Charles Lau

I have been facing information overload for many years.   It’s frustrating to find out that I have valuable information which are deeply buried inside my folders in my hard disk.  3 years ago, I have purchased a portable 300GB hard disk just to store a lot of my information which I believe I have only utilize 20% of what I have.

I don’t know if you have faced the same problem as myself.   I just find it frustrating when I want to get certain information and it is not there for me.  And when I forgot about this piece of information, I really hope it will surface when I need such information.  You know?  Sometimes, we really don’t know what we don’t know…

In search of the best way of organizing my information and files

I tried all sorts of ways.

• I made the usual way of organizing my folders (just like what most of you do).  
• I also tried to use the PostIt notes to organize my information.  In the end, both are just getting more and more messy with my information and files.
• I tried having one Microsoft Word file, and index all my information properly.  In the end, I don’t open that file.
• I tried putting in all  my to-do list in TXT file.  In the end, it is also not opened.
• I tried to use iGoogle desktop to organize my information.  But it is just not as robust as I needed it to be.

I need a better way!

Wiki is the way to go!

I believe there are still many of you who don’t know the meaning of Wiki.  I’ll just put in a video of leelefever’s Explanations in Plain English to explain Wiki to you here.

Ok, I don’t need anybody to edit my information.  All I need is just a place for me to edit my own things.

Ok here are the things that I need for my information organization:

1. One-stop place to access my information and files.
2. Easy to use.
3. They are stored in my portable hard disk so that I can start using  it with any computer.
4. I don’t need to store them on the Internet because of security issue, and the files can be really big when I need them.
5. It allows versioning of my files and information so that I can revert to my old version whenever I need to.
6. And when I delete them, it allows me to “undelete” instantly!

The Wiki Solution

Ok here’s the exact solution I have used.

1. I installed Mowes on my portable hard disk.
2. I installed MediaWiki (The exact software used by Wikipedia).
3. I did some configurations such as configuring the file size upload, the allowable file extension, file grabbing through URL, and many others).
4. I’m done!

Next, this is what I do with it at the very initial stage:

1. I plug in my portable hard drive via the USB port.
2. I run the Mowes software.
3. I open up my Internet browser, and go to “http://localhost/wiki”
4. Immediately, I have my Wiki up and running!
5. I put in all my information that I need.
6. I upload my files and organize them in a meaningful way.

Usage

1. Now, I will update my Wiki whenever I need to.
2. I can access all my files and information more efficiently.
3. I will click the link in my wiki to open a certain Powerpoint file, and edit it.  When I am done, I will upload a new version of it.  So, I have kept different versions of my work!
4. I used Wiki to help me download certain files that I need in the background, while working.

Conclusion

Ok, I think this blog post is getting really lengthy.  I am going to stop here now.  Basically,  I have a portable Wiki in my hard disk that I can use.  In fact, I also installed WordPress in it as well just for the fun of it.

I personally find that Wiki is the best way to organize my information and all my files. 

What’s the weakness?  Definitely there is… So far as I know, Mowes is basically suitable for Windows only.  Hence, Mac and Linux users may not be able to enjoy them.  And there is also difficulty in accessing the files directly if you need to because they are in the Wiki’s own way of indexing the files.

If you can remember, I was building my Charles Lau dot Com website using Carl Ocab’s latest product called “Ultimate Blogging Theme“.  I have been a happy customer of Carl Ocab, using this blog theme for my blog.  After working on it for a while, I thought it should be time to review this blog theme on my own blog with my own real experience.

A product from my good old friend

Ultimate Blogging Theme is built by Carl Ocab.  Carl Ocab is my good friend whom I have been reviewing all the websites in his famous 13-year-old kid blogger’s blog.  It was really fun and experiencing to review a lot of websites in his blog.  Just ask Google how many websites I have reviewed in his blog.

Before I got to know about Unique Blogging Theme

I have been looking for a good website facelift for a very long time.  I engaged a web designer to help me work on my new blogging project last year (which is going to launch this year), and had spent almost $2000 on it.  He was so good, I actually thought of asking him to design for my current blog here.

When Carl told me that he is going to launch his new blogging theme, I was so excited because he is going to use the same formula he used in his own blog and put them all inside this new product.

Introduction to Ultimate Blogging Theme

This is a blogging theme, which is suitable for anyone who is using WordPress for his blogging needs.  WordPress is a very user-friendly blogging program which has a lot of flexibility to tweak its user-interface.  It is also used as a content management system in many websites out there today!

If you take a very good look at his Ultimate Blogging Theme, it is actually the same copy that he used in his own blog!  I know that this theme contains a lot of efforts from Carl.  I remember talking to him while he is so busy working on it!  He just wants to make the best out of it.  I also realize that he has been patching the blog theme along the way, making this blogging theme more relevant to use in today’s world.

