Cranial Soup

Bad Blogger Award: SpywareGuide Blog

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:02:00 +0000

I hereby present this Bad Blogger Award to the SpywareGuide blog for their recent article on Twitter spammers, in which they stated that the bird graphics used by the spammers were an attempt to fool Twitter users into thinking they were somehow affiliated with Twitter in some official capacity, and suggesting that anyone using one of these bird graphics is a spammer and should be blocked.

I am not giving them this award for being dead wrong. I understand that everyone makes mistakes. I am giving them this award for refusing to acknowledge or correct misinformation, when they were given every opportunity to do so, after being informed of the mistake.

They published their article on September 17, 2009 and shortly after I left a comment informing them that the bird graphics these spammers are using are just the new default avatars for Twitter accounts, used when the account holder doesn't upload one of their own.

These colorful bird images are the new official replacement for the old creepy looking "brownie face" images. Many people have them and not everyone with these avatars are spammers. Some are just new to Twitter and don't understand how it works yet, or they don't feel a need to upload an image. Some are just lazy and don't want to be bothered with changing anything and personalizing their profiles.

I have friends with these new bird avatars and I can attest to the fact that they are not spammers. They do not deserve to be blocked and treated as if they are. They have done nothing wrong.

And this Mashable article seems to suggest there is also a bug within the Twitter service that could cause people that have uploaded avatars to suddenly have them unexpectedly replaced with one of these new default bird avatars. Twitter is aware of the problem.

I had to jump through hoops to leave a comment, being forced to register, validate my email address, and then leave my comment, which was immediately placed in their moderation queue and still hasn't been posted. Nor have they corrected their article, as of this date.

For a security related site, I find this unacceptable and it does nothing to lend any credibility to their blog. I will not be returning to read another article, never mind commenting on one.

Enjoy your award!

Forget getting more Twitter followers, here's how to keep the ones you have

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:21:00 +0000

How to annoy people on Twitter (or at least me).

Don’t do these things and you will be more likely to keep the followers you have and get more followers by being recommended by them.

1. Copy & paste quotes from famous people instead of letting your followers read what you have to say.

2. Send them an automatic DM with a link to your crappy site, a free gift, or some valuable secret info you want to sell for the low price of $49, as your very first communication with them.

3. Send them a DM thanking them for following you when you are the one that just followed them first.

4. RT every link posted by Robert Scoble ASAP. Since we are all following him already, it's not likely we saw it when he posted it 30 seconds ago, right?

5. Tweet links to pages that look like a bad ebay ad, selling some new method of getting millions of twitter followers overnight, how to get your site on the front page of Digg, how to get tons of traffic for your website, or how to make a fortune on Adsense.

6. Do searches and tweet people you are not even following, attempting to sell them a $100 mini flashlight, just because they mentioned a flashlight in one of their tweets.

7. DM people unsolicited links to photos of your hairy scary ass or other equally ugly body parts that you really should keep covered.

8. TWEET IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

9. Tweet the same message 10 times in a row.

10. Make sure at least 1 tweet per hour contains the words "FREE LAPTOP".

11. Tell every Windows user to "just get a Mac"

12. At least 50% of your tweets should be about how great your iPhone is.

13. Have your ENTIRE lifestream feed into twitter from friendfeed, then go on a huge "like" spree with every LOLcat posted there in the last 6 months.

14. Follow and unfollow the same person repeatedly.

15. Publicly welcome every new follower you get.

16. #Make #every #word #in #your #tweets #into #hashtags #and #toss #in #a #few #extra #popular #but #irrelevant #ones #just #for #the #hell #of #it. #Don't #forget #to #finish #by #making #one #up #that #is #complete #nonsense. #ljhgliu

17. Use URL shortening services to make links that point to links already shortened by other shorteners.

18. Beg for retweets.

19. Post many tweets in a row for #followfriday with just a bunch of names and no explanation of why anyone should follow them. Every childless person on twitter should follow that stay-at-home mom that tweets diaper changing and toilet training tips, right?

20. Use a service that auto-tweets spammy paid ads from your account.

Good Faith is Not for Sale

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:02:00 +0000

I recently came across an article on the company blog of Backstage Technologies, written by Russ Ovans, their CEO.

Here is what he had to say:

We were recently in negotiations to be acquired. Talks lasted about five minutes, but during that time, the VP of Business Development from the prospective acquirer kept warning us not to divulge any of the ingredients in our "secret sauce", lest the deal fall apart (which it did) and we ended up suing them for stealing all our invaluable intellectual property (which hasn't happened... yet).

Every time he used the phrase (which was often) I found myself becoming more and more amused. What the heck is a secret sauce? I assumed he meant competitive edge, or intellectual property, but being a marketing type, he liked using that buzzword instead. Wikipedia tells me that it means any component of a product that is closely guarded from public disclosure for competitive advantage.

So, what is our secret sauce? Do we even have one? We certainly do, and the primary ingredient is the knowledge regarding how to design and build a social game (and its underlying virtual economy) that is both engaging and monetizes well. That certainly constitutes a fair portion of our secret sauce.

But our special sauce (i.e., our sauce that is not a secret to any of our competitors) is our commitment to customer service. Anyone can steal that, but it takes a huge commitment.

This is what makes certain applications and services a joy to use...that human touch by an approachable team.

Without that, your customers will drop you like a hot potato for the first clone that comes along that provides what you do, AND goes the extra mile by listening to them and being approachable.

That human touch makes the customer feel like they are part of the team. It is one of the reasons why services like Friendfeed and the applications from DonationCoder have been as enjoyable to use as they are.

Excellent customer service creates loyalty. Anyone that has made good customer service the corner stone of their business, no matter what line of business they are in, and is considering selling their company to another, should think about this long and hard before making that decision.

There is one thing you can not sell along with the company, and that is good faith. Your customers gave that to you because you earned it. If you sell out to another company that doesn't take customer service as seriously as you have, your customers will jump ship after the sale, and the company you sold out to will run what you have built into the ground.

It might not happen in a day, week, month, or year, but it will eventually happen. The customers will eventually take back that good faith and give it to someone else that deserves it.

Do you really want to see that happen to something you built, something you made such a commitment to, and put a lot of effort and hard work into? Do you want to end up having seller's regret somewhere down the line, wishing you had found a better buyer that would have done the right thing with what you created, by providing the same level of service that you did?

