Build a tumblr-like blog with online apps

Apps needed: blogger.com, gmail.com, rssfwd.com

Why Blogger.com?

Because Blogger.com provides mail-to-blogger function which is the key for our next step. Besides, bloggers' FTP publish and Custom Domain supports are very important elements to make a blog better, say, easier to rebuild your blog in other servers.

How to import twitter,flickr,del.icio.us and other online apps automatically?

Nowadays most of online applications have their own rss feed to notice people once they have updates, and the rss are usually exported as full-text or full-image format, so I think we can subscribe the rss feeds at rssfwd.com using gmail, and then create a filter that automatically forward emails (rss content) from rssfwd to blogger, hence, every rss update will be published in blogger as a single post.

Or you make things simple, skip gmail, just use your Mail-to-Blogger Address to subscribe rssfwd feed, but the confirmation process should be taken special attention to, and there are some potential security and control problems when using this method.

Tough issues

1. Basically, old posts,pictures,bookmarks and twitter can not be imported.
   
2. The frequency of rssfwd is not as timely as tumblr or soup.io
3. Can't not filter extra content from rssfwd, especially the unsubscribe link (maybe other rss to email services can solve this problem)

I hope this post can inspire someone who is interest in micro blogging and DIY, of course my defective solution can not help you make an user-friendly personal miniblog, i need time to improve. If you have any ideas or suggestions on this topic, please do leave me a comment!


Technorati Tags: tumblr, soup, miniblog, howto, hack, diy

After Feedburner was Blocked

It's been a month after Feedburner was blocked, people in mainland China manage to get use to the fact and most bloggers have switched their feeds to feedsky, the local feed service provider that I've mentioned for several times.

Everything seems to be OK - I mean thanks to the alternative solution provided by feedsky, Chinese bloggers have chances to re-count how many readers they actually have and to know if they are really as influential as the feedburner statis presented. However, there are three more things that I think need to make people known.

1. Domestic online RSS Readers can load feedburner feeds. Like many people's prediction, China-based online RSS Reader providers must do whatever they can do to keep feedburner feeds available in their RSS Readers. Technically, not very difficult to realize that, simply use the proxies.
2. Carsten has found new open proxies to access to feedburner directly, read his post for details.
3. Feedsky is obviously the best substitute presently, while some foreign blogger do not know how to set up a feedsky feed for their Chinese readers, Rick Martin has wrote a very detailed article with pictures on how to do that. But... I have a not very pleased old information to tell Rick, that Feedsky already had an English language interface months ago, they didn't announce :( It's all feedsky's fault, they didn't officially tell others about their English edition even in their English Blog ( Can this prove that in Asia, connection is extremely important for getting infomation?).

gfw feedsky feedburner

BoBoing - Boing Boing's Chinese Diggest

BoBoing is a new entertainment team blog which is dedicated in translating Boing Boing's interesting stories. At the first glance, nothing special on it can catch my sight, I mean, many Chinese Blogs are titled as "Boing Boing's Chinese language edition" but virtually become silent or disappear in this year, such as the dying Postshow (it's possibly dead when you see this post).

However, my intuition tells me BoBoing can not only survive but will become a sound brand on China internet one day. As the initiator Sein told me BoBoing was a sister blog of Jandan and the Jandan authors team would continue to update both blogs, my intuition tells me again that BoBoing may be a sound brand among china blogosphere in the furture.

Why I'm so interest in another Jandan-mode translation blogs and think it highly? Because:

1. BoBoing's orientation satisfy readers - Most Chinese internet users surf the web for relax, this make entertainment blogs easier to be accepted. In addition, few influential media focus on translating boing boing, so in the eyes of normal Chinese netizens, boboing's Chinese language posts are "unique" and never seen before.
2. Listing out the key information - Many Chinese bloggers insist that translating a full article into fluent Chinese is quite important, while Jandan-mode think that Blog posts should be short and summary, to avoid infringement and save readers' time.
   
3. Not only translation - Thanks to the development of artificial intelligence technology and language education, translation is no longer an impossible mission for us, I firmly believe that with the help of computer, even a 15-year-old middle school student can translate a post from techcrunch. Hence, to be a successful translation blog in China, bloggers have to create their core competitive strength. Both BoBoing and Jandan have developed their unique "humor" culture which added extra fun to their posts and this advantage made them different from hundreds of other "translation robots".
4. Got a reliable and accountable head - Some team blogs in China can not last long because their writers get tired of making contribution without pay, the sad truth is, making money from blogs is still a very challenging job in China. Under such situation, the head of the team must try his best to motivate members, in this case, must help authors retain their interest in voluntary translation. I believe the initiator Sein do the organizing job well: he aways can find qualified and voluntary translators on the internet, he set up loosen rules and create very relax environment and never push the authors. Despite of organizing the team and providing technical support, he is also a diligently writer of Jandan and BoBoing especially when other authors are tired...
   

PS: Merely introducing is boring, and I will prefer to add my analysis in my future posts.

How to visit blogs that are banned

Today I received an email from Wei who just returned to China, he asked if there are any ways to access Blogspot blogs and xanga. As usual, I replied him with my answers and his problem were solved.

Considering that many foreigners (we prefer to call them "Laowai" for short) know little about China's internet censorship, I feel it's necessary to write a post here to tell everybody how to visit banned blogs.

My solutions:

1. Use http://www.pkblogs.com/ , it's a special web-based proxy designed for blogspot blogs
2. Use Google Reader or Bloglines or other available foreign online RSS Readers, they can automatically load recent posts from most blogs
   
3. Use web-based proxies listed on this page or from this result, if everything goes well you should be able to read and comment
4. Firefox users may try this method, I'm not sure whether it's still working though.
5. Install proxy software, like Freegate and Tor . According to my experience, they are very slow in scanning alternative IPs and loading websites...

Technorati Tags: proxy gfw block howto

Why Blogday2007 down in China

It's Blogday again, but this year, bloggers in China, Taiwan and Hongkong seems to be lazy to celebrate this day, what's the problem?

