Now that I own a smartphone with broadband capabilities, blogging from anywhere and at anytime should be a cinch.

Shouldn’t it?

And yet, this is the second time that I’ve missed my blogging deadline for the PostAWeek challenge.

So here I am, sitting and having my favorite lunch of toast and milk tea (with fried noodles and fish cakes to go), putting my best effort to contemplate where I have gone wrong.

Toast and Tea for lunch

I can give you a million and one reasons why I can’t keep up. Work, home, kids, the Top Commentators widget, distraction, lack of focus, etc. But they are all just excuses.

One thing I clearly am with this challenge is feeling frustrated. I checked my Google Analytics recently and found that my blog readership and bounce rate did not improve; in fact, it got worse.

What?! Even after the hoopla I made about PostADay / PostAWeek, and tweeting about it and joining the Facebook PostADay community? I would think things would be a little different.

Then I remembered my post on how my lack of blog updates led to better visitor retention. And, also the fact that blogging through this WordPress app for Windows Phone is ridiculously tougher than my geek self would like to admit, is making me think twice about my strategy.

So now what? Do I focus on organic traffic by just posting sporadically, or do I post often to feed my blogging interest in the expense of worsening search engine results?

I’ll think about this later.

BTW, here are some blog posts from WebGrrrl.net readers who are taking on the PostAWeek 2011 challenge:

• My history with Unix by LaViaP The Geek

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

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I’m guilty of doing vanity searches of myself on occasion, purely out of curiosity. So far none of the results returned anything dramatic.

A few other people I personally know aren’t so fortunate. One person who’s close to me had a court order information in the top 3 results for the person’s name in Google. For Sabahans, you should be wary of any news coming out of The New Sabah Times (one of the most read dailies this side of Borneo). This paper is notorious for putting people’s bankruptcy notices and home foreclosures online. Imagine your long lost friend or your former schoolmate trying to find you on the Internet and then ended up seeing those type of info about you. Embarrassing, to say the least.

So what do you do if you want to hide those incriminating evidence out of the search engines? You do SEO. The easiest way to go by this is to register yourself using your full name in as many social networking sites as possible, and the more popular those social networks are, the better. That should help bury those little secrets way into the nether regions of your search result (gosh this sounds so dirty).

But the best way, really, to keep searches about you clean, is to not do any real life mistake as you possibly can. I’m not telling you to be Jesus or anything. I’m just saying that whatever that you wish to type online, make sure that it wouldn’t haunt you back or make a fool out of yourself (unless that’s what you’re aiming for, looking like a fool).

Seriousness aside, check out my first ever smartphone, the HTC HD7. I accidentally got this, because my better half couldn’t use it to run Meta Trader (I told him to get an Android phone, like Samsung Galaxy… in case I “accidentally” inherit that if MT doesn’t work on that as well). Loving the HTC phone, hating the Windows 7 Phone OS. At least let me use a customized MP3 song of my choice for my ringtone, for crap’s sake!

I’m jailbreaking this thing.

Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone

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I am way behind schedule on the TCW update, I know (and thanks for reminding me, Konsti!). Yes, I’m actually done with the changes – 3 of them, in fact – and I am ready to put it up into TCW WordPress.org’s Extend at latest by tomorrow.

I got to be honest here. My delays are almost always (99.99% of the time) caused by two things – one: finding the time to do some coding, and two (a more embarrassing fact): I have little to zero clue how to use Subversion.

I know, right?! How could I, after more than three years developing TCW, still not get a handle of using it? More shameful is the fact that I’m a programmer by trade. Boo me.

It was suppose to be easy, this check-out, edit, commit, check-in thing. There’s a myriad of how-to posts specifically on using TortoiseSVN for WordPress.org. And I’m a programmer, for heaven’s sake! I should know code versioning!

