and blogging. Well, I guess I should take his advice because the past week was really a busy one at work and I had to work over time a couple of days to finish a project before holiday (and that's why I had a light-blogging week). I AM pretty tired. But there was one more thing I want to do before going to bed: Leave a "Merry Christmas!" comment to everybody on my blogroll. Since I don't have a long list, it took me about 20 minutes to complete the mission.

Now I am done for today.

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Now I’m Done

Add Stock Quotes to Your Site for Free

Sun — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 02:29:58 +0000

I tried before to add quotes of stocks I own on my Diary, but didn’t get the right tool until last night when I found one from Yahoo Finance.

The tool is free, but only up to 10 stocks can be displayed, one with chart and the other nine quotes only (as you can see on the right sidebar). For the purpose of displaying stock prices, the tool does the job though the quotes are delayed (of course) as those free quotes you can get from any where (got to pay for real time). It’s not an essential tool for blogging, but I think it’s convenient and fits quite well in the general contents of a PF blog.

Though I didn’t pay a penny for the tool, it isn’t really free as Yahoo displays its stuff (quote search, web search, and ads obviously) on the badge. That’s free advertisement for Yahoo!

Anyway, if you want to try it, click here.

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Add Stock Quotes to Your Site for Free

Thanks, Flexo

Sun — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 20:26:54 +0000

I was among the bloggers mentioned in Flexo's "New Personal Finance Blogs." As a new comer, any mention is good, especially in this fast growing personal finance blog community. Since joining in August, I have learned a lot from fellow bloggers such as Flexo, Jim, Jonathan, 2million, JLP, FMF, Tricia, Madame X, and Single Ma, to name just a few. It's truly a mind-opening, fulfilling, and enriching experience. I only wish I had discovered it sooner.

Finally, happy blogging, reading, and participating!

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Thanks, Flexo

So the Total Number of Visitors Today is

Sun — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:58:06 +0000

410! I don't think I will get any number close to 410 on a daily basis any time soon, but you never know. Maybe tomorrow I can again come up a similar one that attracted so many visitors! Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary Special bonus offers OptionsHouse 100 Commission Free Trades Lending Club $25 Sign Up Bonus TradeKing $50 [...]

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So the Total Number of Visitors Today is

250+ Visitors Today: A Big and Pleasant Surprise

Sun — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 22:26:10 +0000

On the way to work this morning, I heard on the radio (WCBS) that a new list of safest cities was out today. The news interested me because it mentioned that St. Louis, MO, which just won the MLB title replaced, Camdan, NJ, as the most dangerous city in the nation. When I got into office, I checked the WCBS website and posted an entry "How Safe is Your City? Here’s the Best, Worst, and in Between" with the complete list from WCBS.

This afternoon, after I clicked my sitemeter button, I was surprised to find that I got more than 250 visitors today already and the number kept growing! Since I launched this Diary early last month, the average is about 60 visitors every day and 250 is just a unbelievable number. From the detailed information on Sitmeter, I found most of the visitors came to the above post. And where did they come from? From here!

Well, maybe I should do this kind of post a little more often .

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250+ Visitors Today: A Big and Pleasant Surprise

WordPress Users Can Ping Google Automatically

Sun — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 20:32:03 +0000

According to Renie Ravin at Skepticity, Wordpress users can use Google's newly launched ping service and ping Google blog search automatically by adding the following

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

to "Update Services" under Option -> Write.

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WordPress Users Can Ping Google Automatically

Google Introducing New Ping Service

Sun — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 03:58:00 +0000

Google today introduced its own ping service:

Today we’re launching the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, which is a way for individual bloggers and blog platform providers to inform us of content changes. Blogging providers who syndicate RSS/Atom/XML and want to be included in our Blog Search index can now ping us directly.

Click here to manually ping Google and click here to see if Google can find your latest update.

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Google Introducing New Ping Service

Ping Google and Get Your Blog Updated with Google Blog Search

Sun — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 01:21:30 +0000

Google today introduced its own ping service.

Today we're launching the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, which is a way for individual bloggers and blog platform providers to inform us of content changes. Blogging providers who syndicate RSS/Atom/XML and want to be included in our Blog Search index can now ping us directly.

