FREE GPRS,hacking,gameschets.etc

For those who have reaped the benefits of Alternating Sidebar Styles hack, it has now become even better.

The original hack supported only single-sidebar templates.
This update will automate the even-odd styled sidebar widgets for any number of sidebars.
The only thing you have to bear in mind is that each sidebar section (which you want to show in alternate style) should have a class sidebar.

This update is a result of constant bugging by Sumesh. Great going, kiddo! :p

STEPS FOR UPGRADING
Absolutely none!
I have made the changes in the javascript file itself.
However, you have to make sure that each sidebar section is of sidebar class. (If you are using Ramani's or Hoctro's templates, or have used the instructions from Beautiful Beta for adding sidebars, then it already has that classname)

FIRST TIME INSTALLERS
Rush to the instructions for the original hack.

Please don't ask me on instructions to add a new sidebar. Check out Beautiful Beta which already has the instructions.

Technorati has their top 100 blogs, with popularity based on the number of links to the blog. These popular blogs are high volume and tend to be heavy on geek-tech subjects, though a number of political blogs are also featured.

These blogs are linked to because the content tends to be pretty good, but the busy blogger may not have time to follow these feeds effectively. If you blog about a niche topic, you've probably been scooped by some of your friends who caught a mention of your favorite subject on BoingBoing or engadget.

I've created a handy, subject-filtering tool just for you. Enter the keywords you're interested in and you'll have your own, custom RSS feed that search for those keywords from many of the most popular, English-language blogs. Subscribe to that feed and you've narrowed your view of these high volume blogs to just the topics you're interested in.

For example, I blog about bicycling. I watch for the terms bike, cyclist and bicycl. With these words, I get bikes, bikers, bicyclist, bicycling and so forth. I tried "cycle" at first, but I got a lot of posts about recycling, budget cycles, and the water cycle. You may need to experiment similary.

Let me know if you find this tool helpful. I've created it with Yahoo Pipes; if you need more than four keywords or you need some flexibility in where the searches are done, it's not difficult to copy my Pipe and create your own.

Try out the user provide keyword search for top blogs tool.

I plan to post a series of tips on how to use RSS to help with your blogging. This first one comes from howtogeek.com.Digg.com can be a great source of traffic to your site. If you want to know if an article has been Dugg, follow the link and read the post.



read more | digg story

The AJAX Labels is back with more features! I was planning to release this with my new template, but the template design is slipping beyond schedule.

Note: If you want to integrate AJAX Labels with Phydeaux3's Label Clouds, read this post and come back here.

Some of the new features are:

• Built-in navigation system.
• More user customisability. (You don't even need to know coding for that!)
• Support for Unicode Categories in IE.
  
• More user-friendly installation. (Code to be copied/modified in template is reduced)

The installation of this hack afresh would be easy. But upgrading from my previous version is a bit knotty. Anyway, I will explain both. If you get stuck, feel free to comment and I'll be there to help.

FRESH INSTALLATION
Click here for Upgradation instructions.
If you already have AJAX Labels installed, you can directly jump to upgradation instructions.

Like the first version, this one too needs the Prototype JS framework. You can either store it in a location of your preference, or use the location that I've given below.
First of all, back up your template. It is always a good idea to back up your template, so that you can revert if you mess things up.

1. Click Page Layout->Edit HTML. Check the box saying "Expand Widget Templates"
Look for the </head> tag in your template. Insert the following code just above that.

<style type='text/css'>
#indicator {position:fixed;z-index:1000;padding:15px 0;top:40%;background-color:#FFFFFF;border:1px solid #AAAAAA;width:176px;left:50%;margin-left:-88px;text-align:center;}
#search-result {border:1px solid #AAAAAA;padding:10px;padding-bottom:30px;font-size:85%;}
.search-result-meta {background:#EFEFEF;padding:2px;}
.search-result-meta img {border-width:0;vertical-align:text-bottom;}
.search-title {font-size:1em;padding-bottom:3px;font-weight:bold;text-align:left;text-decoration:underline;}
.search-cat {display:block;padding:3px;font-size:1em;margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;border-bottom:1px solid #C0C0C0;font-weight:bold;}
.search-close {color:silver;float:right;border:1px solid #F5F5F5;margin-top:10px;cursor:pointer;}
.search-result-nav {font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;padding:5px 0pt;text-align:center;}
</style>
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://bloggerhacked.googlepages.com/prototype.js' />
<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
// User customisable parameters
// ----------------------------
// maxresults - Number of results to show per page
// navFlag    - Set Navigation ON or OFF. Give 1 for ON and 0 for OFF.
// feedLabel  - Text to show for the label feed link.
// catLabel   - Label for categories.
// closeLabel - Label for Close button. You can use hypertext also.
var maxresults = 5;
var navFlag = 1;   //ON by default
var feedLabel = "Subscribe to";
var catLabel = "Sorted into:";
var closeLabel = "Click to close";
//]]>
</script>
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://bloggerhacked.googlepages.com/ajaxlabels.js' />

Note: You can avoid the prototype script addition line if you already have added the prototype.js script to your template (It is quite likely, if you have added some hack to your blog). If you don't understand what I'm saying, never mind.

