StandiForth

A Blogger Responsive Mobile Templates Bug

2020-06-12T03:19:00.007-07:00

This issue has been raised on Blogger Community last year, now the question is locked and comments is disabled.

On responsive mobile templates (contempto, Notable, Empirio, Soho) links on a mobile device (android - android web view/Chrome) do not work. On desktop is everything OK.

Interestingly, on click <a> does not work, but if a visitor selects to open link in a new tab, they will be opened and displayed correctly.

The person who raises this question asked that this issue may be caused by AdSense auto ad code which is implemented.

I have tried to remove all AdSense ads, then the mobile view is RESPONSIVE as normal, no problem at all. You may click any link, and it works fine.

I also tried to remove all AdSense from the Layout, but instead, paste a line of Code from AdSense directly into the Template (by clicking the three verticle dots beside the theme preview and then clicking the "Edit HTML"), then the issue seems to disappear on some Android Phone, but seems on Chrome Browser only and not on iPhone either.

VPN only connects after restart: a Simple Fix

2019-12-17T00:42:00.000-08:00

Windows 10 with PPTP incoming connection only connects after restart, if you Google it, you will find a very fine article that teaches you how to fix the problem, it mentioned six methods, includes:

TCP/IP configuration,
Tray-bar VPN menu bug,
Glitched VPN Network connection,
Corrupted WAN Miniport (PPTP),
Corrupted VPN dependency,
PPTP and L2TP miniports are stuck in a limbo state,

these solutions are very technical, for a lay person like me, non of these make sense.

I saw somewhere in a discussion group, one person says, he fixed this problem buy turning off Fast Start-up, it's one of the Power Saving options, which is supposed to help start your PC faster after shutdown. You can find it on Control Panel:

Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\System Settings

I am not sure exactly what HAPPENS (or not), but it definitely causes one of the afore-mentioned six possible configuration errors and then causes the Incomming Connection corrupt and refuse VPN connection.

Should "Confirm Password" Die?

2019-12-10T14:03:00.001-08:00

Some people suggest that website shouold get rid of the "Confirm your passowrd" field on a Sign Up Form, but I have been so used to it, that I typed twice when I signed up a Spotify account, and then my password was displayed as my username.

Then I have to close my Spotify account and register again with another email. And this time I noticed that actually Spotify Sign Up Form has only one field for your to privide password, instead of the "Confirm Passord", it's "What Should We call you?" field, that will display the username on the up right corner of the page when you login.

Vodafone Router Configuration for Incoming Connection and other Services

2019-12-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

This post is about specific Vodafone Home Broadband Router configuration for Incoming Connection and other service on your home computer.

This is not a tutorial, and will not be going into details of the services and router configuaration, I just want to point out couple of points you need to pay attention to.

1. Port Forwarding. Vadafone Router has its own name for Port Forwarding, it's called Port Mapping under Port Management category.The picture below shows that I set up web server on my desktop, I map my local address on port 80; and I set up PPTP incoming connection by mapping local address on port 1723.

Port Forwarding

2. Exposed Host.If you have set up Port Mapping, you still can't get what you want, then you have to put your device outside the Firewall, i.e. bypass Vodafone Connects (means Router) firewall, in a Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), using it's Exposted Host Function.

Static NAT (Network Address Translation) means the Router will translate public address into your local address, and then DMZ (Demilitarised Zone) will put your device outside the firewall, so your device is exposed in an unprotected state.

In my case, I don't need to use Exposed Hose function, this might be necessary for some Gaming Console.

3. Incoming Connections. When you want test if Incoming Connection (VPN) is successful at home, your testing device has to connect to another network, such as your mobile network. If you connect to Vodafone Wi-Fi, your testing device is on the same network with the computer which provides Incoming Connection service, your VPN connection will show unsuccessful.

You have to specify IP address for your Incomming Connection, if you choose Assign IP Address automatically using DHCP, it might not work. So you need find out the address range on your Vadafone router, as shown in the screenshot below. By the way, you specify Static DHCP address for your device under the same category.

4. DDNS. In Vadafone Router, there is a list of Dynamic Domain Name (DDNS) System service, but I choose DuckDns, it's configuration is straight forward and totally free. I am not recommend on behalf of DuckDns.

Show excerpts on front page in WordPress TwentySixteen Theme

2016-05-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

With the help of this post, I have created a bare bone child template for TwentySixteen theme. The working trick is that you have to put the custom content.php under a folder "template-parts", because TwentySixteen theme expects content.php to be in this folder. If you put it in the root of the child theme, it will be ignored.

This child theme include four files:

-- the functions.php
--the screenshot.png
-- the style.css

and
-- the content.php under the folder 'template-parts'.

To download here, then follow the link.