Click here to manually ping Google and click here to see if Google can find your latest update.

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Ping Google and Get Your Blog Updated with Google Blog Search

LinkWorth

Sun — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 04:29:14 +0000

Following a link on pfblog.org speaks, I checked the link worth of my diary:

What does it mean to me? I am not so sure at this moment since my diary is quite new and it's too early to talk about advertising. But it's still good to know its value.

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LinkWorth

So This’ll be My Logo (Hopefully)

Sun — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 04:39:01 +0000

I still like the dragon, but it really doesn't have anything related to my blog. So I decided to replace it, again.

Before settling with the sample one, I went through a couple of other designs. I didn't try to make it impressive, but still wanted it to look nice and different from others. However, all the initial drafts didn't appear to have a goog visual effect at small size. The images were all blurred and nobody, not even me, can tell what they are or what they represent from the address bar.

I am not good at design and coming up with anything fancy will be a huge challenge. If that is something that I can't do, at least I can be simple and that's what I decided to do: be simple. Well, the final version indeed looks simple. Actually, it's so simple that I can even tell what it is from the address bar!

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So This’ll be My Logo (Hopefully)

Added New Logo

Sun — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 04:26:11 +0000

Since I moved my blog from Blogger.com to this new site, I kept twisting it almost every day. First was the theme, then the plugins. Last night, I successfully replaced the default Wordpress logo (the one came with the package) with this new one. I have attempted a couple of times before by searching "logo" in the Wordpress documents, but nothing really turned out to be helpful. Apparently, what I should be searching is not "logo" but "favicon" instead. I found this term when I Googled "change website logo in address bar." Isn't that easy?

So I knew what I should be looking for, I returned to Wordpress and searched "favicon" which led me to this site， where I loaded a picture and by clicking a button， I got a logo! Isn't that easy?

Now the problem is, if you don't know what it is, there is no way you can to tell what it is. It's a picture of a Chinese dragon I found some time ago on internet. I like this picture because it's quite unique and just from the picture, you can associate it with China and me.

While looking good as a picture, it isn't as good for a logo when it is shrunk to 16×16. It looks more like a red dot than a dragon. When I look at other sites, the logos are all very simple and that makes sure everybody knows what they are even at a very small size. Well, I'll continue to use it until I can find a better one, or design my own.

In addition to logo, there are a couple of other issues remaining, but the one that bothers me most is that my page seems taking too long to load. I checked the time, the average is 7 or 8 seconds, but sometimes more 10 seconds and that's not rare. I know there must be something wrong, but didn't figure out what it is yet. Maybe I should cut some links that requires connetions to other sites.

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Added New Logo

How Do You Fund Your Domain?

Sun — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 05:37:21 +0000

Do you have a budget for your own domain?

It really took me some time to make up my mind to switch from free blog at Blogger.com, which I started in June, to this domain. First of all, I am not sure if it’s worth it. Secondly, where does the money come from to pay for the hosting? After taking a look at the paid survies I have completed since June, I knew at least I found the answer for the second question.

My diary is hosted at Bluehost.com and I signed up for a two-year subscription with $6.95 per month. That’s $166.80 and how much have I earned from paid surveis and posts? $175, though I received only $14 so far. If at the current rate (about $50 per month), I could raise enough funds to keep this diary domain for a couple of more years before 2007 starts!

Now I can concentrate on addressing my first concern: whether or not it’s worth it. Well, time will tell!

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Blogger.com Users: Check Your Post’s Time Stamp

Sun — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:54:37 +0000

If you are using Blogger.com, you may want to check the time stamp of your post shown in your blog and the one appeared on Pfblog.org. As it happened to me before, I saw the difference between these two greater than any reasonable level. The direct result was that no matter when I posted the entry, it always showed on Pfblog with an earlier time and the entry was pushed back into their entry list and never had a chance to appear on the front page. If this also happened to you, there are probably a couple of things causing that:

Your time zone. Pfblog uses Eastern time and depending on your time zone, the difference could be 1, 2, or 3 hours. However, when a post appears on Pfblog, the time is converted to Eastern time.
Pfblog fetches some 700 blogs every 30 minutes and processes all the feeds. The whole process takes about 20 minutes, but this time is not added to the time the entry is originally posted. Pfblog displayes uses the entry’s publish time (the time stamp on the entry’s Atom/RSS feed) to sort entries on Pfblog.
If for some reason a feed is not reachable, it’s appearance on Pfblog will be delayed but the time stamp on Pfblog will not be affected by the delay.
It seems that Blogger.com’s Atom feed implementation caused all these problems. I was informed by Pfblog that they mannually switched me from Atom feed to RSS feed and after the switch, there is no discrepancy between the two time stamps. So you may want to check your feed.