Money isn't everything.

Before you sell out, make sure your prospective buyer is as serious and committed to customer service as you are. It will benefit you in the long run by allowing you to retain the good faith and loyalty you earned. Your former customers will be more likely to trust you in your next venture and be first in line to be your customers again, if they don't feel like they were somehow cheated in the sale.

Sell out to the wrong company and you will very likely be bad mouthed by the very people that once loved you, and they may never be willing to trust you again.

Adding RSS Feeds for Labels on Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:41:00 +0000

If you take a look at the bottom of this page, you will see that in my Labels section (I called it Categories) that each one has its own feed icon, and that it’s set up to be displayed in multiple columns.

If you would like to know how to have feed icons like mine, with or without multiple columns, I have recently written an easy to follow tutorial to explain how.

What is especially nice about having individual feeds for your labels is that it allows your readers to subscribe just to the content they are interested in most and nothing more.

It also allows each individual author of a multi-author blog to each have their own personal feed, if you tag the posts with the author’s name.

http://appsapps.info/tutorials/rss-labels.html

A brief guide to the Enchanted Island game on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:36:00 +0000

Enchanted Island is a brand new passive RPG game on Facebook, from the makers of the Growing Gifts application. If you like the cool flowers from Growing Gifts, you now have a chance to play a game where you get to be a wizard that grows magic flowers on the island where all the Growing Gifts flowers come from. At this time, the game is still in beta.

Even if you are not into Growing Gifts, you may still like this game. It's one of those games that at first might seem kind of boring, but quickly becomes addicting. It is also one of the few games on Facebook that won't annoy all your friends with various postings to your news feed, nor will you need to recruit an army to help you advance in the game.

The main thing you will need to play this game is an abundance of patience.

When you click the "Save Growing Gifts" tab on the Growing Gifts application, you are taken away to the island and asked to choose a pot. It doesn't matter which you choose, so just pick the one you like better. Then you give yourself a name and title, like so: ____ the ____. This could be anything you want, but this becomes your user name throughout the game. (I am app the coder)

In the first stage of the game you have to grow all of the plants from the Round seed. You can buy the seeds and the pots needed to do this from the Supply Shop. You can only cast 2 spells every fifteen minutes. Not all of the seeds will grow plants. There are many that are duds. Just keep casting and be patient, and soon enough you will graduate to the next stage of the game.

Once you reach the next stage, Kendral the Herbologist will give you a flower stand to sell your plants from. You can hold a maximum of 3 plants in your stand.

You get a bonus for selling the same kind of plant, multiple times in a row. A man will visit you and make you an offer if you have 3 plants of the same type in your stand. You have an opportunity to haggle for a better price, but there is a possibility he won't make a better offer. The odds of him making a better offer will appear on the popup along with the offer. Even if he doesn't make a better offer and goes away without buying, you can still sell all 3 plants and get the bonus for selling multiples of the same type in a row.

Quests

The game contains a number of quests. Each quest completed adds a badge to your game profile.

One of the first is when 3 shady looking men show up and ask you to help them catch a fairy. If you agree, you will become an enemy of the fairies and they will just make faces and not help you any more unless you complete their quest. They will ask you to help them make Sleeping Potion. To do this, you will have to grow a Drooble Fruit from the Berry seeds that the crow drops at random. Even if you have grown this plant before, you will need to grow it again to complete this quest. Once you have grown that, when the shady men return, you will have an opportunity to call the fairies, who will knock them out with the Sleeping Potion.

It may be possible to complete this quest without agreeing to help catch a fairy. If you don't help the men, you might still be asked by the fairies to help them make Sleeping Potion, that they will use on the men if they return.

Currency

Silver is the regular currency used for most things in the game. You earn silver by selling plants. You can spend your silver on supplies at the Supply Shop. Be sure to take a look in the back where they keep the extra varieties of pots. The more expensive pots increase the price of your plants and help you earn more silver.

Each time you level up, Kendral will give you an allowance of gold.This gold can be used to buy items from the Potion Shop. Another way to get gold is to become a supporter of the game and donating to show your appreciation of the time and work the developers have put into this great game. The more generous you are, the more generous the developers will be with the amount of gold they reward you with. This gold can be used to buy special seeds and potions.

Personally, I wouldn't waste any of my gold on potions and would use all of it to buy special seeds, regardless of whether I was only using the gold earned within the game or if I acquired it by donating to support the game. Patience is a virtue, and the potions only serve to satisfy the whims of the impatient. (more about this later)

One of the special seeds you can buy with gold is the Shell seed. This seed is needed to unlock the quest of the Old Man. When you grow a Sand Castle from the Shell seed, keep it in your plant stand and do not sell it until you have completed the quest. For as long as you keep it, some children will offer to sell you tin cans. If you sell the Sand Castle, the children will stop coming by with cans. You need to grow Lemongrass from the Round seed, in a tin can, for the old man to come down and buy it from you. If you sell the Sand Castle too soon, you may run out of tin cans and will not be able to complete this quest until you grow another Sand Castle, which isn’t very easy and could be quite expensive.

Additionally, it has been announced that the Shell seeds will soon be removed from the Potion Shop for awhile, to make room for a new seed type. So if you want to complete this quest and grow all of the varieties of plants from the Shell seed, I suggest you buy as many as you can with your gold, before they are all gone.

UPDATE 07-31-2009: The Shell seeds are now gone and have been replaced with the Faceted seeds. I have not tried these yet, as I am out of gold until I level up. I am not yet aware of any quests related to these seeds or anything else special about them. As soon as I learn more, I’ll provide another update.

UPDATE 09-19-2009: The Faceted seeds are now also retired and have been replaced with the Spectrals seeds.

In order to grow plants from the Fire seeds, you will need to have a wand powerful enough and Kendral's blessing. Grow three Phoenix Flowers from the Fuzzy seed to get three Phoenix Feathers, and the wand you need will be unlocked. Then all you need is enough silver to buy it.

Once you can grow the Fire seeds, grow three Dragon Tears to get three dragon scales. Those initial three dragon scales are what you need to get the gloves to pick up the embers. Once you have the gloves, all the duds from the Fire seeds become free Ember seeds.

After this you can trade any additional dragon scales and feathers for special pots when the trader guy comes around. Once you have the gloves and special wand, that's the only thing you can do with scales and feathers. These special pots add $5 to the price of every plant.

