How To Access Your Linux Partitions From Windows

Since I’ve been mucking around with Kubuntu, it’s been bugging me that I can’t get at Kubuntu files from Windows XP (I’m dual booting, BTW).

I decided to take the bull by the horns, and this evening decided to do a little digging around the subject. As with all things Open Source, there’s more than one way to skin this particular cat, and a quick search reveals a number of utilities claiming to be of use accessing Linux partitions from various versions of Windows.

After looking at a few different utils, I decided to settle on Ext2 IFS for Windows, which is a small but nifty tool that allows you read and write access to your Linux drives. A lot of tools only offer read access, which is great but a bit limiting if you need to edit a file stored on Linux.

It also allows you to assign a drive letter to the Linux partition so that you can easily identify the partition, access it through Windows Explorer and all your standard Windows programs:

It installs a pure kernel mode file system driver Ext2fs.sys, which actually extends the Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 operating system to include the Ext2 file system. Since it is executed on the same software layer at the Windows NT operating system core like all of the native file system drivers of Windows (for instance NTFS, FASTFAT, or CDFS for Joliet/ISO CD-ROMs), all applications can access directly to Ext2 volumes. Ext2 volumes get drive letters (for instance G:). Files, and directories of an Ext2 volume appear in file dialogs of all applications. There is no need to copy files from or to Ext2 volumes in order to work with them.

The best bit of this utility? It doesn’t even require a reboot!

The beauty of this is that I can now access my Windows network from within Kubuntu and I can also access my Linux directories from Windows, which means the cost and risk of running Kubuntu is reduced further. If you’re teetering on the edge of running Linux, give this a go.

Hide The Sidebar In Google Reader

I’ve been trying to get to grips with keyboard shortcuts in Google Reader for a while now, but I discovered a cool one today when randomly pressing buttons.

To hide the sidebar subscriptions list in Reader, simply press the “u” key and it’ll disappear. Press “u” again to make the sidebar reappear.

Doing this can cause the reading pane to jump about a bit, but if you’re stuck for space on a low-resolution monitor, you just might find this useful. Alternatively, go out and buy a bigger monitor.

Favourite Google Reader keyboard shortcuts at the moment are “j” and “k” to move to the next and previous posts respectively. What are yours?

Get RSS Feeds For Any Simple Machines Forum

Simple Machines Forum is an excellent piece of free forum-ware. However, out of the box, it’s rubbish at giving you up-to-date features like RSS feeds.

I mentioned a while back that it was possible to republish RSS feeds from your forum on your blog.

How do we achieve this? Well, it’s quite easy actually. With the WordPress RSS widget, you can display the titles from just about any RSS feed you can hook into.

Getting The RSS URL You Want

Right, so let’s look at our Simple Machines forum and see how to extract the latest posts to RSS. Here’s my forum. It’s divided into several categories, with boards for specific topics. You can fetch an RSS feed for any board or topic easily….if you know how to structure the URL.

Categories

Let’s say we want to display the latest posts in my Reality TV category. The URL looks something like this /index.php?action=collapse;c=4;sa=collapse;#4. The key part of the querystring is c=4, which identifies the category. Now, to get Simple Machines Forum to output the category as RSS, let’s recraft the URL a little bit:

/index.php?c=4;type=rss;action=.xml;limit=20

The additional parameters tell SMF to output the category as RSS and show a maximum of 20 items.

Topics

If you wanted to use a specific topic, you can replace the c=4 with board=16.0. Your URL might look something like this:

/index.php?board=16.0;type=rss;action=.xml;limit=20

Setting Up Your WordPress RSS Widget

Now comes the easy bit - adding the feed to WordPress. Go into your wp-admin area and browse to Presentation and then to Sidebar Widgets. Drag in a new RSS Widget to the place in the sidebar you want the widget to appear. Click the configure icon, then paste in the URL you created above.

Once you save your widget, it will instantly on the website (see below).

The only disadvantage is - as you can see from the illustration above - the RSS feed tends to display individual responses, so if you’ve got a string of replies to a thread, that title will be repeated loads of times.

Press Releases and Search Engine Benefits

Savvy bloggers use press releases as a method of getting exposure for their blogs in the mainstream media.

We’ve used it recently with our website and had good coverage with local press and media. In fact, word has it that the BBC spotted Lisa on a rival channel and tried frantically to get in touch, even ringing people with the same surname in Crumlin! We must’ve forgotten to send them the press release!

Aaron Shear, who I’ve been reading for the last few weeks has some useful pointers if you’re considering press releases as a marketing strategy for your blog.

Firstly, Aaron recommends using an internet wire service, presumably PR Leap or PR Web. This is your best bet anyway, although we’re trying to amass a database of relevant journalists and publications that we can contact directly also.

Another important point is to include hyperlinks in the document to specific pages in your site. You should also target the link text for appropriate keywords, because if your release is used, you will receive very well targetted backlinks!

Probably the strongest suggestion Aaron puts forward is to publish press releases on your website. This is an approach I hadn’t considered before, but it would be useful to have an archive of press releases available for journalists to look back at prior developments.

