January 2008 Archives

My friend told me this site, StudioTax.

As always StudioTax 2007 is available free of charge and for personal use only.

Same as all other Tax softwares, it is still pre-certified release. When CRA certified it, the final version will be released.

StudioTax is a windows bilingual personal Income Tax preparation software made by Canadians for Canadians. StudioTax is distributed using a flexible licensing model. No license key or registration is required to download, install and use StudioTax. After you use StudioTax and you find it useful, we ask that you take the time to make a modest monetary contribution toward the support of this product.

Basically I treat it as a Donation-Based software.

I have not much experience about it. I will make a more detail review later.

The following IP Ports and Protocols are excerpted from Networking Fundamentals.

Port number - Protocols name
20 - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) data
21 - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) control
23 - Telnet
25 - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
53 - Domain Name Service (DNS)
80 - HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
110 - Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3)
119 - Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP)
139 - NetBIOS Session Service
143 - Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
161 - Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

Common protocols include TCP, UDP and ICMP. There are actually a great number of protocols, but these three are the most prevalent. TCP is used to handle the underlying data streams for web, email, news and almost every other popular network application. That does not mean that UDP and ICMP are not important however.

AliveWorksheet.com is a brand new site. Specialized on Math worksheet.

The worksheet is generated by program. So every time you click the "Create it" button, you will get a fresh worksheet.

You can choose the option for answer sheet. Or, you can put your daughter's name on the worksheet.

Aliveworksheet.com has eight free worksheets now.

Two addition
Two subtraction
Two Multiplication
Two Division

The multiplication section has a 9X9 multiplication table for kids.

The site is basically designed for the parents, daycare, elementary school teacher. And also include you.

Six Apart own the one of the most popular Blog software, Movable Type.
The latest version is 4.1, which released on Jan 24, 2008

Now MovableType has three distributions under different license.
1) MTOS (Movable Type Open Source) is a distribution of MT available under the GPL (v2).
It is Open Source license. Free to download, use, and modify. The restriction is keep Open Source, if you want to re-distribute it.

2) Movable Type for Personal Use is a distribution of Movable Type that is 100% identical to MTOS from a code perspective, however it is only available under a proprietary (closed source) license.
This is a free version for personal use. I also use this distribution.

3) Movable Type for Commercial Use is a distribution of Movable Type that includes the commercially-licensed equivalent of the core open source product and includes the Movable Type Professional Pack that contains features exclusive to our paid customers.
The advantage is the Professional Pack. The features are not included into the MTOS and personal license.

It happened again. Google AdSense has a contra currency exchange between US dollar and Canadian dollar.

I got this email noon.

It said the payment will be issued in two parts. One should be already received by me. The other part will be issued soon.

Do you know how this happen?
Google has one of the most powerful computing, but they don't have a good currency exchange calculation.
Let me show you how they did it.

1) USD to Canadian dollar rate should be 1.030 : 1, means 1 USD equal to 1.030 CAD.
They use 0.981 : 1 by mistake.
So if I have US$200 earning, they just pay me CAD196.2 ( USD200X0.981 = CAD196.2)
They should pay me CAD 206.00 ( USD200X1.030 = CAD206)

The first payment is issued as CAD 196.2.

2) Google found this error later. The re-calculation is made to match the first payment and make a second payment to match the total earnings.
The calculation is here:
The first payment is not USD200.00, but USD190.49 ( CAD 196.2 / 1.030 = USD190.49)
The second payment is the rest of earning, USD 9.51 (USD 200 - USD 190.49 = USD9.51)
Google said the second paymen is in processing. It will be paid soon.

The Google AdSense has its own login account previously. During last year, it ask some people use their Google Account to replace the regular AdSense account login information.

But it is not successful, if your Google Account has already associated with an AdWords, AdSense, or Books account.

Now this limitation is broken. Google can provide this merge smoothly, even you has the Google Account with AdWords.

I have this situation. I tried to change AdSense login by Google Account, which is associated with an AdWords account. So it failed.

This morning, when I login the AdSense by my current AdSense account, it promot me to merge it with a Google Account. I still remembered the trial before. I think I can try it again.

After four or five steps, the convert is successful. I can use the same Google Account to access Google AdSense, Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Center, and most important Gmail, etc.

Kontera has not been hacked. It launched new Publisher Center yesterday.

I have a Ubuntu installation on one of my desktop.
I am not a expert of Linux, but I like the spirit of Linux. Free and Open.

I alway get the tips, referrence, howtos from these top 10 Ubuntu Blogs.