Once you start growing the Ember seeds, the Black Boronus plant drops a petal, but I haven't quite figured out what that is for yet. I believe it is for making a potion in one of the quests. I have seen "chocolate curls" in some people's profiles, but I have no idea what plant they come from or what they are for, either. Of course I haven't done all the quests yet, and I am only on level 6. So I guess I'll learn what they are for when the time comes.

Potions for the Impatient

There are 3 different types of potions in the game.

Green Dragon potion will refill your energy and allow you to cast 2 more spells without having to wait the fifteen minutes.

Chronos Potion will allow you to cast 2 more spells, but you have to make up the time later. I have found that the game will only allow you to use this potion three times in a row, and then you'll have to wait one hour before you can play the game again.

UPDATE 07-31-2009: While this potion is still part of the game, it is no longer for sale at the Potion Shop.

Luck Potion will increase your odds on growing a plant, and the effects last longer than two spells. It has been said by the developers that the effects are cumulative, but they won't specify if that means that drinking more than one will give you even better luck or if it gives you better luck for a longer time, or both. It won't eliminate duds, but it will increase the odds of growing a plant when you cast a spell.

Do not use the Luck Potion while growing the Fire seeds, once you have the gloves. Because once you do have those gloves, there is no such thing as bad luck with Fire seeds because even duds are a good thing, since they give you Ember seeds. Of course if you are especially patient, you won't have a need for the Luck Potion at all.

UPDATE 09-19-2009: There is now also a Bad Luck potion, since you don't always want to have good luck. (there are times you will wish for bad luck, trust me)

All of these potions (except the Chronos Potion) can be purchased with gold from the Potion Shop, or sometimes you will be offered them at a special price of silver, at various times within the game. If you are not supporting the game by buying gold, I suggest not buying the potions from the Potion Shop and just waiting till the guy comes around selling them and get them with your silver, if you really want them.

When you level up, in addition to getting gold, you also unlock 2 more activities. The first one is a story, given in chapters, when you visit Hop's Haven. You can only read up to the chapter that matches your level. The other is a chance to write your own wizard's story for the The Hall of Legends, one chapter at a time, one for each level. Reading the stories written by other players can be a bit of fun, as there are some that are quite creative and well written. Just like the story at Hop's Haven, you can only read the chapters up to the level that you are, so if you find a good one you will have to keep coming back to read more.

Since this game is still very new, it has not been recognized by Facebook and given a verified status. So if you play this game and enjoy it, become a fan, write a review, and rate it to help it gain verified status.

And if you really love it, consider becoming a supporter and making a donation by buying some gold. It's the only way the game developers (Keith and Eric) will earn anything for their work. The more people that show their appreciation, the more time they can devote to adding more levels, quests, features, and other improvements such as live chat where you can socialize with other players and the developers, too. I have talked to them both and they are really cool guys. Without your support they would be forced to do other things to earn a living and have less time to devote to working on this wonderful game.

UPDATE 09-19-2009: Since I don't really have the time to keep up with making updates about this rapidly ever changing game, if you need any more help than what I have written in this guide, I suggest you take a look at the new wiki or visit the forums, where you will find lots of wonderful friendly people willing to help and answer all of your questions. And if you would just like to socialize with other players, you can always stop by Hop's Haven for a little Island Gossip.

The Most Powerful of All Human Rights

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:59:00 +0000

The heroic photojournalist that is responsible for this incredible iconic photo
has been missing since Wednesday. He is believed to have been arrested.
UPDATE: He has been released!

There is one right that every human being on this planet has, that can only be taken away by death.

This one right, at it's most extreme, takes the most courage to exercise but can cause the biggest changes. It's powerful and those with power fear when people feel compelled to use it.

It is the right to say "No", a word that exists in every language and is usually among the first words a child learns to speak. It is a word more powerful than tanks, or guns, or bombs, and when combined with the voices of many others, shouting it in unison, it is possible to wage war and win, without ever striking or attacking with any other weapon.

Citizens of Iran, keep saying "No"!

Whatever it is that the government wants, keep saying "No", unless and until it is what YOU want.

You can and will win, as long as you keep saying "No".

Do not allow yourselves to be silenced.

Keep saying "No"!

Free Buttons: Top Ten

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:25:00 +0000

A long time ago I created a set of buttons for use on another website, to number pages.

Back in those days, I was kind of careless and stupid concerning saving the original templates for my artwork. Instead I saved one blank button with a black background, to match that site, which means I can only use those buttons on sites with black backgrounds.

I really liked those buttons a lot, so I recreated them from scratch today, in much better quality than the originals.

(shown actual size)

With transparent backgrounds, they can now be used on any color website. I also made a set with a slight drop shadow, so they would stand out more on lighter backgrounds.

Released under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, suitable for both personal and commercial use. Just give credit by linking back to this site on any page that you use them, or in your about box if you use them in a desktop application.

Besides using them to number pages, I think they would be great for numbering items in all those “Top 10” lists that so many bloggers seem to be fond of.

And in case you want to do a top 20 list, I have included .psp and .psd source files of both versions, so you can edit and make more buttons (or change the font).

This work of art is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

Download: Top Ten Buttons

font used on buttons: Adorable

Free Bird Icons

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:21:00 +0000

Perfect for linking to your Twitter profile or any other purpose in which you’d need a bird icon.

In 16 assorted colors, so you can dare to be a little different and match the colors of your website.

Also included in the full set, are the original Paintshop Pro vectors (.psp).

If you’d like to have only the blue ones, you can just save these images and skip the download (the feet aren’t showing because of my black background, but they are trhere):

This work of art is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

Download: Bird Icons

Free Website Buttons: Black Chrome

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:36:00 +0000

(shown actual size)

A set of 12 buttons in PSD, PNG (with and without shadow), and Paintshop Pro PSP and TUB formats. (They should work in any version of Paintshop Pro, v7 and newer.)

Set includes:

light bulb
contact
information
awards
about (male)
about (female)
home
help
rss
privacy
news
one blank button for you to customize in any way you choose

Icon images on the buttons were created by Yusuke Kamiyamane (from his Fugue Icons set). Chrome bezel buttons were made by me.

The entire button set is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and can be used free, for any personal or commercial projects.

