I wrote the other day how I have been bewildered by a sudden drop in traffic on this site.

Turns out there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the drop as the site have somehow been hacked.

Evil people have inserted bits of HTML in the site's header and footer linking to hundreds of spam sites advertising weird pharmaceuticals and what not.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

When writing my previous post about the BlogPlanet mobile blog editor, I encountered some weird limitations.

For some reasons - maybe the SX1 origins of the app? - there are restrictions on the length of both post text (1000 characters) and titles (128 characters).

But composing blog posts with T9 is actually quite nice…

Here is a link to an overview of how to set up BlogPlanet with different blogging platforms.

Tip: Use BlogPlanet's dictionary for text templates, e.g. a templates for links, inserting images etc.

—
This post was made with a trial version of BlogPlanet, a photo blog client for mobile phones. For more information visit www.blogplanet.net.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

For a while I have been interested in finding some sort of setup that will enable me to blog from my mobile phone. Surprisingly, there does not seem to be that many options for S60.

But I think I have found something that works - it is a blog editor called 'BlogPlanet'. BlogPlanet is a J2ME app that appears to be originally made for the Siemens SX1 phone. It features very basic text editing like bold, italic and line breaks.

Sadly, BlogPlanet seems to disable copy-pasting text.

BlogPlanet is also capable of capturing images using the phone's camera - images which can then be inserted into posts. Note however, that there is no access to the phone's own picture gallery - BlogPlanet rolls its own…

BlogPlanet supports Blogger and MetaWeblogAPI, which means it can be used with WordPress (including image uploads).

This post is written and published using BlogPlanet and I think the biggest problem is the tedious text input. I expect to get hold of a bluetooth keyboard soon (Nokia SU-8W or iGo/Stowaway).

—
This post was made with a trial version of BlogPlanet, a photo blog client for mobile phones. For more information visit www.blogplanet.net.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I have just noticed that the RSS feed for this site does not seem to work properly.

The feed should be available at 'http://www.gersbo.dk/feed/', but that page turns up blank.

If you have 2 seconds to spare, would you mind clicking the feed icon in the upper right corner? If you are using Firefox, you can also click the Live Bookmark icon in the address bar. Both should point to 'http://www.gersbo.dk/feed/' which in turn points to FeedBurner.

I would be most grateful if you would send me a one or two line report about what happens when you click either of these links. Post a comment or send me an email.

The funny (or tragic) thing is that FeedBurner have no problem picking up my feed using the above address and 'http://www.gersbo.dk/wp-rss2.php' works fine?

Thanks in advance - chris

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

For the past couple of months, I have been writing and posting blog entries using Windows Live Writer (WLW). I have tried other blog editors in the past, but WLW is the only one that I have kept.

I am posting this plug/heads-up because I discovered and installed a recently released upgrade of WLW(Beta 2) today.

Keep reading and I will plug WLW some more by letting you know why I think it is really useful.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I have just enabled a new theme at this site and it's something I have been meaning to do ever since moving to Wordpress. So far, I have been using the default Kubrick theme (in a slightly modified version, that displays the sidebar on all pages), which is a very nice theme albeit somewhat bland (or maybe that's just beacuse so many people use it?). I have been wanting to use a different theme that was my own and a little more feisty, in comparison to the Kubrick theme.

Now, the way it is with these itches, it is something where it's quite a leap to actually start doing something about it. I have done it by not starting from scratch and by working in small increments, which also is why it has taken me so long.

I started by finding a theme, that would lend itself to customization. After taking a look at a few very comprehensive and complex themes (one theme is described as a theme suite), I decided to use something simpler that would not require me to spend a lot of time learning the intricate details of the theme. This led me to the Modified Kubrick Full Sidebar Theme, which is based on the original Kubrick theme. I therefore knew the basic layout, CSS and so on, and I knew these to be pretty straight forward and clean cut.

The Modified Kubrick Full Sidebar Theme satisfied my requirement for Wordpress widget support, but I also wanted a theme that made use of the available horizontal space on the screen. The original Kubrick theme (and subsequently also the Modified Kubrick… Theme) is restricted to a width of 760 pixels, to cater to users with 800×600 pixel resolution. According to the statistics collected by Statcounter (it's free…) for this site, only about 1 percent of my visitors use a resolution of 800×600 pixels. To help me come up with a layout to satisfy this requirement, I found my way to this very useful guide to Wordpress themes.

Lastly, I had to come up with colors and shapes for the elements in the layout. I don't believe in engineers doing graphical design since the result is usually pretty horrible. So what I did was to shop around by looking at other themes, either copying or getting inspired by what I liked. The result may still be horrible, but be assured that I at least made a conscious effort to avoid it.

Please feel free to comment on the theme - especially if you come across errors (I'm aware of some IE issues, including custom bullet points and transparent .png's).

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Up until now, I have been pursuing a *discrete* AdSense strategy in the sense that visitors would be served up ads only if they arrived at my site on a link from somewhere else (e.g. from searching Google). I personally find ads ugly and a nuisance to any page design or layout.

The following code is currently used to serve up ads (code lifted off of Russell Beattie's Notebook).

Idealism comes with a price tag and because of my puritan ad serving scheme, basically no one sees - subsequently clicks - ads on my site. Between AdSense activation on January 6. and until today, AdSense has made me a grand total of $3.07.

Clearly, this is not viable way to proceed, so instead of a) posting more frequently or b) posting about interesting subjects in an eloquent style of writing, I have decided to c) crank up ad exposure. I will now serve up ads to both of the two visitors, I have a day on average. Yes, that means you too, mom. This will hopefull make one of them click some ads.

In a less money lusting tone of voice, I may note that since signing up for AdSense, my browsing behavior has changed - specifically my add clicking behavior. I used to pretty much ignore page ads (as I am sure many people do), but have begun to make a concious effort to click some ads, if I come across something entertaining, interesting or useful.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!