1) Ubuntu Geek

2) Ubuntu Blog

3) Mark Shuttleworth

4) Ubuntu Fridge

5) All about Linux

Update on January 29: It is a big upgrade for the Publisher Center. Not hack.

Kontera is a good Ads provider.
Today when I login my account by click the "account login" from the home page of Kontera.

I got the plain page with the H1 tag. It said "It works!".

The information seems that Kontera is hacked by someone.

If it is a scheduled maintenance, they may post some detailed notes, not the shot text "It works!".

The text on the login page, " It works!" looks like some hacker really did something on Kontera.

More and more people have the high speed internet connection at home. How about the online TV?

I have this site in my favority for years. It is a wonderful guide for online TV station around the World.

There are over 2600+ TV stations on the list, grouped by the country.
For exampe, 54 stations in Canada,

You can also sorting the stations by category, say sports, kids, etc.

I have tested the upgrade on the MT unofficial blog. It is smooth.

Now I recorded the detailed upgrade procedures of David Yin's Blog.
Backup
1) Login the MovableType system, Backup all blogs of this system, by tab system > tools > backup

2) Use Export feature of the system, by tab system > tools > export
Export every individual blog.

3) SSH to the Dreamhost.
Use tar command to backup all related files.

tar czvf backup.tar.gz ~/yinfor.com/

4) Go to control panel of Dreamhost, Goodies > Manage MySQL > phpMyAdmin
Export the whole database.

Now I have the full backups on different levels. I am safe even the following upgrade fails.

Upgrade
1) SSH to Dreamhost

cd ~/temp/
wget http://www.movabletype.com/download/personal/MTP-4.1-en.tar.gz

2) Decompress the package

tar xvzf MTP-4.1-en.tar.gz

3) Copy the decompressed files into the mt cgi folder. I use mtcgi as the system folder.

cd ~/temp/MTP-4.1-en/
cp -r -f . ~/yinfor.com/mtcgi/

4) Now launch Firefox.
Enter http://www.yinfor.com/mtcgi/

Click "Begin Upgrade" to continue.

Just found that Movable Type 4.1 and Movable Type Open Source 4.1 are released.

Download:
Movable Type OpenSource 4.1
Movable Type 4.1 personal

New features:

• A smarter posting screen


• New asset editing system


• Author Avatars


• Shared global templates


• Performance enhancement

I will upgrade my MovableType unofficial blog first to see its new stuff.

It is a Tax season. More and more people use the tax software to file their Tax Return.
I would like to introduce an online facility. You don't need to install the software. So Prepare Federal, State and City tax returns at Tax$imple
online.

TAX$IMPLE offers the largest number of tax software for both, individual and business entities, online. For the Individual clients can create tax returns and efile for Federal, State and City tax returns for all 50 states. The clients also have the option to print and/or efile the tax return for the same price.
The client can also prepare tax returns for its business. We offer a wide variety of online business tax returns including Corporate, Small-Corporate, Partnership, Estate, Fiduciary, Exempt, and Gift Tax for Federal, State and City. On a limited basis, we also offer online business efiling. We are the first one to offer online business efiling.

Our programs are graphic based. On the screen, we actually project complete documents similar to the documents the clients have in their hand such as W-2, Interest, Dividend, 1099-R etc.. All they have to do is to copy the information from those documents on to the screen. From the information, we automatically generate Federal and State tax returns. Generally they complete their tax returns in less than 10 minutes. Of course, complex tax returns may require fine-tuning of federal and state tax returns and will take little more time.

Background of Tax$imple
TAX$IMPLE was established in 1983. Since then we have offered state-of-the-art federal, state and city tax preparation software for both individual and business entities, to both desktop and online clients. TAX$IMPLE supports tax preparation and efiling of individual tax returns for all 50 states comprising of 138 million consumers. It is the only company in the online industry that offers business tax preparation to the 18 million strong business clients.

Look, to prepare the Tax Return is free. You only pay when you want to print or efile you tax return.

You may be noticed that I put a Digg button on the bottom of every individual article page.

Today, when I wanted to Digg one of my post, I got a special recommend list.
Oh, it is out of service page. Digg has something to do internally. So put the site down.

Good list. You may be interested in it.

P.S.
You are encouraged to Digg my post.

After 2 and half years development, the Joomla! 1.5 released now.

It is a long waiting. I will hurry to install this new system to test it and try to migrate my Joomla 1.0 site.

To download it, click here.

