The problem that faced by classified websites

Those classified websites like ebay.com, lelong.com, mudah.my, alibaba.com are facing the same problem from beginning until now. Actually all of them want to charge the seller by 1% of total sale. But the problem is when the seller deal with buyer outside, as long as the buyers has the email address or phone number of buyers, sure they will deal outside like bank in or cod and the buyers won't click on "buy" button on their website. If buyers don't click on "buy" button, then website admin CANNOT know the price of sale, so CANNOT charge 1% fee from the total sale.

And all the websites admins don't know how to prevent sellers and buyers deal outside. That's why those websites won't charge 1% of total sale but charge the advertising fee! It is very unfair to sellers, the sellers spend their time to write and post advertisement onto the website and yet the website still want to charge them money, so not only they lost time post advertisement and also money too! The worst thing is if they cannot sell out the product after they advertise on your website, they will wasted their money for NOTHING!

So my website won't charge fee for advertising, I charge 1% of total sale. For example, when the seller success sell out the item at USD100 from my website, I earn USD1 from the seller. So it is fair to the sellers, because if the seller can't sell out the item, he don't need to pay anything to the website admin.

I spend 2 years to figure out the solution, but I can't think of any solution. Previously I figured out few solutions but all of them don't work. For example :
1) Don't allow seller show the hp number and email on their advertisement, this solution won't work because it will cause inconvenient communication between sellers and buyers, think about it when the sellers have many questions about the products and when the sellers want to COD, sure they need hp number of each other to communicate to each other.

2) Free gifts will be given to the seller if the buyer click "buy" button, this solution won't work because the free gifts are not worth than the 1% of total sale, the sellers will ignore the free gifts.

3) 10% discount will be given to buyers if the buyers click "buy" button, this solution won't work because it will be very inconvenient for sellers to state the price of item, and if the item price is 10% expensive than the real item price, the buyers will misunderstand the item that advertise on my website is expensive than ebay.com/ lelong.com/ mudah.my and thus the buyers will not buy it from my website and they will go buy from other websites.

Since 2 years until now I keep finding the solution for this issue. Finally today I find out a perfect solution to prevent sellers and buyers deal outside. Now I can earn profit of 1% of total sale. Sorry that I can't tell you the idea / solution. If you are interested to know my idea or solution, you have to pay me RM10,000 then only I will tell you the perfect solution.

Website Securities

sql injection

Do not save password raw value on hidden box or website while showing the stars value *********, because hacker see the value of password by using software such as ariskkey, sc-passunlease, password viewer or right click the website and choose "view page sourse,

password hack by blueforce - allow 3 times input try only. It makes blueforce need longer time to hack.

session hijacking

MIME attack.

xss injection. Eg : Javascript. Method to prevent at http://php.net/manual/en/function.htmlentities.php

spamming - verify characters on image to prevent spamming.

Please tell me if I missed out any other security issue? Thank you.

Tips of using websites

You-tube
1) How to make the video auto replay non-stop?
Answer : Type "repeat" into the URL before the ".com" on the address bar. For example, http://www.youtuberepeat.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

2) How to add time to the video comment?
Answer : use this format 2:33 and don't use 2.33

3) How to share you-tube video to other website with specify the time?
Answer : add #t=2m51s at the end of url.

---

Blogspot / blogger
1) To show many posts on main page of blogspot, info at here.

2) To resize picture, please follow exactly steps below :
a) Click "HTML" button to go into HTML editor.
b) At the most bottom there type <br/><br/><br/>. (I do this to prevent the new picture codes mix up with my existing codes of the post).
c) Click "Compose" button to go into WYS/WYG editor.
d) Click any empty space at the MOST bottom of the post.
e) Click the "insert image" button > choose file > ctrl + mouse select all the wanted pictures > open > wait for uploading all pictures > add selected (PAY ATTENTION on this state!!! After u click "add selected", you must faster click "HTML" button switch to HTML editor once you see the pictures codes appear on the post. You must not delay to click "HTML" button, if you delay 1 second, the pictures codes will be added extra codes of width=320, height=450, s340, if the extra codes are added, you need to waste a lot of times to delete the extra codes. If you uploaded 10 pictures, you will need to delete 10 x extra codes. OMG! That's why you have to act fast to click "HTML" button switch to HTML page before they adding extra codes).

f) If you success prevent adding extra codes, your codes should look like codes below which doesn't have width=320, height=450, s340. If you see the codes of 1 picture has two of s1600, it mean you have success prevent adding extra codes. If you saw s340 or s640 instead of s1600, it mean you fail to prevent adding extra codes!!! s1600 mean full size, s640 is medium size, s320 is small size, s100 is very small size.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNFk9x4urWs4hUB71nxbu384HISBV55QP-NWvuuv-DPl_d0cM0w3NKgq29BiK80JW1pmtOuEMLRfdk27pFnfRluJ0ko0pvuOQ1xrw4kykmAToZ_Jb1aFD1MNs5FJjNoOZ0aSO0Wt7Z5Et/s1600/more.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtNFk9x4urWs4hUB71nxbu384HISBV55QP-NWvuuv-DPl_d0cM0w3NKgq29BiK80JW1pmtOuEMLRfdk27pFnfRluJ0ko0pvuOQ1xrw4kykmAToZ_Jb1aFD1MNs5FJjNoOZ0aSO0Wt7Z5Et/s1600/more.png" /></a></div>
g) As you can see from the codes above, there are two s1600. The first s1600 is to show full size of picture after the user click the picture. The second s1600 is to show full size of picture appear on your blog post. So if your blogspot layout is smaller, you can change the second s1600 to s600 or s300 or s100.

h) Delete the beginning codes <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> and the end of codes </div> because they are useless and they show some space between two pictures. The space is wasted.

i) Save the post.

