The Biggest Dot Com Pho To Date With a Side of Bic Promo Pens

This past weekend, we witnessed yet another milestone in Dot Com Pho history. Although the week before, we attracted over 16 people, this week, the total body count was 25! As a result, the whole center of Pho Lan in Richmond was overrun by local bloggers. Dot Com Pho regulars Ed Lau, Michael Kwan, Leo Chiang, and of course, John Chow, were all on the scene. Dot Com Pho part timers, Greg Morgan and Gary Ng were also in attendance.

Tejpal Singh of 1234Pens decided to shower us with pens from his new venture, BicPromoPens. Though over half of them didn’t work, you have to admit, it was a good marketing ploy because we talked about them a lot. I mean, no one talks about a pen that works anyway. Even though we had some pen malfunctions, I’ve never known Tejpal not to take care of his customers so I wouldn’t worry.

This was John’s last Dot Com Pho for a while as he fears for his life and takes off to Shanghai where Mr. Lan won’t find him. Apparently, when John told him that we’d have over 20 people this week, his staff needed to hold him back from strangling him. We’ll see him again when we have our Dot Com Pho: Taipei Edition, when Ed Lau, Michael Kwan and I arrive for the COMPUTEX Computer Show. I’m thinking it will probably be Taiwan Noodle rather than Pho.

This week’s Dot Com Pho will be brought to you by Ed Lau and me so who knows what the turn out will be. If you have any ideas or topics for this week’s Dot Com Pho Episode, please let me know and we’ll consider it for our “Wicked Awesome John Chow Free” edition. Who knows, we might even give Leo Chiang a speaking part. Just make sure you let me or Ed know that you are coming and we’ll reserve a spot for you. See you on Saturday!

Stephen Fung DOT NET Gets a Makeover!

I’ve pretty much been using the same theme since my very first post on this blog. Although it was, and still is, one of the most advanced themes for Wordpress, its design was definitely starting to become dated. Also, as time passed, I found it to be less and less inviting. So for 2008, not only do I get a fashion makeover, but my blog also gets the makeover treatment!

After searching around the Interwebs, I found something that I could work with. What drew me to this particular design was the fact that it was the complete opposite of my old theme in terms of complexity. The internal workings had a very simple layout which means that I can do a lot with it without breaking something. My old theme had a lot of plugin integrations built in which didn’t give me a lot of flexibility. I also liked the wood floors and the warmer colors which is a direct contrast to the cool blues used in my previous theme. The header picture is one of my original photos from my trip to Granville Island during my Photography Class field trips, earlier this year.

I’m still working through some bugs and adding in features that I would like carried over from the old design, but things are progressing pretty smoothly. So what do you guys think?

Supersized Dot Com Pho

Today, we had one of our biggest Dot Com Pho’s yet! Attracting over 16 local bloggers, Mr. Lan was surprisingly calm. Here’s this week’s episode of Dot Com Pho put together by John Chow!

If you want to see who attended, you can check out the credits. There are just too many people to list! Highlights of this week’s episode include inappropriate spooning from Dot Com Whistler, Ed’s new Macbook fetish and John Chow’s weight loss challenge/surrender.

Also featured this week is a quick video review of the Manfrotto ModoPocket Mini Pocket Tripod in our Gadget of the Week segment. For a more thorough review, you can check out the one I wrote at Futurelooks.

I Heart Wordpress Version 2.5!

As some of you may have noticed while logging in today, Wordpress 2.5 has finally been released! This version packs a lot of new stuff into the already pretty wicked awesome Wordpress software that we all know and love. Noticeable changes include a brand new user interface for all the backend stuff and a lot of great new features that make blogging that much easier. It definitely seems like a much more mature version of the software with sleek new lines, features, and smarter placements of often used functions. The developers did say that this version was heavily influenced by the users and it shows.

I Can’t Believe I Just Installed It…

I always chomp at the bit when I do an upgrade, so I started with Kelly’s blog (sorry!). After that went off without a hitch, I moved to MegaTechNews, then this blog, and then finally, the big daddy, Futurelooks. The process was so easy and so “5 minutes” that it was like the software taunted me to keep going. I was afraid that the taunting would lead to some catastrophic failure one of the times. Nope. In fact, the actual database upgrade took like a second. In fact, it took longer just to copy over the files on the server. If you’re not familiar with the process, or are running an older version, please backup, then follow the directions.

Well, I’m still here after a few hours, and have had a chance to play with the software for a bit. Here are a few of my favourite features.

New Posting Interface

One of the things that has always annoyed me about Wordpress was the fact that you couldn’t use a full sized window. Well, in version 2.5, the software now allows you to use a full sized window to edit your posts in. No more scrolling up and down to see parts of your post. Editing the articles at Futurelooks have always been a challenge because of the number of pictures in each article and the multiple pages.

By having the full screen editing window, I can get my edits and formatting done quicker than ever. The writers will also enjoy the enhanced flexibility of the software in this respect, as the new posting area seems to leave your formatting alone instead of mucking with your code. Not to mention, it’s just plain easier to work in a large window.

New Media Management

In addition to these useability changes, file management is greatly improved, allowing you to upload pictures, music, even video to your wordpress blog. A new media management area is created allowing you to see what media files you’ve uploaded for your post, and then, globally, what media files you have throughout the site. Did I mention it supports multiple uploads now? Sweet Home Alabama!