The demo site here >>>>

Amazon EC2 Bitnami Wordpress on Ubuntu Server installation Tips

2016-01-31T15:30:00.000-08:00

1. How to access your WordPress Blog:

After you successfully lauched the instance, use the public DNS or IP address to connect your website:

The WordPress default user name is "user"

Password is generated randomly, and stored in the system log. You access the log at Actions > Instance Settings > Get system log.

After you login to WordPress dashboard, you may change your admin password, or add another user as administrator.

2. Connect to the Ubuntu server.

You should note that a public key is required to connect the server, so you'd better generate a new key when you start launching an instance, and download the the .pem file.

Putty need a private key to login, you need PuttyGen to generate a private key.

Login user name is "bitnami" with the private key.

3. Access to database using phpmyadmin from a browser.

The database can only be accessed from localhost, 127.0.0.1, so you need a open a tunnel to do that. Open a putty new session when you use Windows, fill in the host DNS and authorisation as described above, then, use connection > Tunnels command to add source port and destination, and click add.

While the tunnel is open, you could access the database from your browser, http://127.0.0.1:8888/phpmyadmin/. And the password is the same as WordPress admin password that is used to access to the control panel.

4. Add a domain name to your WordPress website.

Go to your domain registrar, and add a new A (adress), after couple of minutes (almost instantly), it become alive online. The good thing is WordPress can update the URL automatically, when you visit by custom url.

5. Upload files with SFTP

You also use the private key to connect your EC2 Ubuntu server, and upload your files. In my case, I use FileZilla, use "Edit > Settings" command to bring up the Configuration Settings, and within the "Connect > SFTP" use add keyfile command to select the private key file for the server. Please note that user name is "Bitnami", and logon type, choose "Ask for password", then when it asks for password, just confirm without a password.

6. Sendmail

At first, I tried phpmail() function to send email without success, the problem is that sendmail installed under the /usr/sbin/, I created a symlink to /usr/bin/, then it works:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install sendmail
$ sudo ln -s /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/bin/sendmail

Some say that Amazon only allows 25 emails per month, but I am not sure about this number.

Pricing information is missing or not applicable

2015-12-24T15:47:00.001-08:00

One of Google Play Books "Needs Action" issues is "Pricing information is missing or not applicable", this is caused by the payment settings, you have to set up "Payment Profile", "Sale Territories", and "Currency Conversion" if you sell your book to the "WORLD".

Some authors or publishers spend hours to tweak the Prices setting when they add new books, and feel very confused and frustrated, this happened to me too. Then I realized that you have to set up your Payment Method first, adding bank account for your payment profile. After that you wait for Google to deposit some cents to verify the bank account.

You have to add sales territories as well, if the territory is WORLD, you have to TURN ON currency conversion, too.

You have also to specify the On-Sale Date, although its help tips (when hover mouse on the question mark ? ) says "Leave this field blank if the book can be made available for sale on Google Play immediately." My experiment tells me that reader won't be able to buy if you don't specify the the sale date, since there is no "Try Sample" button or Buy button with a Price on it.

Default BB ringtones missing?

2014-06-24T05:40:00.002-07:00

After I finished the security wiping, my default BB ringtones are missing. On the BB support forum, people suggest to download these ringtones from BB website, but it seems to be unsuccessful.

I connect my phone to my computer to update the core application in the Blackberry Desktop Software, then the problem solved.

Scan your document with Google Drive App

2013-11-15T02:54:00.001-08:00

I have a Samsung Galaxy Note phone, and installed Google Drive App. I can scan my important documents (even a book) into PDF and upload to my Google Drive.

Google Drive Scan

Google Drive App Scan is a REAL intelligent scan, unlike some apps which just take pictures and convert them into PDF, it can actually recognize text areas, and trim and format your picture to fit into a page nicely and neatly, even though the picture may have a large corner where your fingers holding on!

I have some Chinese classic Books, which has a square border to mark the text area, two frames in one page, I just roughly aim my camera at the frame, the scanner only take the picture inside the frame, cutting away the rest along the border.

You can get better result to turn on the flash light, the light stays on like that in a scanner, not a click flashing as it does when you take a photo.

Google Drive Scan Can Recognize the Text Area and Trim Along the Border For You Nicely

How to Input Phonetic Symbols (IPA) in Google Docs

2013-11-13T04:06:00.001-08:00

You can insert special characters by clicking "Insert" on the menu, then click the "Ω Special Characters", the choose "Latin" category from the drop-down menu, and then Phonetics (IPA) sub-category.

Insert Special Characters in Google Docs

There is a short-cut for inputting some IPA symbols which you use them frequently. Automatic Substitution in Google Docs similar to Auto Correct in MS Word. You can replace common acronyms, misspellings and other symbols. So you can set auto-replace for your IPA symbols, for example, "e<" for "ɛ", "o/" for "ø", "o>" for "ɔ" etc.