---

Ebay
1) If the buyer pay money by bank in, no fee will charged. If the buyer pay money by Paypal, some fee will be charged by Paypal. For example, if a product price is USD100, and paypal charge fee USD3. If I put my product price as USD103 (already include paypal fee). When the buyer click "buy" button, it will cut USD103 from the user paypal account. BUT what if the user want to pay money by bank in? The user will misunderstand that he/she should pay USD103!!! Actually he/she just need to pay USD100 because bank in method doesn't charge any fee!!! So how to solve this problem?
Answer : You create two advertisements. One advertisement is for bank in (price of product must exclude paypal fee), another one advertisement is for paypal (price of products must include paypal fee).

---

Weakness and bad parts of websites

facebook.com :
Problem 1 : When user upload a photo to an album, after the user choose the picture from the computer, there are 2 buttons "Open", "Select Photos". Supposly user have to click "Open" button, but most of the user will careless click on "Select Photos" button, it will cause error to the page. See the picture below for reference :


Solution : The "select file" window should appear on top and cover the "upload file" window, so that the user cannot see "Select Photos" button.

Problem 2 : Cannot search older wall posts. If I want to check my older post which was posted by me 1 years ago, how?
Solution : Implement a search feature to allow the users type in any keyword to search for their older posts.

Problem 3 : Cannot share a particular post of wall to other people. How if I want to share a particular post of my wall that I posted few weeks ago? I need to ask the people scroll down many times to find it?
Solution : Facebook should make every post has a unique link. Facebook should show the link at the bottom of the each post, so the user can copy and paste link to other people to share the post.

Problem 4 : Auto update new wall posts on Home page. When I was reading or typing comment on a particular wall post in half way, the post was pushed down and gone suddenly, I can't see the post on the screen while I was half way reading the post or typing comment to the post, because the post was pushed down because there are many new posts come in from the top.
Solution : Do NOT auto update new wall posts, store the counter of new pots onto a button such as "16 new posts" button, after user click on "16 new posts" button, then only all new posts will be show onto the page.

Problem 5 : Facebook pictures are too small. If there are more than 10 people on the picture, sure we can't see the people' face clearly because the people heads are very small.
Solution : Save the pictures as bigger size or full size if face recognize software detected there are more than 5 or 10 faces on the pictures.

---

plurk.com :
Problem 1 : "My Emoticons" panel is suck. When the user save 2 emoticons with the same keyword, when the user want to show the 2nd emoticon, it will fail to show the 2nd emoticon, it will show the 1st emoticon.
Solution : When the user are saving the new emoticon with new keyword, "My Emoticons" panel should check to make sure the new keyword different from previous existing keywords, should not allow user assign the same keyword.

Problem 2 : "My Emoticons" panel doesn't allow user sort / organize / arrange the emoticons in the way that the user want to be.
Solution : Implement Facebook picture album sorting feature into "My Emoticons" panel.

---

blogger.com :
Problem 1 : When the user want to edit the HTML code of blog layout, the user go to blogger.com > blog title > template > edit html, then there will be a "loading" animation. The "loading" animation ask user to wait. So the user will wait for few minutes, hours, days, weeks, month, years, but it is stilll "loading". The page just can't finish loading!!! Why? because the user actually need to click "Process" button. The stupid "loading" animation confuse user to wait for loading. Please see the picture blow for reference :


Solution : Remove the "loading" animation from the page.

Problem 2 : Blogger allows us to put password for entire blog, but not allow us to put password for particular blog post.
Solution : Adding a setting option : "private" and "public" on post editor.

Problem 3 : Post editor will not auto save the post into draft after dc or restart modem and browser. You can do a test :
1) Write "abc" on a post,
2) then u go restart ur modem,
3) then u write "efc" on the post.
4) then u wait for 5 minutes,
5) close the tab / browser,
6) then open new browser / tab,
7) go into blogspot again,
8) check and see whether or not the post save "efc" in the draft? Sure u will see it have saved "abc" but not "efc".
I did spend 2 hours to write a post during heavy rain day, so my internet keep disconnected (mean my modem keep restarting), suddenly thunder make my computer shut down, after I restart my computer and go to blogspot, I just realize blogspot didn't save my works since 2 hours ago, it mean I just lost my 2 hours works.
Solution : Jquery runs on the client. AKA browser. If the connection is reset the current browser tab you're on will usually not be interupted (Unless you have ongoing Web service calls to the server). Because of this, you can save anything you want in that browser session, when the connection is back up, save it to the server. IF you want to continue saving the data after the TAB is CLOSED, then the only way you can do that is I guess through HTML5 Local Storage. You can save data to session using javascript, and the session can save up to 2mb of data, WOW!!! Reference at here. So if after modem is restarted, and browser is restarted too, when the user are using firefox 6, he/she will use "restore the previous session" feature will bring back the data that saved on the session previously.

