Howto: Flattr Widget for Blogger - The easy way

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If you try any of the current suggestions for integrating Flattr with Blogger, you'll notice that the Javascript generated button will probably show "Error" or "Inactive" rather than showing what you expected. I.e. a correct Flattr button with a count and a link to your account. Never fear, Ben is here...

I soon realised that Flattr expects you need to submit each piece of content individually. That means submitting each blog post manually. Do you want to manually submit each of your pages individually? Thought not! Read on...

Ideally you want to add one little piece of code to have a Flattr button appear across all of the pages on your Blogger based blog. The designer lets you do that, but lets make it even easier and make this a four step process:

  1. Go to the Flattr submission page and enter the URL of your blogger website (i.e. http://yourblog.blogspot.com/). Complete the form as if you were submitting your blog generically.
  2. Grab the unique URL that Flattr generates for your blog. e.g. https://flattr.com/thing/47613/Ben-Powells-blog-with-lots-of-helpful-tips
  3. Paste that URL below, click and rock and roll!
  4. Come back and Flattr me!

Easy Flattr widget for Blogger



Can Germany win the World Cup 2010

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I watched the Germany v Australia game live on German TV. Shortly before the game started, the usual German commentators rolled out an amazingly detailed analysis of the Australian style of play. They commented on how the German team should best beat their opposition. They noted the lack of Ozzie midfield play, kick-and-rush style, and stated that any German goals would come by forcing the strong Australian back four out of position on the counter-attack. Awesome graphics and everything!

Löw and behold; 4 goals came and went and all by the system described by the commentators. As a Brit, I couldn't believe it. That's why Germany wins time and time again! A tried and tested system, determination and almost absolute self belief.

And I thought football was all down to the tried-and-tested English system of a bit of slick passing, individual brilliance, prayers to the "no penalty shootout" gods, and bucket-loads of luck!

The truth is that Germany still plays with the same ruthless systematic approach that they always have. To everyone else it appears to be a more open and flowing style, but in reality the style might have changed, but the system is still just as efficient and utterly devastating to teams that give them the space to play.

I'm really looking forward to see how German can play against a real side. The kick-and-rush approach of the Ozzies was strikingly similar to the approach England played against the USA.

I've had a season ticket at Werder Bremen for the last year and watched Mesut Özil and Marko Marin tear defences apart. However, I've also seen them play atrociously, especially Özil, who spent the majority of the winter months trotting half-heartily after the ball. It wasn't until the sun came out in the spring that he started playing well again (notably, Özil's other weakness is that he can't cross the ball consistently and Marko Marin crosses the ball consistently at his own "Tom Cruise" head height. i.e. 5'7").

Also consider that Germany haven't let Stefan Kießling and Toni Kroos off the bench yet, and they have both been in devastating form this season in the Bundesliga, Kießling being number two goal scorer in the league (after Dzeko) this season.

This really could be one hell of a World Cup for Germany who are already in 4th gear. England are still stuck in first gear and need to get cracking, but what do I care, I'm a Welsh.


Multiple sites under a single Umbraco installation on Winhost.com

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In part 1 of this series, I discussed the installation of Umbraco on a Winhost.com basic account. Umbraco is a free and fully featured .NET based content management system. This article continues where that article left off, and as promised, shows you how to install multiple sites (domains) under one Umbraco installation. This means that you can have different content sites under one Winhost.com account, without having to manage subdomain redirects to workaround Winhost's lack of multi-site support under one account.

This guide assumes that you have already setup Umbraco on your Winhost.com account. If you haven't, please follow that guide first.

Settings up Umbraco to support multiple sites is relatively easy. Connect to your existing installation via FTP, and navigate to the config directory. Open the umbracoSettings.config file and under the requestHandler section of the configuration file you will see a child node called useDomainPrefixes. Make sure this is set to true:

   1:  <requestHandler>
   2:      <useDomainPrefixes>true</useDomainPrefixes>
   3:      <!-- excluded for brevity -->
   4:  </requestHandler>

Now login back into your Umbraco administration. Under the content section you'll have the default site installed with the Runway or Creative Website Starter Kit (CWS), which is my preference. The plan is to create a number of home pages for each site you plan to support, all linked out from that base Content root node.