To use these buttons, you must credit and link to BOTH sites on each page in which they appear.
Exception for the blank button, in which you only need to credit and link to me.

Feel free to drop a link to your site in a comment if you use them. I would be interested in seeing the results.

This work of art is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

Download: Black Chrome buttons

How to Add ConvoTrack to Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:37:00 +0000

ConvoTrack is that neat little tab you see on the left, powered by BackType, that when clicked opens a sidebar, revealing reactions to this page, from around the web.

You’ll get comments from Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Reddit, HackerNews, and any blog mentioning your article.

A good example demonstration of exactly what it does can be seen here, on my post about adding a TwitThis button to Blogger posts.

When you click the ConvoTrack tab, you’ll see filter links at the top. Clicking any of those links will filter reactions coming only from that source.

There are instructions on the ConvoTrack site for adding this tab to all sorts of blogs of different platforms. But as us Blogger users know, a lot of codes do not work without some tweaking or special instructions, specific to Blogger.

Luckily, it is quite easy to add this nice little tab to your Blogger blog. Here is how:

1. The first thing to do is go to Layout and then click the tab for Edit HTML.

2. Now make a backup of your template, so that just in case anything goes wrong, you’ll have an easy way to fix it. Click the link that says “Download full template” and save the XML file to your hard drive, in a safe place.

3. Then in the HTML code box, scroll down till you get to the <body> tag.

4. Right after that tag, paste in the following code:

<style type='text/css'>@import url('http://convotrack.com/css/tab.css');</style>
<a href='javascript:void((function(){var%20e=document.createElement("script");e.setAttribute("type","text/javascript");e.setAttribute("charset","UTF-8");e.setAttribute("src","http://convotrack.com/javascript/bookmarklet.js");document.body.appendChild(e)})());' id='convotrack_tab'>ConvoTrack</a>

5. Now save your template and you are done. You should now have a ConvoTrack tab on every page of your Blogger blog.

NOTE: If you are using a self hosted Blogger blog, on your own server, you can probably use the code supplied on the ConvoTrack site, without any alterations.

Stories Of Big Lottery Jackpot Winners

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:09:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered what kinds of people have the kind of luck it takes to win the lottery?

Over on Stories Of Big Lottery Jackpot Winners you'll get to satisfy your curiosity.

You'll get to read plenty of stories about people that won large lottery prizes, from Rebecca Jamison, a woman that won but almost lost when someone claimed the ticket was really theirs, to Max Matthews, a guy that received his ticket as a birthday gift from his son.

And they come from all walks of life, from Beverly Palmer, a woman that had recently hit hard times and lost her job, to Iorworth Hoare, a convicted rapist that not only won, but found "love" when a golddigger became attracted to his new riches.

How do you move an entire country?

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:35:00 +0000

A number of small island nations are in danger of disappearing, as they sink into the sea due to global warming induced rises in sea level. This is not if, it's when, and it's soon.

These tiny countries need serious help and they need it now.

Over 500,000 people from Bhola Island in Bangladesh permanently lost their homes when half of the island sank in 2005.

The Carteret Islands will be fully submerged by 2015. It's 10,000 residents need a new home now, but their government can't afford to move them off the island.

Tuvalu will be gone by 2050. Where will its 10,000 residents go? And what will become of its .tv top level domain? GoDaddy is recommending people not to buy one, because the island is sinking. The island needs the revenue generated by the sale of those domain names if they ever hope to be able to afford to buy a chunk of land big enough to relocate. But if the island disappears, there is a good chance that the .tv domain names will disappear with it, leaving anyone that bought one holding something worthless. It's considered a risky investment. The only real reason for buying one of their rather expensive domain names is to help them, not to actually use it.

And speaking of relocation, the UN doesn't recognize climate change as a qualification for official refugee status. This means no official international aid to help these small disappearing countries find a new home, people that are in danger as a direct result of the actions of those living in industrialized nations. Technically, nobody has to take these people in and all countries have the right to turn them away and tell them to go back home to a place that doesn't even exist.

It's our carbon emissions and green house gasses that are responsible for permanently taking away the homelands of all these people and while you may not personally agree with it, it's our collective agreement as industrialized nations, that they be left with no place to go and no help. Think about that the next time you go for a nice leisurely drive.

So what are we going to do with all these people? It's not like they can just buy a chunk of land from private citizens in Texas and set up a new country within the borders of the US. Neither the US or any other country would ever willingly allow something like that.

No country wants to give up any of their land to another country. This fact has been the basis of many wars throughout history. It's seen as a hostile invasion, even if it is attempted peacefully. Look no farther than Israel and the Palestinian conflict if you want to see how it works out in the long term.

What is the alternative? Split everyone up and scatter them around the world and make them assimilate to living in a new country, destroying everything…their culture, national identity, and perhaps even their native language in the process? That doesn't seem right either.

While I would personally be willing to temporarily take in one of the displaced families and help them adjust to their new life in a new country, I know in my heart this isn’t what is best for them.

Whatever solution we come up with better happen soon, because we don't have time to waste. The islands are sinking and their residents need our help.

OpenCandy: A New Kind of Adware/Spyware

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 13 May 2009 04:34:00 +0000

They claim to be doing something noble, but the only thing sweet about OpenCandy is the sales pitch to naive developers that might just fall for it, tricking them into thinking it is somehow different than the typical common adware/spyware.

A lot of developers do seem to be biting the bait, but no matter how you slice it, it's still adware/spyware, and to me it stinks worse than the old fashioned kind.

In OpenCandy's own words, this is what they do:

Recommendations are made to users during the installation process. Utilizing the install process creates a user-friendly experience and offers optimal engagement for making a software recommendation. The user is presented with a screen that describes the recommendation, at which time they may choose to install the recommended software.

That makes it adware!

We then provide analytics back to the creators, so they can see how their software and recommendations are performing. This way they can better understand how to build and recommend great applications.

That makes it spyware!

We've also provided our technology as a platform to a handful of software creators who are utilizing an offer screen during the install process as an advertising unit. Some creators are already monetizing their distribution by offering apps like browser toolbars, so we're helping them improve their user experience and optimize the effectiveness of their offers.

That makes it your typical spyware/adware we have always known.

