Seems like there is a major problem going on with WordPress.com and it’s stats plugin right now. On logging into your WordPress blog, instead of seeing the pretty charts and stats, you will see a login box instead. On logging in, it just redirects back to the same thing again (Dashboard with login page). And if you try logging into your profile over at WordPress.com, then it just redirects back to your main blog associated with your WordPress.com profile even if it is a self hosted blog.

It might have to do something with the new sexy stats that WordPress guys were scheduled to be rolling out. I hope the problem gets fixed soon.

Update: Looks like WordPress guys are looking into it.

Update 2: The problems seems to have been fixed by WordPress staff. Good work, guys.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled WordPress Global Dashboard & Stats Plugin Problem, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Update: Removed the post as the person in consideration has contacted me with the explanation of what went down. I’m not sure if it is completely true or this is just as a response to this post but anyways, as I had contended in the original post that it was a stupid little thing that didn’t really warrant any attention or a post but I still did it just because I’m weird, so in the light of the developments, I think it’s best to remove the rants and focus on actual discussion. I’ll be discussing the points put out by Dan over his blog or might make a post about them here..

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Apple is Magical: Daniel Eran Gilder is the Living Proof, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Since quite some time, Google Reader has included the feature to share interesting items with your friends who also use Google Reader. Some time back they also added the option to "Share with a Note" to add your take to the shared piece. But I always thought there was no way to share back by comments (or see my friends’ take) about that particular article. One way could have been to post the comments on the original site of the article but that had the drawbacks that:

• Others might not even go to the original site to check these comments
• We might not want to make this discussion public outside of our social group
• The original site might not even allow comments

Another way was to keep sharing the item again and again with your own notes, but that would really become a pain (as you can imagine where).

So, google listened to my unspoken thoughts and from this morning onwards, we have a new commenting feature on shared items. Click on the pic below to see it. So, they have given an alternate commenting system that you can use in your friend circle to discuss any item. Really cool, I’d say. What do you think?

(PS: The people who were "predicting" a couple of months ago that Google is going to shut down Google Reader, well, I don’t think so. I think they are workign full steam on it to make it an essential part in their grand scheme of things to create an ecosystem, along with Google Friend Connect)

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Comments In Google Reader Shared Items Are Here, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Here comes another update, and this time it is a majorly recommended one. For those who are still living under a rock (just kidding ), this is a plugin that allows you to add any kind of text/html/css/php/javascript code to any of your posts or pages with lots of controls over what to display, where to display, etc etc. So, you could use it as an ad-manager or a copyright notice adder (to thwart those feed scrapers) or just add some friendly messages or related posts, etc for your readers.

This particular version fixes a bug that popped up in the last version that the settings were no longer being saved. Also fixed some minor cosmetic issues. So, hop on to the Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix Home Page for downloads and details. And yes, don’t forget to leave feedback.[tags]Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix, WordPress, WordPress Plugin, version 1.1.4, Add text to post, ad-manager plugin[/tags]

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Project: My WordPress Plugin Shantz WP Prefix Suffix Updated to 1.1.4, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

My WordPress Plugin “Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix” has just been updated to version 1.1.2. For those who don’t know, this is a super-light and easy to use plugin that allows you to add any text or html/javascript/php code to your posts, be it the top of the posts, bottom of the posts or even in the middle. And you get a lot of options to control all this. I use it even on my site, to create links for my other blogs, adding copyright notices and even for advertisements (google adsense, chitika premium, etc).

This update brings in WordPress 2.7.1 compatibility and also another option to control the plugin order. If there are some other plugins that add content to your posts (e.g. sociable, simple tags, related posts, etc), you might notice that the text/code you append with this plugin may not occur in exactly the place you want (e.g. you might want to occur after all other plugins have posted their content). So, you can easily control this now by changing the priority value in the plugin settings. Make it higher to push the content down and lower it to add your content before anything else.

