Even the smartest Internet users may occasionally forget the fact that not all info on blogs and Wikipedia is 100% accurate. Just because something is posted on Digg, on a blog like Engadget, or even on Wikipedia doesn’t make it true. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not some old fart who runs around yelling “everyone online lies” - I do think the vast majority of the info online is true, however, I also think there is a lot false (or at least somewhat inaccurate/misleading) info.

Wikipedia really deserves a post of it’s own, but I’ll briefly discuss it here anyway. One of the common defenses of Wikipedia is that many people work on articles, so they are more accurate. I am one of the few people who honestly believes it isn’t more accurate than encyclopedias. Nearly every time I fix some vandalism on there it was posted a good chunk of time (days, maybe even weeks) prior to my fixing it (who knows how many people looked at it inbetween the occurrence of vandalism and the fixing of it). My experience with removing vandalism and blatantly false info has made me wonder how much of the information on there is false, and no one has picked up on it yet. Either I am very unlucky and I pick bad articles to look at, or I have a good argument.

Personally I think Wikipedia, just like blogs, is good for a basic reference, but it is not good as a source. If you want factual information look at the sources that are cited if they are somewhat reputable (NY times, CNN, Fox, etc). While the traditional media is generally better at getting their facts straight, they sometimes make mistakes as well - so even then a certain level of skepticism is advised. I think the best way to get the most accurate information is to go straight to the true source.

For example, if some news article talks about global warming why not go look at the CO2 and average temp charts from reputable scientific resources and decide for yourself and use those charts as your sources? It seems like every article on global warming uses a completely different chart - so quite obviously some of them are full of crap or have at least twisted their facts a bit.

Another good example of getting good facts is with financial updates. Lets say a press release says Apple’s OS customer base has gone up 20% year over year. That might seem amazing at first, and most Apple blogs will quote that instead of quoting the really important figure - the number of customers. If you have 10 users and it goes up 20% that means you now have 12… not so amazing. If you have 100 users and it goes up 2% then you have 2 new users - which is a much smaller % but is the same exact growth as far as raw numbers are concerned. While some might argue “well relative to Apple, 2 new users aint bad” I look at it in a slightly more pessimistic view: relative to the rest of the world it isn’t too amazing, and it doesn’t mean they will be ruling the world next year (which many Apple “fanatics” seem to think). The same goes for Linux as well. Oh, and just so no one thinks I am a Microsoft fanboy - I own an iBook G4 with OS X and use it as my main computer, and I also use a Compaq with Windows and Linux for OS development, and gaming. Basically post info as it is - don’t try to hype it up by posting figures and facts that may support your claim while leaving out other facts that may tear apart your opinion.

My first point with this article is this - instead of citing a blog that got its info from another blog, that got their info from another blog, etc, quote the real source (and maybe put a little “found via” link for news articles). This is good for a few reasons - it will make your argument stronger, it will make you look more credible, and your readers will greatly appreciate it. The actual source will almost always be more accurate than blogs, a site like Wikipedia, and in some cases traditional media sites. Don’t be afraid to do a bit of searching for it either.

My second point is to be completely truthful and honest and to avoid the trap of using misleading facts to support your own personal agenda.

Oh yes, and also remember there is a difference between opinion and fact. While someone may formulate an opinion about a fact - it is impossible for an opinion to become a fact without doing a whole lot of research and experimentation.

Here are 5 little WordPress tips and features that can make you 1000% more productive:

1. Pending Review - Before this feature came out in WordPress 2.3, Contributors had two options - save and continue editing or save. Their drafts looked no different from any other draft, so it was hard for editors to tell if a post could be published. Starting with version 2.3, Contributors now have a third option - submit for review. All posts that are pending a review are put into a separate section and are easy for editors to spot. Although this isn’t useful for blogs with one author - it will save hours and hours of lost time for bloggers that run blogs with multiple contributors.

2. Plain Text Editor And WYSIWYG Editor - WordPress has two different types of editors - a plain text editor and a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (visual) editor. The plain text editor is useful if you post lots of source code or you like to manually tweak everything - since the visual editor can and will mess up that sort of stuff. The visual editor on the other hand is much cleaner and isn’t nearly as scary for new users to use. You can set which editor you use on your Users page. I don’t think I can stress enough how important it is to figure out which editor you like. Don’t forget about the 3rd option either - use an application for blogging like Ecto.

