Jan 11

It’s official – I’m out of ideas for posts this week. I have nothing to say that needs to be said, nothing that can be said that could be. Sure, I could be using one of the “backup” posts (things I have floating around in case of emergency), but I think it’s time for a break from the usual serious posts, (last week’s post was the exception to the rule), and time for a freshbytes fresh update…

So instead, I’ll just give you a rundown of what’s happening at freshbytes over the next few weeks.

As some of you may already know, I’m heading overseas for the next couple of weeks. During this time, I’ll be handing over the reins to my very capable (when he’s bothered to be) co-founder, Chris Jacques – which means you’ll still get your weekly dose of freshbytes-love.

As an added bonus, you might even see a post or two from me while I’m away, thanks to WordPress’ excellent publishing tools which allow me to publish a pre-written post on a specific date, at a specific time. Depending on how much writing I manage to get done before I fly out on Thursday.

Hopefully, Chris will provide you with some excellent posts in the traditional freshbytes fashion – either just before the stroke of midnight, or hastily written up and posted within 30 minutes. Otherwise, he might even break the trend and have some pre-mediated posts that are completely brilliant – but we’ll see. ;)

In case you missed it, freshbytes now integrates Facebook Connect. This means that you can sign into freshbytes without having to do the usual sign-up rigamarole – instead, just hit the “Login with Facebook” button on the top left hand corner, and BAM – any comments that you post on posts will automagically be published to your Facebook wall. For more info about this feature, hit this link.

Here at freshbytes, it’s been onwards and upwards ever since our launch back in Febuary of 2008. This is largely due to you, the reader, contributor, user, visitor – and we’d love to thank you for your continued support and everything that you’ve done – wether it be reading our posts, pimping freshbytes at other website, or whatever it is that you do that helps get freshbytes out there.
As a massive thank-you, we’re doing something special for our one-year birthday party – but you’ll have to wait to find out what. Fortunately for me, our birthday arrives just after I get back from overseas – so hopefully, everything should go as planned. The stage has already been set, and the balls have been put in motion – all that’s needed now is the green light from me, and we’re good to go.

Speaking of which – I’ll have plenty to talk about when I get back. Mainland Uni’s start sending out first-round offers for places this thursday, and while I won’t be here to recieve mine, it should also arrive by email or similar. I know I didn’t do well enough in the TCE results to warrant a first-round offer, though – so I’ll be hanging out for second round offers which are released a couple of days before I get back. My parents are pushing for me to accept engineering at UTAS (in case I’m not offered anything else) – but really, engineering just isn’t my thing.

As per our Google Analytics results – it’s been a moderate increase in growth this past month, we’re up 26% in terms of visits over last month. We’ll have to wait and see until the yearly results come out, though! Should make for some interesting reading… :D

Until I see you again, it’s comments below as usual… :)

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec 22

How exactly do you connect with Facebook Connect? Read on to find out!

So, you might have seen the huge “Login using Facebook” button on the sidebar. It’s right below the freshbytes logo, and when you click it, it logs you into this site with your Facebook profile. Don’t worry, I don’t automatically download all of your profile pics or anything freaky like that, nor can I change any of your settings, view anything you don’t want me to view, or invade your privacy in any way, it’s just an easier way for you to comment without having a login for freshbytes.

Facebook Connect Button

Simply put, if you have facebook, you can now post comments on this site without logging into this site.

In the interests of full disclosure, any comments you post to Facebook freshbytes will now be posted to your Facebook wall if you choose to login via the Facebook Connect button, as seen below:

Martin Wall

In my original testing of this new WordPress Plugin, I found it irritating that the profile page borked the layout of the site. However, this has now been fixed, and the profile page now shows in the correct location.

Yet the only annoying thing that remains is the fact that if you choose to logout of freshbytes (when you’re logged in via facebook connect) is that you also get logged out of facebook. It’s something I want to try and fix, as it’s completely not cool, but as of this moment, I really can’t be bothered diving into the code to get that done. If I have to deal with it, so do you. :D

At the end of the day, it’s completely up to you whether you use this plugin or not. Use it, don’t use it, hey, I don’t care.

It would be awesome if I could get some more people in the “Last Visitors” column, though.

Right, so I suppose you lot want some links, then…

Sociable! – The Social Media Blog ยป Facebook Connect Wordpress Plugin

Facebook Developers | Resources

Facebook Developers | Facebook Developers News

So that’s about it, then. Comments below.

UPDATE: Thanks for the proofread, Martin! Much appreciated.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , ,