freshbytes

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…

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

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: birthday, connect, engineering, facebook, fresh, Freshbytes, mainland, News, offers, one year, publishing, results, serious, TCE, update, wordpress

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.

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:

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.

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 » 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: Blog, connect, facebook, layout, login

So, I’m done.

No more school, ever.

We’re going to be continuing with the “I don’t want to leave school” theme, ‘cos after reading some comments on previous “I don’t want to leave” posts, I found I have some more things to say…(a rare occurence, indeed).

So if you’re too lazy to click the links, Jawapro said:

What’s really odd is coming back to your old school after a few years have passed. There’s a few faces you remember (who were much younger when you were at school) but it’s just not the same.

5 or 6 years later – and so much has changed that it’s hard to imagine. Teachers have moved on – classes have changed buildings (so has one of my old schools) – and only the very youngest people you knew are still around as students. It’s quite moving – and slightly depressing. That place you remember as being the best part of your life (if it was) no longer exists, and never will again.

I’m not sure if this is true, but really. I’d hate to see Calvin turn into some unrecognisable place, just another blot on the kingston landscape.

Now that school’s over (for college students, as well as year 10s), I have a lot of time to do a couple of things that need to be done.

I have made a facebook account. You can search for me, I’m Benny Ling, obviously. Add me as a friend, invite me to join a cool group, whatever.

I’ve heard that Social Networking is the best thing since sliced bread… I’ve also heard that it’s highly overrated.

I won’t make my decision until I’ve experienced more of facebook, though. It’s currently very cool, and a HUGE step in terms of interacting with friends. All sorts of friends.

I’m yet to figure out any sort of “facebook code of conduct”, which contain rules on who you can become friends with, what sorts of groups you can join, etc. Actually – I just saw this on Digg: Facebook Etiquette: Five Dos and Don’ts. Nice! Perfect timing. After looking over the list, I realise that it’s more or less common sense anyway – the only things I didn’t know where about business friends… Pfft.

Initial impressions of facebook include: hard to get used to. Complex interface makes simple tasks more complicated than they have to be. Far too many configurable options. A hell of a lot of Ajax and Javascript powers those pages. After a full day of facebooking, still unsure about certain features. Still unsure about the chat system. Ram usage high, or that could just be me. Facebook app on iPhone is awesome. Don’t understand how people would use both Twitter + facebook at the same time – seems like an overkill of social networking, if you ask me…

Oh well. The night is still young.

A quick shout out to Joe W – congrats on your 18th. Hope you didn’t get too smashed.

Radi8 news: apparently, my non-attendance has been marked. Apologies – I was working.

Our Year 12 Leavers Dinner is tomorrow night. Should be good. Afterparty? Meh. Pics to come (either on facebook or here, haven’t quite decided yet). Also need a camera.

I think that’s it. Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, digg, facebook, formal, iphone, iphone 3g, myspace, radi8, School

[Quick shout-out to the last episode of season 4 of The O.C – The End’s Not Near, it’s Here]

So I had my last day of formal school last friday.

Last day of school – for ever.

For ever – it means no more BBQ Bonanzas from Bakers Delight, no more Ronson, no upper common room superiority, no shouting obscenities at innocent passers-by, none of that.

To think that I won’t ever run another assembly at Calvin again, nor ‘just hang’ with my mates outside the common room, taking in some serious sunlight.

Unless I see bump into my friends in town or something, I probably won’t ever see them again. I can guarantee you that there will be people from my year that I will never, ever see again (after the formal, of course).

Everyone says that they’ll stay in touch, but they never do – this is a proven fact.

It’s no secret that I’m really disappointed about leaving. Hell, I doubt you’d want to leave a place filled with people who care about you, a place where you’ve experienced the highs and lows of the best friendships of your life, or the place where you’ve never consumed so much junk food in any single day.

We say we’ll look onwards and upwards to Uni, or whatever we’re doing next year. In truth, we probably will, but we’ll never forget how good the upper common room smelled, how it felt, what kind of a vibe it had.

We say we’ll keep in touch, but the sad truth is that we almost never do. If we happen to bump into each other in the street, sure, we’ll stand in the middle of the road and catch up, but we’ll rarely go out of our way to dedicate some time to really catch up – usually because we’re far too busy doing our own things. Besides, that’s what FaceBook is for Speaking of FaceBook, I’ll be getting one sometime after exams. I detest MySpace with a passion, though, so I definitely won’t be getting a MySpace.

Alternatively, you can contact me through various ways – the easiest is to shoot me an email (bennglingbling [at] gmail [dot] com), but you can see other ways to contact me here.

Anyways, freshbytes is here to assist you in keeping in touch with your mates from Calvin – for those who aren’t into the whole “social networking” thing at all, freshbytes is here for you.

Visit the forums, or simply post comments on posts. I’d appreciate it

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, bonanza, calvin, facebook, forums, myspace, ronson, School