Here are some of the features of using this blog theme:

1. You can create the famous three square boxes on top and below easily.
2. You can put in the advertisements easily at the sidebar, and also at the various optimized areas.
3. You can increase your RSS subscribers with the prompt at the bottom of every post.
4. You can show related posts in your landing pages.
5. You can choose different flavors of the theme!

Best of all, it is really very easy to use.  All the things have been done for you already, what’s more do you want to create in your very first blog?

What does this Ultimate Blogging Theme mean to you as a potential buyer?

Yes I know that Carl’s blog has been optimized with the keyword “make money online”.  He is making money online, but that has nothing to do with me!  What’s amazing to me a lot is that the same blogging theme also helps me to make some more money as my click-through rates in the advertisements have increased.  This is what I care more about! haha!

I think it’s very crucial for anyone who wants to have a killer theme which can help them in their blogging career.  And if budget is your concern, Carl’s Ultimate Blogging Theme can be of great consideration.  Just compare his price of $97, versus my recent purchase of almost $2000.  For myself, having to spend that kind of money on my new project, I wouldn’t want to burn another big hole in my pocket for now in my own blog.  Yet, I cannot compromise in my own blog!  Just think about it…

So what are you waiting for?

I can’t see any risk for taking up Carl’s product.  He’s a nice guy who is offering a 100% money back guarantee for 1 year!  Simply email him to tell him why you want to refund, and he will return you every single cent that you have paid!

Find out more about Ultimate Blogging Theme for your WordPress today!

Today, I am going to talk about this very interesting free GPS software on my mobile phone, Nokia N95. It will not show exactly where you are. In fact, it is using Google maps to show you where you are on the Internet. It’s called GPSed. I was trying it out on my mobile phone as it tracks where I am in my car. It uses GPS tracking and 3.5G Internet. It will track and post whatever information on their GPSed.com website. And it provides an easy way of updating your FaceBook, Blogger, MySpace and Twitter information about your whereabouts. Quite cool, right?

Here’s the information of tracking me on my way home from my girlfriend’s house. GPSed link

I was trying it out for fun to see how it can track and update my twitter followers. So, I started my WirelessIRC program (It is not just an IRC program, it also has twitter ability. We’ll talk about that probably next time.). And I tried to see what my GPSed program is trying to update on my twitter account. So this is one of the twitter message it has updated. I tried to tell my Twitter followers what this is first because I don’t want this GPSed program to send unwanted messages unnecessarily. Hence, I posted this message.

I realize that this program is always showing the same URL to the followers. Hence, it doesn’t really need to post every 1 minute. Probably every 5 to 10 minutes is good enough since the journey takes about half an hour. 3 to 6 updates is probably good enough to tell everybody where I am.

And by the way, a very good Sunday morning to all of you!

I’m now trying out the newly launched version 2 of Wavelog for my Nokia N95. It has a much better feel to write on it now, than the previous version. Previous version, the font size is so much smaller and thinner. I barely can see what i’m typing. And if i accidentally pressed something, almost all my work is lost. I’ll see if this version has that same problem..

I noticed that whenever i type in HTML comments, it’ll disappear when i switch to preview or design. This is bad because i am trying to make use of Adsense which is using HTML comments.

What i like most about the new version of wavelog is that i can now choose my blog accordingly. I don’t have to key in the settings of my other blogs whenever i’m blogging on other domains. It allows me to add different providers to choose from.

I’m glad that i can now choose my post categories as well. Previously, i am not allowed to choose a category and that really sucks when all my postings are defaulted to a certain category.

Yes, we can now even edit our posts! Our previous posts can now be seen and edit if necessary. That gives us the necessary tools to check back and do any amendments if there’s any mistake.

Also, our post title was previously only allow us to see once. This leaves me with no choice to change previously. Now, i can change to suit the contents and to see my post title is correct.

Tagging is also another new feature which is important to us to use. It’s now in as well.

Adding of our own image, audio and video is also easy. We can even embed our YouTube video easily today.

Ok, that’s all for my initial review with Wavelog. We’ll see how this program is faring over the period again.

I thought it would be good to share something beneficial for anybody who is buying me a drink. I am going to throw in Web Audio Plus software. It is a simple windows-based software to allow you to record your voice or to import an audio file into small little play buttons on your website for your visitors to press play button to hear what you have to say. Good for Podcasting especially for people who just want to listen but don’t wish to download the file.

This is a short video review of the Web Audio Plus which I am going to give away for all people who bought me a beer.

This is to reward everybody who is giving me a chance to work for them, paying me any amount to review their sites or just to buy me a drink. I just wish to thank everyone of you for your support… Whenever I receive an alert from paypal, I will email you the detail manually of how to download the file. It’s been great blogging online! Keep doing it and see you online all the way as a full time business!

