Kongtechnology.com » Blogging

Switch from Blogger to WordPress in 6 steps

Howard — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:33:31 +0000

If you are an avid blogger, most likely you started off on an amateur basis with free services like Blogger and over time acquired a large number of following and have decided that maybe it’s time for you strike off into your own domain and get www.MYSITE.com instead of MYSITE.blogspot.com. Well, that may be a wonderful dream and all, but consider some glaring problems with doing the switch if you didn’t plan ahead.

First off, your old blog will probably be abandoned. At most, you may insert a new link to point visitors to your new blog. But all the search engines that have linked to your old blogs will continue to link to them and not to your updated blog, and that may be a problem because you will need to rebuild all your ‘reputation’ all over again. In particular, all those Google-generated visitor traffic won’t be able to reach your new blog, which means you’re basically starting over from scratch all over again. AdSense revenue will tank as a result.

Secondly, your RSS feed will die, and readers who have been following your feed will most probably just delete the non-responsive feed and move on. Don’t underestimate the amount of people who use RSS as a way to keep track of their favorite web spaces.

However, fear not as there is a way for your to migrate from Blogger to your own self-hosted WordPress server in 6 simple steps that avoid all the pitfalls described earlier. Digital Inspiration‘s Amit Agarwal compiled these useful step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: In case you haven’t done this already – register a new web domain, buy server space from some web hosting company that offers PHP/MySQL hosting and and install WordPress software on your new domain.

Step 2: Go to your WordPress Admin Dashboard > Tools > Import and select the Blogger option. Authorize WordPress to access your Google Account and within minutes, all your old blog posts and comments will be available on the new WordPress site.

Step 3: Copy this file into your WordPress themes directory. This is what you should copy over: blogger.php.txt

Step 4. Open your WordPress Dashboard and go to Pages -> Add New Page. Keep the title and URL of that page as blogger and select “blogger” from the Template drop-down. Save. There’s no need to add any content to this page.

Step 5. Open the template generator, type the full address of your new WordPress blog (including http:// and the trailing slash) and this tool will create a new classic template for your blogspot blog that will look something like this:

<$BlogPageTitle$>

This page has moved to a new address.

<$BlogTitle$>

<$BlogItemTitle$>

Step 6. Open your Blogger Dashboard -> Layout -> Edit HTML and choose “Revert to Classic Blog”. Copy-paste the template generated in Step 5 in the “Edit Template” area and click “Save Template Changes”.

Your are done. Open any page on your old Blogger blog and it should redirect you to the corresponding WordPress page. On the WordPress side, since we are using a permanent 301 redirect with the redirection URLs, all the Google Juice will probably pass to your new WordPress pages with time.

Update your RSS Feed: When you move from Blogger to WordPress, the address of your RSS feed will change as well. Go to Blogger -> Settings -> Site Feed, type the address of your new WordPress RSS feed here and Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. will automatically move to your new feed.

There you go, a complete and pain-free (for the most part) process that allows you to continue blogging without diminishing the user traffic that you have so painstakingly built over the years. Happy blogging!

8 Inspirational Blogging Attitudes from Britain’s Got Talent

Chingya — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:51:04 +0000

With Diversity been crowned as the winner of Britain’s Got Talent, followed by Susan Boyle at second place, and Julian Smith at third, it marked the end of another outstanding talent show. The winners are chosen based on votes from the pubic viewers, and the winning team not only rewarded with £100000 GBP but also gets to perform at the Royal Variety Performance, in front of the Queen of England that is. Considered that the highest honor one normal civilian could ever had in his/her life.

Now what can the results tell us about blogging attitudes? No matter what field we’re in, we are constantly dealing with consumer needs, desire for attentions, and popularity. These 3 talented acts could teach us loads of strategies or attitudes we should inculcate in our blog. I’m not going to emphasis how talented these people are, as obviously in that category, everyone is the winner.