Add your first website. Name it sensibly, because you'll need to know what it is easily if you have a number of sites. Right click on the new home page you have added and click on Manage Hostnames. Enter the domain name, select the language and click Add new Domain. You can add multiple domains to a single content root node if you want, but normally you wouldn't want to or need to.

Repeat this process to add all of your new root home pages for each site you want to support. Your Umbraco content section will look like this:

Now you need to add the domain pointers to your Winhost account. Login to your Winhost.com control panel. Select to manage the appropriate site and click on Domain Pointer. Add the new domain pointers you require, and enable the email alias if you need it. If your domains are not currently managed by Winhost.com, then you will need to login to your domain name registrars control panel and set the name servers to be the Winhost ones.

Now your domain names are pointed at the right name servers, that are in turn pointed at the right IP address, that in turn knows which directory to map to via the domain pointer and finally Umbraco knows which content to dispatch to the client based on the hostnames you have setup inside Umbraco.

Now you should be able to visit each domain and see the different home pages you have setup under Umbraco.

You'll notice that all of your sites have the same design template. If you installed CWS then every site will have that rather slick grey / pink theme, but what you really want is different themes for each site.

To get this to work you need to understand the Umbraco concepts of Templates, Document Types and CSS Stylesheets. Templates are rather standard .NET master and content pages with bits of Umbraco focused controls thrown in. For each different theme you require, you'll need to create a master, and the associated content pages under the Settings - Templates node. The current CWS Master and child pages would be a good place to start.

Once you have your Master and child templates created, then you'll need to focus your attention on the Document Types. CWS will have installed a bunch of Document Types for you. Each will be using the template from the CWS installed templates. I highly suggest that you start to create your new Templates and Document Types, following the CWS convention, but prefixed by the theme name you are creating, otherwise you are going to end up with multiple Home Document Types and go quite quickly insane. The example here shows 1-Master and 1-Home, relating to Theme 1.

Once you have got your Templates and Document Types setup for each theme, then you can change the Content home pages to use the new Template themes under the Properties tab of the content editor.


Prepare to delete your Times Online bookmarks

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I quite enjoy the Times Online, but not enough to pay for it. Wrong business model Rupert. Move along.

The Times Online main website is now starting to (confusingly) cross-link its new subscription only content from its free website. They are even deep-linking to subscription content from the main front page.

Luckily, you can still signup for a temporary preview. If you already have account with the Times Online website then you probably won't mind signing up with their new site, but who knows how long the access will last? The terms and conditions state that access can be terminated at any time.

Before you think about signing up for their "Exclusive Preview", be aware that neither the Times Online or Times Plus websites offer you an easy way to cancel or remove your account. The only option available to existing account holders is to contact customer services, or if you want to do it yourself, set your name, email address and contact details to something invalid, before departing for pastures greener and freer.

At the point the Times Online starts charging I'll be terminating my "contract", by deleting my account and deleting the prominent bookmark bar entry (that the Times Online had earned). The free BBC News and free Guardian new content sites will remain my two primary news sources.


Umbraco on Winhost.com - Installation Guide

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I recently installed Umbraco (4.0.3) on one of my Winhost accounts as part of my move from Webhost4life.com to Winhost.com. I ran into a few problems, so I thought I would post a short guide to help others.

If you don't know what the Umbraco content management system is, then have a read about Umbraco. It is becoming a highly desired skill on ASP.NET developer CVs as well. The learning curve is steep but relatively short. I highly recommend it as a CMS.

