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Archive for October, 2010

Auto post WordPress to Facebook fan page

Posted by admin in Wordpress Wednesday, 13 October 2010 18:02 No Comments

I have already talked about how to auto post WordPress to Facebook using the WordBook plug-in. The plug-in allows you to automatically post your latest WordPress blog post to your Facebook account. But what if you have a Facebook fan page and you want to keep your personal account separately? By using a Facebook application called NetworkedBlogs, you can automatically post your latest WordPress blog post to a Facebook fan page.

How to do an auto post from WordPress to Facebook fan page

Add the NetworkedBlogs application on your Facebook account (you can do this by searching for “NetworkedBlogs” and then add the application through there).
Follow the steps to add the application successfully to your account.
After you add it in, go to the Application (through your Facebook profile’s sidebar) and find the “Register a Blog” button on the top of the NetworkedBlogs application.
Fill your Blog Name, URL, and other details in.
Follow the steps to successfully validate the blog and to confirm that you are the author of the blog.
If everything is successful, you should be able to see your blog’s feed on the NetworkedBlogs application page
Now, go to your Facebook fan page (mine is at http://www.facebook.com/CravingTech -be a fan if you haven’t!) and then click on the “Edit Page” on the left sidebar menu.
You should see the NetworkedBlogs application in the list of other applications (assuming you’ve done all the steps correctly)
Click on the “Edit” link (just below the NetworkedBlogs title).
You should be able to see all the blogs that you’ve set-up from the previous steps, including your own:
Make sure you tick on the box under the column heading “Publish to Wall & Show on Tab“.
Save and just follow the last steps (granting permission, etc)

Congratulations, that was easy, wasn’t it? From now on, everytime you publish a post on your WordPress blog, it will also be published to your blog’s fan page’s wall automatically. I’m just wondering how to get an email notification when someone posts a comment on your fan page’s wall though (like you normally do if someone posts something onto your wall).

article courtesy of http://www.cravingtech.com/auto-post-wordpress-to-facebook-fan-page.html

How to include clickable (active) links in the press release?

Posted by admin in Press Releases Wednesday, 13 October 2010 18:00 No Comments

You can control which URLs in your press release are clickable and which are not. To include clickable links in your press release body, start them with http://

For example-

What you enter	What people see	Remarks
Visit http://www.prlog.org for details	Visit http://www.prlog.org for details	Activated
Visit www.prlog.org for details	Visit www.prlog.org for details	Not Activated
Visit <a href=”http://www.prlog.org”> PRLog</a> for details	Visit PRLog for details	Not Activated

This will work in the press release body field only. First 3 such URLs in the press release body will be converted to clickable links. The About section is considered part of the body for this purpose. Please note that other press release fields like headline, summary, etc don’t support clickable links.

Also, if you copy and paste from another program, all your clickable links will become plain URLs in the copy-paste process. First 3 URLs starting with http:// will be automatically converted to clickable links when previewing the press release. So, if you can see links in the press release preview, then they’ll show up like that later when the press release is published.

There is no limit on the size of the URLs. Our system can handle both short and long URLs equally well. If you do see an issue, alert us and we’ll fix it.

One final note, for the press release to look professional and not totally promotional, it is recommended to have links in the end of the press release. The software automatically enforces the following rules-

Links starting before first 200 characters in the press release body are not activated.
For press release body … (Very easy to meet)
- >2000 characters, 3 links are activated.
- >1500 characters, 2 links are activated.
- >1000 characters, 1 link is activated.

How to prevent wordpress from messing up with your rich editing tags

Posted by admin in Wordpress Wednesday, 13 October 2010 17:59 No Comments

fter spending countless hours fighting with wordpress changing my tags and text formatting in it’s rich text editor I finally decided to create a tiny little cute plugin that makes wordpress to leave alone my HTML formatting, tags and line breaks. Essentially the source code of the whole thing is this:

function myautop ($text) { return $text; }
function mytext  ($text) { return $text; }
remove_filter ('the_content', 'wpautop');
add_filter    ('the_content', 'myautop');
remove_filter ('the_content', 'wptexturize');
add_filter    ('the_content', 'mytext');

You may download actual plugin from the link below. Just unzip, copy it into ./plugins directory, activate and enjoy. Note: to fix another big annoyance with WordPress eliminating line breaks – this is what I use to “create” line breaks that WordPress doesn’t kill. In HTML mode insert this code:

<div style="margin:2em;"><span style="display:none;">-</span></div>

Advantage of this method is that you can regulate size of your “custom line break” by changing value in “margin” CSS tag. Bonus TIP: Actually I just found a better way to keep linebreaks: Advanced TinyMCE plugin seems to add lot more features to TinyMCE editor as well as has an option to stop WordPress’s messing up with line breaks.

Download: WP-AllowTags WordPress Plugin that allows inserting tags

Facebook Apps can cause problems with your Privacy

Posted by admin in Misc, Security Wednesday, 13 October 2010 17:46 No Comments

Facebook launched its widely popular application developer program back in May 2007. As of press time, there were more than 14,000 applications. Some, including most of the popular apps, are made by companies, while a few of the popular apps, and a significant number of the long tail of the less popular applications are made by individual developers.

But a new study suggests there may be a bigger problem with the applications. Many are given access to far more personal data than they need to in order to run, including data on users who never even signed up for the application. Not only does Facebook enable this, but it does little to warn users that it is even happening, and of the risk that a rogue application developer can pose.

Privacy problems for the user

In order to install an application, a Facebook user must first agree to “allow this application to…know who I am and access my information.” Users not willing to permit the application access to all kinds of data from their profile cannot install it onto their Facebook page.

(Credit: Facebook)

What kind of information does Facebook give the application developer access to? Practically everything. According to the Application Terms of Service,

“Facebook may…provide developers access to…your name, your profile picture, your gender, your birthday, your hometown location…your current location…your political view, your activities, your interests…your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, your summer plans, your Facebook user network affiliations, your education history, your work history,…copies of photos in your Facebook Site photo albums…a list of user IDs mapped to your Facebook friends.”

The applications don’t actually run on Facebook’s servers, but on servers owned and operated by the application developers. Whenever a Facebook user’s profile is displayed, the application servers contact Facebook, request the user’s private data, process it, and send back whatever content will be displayed to the user. As part of its terms of service, Facebook makes the developers promise to throw away any data they received from Facebook after the application content has been sent back for display to the user.

For the entire article, go to: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9854409-46.html