AWSOM.org = Artist Website Setup Options Markup » Offsides

More AWSOM to Come

harknell — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:06:35 +0000

Hi everyone. Yup, It’s been a long month. Instead of dwelling on the lack of updates I want to announce a new contributor who will be updating here starting next week. Onezumi, the writer/artist of the webcomic Stupid and Insane Defenders Against Chaos will now be writing her own column here at AWSOM.org talking about all elements of web development and promotion. You’ll easily recognize her posts due to the new avatar system we will be using from now on. Plus, the posts will be longer than a paragraph (unlike mine :) )

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iPhone Mobile Web, Finally Usable

harknell — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:20:18 +0000

This post is slightly off-topic, but still a major concern for any serious blogger/webcomic/whatever WordPress admin. What do you do if you are out and about and you discover that your website has been hacked, or has malicious spam displaying, or whatever you don’t want there? If you are lucky (and rich) you might own a portable laptop that you can use to connect to your site using wifi or a cell network. But in most cases, you won’t have that. So what will you have? Maybe a phone.

Until recently I primarily used a combo of a Nokia N800 internet tablet connected by bluetooth to a Samsung Sync cellphone. This worked ok, but wasn’t very fast. It had other negatives also which would be worse for non-tech oriented people.

Then came the iPhone. It works pretty well on it’s own. However, as most people who have one have discovered, it doesn’t always work well with advanced javascript or other related programming. So it’s not easy sometimes to log into a WordPress admin area using the phone. There are some plugins out there for WordPress that make this better, but it still doesn’t replicate what you can do with other devices.

The biggest drawback of the iPhone was that it couldn’t tether to other devices to be used as a modem. It doesn’t have a dial-up networking or PAN bluetooth profile, and it didn’t have a wifi connection tool built in.

Until now. Yes, a new program out there called PDAnet for iPhone is available, and it turns your iPhone into a wifi router. So now any device that uses wifi (like a laptop or my n800) can connect to the iPhone and use it just like any other wifi hotspot. With a 3g iPhone this makes the connection pretty snappy–I’m actually using it right now with my Macbook pro to post this.

The best of all is this is free once you jailbreak your iPhone. So now I can use my iPhone for most tasks and set it to router mode when I need to use my n800 or laptop for more advanced needs. It’s a system I would strongly suggest to anyone searching for a convenient out and about system for internet use.

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A Thank You For Your Support

harknell — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:45:14 +0000

I just wanted to give a thank you to our most recent supporter, Mr. R. Wilder, who used our Paypal donation link to donate to the AWSOM.org development fund. I’m a firm devotee to the free Open Source Software model, and I will never ever charge for anything developed here, so it really makes me feel appreciated when someone feels strongly enough about my work to help keep it going. I would like to point out that purchases from the Onezumi Studios Online store are also a great way of contributing to the site. Also, for those of you who would like to contribute but can’t do so financially, the other way to help is to simply tell others about our software and sites and therefore bring us more web traffic, which is a great alternate way of supporting us.

So, thank you Mr. Wilder and everyone else who has contributed and mentioned us, it’s what really let’s us know that what we are doing is right and is making a positive impact. It’s greatly appreciated.

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How to Lose an Entire Week

harknell — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:27:16 +0000

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts this week. My regular job had an exhausting week of work that basically saw me get up, work, come home, and crash for the entire week. So nothing of note development wise happened this week. I will be working on some suggested updates to all of the AWSOM plugins and will have something out next week.

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I’m Teaching a Wordpress Class at Katsucon

harknell — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:35:10 +0000

Hi everyone, I wanted to mention that I will be “teaching” a Wordpress setup and install class at this year’s Katsucon convention. My panel is on Saturday February the 16th at 10pm. So this is the opportunity for anyone who has questions on Wordpress, AWSOM plugins, or any other web development related stuff to come and get answers from me in person. I’d also like to point out that I’m helping sponsor a huge contest at Katsucon involving over 10 webcomics giving away one giant bundle of stuff to one lucky Katsucon attendee. The “Epic Webcomic Win” Contest page is over at my webcomic site Onezumi.com.

So now you have 2 huge reasons to go to Katsucon this year :)

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Holiday Slowdown

harknell — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:20:48 +0000

Hi all, I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive, but bogged down in last minute holiday work. I’m working on the next release of the AWSOM News Announcement plugin right now, so I hope to get that out next week as a Christmas/New Year’s present to everyone :)

I may not post many updates in the next week or so though due to the tons of work I need to get done before the end of the year. I will however be available by email and contact form, and also checking Harknell.com and other locations in case people have support requests.

Happy Holidays everyone.

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Site Update Schedule

harknell — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:20:49 +0000

I’m sorry for the recent lack of updates but I just got back from doing a Convention appearance at Philcon. It is also Thanksgiving holiday week in the U.S., so that is also making it difficult to get anything done. I’m focusing on getting the 4.4.4 release of AWSOM Pixgallery finished–so posts to the site for the rest of the week might also be light. Things will resume as normal after this week though, with (I hope) a new release of AWSOM News Announcement also.

Thanks,
Harknell

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Thank You To Advertisers

harknell — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:43:26 +0000

I wanted to thank the advertisers who have been placing ads through Project Wonderful and our own advertising service. They help make it possible for me to provide all of the plugins and other stuff that’s done here to you guys for free. So please check out their sites.

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(UPDATED) Off the Tracks

harknell — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:20:54 +0000

It always seems like this, when you want to get back into the swing of things you come down with the Flu. I’m in bed and will probably be so for a few days so please keep that in mind if you send support requests or post in the support forums. I’ll try to answer things as soon a I can, but it sucks to be too weak to really move even the mouse well :(

UPDATE: I’m back from the hospital, yeah it got that bad. Pneumonia + 104 fever = 5 hours of iv drip fun. Obviously I will be totally in bed for a few days– I’ll try to answer general questions and such but anything advanced won’t be happening until next week.
Thank you for your patience.

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Social Bookmarking, Good or Bad?

harknell — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:05:05 +0000

I’m sure by now most of you guys have heard of the major social bookmarking/news websites like digg.com, reddit.com, technorati.com, StumbleUpon.com, etc. In most cases getting a link on the front page from any of these sites can lead to a huge increase in traffic and visibility. That can be a good thing.

My problem with the situation is that it now appears that everyone in the universe is turning into a submission beggar, with “submit me to” buttons filling up most of the page. It’s getting to the ridiculous point where you can have 20+ buttons after every article. I understand that statistically it’s been shown that directly asking readers to do something makes it more likely something will be done, and making it very easy for them to submit your site with an easy to click button makes sense in this context, but I still find it somewhat wrong to have this be the focus of your efforts. It’s almost like reverse advertising, in that as a reader you are being asked to advertise for the site, but in an overly obvious and annoying way. You are no longer the actual audience, but a conduit to the big prize of being featured on a networking site.

There are now articles out there on how to write something that will get you to the front page of those sites. These aren’t “How to write something well” articles, they are “how to push the right buttons to get people to link you” articles, and they seem to me to defeat the purpose of putting things up in the first place: To have good content that has inherent value. Where is the line between spammers and this gaming of the system for traffic? The internet is a big place, that’s true, but I still believe that if you write something well, and it has inherent value, you will be found and gain an audience.

If anyone visiting this site thinks that something I’ve written or released is good enough to share with others and submits it to a networking site on their own, that’s great, I appreciate the sentiment and support. I believe in doing one job though, which is providing the best plugins and content I can, I’m not in the gaming business.

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