Installation Instructions
Fresh Installation

Upgrade Instructions
From Joomla! 1.5 RC4

Migration Instructions
From Joomla! 1.0.x

My suggestion is to try the clean install first. Be familiar with the new user interface, administrator end and template. Then you can see how do you migrate your old one. Or just use the new Joomla 1.5.

Now I have the brand new installed phpBB 3 forum. In the final step of installation, I click "proceed on to convertor" to start converting the phpBB 2 to phpBB 3.

1) First, the welcome page shown.

2) Enter the old phpBB2 database setting into this page.

3) It will verify the setting which is entered above.

4) Click "Begin convert" to start.
It shows that the Avatars and smilies images will be copied from the old forum.

5) Converting

Now I will go through all steps to upgrade phpBB 2.0.22 to phpBB 3.
I use Dreamhost to host my phpBB forum. The forum I upgrade in this sample is http://forum.g2soft.net
To upgarde a phpBB 2 forum to phpBB3, I have to install a brand new phpBB 3 forum first, then convert the old phpBB 2 forum to phpBB 3. After testing, then let the phpBB 3 forum replace the phpBB 2 forum.

This is the part 1, covering the brand new installation of phpBB 3 and backup the old phpBB 2.

1) Backup all phpBB 2 files and database.
SSH to the server.

tar cvzf forum.g2soft.tar.gz ./forum.g2soft.net

2) Create a new dadabase
Use phpMyAdmin to create it, named as phpbb3

3) Get the phpBB 3 package and decompress it.
SSH to the server.

wget http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/phpbb/phpBB-3.0.0.zip
unzip phpBB-3.0.0.zip
cd phpBB3
cp -r -f . ~/forum3.g2soft.net

4) Start to install this new phpBB3
Enter http://forum3.g2soft.net in the Firefox. The introduction of phpBB3 is comming.

5) Click install tab, the installation compatibility testing page shown as below.

6) Click start install button.
Enter the database setting, which I created on step 2, into this page.

7) Click "process to next step", it will test the MySql server settings.

8) Enter the Administrator information to create the Forum Administrator.

Then the test of Administrator setting will run. The result looks like below:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

Microsoft Office's latest version is Office 2007, including Excel 2007, Word 2007, Outlook 2007, Powerpoint 2007, Access 2007 and Visio 2007. Plus Infopath 2007, Onenote 2007, Project 2007, Publisher 2007, Sharepoint Designer 2007. Click here, you can download the trial version.

Powerpoint 2007 is the presentation tool.

What's New of PowerPoint 2007:

• A new and intuitive look


• Themes and Quick Styles


• Custom slide layouts


• Designer-quality SmartArt graphics


• New and improved effects


• New text options


• Table and chart enhancements


• Proofing Tools


• Presenter view


• Slide Libraries


• PowerPoint XML file formats


• Save as PDF or XPS


• Secure your presentations


• Prevent changes to a final version of a document


• Find and remove hidden metadata and personal information in documents


• Add a digital signature to your presentation


• Information Rights Management


• Manage document properties in the Document Information Panel


• Office Diagnostics


• Program Recovery

Powerpoint 2007 is a powerful tool to make a professional presentation without a lot of skills.

To make a better powerpoint, you still have to know what should not do.

phpBB3 is released last month. I upgraded one phpBB 2.0.22 to phpBB 3 yesterday.

I will show you the details about the upgrade later. Now I just mark some good features phpBB 3 added.

UTF-8 Support, Search Engine spider Handling, Set min/max Username Length, Set min/max Password Length, Set Password Complexity Requirements, Attachments, Post Drafts, Memberlist Searching, Disallow Non-Registered User Memberlist Viewing, and also a lot of other new features.

The completed feature comparation between phpBB2 and phpBB3.

The comparation of phpBB to IPB, VB, and SMF is here.

Download phpBB 2 or phpBB 3 here.

Sixapart released MovableType 4.1 RC1 yesterday. I updated my test bed at MovableType Beta Unofficial Blog.

The important changes are listed below

• a clean upgrade path for user's of the Custom Fields plugin wishing to move to Movable Type 4.1
• a fix that addresses a vulnerability posted about previously
• userpics are now embedded by default in Movable Type's default templates
• a change to Movable Type search results template has sped up search results considerably

It looks not big change between Beta2 and RC1. The database is also updated when I upgrade my testing bed.

There is one more Release Candidate. The final MovableType 4.1 will release soon.

WidgetBucks is an advertising network that gives a widget that displays shopping ads. When a reader clicks on the widget and visits the advertiser, you make money. WidgetBucks runs on a CPC model - you get paid when readers clicks on the ads - they do not have to make a purchase from the advertiser. WidgetBucks claims $3 to $6 eCPM in early test results.