The truth is, I’m a solo programmer and I don’t have to share my code with anyone. So all I needed to do was to create a new folder and dump my latest codes in there. That’s my versioning. Even if I did need to use versioning, it ‘ssuppose to be as easy as using Google Code.

So why is it that every time I tried to commit using Subversion, it Just Didn’t Work ™? I didn’t see the change in trunk to the latest version number. My changelog sometimes reflected the change in WP server, then suddenly I didn’t see it anymore. Went through the steps again, from1 to 10 (or 11, or 20… I lost count of the many how-to I followed).

After nothing seemed to work, I went off the beaten path, and tinkered those options out of frustration. Then suddenly, Eureka! It’s there in WP.org, my latest version of TCW in all its glory! My heart sings Hallelujah as I typed down what I’ve done the best I could, hopeful that whatever I’ve typed would become my next blog post on my stagnant WebGrrrl blog.

But alas. This problem feels like a nasty cycle of procrastination and/or forgetfulness and/or carelessness. Take your pick.

You’ve read my previous post on how “active” I was these past couple of years. So tonight, I shall once again go through the process of committing my latest Top Commentators widget update, typing those steps again into a draft post, crossing my fingers and hope that this time, that post won’t disappear into thin air and I’ll not only have the latest TCW up for you, but also my next Post Of The Week ready for primetime viewing.

BTW, here are some blog posts from WebGrrrl.net readers who are taking on the PostAWeek 2011 challenge:

• Like giving up on sex! by LaViaP The Geek

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As I’m typing this post, I am sitting drinking milk tea and munching on crunchy toasted bread in my favourite cheap cafe. I have learned early on that it is a hopeless endeavour to try and blog at home. My kids would jump onto (and on) my lap, expecting me to open PlayHouseDisneyChannel-Asia.com (an address which even my 2-year old could memorize), play their favourite music video (right now they’re into Korean artists, either Wonder Girls’ “Tell Me” or 2PM’s “10 Points Out Of 10″), or something else, like going to the loo, getting them a glass of water, opening the packets of their favourite crackers, dinner, lunch, snacks… you know, the whole parental duties and other things that either make you sigh or pull your hair out.

Drinking tea and eating toast in this particular cafe actually helps me focus. Within two hours, I was able to finish three 1,000-word articles. And now I’m in the middle of finishing this blog post.

When I’m focused, it takes me another 15 to 30 minutes before my creative vibes kick in. The hustle and bustle of this cafe only adds to the excitement of completing my writing assignments (did you know that JK Rowling also prefers the cafe when writing her Harry Potter books? Coincidence? I think not! SHOW OFF!)

Now, programming is another thing, for some weird reason. My environment needs to be very quiet and office-like before I can totally commit to my coding. This is why my home office has to be very de-cluttered and bare-bones; I prefer just my netbook and wireless mouse in front of me — I don’t even need a PC. My WiFI printer/scanner/copier would be another thing sitting at the corner of the office. But even when no one is at home, my home office is one very distracting place. It’s too convenient for me to get a quick snack, or to run off to do my laundry (a one minute load-into-the-washer thing often turns into a 15-minute dry-hanging and folding of clothes to top it up), or do the dishes, or quickly make dinner 6 hours in advance. Or maybe just an hour of Oprah. Then an hour to catch up on House. Add another hour of Lie To Me.

You see that?

I really don’t know whether this is the state of mind I condition myself into, or that the environment is what shaped my mindset.

Distraction and focus is the main theme here, I guess. Whichever affects either or both of these will determine whether I can blog or write or finish whatever’s in my to-do list that day.

Do you have your favourite place to blog? Does blogging at home work for you?

BTW, here are some blog posts from WebGrrrl.net readers who are taking on the PostAWeek 2011 challenge:

• 1 ring to rule them all! by LaViaP The Geek

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Like my Christmas Twitter edition? I have this on my Gravatar and Facebook profiles, too. Yes, I am considering letting the fine whiskers at the corners of my mouth to grow into a beard just like Santa’s.