But if you wish to buy this software or other relevant web tools, it is available for sale at Web Audio Plus website (aff).

I am referring to your own email which you have signed up with some Internet service. For example, if you have recently sent your email to a website in return for an ebook, you might want to know if this website has sold his database (your email and many others) to another company who used it to spam the targeted traffic! (which is you!) It can be a terrible experience to get caught up by a spammer where you simply have no chance to stop them as they used different identities to spread their advertising word! They don’t care if you will just delete it or not… Because somebody will simply respond!

Introducing to the ability of Gmail to check the betrayer!
This betrayer has sold your email to another company! You might not be able to catch the company who spammed you… But you can catch the betrayer! How about that? It’s so much better… Of course there’s also a loophole around… Check out this site to see how Gmail finds out who spams you… Though according to that blogger, this feature has already been there for quite a while… It is worthed to mention it since there are so many websites out there now wanting your email to give you a gift or something…

Have you read his blog already? Quite a smart way of checking the email, right?
Ok let me modify what he’s saying in that blog, and add in something to make a better filter…

When you have a gmail filtering name, simply do a permanent forward your actual email to that email…

charles@charleslau.com -> charles+website@gmail.com
news@charleslau.com -> charles+news@gmail.com

So, you will know which email is used for which web subscription… And that should keep you tracking…

Unlocker is a freeware where we get to overcome a Window bug where we are unable to have real control on our own machine and sometimes do not allow us to delete some files that we wish to. This software is done by Cedrick Collomb, and his Unlocker official website. By the way, he claimed that it has been downloaded over 2 million times!

Well, I found another good idea about setting up a freeware website that is powered by adsense and donations, while we don’t have to maintain our regular posts! Think about it…

While I am still recovering my past programs after a Windows reinstall, I found this software particularly useful and that I would want to recommend it to everybody out there since it is free. Sometimes, it is so irritating to be unable to edit or delete some files required and we couldn’t find that particular process that’s controlling it!

Have a quick video review of my presentation of this great software!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXU1aIjbR5o[/youtube]

In this software review, we will start to see that we can have total control of how to manipulate the files that we wish to. Windows always “push” the problem to us when it comes to sharing violation… It looks as though Windows is doing a good job of its security… But it is actually making things difficult for us to stop our work, and start finding that “bugger” who is using the file! Unlocker is a smart software that detects immediately which process is using that file, and it gives us full control of how we want to deal with the process or its file.

1. We can delete, rename, move or copy this file. (Normal procedure we get to do with Windows Explorer.)
2. We can unlock that process which manipulates this file. (It means to separate the process from controlling that file.)
3. We can kill that process which manipulates this file… (It means to end/close the program or process.)

One important note I would want to mention is that when we are unlocking the process, that process is still thinking that it is manipulating the file, while we might have just deleted it away! And when the program has ended, the file is not saved and it’s gone… It is possibly stored in some temporary folder…

Do you give comments on blogs? Well, it is surely good for any blog owner who only wishes to see more people participating in the communication. Many blogs out there have been thinking of ways and means to get those comments on their blogs. They organized contests, free gifts giveaway (usually an ebook or software), asking a question at the end of the blog in the hope to get the readers to engage in the activity, or just another creative idea to get that comment of yours!

Just Another Idea To Increase Activity In the Blog
Now, there is yet another idea of increasing those comments on your blog.
I happened to see this post from Chris Pirillo talking about his uninterested blog plugin where they provide a way to get the readers involved in comments passively… They called it the “click comments”. A way where the readers just have to click their emotions about the blog, and the software will write the comments for them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnqBvSb0OlI[/youtube]

About ClickComments
Warning: This is just a plugin which only adds interactivity in your blog. It doesn’t add a new comment in your blog. I was puzzled by how it is going to work actually. But if you see a clickcomments plugin which I have just installed, you are just clicking on what you do think about how I am writing. And you will also instantly see the number of people who felt the same as you. It gives me a great insight about my own blog and whether I am doing fine with what I am blogging while you are still in anonymous.

Percentage of People Commenting In A Typical Blog
It may sound so ugly to do such an automated reply but it seems like a good idea to activate that other 95% of your readers who are not commenting… In almost any blog that you see, it is stated by the plugin people that typically only 5% of the total readers in that blog give comments. I do agree with that myself too! It could be even lesser. Just imagine the most liveliest blog I know (John Chow) who claims to have 200,000 unique visitors but only up to 500 users give comments? It is possibly less than that… And almost all of his posts have repeated commentators in it. That’s even less than 5%… I wonder if John does put in that plugin, is it going to make his blog even more livelier? Or maybe he wouldn’t install because his comments are simply flooding his database already! There is no need for such a plugin at all?