To install Umbraco on Winhost.com you need to follow these steps carefully:

  1. Open a new Basic or Max plan with Winhost.com. You will need to install Umbraco in the application root. You cannot install it in a virtual or subdirectory. I installed it on a Basic plan.
  2. Create a new database using the Site Manager - MS SQL 2008. At the end of the process you'll have a connection string displayed to you if you click on Manage. Make a note of it.
  3. Download the latest version of Umbraco from Codeplex.com. Unzip the files into a folder on your hard drive.
  4. Download the suggested 3.5 web.config
  5. Copy this web.config over the existing one in the unzipped Umbraco folder. Open it is notepad, because you need to edit it.
  6. Remove the ConnectionStrings section that Niel Hartvig has left in for testing.
  7. Remove the associated MembershipProvider key (AspNetSqlMemberShipProvider) in the Membership - Providers section.
  8. The Trust level is currently commented out. Change it from Medium to Full and uncomment the line. See System.Web - Trust.
  9. Under Compilation set Debug to false
  10. Disable Tracing
  11. Do not change the SQL connection for the time being. You can do that in the install process.
  12. Save the web.config file.
  13. If you want to run multiple domains/sites under Umbraco, open the config/umbracoSettings.config and change the useDomainPrefixes to true (under requestHandler).
  14. Now copy all of the files to your hosting account (to the root) using FTP.
  15. Open your website in your browser. You should be directed to the Umbraco install screen. http://yoursite.com/umbraco/
  16. Agree to the terms and conditions
  17. Enter your database connection details and click Confirm
  18. If the database connection works then you can click on Install.
  19. Next check the permissions. Under full trust everything should work. If it doesn't, check the web.config again to make sure that you did actually uncomment the line as well as editing it!
  20. After the permissions have been checked and everything is ok, click Continue.
  21. Enter the administrative password
  22. Optionally install Runway. Note that you can always install Runway and the different modules easily later. I advise you don't install it now. 

I would advise you to check out the Creative Website Starter Kit (CWS) package first, as it gets you up and running quicker. Runway is just a bit daunting as a blank canvas to get started. Within the Umbraco administration for your website, you can go to Developer - Umbraco Package Repository - Starter Kits and install it directly from there.

You should now have installed Umbraco. Congratulations! Next time I'll write about how you configure multiple domains/ sites in Umbraco on Winhost.com.


SOLVED: SFC asks for SP3 on your Dell

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SFC checks your existing files to make sure they are the original Microsoft versions. However, since most people will have now installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), you may run into a problem when either the Windows XP installation or recovery CD/DVD, or the I386 folder on your machine (e.g. Dell sticks it on c:\I386) are the SP2 versions. The root cause is that SFC will not copy older service pack files over newer service pack versions.

My Dell has an C:\I386 folder and the solution was to go and get the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and Developers so that I could slipstream the existing I386 assemblies with the SP3 ones. If you do not have an I386 folder then put your Dell Recovery CD in the drive and Explore it. copy the I386 folder and all its contents to your C:\ drive.

  • Download the file to your C:\ drive.
  • Rename the file to XPSP3.exe
  • Win + R, or Start -> Run and type: XPSP3.exe -u -s:c:\

This will now extract and slipstream your I386 folder.

Now when you run SFC your machine should pick up the correct files and stop complaining. If you machine appears to be looking for the files from a CD/DVD drive then you can change the source path to your I386 folder using the Registry Editor:

  • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\
  • Set SourcePath as C:\

Good luck


The Ultimate walkthrough guide to Facebook privacy

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Facebook wants you to believe that your information is private and that it doesn't share anything that you haven't agreed to with third parties. However, these settings aren't always easy to find, and they aren't always switched on by default. Facebook's business is to get you to share as much as possible, especially with their advertisers, so here is your handy guide to setting up Facebook so that your privacy is as tight as a duck ass.

Please note that this privacy guide may not be for you. With increased privacy, you may have to give up some functionality, including applications, which are the backdoor to your proverbial duck's ass. Do not trust third party applications with your privacy. They see you only as +1 to their total user base. Treat Facebook themselves with that same disrespect. They do not have your best interests at heart. You would be wise to remember this fact. If anything breaks or your lose any data, don't blame me. I accept no liability.