I had a short conversation with Nir Ofir, the blogday's initiator. He gave me a link to his blogday video, however the video is hosted in Google Video where people in China can't see. This remind me that China bloggers have a very difficult time, they (here i use "they" as a geography concept, I'm in Kuala Lumpur now) are forbidden to visit many foreign websites, let alone to use some widely-used web services. China bloggers are trying to get used to the online life without international media and services, but recently the out of feedburner sorely struke them. Because of this, many China bloggers showed little enthusiasm.

There are other reasons to explain why Blogday become less attractive this year:

1. Nir didn't have enough time to seed it this year. I don't think it's smart to blame Nir, as he said "I just initiated it...people are free to do hat they want. Bloggers in Peru and Cambodia did a meetup/ conference..Other did videos...etc"
2. China Bloggers feel Blogday should be creative, not only post recommendations. As Yo2's initiator Oneoo complained that "Chinese users are most difficult to be satisfied." I asked some bloggers why they don't post blogday, and got a short but clear answer - it's boring!
   
3. Lack of pre-promotion. Don't you think it's odd to promote a day just on that day? People need time to prepare, and all pre-promotion work should be done before blogday. As far as I know, few bloggers placed blogday badge in their blog, and no acticles about blogday2007 were posted before this day.

Technorati Tag: blogday2007

FeedBurner Feeds are Unavailable in China

It's sad to know that feedburner feeds are unable to be visited by people who use China Telecom broadband, but worse news may come to us in a few days, because we are sure that this "accident" is caused by Government-based internet supervisory systems and blogger Williamlong has proved it (in Chinese).

I hope feedburner is temporarily blocked, like what it has been one year ago. However, this time it's possibly banned for long... Associating that Jinan and Shantou Telecom dared to suspend thousands of innocent servers without negotiation nor notifying , how can I confidently say that a foreign website which contains countless "sensitive information" will survive?

If you are as disappoint as I am, you can:

1. stop blogging!
   
2. switch to other foreign online RSS Readers, like Google reader and Bloglines.
3. persuade your readers to subscribe your original RSS feed, or use Feedsky as a substitute. (example http://feed.feedsky.com/yaiyee)
   
4. say goodbye to China.

More questions after Flickr banned

After Flickr was blocked in China, I've introduced Williamlong's idea of making flickr-hosted photos visitable to websites readers. And i supposed that most flickr and firefox users knew that there was an fantastic add-on Access Flickr! which worked very well.

Today, i received an email from John Pasden, and he asked How does Access Flickr! work and if it works similarly to the IP proxy method I've mentioned before?

For the first question, we can do an analysis by ourselves: Download Access Flickr! add-on (access_flickr!-1.5-fx.xpi), unzip it, open a file named overlay.js and will see the following content which tells how the add-on work

var exchangeSource = new Array(
/^([^\.]*\.?)farm2.static.flickr.com$/i, //4
/^([^\.]*\.?)static.flickr.com$/i, //3
/^([^\.]*\.?)blog.flickr.com$/i, //2
/^([^\.]*\.?)flickr.com$/i //1
);

var exchangeDest = new Array(
'storage2.flickr.vip.re2.yahoo.com', //4
'storage1.flickr.vip.re2.yahoo.com', //3
'flickr.blogs.com', //2
'www.flickr.mud.yahoo.com' //1
);

As the codes show, Access Flickr! works as an automatic tool that substitute banned image URLs with other known URLs pointing to the same host! This method is quite different from the IP proxy method, hence, the latter doesn't work for flickr.

John Pasden also asks if there are any solutions that all visitors will be able to see the Flickr-hosted photos on his site without Access Flickr! The answer is YES, just refer to this post for detail operation, Wordpress users can use this plugin(via) which will automatically replace the blocked Flickr URLs .

Individual Domains Blogs are All Illegal

Sometimes, I can't help laughing at our government's ridiculous regulations of internet information control, last time they require bloggers to use their real names when they register blogs, and this time they want to close all individual domains blogs because in their eyes individual domains blogs are the same to forums and BSPs.

This funny news was first heard from zousuper whose Blog is hosted in Shanghai, he is quite serious about this issue and carefully arranged his chat log with Shanghai Communication Administration on the phone

The operator : " Our work is to conduct special certification, how can you individuals provide blog services?! Your blog has been shut down simply because you did not get a special certification before."

Zousuper : "My blog is personal blog, not forum or BSP, not open for register, only myself can publish articles..."

The operator : " That's not allowed! blogs and forum are the same, any blogs, forums, BBS, Chat are required to be examined by us, no one should open without our approve."

Zousuper:"If I register at your department, my blog can return to normal at once, right?"

The operator : " Not, it's now on the process of 'specail renovation', our examine and approve work does not star yet, and according to your situation your blog will definitely not be approved. You are the person in charge of your blog, but you cant monitor the comments all the 24 hours." ( Who can? )

After the telephone talk, Zousuper went to the Shanghai Communication Administration for further information on 19 July 2007, and he finally got explanations for closing his blog:

1. Same to Electronic Bulletin and BBS and forum and chat room and message board, blogs are belong to the behaviors of provide interact info conditions for online users (交互形式为上网用户提供信息发布条件的行为). According to the Internet Electronic Bulletin Board Service Management Regulation 《互联网电子公告服务管理规定》, "(those who) engage in internet information services, and prepare to launch electronic bulletin services, should submit special application or special BEIAN before they apply for operating internet information services certification or no-operating internet services BEIAN from the provincial, municipal telecommunication manage department or Information Industry Department."
2. Any domains blogs not BEIANed (get a certification) from here(Communication Administration) will be down.
3. Sites do not contain bbs, Chat room and etc can only register at Information Industry Department.
4. An interesting dialog:
   --" There are many individual domains blogs in China~"
   --" Right. So you should go and prosecute them."
   --" Oh, no no. Isn't that doing them bad ! "
   --" Er, how can you say this is bad to them !"
5. " For individuals, need professional management and technical person, are able to perform efficient management on electronic bulletin" (the original sentence is so incoherent...). "Like BBS, you are impossible to monitor online all 24-hour, there are other things to be done, right? This is staff requirement! If you are an individual, you don't have the most basic staff requirement."
6. " Other person post fake info or illegal info on blog comments, because it's published via your platform, you are responsible for it too"
7. 
   --" What if I removed the comment function? "
   --" Is there any meaning for the existence of a blog without comments? You write blog for purpose, maybe you wrote online and people find you in real life... In addition, your blog is merely for friends reading, you could shut down blog as well as closing the comment. Write in Microsoft Word and share the files to friends for discussion, that is the same, don't you agree?! "
8. --" Internet Electronic Bulletin Board Service Management Regulation (《互联网电子公告服务管理规定》) was released in 2000, it's been 7 years, why haven't you BEIAN? "
   --"Blog hasn't been introduced to China then"
   --" Yes, but things develop fast, after blogs come out, you are supposed to ask us about it, our telephone is available whole-year-time."
9. --" The special examination and approve process will take 60 workdays."
   --" So the domain must be suspended for two months?!"
   --" Domains are inexpensive, only RMB 10+, even one Yuan can buy one"
   --" That One-Yuan-domain is only for the first year."
   --" Doesn't matter, just change a new domain next year."
   --" In that case, my search engine optimization and promotion work will be meaningless!"
   --" Let me tell you, it makes no differences on the net. No worry, gold will glitter forever."
10. Surely this is the first time we shut down blogs, just like the metro accident on 15 July, no one can tell the truth clearly. The first to meet something is difficult make it clear, but we always have to deal it. Now you are here, I told you about your issue, so you know the blogs are required to BEIAN. We can understand if you don't know the inside story.
    
11. It's now on the "straighten period", we don't accept application. There is no timetable of when for apply, wait for our announcement.

PS: Asked by the 市政府新闻办公室, Zousuper has hidden some of his so-called "negative posts".

Blog Herald Launched China Edition

The Blog Herald is a team blog founded in March 2003, focus on different facets of blogging such as Blogging tips/ promotion/ marketing and so on. Last March they launched the Blog Herald Japan, which was a signal to expand its international influence. And on July 16 this year, they officially announced the launch of Blog Herald China Edition.

Similar to Blog Herald Japan, the China edition is humanly translated into Mandarin. We hand-picked featured columns for translation to be sure we reach the intended market with content that is relevant to them, and that is timeless. These include tips and tutorials on better blogging, blog monetization, and taking advantage of social media, among others.

...

With this development, we are also considering creating original content in Mandarin. We have already started posting China-specific articles, care of a contributor based in mainland China, and we intend to keep this up, perhaps taking in other contributors to help out.

The author of the new blog is possibly from Philippines, view his profile.

Blog Herald China Edition http://cn.blogherald.com/

Make CustomDomains Blogspot available

Google's CustomDomains Blogspot on January 5 this year, however, only 6 days later all the blogs were banned by GFW.

Six months pass, the CustomDomains are still under block. Obviously, the Gov doesn't want its people to read the "sensitive content" from some blogspot blogs and it feels it's inefficient to block specific blogs only because the authors can easily display same content by creating more blogs on blogspot, so GFW have to ban all blogs that using blogspot sub-domain and CustomDomains.

Since the blogspot sub-domain is controlled by Google, we have no authority to change it. While the CustomDomains are based on our own domain names, and luckily Hong Xiaowan discovered that we can fix this "bug" by using Google's backup IP. Hong writes:

Actually, Google has many backup IPs located in different places, the IPs visited may differ from time to time. Though the CNAME of Google's Blogger Custom Domains is banned, we can switch to A Records to make the CustomDomains Blogspot available in China.

Take HiChina's DNS control panel for example:


An available IP address: 72.14.207.121

An easy way to break through GFW

Michael shares his idea of using PHProxy to break through GFW.

He said: it's much easier to search free web-based proxies that were powered by PHProxy than other normal proxies and nearly 100% of them are available to be used in mainland China.

Type the following code in Google and search:

intitle:phproxy

Then you should see a bunch of results which most are PHProxy powered free proxies.
Enjoy it!

Brief Intoduction to Creative Weblogging China

I started doing research on Blog Network since May 2006, at that time few Chinese Bloggers realized that it's kind of blogs organization, let alone someone was to build one real Blog Network in China. However, things changed unpredictably in the coming months with the launch of Creative Weblogging China, and later another powerful local IT Blog Network was created by Riku in this year, and other Networks are coming out.

China blogosphere's structure has been slightly stroke by these fresh concept of Blog Network, and the appearance of these influential organizations inspire Chinese bloggers to blog well. Therefore, I decide to write a series about China Blog Network, and today i'm going to talk about Creative Weblogging China with my own information.

--------------------------------------------------

Creative Weblogging China was officially launched on 30 August 2006, before that there were already three Chinese language bloggers joined CW, they are Yuleguan's Michelle, Wangtam's Hung and Gseeker's Kenwong.

Among them, I think Kenwong was the key for CW to enter the sight of China readers, because he was and is China's No.1 Google Blogger and his joining in made CW able to attract people's attention with his fame.

The other two Chinese language bloggers are very interesting too. Michelle is living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she was CW's first Chinese language member thanks to her husband's infomation and PR. It's no doubt that Michelle made a good start for her Chinese colleague, actually she did find a Executive Editor for CW and that man is Hung.

Hung,who is using another id called QeeGi recently, did a great job in promoting Creative Weblogging China. His story can be traced since being invited to join CW by Michelle, and latter he got the trust of their Boss and was appointed as Executive Editor of CW China. However, he is controversial in his personality and hyping news, many people do like his wording and viewpoints.

These three bloggers consisted the core of CW China in 2006, while in 2007 the first member Michelle is probably out of CW, because she is busy with her work.

