One disappointing aspect of the otherwise superb Samsung Blackjack is its lack of built-in wi-fi. It does have other internet support such as G3 and EDGE, so it can get the job done. However, not everyone can afford an unlimited data plan, especially since Cingular the new AT&T the old Cingular new AT&T insists on calling the Blackjack smartphone a PDA and charging the higher PDA data rates.
Spectec micro SD Wi-Fi Card
So it was welcome news to Blackjackers and other micro SD gear owners when the Spectec wi-fi micro SD card was announced last October. No dates or prices were given and the many internet postings repeated the same story. A couple sites pre-selling the card say June 2007 is the expected date.
However, an email to Spectec in Taiwan got an immediate reply - by which I mean five minutes - that said it would be another two months. I have to say that the quick reply from Spectec was so unexpected that it bought a load of repect and patience from me. Heads up to other businesses: you can learn a thing or two from that.
Will It Work On The Blackjack?
There is some concern about whether the Blackjack supports SDIO, but I found some specs that say it supports SDIO. Also, the Spectec site says Smartphones, but says it requires Windows CE, but of course I hold out hope that Windows Mobile Standard (WM5 or WM6) will make the grade.
The news of a summer without Blackjack wi-fi is disappointing, but the device is so otherwise capable that I think I can manage (this post is being drafted on mine and will be easily sent off over the interweb). Hopefully when August rolls around, it will be clear that the card works on Windows Mobile and isn’t priced too high.
eBiblicious is a Javascript API for eBible.com, for which a WordPress plugin is available that detects inline Scripture references and provides the text in mouseover “tool-tip” windows. For example, mousing over Phil 4:6 should present the text in a pop-up. When writing a post, you merely include text that is a valid Bible reference and the eBiblicious plugin converts it automatically. 1 Samuel 2, Hebrews 11, and Matthew 3:1-5 are all valid forms that are converted.
eBiblicious Options
There are several options available to customize the plugin behavior. Four modes are available: Mouseover, Snippet, Link, and Study. The mode controls what replacement text is substituted when a Scripture reference is detected in a post.
Mouseover Mode
Mouseover mode, of course, is in use above. When the reader runs the mouse pointer over the linked Scripture reference, the text pops up. Clicking the link opens the text in eBible’s quickview format. Within the popup is a link to view the text in the eBible study browser.
Snippet Mode
Snippet mode inserts an inline div within the post, as shown below. The div is of a class, which can be restyled by the user.
Link Mode
Link mode create a link to the text in eBible quickview link. This is the basic view that shows the verse, notes that others have attached, topics, and links to bookmark, email, view in the study browser, and to send to a Facebook friend or post in your Facebook profile.
Study Mode
Study mode creates a link to the text in eBible’s study browser, where the verse will be highlighted and displayed in context with the surrounding text. Right-clicking a verse opens a context menu from which you can browse commentaries (most require a subscription, but the King James and Matthew Henry commentaries are free to use. In the screenshot below, the Henry commentary is open to Philippians 4:2-9.
Translation
You can choose which translation is used. I prefer NASB and ESV for their literal but modern translations, but others are available as well. For this plugin, NASB, MSG, KJV, NKJV, ESV, HCSB, NCV, SpaRV, and ItalRV are all supported.
CSS Styling and Other Options
You can also choose whether to include the default CSS stylesheet, which class name with which to mark the references, and the class in which to search for references.
Other options include whether to open links in a new window, which API version to use.
Developer Keys
To use the eBiblicious API, you must get a developer key by registering (for free). This works pretty much like Askimet and the WordPress.com Stats plugins.
What About Scripturizer?
Scripturizer is another good WordPress plugin that marks up Scripture references in posts, linking them to BibleGateway.com. There is nothing wrong with either plugin in this respect; they both work as advertised.
However, I prefer the eBiblicous plugin. Certainly not for the name (yikes), but the pop-up text, flexible link options, and use of eBible.com.
