Also, i’m available for freelance projects. If you’d like to hire me, get in touch.

And finally, i’ve been working on a couple of web apps recently. I’ll be writing about them soon.

So, what was I doing all these days ? Actually I did a lot of useful things.

• Learnt Game programming in C++. I already was pretty proficient in C++. I began to use Allegro library. To test my skill, I recreated the first level of classical Mario. It is 80% functional. You don’t know how much excitement it gives you unless you develop your own game :)
• Began to learn Java. Everybody knows that it is one of the important languages to be learnt by every programmer.
• Learnt 3D designing. This one’s using Blender. I know the basics of it now. But am not using Blender much nowadays, because my system has very less memory. Gotta upgrade it soon.
• Bought a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, after selling my 5310. This touchscreen’s very cool.
• Watched a loooot of English movies. I’ve exhausted almost the entire list of IMDB’s Top 250. Why ? Deep inside I’ve the ambition to direct a movie :)
• Did a lot of freelancing. Most of them are PHP projects. Some XHTML works and some Logo designs. And am still doing. So, if you’re looking for a freelancer, don’t hesitate to contact me.
• Switched back to good ol’ Firefox from Google Chrome. A separate post coming up on why I did this.

So, from now on I’ll be blogging quite consistently. In the past, I covered mostly blogging related topics. From now, I’ll expand this and will be posting about anything Geeky. I assure you that it’ll be interesting.

http://POST-PERMALINK/#comment-COMMENT-ID

This is what it remains like on most of the WordPress blogs. It wouldn’t look bad if you just has a few hundred blogs. But, the latest comment on the latest post (as of now) on Problogger.net has the ID 4452651.

So, I just wanted to change this thing. I wanted to has #comment-1 for the first comment and #comment-7 for the 7th comment and so on. I searched the web for a hack or a plugin, but in vain. (Let me know if one is available). So, I just figured out my own method, which I’m going to teach you. I made it as a hack for a theme, rather than a plugin because it needs you to edit your theme templates. But, as per the principles, you need not touch WordPress’s core files.

Step 1 : Adding the 1, 2, 3 Increment

Open your comments.php file and search for the following :

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>

And, change it to as follows :

<?php $i = 1; foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>

Now, search for the immediate next occurrence of this :

<?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>

And, change it to this :

<?php $i++; endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>

Step 2 : Modifying the Comment’s DIV

Between the above two lines that you modified, resides the code that outputs each comment. So, you’ll find the parent DIV tag. We need to modify its ID. So, find this :

id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>"

And change it to :

id="comment-<?php echo $i; ?>"

Do the same and replace all occurrences of <?php comment_ID(); ?> with <?php echo $i; ?>.

We are almost done now. That is, at this point, if you point your browser to http://POST-URL/#comment-4, it will lead to the 4th comment. But, that is not all. When, somebody makes a comment, he’ll be redirected to the original URL http://POST-NAME/#comment-37456. We’ll tackle that in the next step.

Step 3 : Redirecting to the New URL after Commenting

Scroll to the bottom of your comments.php file and find this line :

<?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?>

Add the following line after the above line :

<?php gc_comm_id($i); ?>

This line calls the function that we will be defining. It passes our i as the argument. That is, if there are currently 7 comments, i will hold the value 8 for the new comment being posted.

Next, open your functions.php. Create one if it doesn’t exist. Add the following lines to the bottom of the file :

<?php
  function gc_comm_id ($i)
  {
    echo '<input type="hidden" name="gc_comm_id" value="'.$i.'" />';
  } 

  function gc_comm_id_process ($location)
  {
    $gc_comm_id = $_POST['gc_comm_id'];
    $id = strrchr($location, "-");
    return str_replace($id, "-".$gc_comm_id, $location);
  }
  add_filter('comment_post_redirect', 'gc_comm_id_process');
?>

I’ll explain the code to you now. The first function gc_comm_id does nothing but output an invisible field that holds the value of i to the comment form.

The second function, gets the actual redirect URL and then alters it into our new redirect URL containing the value of i. You’ll understand that code if you know a bit of PHP. If you don’t know, you don’t have to bother with it. Just know what it does and that is enough.

