May will be off from Mayvelous for about 3 weeks from tomorrow.
May will be visiting her “Boo Hoo sister” in Adelaide, Australia for a moral support.

If moral support doesn’t work, May is planning to give a physical support by wacking her up.

May would like to leave Mayvelous with a very busy friend, almost-to-be blogger, Mr J. Sheehy.
Mr. Sheehy always been a great friend and regular helper for May and Mayvelous as he is a brilliantly talented senior colleague.
May hope that Mayvelous and her readers will not give any trouble to Mr Sheehy by sending too many spam comments to clean up.

May would very much like to leave Mayvelous with her brother Zatlite but knowing him as a very unreliable, incapable and good-for-nothing plus he refuses to help, Mr Sheehy is the best choice to leave in charge.

May send sincere thanks to Mr Sheehy for taking care of Mayvelous and hope that he enjoy testing out wordpress.

Ping and Trackbacks are quite well known terms in blogger world. I’m not gonna talk about trackback(Blog-Blog/ post-post, notifying this blog uses content/resources related/referenced to that blog) here but like to share some of my notes about blog pinging and my collection of rss ping services.

Ping is the name of a computer network tool used on TCP/IP networks (such as the Internet). It provides a basic test of whether a particular host is operating properly and is reachable on the network from the testing host.
Ref: Wikipedia

If you are a blogger, you might have been using some of the most famous ping services to notify the blogosphere about your site update.
Some of you may not know that everytime you post to your blog, you are sending a ping to one or more services depending on your blogging platform. For example, those of blogspot users are pinging to Weblogs.com ping service everytime you make a new post. Ofcos that is if you specified it under “Setting” > “Publishing” > “Notify to Weblogs.com” to “Yes”.
For wordpress blogs by default includes Ping-O-Matic service. As usual, the good thing about wordpress is that you can add any number of ping urls in the text box specifies there.

There are lots of sites offer XML-RPC ping services on the web to track your site/blog updates. What those do is that, you added new post to your blog, you notify(ping) one of those xml-rpc services and they’ll come and crawl your site which in term updated in their database and make available to their visitors and propably those visitors will visit your site. Ah…something like that.
The main thing is that pinging and xml-rpc services publish your post/site to a wider medium, which is good.

XML-RPC is a remote procedure call protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism. It is a very simple protocol, defining only a handful of data types and commands, and the entire description can be printed on two pages of paper. This is in stark contrast to most RPC systems, where the standards documents often run into the thousands of pages and require considerable software support in order to be used.

It was first created by Dave Winer of UserLand Software in 1995 with Microsoft. However, Microsoft considered it too simple and started adding functionality. After several rounds of this, the standard was no longer so simple and became what is now SOAP.
Ref: Wikipedia

The followings are my collection of XML-RPC services. I guess only non blogspot blogs can use that. I suggest blogspot users to use the following links to submit the ping manually:
# Ping.o.matic
# Pingoat
# Blo.gs

You don’t need to add all those in your admin ping list. Only the main links as followed would be enough cos’ they ping to others as well.

Main list I use

• Blo.gs: http://ping.blo.gs/
• BlogRolling: http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
• PingGoat: http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
• Ping-O-Matic: http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
• PubSub: http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
• Syndic8 : http://www.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
• Technorati: http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
• TopicExchange: http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
• Weblogs.com: http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
• WebLogAlot: http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

The List

1. 1470Net: http://1470.net/api/ping
2. a2b: http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
3. Amagle: http://ping.amagle.com/
4. Blo.gs: http://ping.blo.gs/
5. BlogRolling: http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
6. BlogDigger: http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
7. BlogShares: http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
8. BlogsNow: http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
9. BlogStreet: http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
10. Bitacoles: http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

    http://bitacoras.net/ping

11. BlogDB: http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
12. Blogg.de: http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/
13. BlogMatcher: http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
14. Blogoole: http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
15. Blogoon : http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
16. BlogPeople: http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
17. BlogRoots: http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
18. Bloggoone: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
19. BulkFeeds: http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
20. Bitacoras: http://ping.bitacoras.com
21. BloggerJP: http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
22. BlogMura: http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
23. BlogBuzzMachine: http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
24. Bakeinu: http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
25. CoreBlog: http://coreblog.org/ping/
26. Cocolog-nifty: http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
27. DataShed: http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
28. Exblog: http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
29. FeedBurner: http://ping.feedburner.com
30. FeedSter: http://api.feedster.com/ping
31. IceRocket: http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
32. Lasermemory: http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
33. My.Yahoo: http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
34. My.YahooRSS: http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
35. MyBlog: http://ping.myblog.jp
36. MoreOver: http://api.moreover.com/ping

    http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

37. NewsIsFree: http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
38. PingGoat: http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
39. Ping-O-Matic: http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
40. PubSub: http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

    http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

    http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

41. PopDex: http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
42. RootBlog: http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
43. Syndic8: http://www.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
44. SnipSnao: http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
45. Technorati: http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
46. TopicExchange: http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
47. Weblogs.com: http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

    http://rpc.weblogs.com/

    http://ping.weblogs.se/

48. WebLogAlot: http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
49. Weblogues: http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

Only the links download txt file here. I hope this post helps you.
So next time you browse the net and come across new ping services, save the url and share with me too so that I could update my list.