Actually, this is much worse, because instead of big companies like Sun & Opera making some software and offering it for free and advertising Yahoo's toolbar in the installer, we have a lazy predator company backed by venture capitalists that doesn't want to bother with or take the risk in developing a ton of software of their own to push toolbars to make their millions. They want to use the software of naive developers to accomplish it.

An ad is an ad, and to me there is no difference.

There is no difference between showing an ad for some other product by some other developer in the installer of my software, no matter how much I might even like that software myself, and popping up an ad for CocaCola or Viagra on a user's screen during the install process.

Do you remember what you parents told you about not taking candy from strangers and why? Well, these guys are not really strangers, they are known preditors. The founders of OpenCandy are the same guys responsible for the inclusion of the spyware/adware in DivX.

Now, before you call me a hypocrite for bashing adware installers while having ads on my blog, let me explain the difference:

Any visitor to my blog can turn off Javascript and not be exposed to ads. Or they can use a noscript plugin, or an ad blocker. They have that choice before they land on my site.

I even offer an ad-free RSS feed.

If I want to recommend software to my users, I put it on a separate page of my site and not in my software or installers.

When the ads are in an installer, the user can't install the software without seeing the ads. They have no real choice. That's the difference. And I seriously doubt that developers are going to offer two different installers and give users the option to see or not see ads or be exposed to spyware.

So now that I have told you what I think, what is your opinion on OpenCandy, as either a software user or developer (or both)?

AJ's Cleaner FriendFeed Widescreen Theme for K-Meleon

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Fri, 01 May 2009 05:53:00 +0000

AJ Batac has created a lovely theme for the new FriendFeed, that not only makes it look good, but adds in some extra functionality, like highlighting comments made by people you follow in yellow, and your own comments in blue, and a few other nice things.

Since you can't install GreaseMonkey in K-Meleon, you'll have to apply it using the userContent.css file. Don't worry, it's pretty easy to do.

First, in K-Meleon, go to the Edit menu and under Configuration, select User-Defined Stylesheet. This will open a file named userContent.css in Notepad.
Go to this page, locate and click the button that says Show code.
Copy all of the code, except for the first line that says @namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
In the userContent.css file, go all the way to the bottom and locate the line that tells you not to edit anything below it.
Paste in the code you just copied, right above it.
Save the file.
Go here and say thank you to AJ.

Update: AJ released a new version on 5/29/2009. I corrected the link to point to the new version.

The easy and fun way to market your message to millions of people

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:36:00 +0000

Too many so-called “experts” are saying that if you have some message that you want to tell the world, that you need to have tons of followers on Twitter. They write blog posts and tutorials explaining how to do it, and sell tools and services to help you rapidly get as many followers as you can.

But they are wrong...dead wrong. You don't need any followers on twitter, none at all. You don't even need a twitter account.

You can reach more people in more places, including Twitter and Facebook, by just getting the right people on Friendfeed to follow you.

But who are the right people?

Anyone with a large following on both Friendfeed and Twitter that is highly active and will be likely to respond to your messages, blog posts, and whatever other content you post by clicking that "like" link, who also has his Friendfeed account set up to post his activities, including "likes" to his Facebook and Twitter accounts. And if your content gets reshared or retweeted, the potential reach can be explosive!

And it takes only a handful of power users to potentially spread your message to millions.

But the really tricky part is getting them to follow you and clicking that golden "like" link, which you can only do if what you post is of good quality and relevant to their interests, and you are actively social, commenting and clicking that "like" link on theirs and other people's content.

This isn't something you can fake your way through. You are either the real deal or it just will not work. Luckily you will have a blast and make a ton of new friends while you are doing it, because Friendfeed is a whole lot of fun and loaded with tons of great discussions around great content.

Social media "experts", internet marketers, get rich quick on the internet scammers, and spammers need not bother even trying. This kind of powerful marketing was not made for you.

Fix: Can’t access HTML of my template after adding a frame busting script

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:42:00 +0000

You do not want to use a frame busting script in the template of a Blogger based blog.

It will disable your ability to use the upper toolbar in the layouts mode, and you will not be able to access the HTML of your template without a bit of "URL hacking" to get to it.

If you have added it and can't access the HTML of your template, just change the layout URL, replacing the word "display" with "html".

Example:

change this: http://www.blogger.com/display?blogID=12345678
to this: http://www.blogger.com/html?blogID=12345678

Now you can find and remove the frame busting script and everything will work normal again.

Free Header Graphic: Peachy

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:31:00 +0000

Just messing around again, and created another graphic for you to use.

The sample is shown at 50%. Click to see it full size (800x250).

The font used is Aldridge Script SSK.

Zip file includes PSD, PSP, PNG (blank), and JPG (blank).

Download

You may do whatever you please with it, alter it, edit it, change the colors, resize, etc.
You can use it for both non-commercial and commercial use.
You may include it in website templates.
You can even sell those templates.

But…

You can not claim it is your own work.
You must credit me and link to this post, anywhere the image is used.
You can not redistribute the raw files on your own site. You must make something out of it.
If you want to share it, share the link to this page and not my files.

Fix Firefox Not Remembering to Keep You Logged Into Sites

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:50:00 +0000

The Problem:

Lately, I have been hearing a lot of complaints from people that Firefox does not remember their preferences to stay logged into sites, after they close Firefox and run it again.

The Cause:

The cookie database file is corrupted.

The Fix:

WARNING: This will log you out of ALL sites till you log into them again!

You may also lose certain site preferences that depend on cookies. You may have to configure those again. These would not be settings that are stored on the site's server. They would be settings specific to your PC and not set if you used the same site from another computer. While it might be a bit of a bother to reconfigure them, it's not a common thing to store site preferences this way and it should only affect a very small number of sites, if any at all.

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Google search. If you have configured it to turn safe search off for images, set it to show more than 10 results per page, or to open links in a new tab or window, you will have to set it again.

You will not lose any saved password information stored in the password manager. You will only lose all of your cookies.

Ready?

Make sure Firefox is closed.
Go here:
- On 2k/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\(your name)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
- On Vista/Win7: C:\Users\(your name)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
- On Mac OS X: ~/Library/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/ or ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/
- On UNIX/Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/
In that folder you will find a folder that has a bunch of random letters & numbers for a name and ends with ".default".
Open that folder and find the file named "cookies.sqlite".
Delete "cookies.sqlite".
Run Firefox and log into all your sites again.