---

badoo.com :
Problem 1 : It doesn't allow to show the state where the user live. Malaysia has 13 states totally, but it just show 1 state (Kuala Lumpur) only. All users who live in Malaysia are forced to show "Kuala Lumpur" at the field of "State :" in their profile. How if I want to search for the users who stay in "Penang" or other states? I can't do that!!!
Solution : Allow the users to show the state where they live.

---

ebay.com :
Problem 1 : If the buyer pay money by bank in, no fee will charged. If the buyer pay money by Paypal, some fee will be charged by Paypal. For example, if a product price is USD100, and paypal charge fee USD3. If I put my product price as USD103 (already include paypal fee). When the buyer click "buy" button, it will cut USD103 from the user paypal account. BUT what if the user want to pay money by bank in? The user misunderstand that he/she should pay USD103!!! Actually he/she just need to pay USD100 because bank in method doesn't charge any fee. So how to solve this problem?
Solution : Ebay.com should provide a separate textbox for seller to type in the paypal fee, so the seller doesn't need to mix the product price and paypal fee together.
Solution : Allow the users to show the state where they live.

---

All kind of browsers like mozilla firefox, internet explorer, chrome... :
Problem 1 : If I want to switch between two words "h&2s!-$*" and "Nes:G$Pi". For example :
Peter's password is h&2s!-$*. Michelle's password is Nes:G$Pi. Then I realise that I put wrong password between Peter and Michelle. Peter's password should be Nes:G$Pi and Michelle's password should be h&2s!-$*. How do I correct them? I think u got the answer! It is inconvenient to correct them right?
Solution : Add "switch" option on right click. With the "switch" option, I just need to select these two words, then right click 1 of them and choose "switch". It will be easier right?!

---

Post a comment at below to share with me if you found any other weakness / bad part of websites. Thank you.

How To Use Joomla

To install a plugin or a template :
Click Extensions > Install/Uninstall.

---

To create a new page :
Click Content > Article Manager > New

---

To add a new link to the side menu or top menu :
Click Menus > Menu Manager > Menu Item(s) > New > Article > Article Layout
Then Type in the title, then choose the menu, then choose the article (page).

---

To show menu to all pages :
Click Extensions > Module Manager
Then select the menu, then click "All" button on Menu Assignment section.

---

To modify the picture and css and html codes of the template :
When you are trying to edit a css or html page, it won't allow you save the page and it shows the error message : "a fatal error or timeout occurred while processing this directive cpanel". It is because the ownership is changed to "nobody", so you don't have the ownership / permission to edit the page. Please follow the steps below to fix it :
0) Let's say your template folder name is milky_way
1) Rename the folder of the template. (Eg : milky_way2)
2) Copy and paste the folder to your root folder.
3) Delete the original folder of template.
4) Move the copied folder from root folder back to the original folder.
5) Rename it to original name (Eg: milky_way2).
6) Right click the folder, choose "Change Permissions", tick all the boxes of "Write".
You also need to repeat the 6 steps above for css folder in the template folder.

---

To add a box on any part of a page :
You need to know what is the name of the box on a particular part of the page 1st, please look at the picture below for reference :

---

To copy a Joomla website and paste it into other hosting :
Zip all files > download the zip file > upload the zip file to other hosting > extract the zip file. Then export a copy of the database to your computer :
1. Login to the database that you want to duplicate using phpMyAdmin
2. Click the database name on the left-hand side of the page.
3. Select the Export tab
4. Select the Save as file option
5. Click Go.
Then import the copied database into the new database on the other hosting. You'll first need to create the new, empty database on your server using the account control panel. After the new database has been created:
1. Login to the new database using phpMyAdmin
2. Click the database name on the left-hand side of the page
3. Select the Import tab
4. Click the Browse button under "File to import", then select the database file from your computer
5. Click Go to import the database
Hint: If you see a "No database selected" error, it's probably because you forgot to first click on the database name in the left-hand column.

---

After copy paste Joomla files from 1 folder to another folder, u need to change d ftp paths in configuration.php, else u can't upload plugin. It will give you error message : "JFTP::store: Bad response Warning! - Failed to move file". To solve the error, you can update the configuration.php file updating the following fields example:
var $ftp_enable = "1";
var $ftp_host = "ftp host address";
var $ftp_port = "21";
var $ftp_user = "ftpusername";
var $ftp_pass = "ftppassword";
var $ftp_root = "/";

---

Elgg Tutorials

This page tutorials are about creating or editing the contents on Elgg based website which involve with database. All data are saved on phpmyadmin database :
elgg_users_entity table saves all users' info.
elgg_groups_entity table saves all groups' info.
elgg_river table saves all the activities info within the site.
elgg_objects_entity table saves all the blogs, sending private message, market place, the wire.
elgg_annotations table saves the message board id of the value.
elgg_metadata table saves the credits id of the value
elgg_metastrings table saves all the value of annotations and metadatas which are including the value of message board and credits.


Elgg defines four basic entity types, ElggSite, ElggUser, ElggObject and ElggGroup. Picture below is the chart of Elgg Data Model :

Each of these inherits ElggEntity, and can be subtyped. For example, we can declare that an object is of subtype blog, marking it out as a blog post. Each ElggEntity has a GUID – a Globally Unique ID number – rather than a standard ID or ident.

You can extend entities with extra information in two ways:
* Metadata is information you can add to an object to describe it further. For example, tags, an ISBN number, a file location or language information would fall under metadata.
* Annotations are information generally added by third parties which adds to the information provided by the entity. For example, comments and ratings are both annotations.

---

Tutorial A - Create a simple widget to show the words "Hello World" on user's profile :
1 - Registering your plugin - Create /mod/hello/start.php. Copy the manifest.xml file from one of the plugins in your elgg install into /mod/hello. Update its values of Author and Description. Go to the admin page to enable your plugin. Then click on "more info" to see the Author and Description.

2 - Adding the widget view code - Create /mod/hello/views/default/widgets/helloworld/view.php. Then add this code :

<?php echo 'hello, world!'; ?>

3 - Registering your widget - Open /mod/hello/start.php. Then add in this code :
<?php
function hello_init() {
add_widget_type('helloworld', 'My Widget', 'The hello, world widget');
}
register_elgg_event_handler('init','system','hello_init');
?>
Note : 'hellowworld' must be the same as the file name of the widget : /mod/hello/views/default/widgets/helloworld. 'My Widget' is the label of widget on the users' profile page.

4 - Handling multiple languages - Create /mod/hello/languages/en.php. Then add this code :
<?php
$english = array(
'hello:greeting' => 'Hello! I am Zac!',
'hello:widget_name' => 'My Hello Widget',
);
add_translation("en",$english);
?>
Note 1 : Just now in the /mod/hello/views/default/widgets/helloworld/view.php has the code : echo 'hello, world!'; to display the word "hello, world!" on the widget. Now you edit the view.php code become : echo elgg_echo('hello:greeting'); to display the word "Hello! I am Zac!".

Note 2 : Just now in the /mod/hello/start.php has the code : add_widget_type('helloworld', 'My Widget', 'The hello, world widget'); to show the label "My Widget". You can change the code become : add_widget_type('helloworld', elgg_echo('hello:widget_name'), 'The hello, world widget'); to show the label "My Hello Widget"

6 - Accept user input through widget edit - Create /mod/hello/views/default/widgets/helloworld/edit.php. Then add this code :
<p>Message:
<?php
echo elgg_view('input/text', array( 'internalname' => 'params[message]',
'value' => $vars['entity']->message,
'class' => 'hello-input-text' ) );
?>
</p>
This is calling the input/text view of Elgg. Elgg provides a set of input views: text, button, pulldown, checkboxes, email, etc. You can find the complete list in the directory /views/default/input/. These views create the html needed for form elements. In this case, we are adding a text input box. As you can see from the code above, 3 variables are being passed to the input/text view: the name of the form input text box, a default value, and the css class that is assigned to the text box. Now go to open /mod/hello/views/default/widgets/helloworld/view.php. Then edit the code : <?php echo 'hello, world!'; ?> become <?php echo $vars['entity']->message; ?>

More info at http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Tutorials/HelloWorld.

---

Tutorial B - Create the blog feature (Add blog, edit blog, delete blog and display blog) :

1) The blog module - Create few folder directories :
/mod/blog/
/mod/blog/actions/
/mod/blog/views/default/
copy manifest.xml file from other plugin and paste it into /mod/blog/, then edit the author, description and so on.

2) Create a new blog post page layout - Create /mod/blog/add.php and add this code :
<?php
// Load Elgg engine
include_once(dirname(dirname(dirname(__FILE__))) . "/engine/start.php");

// make sure only logged in users can see this page
gatekeeper();

// set the title
$title = "Create a new blog post";

// start building the main column of the page
$area2 = elgg_view_title($title);

// Add the form to this section, you will create this blog/form on step 4.
$area2 .= elgg_view("blog/form");

// layout the page
$body = elgg_view_layout('two_column_left_sidebar', '', $area2);

// draw the page
page_draw($title, $body);
?>

3) Create the form for creating a new blog post - Create /mod/blog/views/default/blog/form.php. The form should have input fields for the title, body and tags, and direct to "<?php echo $vars['url']; ?>action/blog/save" :
<div class="contentWrapper">
<form action="<?php echo $vars['url']; ?>action/blog/save" method="post">
<p><?php echo elgg_echo("title"); ?><br />
<?php echo elgg_view('input/text',array('internalname' => 'title')); ?></p>

<p><?php echo elgg_echo("body"); ?><br />
<?php echo elgg_view('input/longtext',array('internalname' => 'body')); ?></p>

<p><?php echo elgg_echo("tags"); ?><br />
<?php echo elgg_view('input/tags',array('internalname' => 'tags')); ?></p>

<?php echo elgg_view('input/securitytoken'); ?>
<p></p>
</form>
</div>

Notice how the form is calling input views like input/longtext. These are built into elgg and make it easy to add form components. You can see a complete list of input views in the /views/default/input/ directory.