Resourceful Links:
# Community Server list
# Elloitt Back Ping List
# Blog Herald Ping List
# SEO Black Hat Ping List
# Ensight Ping List

Technorati Tags: XML-RPC, RSS, Ping, Syndication, SEO, Useful, Links, Resources, References, Blogosphere, Services

In case if you haven’t noticed yet, I’ve updated mayvelous with:

• WordPress 2.0.1,
• Squible beta 1.1 (with a few tweaks),
• Upgraded Falbum 0.6.4,
• Favicon changed (make it more bigger),
• Navigation Menu changed,
• Added Logo (kind of…will get proper one later),
• Added proper “Aside” or side note category,
• Squible beta 1.1 include build-in “delicious” links.

(more…)

WP 2.xx versions up.
Upgrade to 2.0.1 guys. I’m doing it tonight.

All in all we’ve closed 114 bugs in the 2.0.1 release, which you’re welcome to check out if you’re curious about every fix. To summarize:

• You can now specify an upload directory, and whether to use date-based storage or not.
• Caching has been fixed under certain PHP enviroments.
• Permalinks have been fixed for weird enviroments as well.
• XML-RPC uploading works.
• Compatibility with older versions of PHP.
• Several WYSIWYG fixes and cleanups.
• Imports now use much less memory.
• Now works with MySQL 5.0 in strict mode.

Download Link: WordPress 2.0.1

So how do you like my new template? Pretty slick huh! Since I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.0, me loving the blue and now I got this matching blue “Squible” theme.

I love everything about, especially the main page, three layer style with flickr images. Only one problem, it’s not valid Xhtml. Live Search causing some invalidities. Will try solve that later, cos those search codes give me headache just by looking at it.

Oh yah this one got ajex commenting system and I’ve added live archives plugin for my archives page. It’s really cool, I just need to edit style sheet to reduce the font size.

Hmm what else? Yah that’s about it, so what do you think? Tell me if any errors you find or suggestions to improve the style.
Enjoy browsing.

Finally I’ve done upgrading to WP 2.0. Loving the blue admin, post previews, ajex effects, import features and yes it’s fast.

Now, only thing left is to change new design I got no idea yet.

Technorati Tags: WordPress2.0, Upgrade, Blogging

I just switched to FireFox 1.5 now(yah I know I’m late) and my “JustBlogIt” and “ScreenGrab” got screwed up so I’m testing this new “Performancing” extension. I’m useing that extension to post this entry.

I was really annoyed first cos’ I’ve just installed the extension and couldn’t find how to make use of it. I mean where in the name to click or set setting or post?

There is no option in the extensions panel to set the blog options and I can’t find any trace of how it works at all on “Performancing.com” site.
May be people are too smart or I’m too stupid that the site doesn’t provide a page explaining how to use it. Not even a single screen shot of things in action.

I took me 3 min to search through the site and I couldn’t find it so I search on my browser for any new icons. Finally I found it.
Boy I was like phheeewwww!! What a place to let people notice.

Ok now the good part about it. I really love the interface, it’s just within your browser and no pop up or new windows. Whichever tabs you switch it’s there.

The only thing I want them to improve it make it collapsiable+resizable instead of only resizable panel. Would be very handy to collapse the panel and open again whenever you want.

It’s compatible for the following blogs:

• Blogger.com
• WordPress.com
• TypePad.com
• LiveJournal
• WordPress Custom
• MoveableType

You just add your blogs in there and the categories and posts history of each blogs will show up. Very fast retrival of categories and posts.

One more thing they should improve is instead of having “Clear Content” button to clear history post that you view before and add new entry, they need to add “Create New Post” button for accessibility and user friendliness.

Clear content button can confuse users whether their old posts got clear away or are they really creating new post entry.
Well it’s abit hard to explain, you got to test it out to see what I mean by that.

Ok now this is gonna be my replacement for “JustBlogIt” and I’m loving it.

I think you’ll like that too.
Get it at Performancing.com.

Oh yah, you got to have firefox 1.5 to use it.

Updated::
Just checked the Performancing site and Jed Brown has posted a nice compilation of HOW TO: Using Performancing for Firefox article with screen shots and a nice spell check firefox extension link. Worth checking out.
I was looking for this kind of article yesterday…abit slow with documentation I guess but still it’s there now and the article is really useful.

Technorati Tags: firefox, extension, technorati, performancing