Changing your profile picture to reflect your holiday spirits is a fun way to show off your personality virtually, and I’m not the only one who agrees with this. Among the people I follow / following me on Twitter, these three people took the time to display their merry sides, so allow me to give a hearty ho-ho Christmas shout-out to:

@cyrildason

@yukyuri

@leolaporte

And, for taking the time to drop by my barely alive blog, let me wish a blessed and peaceful Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah and season’s greetings to you and your loved ones.

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Sabah bloggers got a different treat this year for the annual gathering, unlike the previous three years. It was more grand and complicated than before, (being that I only realized a couple of days before it happened) that this event, glamorously called B2.0, was going to be held over a 2-day, 3-night period! Wow!

Organized by the team at Borneo Colours (BC), the event started with a preview dinner on 28 October, followed by a seminar on the 29th, then a paintball get-together on 30th morning, and a closing ceremony cum winners announcement that evening. Being caught off-guard by the overwhelming activities at a last minute, I only managed to attend the preview dinner (see me mingle here) and the seminar a.k.a. New Media Dialogue. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the seminar itself was more impressive than I expected. In the morning, for some reason just more than half the seats were filled, but by noon, the place was packed.

“Borneo’s Regional Blogospheres” was presented by three bloggers representing Brunei DS (Marul a.k.a Geek In White), Kalimantan (Dwi Wahyudi a.k.a. Blogger Borneo) and Sarawak (Cyril Dason) regions. I came in late but just in time for Marul’s presentation, so I wasn’t sure whether there was anyone from Sabah presenting at that session (maybe Daniel Doughty’s opening remarks was it?). Overall it was a good warm-up session for what was to come.

“Blog Monetization” by Addy Kho of The 9-Hour Work Week blog was a session that’s right up my alley. His monetizing focus was on Internet and affiliate marketing. When he mentioned using Top Commentators to engage users, my ears perked. My eyes missed the widget when scanning his blog the first time, so I thought he removed it. However, it was actually right on the sidebar slightly way down the website. It’s great to know that Addy further validates the use of TC in relation to increasing readership and subsequently the ka-ching factor.

Reeda Malik a.k.a. AnakBrunei’s session on “Managing Your Personal Brand” led me to ask him this: is it possible (or has there been any case) where a person can successfully separate his online persona and his real-life identity? To be known for his skills rather than his personality? The gist of Reeda’s answer was that more often than not there exist a very fine line in separating those identities, and you might as well be a schizophrenic to achieve that. E-hem. I was hoping I could be like Clark Kent / Superman, you know. Clark being the equivalent of me in real life, while Superman being the equivalent of WebGrrrl, ‘cause we have super cool names, you see. Why, people even mistakenly calls me Lana sometimes, so… *flatters self*.

I’m glad Cyril Dason posed the question on the use of disclaimer in a website after Eddie Law’s session on “Blogging Limitation — Law and Ethics”, which affirms what I’ve known all along about it – it’s useless. It doesn’t protect you from the law. Otherwise if it does, you won’t see so many bloggers in Malaysia go to jail so easily. Eddie’s session garnered the most questions in this seminar, which was a pleasant surprise for me. This shows that we bloggers do care about integrity and civility, contrary to political and contemporary beliefs.

One minute into Rob Angeles’ session on “Effective Steps to Online Engagement”, and you’ll realize that A) he really knows what he’s talking about, and B) he has a great sense of humour. Through his extensive statistics and technical glitches, he kept us guffawing and at the same time more aware of how important social media is for businesses to engage in. Keyword: Enterprise 2.0.

I frankly wasn’t keen on paying attention to “From Zero to Hero Using Social Media” by Ronnie Klassen, a politician who happens to blog. It reminded me too much of my disgust towards the current Malaysian political scene and the fact that I will soon have to vote again for the lesser of two evils. I wasn’t even trying to listen, other than on the part where he mentioned about his top — and most controversial — three blog posts that ended up getting him locked up in jail while earning him a few thousand US dollars per post from Google AdSense at the same time. Note to self: controversy pays.