For more details and downloads, head on to the Shantz WP Prefix Suffix Home Page and do not hesitate to post any questions you have, or feature requests as well.[tags] WordPress Plugin, Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix, WordPress, 2.7.1, Plugin Priority, projects, programming, php, adsense, chitika, ad management plugin, adsense plugin, chitika plugin[/tags]

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Project: Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix Updated to 1.1.2, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Just a little piece of news to all the bloggers, and especially WordPressers (did I just coin a new term?), out there. WordCamp is coming to India. And what’s more, Matt is going to be there. (Yes, THE Matt. Oh My, you just don’t believe me, do you. Fanboys, it is time to rejoice as I assure you this is THE Matt Mullenweg). It’s going to be held on the 21st and 22nd of this Feb at Adobe, Noida (who are the main sponsors for this event).

And there is an excellent number of events lined up already. Bollywood masala lovers, start drooling because WordCamp India is going to be a cool mix of talks, interactive discussions, code etc ranging from topics that interest the average joe blogger to the one who wants to make his empire around blogging. Many eminent personalities, besides Matt, would be gracing the occassion and none of these would be there just for the show. All of them have agreed to share their wealth of information with the participants.

So, what are you waiting for? Head on to Delhi Bloggers’ Blog for complete details or click on the banner at the top for registration. For any other information, ring up Priyanka (9811511719), Mayank (9910786431) or Sanjay (9873707071).

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled WordCamp India Is Here, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Many readers of this blog have written to me for the slow updates. I apologize for the same. I’ve been swamped by loads of work for quite some time now and haven’t been able to write anything here or update any of my projects, though I have loads of new hacks and tricks that I would write once I’m free and lots in store for most of the projects as well in form of bug fixes and new features. So, hang in there

Meanwhile, take a look at this post ( int Main() vs void main() )that I had made some time ago at another blog of mine ( Safer Code – Secure Coding In C \ C++ And More ). Why I’m telling you about this post is that it is a really important post useful for every C / C++ developer and recently it got featured on LinuxToday and Lxer, after which there is a very interesting discussion going on to discuss the various aspects related to it.

Do check out the rest of the blog as well. It is about tit-bits of security, optimization and performance of your code and in a manner and amount that you can easily digest. What’s best is that it is delivered regularly at a slow pace that everyone can follow . So, what are you waiting for? Add it to your feed reader or choose to get the updates through e-mail and do let me know in the comments there how you like it.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Slow Updates And A Small Nugget Post, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

I have a coupon to give away for the excellent SiteGround Web Hosting. This coupon will take off 20$ from anything you want to buy from them. If you have an existing website with them, then also you can use this to take off 20$ from your bill. So, what do you have to do? Just follow the 2 simple steps listed below, and I’ll choose one lucky winner at random to give it away.

Step 1. Subscribe (free) to receive this blog’s updates through email using the subscribe through email box on the right (which reads “Free Email Updates”).

Step 2. Leave a comment on this post mentioning your email ID with which you registered so that I know that you have registered (you can leave a small part of your username in your email ID if you want).

Then just sit back and relax, or better still, read a few other nice posts on my blog and comment on them . I’ll choose the winner in a few days and let you guys know right here. So, stay tuned.

What are you waiting for? I’d get those fingers moving if I were you . Good Luck.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Contest: Free 20$ SiteGround Web Hosting Coupon, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

Well, its not just prefix suffix any more, because I added an option to add things in the middle of the posts as well. I got this idea because people told me that this was one of the most sought after option as advertisements (e.g. google adsense, adbrite, etc) give maximum click through rate when placed smack dab in the middle of the content. What’s more is that it is configurable and you can choose how many paragraphs and/or words should be skipped from the start of the post before you add whatever you want, be it text, css, html, php or javascript.