First of all, you should understand Facebook's standard options with regards to privacy. They are:

  • Everyone
  • Friends of Friends
  • Only Friends
  • Customize
In the majority of cases the hardcore fuck-you-Facebook option is hidden under Customize. So for each and every case you can find in your Privacy settings, you need to choose Customize and then select Only Me. We aim to hide everything first, then after everything is tied down, we'll choose to share the things we really want to share.

So, lets get stuck in. Go to the default Privacy screen under Account. It is split into several key areas as shown below:


Select Personal information and posts:


Set everything to Customize - Only Me.

With regards to Photo albums privacy, set each album to Customize - Only me. I actually deleted all of my photos on Facebook apart for the one single default profile photo (that you are "required" to have as a genuine photo).  I do not trust Facebook with my photos. There are better and more open and transparent photo sharing methods on the internet.




Go back to Privacy and select Contact Information:




Set everything to Customize - Only me. Add me as a friend can only be set to Friends of Friends and Send me a message should be set to Only friends. If you have been on Facebook for a while these options will probably suffice. Everyone you know is probably already a friend, or at a minimum a friend of a friend. If you really want to leave that ex-girlfriend from university find you and send you an email, then leave the Send me a message open. However, you would be wise to remember that you dumped her in the first place because she was a psycho bunny boiler!

Go back to Privacy and select Friends, tags and connections:




Set every option to Customize - Only Me. This will stop any embarrassing photos of you being tagged, any relationship blunders, and friends seeing your list of friends (you might not always want to share this).

Go back to Privacy and select Applications and Websites:




This isn't so simple as setting everything to lock down. You have to dig around a bit. Go through one option at a time. Whilst on this screen lock down Activity on applications and games dashboards to Customize - Only Me.

Select What your friends can share about you - Edit settings:




Uncheck every single option. This stops your friends giving access to your information to third party applications. Do you hate Farmville? If any of these options are checked, then your friend that plays Farmville daily can share your information with Farmville, even if you haven't authorised Farmville. Scrub the lot!

Go back to the Privacy and select Applications and websites. Then select Instant Personalization Pilot Program - Edit Setting:




Make sure the box is unchecked!

Go back to Privacy and select Search:




Set Facebook search results to Customize - Only friends. Uncheck Public search results.

Now the main privacy options are looking good. Now under Account go to Application settings. If you are smart (paranoid) about your privacy you will have deleted all of the applications you can. Some of Facebook's own applications cannot be removed. However, we can lock them down.




For each application click on Edit Settings. Under the Profile tab remove the Box and Tab options, and then set the Privacy to Customize - Only Me.

Throughout this process Facebook provides a helpful tool that shows you what your profile looks like to other people. Note the Preview My Profile button shown top right whilst within the privacy settings. You can enter a friend's name to see what your profile looks like to them. Otherwise your profile is shown as it would be seen by any non-friend from a search result or linked from a wall comment or "like". As a side note, the actual default profile used to do the profile check is a user called Everyone.




Now you profile and information is secure (until Facebook adds a new feature). I deleted everything except for my wall. No photos, videos, links, notes, about me, work experience, current location, religious views, etc.

Now, to make Facebook somewhat a fun experience, you don't want to leave your settings like this. Sometimes you want to update your status and allow friends to comment on it. To re-enable this, go to Privacy - Personal information and posts:




Set Posts by me and Comments on posts to Only friends. You can optionally allow friends to write on your wall, although your mate Johnny writing "god you were drunk last night" isn't ideal to share with all your friends. Remember that you are opening a backdoor here. If you write a status update or upload a photo that was only destined for your friends, but one of those friends has their wall shared with Everyone, then anyone can see the link to your photos or update.

So, you are finished for now. Keep checking through the privacy options every few weeks. Facebook often adds new features, and you need to tighten up the default options when they do so. They don't do it for you!

Happy Facebooking...


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