Firefox will create a new cookies.sqlite file with the necessary info and you shouldn't have a problem any more.

It was a "Fizzbin" kind of day today.

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:55:00 +0000

I have a very high tolerance for stupidity when helping other people. I can guide even the the most brain dead along, explaining things 55 billion different ways till it clicks in their heads, without losing my patience.

But I have no tolerance for incompetence when I am forced to deal with a complete idiot, when calling a company with a support issue.

I had the worst tech support experience of my life with Verizon, today.

First, my internet went down at about 1:30 AM. I did the usual rebooting my router and PC, making sure my daughter's laptop was turned off (it was) before calling to complain, yet again. This has become a ritual I have had to perform an uncountable number of times since I ordered my DSL speed upgrade back in early December. I have been complaining about the flaky connection for months, with Verizon not doing a damn useful thing to fix the issue, which they have insisted is on their end and their fault, each time telling me they have fixed it and they really haven't.

Had I known that ordering an upgrade was going to give me such a flaky connection and crappy tech support at twice the price, I would have stuck with the slower stable connection and paid less, and kept more of my sanity.

So, I called Verizon and as normal, had to go through their automated menu crap and get put on hold to wait for a human. This time, I was on hold for more than an hour and a half.

Then someone finally picked up the line, and it turned out to be the most incompetent idiot I have ever come across, at any ISP, beating even the AOL guy from some 3rd world country that told me to make a backup of all my husband's emails (since he had the smallest amount), delete the originals, and replace them with the backup copy, in order to fix my dialup. And when it comes to incompetence, that AOL guy is a hard one to beat.

The Verizon nitwit I had to deal with today, beat all of the AOL nitwit techies I have ever had to deal with, combined.

After doing a line test and saying that the problem wasn't on their end, and checking router/modem settings, and making me tell her what username I was using, and making me disconnect /reconnect just to make sure I was using the right password for that username, she finally "knew" what the issue was...

She seemed to think that Internet Explorer was broken, and because all applications that use the internet do it through Internet Explorer, if Internet Explorer is broken, then Firefox, Chrome, K-Meleon, Opera, and every other browser will not work...and she doesn't think there is such thing as non-browser applications like XChat, Filezilla, GTalk, etc and insisted they all use IE to connect to the internet too, and none of them will work, because IE is broken. Yes, she told me this crazy load of crap.

And how did she verify and make a final determination that IE was the problem? Because she had me run it and without typing in any URL, she wanted me to tell her what the error message was. There was no error message, because I don't have a home page set. When I run it, it's blank. That's the way it's supposed to be. But nothing I could say would convince her otherwise, that a blank page when you open IE is normal when you don't have a home page set. To her a blank page with no error message is positive proof that IE is broken.

Now let me tell you how she said my Internet Explorer got "broken" while I wasn't even running a browser, and certainly not IE. She seems to think that while I was typing in XChat, some virus forced its way onto my machine and broke my IE so it is blank and doesn't give an error message, and that is why my internet does not work.

So I guess that means that at the exact same time, that virus also managed to force its way onto my daughter's laptop and break her IE, too...while her laptop was shut off, since her internet wasn't working either? And that sneaky virus did it to my PDA too?

Now I haven't even told you about the "My Computer" fiasco yet.

While trying to "help" me, she tells me to go to "My Computer", right click and go to "My Computer". Now if you have a desktop icon for "My Computer", right click it and see if it has an entry on the menu that says "My Computer". You won't find one.

I asked her to confirm this, that she wanted me to right click "My Computer" and select "My Computer" from the menu. She said yes. I told her it wasn't on my menu, and maybe she meant something else, like "Properties", perhaps? She insisted that wasn't it.

She then told me to go to "Start" and then click "My Computer". Sorry, but that isn't an entry at the root of any Start menu in Windows XP unless someone adds it there themselves, and I sure didn't add it to mine.

Then she had me look in "My Documents" and "Control Panel" for "My Computer". Then had me go to Start, Run, and type in "My Computer" (try it, it's fun!). I suspected she may have wanted me to go to "System Properties", but she kept insisting that wasn't it and we needed to find this elusive "My Computer" entry that was missing from all my menus.

She wouldn't let me speak to her supervisor, or another techie that actually had half a brain, and ended up hanging up on me when I totally lost my patience with her. I probably would have hung up on her long before that, if it wasn't for the fact I didn't feel like waiting on hold for another two hours.

When I called back and went through the automated crap again, before placing me on hold I got a recording that said that Verizon was having issues in my area code and there could be outages for the next 6 hours and if I still wanted to speak to one of their techies, to hang on, otherwise hang up.

For some reason, the nitwit I had talked to earlier didn't know about the issues on their end, as she kept insisting there was no problem on their end, nothing wrong with my modem/router, and that my IE was broken on every computer in my house.

Scott Hanselman was right...there really should be a magic word like "Fizzbin" that you can say when you call tech support, so they don't treat you like you are an idiot...or force you talk to one of theirs.

7 Reasons Not to Direct Link to a Developer's Download Files

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:10:00 +0000

As a developer, I can't help but be more than a little bit bothered by the fact that some bloggers chose to direct link to application download files (.zip, .exe, etc) in some of the articles they write, rather than the page on the developer's site, in which the download links can be found.

If this is how you do things when you write articles & reviews, then I'd like to inform you that this isn't a very nice thing to do, for the following reasons:

You are depriving the developers of the full credit they deserve for the work they have done. If the application is worth writing about, it's also worth giving the developer full proper credit.
Some freeware authors have Paypal donate buttons on their sites, and your readers will never see them, therefore never click them. This deprives some developers of their only income and maybe their only incentive to keep making freeware/donationware.
Some freeware authors have advertising on their sites, and additional page impressions or clicks generated from the traffic you send them means an income for them, and your direct linking to the files prevents that from happening. This is how some software can remain free, rather than the author resorting to making it payware (or even worse, adware). If you would like things to stay free and clean, you have to do your part to help the developers keep it that way.
A blog linking to a page on a small developer's site can mean a big boost in Page Rank, making their software easier to find through search engines. This helps the people searching for the perfect tool to do the job they need, as well as the software developer that created it.
You are depriving and cheating your readers of the chance to browse around the developer's site, and perhaps the opportunity to discover more useful software they might be interested in. And in the case of the applications that come from sites like donationcoder.com, you are preventing them from discovering a wonderful software enthusiasts community that they really would enjoy, and can even request custom made freeware, made to their specifications.
In some cases, you may also be making it more difficult for your readers to find the info necessary to submit bug reports and get support, not to mention application updates and upgrades.
You may also be depriving your readers of important information related to installing or using the application, that they may need to know.