Now the customisation part.
See the snippets in red above. Those are the stuff which you can customise.
Just above that I have written comments on what each represent. To customise them, you just need to modify them to the appropriate value.
For example, if you want to change the close button text from "Click to close" to, say, "[X]", then simply change "Click to close" in the red area to "[X]".

Navigation Feature: The navigation feature allows pagination of the results. So you can view all the results in several pages.
maxresults and navFlag together determine how it is shown.
navFlag is the parameter saying whether you want this feature or not. The number of results shown per page will be decided by maxresults. The number of pages will be calculated automatically.

Eg: Lets say, you have 13 posts with a particular label in your blog.
Case 1: maxresults=5 and navFlag=1
You will have 3 pages (peekaboo blocks) with 5 results each. There will be a navbar which will let you go to any of those 3 pages.
Case 2: maxresults=5 and navFlag=0
You will have a single page with 5 recently updated posts with the particular label.
You won't be able to view other results
Case 3: maxresults=20 and navFlag=1
You will have a single page with 13 results (Because 13 is less than 20).

If you know CSS, you can modify the look of your result block as well.

2. Locate the following code in your template:

<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a>

Replace it with this:

<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<a href='#sres' expr:onclick='"javascript:getCat(\"" + data:label.name + "\",null)"' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a>

3. Optional: If you have the labels widget in your template.

Locate the following code in your template:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:else/>
<a href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>

Replace it with this:

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:else/>
<a href='#sres' expr:onclick='"javascript:getCat(\"" + data:label.name + "\",null)"' ><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>

4. Click on the button below.

<div id="indicator" style="display:none"><img alt="Indicator" src="http://bloggerhacked.googlepages.com/indicator.gif" /> Loading...</div><div id="search-result" style="display:none"><a name="sres"></a><div class="search-close" onclick="javascript:Element.hide('search-result')"><script type="text/javascript">document.write(closeLabel);</script></div><div id="show-result"></div><div class="search-close" onclick="javascript:Element.hide('search-result')"><script type="text/javascript">document.write(closeLabel);</script></div></div>

This will take you to an Add Widget Screen. Select your blog and click on Add widget.

5. Save your template. That was a breeze, wasn't it?

UPGRADATION
Caution!
If you are installing AJAX Labels for the first time, don't proceed any further. You are already finished with your installation. This section is only for upgrading from the previous version.

1. Back up your template first. (Be pessimistic in these matters ;) )
2. Go to Edit HTML. Look for my previous installation of Javascript. It is very easy to find. It is enclosed within <!-- Begin Categories --> and <!-- End Categories -->
Delete that entire portion.
3. Now check Step 1 of the FRESH INSTALLATION section. Follow that step and come back here.
4. Search for the following snippet in your template.
'"javascript:getCat(\"" + data:label.name + "\")"'
There will be two places where this occurs.
Replace both places with this
'"javascript:getCat(\"" + data:label.name + "\",null)"'
5. Save your template and go to page layout screen and delete the HTML/Javascript widget you had created when you installed the previous version.
6. Go to step 4 of FRESH INSTALLATION section. Follow that step and come back here.
7. Save your template and you are done. There! That was not very difficult.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Tsung-Kai Chen - For his several comments and the bugs he found in the previous version.
Bahram - For the heads up on the Unicode Category issue in IE.

Update 1: The code had minor syntax errors (due to wrong copy paste)because of which the hack was not working. Problem is fixed now. Reinstalling the hack will make it work.

Update 2: Drat! Another silly mistake. The Close button was not working. I've fixed this. Just delete the widget and add it again (Step 4) . You don't have to redo any other steps.

Update 3: Arrgh!! Another bug. I have made the corrections. You will have to redo Steps 2, 3 and 4. This will remove support for the rel-tag microformat. I will release an update if I find a way to work around that.

Media Guerrilla has a provocative post on the 90 second news cycle. The secret to media exposure and worldwide fame, then, is to post something good every 90 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's over 9000 350,000 blog posts a year.

Alternatively, you can create good quality relevant content and maybe get somebody's attention.

Via Hyuku.

Update: Correction to a simple arithmetic error.

Those who know UNIX might know the use of pipes. Pipes are what make the shell scripts do their job. Think pipes. Think Feeds. Think mash-up. And think Yahoo!

The result is Yahoo! pipes.
Yahoo! pipes is a versatile method of filtering out unnecessary data from feeds and getting exactly what you want.