Combining a search function, you can find pictures you’ve uploaded in the past and reuse them, instead of always having to upload new ones because you forgot that you’ve already uploaded them in the past. This is, provided, that you’ve tagged them using the handy dandy tagging features. The new upload function also gives you a status indicator so you aren’t sitting around wondering if that file is uploading or not. That’s very handy for when you’re uploading larger files like videos and audio files.

The only downside is that in the aformentioned full-screen edit window, you can’t access this media gallery. Not to mention, all you Internet Explorer users will not be able to use this new feature as it seems broken in that browser. Seems to work just fine in Firefox. Silly Internet Exploder!  I would love to see the Wordpress Team put a button in the Full-Screen edit window that allows you to call up the media management gallery.

Yeah, I Heart It!

I’ve installed a lot of plugins and altered a lot of files to get the functionality that Wordpress 2.5 gives you out of the box. It’s such a nice piece of software now that all you really need is a great looking template to go with it. That’s not to say that it wasn’t awesome before, but this version is clearly a much more mature. The Wordpress Team has clearly outdone themselves and have really listened to the users.

Aside from the minor Internet Exploder glitches, it’s definitely pretty solid so far. I’d definitely install it if you haven’t already done so. Just make sure you grab all the updated plugins before you make the jump as I noticed that nearly all the plugins that I held dear issued updates as soon as 2.5 hit the web. Other than that, I’m pleased with the experience, and I know that there are still a few things to tidy up, but it isn’t enough to make me want to roll back. I just heart it too much to really care. Download this bad boy!

AGLOCO - The Ship Has Sunk?

Last year, I told you about the second coming of the pay to surf phenomenon known as AGLOCO.  Panda Killer was one of its hugest supporters, often posting his skyrocketing referrals month after month. He hasn’t posted one single word about AGLOCO since July and only briefly mentioned them in his a recent post about yet another clone. He used to post everytime he got another thousand.  Has the AGLOCO ship sunk? Well, after all the hoopla and hype, it kinda looks like the ride is over. I received this email from what appears to be AGLOCO’s email service…

Dear Stephen,
 
    We would like to update you on the status of AGLOCO’s operations.  We continue to believe in the AGLOCO concept, but our revenue is currently not sufficient to give Members a meaningful distribution. And though there are increases in membership, the resulting revenue is not enough to support operating costs.  As a development team we are unable to continue to use our savings to fund the operations.  If any Member would like to pursue continuing the operations of AGLOCO, you may contact us at agloco1@live.com .
 
   We would like to thank every Member for supporting our effort to bring a piece of the Internet directly to the user.  We hope that we can find a way to keep the operations going.
 
AGLOCO Development Team

John Chow’s Worst Nightmare Come True! 

Despite all of the Root of All Evil’s hype about making money online and how this would fit in, it looks like the AllAdvantage clone has gone the way of….AllAdvantage. This definitely made NO MONEY online.  In fact, it LOST MONEY online, something that John doesn’t want to hear! I’m sure John is going to want to distance himself from this pretty quickly since this was one of the many defining moments of his blogging career.  But then again, even the Pandas get a few good shots in once in a while.  John made some predictions about three likely scenarios that would come to past.  Well, it looks like scenario one is unfolding fast…

Stanford… You Suck! 

Even though they had that huge brain trust of Stanford Grads and what not, the ship was sort of doomed from the beginning by being associated with the first pay to surf failure: They had the failed AllAdvantage ex-management there!  It also took them forever to launch the viewbar and when they decided to launch, the hype that was created had pretty much dissipated. Then I discovered that the viewbar would continuously crash on all my systems, doing funny things and was generally retarded, so I uninstalled it and didn’t look back.  This happened to others as well, so there goes your advertising vehicle. If no one runs it, how can you advertise? I guess Stanford isn’t a great marketing school.

I Make Money Online Over…How Many Months? 

When they announced that payments would be amortized over months (actually years, but months sound better…about 120 of them), I think that pretty much put the nail in the coffin for a lot of people who though they could profit off this.  Sure, there is no initial investment of money, but there is investment of time, and based on all the blog posts that people did to hype this program up, everyone lost on this deal, especially those that sunk a ton of cash into advertising and building up their referrals. But the troubles aren’t over…

Who’s Going To Protect Your Privacy Now? 

AGLOCO’s open letter to its user base looking for someone to takeover operations would mean that the lucky user would also take control of that huge database of users and the surfing data it collected.  In the beginning, AGLOCO was SERIOUS about SPAM and protecting your privacy and dispatched a lot of heat about it being spyware.  They even hired on Internet Privacy Guru, Ray Everett Church.  Well, with the company gone, who’s going to ensure that privacy is maintained? Since the company wasn’t registered in the US, but in Hong Kong S.A.R., who are you going to sue if the data gets leaked?

Like AllAdvantage, It’s Dead!

Well, at least I Made Money Online with AllAdvantage before they died.  AGLOCO was a total flop from the botched viewbar launch to the vague then ultimately ridiculous payment program. I’m just glad that I didn’t let myself get swept up in it and didn’t spend too much time, save for a few blog posts, talking about mainly the things I thought were wrong with it like the Spyware issue.  Seeing as all your surfing and contact data is now up for grabs, mine included, it might as well be “Offline” Spyware.

While John will have over 21,000+ referrals that will be pissed when they hear about this. I’ll only have 229 to worry about