Tag: features

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Lifehacker Faceoff: Google Photos vs. Flickr

Last month, both Google and Yahoo introduced big changes to their photo storage services, Google Photos and Flickr (4.0), respectively. Both offer identical, useful features: automatic photo backups, intelligent organization, online editing tools, and sharing capabilities. So which one should you use? (Source: Lifehacker Faceoff: Google Photos vs. Flickr)

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iOS 9 features inspired by Android

I have some devices running on multiple operating systems (iOS, Android, and Windows Phone). But, recently I use Android more than iOS. Early this month, Apple announced some new features for its operating system: iOS 9. Some said that Android copies Apple, and Apple also copies Android. This time, Arstechnica has a list of some iOS 9 features that are inspired by Android.

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Bye OPPO R819

Last week, during my business trip to Jakarta, I lost my OPPO R819 phone which I bougt almost two years ago. It was my second Android phone I ever had. I liked it a lot for its design and features. I’m thinking of getting a new Android phone. But… what?

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Solution: WhatsApp crashes on iOS 8 Beta

WhatsApp Logo
Last week, I finally decided to upgrade my iPhone 5 to iOS 8 Beta 4. When the iOS Beta 1 was available, I took the risk to have it installed. But, it was too disappointing for too many bugs and errors. I’m excited about the upcoming iOS 8 features, and I want to try some of the features. There is a discussion thread at MacRumors Forum which lists the application compatibility on iOS 8. Anyway, I have lots of apps installed right now. If you’re not sure about having the iOS Beta, you can wait for the official release.
I have some applications that are not running well, and one of them was WhatsApp. It keeps crashing. I can accept the fact that some other applications are broken or crashed. But, WhatsApp is an app that I use on daily basis. After searching for solutions, there are two popular ways to fix this issue:

I chose the second option, because it’s pretty straight forward. Big thanks to Ritvij Pathak’s The Tech Portal. So, what was the problem? Quoting from the site:

The main reason for the crashes is typographic ligature. For those of you who didn’t get what it is, don’t fret, we didn’t either. Turns out it has something to do with two letters being read as one syllable. Ex: letter combos like ff, fi, ffi, fii, will make WhatsApp crash.

What I found was that WhatsApp crashed when I typed some words or there are some words that are already in the database file. So, I followed the instructions and had everything solved. I want to reproduce the solution based on my experience.
I need to download two applications: iExplorer and Navicat for SQLite. Both are paid applications but the trial version are available. After I had it installed, these are steps I did. Anyway, WhatsApp iCloud setting should be turned off.
Open iExplorer — your iPhone should be connected, of course — and navigate to Apps > WhatsApp > Documents. Export the ChatStorage.sqlite file by right-clicking on the file and choose the export destination of your choice. You will need this file later. Having the backup for this file is advisable. So, after exporting this file, duplicating this file won’t hurt.
iex-1972401972491724
Open Navicat for SQLite and import the ChatStorage.sqlite from the previous step. Navigate to Query and add a new query. Paste the query below, and Run it.

update ZWAMESSAGE
set ZTEXT = replace( ZTEXT, 'ff', 'f f')
where ZWAMESSAGE.ZTEXT like '%ff%';
update ZWAMESSAGE
set ZTEXT = replace( ZTEXT, 'fi', 'f i')
where ZWAMESSAGE.ZTEXT like '%fi%';
update ZWAMESSAGE
set ZTEXT = replace( ZTEXT, 'fl', 'f l')
where ZWAMESSAGE.ZTEXT like '%fl%';
CREATE TRIGGER insert_Ff AFTER INSERT ON ZWAMESSAGE
BEGIN
  UPDATE ZWAMESSAGE
  SET ZTEXT = replace( ZTEXT, 'ff', 'f f')
  WHERE ZWAMESSAGE.ZTEXT like '%ff%';
END;
CREATE TRIGGER insert_Fi AFTER INSERT ON ZWAMESSAGE
BEGIN
  UPDATE ZWAMESSAGE
  SET ZTEXT = replace( ZTEXT, 'fi', 'f i')
  WHERE ZWAMESSAGE.ZTEXT like '%fi%';
END;
CREATE TRIGGER insert_Fl AFTER INSERT ON ZWAMESSAGE
BEGIN
  UPDATE ZWAMESSAGE
  SET ZTEXT = replace( ZTEXT, 'fl', 'f l')
  WHERE ZWAMESSAGE.ZTEXT like '%fl%';
END;

Your ChatStorage.sqlite has been updated. The next thing you need to do is bring the file back to the iPhone using iExplorer. Move it to the same place and if you’re asked to replace the file, just replace the file.
My previous errors with WhatsApp was fixed immediately. But, it seems that the errors still occur under different situation. The most common problem is that WhatsApp still keep crashing when I type some words in the window. For now, the temporary solution works, and let’s wait the official update from WhatsApp team. I’m sure they will fix it once iOS 8 is available.