Let’s have a look at their winning factors in this competition, defeating the other 7 groups who were amongst the favorites of British viewers:

3rd Place: Julian Smith (Saxophone Player)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hajxr8rMAtI&feature=player_embedded

Humbleness:

Julian has shown his down to earth personality in his stage performance, which I believe captured the hearts of many voters. In the world that’s full of talented and remarkable blogging individuals, what really differentiates one from another is their attitude towards their work and readers. No matter how experienced and gifted a blogger is, he/she should always appreciate the work of others and be humble with their own achievements. It’s a virtue and lifelong lesson that all bloggers should bear in mind.

Persistence & Ambitious:

So Julian is 39 years old! After playing the instrument for almost 20 years and working as a music teacher, the guy has never stopped pursuing after his dream. No matter how or when your blog will be discovered, only by persistency and holding on to your belief, your dreams could be realized. If it’s your passion to blog, be willing to work hard and never give up easily.

2nd Place: Susan Boyle (Singer)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2xiAQCTy2E&feature=player_embedded

Be The Unexpected:

This talented lady won over the hearts of many, globally that is, for having the plain, ordinary appearance, yet wowed everyone with her singing. We should never underestimate one’s ability, as in judging a book by its cover. In blogging, try to be the unexpected. Think out of the box, and be innovative with your ideas. Never stop learning and be prepared to wow your audience with a killer post.

Remain Your True Self:

Upon seeing her performing on stage, wearing this elegant dress and delivered the song beautifully, I was actually missing the cheeky side of her. I’m glad after the song she was back with her cheerful self. She graciously applauded the winner, Diversity; also responded humorously to the crowd who booed her when one of the judges claiming she should won the title. It’s easy to lose track of who we are while pursuing our success in blogging. Some claiming themselves to be the experts which in reality, not. Don’t be a hypocrite. It saves alot of embarrassment and disappointments when reality is on the table.

Face the Critics with Dignity & Honesty

Also, we witnessed the good and bad of being magnified under mass media coverage. It’s great to be famous, but then again, some will be skeptic and question whether you deserve the spotlight or not. Learn to face those who opposed us, whether for good or wrong reasons. When a critic is well intentioned, accept it with grace. We can’t expect everyone to like our blogs, but it’s important to know whose comments we should take into account while some remained as it is.

1st Place: Diversity (Dance Group)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJIz8BgRQc0&feature=player_embedded

Diversity:

Their group name says it all. From the guys who are in their 20s to kids about 10+ years old, those guys are amazing in forming a team that is so different in physical sizes, yet well choreographed. Diversify our presentations in blogging. Don’t just stick to one but dare to take chances and try various ways to deliver our message in a post.

Teamwork:

For a group that’s formed by 11 dancers, without teamwork it’s impossible to make things happen. If you are not the sole author for a blog, always communicate and interact with your fellow co-authors. Be clear with your goals. Tolerance and patience are what make a successful collaboration in a blog.

Creativity and Current:

Imagine the combination of Transformers, Superman (or boy), Britain’s Got Talent and mix them all together in the choreography – genius! It captured the hearts of the audiences and the judges. Make sure your content is always relevant and up to date, implies the message via popular tag lines, quotes etc to make your blog post stands out from the others. People are always keen on reading fresh ideas. So make sure you stay current.

So there you have it. While enjoying a great talent show, we get to learn something at the same time. Did you enjoy the performance? Share your thoughts about other inspirations you came across.

Google PR5 Technology Blog

Kitkat — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:28:34 +0000

Google updated our website PageRank again! Have you noticed any difference to your website or blog’s PageRank? Hope yours is doing just fine.

I am glad to announce that Kongtechnology.com now has a Google PageRank of 5. Haha… I am not really surprised to see this improvement as I have been putting some effort in improving this technology blog. But then, one of the most popular technology blog in Malaysia has PR4 only… this make us thinking… is it even possible for me to overtake him in terms of Google PR, at the very least?…

If you do not have Google Toolbar installed, come here to check your site’s PR, and to verify mine’s.

Now, do you want to consider writing tech articles for a PR5 tech blog? Pay is reasonably well if you can come up with good articles. Time to make money online! It’s easy and fun!