3. Finding And Installing Plugins - It never fails to amaze me how many new WordPress users have difficulty finding plugins. Despite the fact the top plugin directories show up at the top of the search results for “wordpress plugins” - many of them can’t seem to figure out what they are looking for. The two biggest (and most popular) directories are wp-plugins.net and the official wordpress plugin directory. Simply go on those sites, search for the type of plugin you’re looking for, and then install it. Plugin installation isn’t hard either - just upload the plugin to the /wp-content/plugins directory (follow the installation files - some are one file and some are an entire folder), and enable it on the WordPress plugins page. I am also trying to get into plugin development as well - although I don’t know for how long, since I probably won’t be using WordPress for much longer (I’m working on a custom system).

4. Strict Comment Moderation - While it might seem a bit odd to list strict comment moderation on a list like this - I do think it belongs here. For starters, you do not, I repeat, you do NOT want your blog to be known as one that allows spammers and trolls to reign free. While most publicity is good publicity - that sort of attention is an example of awful publicity. It takes much longer to fix your reputation than it does for you to maintain your reputation. Fortunately for us comment moderation is extremely easy with WordPress, and there are plugins to make it even easier. I tend to moderate based on the content of the comments, and the personal info (name, e-mail, and URL) the person entered. Use your own gut feeling - does the comment seem out of place? Are they responding to someone else? Is it adding any value to the post? And finally, does the commentator seem like a spammer or a bit too troll-like?

Oh, and don’t forget to install an anti spam plugin like Akismet.

5. Getting WordPress Themes - Finding and installing themes is as easy as finding and installing plugins. Find one you like that is compatible with your WordPress version, upload it to /wp-content/themes via FTP, and set it as your theme on the Presentation page, and boom - you’re done. Theme development isn’t very hard either. If you are interested in the creation of your own blog layout, I’ve written a few articles on the subject: Modern Web Design, Blog Theme Design, WordPress Theme Design Part 1 - The Boring Stuff, and WordPress Theme Design Part 2 - Coding.

Well, Nusuni Dot Com has been completely transferred to GoDaddy as of this morning - and I must say this is the smoothest transfer I’ve ever done thus far.

Starting It Up

Because this was a simple transfer from one registrar to another without changing my contact info it went really easy. All I did was use the transfer form, pop in my info, and then realized the domain was locked at my old registrar - so I unlocked it to allow transfers, then reinitiated the transfer from the control panel and sat back and watched it go.

The most annoying part with transfers are the authorization codes you need to get from your current registrar. These auth codes must be entered into a form to allow the new registrar to initiate the transfer - so if you are selling your domain you must send the codes to the new owner.

The Waiting Game

At this point I got the confirmation e-mail from my old registrar, along with that lovely “don’t do anything until 07-December 07 unless you want to cancel your transfer” message. I didn’t get another e-mail until today - when the transfer finished up (6 days after initiating it) Everything went smoothly.

Phone Call?

Being my first experience with GoDaddy - I was quite shocked to get a phone call just a few minutes ago from them checking to make sure it is working nice. After hanging up the phone I immediately thought “Wow, GoDaddy just called you!” Needless to say it was nice talking to a human and not a stupid prerecorded message/machine - which pretty much every national company seem to use these days. The guy was nice, and to my amazement didn’t try pressuring me into buying a bunch of extra crap (I’m a poor broke 18 year old programmer - I haven’t got money for extra crap!). We discussed the good prices, my webhost, and even Diggnation (ironically, I was watching the new episode when he called).

Although I probably won’t transfer any of my other domains to them right now (the registrar I use for those domains has fairly good prices), I will definitely be buying my domains through GoDaddy for now on. That’s saying a lot too - I’m generally a hard person to please.

Last night I was talking to someone who is an absolute music know-it-all. She knows everything about music. While talking to her my ignorance of music became quite apparent - I know nothing about it. So what did she do? She started yelling and screaming at me about how I should be an expert in it “just because” and learn everything about modern bands and music, but didn’t give me a single good reason to learn about it nor did she help me learn about it by recommending any resources.