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WordPress 3.7 with Background Updates

WordPress is actively being developed by great developers. I always tried to keep my WordPress installation updated by running update process — which is very easy. But, right now, I want to write down about the latest release. Not that every update provides an improvement, new features, or bug fixes, but this version 3.7 (codename: Basie) has few good things offered.
The first useful feature is the background updates. It means that you do not need to worry about having an outdated installation when a new release is available. So, if your self-hosted WordPress-powered blog is not yet upgraded to 3.7, it’s a perfect time.
WordPress 3.7 Updates
Having an automatic upgrade is good, it’s a worry-free situation. Of course, there might be some bugs or features that you will not be familiar with. But for me, having everything updated is a good thing. If you’re using some plugins, they might not compatible with the latest updates. Not always, but it might happen. Since I don’t have critical plugins installed, having some broken plugins should not be an issue. I just simply disabled them.

How to turn off automatic updates?

You can, but you have to maintain your updates. Or, if you don’t care about this updates (or worse, you don’t care about your blog), you can just ignore it. The easiest solution to disable the core updates is by modifying your wp-config.php file. It’s located at the main root directory. Add these following lines:

# Disables all core updates:
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );
# Enables all core updates, including minor and major:
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', true );
# Enables core updates for minor releases (default):
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', 'minor' );

If you want to for some details, go to Make WordPress Core website.
Some others features introduced in this updates includes the password strength checker. Do you always have a not-easy-to-guess password? The other one is about a better search. Since I’m maintaining some WordPress-powered sites, I think I will update them all right now.

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Photon: WordPress.com's Content Delivery Network

Dealing with side loads for heavy-traffic website sometime can be painful. But, of course there are some common practice to deal with this kind of situation. For example, you can take advantage of cache system, offload to other service to reduce server load/bandwidth, or using CDN (Content Delivery Network).
For WordPress-powered sites, you can take advantage from its Jetpack. This free plugin offered lots of handy features to help you work with your WordPress installation. One of them is a featured called Photon.

Give your site a boost by loading images in posts from the WordPress.com content delivery network. We cache your images and serve them from our super-fast network, reducing the burden on your Web host with the click of a button.

That’s right. You should see some big hints there: content delivery network, cache, super-fast network. To activate this feature, just hit the “Activate” button, and you’re set. All your uploaded media files will be served using WordPress.com infrastructure. After having this feature activated, all image URLs in your posts will be modified. For example:

  • Original URL: http://domain.com/dotsios300.png
  • New URL: http://i2.wp.com/domain.com/dotsios300.png

If you are interested, here is an example of the image header served from WordPress.com network.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Cache-Control: public, max-age=63115200
Content-Type: image/png
Date: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 17:06:28 GMT
Expires: Wed, 07 Oct 2015 05:06:26 GMT
Last-Modified: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 17:05:27 GMT
Server: ECS (sin/47C6)
X-Bytes-Saved: 8597
X-Cache: HIT
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-nc: HIT iad 90
Content-Length: 46456
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Merry Flickr: Free Flickr Pro for 3 months (current Pro users included)

Screen Shot 2012-12-22 at 1.22.54 PM
Flickr — Yahoo-owned photo-sharing service — offers 3 months free account for its users. Currently, Flickr has two types of accounts: free and Pro ($24.95/year). I’ve been using Filckr Pro for years, and happy with it. Especially, when Flickr released its new version of Flickr for iOS. For the reminder, by having a Flickr Pro account you can get these advanced features:

  • Unlimited photo uploads (50MB per photo)
  • Unlimited video uploads (90 seconds max, 500MB per video)
  • The ability to show HD Video
  • Unlimited storage
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • Archiving of high-resolution original images
  • The ability to replace a photo
  • Post any of your photos or videos in up to 60 group pools
  • View count and referrer statistics
  • Limitation of maximum image size available to others
  • Ad-free browsing and sharing

To get Flickr’s Holiday Gift, you only need to visit flickr.com/holidaygift and get your account upgraded. For existing Flickr Pro customers, your accounts will be extended — additional 3 months will be added to your account. For example, my Flickr account previously will be expired on March 16, 2014. Now, it had been extended until June 16th, 2014.
Screen Shot 2012-12-22 at 1.18.47 PM

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Readmill: Another reading experience

One of the reasons I bought an iPad this year was that about books. I have to admit that my reading habit has changed in the last few months. I read more books and magazines on my iPad. But, it does not mean that I don’t read real books. It’s easy to mentioned two last books I bought: Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs and Listomania.
But, I bought more digital books. I subscribed to National Geographics Magazine for iPad, and purchased some other books directly from iBook Store. I have some editions from A Book Apart and Smashing Magazines, too. My reading experience has been shifted.
Readmill
Recently, I moved some of my books to Readmill. iBooks and Readmill share the similar reading experience. But, after using it for few days, I think I’m falling in love with Readmill. I like the idea that it’s not only about reading. I like its social features, and I love the way the site is designed.