Conclusion :

This is just the way that I’ve done it. As usual, if you know a simpler method, do let me know. Also, let me know if there is any plugin available that does it.

photo by *SMILING PUG*

And, I moved my blog to a new host. So, time for which the blog was inaccessible for you can vary from person to person, depending on your location, due to DNS updates. Finally, I’m back here :) Many tweaks that I did to this new theme was lost. So, if you find something broken, do let me know so that I can fix it.

Do You See What I See ?

Recently, I notice something. When I submitted my blog to BrowserShots, I noticed that all the screenshots showed a different font than what I’ve used in my stylesheet, which is “Lucida Grande”. I thought that it maybe so because those are captured by robots maybe. So, I want you do me a favour. Click on the image to your right, and also check out this post. Then, comment below in this post letting me know :

1. Whether the font you see in your browser is the same as what you see in the image.
2. Whether the “popular posts” box and my photo are of the same height.

This will really help me fix the theme, if it were wrong. Thanks :)

Another announcement here. As I already said, with the launch of this new design, I’ll be releasing the old design of GotChance as a free wordpress theme. I’ve started tweaking it so that I can release it soon. Stay tuned.

Update : Contact link was broken. It has been fixed now. Thanks for letting me know Ollie

Its been 10 days since I entered the Blogging Idol contest and I’m currently around 30th position. I’d wish to advance higher. Help me win by Subscribing to My RSS Feed. So, I am planning to run a contest here on Got Chance. There are lots of prizes to be won. So, don’t worry.

What You Need To Do…

To enter the contest, you just need to Subscribe to my RSS Feed. Preferably via Email, because that will serve as a proof that you subscribed. But, if you subscribe via any other Feed Reader, just send me some proof that you subscribed (maybe a screenshot), and you are entered. Now, the prizes :

1, 2, 3. $100 Cash Prize

I’ll choose 3 random entries and will be giving away $100 Cash to each, if I win…

4. Ring-Style Fingertip Mouse

You better see it in action to know what it really is :

5. 2GB Kingston USB Drive (2.0)

You know what it is…

Since the contest’s rules doesn’t allow spending money to increase Feed count, these prizes will be given away only if win the contest. That is, I’ll have to spend from the prize money to give these prizes. But, don’t worry. There are 5 more prizes that you can win even if I don’t win the contest.

6. PSD -> WordPress Theme

Yeah, that’s right. I’ll code your PSD into a Complete WordPress theme for FREE. That is for three winners, one theme each. If you win and don’t have a PSD, don’t worry. You can avail this anytime in your lifetime and be assured the Theme will not be of sub-standard quality.

7, 8. Ad Space on this Blog for 6 Months

You see those 125 x 125 ads on the sidebar ? 2 of you can own them for a period of six months. That is a value of $90, considering $15/month.

So, what are you waiting for ? Subscribe via RSS or via Email, by entering your email address into the form on the sidebar.

• A Redesign In The Works
• Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex
• Why You Should Subscribe To Your Own Feed
• 6 Places To Push In Your RSS Feed Icon
• A Look at the Desktop Blog Editors
• Chrome Is Becoming My Primary Browser

Interesting Read from Outside :

• Pop-up Mania! Will They Come Back To Vogue? – Daily Blog Tips
• How to Improve Your Blog When You Don’t Have Computer Access – ProBlogger
• When you don’t know what to do, say a prayer and buy the book – Mom Gadget

Its been too long since I’m using this theme here on GotChance. So, I decided to do a redesign of the blog. As the first step, I created a new, simple logo, which is what you see above. Within a week, the new design will go live.

What it means to you ?

I am redesigning my blog. What does it mean for you reader ? I’ll share my experience with you after redesigning. I’ll share the new things that I learn.

And also, the current GotChance theme will be released for free… Yay…

Its been a little over a week since the latest version of Ubuntu, the “Intrepid Ibex” was released. As you’d have probably heard, Linux is a “Geek thing” (not really nowadays). So, i decided to try it out. I’ve previously tried out the previous release of Ubuntu, the “Hardy Heron“. So, installing was not strange for me.

