The 2015 CBC Creative Competitions

I have only learned about this competition now, and decided to participate. It ends soon (March 1) - so if you're interested, you'd better send your stuff in soon! Before you spend the time to read more about, know the limitations: Canadian citizenship or permanent residence, 1200-1500 words, $25 entry fee.

AI Love Letter

There's been a lot of talk lately about OpenAI's ChatGPT and its capabilities, so here we look at using it to generate poetry and / or old-fashioned love letters.

OSS WLW and quitter bloggers

As blogging is dying, those of us who still cling to this habit are occasionally baited by news we'd like to think will come true, only to be proven otherwise. One such news items suggests that Microsoft might release the source code of Windows Live Writer or WLW.

Moar Refreshments (mai multe piscoturi)!

The Romanian word “piscoturi”, loosely translated as “refreshments,” has become associated with the meagre price deontology or blogger ethics commands on the online advertising market (i.e., “piscotareala”) in that many are willing to sell not only their blog, but their soul and their mother’s soul for a few cookies and a coffee. Being a writer is a job everybody would love to have, except the writers themselves. Few other jobs (except maybe acting or singing) have as many people trying and so few succeeding. Being a blogger is somewhat less glamorous than being a writer, at least not in the traditional sense of the (former) word, as it combines traits of several other fields, such as IT, publishing, PR, but it still has a strong creative component. In this article, we take a look at the Romanian refreshment (piscot) market.

Disqus support fatigue

#Disqus has become the de facto standard in commenting, being used not just by small blogs, but even major newspapers and other high-traffic sites. I was one of the early adopters of Disqus, after having tried the Blogger 'left-behind' system, then the Intense Debate which ended up acquired by Wordpress parent. Compared to alternatives, Disqus is still the best, but there have been and still are problems, and that is what this article is about.

Google Plus vs Disqus comments on Blogger

I have recently learned via an email from Blogger that it is now possible to integrated Google Plus comments with a blog such as this one. Unfortunately, as of yet there is no reaction from Disqus and there does not seem to be possible to have both.

Submitting articles while preserving formatting

Virtually all websites accept now articles and most will actively court collaborators. While some have built-in mechanisms for article submission, many accept them by email only. Here we look at two ways to ensure that your article formatting is preserved without complicating the editor's life.

OLW OpenLiveWriter Happy Happy Joy Joy

Microsoft has released Windows Live Writer (WLW) code on GitHub, under the moniker Open Live Writer. I downloaded it right away.

Blogging as Murder

Normally, the question of whether being a famous blogger could land someone in hot water in a murder investigation does not enter the vernacular. Yet this seems to be happening to John McAfee, if we are to believe him..

Windows Live Writer Portable upgrade

I was prompted today to upgrade my portable install of Windows Live Writer. In case you have not heard about it, WLW is one of the few Windows applications that have no equivalent in the Linux world, causing many to keep Windows virtual machine or windows partition just so they can use it. This being the best blogging editor there is, I thought it's a good idea to share this experience (and much more) with you.

End of year blogging tips

I found two interesting articles full of good tips on blogging in general as well as generating discussions. A summary of each can be found below.

Beauty and the B..logger

A recent story about a Dakota Fanning selling perfume with sexually explicit ads, while Oscar nominated Gary Busey is selling cars got me thinking about brain damage and blogging.

Adding GreetBox to Blogger

Wordpress blogs have enjoyed for quite a while the GreetBox, a plugin that greets visitors based on their traffic source (referrer). In 2009 ClassicTutorials released an adaptation of that plugin for the Blogger platform hosted on GoogleCode. In this article, we'll be looking at implementing that script with customized messages.

Hacking .htaccess I

I recently uploaded some JavaScript files to my webserver to be used on some other external websites. They did not work at first and in the troubleshooting process I remembered how important it is to understand how .htaccess works.

Webhosting with 1and1

It started out well, but it devolved into strange domain freezing and impenetrable wall of silence.

DMCA takedown–Vali Petcu aka Zoso

Once again, I find myself at the receiving end of a bogus DMCA claim (I cannot even ascertain what it is about). This time however, I intend to fight it and document every step of the way, in the hope that others might find it useful.