Overall
Overall, I think the it’s a nice plugin that offers a genuine benefit. Of course, more options to allow fine-tuning through the WordPress admin interface would be nice, but that’s just looking a gift horse in the mouth.
After using a Sony-Ericsson W600i for about a year, I spilled some Vitamin Water on it and the buttons got a bit sticky, providing me a great excuse to upgrade my phone.
Some online comparisons later, I decided on a Samsung Blackjack and ordered it refurbished from Cingular. Actually, I ordered it through work and on the web, so coupled with it being refurbished, it was in the ballpark of $25.
Though it arrived the next day and activation was a snap, charging was… not so much. The online reviews I had read were mostly glowing, it was nearly unanimous that the Blackjack battery life was pathetic, so I was prepared for some battery problems. However, I could not even charge a battery if it was in the phone.
The helpful neighborhood Cingular (AT&T, whatever) store quickly diagnosed my new-old cell phone as suffering from a case of “not working,” and arranged for yet another refurbished Blackjack to be sent out. (They couldn’t do an in-store swap of a new phone for a refurbished phone. Dang it.)
Anyhow, everything else seems to work, and the included battery charging gizmo charges just fine. Since it came with two batteries, I can manage until my new new-old phone arrives.
Samsung Blackjack Features
If you don’t know, the Blackjack is a Windows Mobile smartphone with a backlit QWERTY keyboard, interweb, email, and all that hooey. It does IR, quad-band GSM/EDGE, G3, MP3, XM, and R2D2. It’s got a 1.3 megapixel camera that doubles as a VGA camcorder. It can handle up to six active Bluetooth 2.0 connections, and does Java to boot.
The Blackjack has a small internal memory capacity. However, it will accept a micro SD card in a handy slot located on the right side. I picked up a 2 GB Sandisk Micro SD card, available at Amazon for about $20. For what it’s worth, a micro SD card is very-very incredibly micro. It’s the size of a fingernail. A small fingernail.
Amazon’s Atomic Scale
Though a bit larger than your typical cellphone, it’s thin and light. Weight-wise, I thought it was 3.5 ounces, but according to Amazon, as you can see in the image to the right, the Blackjack weighs 3.49982363315697 ounces. So, what do you know, it’s even lighter than I thought.
Overall
All in all, the Samsung Blackjack is a pretty cool phone. A smidge larger than I wanted but it’s got a full keyboard and is smaller and lighter than a PDA or Blackberry.
There’s a variant of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, mixed into a medley with What A Wonderful World, that has been used in several movies, television shows, and commercials, and I thought it was pretty remarkable. Most notably I remember it during the credits of Finding Forrester.
However, I just heard it used as background for a Particles demo video and decided it was time to track it down, figure out who sang it that way. Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, or IZ, is the guy.
Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
Kamakawiwo’ole was a Hawaiian musician who, sadly, died in 1997 at the young age of 38. Kamakawiwo’ole was popular and admired, he was one of two people ever to receive a state funeral in Hawaii.
It is amazing that a song as well-covered as Somewhere Over The Rainbow, originally sung by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz, could take on such a different, haunting, feel as it has with Kamakawiwo’ole’s voice. It’s been sung by Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Stewart, Diana Ross, The Smashing Pumpkins, Bob Marley, Frank Sinatra, Metallica, and many others, but this one cover by someone I’ve never heard is what sticks with me, and apparently with others as well.
Videos
There are several videos of Israel kamakawiwo’ole singing the Somewhere Over The Rainbow / What A Wonderful World medly. Here are a couple.
The first has better sound, and is longer, but the video is essentially a slide show.
Unfortunately, the system provides no way to make One-Click aware of installations that it did not originally perform. For example, if you manually installed WordPress or installed it with One-Click but moved it from its original location, all upgrades must be performed manually.
Such was the case with bweaver.net. WordPress was originally installed via One-Click into bweaver.net/wp, but I decided to move it up to the domain root and manually moved the files and tweaked the database table wp_options and all was well. Except that I could no longer upgrade via the One-Click interface.