4) Create the action file - Create /mod/blog/actions/save.php. Then add in the code :
<?php
// only logged in users can add blog posts
gatekeeper();

// get the form input
$title = get_input('title');
$body = get_input('body');
$tags = string_to_tag_array(get_input('tags'));

// create a new blog object
$blogpost = new ElggObject();
$blogpost->title = $title;
$blogpost->description = $body;
$blogpost->subtype = "blog";

// save tags as metadata
$blogpost->tags = $tags;

// for now make all blog posts public
$blogpost->access_id = ACCESS_PUBLIC;

// owner is logged in user
$blogpost->owner_guid = get_loggedin_userid();

// save to database
$blogpost->save();

// forward user to a page that displays the post
forward($blogpost->getURL());
?>
Every entity can have a subtype and in this we are using "blog". The tags are stored as metadata. Every object in Elgg has a built-in URL automatically, although you can override this if you wish. getURL() is called to get that unique URL.

5) Create the object view - When a visitor click on the blog title, Elgg will auto automatically call the /mod/blog/views/default/object/blog to view the blog post, so now we create the object/blog. Create /mod/blog/views/default/object/blog.php. Then add in the code :
<?php echo elgg_view_title($vars['entity']->title); ?>
<div class="contentWrapper">
<p><?php echo $vars['entity']->description; ?></p>
<?php echo elgg_view('output/tags', array('tags' => $vars['entity']->tags)); ?>
</div>
Objects in Elgg are a subclass of an entity. (Users and sites are also subclasses of entity.) All entities can have a subtype, the meat of which is utterly up to you. Valid object subtypes include blog posts, calendar entries, loaves of bread, chocolate teapots and inflatable dartboards. Here, we have used the subtype "blog" to identify a blog post.

Each blog post will be passed to this PHP file as $vars['entity']. ($vars is an array used in the views system to pass variables to a view). The last line takes the tags on the blog post and automatically displays them as a series of clickable links. Search is handled completely automatically.

6) Create Plugin start.php - Create /mod/blog/start.php. Then add in the code :
<?php
global $CONFIG;
register_action("blog/save", false, $CONFIG->pluginspath . "blog/actions/save.php");
?>
The action will now be available as /action/blog/save, although the false in the second parameter means that it will only be available to logged in users. The third parameter just defines where the source file is.

7) Displaying list of blogs - Create /mod/blog/index.php.. Then add in the code :
First of all, we need to load the Elgg engine:
include_once(dirname(dirname(dirname(__FILE__))) . "/engine/start.php");

Then we'll grab the latest blog posts. Note that this function returns only the posts that the user can see, so access restrictions are handled transparently:
$body = list_entities('object','blog',0,10,false);
The function list_entities (and its cousins) also transparently handles pagination, and even creates an RSS and OpenDD feed for your blog if you have defined these views.

Finally, we'll draw the page:
$body = elgg_view_layout('one_column', $body);
page_draw("Our blog page",$body);

A user blog page or friends' blog page?
If we grab the Global Unique IDentifier (GUID) of the logged in user, we can limit the blog posts to those posted by a particular user by replacing the list function above with:
$user_guid = get_loggedin_userid();
list_user_objects($user_guid,'blog',10,false);

Or with a list of the blog posts of that user's friends by replacing it with:
$user_guid = get_loggedin_userid();
list_user_friends_objects($user_guid,'blog',10,false);

More info at : http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Tutorials/Blog.

---

Tutorial C - Modify Default Index Page - If you are looking to overwrite the default index page on your Elgg install, then it is best to do this as a plugin in order to keep the upgrading of your Elgg install as pain free as possible.

The main Elgg index runs a plugin hook called 'index,system'. If this returns true, it assumes that another front page has been drawn and doesn't display the default page.

Therefore, you can override it by registering a function to the 'index,system' plugin hook and then returning true from that function. This means you can write exactly the front page you want without having to edit core Elgg. Go create your new plugin. Then in the start.php add in the code :
<?php
function pluginname_init() {
// Extend system CSS with our own styles
extend_view('css','pluginname/css');
// Replace the default index page
register_plugin_hook('index','system','new_index');
}

function new_index() {
if (!include_once(dirname(dirname(__FILE__)) . "/pluginname/index.php"))
return false;
return true;
}

// register for the init, system event when our plugin start.php is loaded
register_elgg_event_handler('init','system','pluginname_init');
?>

Then, create an index page (/pluginname/index.php) and use that to put the content you would like on the front page of your Elgg site.

---

Tutorial D - Add credits field to every users - This tutorial teaching you how to add an e-wallet to every users. When a new user register an account, the USD0 will be auto added to their account. Their profile page will show how much credits they have. Create mod/credits_register/start.php then add in the codes :
<?php
function creds_create_user($event, $object_type, $object)
{
if (($object) && ($object instanceof ElggUser))
{
$creds = 33;
create_metadata($object-<guid, 'creds', $creds,'', 0, ACCESS_PUBLIC);
}
}
//init function
register_elgg_event_handler('create', 'user', 'creds_create_user');
?>
The codes above will create a metadata to save the value of credits. If you wondering where is the value store in database, the id of value is saved on the table of elgg_metadata, the value is saved on the table of elgg_metastrings.

Now we need to show the credits on user profile, create mode/credits_profile/start.php then add in the code :
<?php
//init function
extend_view('profile/status', 'credit_on_profile/profile');
?>
Then create mode/credits_profile/views/default/credit_on_profile/profile.php then add in the code :
<font color=red><b>Creds: </b><?php echo $vars['entity']->creds; ?></font>
<br /><br />

---

More tutorial at :
1) http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Tutorials
2) http://ye5.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-use-elgg.html

How To Use Elgg

Elgg is a cms to create a social networking website. Here are the lists of websites that created by using elgg : http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Sites_powered_by_Elgg. This is 1st time I use Elgg to develop my social networking website at http://www.plekz.com. On this post, I am going to record down all the processes of developing the website by using Elgg, so that I can always refer to this post when I want to develop another website by using Elgg in future. Hopefully this post may help some other people who are using Elgg.