GreenSurf’s session, especially its videos, kept me back on pace and Harjinder and Alice rocked! “Case Study: Winning Hearts & Minds Through New Media” provided not just the volunteers’ experiences on behalf of Sabahans in acting against the proposed coal power plant in Lahad Datu, but also gave a very honest view on the benefits and limitations of using social media to voice the people’s true decisions and thoughts on this matter.

Joomla made its debut in this dialogue in the form of Azrul’s JomSocial in “Powered CMS”. I’m impressed with this Facebook-like plugin that powers Borneo Colours’ website. This still didn’t stop me from poking fun at Joomla lightheartedly by clapping loudly when Azrul pointed out the stats whereby WordPress has the highest number of plugins compared to Joomla and Drupal. At the next slide, he showed that Joomla plugins were downloaded the most compared to WP and Drupal. I just like to think that this is because WordPress gets more done with less Still, I’d like to thank Azrul for even considering WordPress as a CMS.

Then comes Daniel Doughty’s session on “Collaborative Marketing Initiative”. He might as well just call this “What is Borneo Colours” In all honesty, I’ve been pretty confused with what Borneo Colours is trying to achieve in the online social media arena. Are they volunteers? Are they doing these for free? Are they commercial? Up to that time, all I see was little transparency, with much hyped superficial activities and bombastic publicity words, and I made sure Daniel knew my thoughts about BC when I chatted with him at the preview dinner. His session did clear it up: BC is a commercial entity with a noble cause, which is to use social media and gather bloggers specifically to promote tourism in the Borneo region. So now that he’s cleared up BC’s business model, how about its revenue model? Hmm.

I always love startup stories, so I really wanted to sit through FlickEvents’ Yan Phun as she talks about her company’s experience in “Start Ups Challenge and Opportunity”. However, realizing that it was time for me to split and pick up my kids from school, I had to rush out and miss most of her talk.

I’d like to add more thoughts on this event, but good golly am I tired (I have another hour left before I’m off to work and I haven’t slept a wink!). So, kudos to Borneo Colours for going all out to organize this event. I can imagine how challenging it is to organize such an event with four regions over three different countries.

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This blog has been quiet, but it doesn’t mean that my life as a geek has been put on hold.

Far from it, as you can guess from the title of this post.

First off, I’ve scheduled a release of the latest version of the Top Commentators Widget sometime in November. A couple of bugs were mentioned by users like you, which I hope can be addressed by v.1.4. So, thanks for taking the time to report the errors. Please continue to do so by going to WP.org’s Support Forum if you can find anything else that’s in the widget in need of improvement. Information like these help make TCW useful and usable.

Secondly, I’m cooking up a project that I started three months ago (infact, it was two weeks after I gave birth to my son with designer genes). And it wasn’t until recently that I found out it has a name, thanks to my recent endeavor into Drupal.

My project is called the WordPress Installation Profiles. It might not work the way the Drupal community does it, but the idea is more or less there. This idea has also been discussed before, but as the post mentioned, the closest one out there was done by WordPress QI, and that’s still not quite like what I was hoping.

This idea came about after I saw a couple of Internet marketers out there monetizing a “software” that supposedly improves your WordPress site’s SEO. Upon further investigation, it turned out that it was merely a collection of already well-known (and free!) WordPress plugins, packaged into a single zipped file, and can be installed with a few clicks through a customized install.php file. I realized that, hey, I can do this too!

I was thinking of building one, then selling them off. But then I thought, in the spirit of open-source and WordPress, why not make them free as well? So, yeah, it’ll be available for you to download, FREE!