To get things back essentially requires a reinstall. This article describes getting bweaver.net and its data back into One-Click, though much of it can be applied to moving a WordPress installation and data to another location. There may be easier or safer methods, and your mileage may vary, and be careful to back things up, and all that.
The Process
This will involve backing up the files and database, removing the files and database, using DreamHost’s One-Click process to install WordPress 2.2 fresh, then restoring the themes, plugins, options, and data.
Briefly
Back up your files, database, export WP XML file, and record your options
Drop the WordPress DB tables and delete files in the target directory
One-Click Install Wordpress using the now-empty database
Restore WP XML file, themes, plugins, images, and options as needed
Step 1 - Back Up
Back up files, especially anything added or modified. This includes themes, plugins, and custom files, widgets, images, etc. I used FileZilla to ftp the files to a backup location.
Back up the database. I used phpMyAdmin and exported all wp_ tables into SQL, then saved the SQL in a backup file. I checked the option to “Add DROP TABLE” and selected all the tables. If something went wrong, I’d have this backup.
Export WordPress data into an XML file. In the WordPress admin interface, under Manage there is an Export tab. It generates an XML file that be imported when you get things re-installed.
I recommend making a note of your options and which plugins are activated. You can recreate them via SQL later, but it might be easier to simply set them by hand. I chose to set them by hand.
Step 2 - Delete
Delete the files from the website directory. One-Click will not perform an installation into a directory that has any files. Make sure you delete any hidden files, such as .htaccess.
Drop the WP database tables. I did this in phpMyAdmin.
Step 3 - One-Click Install
Install WordPress via the Dreamhost One-Click process, pointing the new WP installation to the old, now-empty, database. This takes a couple minutes, but give it five or ten.
Step 4 - Restore
Restore missing files. Upload the required plugins, themes, images, and other files that you will need. This might include javascript or other custom files.
Enable your plugins and select your theme.
Set the options as needed.
Gotchas
If you have other tables that are created by plugins or other code, you will have to manually restore them. For example, I had to manually restore the wp_slim_stats table created by the WP-SlimStats plugin.
Finally
After all that, bweaver.net is now back in One-Click and future WordPress upgrades should be much simpler to manage.
This and most of my other sites are hosted by Dreamhost on a great shared-hosting plan. They have excellent prices, good support, and plans that include most features you could want. The main Dreamhost blog betrays their great sense of humor and keeps us regularly entertained.
Crap Happens
However, there were Dreamhost DNS problems a few days ago that were driving some people bonkers — myself included. The initial report and the followup post generated 127 then 468 comments, respectively. A few months ago they had a power problem that caused issues for a few days as well.
The DNS problems currently seem to be resolved. Their last status update on it provides the explanation.
The problems regarding dns and our load balancer have been resolved. It was a combination of problems that caused the outage. The main problem was that the default udp settings on the load balancer did not have any timeout values set (BAD!!!). This was causing any udp connections that didn’t complete to fill up connection tables on the load balancer causing its CPU to spike and stop serving new requests. We sincerely apologize for this outage and are working on new dreaplans that would prevent a similar outage in the future.
Thanks to Dreamhost for sticking with this issue until it was diagnosed and fixed.
Dreamhoststatus.com provides a mechanism for them to report issues and absorb the caustic comments of those affected (some of whom are really competitors fishing for new customers). I appreciate their candor and know they’re focusing on doing what they can to fix the problems.
Since they just passed the 500,000 site mark, I have to give them kudos for managing things so well, and just wish there was something they could do to better avoid these occasional outages. Can they invest in more redundant systems? Dunno, but it would make a lot of people sleep easier.
Is Dreamhost The Best Host?
In the past, I have used other hosts. They have cost more, offered less, and had more problems than Dreamhost.