It looks better than a lot of other CPC program. The average earning per click is about $0.20.

WidgetBucks has built-in code generator for TypePad, WordPress and Blogger. And it also provide a generic code for other blog platform.

The ads displayed on the site will depends on your choice of category or let MerchSense crawl your content and match it.
Now it has 8 sizes with 16 format. The color of ads are unlimited, because you can enter the HEX color code.

WidgetBucks is ideal for technology and shopping related sites and blogs. However, WidgetBucks is opening their widgets to everyone. There are no minimum requirements to join and the minimum payout is $50.
The Signup bonus is $25. So make $25 with WidgetBucks and you will get the first payout $50.

I run a BBS, which is phpBB. I also use the Google Apps' email service. How to make them work together?

Let's discuss it now.
Version of phpBB2: 2.0.22
It is running on the Dreamhost's hosting.

There is a email setting under General Admin > Configuration
Say, I want to use a Gmail account as the BBS system email account. The Google Apps's email is same as Gmail setting.
Let's put the details here.
1) Have the Gmail or Goolge Apps's email account works.

2) Using the menu at the top right edge of the main Gmail window (the one that shows up after you log in), click on Settings, and then Forwarding and POP / IMAP. Under POP Download, click either Enable POP for all Mail, or Enable POP for Mail that Arrives Now (which ever suits your purpose). Configure anything else that appeals to you too. Exit from the Gmail Settings Window after saving your selections (this is important).

3) Login the phpBB administrator panel.
Goto General Admin > Configuration > Email Settings

SMTP Server Address:ssl://smtp.gmail.com:465
SMTP Username: enter your email address
SMTP Password: enter the password of your email account.

After that, the email setting is fine on your phpBB system. Any emails through the system email account will be OK. I enable account activation, which requires new users verify his email address.

CNET reports that Sun Microsystems is about to buy MySQL AB, developer of open source database management system MySQL, for 1 billion dollars: $800 million in cash for MySQL’s privately held stock and another $200 million in options.

Mashable also reports it.

MySQL is so popular on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) structure. Tons of Open Source web-based software use MySQL.

The software I used, MovableType, PHPBB, WordPress, are also rely on the MySQL server.

The good news is Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said that Sun will begin offering support services to customers of MySQL before the deal closes later this year.

Sixapart released Movable Type 4.01a today. It is a Security Update.

No matter MT 3.2, MT 3.3x or MT4.01, upgrade is required.

For MT4.01, just download the gz package and decompress it. Overwrite the MovableType 4.01 installation is OK.

No database upgrade this time.

It said, "Security Release. The potential vulnerability has not yet been exploited in the wild.This is a mandatory update for all users of Movable Type."

So I did it as it said.

I used five steps to upgrade it.
1) Fully Backup
Backup database through PhpMySQL, Tar and compress all files into one file, and export all entries by build-in function.

2) Get package
SSH to Server, wget the file.

3) Decompress package
tar xvzf MT-4.01a-eb.tar.gz

4) Copy and overwrite the installation

5) Login the system and click upgrade if asked.

The SSH is provided by Dreamhost.

jQuery announced the 1.22 release. It is a bug fix version. Over 120 bug fixes and the the changes make the speed improved.

Bug fixed list here.

The package is very small.
* jQuery Minified (15kb with Gzipping)
* jQuery Packed (28kb)
* jQuery Regular (93kb)

You can download it from the official site.

The big news is Google use the jQuery in their Google Code site.

Now, Happy Birthday to jQuery.

From official news Joomla1.0.14RC1:

The Joomla! Project today announced the immediate release of Joomla! 1.0.14 RC1 [Daybreak], the first and hopefully singular release candidate for the 1.0.14 release cycle.

Joomla is an open source CMS started by former core developers of the CMS Mambo. The 1.0.x tree of Joomla was forked directly from Mambo. Work has been underway on a massive overhaul of the system, Joomla 1.5, which finally does away with nested tables, which should lighten things a bit. The changes in Joomla 1.5 are too numerous to list; it’s just about a whole new CMS altogether. Joomla 1.5 is currently on the fourth release candidate, and the release version is expected before the end of February.

I would like to introduce some proved best Directory. You can submit your Blog or your site for free.

It is a free site submission directory. No payment required, even some ask for a reciprocal link.
It is worth.

GoldXfers.com Directory

gilas.net web directory

LinksWeb.info - Free Web Directory

G2links Directory

LinkBook

N1 Directory

YourLinkHere!

