My Technophilic Musings

Updated my WordPress plugin shantz-wp-qotd to version 1.2.2 today.

Introduction: Shantz WP QOTD is a plugin to add quotes to your wordpress blog in a few easy clicks. It adds quotes to your posts and your sidebars with a multitude of options for sources and customization.

Changelog:

Version 1.2.2

• Fixed a bug because of which quotes were blank some times. Thanks to Thom for reporting it.

For more details and download, go to Shantz WordPress QOTD Home Page

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: plugin, QOTD, shantz-wp-qotd, version 1.2.2, wordpress, WP

Many users reported errors while activating the version 1.0.1 of my WordPress plugin shantz-wp-prefix-suffix. I tracked it down to a typo that crept into the release somehow. So, if you are using it, then download the fixed version 1.0.2 from the shantz-wp-prefix-suffix homepage.

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: shantz-wp-prefix-suffix, version 1.0.2, wordpress

ShantzTodayChanger is a little tool written by me for your Windows Mobile based phones (WM5/WM6) which will cycle ur today background or theme after a set interval of time. It has a lot of features and options and you can even use it to achieve something other than changing wallpapers as well (e.g. running applications at set times) but that depends on your imagination.

Changes in this version:

1.53 - 23-March-08 -> RECOMMENDED UPDATE
i)Theme Color Detection has been improved a lot. Should work much more accurately now.

For more information about this tool, queries, feature requests, updates and downloads, please visit ShantzTodayChanger Home Page.

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: cycle themes and wallpapers, extensible application, interval based cycling, run applications at set times, ShantzTodayChanger, themes, Wallpapers, Windows Mobile, WM5, WM6

I’m sure you have copied/moved files on your computer from one place to another. And I’m sure often you have to do more than just “single-shot” copying that is copy a few files to one place, move a few to another, and copy yet some more to one more location. Well, I had to do this quite a few times (e.g. I ran out of disk space recently on a partition and had to empty out my “Movies” and “Songs” folders to move a few movies/songs each to all other partitions/disks according to the space available). Hence, I wrote this little command line program, which behaves like a basket.

You can put any number of files from any number of different locations into it in a single shot. It will store their locations and give them an ID. Now, you can copy/move those files to different destinations based on their IDs. What’s even better is that your basket will remain intact even across reboots. So, you can continue working on the files in the basket even for days.

Do check it out at Shantz Copy Basket

Note: Packages for windows as well as linux have been uploaded. If you have perl, a perl script is also given that works in both platforms without change. I have tested it on Windows XP SP2 and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04.

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: copy, copy to different locations, feisty fawn, linux, move, multiple copy in a single shot, Shantz Copy Basket, shantz-cp-basket, ubuntu, windows

Just some news on my WordPress plugins front. shantz-wp-qotd has been updated to version 1.2.1 and shantz-wp-prefix-suffix has been updated to 1.0.1. It is just a minor update meant for people still using a WordPress version < 2.1. The update makes the “page exclusion” feature of both the plugins (i.e. the option to prevent the plugins from acting on “pages”) compatible with WP < 2.1 as well.

Go to their respective pages for downloads:

shantz-wp-qotd

shantz-wp-prefix-suffix

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: plugins, shantz-wp-prefix-suffix 1.0.1, shantz-wp-qotd 1.2.1, updates, wordpress

I updated my wordpress plugin “shantz-wp-qotd” (A feature rich, customizable wordpress quotes plugin) today to version 1.2.0. The new version has the following changes:

• Added option to exclude pages from displaying quotes
• Fixed a bug that quotes source selection checkboxes always remain checked after updating settings.
• Cosmetic: Fixed a few spelling mistakes

Go here for more details and downloads.

Also, I made a quicky little plugin “shantz-wp-prefix-suffix” for my personal use, and then decided to release it. This plugin will basically allow you to add any text or HTML/CSS code to the beginning and/or end of your posts and/or your pages. Visit this page for details and downloads.

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Quote of the day: “There’s a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college.” — Chef

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: shantanu goel, Shantz, shantz-wp-prefix-suffix, shantz-wp-qotd, wordpress, WordPress Plugin

The site received a lot of new visitors yesterday as one of the small-time things that I do, received front page treatment at lifehacker. Thank you, Adam Pash, and thanks Murphy, for the original idea.

In other news, a new section called “Misc. Stuff” has been started under projects. This would be home to those little scripties and proggies that I make just to make things easy in general, automate stuff, things that couldn’t be fit into any other section or may be are almost platform independent. Inaugarating the section would be a little perl script that I wrote to help a friend in generating blogrolls compatible opml file (that could be imported into most blog, blogroll services like wordpress, blogrolling, etc) from a list of links (excel, csv).

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: Blogroll, blogrolling, csv to opml, front page of lifehacker, lifehacker, misc. stuff, opml, perl, script, site updates, small programs

I came across this post on lifehacker today (original post and solution here), which talks about a method of retrieving files from a remote computer through e-mail. Pretty archaic, I know, but again, it is a very simple method and works behind all the firewalls and stuff . But, the catch is that it is only for mac’s. Thought of creating something similar for the PC and mashed together some code during lunch time at office to make our dear old outlook remote-file-sending-capable. So, here it is, head over to my project page “Remote File Access Through E-Mail” to read more about this and download it.

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: lifehacker, mac, outlook, outlook 2003, remote access, remote file access, remote file access through e-mail, windows

For the uninitiated:

Shantz WP QOTD is a plugin to add quotes to your wordpress blog in a few easy clicks. It adds quotes to your posts and your sidebars with a multitude of options for sources and customization.

I made a few additions / modifications to the code and the plugin has been updated to 1.1.0. The changes are:

• Added Custom tag support for adding quotes anywhere in your posts/pages
• Added Custom quote separator support and multi-line quotes support

Config Screenshots:

I recommend that you update to this new version asap, as apart from the above mentioned changes, the code is a bit more cleaner as well, which would run a bit better IMO and also help in any modification if you have in mind. For full details and downloads, go to shantz-wp-qotd page.

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: blog, customization, plugin, Programming, projects, QOTD, quote of the day, Shantz, shantz-wp-qotd, shantz-wp-qotd 1.1.0, sidebar, Updated, widget, wordpress, wordpress blog, WordPress Plugin

Motivated by Ronald’s ultimate wordpress plugin tutorial at devlounge, I decided that the best way to learn something is to use it in a live project. Armed with my laptop and multiple flasks of coffee, the marathon began on Friday night. My only experience with web-related development so far had been around 8–10 years ago as a kid when, just like everybody else at that time, I was fascinated by HTML and did a “read-through” of HTML 4.0. But I have always been a believer of the theory that a C programmer can program in any language quickly without having to go through the whole manuals. Thus that night bore fruit for me, and by 5:30 in the morning I had a working “Quote of The Day” plugin at my hand with all the features I wanted it to have in its first avatar. Did a bit of polishing last night, fixed a few bugs, and created a readme, and here it is, Mr. shantz-wp-qotd “1.0”, in all its glory, ready for general consumption.

Features at a glance:

Continue reading »

written by Shantanu Goel \\ tags: blog, QOTD, qotd plugin, quote of the day, shantz-wp-qotd, shantz-wp-qotd 1.0, widgets, wordpress, WordPress Plugin, wordpress qotd plugin