Disqus Comment System

Disqus is a third-party commenting platform that facilitates user interaction by providing a single log in for every Disqus-enabled site. They also offer various login options (Twitter, Facebook, etc) as well as content appreciation features. Essentially, it's a very simple comment system that doesn't require local registrations or theming. One of its great feature is the ability to export all the local WordPress-based comments into their database for a smooth transition.

Google Analytics for WordPress

I'm not much of an SEO person, but I'm still aware it has a definitive importance and impact to have a properly indexed website. There's a bunch of options that I don't understand, but luckily I have friends who make a living of SEO and Analytics and they insist Joost de Valk's Google Analytics for WordPress is there best option available.

Google XML Sitemaps

In June 2005, Google announced a new service called Google Sitemaps. This plugin allows webmasters to submit an index of URLs which they want to have included in Googles web search. It's free to use and helps Google to get a more complete overview of your website. More information regarding Google Sitemaps and how this plugin implements it over at Arne Brachhold's FAQ

SyntaxHighlighter Evolved

My blog can get somewhat technical when I write about WordPress, PHP, Linux or JavaScript. SyntaxHighlighter Evolved allows code to be highlighted and formatted nicely using a predefined set of language-based shortcodes.

Widget Logic

This one is kind of complicated to get your head around. Essentially, Widget Logic will add an input box inside every widget that allows you to use WordPress template tags to conditionally display (or not) the widget's content.

WordPress Admin Bar

I have to admit I found this little gem only today, and I don't know how I was able to live without it before. WordPress Admin Bar will, if configured to do so, add a nice little bar at the top your WordPress content like this giving you easy access to all your administrative functions while surfing the non-admin part of your blog. It's worth noting that WordPress Admin Bar is made by the same developer who makes SyntaxHighlighter Evolved (and who works for Automattic). For more of Alex's plugins, check out the full list on his website

WPtouch

The guys at BraveNewCode have been around ever since there was an interest for mobile-friendly versions of standard websites. It was the first mobile-rendering plugin that WordPress had, and as far as I'm concerned, it's still the very best. The only downside is that it lacks a design modification aspect - but then again, how else are you going to render if not this way? In today's mobile-crazed world, it's a pretty good idea to use WPtouch to render a mobile-friendly version to known mobile browsers.

WP Super Cache

WordPress does not come with a file caching system by default. If your blog has high pageviews, using WP Super Cache will significantly reduce the load on your server, which can then stay responsive longer because it doesn't have to call and process the files queued for serving.

Akismet

One of the very few plugin that comes bundled with WordPress by default, Akismet is a merciless spam filter for your comments. It's been pretty good to me since I've started using it. It can also be used in various independent user-input-based plugins like Contact Form 7.

WP-prettyPhoto

Obligatory self-promotion, yes, but I genuinely believe it my plugin deserves a spot on this list. Stéphane Caron did a fantastic job with his prettyPhoto jQuery plugin, (more Stéphane projects) even more so with the 3.0 release which will be implemented in WP-prettyPhoto soon. This plugin automatically makes all self-linked images open in a cute prettyPhoto inline window that supports multiple media formats, YouTube, Vimeo, QuickTime and Flash videos, external sites and even inline (textual!) content. Read up on the current version's usage instructions to get an idea of what it's capable of!

Back in the days, @replies would simply be another tweet. The user you were replying to would see it appear in its @mention and the whole process was pretty much client-side. About two years ago, that changed. A lot of you "social media experts" apparently weren't around then. The way @replies work now is much better. When you @reply to a user, only that user will see it in its @mention tab, whether he follows you or not. Everyone else that follows you will not see it. That's a great implementation to avoid having your stream filled with customer service replies, among other things. The kicker here is that everyone that follows you and the user you're replying to will see it as well. It promotes discussion and people jumping in to comment on a "private discussion" you were having.

So please. If you want to reply to a specific user, the first thing in your tweet should be a @reply. Not a "Hi @user". Got it?

If you claim to be a social media expert, don't let anyone catch you doing this or this. Thanks.

We are currently in the organizational stage of the project and there are lots of things left to figure out. We need volunteers - that's one thing we know for sure. Should you have interest, do not hesitate to contact us with what you think you can bring to the organization. Keep checking the site and MobileCamp Montreal's official Twitter account for updates!

This week was very interesting in the mobile world. Both David and Goliath were too busy dealing with their own bad press to worry about smacking each other in the face.

On Friday, Internet erupted with pretty serious accusations against Motorola and how they allegedly booby-trapped their Droid X, their flagship Android-powered superstar, so that no ROM hacking could be done whatsoever.. otherwise the device would pretty much self-destruct.

On the same day, Mark Milian from the LA Times wrote a piece on the inclusion of useless applications by carriers and the reasons behind it.

Absolutely Android put up an article titled "Why Motorola should be asked to  leave the Open Handset Alliance", which maybe was a bit of an overreaction that we all shared at that point, but ended up somewhat appeased when Motorola "clarified" the situation. Yes, it's arguable.

Around the same time, Apple was in damage control mode with the iPhone 4 antenna fiasco leading up to the press conference on Friday, where Steve Jobs openly admitted he actually is considering refunds and is giving shit away to avoid a mutiny among his unholy horde. Apple. Giving back money and free shit. Because they fucked up.