My first WordPress installation profile will be created around the concept of affiliate marketing blogs, with the following plugin options built into it:

• autoresponders
• opt-in subscriptions
• affiliate products auto-detection
• ad rotator / manager
• those SEO plugins for sure

This profile should also include a suitable theme, which I’m still trying to decide which to use. Then once this is done, I’ll be leveraging my Blogging Fu web site, where it will serve as a repository for all the installation profiles which I will be building later.

I’ll figure out my monetizing strategy later, but one thing’s for sure, those readily-available installation profiles will remain free once they are up there for downloading.

Any comments? Suggestions? Feel free to vent in the comments section below.

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Welcoming a new child into the family makes me feel like I have to re-learn how to be a mother again. However, since I did it twice already (my firstborn doesn’t count, I didn’t have to re-learn anything ), I had thought that the re-learning would be less hard, and I would be more prepared with dealing with it.

Nothing would have prepared me with Edry. He came into my world on 19 June, about 20 days earlier than his due date. He came out of my womb, shrieking like my other 3 sons had. He was healthy. And he was different. He has Down syndrome.

It’s not about re-learning to be a mother anymore. It’s about re-learning to live my life, and looking at my life in a whole different angle. Some days are fine, some days are questionable. I’m learning and coping with this reality one day at a time. Actually, that’s not entirely correct. I can’t handle it one day at a time. But I can take it, one task at a time.

Blogging-wise, I’m not sure where this will go. Priorities have changed. Expectations are different. I know I will still blog, but not the way I used to. But maybe… this is just another task that I will need to tackle, when the time comes.

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Allow me to rant before I get to the actual content of this post (if you prefer not to read it, skip right ahead to steps on solving the problem):

<rant>

My foray into the world of Ubuntu since installing it in my Acer Aspire One did not come smoothly.

No, I’m not talking about its installation, which was a breeze. Nor was it about hardware compatibility; the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) distribution made sure that all my hardware worked immediately.

My actual challenge was to choose the right software that would fit my needs, and they were many! Holy cow, if I knew how many free software was out there for Linux, I would have switched sooner!

My main chagrin about a few of these software is its user-friendliness, not in terms of software usability, but in terms of documentation.

Take, for example, getting KompoZer to open PHP files. I did the usual configuration of having all files with the .php extension to open with KompoZer, but KompoZer defiantly denies it and kept prompting me to select a different program (you know, the equivalent of Open With… in Windows).

I found that the KompoZer extension called HandCoder would do the trick; all I needed to do was to download HandCoder from its site and add it via KompoZer’s addon manager.

The problem was… there was no fracking download link! Instead, there was only one link with the word “download”, which points to HTML Tidy, which I was not interested at all. I was hard-pressed to find the place to download it, only to find hours later (through a very short description somewhere within the page of some other KompoZer / Nvu extension description) that there is actually a link there, although not very obvious. Alright, I better stop ranting or else I won’t be able to finish this blog post.

</rant>

To open PHP files in KompoZer for Ubuntu, follow these steps:

1. In the Files and Folders view, right-click on any PHP file.
2. Select Open With / KompoZer. Or, if you don’t see KompoZer listed, go to Other Application and browse to /usr/bin/kompozer.

   

3. Visit the HandCoder website, and click on one of the flags (based on your language preference) to download the XPI file (or just click here to start the download). Click on the flag to download — hah, who freaking knew?! Remember where you save it.

   

4. Open KompoZer. In the menu, select Tools / Add-ons.
5. In the the Add-ons window, click the Install button on the bottom.
6. Navigate to the location in your computer where you saved it, select the HandCoder XPI file, and click the Open button.

   

7. Once you see HandCoder listed under the Extensions section, close the KompoZer program and reopen KompoZer again.

You should now be able to open PHP files with Kompozer in Ubuntu.

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Since last night, I’ve been busy uploading and tagging, tagging and uploading photos and videos of this year’s fine Sabah Bloggers Gathering. Seriously, I don’t know where to begin, so I’m just gonna do my story-telling in bullet-form. But before that, here’s how I looked like.