Nevertheless, I occasionally look at other hosts with other plans. Sometimes they have impressive prices; but maybe they only support .com, .net, and .org domains. Sometimes they have great features and prices; but maybe they limit the number of domains you can have. Sometimes I get restless; but Dreamhost makes tweaks things a bit or their blog makes me laugh or they solve a problem quickly, and I stay put.
In the future, my mind may change about Dreamhost or some other company may offer something better, but for now I use and recommend them whole-heartedly.
Anything Better?
But you tell me. What’s your favorite host? Why? Or if you have had problems with Dreamhost, what were they? Educate me. I haven’t used every feature or crawled into every nook and cranny of the service, so there might be a glaring problem that I haven’t encountered.
Update: Coupon Code
If you use the coupon code F7DJS8, you can get 10 Bucks Off when you sign up as a new customer.
Chow built TheTechZone, a major resource for hardware news and reviews, in 1999 and it’s still going strong.
He also built TTZ Media Network, which provides a shopping and price comparison engine for technology-focused web publishers (with over 250,000 page views per month). It’s his main source of income.
Make Money Online
At his site, John Chow dot Com, he turns out a flurry of articles on how to make money online, but he also throws in content on food, travel, and cars. His website is full of ideas of how you can monetize your website, increase traffic, and build an online business. For example, he has offered to link back to your website if you review his website. John Chow dot Com is currently PR6 with Google, so the linkage can be valuable.
Chow gets paid review requests (currently at $400 a pop) through ReviewMe! and does a good job of focusing on how each website or service makes money online.
Each month since the fall of 2006, when he turned his personal site into a profitable experiment in professional blogging, he has broken his income down at the site by source and provides commentary on the process and his thinking. Some of these sources are Text-Link-Ads, Kontera, ReviewMe!, AdSense, and affiliate sales.
More Than Money Grubbing
Though John Chow dot Com is about turning online ventures into cash, Chow adds slightly goofy humor, fun, and a positive outlook to his writing. Look no further than his About John Chow page for a sample of his style.
John Chow, a damn fine person, friend of the community, Ultimate Fighting Championship contestant, member of the Save the Whales Foundation, the man who controls the black market on baby seal pelts and member of the “probably yo’ daddy” foundation..
More importantly, John Chow is generous with his readers. Obviously there’s the linkbait jugernaut he’s piloting that has put him at the top of Google’s results for “make money online” and that provides a PR6 link to the reviewer’s site, but there are other examples. For instance, he set up a special deal with Kontera to allow small-time publishers into their advertising program that normally has very high traffic requirements. Of course he makes money off those deals, but it is a win-win for him and his readers. Also, he frequently gives away stuff he gets for free, like video cards, Zunes, or whatever (in exchange for links to him, of course).
John Chow dot Com is a must-read for anyone interested in monetizing a blog or other website, or just generally interested in how SEO techniques work.
After reading mentions of Dark Room and its Mac predecessor, WriteRoom, for a while, I finally gave it a shot and am pretty impressed overall (with Dark Room, at least).
Update: Distraction-free text editing has a new contender. Check out my review of WriteMonkey.
Dark Room is written and supported by Jeffrey Fuller. In his words:
Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text. Basically, Dark Room is a clone of the original WriteRoom that is an OS X (tiger) exclusive application. It is a child of necessity, as there were no viable alternatives in Windows to produce the same behavior.
Text On Your Screen
This is no WYSIWYG editor. It’s text on your screen. Period. It’s green text on your screen. Green Courier New 12pt text on your screen.
The idea is that there are no distractions, and it works pretty well. You can hit F11 to toggle into and out of fullscreen mode and the clipboard works as you’d expect, so while it looks like a VT220 terminal, you get the benefits of modern life (wow, is that as far as we’ve come in over three decades?).
A basic statistics function (Control-/) is included as well. It displays a count of words, lines, and characters (both including spaces and without spaces). That’s nice. It’d be nice if it included more statistics, such as average word length, reading level, etc. Also, it would be nice if it worked on a selected area of text.
