We envision it to be a gateway for the plugin to reach out to other people by providing things users need easily – help, extension modules, showcase ideas: you name it! Hopefully it will be able to attract more users and developers, and together we can make CubePoints even better and more usable. :D

So check out CubePoints.com now and enjoy =)

CubePoints is a project handled completely by just two high-schoolers and developed completely on their own free time outside study. To make CubePoints even better, other than giving suggestions and reporting bugs, one main way is to support us through donation.

So, if you think CubePoints have helped your site, please do consider donating to us and join in the crowd as they donate to their favorite plugins as well. =D

For more information on WPPDD, read this.

This version comes with a lot of features, including:

• [Feature] “My Points” page
• [Feature] “Daily” Points
• [Feature] About Dialog Customizations
• [Feature] Ability to Remove Rank
• [Feature] i18n GetText Calls are now added
• [Bugfix] Removed the “Donate” button from About Dialog when disabled
• [Change] More JS-dynamic Donation interface

If you are interested in beta testing, please download the plugin here, and upgrade with proper procedure. Report all bugs in this post. Thanks!

This version brings a lot of bugfixes and improvements including:

• New donation and About Author dialog box
• MUCH improved performance
• Ranks System
  
• Custom logging types for plugin integrations

We’ll be uploading to WP Plugins Directory shortly. Note that there are no i18n available for this version yet, but if you are interested in translating CubePoints, email us and we’ll send you a .pot file right away. Enjoy this awesome holiday and the present!

Beware of a known bug: somehow, you might not be able to see the ranks in about page after upgrading. If so, please report immediately as we have not yet find enough situations yet to determine really where the bug is

IMPORTANT: When you upgrade, remember to follow proper procedures including: deactivate the plugin, remove the plugin folder from wp-contents/plugins, and then put in the new plugin.

I spent some time over the past week basically recoding CubePoints, and to me it seems pretty stable and efficient now compared to CubePoints 1.3. I think I’m going to call it 1.5. Note that there are no new features in this version, but only IMPORTANT bugfixes.

Now, to make up for those stupid mistakes we have done before (including releasing a version without throughly testing it), I’m looking for a couple volunteers to help me beta test the new versions – the more plugins you run, the better! Please email admin@techcube.net if you are willing to beta-test for us and to make CubePoints better!

I’m guessing we can release this version before Christmas. So, stay tuned!

Expect a lot of pictures! (Gosh, this sounds like a personal blog now…)

We’ll try to keep up with the CubePoints support (”like there is any support normally anyway…”), and I promise durinng this short break we’ll try to fix the many bugs currently exist in CubePoints.

Anyway, I’ll see you guys in a week, have fun!

Now, this store does not work like others. In fact, it might not even be considered as a “store” plugin. Here is how it works:

• Post a new post with the following tag: [cps]*Name of your item*|*Amount of points you want to sell it for*|*Link text*[/cps]
• Your user will then click on the link to “purchase an item”. Points will be deducted.
• You will receive an email saying this user bought this item. It will also show in the widget in your Admin Dashboard.
• You can then choose to notify your user how to obtain what he just purchased.

Now for example, you can use this plugin to sell ad space. Put a link like that in a post, and an user interested will click on it. You will be notified that the user bought some ad space, and you will contact him for details/instructions.

Download the file here and put it in /wp-content/plugins/ (do NOT put it in cubepoints folder). And yes, obviously, it requires CubePoints to work.

“Wait, Peter, how is this a “store” then?” Here’s what I’d do. Create a category called “store” and exclude it from any category listing. Create your own theme file (category-*ID*.php in your themes folder) to set up a “grid” display (or a list). Take out all the tags/author/category displays, and it will look like it lists products instead of posts.

PLEASE tell us what you think about this. We will work more towards some more features on CubePoints. Next up: Allow users to buy points with paypal

I woke up this morning and found an Office 2010 Technical Preview invitation waiting for me. I could not stop my excitement and quickly downloaded it. Join me in downloading + installing this wonderful product!

Downloading

Like other Microsoft beta products, I had to go through a series of annoying registration process. Seriously, can’t they just get information from my Live Account? That’s how Google does it and has proved working so far.

A lot of products under the big family “Office 2010” are available for download, including Office Professional (incldes Outlook), Visio, SharePoint, InfoPath and a whole lot others.

Then, after selecting the version I want (32 bit or 64 bit), another MS annoying thing appeared – having to install an ActiveX control (yes, that means only IE can download) to download the files I wanted. I thought the one that they used for downloading Windows 7 was nice, so why did they switched again? Grr.

Download was pretty fast and stable at a rate of 400kb/s.

Installing

The installing interface wasn’t that different from the one of Office 2007. Except, the background is maybe darker than the previous one.

Oh wait, wow, there is an upgrade option!

But of course, I still wanted my Office 2007, so I will do a clean install this time.

The installing process took about 20 mins on my Athlon TK-53 1.6Gx2 + 2GB Ram laptop. Acceptable. After the installation, a reboot was necessary.

Using

Right after reboot, two icons showed up:

When I thought I got a virus or something, I found out that they are part of the Technical Preview. It is a little bug report feature, I guess. How effective is it? Not sure.

The Splash Screen shocked me. The colors at the bottom is animated, and it is much more than just an image.

Honestly, the interface isn’t that much of a change, other than the whole color scheme has changed from blue to grey. 3 Color schemes are included, like Office 2007, and they are light grey, grey, and dark grey.

The biggest change lies in the “Dashboard” (or is there a name for it?) When you click the Blue button next to “Home” on the ribbon, a dark background “dashboard” thing comes out (no longer a dropdown menu). Options are same as those in Office 2007 when you press the same button, but in a much cooler interface

For example, when you print a page, you no longer have to open another window to set the print options:

I figured out I really like this feature. Some options, like “Options” and “Open” and “Save”, however still requires opening a separate window. If I can choose the file I want to open within the Dashboard, it will be much easier to use.

Conclusion

Although there are only a few surprises, they sure are really good surprises. I have yet to test other Office products, so stay tuned for a full review of the Office 2010 Technical Preview!

New changes to this release include:

• Fix for Javascript files
• Introduction of an API system (will improve later on)
• Cron Automatic update now available
• Minor database changes

All users are recommended to update to this latest version since it fixes a critical Javascirpt problem in the previous versions.

For more information on API, please refer to the docs for more details. Need more? Wait for the next release ;)

So what are you waiting for? Download it and install it now!

As you can see in the photo, it offers a much more clear design, and a much more efficient/easy way to access to different videos of the user. More javascript, more user friendliness, and most of all, more flexibility.

Changing your channel from the old one to the new one is easy. I’ll show you how the get and customize the new design.

Getting it

Step 1: Sign in either with an YouTube account or a Google account. Then, go into “Account” on the top right hand corner.

Step 2: Put your mouse over the big “My Account” in the middle, and select “My Channel”

Step 3: Click” Upgrade my channel!” in the middle of the page, and boom! You will now be brought to your new channel with the new channel design!

Customization

On the top of the channel, you should see a bar titled “Edit Channel”.

Under “Settings”, you will be able to set some general options for your channel, such as name, tags, etc.

Under “Theme and Colors”, you will be able to set the colors in the channel. Here is the big thing about the new channel – you will have much more options to customize!

Last but not least, you will be able to customize different modules in your channel, changing layouts, adding or deleting some “boxes”, etc.

If you want to come back again to settings again, go to Account –> My Channel –> Channel Design.

Enjoy!