My friend Binny has started an interesting initiative on his blog, called  “Plugin Week”. The idea is to release one plugin each day, for the entire week. He has already published 2 plugins - Eventr & Autofields Wordpress plugin.

He is lazy, wait, it’s a new kind of laziness, I don’t know any name for it, hmm, ( you can suggest one, of course ).  If you tell him to shut off his PC, when he is not using it, he will say, ok I will write a script for it , so that he pc shuts down itself, when I am not using it for a while .. yes, he can write code for anything and everything.

He told me that he has got some script running on his PC, which downloads all the TED videos to his machine, whenever the Internet connection is free. ( I will get a DVD with Ted videos from him when I visit him next time … oh no !!  that’s not a bribe for writing this post, ok ?  you guys can write me an email or drop a comment and I will get you a copy of that DVD )

Okay, I am still on my break, ( hmmm …. long one .. ) and will get you more updates later. Don’t forget to subscribe to his RSS feed, and try out all his plugins….

So, here is how to make your firefox look like Google Chrome.ie, Google Chrome theme for firefox.

Google Chrome, was love at first sight. Many people fell in love with her, and wanted to make her their primary girl friend ( yea, with browsers, you can have primary , secondary and many more girl friends.. trust me !!  I have 4 or 5 lol ).

Then, what happened ? hmm the same old story … , the girl was just about the looks, I mean, the UI and the color ( no pun intented, sorry if you felt so  !! ). People started going back to their ex girl friend, yes, firefox.  Well, she was too sweet and accepted them, when they came back. Someone ended up using the Google Chrome theme for wordpress.

Now, the story is about to change … some make up for your beauty that is firefox, and make her look like Google Chrome, your dream girl. Click on the image, and then install this theme for firefox , all the best !!

UPDATE : FIXED Manoramaonline.com issue. For manoramaonline.com on Google Chrome, you can install THIS FONT After you install this font, refresh the browser and it should work.

When I tried Google Chrome browser for Malayalam websites, it worked fine. But, then I saw couple of comments about Malayalam font issues on Chrome.

Malayalam UTF fonts were working fine on Chrome, the issue was with manoramaonline.com. To be frank, I am clueless here. Because, I never bothered about how manoramaonline.com’s malayalam page looked like on firefox or IE, and it never worked for me. I was using mathrubhumi.com for news and blogspot, wordpress blogs using Malayalam utf fonts, and I never had any issues. Things were almost the same here with Chrome too.

So, I have two questions.

1. Do you have any issues with Google Chrome Malayalam fonts ? Is it manoramaonline.com only or, just anything written in Malayalam ?

2. Do you know how to fix this issue ?

If you have answer for any of these questions, or another question related to this, drop me a comment here or email me hello at offlineblog.net

As far as I know, if you were able to browse Malayalam websites using firefox, you should not have any problem with Chrome also.

Thanks for your feedback on my previous post, about backing up your wordpress blog. Most of them, were extra tips. Here they are….

1 Niyaz “The problem is that we cannot backup other files like images using this method.”

2 xylene was trying to remember something… “there was some site which will convert our blog into pdf. Any idea which one?”

( I think its this one http://www.expresspdf.com/ConvertHtmlToPdf.aspx )

3 Suda “Good for newbies, but I think when I read WP FAQ first, they ha warned us that its not the way to backup everything and it puts too much load on server if people start using it madly

Suda, and his tip : Backup your Blogroll.

I found a way to backup and import *blogroll* from one blog to another or just backup. May be you already know this.
go to http://yourblog.wordpress.com/wp-links-opml.php where *yourblog* is your own blog URL.

For example in dinu’s case, his blogroll can be exported as OPML file using link http://www.offlineblog.net/wp-links-opml.php

P.S> Dinu, if you think this is a useful tip and people are gonna miss this comment being on old post, you can add it in your TIPS as usual, all people eagerly read them

I am using HTTRACK Website Copier from ages and its really effective. I think I will write a post/tutorial for it soon. It won’t help in moving data to new site but its the best way we can backup a website i.e. downloading it as it is to local machine.

Also that PDF conversion site is superb, it converts page with all images included. Not the page as it looks though, it takes just content in PDF but its worth the trouble.

Thesis ? ….. Ok, I know… that is what you are going to ask me…. right ? Okay, it is a Wordpress theme … or rather,    a premium ( paid ) wordpress theme. If it was a free theme …. you know me very well right ? ( if you do not know … I keep changing my themes .. I change whenever I find a good theme ).

See what it’s author says

I built the Thesis Theme because I wanted a framework that had it all—killer typography, a dynamically resizable layout, intelligent code, airtight optimization, and tons of flexibility. Now, after months of field testing, I’m confident enough to offer it to those of you who have come to expect nothing but the finest themes from me.

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Do you browse the web using mobile phone ? Are you a newbie in this area looking for a good mobile browser ? Opera Mini is the best option for you.

• It looks good
• Works Fast
• It’s free

On my mobile browser ( I don’t know the name ) that came default with the handset, large pages won’t load, because it is trying to display everything in the actual size.

Opermini re sizes the websites to fit on the screen and when we can navigate the page, and zoom wherever we want to see things in the actual size.

The Opera Mini experience has been fabulous so far. I tried accessing my gmail, orkut, webmail for this domain ( Google Apps ), This blog itself, and finally the wordpress admin page too !!

I am still playing with this little cutie. I will need to organize my bookmarks, save passwords for mail accounts and wordpress admin page. ( entering username and password using mobile browsers, is really  boring and time consuming. )

What is the best way to publish this post ?

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If you do not know what cPanel is,

cPanel (control Panel) is a graphical web-based web-hosting control panel, designed to simplify administration of websites. cPanel handles all aspects of website administration in its interface. The software, which is proprietary and distributed by cPanel, Inc., is designed for use by commercial web hosting services, so the company does not offer a reduced-cost personal use license; however, owners of non-profit organizations such as educational institutions and charities can request a license at a free or reduced cost. Reduced prices are frequently available from dedicated-server companies, who install it along with the operating system.

I am familiar with cPanel, and was expecting my new webhost to have it. It’s too common in the hosting industry and I did not look for it in the features list on the plan page. After I got the login information, I started looking for the link to login to cPanel. Nothing !! I have no idea how to manage the website. I went back to the webhost’s site and started looking for cPanel. Well, they don’t use cPanel, but a custom control panel, which they have developed.

It took almost 30 minutes for me to figure out how things are and what I am supposed to do. Setting up wordpress and uploading my theme was easy and somewhat similar to cPanel. Anyways, problem starts when I want to something else other than wordpress. I will have to figure out how to do it before doing it. What if some error comes up ? search for the fix again.

Other than that, I am happy with the service, and performance of the new host. And yes, its always to good to learn new stuff… right ?