MyWapBlog.com - Official Blog http://http://official.mywapblog.com/ Sat, 17 Jul 2010 09:15:00 +0000 MyWapBlog.com updated to a New Version http://official.mywapblog.com/mywapblog-com-updated-to-a-new-version.xhtml Sat, 17 Jul 2010 09:15:00 +0000
Thanks very much to all for the patience. It’s so nice that many peoples started reporting bugs as soon as they saw them.

Please read about the new features in this version. There’s also one more important enhancement that I missed mentioning in that post – slug based search engine friendly URLs for post pages. So, now post URLs will no longer have the “post/1.xhtml” format rather the title of the post will be used to generate a nice looking URL.

NOTE: This is a BETA version and may (read will) be having bugs. Please report all that you find.

Love,
Arvind

P.S.: My back’s aching and I wanna take a few days off! If I don’t reply to your mails, at least know what happened.]]> Scheduled Downtime http://official.mywapblog.com/post/56.xhtml Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:31:00 +0000 Saturday, 17th July 2010 from 04:30 hrs to 06:30 hrs GMT while I upgrade MyWapBlog.com to a new version. Blogs will continue to be accessible but comment/guestbook posting will be disabled.

I apologize for any inconveniences this may cause.

Read more about the new version.]]> Why No New Versions http://official.mywapblog.com/post/55.xhtml Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:02:00 +0000 May 30th 2010: Version: 4.0.5: New Domains for User Blogs

45 days or so have passed and still no new versions, peoples here may be wondering. Good news for you! In the upcoming days (2-3) I’ll be releasing the new version. smile

Before the release, however, I’ll be glad to let you know about the new features that’ll be added. Here is the list:

  1. Support for uploading multiple file types with sizes up to 5 megabytes. Unlimited storage for now
  2. Private posts
  3. CSS Creator. No need to upload CSS files elsewhere


A few screen shots:

Create Theme Feature
Create Theme Feature

Upload Files
Upload Files Page

Private Posts
Private Posts


Also included will be many new enhancements and unlike before, one or two small (and not much useful) features will be removed.

You may skip reading the following and jump straight to comments section.

What took this long to add those few new features…

Whenever I keep working on some code for longer I find the code becoming harder to maintain and manage. The last major refactoring I did to the MyWapBlog.com code was last year; everything was fine long after that. But of late I’m again finding it harder to work with the existing code. So, in short - I decided to again refactor the code, more specifically the Data Access part, for those of you techies.

Actually this release was not for adding new features but for making the code more manageable but in the course I decided I could have a few new features.

For the techies…

I was previously using my own Data Access Objects (DAO) but when I came across the amazing object relational mapper – Doctrine. I just couldn’t say no to using it. So, a big thanks to Sensio Labs for their superb library. Now, my next challenge is to write the whole application using symfony – another gem from Sensio Labs. Sadly, even the next version won’t add many new features. But I certainly will achieve two things – better code and satisfaction.

I think I learned way more during the last few months than I ever had in any one month. I read so many books and gained so much knowledge. I just loved working (roughly 5 hours every day, even on Sunday!) on MyWapBlog.com as I always do. This experience made me a better programmer.

Wordpress folks have a saying:

“Code is poetry.”

Indeed, and just like good poetry, writing good code takes time!

Love,
Arvind]]> Forbidden Errors http://official.mywapblog.com/post/54.xhtml Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:58:00 +0000
I’m in the process of fixing this problem.

[EDIT: The error has been fixed.]

-Arvind]]> I hate writing this... http://official.mywapblog.com/post/53.xhtml Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:04:00 +0000
Here it goes, recently I got the following feedback from one of our blog user (*Name: Anil Singh):

sir you are spamer because you publish add in my blog . sir please give me 20% from google adsense otherwise i wiil deleted all post from my blog if you give me 500 [$10 approx] per month i will clik in google add so you earn money reply me . anil singh

And the following was my reply:

Hi,

The only thing we give you is ease of running your own AdMob ads (to earn)
on your blog besides the free blog.

