IE8 passes Acid2 test ???

They say that an internal build of Internet Explorer 8 has passed the Acid2 test, a CSS-compatibility testing page from the Web Standards Project, but I question it: is it necessarily so?

It ain’t necessarily so…

The one screenshot we have seen “verifying” this claim is the following PNG image from Microsoft itself:

and I see no third-party verification of this claim. Everyone’s just so optimistic for IE to be standards-compliant that they’ve disregarded Microsoft’s capacity and history of lying. (Example: anti-trust lawsuit of late 1990’s.)

Maybe, just maybe, they’re saying this way ahead of time to generate some hype for their yet non-released product. Maybe, just maybe, the image they’ve published was created or modified on some image-editing program — Photoshop? Maybe, just maybe, they’ve created a basic HTML page that uses the reference rendering that is guaranteed to display properly on ANY modern browser!!!

I’d hate to be like that John C. Dvorak guy from Tech5, but I have to be suspicious of this claim. It’s wild… we see no evidence other than a clearly modified (cropped) screenshot and some words from a guy being paid to work for a monopoly that will do no good to maintain that position (example: compliance with the raised middle finger).

All in all… just be careful when you see news that is too good to be true.

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Tell-a-friend alternative for FeedFlare

Those using FeedFlare from FeedBurner, such as this blog, Geekie.org, will find the “email this” feature extremely useful. “Email this” lets users easily send any page or post from a FeedFlare-supporting blog directly to their friends.

But the “email this” feature doesn’t pay… and it doesn’t give you a whole lot of options.

I recommend the FunnyTaf service, which is an easy-to-use “tell-a-friend” site that can be easily linked from any blog, including ours. Simply point a link to “http://www.funnytaf.com/share/” and the referrer field will allow FunnyTaf to determine the URL to be shared.

With some PHP programming, you can even make this dynamic, preventing problems that occur when someone’s antivirus software blocks referrer fields:

<?php
$site = ‘http://www.example.com’;
$request = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$url = $site.$request;
?><a href=”http://www.funnytaf.com/share/?url=<?=$url?>” rel=”external nofollow”>Share</a>

You see that I recommend the rel=”nofollow” method of preventing search engines from following these links where your article’s URL is appended!

On blogs like WordPress, this should be a bit easier to do, since the_permalink() automatically returns the URL of the individual post.

<a href=”http://www.funnytaf.com/share/?url=<? the_permalink(); ?>” rel=”external nofollow”>Share this post</a>

But that must be placed within the Loop part of the site template that handles the display of individual posts.

The best part about FunnyTaf is that, if you’re a ShareASale.com affiliate, you can earn 5 cents each time someone uses the link to send your own content to someone else.

Now, this post is about FeedFlare and replacing “email this” with the FunnyTaf link. Our dynamic yet simple implementation at http://www.geekie.org/funnytaf.feedflare.xml.php will allow you to add FunnyTaf as a FeedFlare. Simply go to FeedBurner, log in to your account, go to your feeds, choose the feed you want to apply this to, and go to the Optimize tab. From there, click FeedFlare on the left side and activate it if it isn’t already activated.

Now, I also mentioned ShareASale, so if you’re a ShareASale member, just append ?affiliate=[your ShareASale memberID] to the URL, and the XML file will automatically be updated to insert your affiliate ID. Make sure you’ve signed up for the FunnyTaf program on ShareASale, though; but it’s an automatic activation for the FunnyTaf affiliate program on ShareASale, so don’t hesitate to sign up.

Once you’ve clicked “Add New Flare”, check the boxes beside “FunnyTaf tell a friend” and the link will automatically be placed in your FeedFlare array!

If you want to customize the order, I recommend placing it first:

Don’t forget to get the HTML code for your site!

New feature! Specify your link text by appending a parameter to the URL. If you want the link text to be, as it is by default, “Tell a friend“, don’t add anything. If you want “Share” instead, add link=2. For “E-mail to a friend“, use link=3. (Really, if you’re using FeedBurner, you should know that the ? question mark is necessary for these parameters, and that if you are specifying an affiliate ID, an & ampersand is necessary.) For “Share with a friend“, use link=4.