Yahoo! pipes works similar to UNIX pipes, to redirect output to different blocks/widgets sequentially and get a final format which the user wants. But the best part is, there is no coding involved. Any amateur user can use the pipes to get a personalized feed. It is so simple. Just drag and drop filters, give the proper parameters in each, and connect each through pipes.

Check the following pipe for instance. I create a Fetch block and give my feed URL. Then I pipe it to a Filter block which will filter it based on a simple rule - Select all the entries which have category "Stories". It is then connected to "Pipe output".
The result is a feed which has only those entries with category "Stories", filtered out from the original feed.

This is just a simple application. There are a myriad of possible ways you can create a mash-up. Heaven is the limit to the number of smart ways you can customize your feeds.

You can even give query strings and get the output as feeds. You have the option of getting RSS or JSON feeds.

THE VERDICT
Feeds have already been making news as an excellent way of representing data. Pipes just made it better. As I said, heaven is the limit. We can expect some new hacks for Blogger too which uses Yahoo! pipes.

FURTHER READING
1. Pipes to the rescue! - Aditya
2. Pipes and filters for the internet - O'Reilly

UPDATE
1. There is a bug in Yahoo! pipes currently which results in published date field to be blank in the feed. Ramani has mentioned this to the "Pipes Suggestion Board". It is important that we get this bug out of the way. So please vote for his feedback. Ramani reckons that Yahoo! is not like the Blogger Support; they are very responsive. :)
This problem is fixed by Yahoo!

Yahoo calls it Pipes, but I call it drag-and-drop mashup creation. Absolutely no programming knowledge is required to create Pipes with Yahoo's new tool.

With Pipes, you start with one or more sources of data. These can be search results from the web, from a map location, or from Flickr; or the data can be an RSS feed like from a blog or news site.

After you create your inputs, you can massage the data with Yahoo's secret sauce -- modules that you can drag in to filter, translate, and otherwise modify the incoming data.

An example of a Pipe you can create is this one where I combined the posts and comments feeds for Freshblog into one aggregate feed using the "Union" module.

In this simple example, I've taken the Freshblog feed and run it through the BabelFish module to quickly create a Spanish language version of Freshblog. You can conceivably expand the audience of your blog by providing a separate feed for each of the 12 languages Babelfish supports.

A great way to learn Pipes to to start with the simple examples above and modify them. Have fun with it!

I was initially reluctant to write this post here when Aditya tagged me. I didn't want this to be in my tech blog. After months, I decided to write it anyway. (Just as a gap filler, as I am in the process of rolling out more interesting stuff)

Five things you don't know about me. Well! I'm so new to the hacker arena that most people don't know anything about me.

For a starter, read this post about six weird things about me.

1. I am not a Computer Engineer. If you ask me about "OS concepts", I won't be able to understand what you ask, let alone answer it. I did my engineering in Electronics and Communication (because I like it more) from NIT Calicut. I work in Mobile Multimedia domain. I was introduced to the world of computers in my 8th grade (1996), although it wasn't until 2000 that I started liking computers.

I don't know when I started liking programming. I learned C and found out that programming was fun. Then I went on to write some simple games like Bulls and Cows. My first big project was to create an IDE for 80x86 Assembly Language Programming. This was created in C to aid myself and my classmates with their Microprocessor Lab work.

2. Most of what I've learned with respect to computers is self-taught. From assembling computer hardware to programming hacks. My interest in Blogger hacks was born out of necessity. I started blogging sometime around 2004. I really hated all the templates in Blogger so I wanted to make one myself. It started with small mods for my template, which then went on to learning Javascript, the JSON, XML and so on.

3. I am 23 years old, although I look much younger. People still think that I'm in college when they see me. I usually quip with quotes from an Indian ad.
(Only Indians will understand this :) )

Person: You don't look like you are 23.
Me: That's because I use Santoor soap. "Chehraa Dekhke umr ka pataa hi nahin chalta"

(means "You can't guess my age by looking at my face". That was the tagline of that supposedly age-defying soap.)

4. I play the Violin. I started learning violin when I was seven. I hold a National Scholarship in Violin and am a part time professional. I was a singer in our college band too. Another instrument which I can "claim" to play is the keyboard. I know how to touch it. :D

Other hobbies I have are making crazy contraptions and small electronic circuits, solving cryptic crosswords, to name a few. I'm an avid reader of novels and a movie-watcher.
I am a big big fan of Harry Potter. People say I'm crazy about Harry Potter. In fact, the lime green theme of my blog was inspired by the lime green cover of Half-Blood Prince.

5. I crack more PJs (Poor Jokes) than good jokes. You might've had a taste of it from my Profile ;)

That's as much as I can say right now. I'm feeling a kind of deja vu because I've written most things about myself in my personal blog.