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For many times now, Blogdrive have chosen to insert an additional text into all blogs and pages "informing" users they are upgrading servers. Sure, we should actually be grateful that they are in fact "informing" us, which under normal circumstances, they don't.
Blogdrive automatically inserts this line of code into the end of all files stored on Blogdrive. Including CSS and JS files.
<p align=center>Upgrading servers.
We'll be back up in a few of minutes.
We are currently storing submitted entries
for later processing.</p> Now, let's not let the issue of "informing" users of downtime. The issue I'm facing now, has to do with Blogdrive, automatically inserting additional text into my .js files, making them obsolete and not working. I use lotsa external javascript files which are hosted on Blogdrive. But whenever they insert this tags, all my blogs would fail to execute. So the solution to this problem, without informing Blogdrive of the problem (as they are always too "busy" to pay any attention to a Magnum (plan 4) subscriber such as myself), I simple insert a double slash at the very end of all my js documents. It does the trick, wonderfully. By inserting a double slash, I basically "comment-out" the auto-inserted code. Oh, how genius of me to stop a war, not get angry fix the small problem.
While we are constantly complaining about how much Blogdrive can improve, let's take a moment to be reminded of all the good stuff we have here on Blogdrive that you shouldn't have known.
If you are reading this article right now you should turn off the lights and make sure there's nobody behind you. If you are discovered to have obtain these information, an assassin will be sent to murder you.
1) Built-in search feature - Search your own blog with the blogdrive's built-in search feature, it's originally only available for subscription blogs but if you use a GET method on your url, you'll get a free (temporary) feature. However, it only search your blog titles.
2) exceed your bandwidth - for free accounts, an allocated amount of 50mb monthly bandwidth can be exceeded even without any upgrades. If you have a subscription blog, your allocated monthly bandwidth will be higher but again your files will not fail to load in the event that you exceeded it. So, what are you complaining about? (please note: you can't store more than what you should)
3) store HTML / CSS / JS documents in your filemanager with .jpg extensions. Okay, this is supposed to be a techy hack but it works.
4) the amazing Seige - this isn't just a goodie thingy but the coolest lad I've ever known on Blogdrive. He's smart, brilliant and above all massively fantastic. Oh, did I mention that he's got a great sense of humour?
Do you have other ideas or suggestions?
Tags: blogdrive secrets goodies
Everyone's been lovey dovey over the new WYSIWYG editor (JfZ, future, forum guide, hacks) While I, despite my initial "enthusiasm", still think that it has lots of problem room for improvement.
The WYSIWYG editor is at the very core, the most important feature on Blogdrive. Without it... you would be wondering how a blog host can ever be a blog host. And we really don't expect writers to be able to write properly, right?
1)  Insert Link opens a new window? This has to be the most annoying small problem. Everytime I need to insert a link, I'll need to wait till the new window loads before I can do anything else. This is a pain especially on MSIE because it takes a long time for MSIE to open a new window. Blogdrive should really just reduce to using a "prompt" javascript function to do the magic. It's less complicated and faster. Not to mention no new HTTPrequest to the Blogdrive server while editing.
Another problem is that it'll not work if the text you highlighted contains an apostrophy ' or ' . For example if you write: "Seige's dog", and wanting to add a link to these words, it'll not copy the "Seige's dog" to the window. This is a Javascript bug.
2) Different browser syntax rendering - on Firefox it's "XHTML Transitional" while on MSIE it's "plain old HTML" with CAPITALS. You can notice the differences if you use the "HTML View" feature located at the right bottom of the editor. It's odd although
3) Up Down Left Right button doesn't work sometimes - can't move the focus of the text cursor basically but the weird thing about this is... it only happen sometimes. And as for me, I can't identify what is the source of this problem.
4) In HTML View, the text cursor isn't always where it should be - more often than not it appears to be one or two characters away. How and why this happens is a mystery. It usually happens when I have a long entry that I needed to edit. It has something to do with miscalculating the string lengths or something along those lines.
5)   Undo/Redo doesn't work sometimes - Again, this is odd and I can't tell why it doesn't work. It happens to both Firefox and MSIE.
6)   Outdent/Indent uses different elements sometimes - I would really prefer the editor to implement the <BLOCKQUOTE> elements, it works great on MSIE but on Firefox, it uses <div> with margins set to indent it... how cruel.
7) Save post to clip board works on MSIE only - it doesn't work on Firefox mainly because Firefox is stupid for not supporting the copy-to-clipboard function. Sadly.
8) Firefox browser crash when reloading editor sometimes - Again, this is another one of the "sometimes" problem. It's just weird and I just can't make it out why. Don't take me wrong that it could be other webpages I'm viewing because the window crashed a few times and it's always during reloading of the editor in Firefox.