It was definitely a very interesting week in the mobile world.

Bill Shackett, a few minutes ago, wrote a comment in reply to one of my Xperia review and reminded me about all of this, and mostly about the junkware stories. I vented about that very thing quite passionately in two articles I wrote last month, and I thought it would be a good idea to write a post, instead of a reply to his comment, to answer his question: how the hell do you solve that problem? It's annoying, and if you're reading this chances are you agree with me. I don't mind bundled applications, I understand the motives behind their inclusion and have no problem with a little promotion where you can... when it's well done. Carriers and manufacturers should not make bundled applications uninstallable or worse, like Sony Ericsson for the X10a, completely hinder the operating system. The Xperia X10 is stuck on the 1.6 version of the Android OS when the current stable version is 2.2, because their attempted symbiotic integration into their obsolete version didn't pan out as they planned. They did promise an update to 2.2 in Q4 of this year... but by then, the OS will be even more advanced. Yes, they did good with the patch they released last week, but it really feels like an Apple-flavored cookie to basically say "hey, we're doing something. It's not what you want, but it's something, right?"

So I thought I'd explain to Bill and everyone of you how to get rid, as best as you can, of bundled applications on an Android platform. It's not foolproof, but it's working great for me.

Step 1: Get Startup Auditor

Startup Auditor is a program by VesperaNovus that allows you to control what applications are launched automatically when your phone starts up. Bill had an issue where Maps would always be running, and I agree, it's really annoying. Foursquare, Facebook, Weather Applications, most Twitter clients, and pretty much everything that could involve notifications and data update is running in the background on the Android. I like to control these things, I don't need the ones that I install myself, so I sure as hell don't need the bundled applications which I never run and are hidden from every menu to suck up battery juice while they sit and do nothing. Some applications conveniently have that option in their settings, but most don't, sadly. You can get it on the Android Market for 0.99$ - trust me, it's worth it just for one feature: aside from doing what it advertises, it also allows you specify if the application you prevent from running at startup should also be automatically killed when launched. So carriers can't play a timed auto-run trick on you. How's that for sticking it to the man?

Step 2: Get dxTop

I know it'll sound a bit restrictive for you maybe, but this is what I found to be the best solution. dxTop is an alternative Home application that has a lot of cool improvements over whatever standard (or carrier-bundled) versions of your default Home screen. One of them is a native task killer that you can access just by sliding a drawer, showing you which applications are running, recently used and which services are initiated. From there, you can long press any running apps' icon to kill it selectively, kill all apps, kill all services or just nuke everything. Now, I know the opinions on having task killers on Android are  mitigated. Some people need to have control and go against the intended  design and some claim having a task killer sucks as much resources as  you'd save by killing unwanted applications. My take? I agree with both.  I like to have control, and I can charge up whenever I need so battery  isn't that much of a concern to me. That's why I went with a task killer  - but not just any. I figured if I was going to spend resources on  something purely obsessive, I might as well make it worth it, so I went with a full home replacement with a native task killer. The one and only inconvenience with that is simply that you cannot have an ignore list of applications you might want to keep running, like your Twitter client and Google Talk for example. I'll have a more thorough article on dxTop once I finish evaluating a few applications for a top 10 list I am planning to write soon, dxTop is definitely on it though, of that I can assure you.

Step 3: Get Memory Monitor

Another advantage of running dxTop is this pretty cool widget called Memory Monitor. It'll sit one of your Home screens and show you a pretty (customizable) graph of your memory usage. Tapping it allows you to kill all apps or services to regain control of your resources.

Using these three things will allow you to tune your control over what runs at startup, what's allowed to be automatically open, and what you want to be running when you care enough to look at your resources usage. Plus with dxTop, you do it with mad style. I realize however that dxTop might not be your thing, there are lots of different tastes, habits and Home applications out there, but seeing as this one is my favorite, I hope I still managed to provide a viable solution, or at the very least inspiration, to Bill's problem. Lastly, I'd like to point you to Bill's website , or at least the one he wrote in the 'website' field of the comment form, an active little community of Xperia X10 owners/enthusiasts, which can sometimes come in as handy as the xda-developers forums themselves. I'm always amazed when a home link from a comment is not spam, I was almost knocked unconscious when it turned out to be a great find, so thanks for brightening my day!

Note: All the applications mentioned in this article are available on the Android Market. Sorry for the lack of QR codes. I realize some of the applications are not free and offer only a toned-down version to test out and they are available through other canals that enable you to obtain them for free. While I encourage the method for longer testing periods and more through evaluation of the features that are not available or modified in the free version, I also encourage the developers of this market. If you like the applications, please consider buying them or making a donation to their developer. Thanks!

With that being said, one thing I won't fucking tolerate is people who I call friends commenting on my blog using SEO techniques. Fuck you. That's fucking insulting. This is my private blog, one that if you don't have anything to say, I want you to shut the fuck up. Don't pull that shit on me - I will ban your ass and not give one look back.

I'm not gonna make this a rant about SEO, the state of the web today, marketing or the company I work for. What had to be said has been said, and if you can't respect it, get the fuck out right this second.

Thank you.

Edit: wanted to add that after talking it over with the person in question, I hold no grudge and feel no animosity towards him.