Automatic Substitutions in Google Docs

How Do I Type Accents on a BlackBerry?

2013-04-26T04:54:00.001-07:00

I tried to type letter that has the two dots over u (ü), on US International computer keyboard, you press AltGr + y, but don't know how to type on a Blackberry, and found this article:

How Do I Type Accents on a BlackBerry? A Simple Step-By Step Tutorial: " Start out by pressing and holding the letter that you want to type with the accent, such as “a.” After a moment the letter will capitalize itself, but this is ok. Continue holding the letter down, and roll the trackball in any direction. The letter will start to change, and will rotate through all possible variations, including different accents and both uppercase and lowercase letters. "

'via Blog this'

The C Book — Expressions and arithmetic

2013-04-04T01:19:00.001-07:00

The C Book — Expressions and arithmetic: "It is always true that the following expression is equal to zero:
(a/b)*b + a%b - a
unless b is zero."

'via Blog this'

Wow! This costs me some brain cell to make sense of this expression.

Country-specific domain for Blogspot to enable censorship

2013-02-21T21:28:00.001-08:00

Why does my blog redirect to a country-specific URL? (ccTLD) - Blogger Help: "country-specific URL"

'via Blog this'

Your blog now has different domain for every country, and an identical copy of your posts for every domain. This is how my blog appears to different visitors from different countries:

chineseaesop.blogspot.tw

chineseaesop.blogspot.se

chineseaesop.blogspot.de

chineseaesop.blogspot.com

chineseaesop.blogspot.co.uk

"Aw, Snap!" - To create a new user profile

2013-01-08T05:52:00.001-08:00

My Chrome Browser crashes a lot, especially when I open Gmail. This article help me to fix it:

"Aw, Snap!" - Google Chrome Help: "If the browser continues to display the "Aw, Snap!" message, your user profile may be corrupted."

I find the folder, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\, but I had small trouble to rename the "default" folder, it says that another program is using one of the files in this folder. But I have closed all windows, and also tried restarting the computer. Then I realized that "System Icons" on the taskbar have a Chrome icon, so I right click the icon and exit program, then the computer let me rename the folder.

Chrome has been snapped so far.

How to stop Freenet?

2012-12-23T05:22:00.000-08:00

How to stop or temporally shutdown Freenet?

On Windows, you may find "stop freenet" in Freenet Tray.

On Ubuntu, or other Linux system, go to your Freenet folder, run a command inside the terminal:

FreenetUser@ubuntu:~/Freenet$ ls *.sh
run.sh update.sh

You can see run.sh command, run.sh have six options, one of them is to stop the Freenet:

FreenetUser@ubuntu:~/Freenet$ ./run.sh ?
Usage: ./run.sh { console | start | stop | restart | status | dump }

FreenetUser@ubuntu:~/Freenet$ ./run.sh stop
Stopping Freenet 0.7...
Waiting for Freenet 0.7 to exit...
Stopping Freenet 0.7...
Stopped Freenet 0.7.

This is how you to stop the Freenet on Ubuntu.

When I upload a video onto Blogger, where is it stored?

2012-10-30T09:48:00.001-07:00

When I upload a video onto Blogger, where is it stored? - Yahoo! Answers: "When I upload a video onto Blogger, where is it stored?"

'via Blog this'

Now my question is this, what if I want to delete this video? Because sometime we regret of publishing something online. How can I locate my video and delete it?

Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

2012-10-18T12:43:00.002-07:00

Now I believe that I have understood at least these things about Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger:

1. Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, or the 'Advertise products' Gadget is powered by Google Affiliate Network, we may say this is a ready-made version specially for Blogger users, so you don't need to request to join individual advertiser, and waiting for approval.

2. Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger is now eligible for UK publishers.

3. Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger hasn't got many advertisers 'On Board'.

4. Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger Gadget search and match advertise products by KEYWORD.

5. If you type some ILLEGAL (such as a two words with a dash between) keywords to search, the gadget will freeze, and an error window pops up like this:

And I also tried some words like 'kindle', it freeze too. You need to reload the page to use the gadget again.

6. View Dashboard link will not appear under the until you publish at least one advertise product, the status will change from Eligible to Active.

Blackberry content rating

2012-10-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

When I try to download Foursqure App for Blackberry, I received this message, and couldn't download:

BlackBerry Support Community Forums: "1 of your download(s) has a higher content rating than your device permits higher content rating than your device permits"

This question hasn't been answered in the above-quoted forum, but a Blackberry help blog post gives detailed explanation and warning for how to set up contents ratings.

One thing to be repeated here is that you'd better not lock the setting after enabling it with a four-digit security code, because if you forget the password, there is no way to reset it, the only way is by performing a security wipe out of your smartphone.