Till now, there are 11 different topics blogs and 11 contributors in CW China. It was said that CW China contribute $820,000 of sponsor income this year ended in June, account 1/3 of CW's total income. During last months, CW China's AD income reached $5600 per month (weird, $5600x6x11 = $369,600 < $820,000).CW China have the fewest members compare to CW English and CW Germany, but statistic showed that CW China's individual visits and page views are higher than the other.

What to blog about?

It's been approximately a month since my last post on this blog. I'm not too busy nor to lazy to write new posts, but I do have no idea of what to blog about on this English blog.

Many friends I know from the internet suggested me blog about Things on Chinese Blogosphere, I did, however I don't really appreciate this idea, just because this topic will not be attractive to English language readers who hardly pay attention to the silly cunts and translators fulfilled Chinese blogosphere. It's true that there are some excellent blogs in China, I never doubt that, while most their posts are not so easy to translate and their opinions are somewhat difficult for foreigners to understand, therefore, their posts are not my blog target.

Lu Gang recommended that I blog about China's Web2.0 startup ,he told me that foreign investors are highly interested in China Internet Market. This suggestion is supposed to be very agreeable to me, for I like IT and is able to get timely or unique info from some of the startups. I thought it will not be very hard to make another Techcrunch in China, after two weeks trial, I have to admit that CWRBlog is doing very well at this topic and Tangos has close relationship in Beijing IT filed which few bloggers can compare with. So, I give up.

Could you, from a reader's point, give me sincere advice on what to blog? or, what you want to read from my blog? Your (no matter positive or negative) feedback via comment is welcome, via Email is appreciated too.

Flickr photos banned

Flickr's mainland users may notice that a part of photos quoted from flickr are unavailable today, but it's still OK to visit the homepage and to login your account.

Williamlong guess(in Chinese) all the problems are caused by the Great Fire Wall(GFW) which banned the domain names of farm1.static.flickr.com and farm2.static.flickr.com, thereby, pictures that located under the two domain names are banned.

Any reasons of baning this excellent photos share websites? So many! Especially in this June, like Xiamen people's march against PX project happened on 1st June and someone did a live report of the whole process on flickr.


Technorati Tags: flickr, china, banned, gfw

a special proxy from google

kunshou discovered a secret "web proxy" from google when he was surfing on the net using his blackberry cellphone, however he didn't tell us the name of the service and I can't find its name either.

Converting all the websites into the cellphone mode automatically, this amazing mobile service also allow users to visit websites that can't be visited in mainland China. For example, my blog, which has been blocked by the Great Fire Wall for a couple of days, now is visible through this new address encoded by the service. The converted websites are not as good as the original ones, because they are redesigned for mobile phone web browsers, but it's better than nothing.

Address of the different proxy : http://www.google.com/gwt/n


Technorati Tags: google, proxy, cellphone, gfw

Twitter clone collection

Chinese blogger Thw recently did a great job of collecting Twitter clone and Twitter-like websites from all over the world.I counted the list, finding there are a total of 68 twitter copiers already!

In the list, I also find an interesting statistic according to the countries these websites belong to, that is, Germany has 12 Twitter-clone sites, second comes China (9+) and Japan (8).It's not surprising that programmers in far east countries prefer to copy advance web 2.0 sites,but I wonder why do their German counterparts are so willing to imitate Twitter?In addition, Korea ,where is usually regarded as the most internetized nation in the world, has only one clone been found. Apparently,there must be more than one twitter copycats in Korea,just need our patient to fine them out. In the same light, more and more twitters are launching and it's impossible for us to make a clear and authority list. However, Thw's collection is possibly the most detailed list right now.

Related posts:

• Collection of Chinese version of Twitters
• Jiwai.de and Fanfou: Twins of Twitter in China
  

Technorati Tags: twitter, clone, copycate,

lawsuit against China internet censorship

A Chinese open-source software programmer is suiting China Telecom because his website was blocked by the Great Firewall. In his post (English version), he complained:

In China, there is no clear, legal statement about the human right to know truth or to make approaches towards it. Moreover, legal suits may only involve direct stakeholders. You may not sue a legal entity with an indirect connection. The dynamic nature of the internet makes facts hard to prove.

...

Nobody knows officially who is responsible for the Great Chinese Firewall and nobody can help. And even if we did learn, according to Chinese law, I would most likely lack any direct legal relationship. So I would not be able to sue it.

However, I am a customer of China Telecom. This relationship can be demonstrated by my contract and by the bills I pay monthly. Using their equipment, I fail to access a website. A trace says the problem is inside them.

This trial will be held in Shanghai at 9:00AM (Beijing time, zone of UMT+8:00) May 29th. The place is No. 611 Ding Xiang Road, Pu Dong New District, Shanghai, China.


As a matter of fact, Ya.iyee.cn has been blocked for three days in most places of mainland China. I even even have no idea why they did it.


Technorati Tags: gfw, great firewall, shanghai, lawsuit, china telecom, censorship, china

An Interview With Zhao Jian of FeedTea

In my last post, I briefly introduced a fresh feed management provider FeedTea. Personally,I think this new comer is very smart to choose the right time to enter our eyes, that is, during these days big IT news are all around the feed market, like Google is buying Feedburner and Feedsky is on the way to US and Europe Market.I believe many people are very curious about FeedTea, but due to some reasons few information of them can be found on the net.With curiosity ,I contacted with Zhao Jian from FeedTea via Email yesterday.Luckily, he's very frank to answer all of my questions...

Following is the interview.

Please briefly introduce the FeedTea Team and development state.

Our team was formed in November 2006,located in Jinan City Shandong Province.We have 12 employees and 8 of them are for technical support.

After 6 months' developing, our feed managing and feed advertising systems have been made up.Now you can visit our website and see what the feed management panel look like,while the AD function is under our testing and will be released soon.

Will FeedTea focus on basic feed services or on content aggregation like rss readers or portal websites?

Definitely, we will do basic services at the very beginning. When all of our services are stable, we will set about the content.I think we should try everything that is benefit to us.