No RSS Support Yet
One very bad thing I saw in the ClickComments blog’s comments is that they don’t seem to support RSS subscribers to click their comments yet… While it is impossible to give a comment in the blog already, a click to give their voice in the comments sound like a logical approach to use this plugin since they are all reading from the RSS readers. Yo, ClickComments people, are you hearing this? Maybe we can find a way to work around to support RSS…

What this plugin is useful at

• If your blog is more towards writing about something and involves replying, I would not advise you to install this plugin.
• But if your blog only needs a reply such as “Cool Stuff”, “Inspired Me”, “Entertaining”, “Write More”, “Creative”, “Insightful”, “Touched My Heart” or “Great Find” (I find Christian’s blog is very suitable since he only needs such relaxing interactivity in it, and not those critics mainly like mine.), I think such plugin is cool in that situation.
• Sometimes, you just wish to know you are right on track without the need to give their identity.

What this plugin might not be useful at

• If you have a seasoned blog with a fair amount of comments, you might not think about it anyway.
• If you have a blog which talks about news and commenting on news, you might not want to see “Touched My Heart” comment… It has successfully been converted into a spam instead…
• If you are doing some contests in your blog, you might not want an anonymous comment which is not useful.
• If you wrote an article which is involving a discussion, you might not want to see just such a comment, and would rather leave it 0 comment.

I gonna give it a try
Just like any business, when your blog is still small and growing you can still try out new things with the “privilege” of making mistakes. Sometimes, who knows something might work? What usually works for one person, might not work for another… And what usually don’t work for one person, might work for another…

Anyway, this blog is all about myself and to try new things to learn and to benefit everyone of us. You will know the results instantly by the comments in my blog.

I just wish to know from my readers if I am improving in my blog career..

Have you been having problem inserting videos from YouTube, Google Videos and MetaCafe? Well I did… In the end, I asked myself if there is such a plug-in available… Probably I should try to work out this plug-in myself… Well, I found it and it is known as Viper’s Video Quicktags. This plug-in is quite simple to use, and the author is open for more expansion to add more video support from other companies. It even support uploading of your very own video file in your own server using windows media player as the interface.

Let me do a short demo of this program here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj8lw4SmUeg[/youtube]

In the meanwhile, enjoy the unrelated videos below which I have demonstrated.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhgXjmf9krg[/youtube]

[metacafe]http://www.metacafe.com/watch/746372/how_to_pull_a_van_uphill_with_only_a_rope/[/metacafe]

I have found another website affiliation where it can help to enhance our blog if we are too shy to appear. It is called the SitePal – Virtual Talking Characters For Your Website, Flash Movies and Blogs. It is available in

Sometimes, it might be good to have a “web assistant” where your visitors get to see him/her doing an introduction of your website while you perform the normal website operations. Whenever we got onto a new website, we will start to look for an introduction of the website, so that we will know what this website is categorized under.

Take my blog for example. I believe many visitors will be confused what my blog is all about. In fact, I am actually finishing my test trial of topics in my 3rd month old blog. (By the way, it was born in 22nd June 2007.) Very soon, I would make sure every new visitor on this blog will start to understand what my blog is all about. I have been trying to work out as a Make-Money-Online initially, then I moved on into Article Website, and now I am working it to become a Charles Online Review where it is going to be a place to come back for reviews and to check out my online business ventures as I move deeper into this industry.

Putting SitePal Character On The Front Page
If I were to put a Virtual Talking Character by the side of this blog, people will start to listen to what he/she has to say to a new visitor, and what this blog is all about. However, it might become annoying to returning visitors as this character keeps on repeating the same message… Hopefully SitePal will do something more innovative about it.

Putting SitePal Character on the Sales Page
As a potential buyer is looking for that critical buying interest as he browses your site, you might want to have a SitePal character acting as a salesperson to give advice and guarantee. The webmaster must be well-versed in his sales skills in understanding how to let the SitePal character bring the potential buyer down the sales funnel, and become an actual buyer…

Problems We Might Face With SitePal Character

Sometimes, we have some words which SitePal don’t seem to be pronouncing it correctly. And we will keep on trying till we get the correct pronunciation… But the spelling in the text box will be wrong… Do try it out directly on the left here, and you will get what I mean.

Conclusion
This software might be good in certain aspects of a website. It is especially useful for sites that don’t really do an introduction and jump straight to the contents (just like a blog). It makes the first-time visitors more welcoming and will feel much better as they get to understand how your contents work. Hence, it promotes returning visitors which is essential for any website out there.

However, the bad point about this software is that it is not fully compatible with its pronunciation (as we have discussed earlier on.) and we have to keep tuning it till it is correct. Furthermore, it sounds a little robotic and not human-personal enough… Other than its voice, I think it’s perfectly all right! Check it out.