So, could you please be a really nice person to us poor freeware/donationware developers, and your readers, and fix your links to point to the pages and not the file downloads? And in the future, always link to the pages, instead.

Your readers and the software developers would really appreciate this.

Thank You.

What do you love?

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:24:00 +0000

We, as consumers, have a vested interest in the products and services we use and the stores in which we shop. How much of an interest depends on how we feel about it. The more we love a product, store, or service, the more of a vested interest we have in its long term success.

It is not beneficial to us, as consumers, to fall in love with a dud. (Not all duds are bad products, some are just poorly marketed) If you are the only one to love a product and buy it, or the only customer a particular store has, then there is no possible way for that product or store to survive, long term. You, as the lone consumer, do not have enough buying power to guarantee the success of what you love.

So what happens to the duds? Well, they disappear, of course, leaving you to feel the pain & sorrow of losing something you love. While it might not compare to losing a pet or loved one, it's still painful to lose something you love, no matter what it is.

It's an endless list of things that we have loved and lost, as consumers. I am sure we all can think of at least one product or service that we once enjoyed very much, that we would just about kill to have it once again. A shampoo or conditioner that made your hair look great, that perfect shade of lipstick that stayed on all day without smudging, that nail polish that didn't chip for two weeks, a favorite candy or snack, a brand of shoes that always fit as if they were made just for you, a flavor of yogurt, a dry cleaner that never ruined your clothes and always got every stain out, the Chinese restaurant that had the world's greatest lo mein.

But alas, it's not very likely we will ever have these things again.

Now take a look at the products and services that you currently love. Do enough people love these things to guarantee its success in the marketplace, long term? Are they going to be here tomorrow? Are you going to have to go through the pain of losing another favorite, yet again? Is there anything that you, as a consumer, can do about it?

Yes, there actually is.

There are two things you can do to help.

1. Sharing is caring...tell people about it.

The more people you tell, the more will be introduced to the product or service that may have never heard about it or tried it before. And there are lots of ways and plenty of opportunities to do this.

2. Tell the company responsible for the product or service exactly how you feel about it.

Take the time to write a letter and mail it, the old fashioned way, on paper in an envelope with a stamp on it (perhaps you can even send a thank you card). Popular celebrities shouldn't be the only ones to get fan mail. While sending an email is quick and easy, sending real mail goes the extra mile to show how much you really care.

Now this won't guarantee that a product or service won't disappear at some point, but you will be doing your part to protect your interests in its long term success.

Is there a product or service that you use and love enough to tell me about it, today? Now is your chance to start doing something to protect your vested interest in it, by telling me (and everyone else that will read this page) all about it.

Leave a comment. Consider it an investment in your own consumer happiness.

There is one catch, though...

Please do not advertise your own products, services, or websites. This is for your fans to do today, not you. Instead, tell me about someone else's product or service that you love.

Hey, Boss...Can I have a moment of your time?

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:56:00 +0000

I would like the attention of all of you that are business owners, employers, office managers, anyone that is "The Boss". I had this idea and I'd like to hear your thoughts and opinions.

As some of you may know, I am the developer of Instant Boss, a time management/productivity tool for timing work/break cycles. (Windows only)

I released it to the public as donationware, making payment optional, with the amount to be decided upon by the individual user, based on what they feel my software is worth to them, and their ability to pay.

Unfortunately, this hasn't worked out too well in the last year for me. Donations are way down, to the point where I only earned $1 during the month of January, despite all of my software having had a total of over 7000 downloads.

A great many of my software users are starving students that are up to their eyeballs in student loan debt and barely able to make ends meet. They are using my software to help themselves reach their goals and make their dreams come true.

For them, my software is the push they need to get their studying done, papers written, and projects completed on time. I have had a number of PhD students tell me they could not have obtained their degree without my help. Without Instant Boss, their dissertations would never have been finished.

If I am going to keep all of my software available to the public, and continue with the donationware license model that benefits those that need it the most, I am going to have to find a creative way to fund it.

Now here is my idea and my question for you.

In its current form, Instant Boss contains a dialog that pops up at the end of your breaks and tells you to get back to work, featuring a cartoon graphic of an angry yelling boss.

What if I were to replace that graphic with an image of you (the boss), telling your employees to "get back to work!" at the end of their breaks?

Please note, I have not made up my mind if I will actually be offering this, yet. This is not a sales pitch. I am not taking any orders. I just want know if there would be an interest in this sort of thing and at the particular price I am considering. I just want your opinion.

What if I were to license this special edition, at a price of about $25? All of the employees in your company could use this special addition, for that one flat fee. You wouldn't have to pay per employee. $25 would cover all of them, current and future, in all locations in which your company may operate. (if you ever need to change the boss image, or have an additional one made for another department or division, that would be an additional $25)

Besides getting an application that encourages productivity by helping you stay focused on your purpose (work), you also get one that discourages a habit that can lead to lost productivity and increased healthcare costs for your company. Instant Boss can help prevent repetitive stress injuries (RSI) in office workers by encouraging frequent short breaks. And for those employees that are already recovering from RSI, Instant Boss can help them gradually return to full productivity, safely.

Is this worth $25 to you, your employees, and your company?

Would you willing to pay for a custom vanity edition?

Concept image, final design may differ

Converting and Encoding a URL Containing Extended ASCII Characters (Delphi utility with source)

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:57:00 +0000

It has come to my attention that some programming languages do not always make it very easy to convert and encode a URL.

While helping someone with bug testing and adding Last.fm support to a media player, we came across a problem with opening URL's to the correct page on last.fm's site when the title, artist or other tag info contained extended ASCII characters.

Example:

Artist: Bjørn Lynne
Title: Methydias Cloudship

This would be the correct URL on their site for this song:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bj%C3%B8rn%20Lynne/_/Methydias%20Cloudship

But in AHK, which does not support unicode, attempting to come up with the URL resulted in this incorrect one:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bj%F8rn%20Lynne/_/Methydias%20Cloudship

The problem was that you have to convert the URL from Ansi to UTF-8 before you encode it.

