Alexandar Tzanov ~ The Titan

This morning I implemented Google Buzz. You can see the button on the left of this paragraph. After playing around with the code, I buzzed my last post, which was about high fructose corn syrup. When I checked my Google profile I noticed that after the title of the article there was a “null”, which linked back to the home page of my blog.

After spending few minutes searching on the Internet, I wasn’t able to find much information on the problem. Next I decided to look for API documents and other help information published by Google. Seeing that the Google Buzz button works by sharing via Google Reader, the best place for the answer was in the Google Reader help docs . I found this post – Adding a ‘Share in Reader’ link to your website or blog.

The solution to the problem is very simple and logical. As “title” – the title of the item you are sharing, is to “url” – the address of the item you are sharing, “srcTitle” is to “srcUrl”. In which case the former is the name you want to use for the source of the item, and the latter is the address to that…

Skribit, a topic suggestion tool, which I have been using on my blog for over a year now, is ready for the big time. Last month the Skribit team announced the release of changes to the service and new features. They continue to add new features, some of which you can see below:

• Follow your favorite bloggers on Skribit and see their recent activity
• Sort suggestions by status, hotness and more
• Merge similar suggestions
• Ignore suggestions by user and IP (Internet Protocol or Intellectual Property) address
• Reduce clutter with new comment and suggestion spam protection
• Customize your the URLs for your Skribit blog and user profiles
• Easily share suggestions through Twitter and Facebook with a click

I do find the Skribit service interesting, and as I have see it on other sites, it can prove a valuable tool. By the way, I first came cross Skribit on Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog.

Bonus: There is also a promo code – ackbar42 – which you can use by Jan. 27th, 2010, to upgrade your account to Skribit PRO at half-off the cost for 1 year.

Enjoy!

Currently Hive Minds Hosting is hosting Oxbury Publishing, including their other web properties. As the company business is growing, and it is expending in to customized reports and articles, delivered via newsletter, I know that the current server will not be able to handle the load of newsletter campaigns that are going to take place. I’ve spend today consulting the company owners about renting a dedicated server and moving their operations to a machine, which only serves their needs.

I have also selected phpList as the mail list management solution. Once I have configured their new server, I will be installing and configuring phpList, which by the way has to integrate with their current site and have new users automatically added to the different newsletter campaigns at the time of them registering on the main web site. I found some scripts, which might do the trick, but there were some complaints from other users. Hopefully with Oxbury things will go smoothly.

Tonight I will be leasing the new server and then I will be working on installing and configuring the usual software required to operate a website smoothly.

Domain whois record: phpList, Oxbury Publishing