We're not spamming. That's the price you'll have to pay to have the blog.

And, please don't ever talk about the 20% or Rs. 500 [$10] thing again. We don't
want you to deliberately click your ads for us to earn. No way!

We're working for a win-win situation for all those connected to us.

And this is what I got in response:

i will delete all blog post

And now, guess what? He’s flaming all over our chat room that we’re a scam! (Besides not having deleted ANY of his post!) .

I might have banned him from our website but I guess I’d better let him badmouth as much as he can. What do you guys say?

Explanation (hate writing this even more):

MyWapBlog.com has been around since 2008. Shame on me if I’d to deliberately make others click on my ads to earn money. Sorry boy, that’s not the way I work!

I’ve seen quite a few wap site creators still I don’t know a single website that offers the service without ads. MyWapBlog.com shares 50% of the impressions.

Web hosting, advertising (on AdWords these days) need money.

Blogger and MyWapBlog.com are different. Quit telling peoples to switch to it ‘coz they won’t. We can do things what Blogger cannot and vice-versa. We’re NO replacement for Blogger. We might never be.

(*) Name made public after he made a comment.

Love,
Arvind]]> Version: 4.0.5: New Domains for User Blogs http://official.mywapblog.com/post/52.xhtml Sun, 30 May 2010 18:19:00 +0000 SUMMARY: Some bug-fixes, improvements and two new features.

First, we now support blog registrations under four domains:

  1. mywapblog.com
  2. heck.in
  3. pun.bz
  4. faa.im


A couple of them, as you can see, are registered for mainly one purpose – to have the URL short.

Here, I’d like to request one thing – please don’t go on blindly registering users, as I’m seeing the trend these days. Have only as many blogs as you can properly manage.

The other new feature is “Color Scheme” that lets you easily change the color scheme of our blog. [NOTE: We found a few bugs but those are fixed now]

As even to add these few features I’d change a lot of code so there may be some bugs here and there – please report if you encounter one!

-Arvind]]> Happy Birthday to Me! http://official.mywapblog.com/post/50.xhtml Tue, 25 May 2010 23:30:00 +0000 Arvind Gupta

Well, this is me - Arvind and today's my Birthday!

Thought I'd bag a few gifts (wishes) from you guys wink

P.S.: Post scheduling is coool!]]> A million pageviews... http://official.mywapblog.com/post/49.xhtml Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:00:00 +0000
We're small but it doesn't matter as long as we're expanding.


-Arvind]]> Version 3.9.3: Post Categorization Feature http://official.mywapblog.com/post/47.xhtml Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:37:00 +0000

Highlights:

  1. Guestbook on “About Me” page
  2. “Invite for Discussion” feature which sends invitations (via email) to all the followers (who have opted to receive invitations)
  3. Chat Room in user blogs
  4. Picture Stream for blogs
  5. Feedback form for blogs
  6. Post Categorization feature
  7. Option to have a picture as blog logo instead of text


One more thing, NOT all help links (?) for the new features might be working. Please bear with this until I fix them.

As with all revisions, DO REPORT BUGS, PLEASE!

Thanks for reading!

Yours Truly,
Arvind]]> Version 3.8.1 – Picture Uploads via Email/MMS http://official.mywapblog.com/post/46.xhtml Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:11:00 +0000 Highlights
  1. Picture Uploads via Email/MMS – Go to “New | Image”
  2. Password Change – Go to “Blog | Settings”, you can find the option to change existing password under “Password” heading
  3. Third-Party Traffic Analytics – Now you can have your traffic monitored by AdMob Analytics. Go to “Misc. | Blog Stats”
  4. New header layout for user blogs
  5. Improved spam filter for comments
  6. Some minor bug fixes. Thanks to Fairuz

I hope everyone likes this revision. Thanks for reading!

And, please report any bugs you encounter.

--
Arvind]]>