What are the other high PR blogs in Malaysia you can think of? Do list them down… oh, can list your own blog too.

Blogging & Law Conference

Kitkat — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:55:47 +0000

Anyone can start a blog.

And if you do, you can also get sued and even worse spend a few months in jail, as we have seen in the case of Raja Petra Kamarudin of MalaysiaToday.

As a blogger, how well do you know your legal rights?

Malaysia Law Portal eLawyer.com.my has organized a Law Conference called Blogging & Law. Experienced lawyers and law bloggers will be talking about issues such as:

Is it OK to link to other blogs?
Can you use pictures found in a Google Image Search or other websites?
What to do if people claim that you have infringed their copyright?
Can you ask someone to remove a link to your blog?
What can you do about defamation or if someone says nasty things about you?

If you are a blogger in Malaysia, this is a great opportunity for you to be aware of your legal rights and obligations. You should become a better and more responsible blogger after attending the conference hopefully.

The conference will be held in University Malaya this weekend.

Date: Saturday, 14 March 2009
Time: 09.30am to 12.30pm
Venue: Auditorium Tun Mohd Suffian, UM Law Faculty

Admission is FREE. Click here for the big poster.

Real Estate WordPress Theme

Kitkat — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:35:13 +0000

This WordPress theme looks so perfectly good, but worry not, it isn’t a premium theme which you have to buy to use it. Instead, I am releasing this WordPress theme for free, under the open source GPL license.

That’s a sneak peek at how the homepage of the blog is going to look like. The theme is optimized to take two 250×250 Google Adsense ads on the homepage right beside the featured post. I strongly recommend placing an image Adsense ad on the left, and a text Adsense ad to its right. The click through should be high…

To change the Google Adsense ads to yours, you simply need to open up the index.php file in the theme’s folder and edit two lines.

Scroll to lines 17 and 22, and replace them with your relevant Google Adsense codes. Simple as that.

For this Real Estate WordPress theme, I have decided to put the “sidebar” at the bottom to make more room for the featured posts and other content (including Google Adsense, of course) in the upper area. Some of the codes are re-used from its predecessor, the Corporate WordPress theme.

Wanna give this WordPress theme a try? Download the theme now! Remember to show your new beautiful theme to all your friends.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin blogs on Blogger

Kitkat — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:01:19 +0000

Sergey Brin appears to have started a blog recently on Google’s Blogger (of course). It’s called “too” and located at too.blogspot.com. If you are like many others ask, “What kind of a blog name is TOO?”, well Sergey has expected this and explains in the first post:

While Google is a play on googol, too is a play on the much smaller number – two. It also means “in addition”, as this blog reflects my life outside of work.

When I first heard about his blog, I wasted no time in rushing there to get some Google tips, but unfortunately, there isn’t any. In fact, so far there are 2 posts only and they are truly about personal stuff only. He talks mostly about his mother suffering from Parkinson’s disease and how he is at a risk to develop it too. He also briefly publicize his wife’s business, 23andMe, which does DNA testing.

The blog has not pictures and no comments so far, most probably they are heavily moderated.

Anyway, since anyone could create a blog and start posting as Sergey Brin, Matt Cutts decided to check with Google staff and and they confirmed that it was indeed Sergey Brin’s blog. I have no idea where Sergey will take this but I look forward to reading more about his life outside of Google… and of course some Google tips perhaps.

Explode your blog traffic with EntreCard

Kitkat — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:47:05 +0000

Entrecard is an advertising exchange network for bloggers where you could boost your blog’s traffic using 125×125 banners. This is may sound like any ordinary banner exchange network but the important thing is it’s tailor for bloggers and it works like a charm! Entrecard is started at around November this year by Graham Langdon, a 22-year old Internet Entrepreneur.

By adding the 125×125 Entrecard banners to your blog, you can publicize other blogs on yours, and your blog on others, all for free for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This advertising is paid for through Entrecard credits, which are earned when you “drop your card” through a simple click on other blogger’s Entrecard banners, when they drop their card on yours, and when someone pays you with credits to place an ad on your blog.