With our TV blog, I try to write a thought-provoking piece on a topical show (say the recent race controversy in Celebrity Big Brother) or perhaps start a campaign to support a particular contestant. I’ll then create a press release linking to that piece and stating our opinions.

The most important thing - if you’re going to use press releases frequently - is to document the process: publishing a newsworthy piece (in my case), writing an interesting press release and then releasing it. You’ll be sending to targetted people as well as general services like PR Leap, so get a spreadsheet or database of contacts and use this every time. Add to it as other sources come up.

By documenting the process, you’ll be able to carry out a press release campaign with military precision every time.

Navigate Like A Pro In FireFox

Lifehacker has a post about dragging unlinked URLs to the address bar to navigate.

Let’s say you come across an URL that hasn’t been linked. Select it (careful with spaces at the start and end) and drag it up to the address bar. Release the mouse and FireFox will automagically jump to that page.

In fact, you can even drag regular links to the address bar for the same effect.

Other FireFox Navigation Tricks & Techniques

This got me thinking about other navigation tricks I wanted to share. Let’s try:

• ALT+HOME: This shortcut will take you back to the browsers default homepage.
• Changing Your Default Homepage: Drag a link from the address bar over the Home button. Release the mouse and you’ll be asked if you want to reset your homepage.
• ALT+D or CTRL+L: This jumps you straight into the address bar and allows you to either type in a new address or modify the address that’s already there. CTRL+L works in Internet Explorer, FireFox and Opera.
• ALT+Back Arrow/ALT+Forward Arrow: The essential Back/Forward browsing commands. Don’t leave home without them.
• CTRL+T: Open up a new tab in your browser window. It’ll start up with the cursor in the address bar waiting on your command. Literally.
• CTRL+TAB: Cycles through the various tabs you have open in FireFox. Bonus points for using CTRL+SHIFT+TAB to cycle backwards! Got too many tabs open? Then you might need…
• CTRL+W: Closes the current tab you’re looking at. Be careful, closing the last tab shuts down FireFox!
• Preloading Pages: I like to read stuff right through to the end before reading material that’s been linked to in the post. To have all the material ready and waiting, I middle click each of the links as I browse and they load up in new tabs while I’m reading.
• Bookmarking: If you’re old school and insist on bookmarking, CTRL+D will bookmark the page you’re on. Actually, I’m using the Del.icio.us Bookmarks extension for FireFox and CTRL+D brings up a new bookmark in that too! Hooray!

Conclusion

Well, the conclusion is that I am a FireFox ninja! Most of these tricks should work in Internet Explorer, only a few work in Opera (unfortunately). If you’re a Flock fan, everything should work as I foretold it.

Nonetheless, learning them has improved my web browsing experience no end.

Over to you. Care to share any Power User tips for FireFox?

How Semantic XHTML And CSS Can Benefit Your Website

Mani Sheriar has written an interesting post on the Vitamin website about her experiences with XHTML and CSS web design.

Though Mani touches upon the basic benefits of streamlined CSS/XHTML design, like improved accessibility, page loading and search engine friendliness, she focuses mostly on the long-term benefits of the Standards-based approach.

How easy is it to approach a redesign in the future?

Well, Mani suggests approaching the XHTML structure first, regardless of what the final design will look like - Let’s code our XHTML as if we plan to have 10 different designers apply their own unique layouts to it. If we can do it that way, then we will be able to execute minor or even major design overhauls without touching a single page in the site.

The logic of this idea is carefully explained through experience of several site designs and subsequent realigns, which were achieved with virtually the same XHTML structure.

I must say, this idea appeals as a designer. The closest I have come to this in the real world is through adapting the Sandbox theme for WordPress.

Sandbox is an incredibly complex and powerful WordPress theme that makes the best possible use of semantic XHTML, even implementing Microformats where they can be identified.

The idea behind Sandbox is that it can be skinned completely through CSS, and is flexible enough that you can move containers around in the CSS rather than constantly change your XHTML.

Essentially the whole idea harks back to the ethos behind the CSSZenGarden site: one well-formed XHTML document can be styled in unlimited ways with the right creative input. Very good article and a reminder that we should be striving to improve the art of web standards, not merely resting on our laurels!

Operator Firefox Extension Gives Microformats Wings

Finally! I’ve been watching discussions on Microformats avidly over the last year. The debate over microformats seemed to be all very academic, as no tools existed to locate and harness microformat data.

I’ve just discovered the Operator extension for FireFox, which is a plugin to detect and debug microformats on any web page. I’ve tested this on a couple of pages I’m working on, and it’s extremely useful.

You can use Operator to debug your microformats. Holding down the Ctrl key when you select a microformat action will show you the HTML that corresponds to that microformat. In addition, holding down the Shift key when you select a microformat action will display our internal representation of the microformat data.

The difficulty with microformats thus far is that they’re generally invisible to users. To see widespread adoption of the microformat standard, we need to be able to detect instances on a webpage and then be able to do something useful with them. For example, Operator gives us the ability to export vCard information to Outlook (at least that’s how it worked for me).