This situation reminded me of something that happened about five years ago. I was only about 13 at the time - but I remember it like it happened yesterday.

We all know some people are a bit… “uneducated” when it comes to the Internet and computer security. Those people are the reason those Nigerian spammers keep on spamming. About 5 years ago one of those “uneducated” users e-mailed me out of the blue and asked for help setting up his site’s control panel. The odd thing is his passwords were included in it.

Now, I’ve seen people do weird things on their computers. Heck, I once got an e-mail from someone who took apart a floppy disk and stuck the actual disk in his slot loading CD drive. The guy who sent the password easily tops even that. Not only was his control panel password included, but he also sent the password for his billing account on his host, his e-mail password, and some more interesting info.

This was the first time I had any real experience with a computer user who didn’t know anything about security. To me that sort of concept was common sense - and it has always been common sense since I was first introduced to the Internet (good ol’ AOL dial up). I always figured people know to keep their social security numbers secret, so they should know that they need to keep their passwords safe and not randomly e-mail them to perfect strangers.

Anyway, long story short, I helped the guy fix his control panel problem, and then went above and beyond and briefly explained computer security to him. It didn’t take long either - only a few minutes. In fact, I spent less time teaching him the basics of computer security than that girl spent yelling at me about music.

By now you are probably wondering “Ok… a snot yelled at you and a foolish user e-mailed you and you helped them… what’s the point?” - my point is this - not everyone is as smart as you. All of us are good at something - and unfortunately we might sometimes forget that not everyone is an expert in that topic. Some people don’t know how to boil an egg, some people don’t know how to pump their own gas, some people don’t know that they should keep their passwords safe, and heck, there’s people like me who know nothing about music.

Why it is some people (like that girl) are so mean, I will never understand. The amount of time she spent ranting and raving about my ignorance of music she could have recommended a resource to help me understand it better.

Traffic - OUCH!

Well, November was a pretty miserable month. I didn’t get to do anything I wanted to do with this blog because I simply didn’t have enough time. Oh well. I open December with open arms - there is no way it can be as bad as November was. In a nutshell, traffic dropped by about 50%, but subscription is up by a good 20% (nowhere near my predictions - and it could have been much worse… but still… ick). Hopefully this month I will be finishing up my CMS - getting some of my little projects done - and will finally be able to focus on this blog once again.

Is Your Blog GZipped?

Nusuni Dot Com has been gzip compressed for a while now thanks to a nice hack for WP-Cache. Someone asked me why I did this - and this tool answers that question. It saves me 66% of the bandwidth by compressing it. According to the tool, MacBros could save around 76% if he enabled it, Pelf saves around 71%, etc. While compression can put extra stress on the server - it can save quite a bit of bandwidth if used properly.

Top 10 Sexiest Tech Women

Am I the only one who has only heard of like 2 of them? Maybe I don’t follow tech crap enough or something…

Completely Offtopic: Local Man Only Gets 5 Years For Child Sexual Abuse!

OK, this is just disturbing on so many levels. A local man (I live in upstate NY, near Syracuse) was sentenced to… get this…. only 5 years for sexually abusing his 11 year old son! I hope his “buddies” in jail rip him apart. Back in school we had a substitute who used to be a Prison Guard and once said inmates 100% despise child predators and they often get loose and beat the crap out of them. We can only hope the same happens to this fellow. Seriously, WTF?

Digg-Style Voting For Google?

Google, you have answered my prayers! They are experimenting with Digg-style voting functionality for search results! This is something I have kinda wanted for a while now.

Microsoft Loses In Frivolous Patent Suit

It isn’t any secret that I’m not a big fan of patents - especially software patents. This is yet another example of why.

OS Evolution

Isn’t it amazing how little our systems have changed over the years? Back in the 80s we (well, not me.. I was only born in 89… heh) envisioned 3d desktops and little computer watches. What do we have instead? The same thing they had then - dull little icons, windows… and menu bars. Call me in another 20 or when OSes finally evolve a bit.