On 1-January-2010,
1 - I have installed Elgg (version 1.7.6) onto my plekz.com domain in my hosting.
2 - Created a database for plekz.com through my hosting cpanel.
3 - Linked the database to plekz.com through Elgg Admin page.
4 - Created an email account (admin@plekz.com) through my hosting cpanel.
5 - Linked the email account to plekz.com through Elgg Admin page under section of "Site Administration".
6 - Previously default landing page after the user logged in is "Dashboard" page, I changed it to "Profile" page by doing :
In actions/login.php, change
forward("pg/dashboard/"); to forward("pg/profile/$username");

7 - Regarding set Default Profile Widgets, only those new users who registered the account after the Default Widgets setting is set will see it.

---

On 3-January-2010,
1 - I have installed WAMPserver onto my windows Vista. I have problem about localhost shows blank page, I fixed it by using the solution here : http://ye5.blogspot.com/2011/01/wamp-server-localhost-shows-blank-page.html. (It is good practice to do all those customization offline through WAMPserver localhost before I really go edit the real website. It is to make sure everything goes smooth, doesn't have any errors and bugs in my offline files, then only upload the files to my actual website).

2 - The Home page shows 10 of the new users which has pictures only. If you want to shows the users which doesn't has picture yet, you can go to mode/custom_index/index.php then delete the word icontime from 'icontime' to make it become '' . If you want it shows more users, you can change the digit on 'limit' => 10.

3 - According to the picture above, The bottom of Home page has a "Spotlight" section. Go to views/default/pageshells to move the code of spotlight section to the top of the page.

4 - If you want to delete anything on Home page, go to views/default/pageshells, you just need to add this symbol // on the left side of the word "echo" of the code. For example, to hide the TOP BAR, <?php //echo elgg_view('page_elements/elgg_topbar', $vars); ?>. To hide the Header text and other content, <?php //echo elgg_view('page_elements/header_contents', $vars); ?>. To hide the System Message and Errors, <?php //echo elgg_view('messages/list', array('object' => $vars['sysmessages'])); ?>. To hide the Main Body, <?php //echo $vars['body']; ?>. To hide the Spotlight and Footer are also the same just need to add the symbol // onto the code.

5 - If you want to make "Spotlight" section appear on the Home page when the user is not logged in, delete the code <?php if(isloggedin()) { ?> and <?php } ?>.

6 - If you want to edit Spotlight content, you can go to views/default/spotlight/default.php.

7 - If you want to show Spotlight section on homepage only and delete it from all other pages, you can edit the codes on views/defaut/pageshells/pageshell.php. You can use php code if else statement to show spotlight section if the url of current page is homepage or index page. Here is the code :
$homepage1 = "/";
$currentpage1 = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
if($homepage1==$currentpage1) {
echo elgg_view('page_elements/spotlight', $vars);
}

Note that it doesn't work on WAMPserver / Xampp localhost because the homepage url is not the same as your online web hosting / server. You can echo $currentpage1 to check the url of current page.

---

On 5-January-2010,
1 - If you want to change the Top-bar, please edit the code at views/default/page_elements/elgg_topbar.php.

2 - If you want to move the Topbar to center, go to views/default/pageshells/pageshell.php, move the code : <?php echo elgg_view('page_elements/elgg_topbar', $vars); ?> to on top of this code : <?php echo elgg_view('page_elements/header_contents', $vars); ?>. So the Topbar is below the Header now. So the Topbar width size is the same as header width size now. Then go to views/default/page_elements/header_contents.php add width:1000px to div of page_wrapper becomes <div id="page_wrapper" style="width:1000px;" >.

3 - If you want to add logo or Google Adsense onto the header, you can edit the code in views/default/page_elements/header_contents.php

4 - If you want to edit footer, you can edit the code at views/default/page_elements/footer.php

---

On 17-January-2010,

---

Understanding Elgg Base Website Structure :
1 - Pageshells keeps all the elements that shows on every pages such as footer and header. The directory is views/default/pageshells/

2 - All the plugin files are saved in mod folder.

3 - Custom_index is a plugin which control all the contents on Home page. The directory is mode/custom_index/

More info at : http://www.packtpub.com/article/customizing-elgg-themes.

---

More tutorial at : http://ye5.blogspot.com/2011/01/elgg-tutorials.html.

Last Updated on 08 January, 2011

How To Write A Good Blog Post.

Your good posts get ignored?
Why people don't like to read your post? How to solve it? As long as your post is fulfilling the 7 conditions below, people will like to read your post.

1. Don't use "I", please use "You".
One unsavory quirk about human beings is that we instinctively focus on ourselves first. This means that your visitors immediately start scouring your blog for posts that mean something to them. If you start your post with:
“I just spent the day washing my kitchen floor.”
…your readers will ignore it. After all, the post is about YOU and YOUR kitchen floor and not about them.