Ubuntu 12.04: Flash player settings problem solved

2012-05-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

Updated Unbuntu 11.10 to 12.04 LTS, and am very glad to find that the Flash player settings dialog unclickable problem solved.

Before Ubuntu 12.04, each time I connected to a site with flash apps, such as Youtube "Record video from webcam", that want to access the the webcam or microphone, the Adobe Flash Player Settings dialog freezes, allow/deny buttons are unclickable.

I tried to find a solution for that, but gave up at last , because all those suggestions seemed to be useless. I have faith in Ubuntu, I thought to myself, this problem will be solved at the next release. I am sure of that. ^_*

Xomba

2012-03-28T14:14:00.001-07:00

Xomba: "Xomba is sort of halfway between Squidoo & Helium with the potential of making money by revenue sharing with Google Adsense ads. "

'via Blog this'

I got this email after submitting my registering form at Xomba:

Thank you for registering at Xomba. Your application for an account is
currently pending approval.
To join Xomba please follow these steps.

1. Reply to this email with the username you created.
2. Please let us know what subjects you plan to write about.
3. Please copy your first article in your email.
If you are approved, we will contact you with instructions on how to log into
your account.

Thanks,
-- Xomba team

My Experience with DocCash

2012-03-05T20:08:00.001-08:00

Docstoc is an online documents sharing website, simimlar as scribd. DocCash is Adsense revenue sharing program of DocStoc.

I registered an account two years ago, and uploaded several documents. I associated my Adsense account and set up tracking URL for docstoc. Recently I noticed that it shows up in my adsense performance reports everyday, but with 0 pageviews, N/A clicks and N/A earnings, but I check stats in docstoc, the view number is bigger than zero.

So I wrote to ask the reason, and got a reply shortly, and I am told by the customer care team that my account has been deleted:

Dear Valued Customer,

I'm here to tell you that your Docstoc account has been deleted. Since your account is deleted, all your information has been removed from our system.
If you change your mind, please feel free to visit our website, where you can easily create a new account within seconds!

Account deleted and my information removed without giving me any reason! Did I ask to delete my account?

DocStoc have a new Premium which sells legal and business documents, Adsense Revenue sharing can't actually makes enough money for the website, so they seem to treat it like rubish.

Youtube and Adsense

2012-01-30T15:34:00.000-08:00

There are two kinds of 'Youtube Partners': Youtube Partner is a Channel that gets lots of video views and lots of subscribers; while an Individual Youtube Partnership means a specific video of yours instead of a whole Channel, which a Partner may set up banners or change channel settings restricted only for Youtube Partner, and monetize all videos. If you are invited to link your Adsense with Youtube, and have to monetize your video one by one, then you're an Individual Youtube Partner.

You can't track Adsense revenue from Youtube by Custom channel or URL channel, because when you try to add URL channel, you get an error message: "URL cannot contain a Google host." So there seem to be no way to find out if your video is making money for you or not. But, some say that "Content Host" refers to the in-video ads of Youtube, a little bit weird of course, and if you don't have other site(s) which enabled for mobile contents, then "AdSense for Mobile Content" also comes from Youtube.

Add to this there is one more confusion, in your adsense account settings for 3rd-party access (youtube), it says "N/A for revenue share" in the Host's share of revenue section. N/A is short for Not Applicable, but what does it mean?

Ubuntu mouse freeze

2011-10-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

My Ubuntu freezes my mouse when I'm typing Chinese, and this makes me believe that Chinese Input Method Editor causes this problem. But when I searched for answers, there seem to be many reports of this problem.

This morning, I was interrupted by a telephone call when my mouse freezes again, when I return back to my computer, the mouse has already became normal.

Next time it happens, I just ignore it, it turns to normal again in couple of seconds.

New BloggerTemplates: Dynamic views

2011-10-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

I have spent hours to customise my blog tonight, but when I almost felt satisfied with the result, I noticed there are new series of templates called Dynamic Views.

I can't help trying them out. They looks awesome. But the blog readers might have not been familiar with these types of browsing methods.

Update Vosao to Version 0.9

2011-10-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

Vosao for App Engine is the Content Management System (CMS) for Google App Engine, easy to install and update, and free to run. This CMS is currently in active developing and update frequently, seems very promising.

Vosao latest version has a default template Coolblue10 for you, so it now looks like a "REAL" website.

Steps to install:

Download App Engine SDK for Java, if you don't have Java installed, you shall download and install it first.
Download Vosao and extract to local folder. Find the file WEB-INF/appengine-web.xml and change the application name to your appspot application name.
Upload the CMS application by issuing the GAE SDK command line:

(Linux) $ {SDK bin directory}appcfg.sh update {unpacked war directory}
( Windows) ; {SDK bin directory}appcfg.cmd update {unpacked war directory>}

Beware that the admin login is admin@test.com, and password is admin. Do remember to change you password.