I decided to install Ubuntu using the Wubi installer, on my laptop. Bad luck.. It didn’t work. My laptop only had 256 MB of memmory. So, instead i installed Xubuntu on it. There’s not much that i can say about it as i didn’t play with it much. What i really wanted was to try the original “Ubuntu”. So, my desktop was my only choice. Again, i resorted to Wubi to install because it was simple and safe. I’ll share my experience with you here.

Installing Ubuntu via Wubi is straight-forward, just like installing any other application in Windows. The Ubuntu desktop is something that i’m familiar with. Unlike Windows, it comes preloaded with a lot of Open Source applications. But, still there are other things that you should add after installing Ubuntu. In this post, I’ll tell what all i did after installing Ubuntu.

Flash Player

Nowadays, who doesn’t visit YouTube. What you need to play videos on YouTube is a Flash Player plugin for Firefox. To install Flash Player, simple visit a page that has a Flash video embedded using Firefox. Firefox will tell you “Additional Plugins Required”. Simply click that yellow bar and install Flash Player.

VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player is a must-have for everyone. It plays almost every format that is avaible out there. To install it, simple run this in the terminal :
sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-esd mozilla-plugin-vlc

MP3 and MPEG Support

Ubuntu doesn’t come with inbuilt MP3 and MPEG Support. You need to install it manually. You can do it by installing the ubuntu-restricted-extras package. But, that installs a huge 185MB. To simply get MP3 and MPEG support, run this in the terminal :
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3

I am done with this. After these, i did not need anything more in Ubuntu yet, except some FireFox addons. Maybe, i’ll need Java Runtime sometime in future. Lets see…

Have you tried Ubuntu ? If not, do it first, if you are a geek…
If you have it installed, what other applications do you you have installed ?

1) First, here is the basic HTML code for an input box and a subscribe button :

2) Then, we have to add the javascript bit to make the text field blank when a user clicks inside it. For this, we make use of the onClick parameter

The if statement is pretty much self explanatory. On clicking, if the value inside the text field is “Enter Email Address…”, we should change its value to blank.

if(this.value == 'Enter Email Address..')
{
	this.value = '';
}

3) Now, that form is almost complete. We just need to add one more thing. When the user doesn’t enter any value and clicks outside the text field, we should bring back the “Enter Email Address…”. For this, we make use of the onBlur parameter.

This is also the same as the other statement. On blur (clicking somewhere outside), ifthe value of the text field is blank, we have to change it to “Enter Email Address…”

if(this.value == '')
{
	this.value = 'Enter Email Address..';
}

Thats it. Now, you have a cool form for email subscriptions (of course, this can be used for any other form).

• Running Web Apps on the Desktop
• 3 Simple Screen-Color Picker Tools
• At last, GotChance.com is Online
• Upgraded to WordPress 2.6.2
• Customizing Kontactr Form

Also, if you have any questions on blogging, web design, programming etc., feel free to drop me a mail. I’ll reply you via mail and also sum up all the questions and post here every Sunday.

Also, i came to know about retaggr and I created my card. Here it is :

Then, i started searching for something better. I knew about Zookoda. So, i logged into my Zookoda account. Again, i couldn’t find a way to import my users. Also, i have read this post. So, i skipped Zookoda.

Then, at last, i came across this post from Mashable. It had a big list of Newsletter Services. All of them were paid. I’m not making much money to spend on such sophisticated services, as i was looking for something simple. If i signup with any of them, i will not use atleast 70% of their features.

So, do you know any simple, yet powerful script out there ? If so let me know… Also, if i don’t find any, i will write one myself. Also, would this make a good idea for my next startup ? Theres only Zookoda in the field of “free”, “hosted” newsletter services. I think i’ll be able to better and easier… What do you think ?

After closely examining, the site violates many of Google Adsense’s program policies :

• May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language
• May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks
• May not place misleading images alongside individual ads
• May not place misleading labels above Google ad units – for instance, ads may be labeled “Sponsored Links” but not “Favorite Sites”

Copyrighted Material
Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content. Please see our DMCA policy for more information.

But, the site uses the logo of Firefox and Mozilla without any references to the copyright owner.

So, doesn’t this site need to be reported to Adsense ? I’ve done it already… Hope you do the same… :)