The one drawback of Operator is that it adds yet another toolbar to Firefox, which has the effect of cluttering the screen and further reducing the viewable area. Perhaps dropping this to the status bar would be a better solution?

Regardless, Operator is hopefully a tentative step forward for the Microformats movement! I haven’t mentioned Tails Export, by the way, because it’s still not compatible with Firefox 2.

Death Of The Pageview And Other Crazy Prophecies

I love reading MicroPersuasion, but I think Steve Rubel has flipped his lid by declaring the death of the pageview!

I am going to make an argument that whatever succeeds the page view (RIP) needs to go beyond counting traffic. In a Long Tail world we shouldn’t care about big amalgamated numbers. Marketers are going to need to reach atomized targets who will hopefully go and spread the message to others. This could be a universe of five our six people in some cases. We want to impact the right “cells” so that they go out and multiply.

The problem, which Rubel acknowledges, is that there is no alternative measurement of success of a website. You can encourage debate all you like, but a site which receives millions of pageviews per month is obviously a popular spot and likely to attract advertisers who want to get a message to those eyeballs!

For thought-leaders like Rubel to convince the industry of the need for change, we need to see models for an alternative way of measuring a site’s popularity, reach or influence. Since Steve first raised the issue a month or so ago, there hasn’t been much practical debate around alternatives to pageview metrics. This needs to change.

If an industry-wide alternative is agreed upon (not an easy task!), then we still need to wait for tools to capture and analyse the new metrics. Publishers and advertisers alike would need to be prepared for the new regime.

Peter Daboll of Yahoo makes a good point that poorly designed sites will count more pageviews than those using more advanced techniques like AJAX, which potentially reduce the number of pageviews. An astute commenter on that blog points to MySpace as the definitive ‘poorly designed site’ which forces page refreshes for virtually everything.

From my point of view, the pageview remains a valid metric. I’m not too bothered about the accuracy of the stats I receive - different analytics programs vary to some degree on how many visitors/hits you’ve had.

From an advertisers point of view, a different mechanism for identifying quality publishers would be useful. Perhaps something like Technorati’s algorithim for sites with authority would be a start - the more backlinks/discussions a site has, the more influential it may be. As a result, marketers may want to tap into that audience and expose their products and services to a highly relevant audience.

Whatever the outcome, there seems to be a desire (mostly from the marketing community) to find a better means of evaluating website popularity. Perhaps for the budding entrepreneur, there’s a goldmine waiting to be tapped in identifying the golden metric they’re looking for and building the tools to mine that data!

Cameron Moll - Griding The 960

Cameron Moll recently redesigned his website to a width compatible with a 1024 x 768 pixel screens. I’ve started to become convinced that this is the way to go, as 800 x 600 resolution monitors slide even further into obscurity.

Anyway, Cameron recently posted some useful grid images that you can use in CSS design to see how if your containers are complying to your spec or if there’s a problem. You simply apply the image as the background image for the container element and then you can refer to it as you work. Highly useful!

I’m working on taking all my blogs to a 950px wide format in the near future, so I’ll be road-testing this technique in the weeks ahead!

AdSense In The Afterlife?

I had a giggle at the title of Eric Giguere’s post, Do You Have An Adsense Will?

Imagine it: you fall under a bus tomorrow and the next day your solicitor writes to Google requesting that your AdSense cheques are forwarded to your new address in Hades….

Seriously though, we’ve all heard the dire warnings about backing up our blogs, making sure we have recent copies of our files, databases, etc. You never think about what happens your blog though, do you?

With many people making a reasonable extra income from AdSense, it makes sense to ensure your wife/partner/whoever can access your accounts after you’re gone. Forget AdSense, if you have a popular blog, there might even be value in selling it on, which might be helpful to your wife and kids…..

Things To Record

For each site you run, you’ll probably need to write down the following:

Technical Details:

• Content Management Platform: WordPress, Drupal, whatever.
• Username and password details for CMS

Hosting Details:

• Name and URL of host. Also address of hosts administration area.
• Login details for host control panel
• FTP account details (for file backups and uploading)
• Database account details (again for backups)
• Type of hosting: LAMP or ASP.NET?

Monetization Details:

• There may be several advertising programmes in place, especially if your name’s Darren Rowse. Record the following:
• Name and URL of provider: Google AdSense, Feedburner, Amazon Affiliates, etc
• Your username and password to access the account.
• Details of payment information/PayPal accounts used to receive funds.

Hmmm. That’s about all I can think about at the moment. The benefits of recording your account information will allow you to pass on the benefits of your hard work after you’re gone. Hell, they might even pay for your funeral!

Once you’ve recorded all your site details, you’ll be wanting to keep the information somewhere safe:

…put it in a secure location like a safety deposit bank. You might even go so far as to include a list of instructions as to what to do immediately after your death, such as logging into your AdSense account and suspending payments until things get sorted out. Just make sure all the right details are there…

If I’ve missed anything, be sure to let me know!

Found via the ever vigilant Blogging Pro!