Readmill is a curious community of readers, highlighting and sharing the books they love.
We believe reading should be an open and easily shareable experience. We built Readmill to help fix the somewhat broken world of ebooks, and create the best reading experience imaginable. (source)

In short, it happens like this:

  • Buy some books, and you usually you will get them in some formats like PDF or ePub.
  • You can easily open them using iBook app (on your iOS devices). If you’re using Readmill, you upload them to your Readmill’s Library.
  • Start reading.

While you’re reading, you can take notes, highlights. Readmill has a nice approach about the reading behaviours. Readers can interact each others by sharing highlights. Try to visit a book profile called “Designing for Emotion” by Aaron Walter.

But, what about the reading experience itself? On my iPad, I have a pleasant reading experience. Readmill app offers a simple and key features readers really need: adding highlights, bookmarks, etc. And, not to forget its social features, they’re just great.

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Twitter Bootstrap, LESS CSS, and Caching Problem

I’m working on some works right now with a small team at the office. We decided to use Bootstrap as the front-end development framework. We came up with this solution for some key reasons:

  • We need to do it fast.
  • It’s easy to maintain, especially for a collaborative project
  • Bootstrap is cool.

There are lots of similar frameworks to choose like Skeleton, 960.gs, Blueprint, Foundation, and more. It didn’t take long discussion to take Bootstrap. Its features and flexibilities are just perfect for our need. The next thing is that we need to do some customisations, for example on the font sizes and colours. Since Bootstrap might release updates in the future, it’s better to leave the core files untouched.

LESS

Basically, it’s easy to customise them by using its own customisation tool. But, I prefer another method by using LESS. And yes, Bootstrap works great with LESS. The installation works straight forward. After downloading less.js file, add these two lines in the <head>

<link rel="stylesheet/less" href="/path/to/bootstrap.less">
<script src="/path/to/less.js"></script>

Inside bootstrap.less file, there is a little note that we can easily modify the font color and size by working on the variables.less file. I decided not to edit it. I created another .less file — for example: mycustom.less — and import it from bootstrap.less file. So, my bootstrap.less file looks like this:

...
@import "accordion.less";
@import "carousel.less";
@import "hero-unit.less";
// My Custom LESS
@import "mycustom.less";
...

And, this is what I have for mycustom.less:

@baseFontSize: 13px;
@tableBorder: #ddd;
@navbarInverseBackground: #faa141;
@navbarInverseBackgroundHighlight: #ec8b22;
@navbarInverseBorder: #d77c1b;
@navbarInverseLinkColor: #fff;

It should just work. But, does it work as expected? No.

Caching

Editing and saving mycustom.less file, and refreshing my page does not load the latest variables. It takes time to refresh/load the latest changes. It’s not good. It happens because less.js caches the .less files called using @import.
I tried to modify the web server setting by adding these lines in my httpd.conf file:

<FilesMatch ".less$">
Header set Cache-Control "no-cache"
</FilesMatch>

But, it didn’t work. After searching for solutions, there is a method offered for this issue. I added this line of code:
<script>localStorage.clear(); </script>
Now, whenever I make some changes on my .less files, reloading the page will give the latest changes. It works.

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Dear Yahoo! Mail, how are you?

There is a fact that Yahoo! Mail is probably one of my first email service providers. Not sure about the exact date I created my account, but I think it was in 2000’s. It was the time when Yahoo! was so popular, had lots of services, and interesting products. Probably, it was also because that there were not many alternatives. Yahoo! Mail was a good choise.
But, it has been years. Many services — not only email — come and go. But, when we jump to the internet world, everybody will get an email. Not only about the very basic features (sending and receiving email), but email service should be build better, answering what users need. What internet users really need.
Let’s not forget also about some other services. Google launched its Gmail in April 2004 (so, it has been 8 years). Recently, Microsoft re-launched its Hotmail as Outlook.com. Every service tries to make improvements for its users to deliver the best product and features for them. This is how Yahoo! Mail inbox looks like.

If you have a Yahoo! Mail account, just try to login and see yourself. What do you think? Well, what do I think? And, why I’m writing this post, anyway? If I don’t like it, why should I write about it? Isn’t it easier to just leave it?