I have personally used this program and it added quite a number of visits to my blog on the first day I had the banner in. I can’t remember how much traffic it jumped, but it was enough to let me keep the Entrecard widget/banner on my homepage.

Of course, there have been some negative comments about EntreCard. Some pointed that very little percentage of that traffic is truly targeted (meaning they are interested in your blog’s content). In other words, how much of that traffic is going to stay on your blog and read your blog posts, rather than there to drop an Entrecard and then left? Perhaps, all they want to do is drop their cards so they can earn more credits. But for me, I think visitors are visitors and it is up to you how you make use of this. There are a lot of ways to take those visitors and make them read your content. If your content is good and interesting, they will become loyal readers, subscribe to your RSS feed and etc.

Have you used Entrecard yet? If you haven’t, it’s not too late to Sign up and use today I guess.

A plain English explanation of what are blogs

Kitkat — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:04:45 +0000

If you’ve been surfing the web for a few hours, you’ve most likely heard of “blogs” or weblogs. But, what are blogs?

A blog is a diary or journal on the Internet where the writer or more known as the “blogger” will write his/her views on a wide variety of subjects such as politics, news, pop culture, computers, food and drinks, and even observations on the world or simply provide links to useful websites. These mostly personal journals on the Internet have taken the web by storm. They are usually frequently updated and written in a personal tone. Different bloggers adopt different themes, sort of like a newspaper columnist but with no specialized training.

If the above quick explanation is still too difficult to digest, what about a very plain English explanation of what are blogs in video format?

Thanks to the folks from CommonCraft, the video is really nicely done. It explains the blog concept in easy to understand drawings. The drawings are cute. Even if you are a problogger you will still enjoy the cute drawings in the video.

Enjoy.

How to integrate WordPress into an existing site

Kitkat — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:37:52 +0000

WordPress is a very powerful content management system, which is specifically designed as a blogging platform. You can use WordPress as what it’s designed for, a blog, or customize it into a full fledge CMS website with the help of nothing but freely available plugins.

However what’s more common is perhaps you are installing WordPress in a sub-folder of an existing website, and after blogging for a while, you are thinking “Hey, how can I list my blog posts on my homepage?”

It’s really easy actually because WordPress has made life so much easier for us. In order to use any functions in WordPress (such as display latest blog posts, display latest comments, etc), you simply need to include the file “wp-blog-header.php”. For example, to display my latest 10 blog posts in my Flash Games page, I simply put the following few lines of code:

define(‘WP_USE_THEMES’, false);
require(‘../wp-blog-header.php’);
query_posts(‘showposts=10′);
?>

” rel=”bookmark”>

Apart from display the latest 10 posts, it also displays the number of comments each post has.

OK, the codes above may look a little gibberish, but the important thing is by including the file “wp-blog-header.php”, you will have access to all the WordPress functions in an instant!

Wonderful isn’t it? With this you can easily integrate WordPress into your existing website and make the website easier to update by making use of WordPress CMS capability.

Project Petaling Street is being spammed by adult video downloader site

Kitkat — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:10:38 +0000

Free porn! no software or plugins needed – download free videos! Please don’t tell me you are not attracted by this catchy headline… if you are not perhaps you need to go see a doctor straight away!

Haha, no there is no free porn videos to download here, but I was surprised to see a lot of entries with the above catchy headline on Project Petaling Street (PPS) since a couple of days ago… and this went on until today! Clearly, this is a job done by some spammers on Malaysia’s most popular and most visited blog portal. Come on, PPS is undeniably one of Malaysia’s most visited website, why there is no moderator removing such spam entries and block them from happening again?

Glance through the latest entries and you will see the same spam entry was submitted every couple of hours. Looking at the time they were submitted, I guess it’s done through a cron job, i.e. automated submission. Now, I am a little impressed by this job. If this went on and nobody moderate this, I guess I want to do something similar too… haha… submit my blog entries to PPS every other hour to get more visitors!

PPS moderators, where are you?