Which AD methods is feedtea to choose?

Contextual ad that similar to Google Adsense. May be we will introduce Topic ADs like ReviewMe in the future if bloggers and advertisers need.

And where the advertisers come from?

Our customers in the first period, are those internet companies who feel interest in this project.

Has feedtea raised fund from VC?

Not yet.It's a long way to find a suitable VC,but we are doing it.

Partners?

We cooperated with Shandong University at the initial stages,but we haven't started to find business partners yet,because our products have not finished and need more time for preparing.

How do you feel about Feedsky?

An excellent team! Their achievements in China market are obvious to all.In terms of competition,we are not afraid of them,because our project started at the time that their services were becoming more and more stable.

Do you plan to provide feed services for BSPs customers?

BSPs are a big cake. But it's not easy to compete with Feedsky directly!


- End.


Technorati Tags: feedtea, interview, web2.0, feedburner, feedsky, china

Collection of Chinese version of Twitters

Richard Hong wrote a post about two Chinese Twitters, in the post he mentioned only two Chinese copycats, and got a conclusion that "Perhaps Chinese programmers are not lack of skill but creativity." Basically, I agree with his point of view,especially after I doing a research and found a total of SIX Chinese version of Twitters. They are:

V2EX ing -V2EX is an outstanding and very 2.0 Geek forum,ing is an extension to the forum but it does the same thing as other twitters do.

Popwu -with a Black and White theme,popwu support MSN, Gtalk and SMS.Special feature is "blog subscription" which will notify you blog update via Instance Messengers.

ByUU -Just a simple and crude twitter, support MSN only.

komoo -It perfectly simulate Twitter's Design for individuals and Badges, but komoo seems not be ready for IM or SMS.

weazone saying -weazone is a music community. As V2EX ing,saying is only one of the various functions of weazone.Presently, saying supports MSN and Gtalk,and Badges.

fanfou -As far as I know, fanfou is the latest Chinese Twitter. It has a more comfortable theme and operating feeling. Support MSN and SMS.

Update: One more Wulog via Richard Hong

In summary, I believe these copycats are unable to attract much Chinese users,because none of them can provide more device support than twitter. Besides, China's No.1 IM QQ is not in their support list.


Technorati Tags: twitter, copycats, china, minblog

Feedtea and China's Feed Market

Feedtea is a newly released Chinese feed management service, presently under alpha test period, it provides many useful functions that a feed service provider supposed to have,such as FeedUnit, stats, custom domain and Ad system. Basically, I think feedtea is able to realize most of the features that feedburner and feedsky has, and in some particular area feedtea may do better. However, the feedtea team has a long way to go.

First, this Jinan-based team has only 12 employees, and is only 6-month-old(since November 2006), as young as their feed management platform. Second, the feed cake of China market has been carved up by BSP-feeds giant Feedsky and independet-blogs-feeds winner feedburner. And third, feedtea is fresh name to most feed users, promotion will be the key.

Looking at the familiar UI and control panel, I suppose feedtea must has learned a lot from their biggest domestic rival Feedsky , the biggest feed management in the world, which just announced they are going to enter US market. Feedsky has been silence for a period of time, one of my friend told me that feedsky had been busy with their feed crawl robot, he also suggested that if feedsky want to beat feedburner they should give up the low-value BSP feeds which deplete most of their servers resources.

Associating with the news that feedburner is in process of making universal languages support, I'm sure all of three feed management providers will face more competition in the near future.

Update:CWRBlog and Gang Lu have relevant posts.

Technorati Tags: feed, feedburner, feedsky, feedtea, china, market

comment email notification

Wordpress and blogspot users may be satisfied with the lovely email notification that when a new comment is made their blog platform will automatically sent a notify mail.This is a very lovely and useful feature,I think every blog software should provide a similar function,but things are not that simple.

Due to server limitation (suppose the server does not install webmail) or encoding problems (the blog developer never think of it),many blog softwares can not auto-sent notify mails to users,while (most of) them have independent comment rss output which few people notice.

So,once a blog system provide a comment rss,we can do a hack to make it sent us free comment email notification.This hack will be very easy,because we just to subscribe to the comment rss via email!Simple right?

Personally I suggest beginners to use R-mail,for in my test,R-mail is comparative timely to other email feed subscribe services.

To think further of this hack,we can also get notification via IM.China startup Anothr makes any rss update received in real-time via Skype/Gtalk/MSN.


Technorati Tags: feed, rss, notification, hack, howto, email, comment, blog, system

How to make Transparent Screens

Inspired by this flickr album,I determined to take a similar photo for my laptop.I did,see

Ooop,this transparent screen is not very successful compared to others,because of the sunshine and my reflection.However,as I'm not a professional photographer and the time is limited and my laptop is not produced by Apple (Mac is a better choice),I think this picture can be tolerated.

How to make it?

Trust me,it's very easy to make your own Transparent Screen.

in my case,it requires only three things:A laptop(or PC or Mac or anything that with a screen),a digital camera and patience.

First,find a certain place you stand (or sit),take the first photo of the background without the laptop.

Then,import the photo to your image edit software and cut the area you need,set the edited photo as your wallpaper.

After that,stand (or sit) where you just took the first photo,and choose right direction and distance to shoot photos that looks like transparent.Special attention should be taken to the lines on the screen (like the edge of desk) that are to match background,so taking more photos and being patience is the key to a perfect work.


Technorati Tags: Transparent Screen, diy, howto

yo ni yo wo,MySpace.cn

Myspace.cn finally launched on the morning of 27 April,it has a new Chinese name "友你友我",pronounce as "yo ni yo wo".CWR made a brief introduction.

In my point of view,Myspace.cn is only a Chinese language interface,the template and structure are coming from its English site.Especially the Blog template,looks very special among China SNS websites.Personally,I think it's too American to Chinese users.After all,Chinese have different tastes on the design.


