If you don’t like to organize your photos into photosets, or are frustrated by the 3-photoset limit imposed on the Flickr free accounts, FAlbum can also display your tags, and turns a chosen tag into a formated album. In the option page of FAlbum, you can also set the thumbnail size, number of photos per page, whether the ‘private’ photos are shown, etc., it is comprehensive and easy to configure.

I joined Flickr for a while but haven’t really used it. I have got a Pro account (just about HK$17 per month) and am now uploading old photos, most of them were taken by my dad during his travels. I guess this is an easy way to display his photos for him

I just wonder whether it is possible to display photos from a Flickr group, or from my Flickr favourite list … it would be nice if these features are added in the next version.

Just received an invitation from WordPress.com (I made a request for an account a few weeks ago). The activation process is cliché. But think twice before picking the username, because it will be part of the domain name of your blog, and it cannot be subsequently changed.

The interface is different from the standard, download version of WordPress. I prefer this new interface, in particular the Write section. All the options are condensed (by java script, I suppose) to produce a neat desktop. Under the Manage section, you can also check webpages which has referred to your blog, a very handy addition lacking in the download version.

Being a hosting service, some of the standard options are omitted, for instance, you can only have one user for your blog. You are also only allowed to pick a theme from a short list, you cannot edit the css file manually, and you cannot use any plugin. Perhaps there is a security concern, but it truly ties the hands of the blog-writers.

The resulting blog has a narrow navigation bar on the top row. Since it is not allowed to tweak the css file, I cannot think of an easy way to mask this navigation bar like you could with the one on Bloggers.com. It is the only price (… so far) you pay for this free service.

I think WordPress.com is tageted at the newbie bloggers who only want to blog and wish the system to take care of everything else. Not really an attractive service to me, but it may give me a glimpse of the new stuff likely to be introduced to future versions of WordPress.

My WordPress.com blog: Play@everywhere (just a temporary title).

To keep track of what I have done, here is the first one of “My … List” series (though it is uncertain whether it will really become a series) :

My WordPress Plugin List
(last upate: 2005.08.16)

Currently Using:

• Spam Karma 2.0 – better user interface, easier to administer
• Spam Karma 2 Stats
• Wordspew – using Ajax, this shoutbox can reload itself without reloading the whole page, and it does not use <iframe> to make the page xhtml invalid. It also has an admin interface in the Manage section
• Live Calendar – like Wordspew, this plugin can change the calendar without reloading the whole page
• Live Comments Preview
• Fancy Tooltips – true to its name: fancy and good-looking. Besides links, it also works on other tags like <ins>, <del> and <acronym>.
• Online Counter
• Enhanced Post List – much better than the original “Manage Posts” page. When I wrote this (2005.08.16), the author’s website is out of service.
• Paged Comments Editing – same as Enhanced Post List, but for the “Manage Comments” page
• Google Sitemap Generator – easy to use, with a separate configuration page
• Follow URL – I have Spam Karma 2, I do not need nofollow.
• Geo – cannot think of any useful application of this plugin yet I get the co-ordinates with Google Earth (one of the rare occasions I must use m$ windows.

Testing:

• IImage Browser – very easy to add image to posts. I originally used a pop-up hack, but it does not seem to work with the new theme. This may be my way out.
• IImage Gallery – easy to post more than one photo in the same post, requires more settings than IImage Browser
• Gravatars – this is not the official plugin. Apparently, it gives you a configuration page in the Options section. I can’t still get it running with the themes.
• Yahoo/MSN Smileys – easy to set up, but I wonder if there are other choices …
• Recent Comments – with a configuration interface
• Cross-themes Stylesheets
• X-Vaild – check whether the posts and comments are xhtml-valid and automatically correct them, with a configuration page

Plugin Resources:

• Red Alt
• WordPress Plugin Database
• WordPress Plugin Repository

To register, you must provide the longitude and latitude of your selected location. Maporama is a easy-to-use tool to find the information you need. Just choose/input “Hong Kong” in the “country” and “city” fields, press the “GO” button, and then click on the map until you find your location. The longitude and latitude can be found at the lower left corner of the screen.

Here is a list of the registered websites which are within 100 km of my location.