Try this instead: Start your posts with a statement or question that uses the second-person perspective:
“Do you hate washing your kitchen floor? Is a mop the last thing on Earth you want to hold in your hand?”
See what I mean?

2. A focus on solving problems
Human beings are natural-born problem solvers. From the moment we wake-up to when we lay down to sleep we are finding answers to problems. Your readers will adore you if you can solve a problem that has been haunting them. Work hard to find these solutions and offer them often.

On the other hand, if your blog posts are getting ignored, it’s likely that you are solving your own problems and not your readers.

Give this a try: take out a sheet of paper and write down 11 big problems that keep your readers up at night. Now think of five posts that you can write for each of those problems. Sit back and look at your list of 55 blog posts. That looks like a solid editorial calendar for 2011, doesn’t it?

3. One idea per post
Research has shown that most people can’t hold more than one or two ideas in their head at one time. The more ideas you try to stuff in, the more likely you are going to get ignored.

Focusing on one idea is a sure-fire way to immediately boost the punching power of your post. If you have more than one then consider writing a series of posts. But, whatever you do, don’t shoehorn a thesis into your post. That’s a certain recipe for obscurity.

4. Excellent packaging
You know what? Blogging is a visual game. If your post is packaged well, it will get read. I’m sure you’ve found yourself reading a poorly written post wrapped in a great package! So, at least spend a little extra time to clean up look and feel.

A few pointers: use short paragraphs and one-line sentences to make your paragraphs visually interesting. Add mini-headlines throughout your post to help people who skim before they read. Last, find a picture (preferably of people) that grabs attention and helps tell your post’s story.

5. Down-to-earth practicality
Blog readers are a practical bunch. Like you, they want to be able to use what they learn. That means, they absolutely hate Ph.D. dissertations in blog-post clothing. Dense, fact-laden, verbose, diatribes repel readers and get ignored. Save this document for the place where it belongs: in an academic journal.

On the other hand, work to place relevant and practical information in each post. Your goal should be to illustrate your point in simple how-to pieces. Not only will people thank you in the comments, but they will also share your content.

6. Careful research
I’ve made the mistake of thinking that my readers shared my interests. I was wrong. The ghost town around my blog post provided all the proof I needed.

Research is the process of pinpointing what interests your readers. These days, research is pretty simple to do. You can simply ask for topics on Twitter, do a Google search with your topic and the word “help”, hang out in online forums, or survey your own readers.

Once you get the research right, you’ll soon be perceived as the go-to person in your niche. You’ll have the answers and your posts will attract eager readers by the bushel. Trust me. (By the way, if you are competing in a competitive niche, research is the number one way to get an advantage)

7. Rapport
When I started writing professionally, a mentor told me to write as if my reader was sitting on the bar stool beside me. That advice has been worth a fortune to me.

The best way to build this type rapport is to write with your natural voice. You know, the voice you use when you talk to yourself in the shower. The voice you use when you want to say something snarky but think better of it. Yep, that voice.

Once you start using it, your posts will stick in the minds of your readers. Lurkers start commenting and people start sharing. Got it?

Internet Explorer Cannot Display Picture

All other browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Maxthon, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome can display the picture but only Internet Explorer cannot display the picture, why? It is because the picture is CYMK color mode, not RGB color mode. IE cannot display CYMK color mode picture.

If you are using other browsers like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to open this page, sure you can see the two pictures below, but if you are using Internet Explorer to open this page, sure you cannot see 1 of the picture below :

RGB color mode picture

CYMK color mode picture

The following chart shows the different browsers support RGB and CMYK Picture :

Browser	RGB	CMYK
IE 6	Yes	No
IE 7	Yes	No
IE 8	Yes	No
IE 9	Yes	Yes
Firefox 2.x	Yes	No
Firefox 3.x	Yes	Yes
Google Chrome 5	Yes	Yes
Safari 4	Yes	Yes
Safari 5	Yes	Yes
Opera	Yes	Yes

Solution
You can use picture editor to change the CYMK color mode of the picture to RGB color mode. If you are using Photoshop, you can open the picture by Photoshop, then click "Image" from top menu, then click "Mode", then click "RGB Color", then save the picture.

Special Characters For Text Message

Did you see some people wrote those special characters on their facebook and msn before? Example as the following picture :

How they do that? It is simple, you can click Start menu from your desktop or press Windows button on your keyboard, then type in "Character Map" into search box, then press Enter button on keyboard. Then choose "Unicode Subrange" at the field of Group by:. For your convenient, I have copy and pastes all the special characters from the Character Map program in my computer to my blog. You can just copy and paste those special characters / symbols below to use them on your facebook / msn / twitter / plurk / myspace :

