By Navjot Singh on October 27, 2009
Most of you have heard of Google Wave. It is a realtime collaboration tool to network and share with your friends and colleagues. If you ask me, its pure and real use is mostly to business users since they will find its concept highly useful. Now I have about 10 invites to share with you. Will share more if response is good. Here’s what you have to do in order to get Wave Invites:
- Follow @nspeaks at Twitter and Tweet this(without quotes): “RT @nspeaks Get Free Google Wave Invite by entering a simple giveaway: http://bit.ly/41WGvD“
- Comment here with your Twitter link and comment why you want a Google wave invite.
You need to do both to be eligible for getting a invite. Doing any one of the above won’t make you eligible for the invite.
10 Commenters will be chosen randomly on 1 November, 2009 and will be send Google Wave invites.
Things to remember before entering:
- Wave invite will take atleast 2-10 days after I nominate you. They don’t come immediately.
- When commenting, write your name in name field and not your business name. Otherwise, comment will be marked as spam and be barred from contest.
Proof that I have Wave Invites: I will not give all invites here. Some I have reserved for my friends and family.
UPDATE: – Contest closed, winners will be announced soon.
Ok, here are the winners:
You will receive your invites in next 4-6 days. Here is the confirmation that your invites are on your way:
All winners will also be notified by Twitter.
Thanks to everybody for entering the contest. A similar giveaway may be out soon – bigger and better.
Posted in Blogging Contests, NSpeaks
By Navjot Singh on October 21, 2009
Wordpress 2.8.5 has been released. Termed as Hardening Release, this version fixes a critical exploit related to Trackback type Attacks which happened on several blogs recently. Hackers tried to overload the server by sending multiple requests via Trackbacks. So its recommended that you upgrade your blogs immediately. There are several other bug fixes apart from the Trackback DOS Attack Fix. (Yes for some strange reason, attack has been named DOS Attack). Read the original Post from Wordpress.org Blog about the release.
Posted in Wordpress
By Navjot Singh on October 9, 2009
I see lot of friends and bloggers using and recommending Fantastico for installing Wordpress or any other script as its easy and takes only few clicks without even the need to upload any file or make databases. Well I always am against the idea of using Fantastico for installing Wordpress or other scripts. There are several reasons I can quote as to why not use it. First please look at them:
- Updated versions of Wordpress or any script are not immediately released on Fantastico and it can have a delay of several days when the latest version of a script arrives on Fantastico and if you remember the release of 2.8.4 Wordpress, delay of a few days can be fatal for your blog given the kind of security loophole that was found in 2.8.3 and versions below it.
- Fantastico bypasses almost all settings used for installing and directly takes to you to the installed script and you can lose quite a few setting options which you could have chosen had you done manuall install. Now in case of Wordpress, you can’t choose the custom setting while install to keep your blog private. You need to do it manually via Settings panel from Wp-Dashboard afterwards and keeping in mind that it was turned off in last few versions of Wordpress, many users found their blog not being indexed in search engines and lost quite a lot of traffic.
- You will never learn to configure or install script if needed in emergency – Choosing Fantasctio every time will make you think installing php scripts is a breeze and you may never try to bother learning to install it manually. Doing manual install can make you aware of lot of common problems and tweaks you can use to improve script performance or even troubleshoot yourself in case of a problem later.
- You can not customise database options while installing. For example, you can’t choose a descriptive name for your database, database prefix or even tell fantastico to use a existing database user.
- Fantastico does not know how to do upgrades – Well this is one thing Fantastico does worse. It does not know how to perform perfect upgrades since they never created those scripts. It can work sometimes or break the install completely on next time. In case you have modified any core file or done some hack, Fantastico won’t upgrade the script in such case.
Here are my top 5 reasons to not to use Fantastico to install Wordpress or any other script. Though you may find it very easy on first use, in the long run it can do damage to your sites and your knowledge of scripts. Does Fantastico works for you or even you are against it? Please share your comments.
Posted in Useful Tips, Wordpress
