Blog

When we agree with what someone says or writes, we express our support with words like “like,” “+1,” or “well said.” “Like” is a Facebook button. And +1? Well, now even Google is copying Facebook and has launched a +1 button. Its function is similar to the Like button, but there’s one very important difference: the +1 button affects your website’s search ranking. How much it affects it, I don’t know, but what’s certain is that “+1” affects search results. Also, the websites you +1 will show up in your Google Profile. Now let me show you how to put a +1 button on your own website xD ...

Anyone who builds a site with a CMS (such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla) has probably heard the saying: use fewer plugins and your site will load much faster. For example, if I want a Lightbox effect on my site, I can manually add the jQuery code, or I can just install a plugin. Both methods achieve the same result, but they can make a noticeable difference in how fast the site loads. ...

Maintenance mode seems to have been introduced around WordPress 3.0. When your WordPress is being updated, it automatically enters maintenance mode to keep visitors from seeing error messages. I had actually been looking forward to this feature for a long time, because almost every other mature CMS has it — Xoops, for example, lets you temporarily shut down your site, and the well-known forum software Discuz! can also temporarily close a forum and restrict access to specific users. WordPress's maintenance mode, though, isn't very good yet: you can't enable it manually. It only turns on automatically while files are being updated. This article will show you how to enable maintenance mode by hand....

It’s been a busy day. From getting the site set up yesterday to getting the domain bound today, it’s been about 24 hours~ I hereby officially announce: the Zhufeng Tech Blog is live~ The Zhufeng Tech Blog is a branch site of the Wind Chaser blog. The site owner is the same person, but the articles on the Zhufeng Tech Blog will be more in-depth, focusing on technical topics like programming languages and web design. Currently the posting frequency is about two articles a week; if I have time it’ll be more, but it won’t drop below two a week. Also, as for ads on the Zhufeng Tech Blog, I can guarantee that there won’t be any ads for the first six months, because the funding for the next six months is definitely enough to keep the site running, and the ad revenue from the main site is still sufficient. Zhufeng Tech Blog permalink: https://coder.tw/ Zhufeng Tech Blog permanent RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/tfeng-tech ...

I finally received my first Google ad payment today. I originally wanted to write about receiving my first money earned online, but that isn't quite accurate 0.0 so I'm calling it my first Google ad payment XD. Google originally told me the money would be sent on January 30, and I could collect it on January 31. But they actually sent it on the 25th, and I didn't notice. By the time I realized they had paid early, it was already the 29th. That day was a Saturday, so the bank was closed, and I could only go on Monday. So in the end, it made no difference whether they paid early or not. Right now, Google AdSense supports two payment methods: Western Union Quick Cash and checks. I know that a check feels really satisfying to hold. Even though the amount on it is a bit small… a check feels great, but it comes with a fee. Also, mailing a check from the US to Taiwan takes several weeks. With Western Union, there’s no fee, and you can go to the bank to collect the money the day after Google pays out. It’s very convenient, which is why almost everyone uses Western Union to get their Google ad money these days. ...

Two years. Not short, not long. I’ve gone from a junior high student back then to a first-year high school student now. I went through the Basic Competence Test (jīcè), went through a lot, and learned a lot. My blog has also changed, from the very first one, “Simple, Non-Computer” (Jiǎndān Fēi Diànnǎo) on Wretch, a Taiwanese blog service, all the way to today’s WordPress blog, “The Wind Chaser” (Zhú Fēng Zhě). Time really flies, and two years have just passed like that!! It feels like a blink of an eye, just like when I graduated from elementary school and couldn’t help looking back on those years, even all the way back to kindergarten, and realized six years had slipped away. It’s a little sentimental, but also quite happy, because I’ve grown up XD, and so has my blog ^^ ...

Before I knew it, a whole year had gone by. The virtual hosting I was using from server zoo was also about to expire. During this period I had a slightly bad impression of server zoo. At one point they said something about a system problem or whatever, and that files might be corrupted (luckily mine were fine XD). I was really annoyed back then. But they later made up for it with compensation, so it was fine, and my data didn’t disappear^^ ...

Someone asked me the other day what WordPress can do. That's actually a hard question to answer, because WordPress is extremely extensible — you can use plugins to add all sorts of features to your blog, and you can even make your blog not look like a blog at all ^^ WordPress also lets users install themes to dress up their blog nicely. If your skills are good enough, you can design your own theme too, but that's not what this article covers. This article is mainly about how to install plugins and themes. ...

You ask me how deep my love is, how much I love you? (just kidding~) You ask me what I think is the best blogging software in the world for building a site? I’ll definitely tell you it’s WordPress. It’s not just because my own blog is built with WordPress that I say this. Back when I was choosing what software to use to build Wind Chaser, I considered using something like Xoops paired with plugins to construct a blog, and I also tried LifeType, the blogging software the school uses, but neither was very good. LifeType’s interface in particular was really unbearable, extremely unfriendly, and it had our English teacher dropping by every so often to ask me how to read replies, how to publish a post… On top of that, LifeType’s extensibility isn’t as good as WordPress’s. Anyway, WordPress is just the best ^^ If you don’t believe me, try installing it yourself~~ ...

When you look for files online, you often run into an annoying situation: you finally find the file you want, click the link, and get… “This page has been removed. Please contact the site administrator.” It’s really frustrating. But it’s not entirely the webmaster’s fault. Once a website grows, it has a lot of outgoing links, and the webmaster can’t check every one of them by hand. Some webmasters ask users to report broken links, but I don’t think that works well. Someone who has already hit a dead link is annoyed enough. Why would they bother reporting it? Here I want to introduce Broken Link Checker, a plugin made specifically for WordPress. It automatically checks your WordPress blog for broken links and broken images (the broken-image icons that Chinese speakers jokingly call “steamed buns”). Broken Link Checker can also email you when a broken link appears on your blog. It’s very convenient, but I’d recommend that first-time installers don’t turn that feature on right away. Many people find over a thousand broken links or images the first time they run it, and their inbox gets flooded XD ...