For more details and downloads, head on over to: Shantz WP Prefix Suffix Home Page

And don’t forget to let me know what you think about it or if you want any new features included.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Project: Shantz-WP-Prefix-Suffix Updated to 1.1.0, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings

A 404 page is an error page that is displayed when somebody tries to go to a link on your website that doesn’t exist. This could occur when someone linking to your website or typing in his browser address bar mistypes a url, or maybe that page has been moved or deleted by you. Lost opportunity? Maybe. But definitely not, if you follow this advise. Many people don’t have a 404 page altogether, a few implement with an inane message like “Something went wrong”, a few will try to help out the seemingly lost user  by giving a few navigation options linking to home page, archives or most popular posts, etc. Definitely the last option among these is quite good to retain the users, but we’ll go one step ahead and turn this into an extra source of cash.

Note: This is perfectly fine according to Google Adsense TOS.

What we’ll do is implment a search box (Adsense For Search) on the 404 error page, which will net us the following benefits:

• Give the users a way to search for what they would have come looking for and hence retain them on your website.
• Make money if they click on any ads that are shown by Adsense for search.

Now we’ll see how to do it for a wordpress blog as well as a static site.

How to implement google adsense for search for your blog:

Common step: The first step for independent of what kind of site you have, is to sign up for Google Adsense Publisher Account. Once you have signed up, log on to your account and go to Adsense Setup -> Get Ads -> Adsense For Search. Customize the box according to your need. (Select the “Open search results in my website” option to make sure users remain on your site. And insert a url where you’d like to show the results. e.g. mine is http://tech.shantanugoel.com/search/ ). Once you are done, you will get two snippets of code. One for displaying the search box and another for displaying the search results. Lets call them “Adsense-For-Search-Box-Code” and “Adsense-For-Search-Results-Code”. We’ll use them below for our implmentation.

For a static site: A static site is one where you have static/hand-coded html pages (i.e., not generated by a server side language, e.g. PHP). This requires 3 steps now:

Step 1) Create a 404.html page that will contain your search box code and will be displayed in case of a 404 error. A simple sample implmentation would be a blank page that contains just the search box code. The contents of this page can be as shown below:

"your website header"
"Adsense-For-Search-Box-Code"
"your website footer"

However, you might want to blend this in with your other website pages by including the look of header, sidebars, footers, etc, and in place of content just paste in the code.

Step 2) Create a search-results.html page that will contain the search results (You need to enter http://>your-domain-name</search-result.html in the adsense settings for this). Here, also you can either create a blank html page with just the search results code added or mimic the look of your website. Possible Contents:

"your website header"
"Adsense-For-Search-Results-Code"
"your website footer"

Step 3) Modify your .htaccess file to add the following line:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html

And you are done. For a wordpress site, read on:

For a WordPress based site/blog: For a wordpress based site, you don’t have to modify the .htaccess. The 3 steps you have to follow are as below:

Step 1) Create or modify your 404.php file (generally in your theme’s root directory, e.g. http://<your-site-name>/wp-content/themes/<your-theme>/404.php ) to include the adsense for search box code. e.g.:

<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="content">
"Adsense-For-Search-Box-Code"
</div>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Step 2) Create a search-results.php file (generally in your theme’s root directory, e.g. http://<your-site-name>/wp-content/themes/<your-theme>/search-results.php ) to include the adsense for search results code. e.g.:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Google Adsense Search Results
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="content">
"Adsense-For-Search-Results-Code"
</div>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Step 3) Login to your WordPress dashboard, go to Write->Page. Create a new page with its url/slug being http://<your-site-name>/search (e.g. http://tech.shantanugoel.com/search ) or whatever that you input in your adsense settings. Make sure you select the page template as “Google Adsense Search Results” as we had mentioned in the search-results.php file at the top. Save this page and you are done.

Now, try to go to any non-existent url on your site (You can try this with this blog also, appending any weird url after http://tech.shantanugoel.com/ ) and you will be presented with the nice adsense-for search box. Let me know if this helped you out or you find any shortcomings in this or have any of your own tips. Also let me know if you need my specific 404.php and search-results.php files.

© Shantanu Goel | This article, titled Make Money Out Of Nothing: Add Google Adsense For Search To Your 404 Page, was originally published on Shantanu's Technophilic Musings