Continue reading “Dear Yahoo! Mail, how are you?”
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Snapjoy: Backup and organize your photos


As a person who loves to photography, I think Snapjoy is an answer to some problems. What is Snapjoy? It’s a service that will help you organize your photos. The word ‘organize’ here is about putting photos you’ve uploaded to multiple services in one place, and organize them. Anyway, I like its name: ‘snap’ and ‘joy’.
There are a lot of tools and services that deals with photos. There are many ways to take photos (digital cameras and mobile devies), and to share photos (you can name services that put photos as their primary contents). But, there are problems:

  • It takes time to have them organised in one place. I like having my photos uploaded to Flickr. I like sharing photos using Instagram. Some of you might also live to have your photos stored to Google Picasa. Some photos go to one service, and the others go to another services. They’re all might be distributed.
  • Not all services are integrated one another. If I upload a my photo to Instagram, I can directly upload it to Flickr for example. But, I don’t this for some reasons.
  • Backup, and backup. Photos are memories. I want to keep it safe. Having them stored in a hardrive is great, but if you have lots of photos, it takes more effort to have them organised and backed up. Yes, there is a service like Backupify that will help you backup your photos from Flickr to storage service. It’s an option.

Having valuable contents backed up and distributed in multiple locations is a good scenario. But, having all of them organised is another thing to think about.

Snapjoy answers some of these problems. By having an account at Snapjoy — it’s free –, you will be able to import (well, I think it can be defined as “backup” too) all you photos from multiple services. Currently, you can import  your Instagram, Flickr, and Google Picasa photos. The process is easy. Connect your Snapjoy to those services, and hit the import button.
I tried to import my Instagram photos and it took less than 5 minutes to have around 500 Instagram photos transfered to Snapjoy. And, a new “Instagram” album is created automatically. All your photos will be stored by Snapjoy (and it utilises Amazon Simple Storage Service). So, you have the copy of all photos somewhere else.
The good thing is that Snapjoy will also help you organize them. I personally like the way Snapjoy display the photo archive. There are few things that can be done to have it better like keeping the photo information (It seems that photo tags are not imported).
After you have your photos managed by Snapjoy, you can enjoy some other features offered. I like the its “Remember When…”. Basically, it’s just shuffling photos in the collection. It might be easy to recognise photos taken last week, or last month. But, if you want to challenge your memory, try to recognise photo taken three or four years ago.
All imported photos are stored privately by default. You can later share them with friends. Interesting to see its upcoming social features.
It’s a free service now, and I think it will not be free forever. There are some technical costs that have to paid. But, as long as it offers people who love to keep their valuable memories something that they really need, I think people will be. Well, I don’t mind paying for a good service/product. I know that Snapjoy will improve its service. I personally would like to have these features:

  • Options to export all photos to other backup service. If it’s a paid feature, I don’t mind. So, Snapjoy will be the “bridge” between service. It’s already a bridge, but making connection to another service is also cool.
  • Keep the photo information during the import.
  • Keep the original photo size. I’m not sure which photos imported when it has multiple sizes. Having the original photos imported should be great.

Anyway, this service is not only about importing. You can also upload your photos directly there. You can upload from the web, or using and desktop uploader called “Shoebox“. My Flickr photo import is still processing. Let’s see the results later.

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Why HTC dropped Ice Cream Sandwich for HTC Desire HD

For more background, due to how storage on the HTC Desire HD is partitioned – and the larger size of Android 4.0 – it would require re-partitioning device storage and overwriting user data in order to install this update. While technically advanced users might find this solution acceptable, the majority of customers would not. We also considered ways to reduce the overall size of the software package, but this would impact features and functionality that customers are currently using. Even after installing the update, there were other technical limitations which we felt negatively impacted the user experience.

Why HTC dropped Ice Cream Sandwich for HTC Desire HD.

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BlackBerry Torch 9860 Sample Photos

I have been using this BlackBerry Torch 9860 (also known as Monza) for about 2 months. So far, I’m enjoying it even I don’t use all BlackBerry features. Well, I only use features like BlackBerry Messenger, email, internet browser, social networking applications, and of course… camera!
I will not write the whole technical specifications. You can go to GSM Arena, and read the details. About the camera, it’s equipped with 5 MP. I have to say that the photo quality is not bad at all. When I look at photos taken using BlackBerry, I usually didn’t expect much on the quality. On this Monza, I’m really impressed. It’s really good.
Here are some photos taken using BlackBerry Torch 9860. All photos are directly uploaded to Flickr without any extra editing processes.
Untitled
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Continue reading “BlackBerry Torch 9860 Sample Photos”
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Facebook Acquires Instagram


That’s right, Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 Billion in cash and stock.
Here are some points regarding this acquisition (from what Mark Zuckerberg) wrote:

  • “We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.”
  • “At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.”
  • “This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all.”

Just for another reading: Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in November 2006. And, here are some numbers about Instagram (Source: AllThingsD):

  • 430K+ on its Android waiting list
  • 30 million+ registered users
  • 1 billion+ photos uploaded
  • 5 million+ photos per day
  • 575 likes per second
  • 81 comments per second