Technorati Tags: myspace.cn, myspace, sns,

crocodiles devoured a nine-year-child

Accident was happened in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on last Friday(April 20),three primary school students broke into a crocodiles pool which had been close down for a long period,and this three impish boys acted incredibly - they used catapult and stick to attack the crocodiles!

OK,I think everyone with the basic knowledge about predators is able to imagine what happened next... body parts were everywhere...

According to the information I can collect,the victim's surname is Liu(刘),only nine years old.

Today,the crocodiles was killed by snipers to recover evidence.

survivor witness

imaginary situation

pork that used to lure the crocodiles

they've to use 8 bullets to shoot a crocodile...

what's in the mouth?

Technorati Tags: crocodile, child, guangxi,

Adsense will coopreate with China domestic banks

News from Netease:To push forward the progress of localization,Guge(Google China) will cooperate with China domestic banks to pay for the Google adsense fee earned by China webmasters in this year.

In the past(and now),Chinese adsense users have to wait for a long time（about 65-90 days）to get the check from US,and the bank adds on a 1% handling charge(RMB 250/per charge at most) for changing the check.Or,you can pay another US$25 for Secured Express Delivery to shorten the progress.


Technorati Tags: google, adsense, guge

Bill Gates in Peking University

Shanghai Daily reports "A SUPPORTER of open-source software disrupted Bill Gate's attendance at a prize-giving ceremony in Peking University this morning."

Here are the photos relative to this news.







Technorati Tags: bill gates, peking, university, china, open-source,

Guge purchased Black Horse IME

Before long,when Guge (Google China) launched their IME -Google Pinyin,some Chinese bloggers suggested that them should buy another IME called Black Horse(ZH CN) to improve Google Pinyin.

Now,this suggestion comes true.From the news broad of Black Horse,I saw a short latest news entitled Google purchased Black Horse IME.

Recently,after inspecting in many ways,Google(possible is Guge) begin to use Black Horse IME.

Well,I have to admit this title is puzzling both in Chinese and in English.

In fact,Google China don't buy the company which develope Black Horse IME,or acquire the IME technology.Google China just simply purchase the Black Horse IME software as their office tools.


Technorati Tags: guge, google china, Black horse, ime

Send files to Box.net via email

My favorite files share website Box.net now support sending files via email,it's an extreme convenient feature for Chinese or any other places users who have difficulty in directly uploading their files to box.net at speed.

How to use this lovely function?

Send your documents and photos to your box by emailing upload@box.net from your registered email address.These files will appear in a new folder called "Upload from email" via

Here is my online music album powered by Box.net,for a live demo.

Technorati Tags: box.net, box, email, web2.0

Baidu.jp Blocked

It's so weird to know that Baidu Japan was unable to connect in mainland China this afternoon.Baidu.jp is possibly being censored by GFW,not yet perfectly blocked I think,because I still can ping its Ip.

But,as many Chinese netizens use Baidu.jp to search pornography,GFW of course has the duty to take actions to prevent his people from being "polluted" by the nasty culture,thereby,no need to feel surprise about this BAD news.

In fact,you can find a fast proxy to access to Baidu.jp,for example,check this link.


Technorati Tags: baidu, japan, porn, block, gfw, av

Maxthon founder:Google don't own our share

Yesterday,Techcrunch reported Google Takes Partial Ownership Of Maxthon Browser (more about maxthon).However,this news was totally a rumor.

Just at 17:00 April 10th Beijing Time,through China portal site SINA(in Chinese),Maxthon founder Bloodchen (陈明杰) denied the canard that google had invested $1 million in their web browser.

Though google had not bought a share of Maxthon,Bloodchen told SINA they might have cooperation in business in the future,while he couldn't reveal the details.

A well-informed source says that Maxthon obtains ￥300000+/month from Baidu by setting Baidu as Maxthon's default search engine.


Technorati Tags: baidu, google, maxthon,

Google Invest Maxthon Browser

Techcrunch reported Google Takes Partial Ownership Of Maxthon Browser.

I don't remember if Maxthon (original name:MyIE 2 ,Blog) was the first Chinese IE-base browser that supports multiple tabs,but I know Maxthon used to be a must-have software for senior netizens in 2003 and 2004.However,after more IE-base browsers were poured into the market in 2005,Maxthon's share began to decline.But it still is a giant in China internet.

According to the latest Web Browsers Share Report published by CNZZ(a renowned Chinese Web statistic),Maxthon beat all his rivals,clocked up 7.7% of the total visitors.

You may surprise why only this mere percentage (7.7%) could make Maxthon the NO.1 IE-base browser,the reason is simple - 83.6% of the market was occupied by original IE6 ! As there are about 1.4 billion population in China, approximately 160 million internet users,so even 7.7% means a great amount.

I doubt the saying "Maxthon-originated searches may account for up to 25% of total Baidu traffic, according to one source."But it doesn't matter,and I don't have any evidents.This information indicated that if this "cooperation" goes with a swing,Maxthon default search engine will be switched to Google(.cn).


Technorati Tags: google, maxthon, market share, investment, China, My IE, web browser

Is Google Pinyin Stolen from Sogou?

Few days ago,I briefly introduced Chinese Input Method Editor (IME) when it was just released,and in that post I also suggested there were a number of people who showed great interested in it.After testing for three days and communicating with other bloggers on this product,I think it's time to say something about Google Pinyin.

First of all,there are words saying the Google Pinyin stolen the vocabulary library from their rival Sogou Pinyin which has been released in June 2006.You can refer to articles here , here and here.One of the obvious evidents is the odd error that will occur in both IME:

Users noted that entering the Pinyin "pinggong" into the Google IME incorrectly produced the name of Feng Gong, an actor and comedian. Despite Google saying it had updated the software, the error appeared not to have been corrected as of Friday afternoon in Beijing. via

In my mind,it's no doubt of Guge's theft,but some Gfans still argued(in Chinese) that both Guge and Sogou's vocabulary were generated from their own search results(sogou provide search engine service too) so the similarities just means the netizens prefer to search similar keywords.Is that true?No authority is willing to directly answer this question.