Customize Dark Room
Dark Room may favor Courier New as the default font, but you can, of course, customize the font choice. This is especially handy if you feel the need to dail the way-back machine a little further back and use Comic Sans.
Also, you can change the font and background colors, the opacity of the window, the cursor blink rate, and even enable multiple monitor support. Dark Room supports auto indent, tab-to-space conversion, page settings, autosave, and file context menu integration.
Suggestions
Dark Room does what it is built to do; it gives you a functional text editor with no clutter. However, adding some additional features might be nice.
Though Find is supported, Replace is probably the most obvious missing feature.
Regular expression support in Find (and Replace) would be great.
A hotkey to preview in a web browser of choice might be nice. Not necessary, but HTML tags are a common part of modern writing and toggling between a rendered view and the default text editor would be handy.
Likewise, some basic HTML tagging support. For example, highlighting a phrase then pressing Control-B would bold the text (by wrapping with <b> or <strong> tags).
The Statistics function is pretty basic and works on the entire document. It would be nice if it included more statistics like reading level, average word length, etc. and if also worked on selected text.
Overall
Dark Room is a great editor that I’m already using regularly, which, given its missing features, is a testament to the need it meets and Fuller’s implementation.
Speed Dial is a concept, introduced with Opera 9.2, where several (usually nine) thumbnail shots of preselected websites are presented in a grid. The user can easily choose from these items.
The really handy thing about Speed Dial is that it extends the concept of a browser’s home page. Instead of new pages or tabs always opening to Yahoo or a feed reader or the Drudge Report, you now have several options. When you open your browser, you aren’t always doing the same thing, so multiple starting points is a good thing.
Opera First, Of Course
Opera was first browser to implement tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, integrated and custom search, a password manager, URL nicknames, session restore, tab previews, and other innovative features. Now they’re first with Speed Dial. To date, Opera is the only browser to implement this feature.
Firefox Add-ons Catch Up
Just as you can trust Opera to innovate, you can trust the Firefox community to crank out an Add-on that catches up. Much like mouse gestures and tab previews, there’s an Add-on for Speed Dial.
Firefox Speed Dial is still in the Sandbox, so you’ll need to register and sign in, but once you do you can add Speed Dial to Firefox.
To setup the Firefox Speed Dial Add-on, sign into the Mozilla Sandbox, download and install the Add-on, then restart Firefox. You then need to add the Speed Dial button to the navigation toolbar. Open an empty tab or window, click the Speed Dial button, and start assigning slots in the grid to websites.
Comparison
At the moment, the integrated Opera Speed Dial feels and looks much cleaner. Given that you have to dig Firefox Speed Dial out of the Mozilla Sandbox, that’s not terribly unexpected. Hopefully the Add-on will improve and Firefox users can enjoy it as much as Opera users are. On the flip side, the Firefox Add-on gives you a little more control.
Bonus: Tab Preview
In the screenshots above you can see that a thumbnail preview of the third tab is visible. This feature also comes standard with Opera, and it is also an Add-on for Firefox.
Just watched Ninja Warrior: Makoto Nagano. It looks like a lot of fun. SASUKE is a Japanese television show (called “Ninja Warrior” in the West) produced by Monster9 and broadcast by Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). Why can’t US television shows be this cool?
One disappointing aspect of the otherwise superb Samsung Blackjack is its lack of built-in wi-fi. It does have other internet support such as G3 and EDGE, so it can get the job done. However, not everyone can afford an unlimited data plan, especially since Cingular the new AT&T the old Cingular new AT&T insists on calling the Blackjack smartphone a PDA and charging the higher PDA data rates.
Though a bit larger than your typical cellphone, it’s thin and light. Weight-wise, I thought it was 3.5 ounces, but according to Amazon, as you can see in the image to the right, 
Though John Chow dot Com is about turning online ventures into cash, Chow adds slightly goofy humor, fun, and a positive outlook to his writing. Look no further than his 