To specify your own link text, use linktext=[your link text]. Please note that when both link and linktext are specified, linktext overrides the predefined link value.

In other words:

• link — the variable to use when selecting from the 3 alternative (predefined) link texts
• linktext — the parameter to specify when choosing your own link text (do NOT URL-encode your link text)
• affiliate — the ShareASale affiliate ID to specify

All of the above parameters are optional.

Have any ideas? Submit them by adding a comment!

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What’s your speed?

How fast is your Internet connection? Here’s my results: 6.55 mbps download and about 500 kbps upload.

Test your connection speed at Speedtest.net.

This is NOT a sponsored post.

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Site gets refit

Amazing what the change of the theme can do for you — or your site.

I’ve moved off “Geekie.org 2″, our previous theme for Geekie.org that was a two-sidebar design based on the Vistered Little 1.6a release. Now I’m using Vistered Little 1.7.7, an excellent theme for WordPress that can be customized to your needs.

I haven’t yet managed to recover the added functionality from “Geekie.org 2″, like PayPerPost disclosure badge integration, or the dual sidebar, or the Google-powered search, but I think the new header (complete with image) is quite nice.

Utilizing a new fixed image system designed by me that will not have any problems regardless of screen resolution (a previous bugger), I no longer need to worry about what size my users’ sizes are. The new image, which takes advantage of JPEG (albeit lossy) compression and the CSS-based white background, nicely represents our site. Of course, it will be switched every once in a while.

Another change is the integration of FeedBurner; our main RSS/ATOM feed now redirects automatically to the browser-friendly page at FeedBurner. Not only will this allow me to track our users / subscribers more accurately, it gives me a ton of options for adding interactivity to each post (you may have noticed the FeedFlare links below each individual post that allow Stumbles, Diggs, and bookmarks).

Our banners have also changed, moving back to the leaderboard style that was used on this site months ago. Hopefully the ads aren’t too intrusive; I’ve tried to make them as least annoying as possible. There’s also the banner below the first post, which will hopefully interest you enough for a few clicks and/or conversions (eg. the Diino 2 GB free space offer, or Amazon Associate stuff).

Please note that a new licensing notice has been added at the bottom of every page, explaining that content from this blog is now released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License, and that our feed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Links to our privacy and disclosure policies are also there, to ensure that the user knows of such requirements.

Look out, as our site will be changing!

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OpenID DISABLED

I very much regret the fact that I have to do this, but the WP-OpenID plugin is too bulky and inefficient, adding unnecessary JavaScript and CSS references to pages that don’t need them, and significantly slowing down the processing time of ALL WordPress pages.

Apologies to our 25 users that logged on or registered with an OpenID.

I will re-enable WP-OpenID if and when I optimize the site to reduce unnecessary JavaScript, combine CSS, etc. Otherwise, the size of all the files exceeds 70 KB (when uncompressed), and this is simply unacceptable.

When I do add OpenID again, it will likely be accompanied by Yahoo!’s BBAuth and Microsoft’s Live ID Authentication SDK. Perhaps that will open this site to a wider audience.

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Free 2 GB storage

There’s a really great service that I would like to make known: Diino.

With two gigabytes of storage, Diino is suitable for backups, music storage, document storage, etc and can be accessed easily on their web site (or even with a mobile device). Whether you’re looking to create an online photo album, trying to find a secure e-mail address to which large attachments can be sent, or if you’re simply trying to find space to put aside those old documents of yours, Diino is a great service to use.

If 2 GB isn’t enough, the average user can upgrade to 10 GB of storage for only $10 a month, which is, given the secure off-site backup solution that Diino is, a very suitable offer.

Diino now also has desktop software to simplify the upload and access process, which even goes as far as to let you specify trusted friends and co-workers that can drop files into your folder(s). As a business tool, Diino is a secure and easy-to-use collaboration tool supporting up to 10 concurrent users, and 1 TB of allocated space. (There’s also 2048-bit encryption when transferring files to their secure servers.)

Learn more or sign up now at Diino now.

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