At first he wasn't sure if he could fix the problem, as that was what he thought he was doing in the first place.

So, while he decided to take a break from bug fixing to go play with his kids, because all coding and no play can make a coder and his family miserable, I decided to go ahead and make a little helper utility for him, just in case he couldn't resolve the issue.

Now I am not too sure on the particular details of how he fixed it, but he did and didn't need my little utility, after all.

But I am not one to let code go to waste, and my intention was to help someone resolve a problem, so I decided that this code will still do just that, one way or another. I am pretty sure that there is someone out there somewhere that could find this useful for something.

So, here it is, a small command line utility for Windows that will accept a parameter of a URL containing extended ASCII characters, convert the URL to UTF-8, then properly encode it, and finally, open that URL in the system's default browser.

I have included the Delphi source in case you may need that, too.

While testing this with various browsers, I noticed something peculiar. Certain browsers will display the URL in the addressbar differently than what the URL actually is. Although it is properly converted and encoded, the addressbar will display the original extended ASCII. I suppose this is to make it look pretty.

The following browsers exhibited this behavior:

Firefox 3
Opera 9
Chrome 1

Additionally, while both Firefox and Chrome copied the correct URL to the clipboard from the addressbar, Opera did not.

Opera copied extended ASCII, instead.

Internet Explorer did not exhibit these behaviors and displayed the actual URL used, in the addressbar.

Rest assured, this application does work properly, even if your browser isn't displaying what you think it should be showing in its addressbar.

Now I don't care if you use either the code or the compiled utility in an open source or close source project, for non-commercial or commercial purposes, and you don't have to give me any credit or compensation if you use it.

My goal was to help someone and if this can help you in some way, feel free to use it in any way you wish. I have released both the utility and the source into the public domain.

This application and its source code is dedicated to the Public Domain.

Download: Delphi encodeURL utility with source

How to Download Microsoft TechNet Spotlight Videos

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:11:00 +0000

Microsoft offers a lot of great presentations on their TechNet Spotlight site.

The problem is that for some of them they will offer downloads, and some they will not, or they will not offer everything for download, as is the case with the Advanced Malware Cleaning presentation. They only offer the Powerpoint slides for it.

What if I don't want to or can't install Silveright? What if I want the high or low resolution video for offline viewing? Or the audio, too? Or what if I have issues with streaming the video and need to have a local copy in order to view it, at all?

I have seen some tutorials that require you to use various applications such as URL Snooper, Firebug, and VLC media player, to obtain an .asf file, but doing it that way is making it much more complicated than it has to be. Besides, you can't get everything. All you can get is a lower quality video intended for streaming purposes.

There is a simple solution, though. Whether the materials are offered with a download link on the page, or not, they do exist at the following URL's:

Powerpoint (ppt or pptx): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_pres.zip

Video - Hi Res (wmv): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_high.zip

Video - Lo Res (wmv): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_low.zip

Audio (wma): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_audio.zip

Just replace 2 XXX's with the number of the presentation, which in the case of the Advanced Malware Cleaning one, would be 359.

Add a TwitThis Button to your Blogger posts

noreply@blogger.com (App) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:01:00 +0000

Wouldn't it be great if you could add a button to every post that would make it easy for your visitors to share your posts with their followers on Twitter?

The following is instructions to do just that, for Blogger layout based blogs.

Using the information at TwitThis, I was able to tweak their bookmarklet code a bit and use the image from one of the other codes to create this one that works in Blogger.

This will require you to edit the HTML of your template. While I have tried to make this as easy as possible, those that don't feel comfortable with this, should not try it.

The button will only show on post pages and not the main page of your blog. It's not wise to do this any other way, as the URL that will be supplied on Twitter will be the URL of the page in which your button is clicked. If it is on the main page, the post may not be there when someone reads the entry on Twitter or FriendFeed, and it is likely not to win you any new loyal readers, so use this only on post pages.

I have also added some comments in the code that will make it much easier for you to add additional buttons in the future, and have them appear on all pages or just post pages.

NOTE: If you have added the Google Reader code from one of my other posts, then you just need to add only the yellow TwitThis code above or below the Google Reader one. If you have not added that one, then you need to use ALL of the code.

1. On your Blogger Dashboard, click the Layout link for the blog you want to add the button to.

2. At the top of the Layout page, click the link for Edit HTML.

3. Where it says "Backup/Restore Template", click the link that says "Download Full Template" and save the .xml file to your hard drive. This file will help you restore your template, in case anything goes wrong.

4. In the "Edit Template" section, check the box at the top right that says "Expand Widget Templates".

5. Use your browser's search function to find this line:

<div class='post-footer'>

6. Find the 2 lines in your template that look like this:

<div class='post-footer'>
<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>

7. Copy and paste the following code between those 2 lines:

<div>
<p><span id='footer-buttons'>


<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>




<a href='javascript:(function(){TwitThisPop=window.open(%22http://twitthis.com/twit?url=%22+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+%22&title=%22+((document.title)%20?%20encodeURIComponent(document.title.replace(/^\s*|\s*$/g,%27%27))%20:%20%22%22),%20%22TwitThisPop%22,%20%22width=600,%20height=500,%20location,%20status,%20scrollbars,%20resizable,%20dependent=yes%22);%20setTimeout(%22TwitThisPop.focus()%22,%20100);%20})()'><img alt='TwitThis' src='http://ajax.twitthis.com/chuug.twitthis.resources/twitthis_grey_72x22.gif' style='border:none;'/></a>




</b:if>
</span></p>
</div>

8. Click the button at the bottom of the page that says "Save Template".

If you get any red errors, leave a comment stating the specific error message, and I will try to help you out. If you get any errors beginning with "bX-", just try again tomorrow. Sometimes Blogger has issues with itself and waiting a bit can resolve them.

9. Look at your blog. If you have done this correctly, the button should appear on post pages only, and not the main page. Test the button by clicking it on a post and sharing one of your posts on Twitter.

10. If you would like to add other buttons to the footer of your posts, the comments in the code will help you decide where to put your button codes. One place will show on all pages, and the other will only show on post pages.

Credits: 99% of the credit for this goes to TwitThis. I just tweaked it to work on Blogger. No big deal.

EDIT 10-16-2009: Image URL was changed (Thanks Alex!)