The truths that I can confirm are:

• Guge staff evade this query
• Sogou has opened vocabulary for download long before,here and here .Oh,there is an license for using.
  
• Sogou Pinyin engineer wrote a post How the Sogou Pinyin Vocabulary was Made(in Chinese) introducing the great work they've done for accuracy vocabulary(which was stolen by Guge with ease?),we can take this article as an response though there is no word about Google or Guge.
• The second version (1.0.16.0) of Guge Pinyin has a update on the vocabulary.Basically,fixed the "bugs" of some similarities vocabulary,but the odd error of "pinggong" is still there.

OK,Gfans may ask:"Even if Guge has stolen the vocabulary from Sogou,does it matter?" I will say "Yes".May be Chinese netizens have used to the scandal news from Internet Companies,and take the nasty affairs as routine issues.But don't forget,Guge is a subsidiary of Google which prossess the famous motto - "Don't be evil".

This time,I believe Guge really do evil under the name of Google China.

Update：Guge put an announcement in China portal site NetEase, admitting their vocabulary was coming from third party (Sogou).


Technorati Tags: guge, IME, google, china, don't be evil, sogou, theft

Google Pinyin

Google China(Guge 谷歌) released a Pinyin input software this morning,only a few hours later,some positive or negative comments about this software have been found on the net.We are all curiously to see what the input soft is.

According to the introduction page,Google Pinyin has some popular features that have existed in other prevailing input softwares,such as Intelligent Sentences(智能组句),Prevailing Vocabulary(流行词汇),Traditional Chinese and GBK(繁体输入和 GBK 大字库),Priority Words(首字固顶),Character Stroke Input(笔划输入),and User-defined Phrases(自定义短语).

While some particular features may be their own inventions,like One Button Search(一键搜索),Synchronous Update(网络同步),Smart Correction(智能纠错) and English hint(英文提示).

The only Characteristic that appeals to me is the Synchronous Update,which is integrated with users' Google account.This feature is very convenient for us to export the data to other laptop.I also take Synchronous Update as kind of assurance when my operating system crashes unexpectedly one day.

This the first edition,but Google China staffs are seemingly very confident,for the famous "beta" label cannot be found in the entire pages.But unfortunately,netizens have found some bugs,for example,punctuation can't be inputed among the phrase or sentence.

Generally speaking,Google Pinyin is much better than other products Google China(actually is Guge) has even released though it's mature.

Download link http://dl.google.com/pinyin/GooglePinyinInstaller.exe
Product Page http://tools.google.com/pinyin/

Technorati Tags: google, guge, china, pinyin, input

Unlimited Storage Baidu Mail?

Baidu CEO Robin Lee write a post Should we provide Email service today,saying:

Baidu do not provide email services because they feel prevailing email services are good enough.But honestly,he is still using Outlook to receive mails,which aways reminds him to save the archives in case of loss.Unfortunately,due to the limitation of 2G storage of Outlook,he complained that he's lost emails many times in the past few years.So if they launch Email service,that service must provide unlimited storage.

At the end of the post,he invite readers' to talk about the relative merits of their prevent emails.

I think Baidu has invented some unique technologies on email service,or Robin won't published this informal message so easy.But,last time we have overestimated Baidu space which was now proved very simple and crude,this time I can't predict the Bmail will show us any exciting functions like Gmail did in 2004.

Unlimited storage?Forget about it,most users don't need over 2GB storage in their life time.Actually,I'm curious about the site limitation of each attachment which does matter :)


Technorati Tags: bmail, baidu, gmail, robin lee, email

"Coolest Nail House" is disappearing

News from people.com.cn(17:59),the owners of "the coolest nail house in history" have signed an agreement of house demolition,thus two sides reached a compromise. A well-informed source says the agreement was reached under the guidance of Jiulongpo District Court.

Zuola at the scene witness the cause of house owner Wuyang put away the nation flag and the white slogan cloth.And he says via IM that some workers are pulling down the house...


Technorati Tags: chongqing, nail house, demolition

How to visit some blocked websites

Last time,I translated Fermi's smart means,and luckily he read it and promised to tell us how to put wikipedia and livejournal in the script.

This evening, I open his blog again and happy to see some updates of the proxy.pac:

function FindProxyForURL(url,host){
if(dnsDomainIs(host, ".blogspot.com")){
    return "PROXY 72.14.219.190:80";
}
if(dnsDomainIs(host, ".wikipedia.org")){
    return "PROXY 66.230.200.101:80";
}
if(dnsDomainIs(host, ".wordpress.com")){
    return "PROXY 72.232.101.41:80";
}
if(dnsDomainIs(host, ".livejournal.com")){
    return "PROXY 204.9.177.19:80";
}
return "DIRECT";
}

Yes,do as we did last time:save these codes as proxy.pac,and place it anywhere in your hardware (take C:/ for example).In Firefox,Tools->Options->Advanced->Network->Settings...->tick "Automatic proxy configuration URL" and insert the following text in the blank:

file:///C:/proxy.pac

then click Reload button on the right,press OK, and OK,and you're done.check it up with these links Wikipedia(not including zh)，WordPress，LiveJournal ;)

In IE(LAN network):

Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN settings -> Use automatic configuration script ->file:///C:\proxy.pac

In Opera:

Options -> Advanced -> Networking -> Proxy -> C:\proxy.pac

How Does the Script Work?

My understanding is,GFW block a website by banning its prime IP,while this script will directs web browser to the backup IP address that do not in the banned list.

Kevin Smith has a post to explain the theory,you should read it.

Other websites

Technorati? No idea,but I usually visit Technorati Japan to see who links my and the blog rank.

zh.wikipedia.org ? Fermi said GFW censorship filter URL that contain words like zh.wikipedia.org,so the script does not work for zh,wikipedia.However,Fermi recommend wiki.biti.org.cn ,a HTTPS-based mirror wikipedia.