I am Soulja Grrrl. Get it? *ROFLs to self*… Dressed to kill, coz I’m a mean grrrl. And playing too much Half-Life: Counterstrike will do this to you. I also made it a point to have an “official” pose to make things more tacky, like so.

• Enemy spotted! The first costumed guest I saw as I went out the elevator was a Japanese-uniformed dude. And he had no weapon! Dead meat
• My action plan was to get to know as many people as I could, under the pretense that I wanna take pictures of each and everyone who came to the gathering. AND EVERYONE FELL FOR IT! MUAHAHAHAHAHAH! Seriously, though, everyone was so cool, and you can count only a handful out of more than 100 guests didn’t come with costumes. I really enjoyed taking pictures of and with everyone. You peeps really rocked the house!
• The Allies ruled! It was three Allied US Army soldiers versus one Japanese Axis soldier sans ammo. But I’ll exclude the masked terrorists (you people know who you are). And luckily our War Correspondent was neutral, though he did don a US Army colour. Yeah, lucky Axis guy   The cool thing was us army troops – Charlie, Vera and I — were lounging together in the same table. That’s the spirit — stick together, team.

More photos!

• I sat with Margaret as well, coz she was one of the few people that I know personally. You know how DIFFICULT it is to do some ice-breaking alone. I dragged poor Margaret along wherever I went so that I didn’t feel too embarrassed to introduce myself, and have her be my official assistant photog! Heheheh Margaret, you’re a lifesaver!
• So glad I met up with more familiar bloggers, namely Chegu Carol, Alus, Pai, Massy and Alvin Ting. Siok!
• I was psyched to meet the performers for Sabah Bloggers Gathering this year, as they are well-known nation-wide as well. However, I did not expect to NOT recognize Alvin MY of Infinatez. I even asked him who are you, and what is your blog’s name? Oh god, that is embarrassing now that I think about it. Because, honestly, he is way more good-looking in real life than his promo shoot at SBG’s web site. Thank goodness he’s such a gracious guy. Loved his performance, too!

More photos!

• Performances by emcee Jonathan Tse and supremo guitarist Roger Wang did not disappoint. Jonathan’s simple but melodious music is simply melodious (hihih on the almost-pun). Yes, I’ve heard his songs online and, I’ve got to admit, his voice complements his songs very well, and I see a bright future for Jonathan’s music career.
• And Roger. I’d like to call him the Andy McKee of Asia, but he’d probably wouldn’t want to be compared, because Andy is Andy and Roger is Roger. In any case, words do no justice to his classical and fingerstyle compositions. When he plays with just his guitar, it’s magical.
• Imperial International Hotel did not spare any expense when it comes to theming up the place for Halloween! Food, decor, and servers are all in character! Now you know where to go when you need to organize your next big bash. Don’t believe me? Check the pics below.

For the full set of photos and videos I took that night, head over to my Flickr’s SBG2009 set.

I’ll save this space right here to give a shout-out to the bloggers and non-bloggers who I’ve met and taken pictures of/with at Sabah Bloggers Gathering 2009. I can’t do this right now, coz I have loads of tagging and uploading left to do on my Flickr and Facebook photos and videos.

Now, for my obligatory shout-outs (those that I didn’t mention above): Amy @ Life Here ‘N’ There, Earthy Emily @ Chronicles of a Taurean Lady, Sheila @ She Says, Dazeree @ The Sky’s The Limit, Joan @ Joan Says, Fairy Fenelly, Vienne @ Life Is Wonderful and hubby (?), RaggaMan Clerence, BuliBahKalauKo peeps, Aleaf @ I’m Not a Green Bag, Ricky @ hushmonkey, Kinky Jasmine, Jacq @ Caneeliea, Wei Chuen, (more coming).

Thanks to the organizers for giving us the time of our lives, and especially all of you party-goers for making Sabah Bloggers Gathering a happening party and a night to remember.

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