ZoomDirectory Free web directory

Link On Up

EnterWork.net

Insurance Directory

Free Website Directory

Black Dhalia Internet Directory

Best Net Sites

[ Free ] Link Submissions | General Website Directory

Solid printing's ink type is solid blockes. It is a new type of printing technology.
It melt solid blocks of ink, spray the ink on a drum and then roll the drum against a piece of paper to transfer the ink like an offset printing press.

The speed has generally been same as the slow laser printer.

The funny Xerox Solid Ink Technology Dance

For more detail info about Solid ink, click here.

DBF is very old format databse type. About 10 years ago, I use dBase which use DBF format.
Now I will show you how to connect the DBF file from PHP script.

1) Add a system DSN in ODBC Data Source Administrator
I have a source named dd.

2) Make a file named odbc.php, the content is:
<?php
$odbc = odbc_connect ('dd', '', '') or die('Could Not Connect to ODBC Database!');
?>

3) In the PHP file, which needs to connect this database, I use the following script.

Use this way, PHP can connect the old database file, like dBase, Foxpro.

I have the text string as below:
04/02/08
It is text. Format is mm/dd/yy
But it is still can be recognized as yy/mm/dd or dd/mm/yy.

How to convert to the ISO date format?
I use PHP to do it.

date('Y-m-d',strtotime('04/02/08'))

It will convert the text to date and format it in ISO date.

I make a web form which have about 25 fields. Including date, text, number. I need a tool to doing the client side data validation.

Because I am learning jQuery. So I decide to go to jQuery official site. I think there may be some plugins.
Actually there are lots plugins related to form validation.
I chose the Validation.

It is preaty simplay when I need to validate some fields.
The code is:

$(document).ready(function(){
$("#commentForm").validate();
});

The latest vesion is 1.1.2

To learn typing is a small step for some people. I learned it in two weeks and know how to use my ten fingers. But for someone, it is tooooo difficult to use all ten fingers. They just use the index one, like my elder daughter, Grace.

Now I want to introduce these seven sites can help you. And also I would like let Grace try every each site. Let her choose the one suitable for 7 years old kids.

10-Fast-Fingers.com - A 10-step typing tutorial program that teaches you more finger placements in each lesson, and then tests you on them. When you’re all done there is a speed test to see how you improved.

GoodTyping.com - Has over 27 lessons, offers 18 different keyboard layouts and is available in multiple languages.

Learn2Type.com - Offers a typing test to test where you are skill wise, and besides teaching just the QWERTY keyboard setup, they also offer AZERTY and Dvorak layouts. Also has lessons for kids as it’s never too early to start learning to type.

PowerTyping.com - Okay, so maybe typing sites aren’t all fancy with rounded corner logos, or gradient images, but did you come to look at the pretty, or to learn to type? This site focuses on QWERTY and Dvorak keyboard layouts.

Typing-Lessons.org - While the site has a very 1990’s feel to it, the site explains this is on purpose so as not to distract you from the purpose of the site which is to teach. Teaches you all th rudimentary skills you need to get started on the road to being a better typist.

To update the Creative products' software or drivers. see below:

Creative Software AutoUpdate currently supports Windows® 98 or higher with Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher.

Windows Vista is currently not supported.

AutoUpdate

Creative is a brand name. It manufactures a lot of sound related products, such as MP3 player, audio/sound card, speaker system, etc.

Its Sound Blaster card is very strong brand and has an outstanding sound quality in the sound card market from 1987.
It is the No 1 in the world.

I used Sound Blaster 16 around 1995. Pic from Wiki.

It introduced 16-bit digital audio sampling to the Sound Blaster line. Natively supported FM synthesis through a Yamaha OPL-3 chip. The cards also featured a connector for add-on daughterboards with wavetable synthesis (actually, sample-based synthesis) capabilities complying to the General MIDI standard. This card made the computer game hears really at the first time.

Later I used Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Pic from Wiki.

The card I used is Live 5.1. It supported 5.1 channels. Included center speaker and subwoofer. This time it make the movie playback better than before. The movies begin to use Dolby Digital 5.1. The VCD is also starting popular.

You may be noticed that the previous post has only one code. It is a verification code for BidVertiser Ads for Feed.

It is a good way to make money from your Blog.
Click the button below to sign up as a publisher.

After sign up and add your blog into BidVertiser, you can get the Ads code and put into your Blog.

Make money is that simple and easy.

The way to add a Ads for Feeds is just five steps as below:

BDV-820996-BDV