Technorati Tags: fermi, gfw, proxy, technorati, wikipedia, blogspot, wordpress

Zola is investigating the “nail house”

Does the "coolest nail house in history" still stands in the pool-like construction pit near the light rail station Yangjiaping in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality?I don't know,even it doesn't right now.

Knowing the Government has warned the Chinese media to stay away from this topic,Zola,a Chinese blogger who professes himself to be "Untypical Angry Youth",set out from Hunan Province to investigate the "nail house" yesterday(March 28,2007).

with the house owner WuPing.Zola is guy on the left

From his last two articles,we can find something interesting,such as Why the "nail house" can successfully attract people's attention in short time？One of the important reasons is the house owner put up a large white cloth with the words"公民的合法私有财产不受侵犯"（the legal private property of the individual should not be infringed）.As the house and the slogan are so near to the light rail,passengers will,of course,can't help to take pictures of this ironic sight and spread this NEWS over the nation.

In the cause of Zola's investigation,he met some local people,asking what they thought of this issue.As you can anticipate,most of them back up the house owners to protect their property,just only one feel the request of house owners was excessive.Among the interviewed people,two senior citizens told him about their similar stories,the difference is they are too weak to fight against the real estate developers who kicked them away by force.The two poor victims used to appeal to the Beijing authorities for help,but nobody accepted.

The investigation is going on,God bless this brave youth.

Update:John Kennedy has translated Zola's post,check it!
Josie Liu wrote another article about it.

Technorati Tags: nail house, chongqing, zola, blogger, china

Top 40 blogs according to Zhuaxia stats

I don't really understand why some Chinese IT Bloggers like to translate English post into Chinese even the foreign posts are insignificant to Chinese readers.Top 40 sites according to FeedBurner stats,for instance,has nothing to do with the China while this post is still widely spread.

Yes,we should have the proper humility as we approach powerful bloggers in English speaking countries.But don't forget the communication is a two-way operation;successful medias do not consist in being an translating machine.

OK,back to the topic.Today I wanna list the Top 40 blogs according to Zhuaxia stats.

Why I chose Zhuaxia as the measuring tool?

1. Zhuaxia is currently the most popular online rss reader in mainland China,I guess over 30% of Chinese RSS users(about 60,000+) use it.(view the stats of my Chinese Blog for reference)
2. Most citizens here cannot tell the difference between Feedburner feed and Feedsky feed and original feed.It's not realistic to measure the stats of Feedburner or Feedsky,but zhuaxia has the capabilities to combine multiple feeds into one in their system(it's equal to the "subscribers" at bloglines ),and most bloggers had required them to do so.Hence,I think the stats on Zhuaxia is more authority than other feed stats.
   
3. I just want to show my readers an overview of Chinese Blogosphere,that is,no need to be professional!In fact,you will find many blogs in the top list are about IT,just because most of their readers use RSS and zhuaxia.

So,here it is,the Top 40 blogs according to the number of their Zhuaxia readers(Note:non-Blogs sites are not counted)

1. [07059] Keso's Blog *Introduction
2. [05608] Google China Blog
   
3. [04132] Wangxiaofeng *Interview video
   
4. [03873] Gseeker *Introduction
5. [03772] Blog Chinese translation
   
6. [03418] LifeBang *Chinese Lifehack?
   
7. [03367] Xujinglei *The Queen Blogger
   
8. [03303] Minority software *dedicated to share green software
   
9. [03097] Web2.0 Weekly
10. [02965] LaoBai's Blog
11. [02736] Williamlong
12. [02356] Hanhan
13. [02346] Wangtam
14. [02337] Engadget Simplified Chinese
15. [02269] Jimmy's Photo Blog
16. [02242] Luoyonghao
17. [02211] PostShow *Dreaming to be boingboing
    
18. [02086] NetNoEase
19. [01905] Caijing Observation *a journalist of CCTV
    
20. [01829] Liuren's Blog
21. [01783] Wangxiaoxing
22. [01780] Wangjianshuo *His English Blog
23. [01736] Hecaitou's Blog
24. [01610] Kuangfeng's Blog
25. [01529] Jandan *Introduction
26. [01505] Internet is a gold mine
27. [01416] Maitian's reading life
28. [01397] LookGirl
29. [01383] Incomplete *the author of CWR
30. [01334] Dangnianmingyue
31. [01334] Chedong's Blog
32. [01295] Honghuang *introduction@Danwei
    
33. [01272] Flypig
34. [01245] Google Show
35. [01176] AJAX China
36. [01143] Share 2.0
37. [01108] rosu
38. [01097] YeeYan & English *introduction@RWW
39. [01098] Plum‘s Diary
    
40. [01097] SEO Research
    

Technorati Tags: china, blog, rank, top, zhuaxia, feedburner, feedsky, feed

Another way to visited the banned blogspot

Fermi Zhang writes a nice post about How to Visit the Banned Blogspot,in the post he introduces a smarter way(compare with the less efficient one) to visit the banned blogspot.

Use the Notepad (or other text editor softwares) to write a file with the following codes:

function FindProxyForURL(url,host){
if(dnsDomainIs(host, ".blogspot.com")){
return "PROXY 72.14.219.190:80";
}
}

save it as proxy.pac and put it in the root directory of C:\ .Take Firefox for example,click Tools->Options->Advanced->Network->Settings...-> fill the codes below in the blank that under "Automatic proxy configuration URL":

file:///C:/proxy.pac

then press Reload on the right,press OK,and OK.And relaunch Firefox,done!

Update:codes for wordpress.com are

function FindProxyForURL(url,host){
if(dnsDomainIs(host, ".blogspot.com")){
return "PROXY 72.14.219.190:80";
}
if(dnsDomainIs(host, ".wordpress.com")){
return "PROXY 72.232.101.41:80";
}
}

Update2: For IE and LAN users(by uponsnow,I'm not using LAN so not check it yet)

Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN settings -> Use automatic configuration script ->file:///C:\proxy.pac

Technorati Tags: block, blogspot, proxy, gfw