9) Can't insert Scripts or Objects - That's due to security reasons but for someone like me who do need to use some Javascripts, it's  . Though... I shouldn't fret because I still have the beloved PTE.
10) Help Guide is coming soon ever since the big bang - See that "?" up there on the top right hand corner? Ever clicked on it, No? Don't bother.
I somehow realise that all these problems have almost everything to do with browser inconsistencies. Still I don't see why an editor should be flawed just because of certain browser not working perfectly well.
Wondering if Blogdrive will ever be bothered to fix these minor things? Nah, never. Not in a century or two.
Ever since Blogdrive fixed the PTE, it has so far been a million times better than WYSIWYG editor. Although it doesn't mean it's all great (because it doesn't work all well in Firefox/Opera), it's still better than WYSIWYG editor.
Tags: Blogdrive, WYSIWYG, Plain Text Editor, PTE, Editor,
I noticed that the insert hyperlink button in WYSIWYG Entry Editor is a little buggy. Nothing serious really but I think someone should look into it.
First thing first, I'm not exactly happy that every time I want to insert a link, I'll have to Open A New Popup Window before I can insert the links. This is, on the surface not a big issue because it's easy to understand and it allows us to select whether if we want to open it in a new window or otherwise. But it takes a long time to open a new window, especially in Microsoft Internet Explorer and it will add up to the time if I want to insert many links all the time. I certainly do hope that Blogdrive will just make it a normal javascript prompt function rather than a new popup window.
Secondly the bug, which is why this entry is written. To insert a link, you basically highlight some text and click on the hyperlink button. A popup window will come up and you can just fill in the details for your link. It works fine most of the time. Most of the time... It doesn't work if your selected text involves a ' Yes, an aprostrohpy. This is evidently a javascript error, Blogdrive ought to add a filter to escape this aprostrophy so that it'll work. Like I said, nothing major. Tags: Blogdrive, WYSIWYG, Editor, Hyperlink, Bug, Popup,
The last couple of weeks I see an increased amount of contact forms asking for advices on useless and a-waste-of-time stuff. Well, it's rude to say that but when you get questions that can be answered if the question-er knows where to look for answers instead of asking.
Sad. Isn't it?
Don't get me wrong. I actually LOVE to receive contact forms, doesn't everybody? It's always such a merry thing to see a contact form. Besides, it's the best way to know what people are thinking about your site. And it also tells you of any bugs that's been floating around. 
One of the messages I received was regarding Azwani. She complains (everybody complains) that the Referer.org script she implemented on her site isn't working. She provided a very good follow up of what she did:
1) contacted Referer.org
2) got a reply from Referer.org
3) contacted Blogdrive.com
4) no reply from Blogdrive.com (not surprised)
Anyway, the responce she get from referer.org is pretty amazing. The team told her that her script, despite being inserted correctly, isn't being indexed by their spider bot. They (Referer.org) claim that Blogdrive.com has filtered the script out of the source code.
Damn, that's one very bold statement to make coming from Referer.org.
But anyway, I took a look at the site and found that it's somewhat true. Their mirror page did not actually showed a filtered version of her blog, rather it's showing a 404 page.
Now, there's only two explanation to this scenario:
1) Referer.org hasn't updated their database with the Azwani's blog, Or,
2) Blogdrive have set the 404 page to turn up when it's being queried by Referer.org
Could it be true? I have no idea but I do know that the BD admin did mention about some third party websites spidering their pages taking up bandwidth. Makes sense but why block them?
Or, I could be entirely wrong because I overlooked certain things. What do you think?
Reference: Referer.org,
Tags: referer.org, blogdrive, javascript, spider, internet, robots,
As we've long been aware of the kind of dodgy service that iwebtunes or iwebmusic offers, it's just about time they are taken out of business.
Here's the news:
The US Federal Trade Commission reported yesterday that a court had shut down three Internet companies on charges of distributing spyware without users' consent. Enternet Media, Inc. and Conspy & Co. Inc, based in California, and Iwebtunes, based in Ohio, had their assets frozen.
As InternetNews would say:
"These guys are dirty," said James Manning, spyware research director for Aluria Software. He said iWebTunes sends users a snippet of JavaScript code to add to their own sites' code. But it includes not only links for SearchMiracle, purveyor of the Elite Toolbar and Crazywinnings, but also update links. Every time someone hits a site containing iWebTunes JavaScript, he's hit with more stealthy installs.
Rejoice, everyone! We've won one battle against spyware. Sadly, there are still more to fight on. Reference: iWebTunes/iWebMusic - Music on your blog, Three companies shut down on spyware charges, A Higher Google Standard?,
Technorati Tags: iwebmusic, iwebtunes, spyware, adware, javascript,
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