Rant: About Starting up an E-commerce Site….

A bit of advice when starting up an e-commerce (especially storefront) site, please use proper e-commerce software for the job. Do not ‘force’ a general-purpose (CMS) to be an e-commerce site via plugins (or *cough* *cough* ‘component’), it’s gonna be a pain-in-the-ass to secure ’em.

So do yourself (and the sysadmin guys) a favor, use a proper e-commerce software platform or just turn to blogger.com for selling your stuffs…

Where all the Blog XML RPC ping sites have gone…?

I found out something interesting when I’ve gone through my WordPress setting, it seems that the once famous XML-RPC ping sites are either out-of-service or have been taken down.

The one standing up until today is Ping-o-Matic and venerable Weblogs (the first blog XML-RPC ping service).

I once tried to run one of such services to in order to study spam blogs behavior, but it ends up eating too much server resources with too much noise coming from all the submission, I ended the experiment just over one-year.

Probably this is what happening around the world, ping sites gotten shut-down because of being overwhelmed. The remaining option of promoting blog posts is through social status updating site such as Facebook, Twitter and Buzz (also identi.ca!).

How to login into OpenID sites Anonymously

OpenID is a standard that allows users to be authenticated in a decentralized manner. OpenID enables user to be identified across the internet using a single unified OpenID identifier (or account).

However some websites (particularly blog and forums) insist users to login in order to leave a short comment or remarks which sometimes is not convenient for some users that value anonymity.

OpenID Tango

The OpenID Anonymity service is an OpenID provider that helps you get around website or application that requires OpenID login. To use OpenID Anonymity service, the user only need to key in its URL Identifier – http://openid.anonymity.com/some_random_id and the user will be automatically authenticated, without the need to log-in or to enter password, which is very convenient if one needs to be anonymous.

Try it!

p/s: Additionally here’s a collection of Public Domain OpenID (tangofied) icons, created by Jakub Szypulka

Mitter: My favorite Ubuntu Linux Twitter client

Since I’ve been into twitter recently, I’m was looking for a twitter client that is suitable for my operating system. Thank god that search ended when I found mitter.

Among mitter features are :

  • clean interface: simple and easy to use
  • supports docking on systray
  • nicely integrated with GNOME desktop
  • has console client

Bonus for Ubuntu users : mitter is also available from GetDeb.net one-click-install portal

What are you waiting for? catch me on twitter (id: mypapit)

Subscribed to Linux Hater’s Blog : Funny and hillarious blog

After discovering Linux Hater’s blog from Google Reader and Technorati, I decided to subscribe it as it was a funny and hillarious blog. It make fun of people who are using Linux for the wrong reasons (such as trying to act cool) and how some things in Linux are not better than any other operating system.

Linux Tux Logo

Other than that, it contains criticism of the Linux community in general, mainly directed towards fanboys and developers, although one can easily surmise that the author himself is a Linux user who has experience in writing applications, and presumably using a Debian-derived Linux distro.

Well I might be wrong, but Linux Haters Blog is a must read if you are a Linux user yourself because it offer insights of the overall of how GNU/Linux operating system compare to other OS and what would make Linux a better OS

mypapit gnu/linux blog is now 3 years old!

It has been 3 years since I first started this blog, a cause that worthy of celebration. It was a long way to go when I first stated this blog in mid-April 2005, i never thought it would last this long, since I’m not much of a writer. Looking back, I still wish I had written a lot more useful articles on this website for my readers’ benefit.

birthday cake

For my readers, it is my hope that you will continue reading my humble posts for years to come. Thank you for your support