۶(●̮̮̃•̃)۶٩( -̮̮̃-̃)۶٩(-̮̮̃•̃)۶٩(●̮̮̃●̃)۶٩(•̮̮̃ •̃)٩ ☃ ☺ ☹ ☻ ♬ ♫ ♪ ♩ ✉ ♨ ☁ ☂ ✈ ☎ ► ◄ ▼ ▲ ◁ ▽ ▷ △ ∆ ⇧ ↩ ↕ ↨ ↑ ↓ ← ↔ ⤴ ⤵ ☛ ☚ ☞ ☜ ☝ ☟ ✌ ✍ ❁ ❀ ✿ ✽ ✾ ❉ ❆ ✺ ✵ ☼ ✡ * ✩ ★ ☪ ☾ ♈ ♉ ♊ ♋ ♌ ♍ ♎ ♏ ♐ ♑ ♒ ♓ ☬ ☫ ♞ ♘ ∵ ∴ ※ ✜ ✖ ⃝ ▀ ■ □ ▢ ❒ ⃞ ☒ ☑ ✔ ♤ ♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ ❥ ☤ ♁ ♂ ♀ ☥ ☌ ☍ ♺ ♳ ♴ ♵ ♶ ♷ ♸ ♹ ♽ ♼ ❦ ☭ ✠ ☮ ✇ ☯ ☄ ☉ Θ ⌂ ☇ ☈ ☡ ☊ ☋ ☢ ☣ ☠ ✣ ☧ ☦ ☨ ✝ † ‡ ✛ ✂ ✁ ✃ ✄ ✎ ✏ ✐ ❂ ♅ ♇ ♆ ♙ ♟ ♗ ♚ ♛ ♜ ♔ ♕ ♖ ♝ © ® ™ ∞ ¥ € £ ƒ $ ≤ ≥ ∑ « » ∫ µ ₪ ◊ ı Ω ≈ § • ◘ ¶ & ¡ ¿ ‽ ø ∂ œ Æ æ π ß ÷ ½ ¼ ¾ ‰ √ ≠ % ˚ ˆ ˜ ˘ ¯ ∟ ⌐ ¬ ﹄ ﹃ ﹆ ﹅ ╣ ╗ ∑ º ª ♋ ░ ▒ ▓ █ ₡ Ç ç ¢ Ä Å À Á å á ä â É È Ê Ë é ê ë Í Ì Î ï î ì í Ó Ò Ö Ö ô ö ò ó Ø Ú Ù Ü û ù ú ü ÿ ₥ ñ Ñ ₦ Ϟ ₩ Ž ž ① ② ③ ④ ⑤ ⑥ ⑦ ⑧ ⑨ ⑩ ⑪ ⑫ ⑬ ⑭ ⑮ ⑯ ⑰ ⑱ ⑲ ⑳ Ⓐ Ⓑ Ⓒ Ⓓ Ⓔ Ⓕ Ⓖ Ⓗ Ⓘ Ⓙ Ⓚ Ⓛ Ⓜ Ⓝ Ⓞ Ⓟ Ⓠ Ⓡ Ⓢ Ⓣ Ⓤ Ⓥ Ⓦ Ⓧ Ⓨ Ⓩ ⓐ ⓑ ⓒ ⓓ ⓔ ⓕ ⓖ ⓗ ⓘ ⓙ ⓚ ⓛ ⓜ ⓝ ⓞ ⓟ ⓠ ⓡ ⓢ ⓣ ⓤ ⓥ ⓦ ⓧ ⓨ ⓩ ❶ ❷ ❸ ❹ ❺ ❻ ❼ ❽ ❾ ❿ ⓫ ⓬ ⓭ ⓮ ⓯ ⓰ ⓱ ⓲ ⓳ ⓴ ◐ ◑ ◒ ◓ ◣ ◢ ◤ ◥ ㊋ ㊌ ㊍ ㊏ ㊎ ㊐ ㊑ ㊊ ㊚ ㊛ ㊙ ㊗ ㊖ ㊔ ㊒ ㊰ ㊫ ㊩ ㊦ ㊤ ㊧ ㊨ ㊥ ㊟ ㊡

Use other free server to host all your website pictures

If you're looking for a solution to offload your images from your server to another.

*You should be looking at Image Storage APIs.
*Imageshack probably has an API for you to do it.
*Picasa also has an API for you to upload and retrieve photos.
*Perhaps it doesn't even have to be an image storage API.
*storage APIs and I think box.net offers them.
*SMEStorage as combination packages.

*Usually if their provide APIs, it comes with code samples on how to use them.

*You build the UPLOAD form.
The UPLOAD form retrieves image from USER.
The UPLOAD form sends the image via these API to their SERVER.
The SERVER returns you the URL LINK of the image.
You STORE the URL LINK into your DATABASE."

I have send a suggestion to www.badoo.com

Below is the suggestion that I had send to them :

"Seriously why don't you disable restriction of Location input in user's profile? I am living in Penang in Malaysia, the Location text box allow me to choose Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia only. I want to search for people who live in Penang, but when I key in the word "penang" to search, there is no result. Can you please disable the restriction or just add 14 states in Malaysia country, + there is about 10 Cities in each state. Please refer to www.plurk.com, because plurk.com allows me to choose which state and which city that I am living on. Thanks."

Top Websites Rank List.

websites rank position:

1 - google.com
Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company's focus is developing search technology.

2 - yahoo.com
Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager.

3 - facebook.com
A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.

4 - youtube.com
YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!

5 - Windows Live (live.com)
Search engine from Microsoft.

6 - wikipedia.org
An online collaborative encyclopedia.

7 - blogger.com
Free, automated weblog publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP.

8 - Microsoft Network (MSN)
Dialup access and content provider.


I realize that the website free things only can got more people to support it, and thus it will become popular. See Windows Live Messenger is free, you-tube is free, google is free and facebook is free.

So if you want to make your own website become very popular, you must free give something that people want it, and you must keep giving this things continuously without a stop.