The above items were summarized from emails I received from Pfblog. In addition, Pblog also told me that they adjusted their software to address Blogger’s improper Atom implementation. Therefore, the problem should not occur any more. However, if you still see abnormal time difference, you probably should contact Pfblog directly. They are very responsive and will help you fix the problem.

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Pfblog.org Fixed Timing Problem of My Blog

Sun — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:46:55 +0000

Since I joined Pfblog.org late last month, I have been enjoying being a member of the PF community and have read lots of interesting posts from fellow bloggers, whom I had no way to meet before.

While happy to be part of the group, I had been bothered for a while since I noticed the difference between the time I published my posts on my blog and the time shown on Pfblog when the posts appeared. The difference ranged from a couple of hours to five or six hours and sometimes the time stamps on Pfblog were even earlier than the posts were actually submitted. Frustrated by the fact that even my newest posts appeared as old ones when they showed up on Pfblog, I emailed Pfblog and demanded an explanation. I even complained of being treated unfairly (yes, I wanted my posts to appear on the front page because I myself almost never flipped to the second page). I simply couldn’t understand how a post can have a time stamp earlier than the time it was originally created.

Well, apparently there is something wrong with my blog that I wasn’t aware of (the time on my blog was correct). After a couple of email exchanges, Pfblog identified the problem as a lousy “Blogger’s Atom implementation�? and switched to RSS feed instead of Atom feed (maybe you should check if you also had this problem). Ever since the switch, everything worked perfectly. In addition, Pfblog also said they would adjust their software to adjust the interpretation of Blogger’s Atom time stamp.

In the end, I apologized to Pfblog about the unfair treatment comment I made (I shouldn’t have jumped into any conclusion before all the facts were out) and appreciate all the help I received from them.

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Up and Running

Sun — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:47:20 +0000

After several days of hard habor, my new site is finanlly up and running. I have been switching back and forth in the past couple of days between different templates WordPress offered, trying to find one suitable for me yet not too difficult to make modifications (I am a newbie of CSS and php programming, so I don't push myself too hard). Eventually, I settled with the one developed by Isnaini and made some small changes here and there. Well, if you ask me, I think it's pretty neat. What do you think? Though I can start blogging in my site, which is very exciting, there is problem of porting my old post at Blogger.com to here. As I was trying to log in my Blogger account for the importing, I got an error message saying my logging was incorrect. The only reason I can think of for this error was I switched to the beta version of Blogger.com when it became available last month and used my Gmail account to login instead of the original login name and password. I guess I have to wait till the current beta version becomes a full release to do the transfer. For now, I'm just gonna enjoy the fresh smell of my new site!

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Up and Running

Hello world!

Sun — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 21:48:52 +0000

Finally, I got my own home! Isn't that exciting? Well, considering that I have to move my blog posts on Blogger to this new home and set all the functions and tools, it probably will take a while before it finally gets into shape. But I look forward to the challenges ahead. Again, welcome and stay tuned!

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Hello world!

Terrible Translation

Sun — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 01:32:00 +0000

I put up the Alta Vista translation button in my site today just for convenience, in case there is somebody across the world needs it. Later on, I decided to try it to see how it works and I selected Chinese. Well, a click on the flag brought me the translated text, which means it did the job it’s supposed to do. The translation, however, was terrible. If I don’t know what I have wrote, I can barely understand what it says. The program literally translates every English word into Chinese and doesn’t even bother to rearrange the sentence to make it readable. For example, “post” has the same meaning as “job position” after the translation. Total garbage!

I guess I won’t attract any Chinese reader with it.

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Terrible Translation