ignati [dot] com

There is so many Lightbox JS alternative out there like Thickbox, Slimbox and Highslide JS. Each script provide a different features like animation, ajax, html support, etc. But here is the new lightbox alternative called FancyBox based on jQuery. Featuring automatic image fit, drop shadow, image sets and already tested with IE6, IE7 and Firefox (i’ve test with Safari and it worked). Overall size with images only less than 50Kb.

Inspired by many other lightbox-like tools, now made kinda different image zooming script for those who want something fresh. It`s powered by great javascript library - jQuery

The usage method of this script is similar like the others. Download, upload to server, insert code and give an id to your link. But i think it will be more efficient if there is a plugin, you don’t have to modify the source code and it’s easy for newbie.

Currently FancyBox is still in beta version and limited to images only when others can display html, video, etc. But the author has a plan to expand the features compare to the other lightbox-like. If FancyBox is ready like i said before, i will try to make a wordpress plugin for this script. I’ve done with Slimbox on my old site and i will post it again asap.

Anyway FancyBox animation is similar to Highslide JS, i don’t know why. Maybe the author is inspirated by Highslide JS.

Wowio is a new kind of online bookstore that enables readers to download copyrighted ebooks for free, using commercial sponsorships to compensate authors and publishers. Set up an account and you’re ready to download, but limited to 3 books per day and 30 books per month. All books are in PDF format, it’s mean you must have a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader (i recommend this).

Readers get free ebooks. Sponsors get a powerful new channel to communicate their message to precisely the people they want to reach. Publishers get a new means of distributing their books, expanding their readership, and monetizing their intellectual property.

At this time, Wowio only available to U.S. residents due to licensing restrictions. All books from Wowio is compatible with any device even your mobile devices if your reader not using 40-bit encryption (Palm devices).

Do you need another resource for free ebooks? Check this ultimate guide for free ebooks. That site provide a list almost 50 sites that offers free ebooks from many categories.

PicMarkr is the online tool to protect or comments your images with custom watermark. It’s free and no registration needed. It’s support batch image processing too, maximum 5 images (less than 25Mb overall) when upload from your computer.

How it works? Import photos from Flickr or upload it from your computer, then choose 1 of 3 watermark types (text, image or tiled watermark) with the watermark position. The images will watermarked instantly and you can upload again to Flickr or save to your computer. Finished!

This tool produce a simple watermark but i like the final result, it’s more elegant. You don’t need to open your Photoshop just to embed a simple watermark like this. Saving more memory resources…

Like i said yesterday, now ignati [dot] com is using WordPress 2.5 and the upgrade process is very easy and smooth without any problem. Maybe you can’t feel the difference but i’m enjoyed when sign in to the admin panel.

There is one thing strange with the new wordpress admin design, the light blue color in this blog themes is similar (almost) with wordpress admin color. Because that i want to make a clarification, i swear i’ve this blog design before i know the new design of wordpress admin design. I’m using light blue because i like blue and also i’m a minimalistic web designer (own project only) so i choose light blue. That’s all..

In this post i also want to test one of many new feature at 2.5 branch. So here is the result about built-in galleries today:

Oh.. That’s my birthday party on year 2006. Can you guess where is me?

Update: It seems the media.php produce html error when showing gallery, i’ve already check on others test and got similar error too. First, strange p tag without the end tag. Second, too many linebreak (br) in this gallery and the latest without slash in the end of tag. Too many whitespace below the gallery.

After six months of work by WordPress community especially the development team, yesterday the WordPress 2.5 has been released to the public. It’s just 3 days after WordPress RC2 launched.

So what’s new features in this major milestone of WordPress? Both of user and developer got a lot of new features in this version. That’s why this version took a long time to be launched with some of delay from the schedule.

User Features:

1. Cleaner, faster, less cluttered dashboard
2. Dashboard Widgets
3. Multi-file upload with progress bar
4. Bonus: EXIF extraction
5. Search posts and pages
6. Tag management
7. Password strength meter
8. Concurrent editing protection
9. Few-click plugin upgrades
10. Friendlier visual post editor
11. Built-in galleries

Developer Features:

1. Salted passwords
2. Secure cookies
3. Easy taxonomy and URL creation
4. Inline documentation
5. Database optimization
6. $wpdb->prepare()
7. Media buttons
8. Shortcode API

Hmm.. There is so many features and it’s beside the fixing some bugs from the older version and also the admin themes redesign.

I’m interested but how to upgrade?
If you want to upgrade to this new version just use the standard upgrade instruction because the database layout isn’t changed from the earlier. The important thing is check your plugins because the most problem is coming from this area.

A small notes from me
I will upgrade ignati [dot] com to the new 2.5 and i hope everything is under control. But i will upgrade it at this night (in my time) so tomorrow everything should be fine without error. How about you, would you upgrade your blog?

Google Webmaster Tools has introduced a new official tool for site owners, Robots.txt Generator. This tool will help your website googlebot friendly by giving an easy wizard to make robots.txt.

With Google Robot.txt Generator you can create a robots.txt file to indicate which robots you don’t want crawling your site, and which files or directories you don’t want crawled. You can even choose which specific robot you want to have access to your site’s index and restrict other robots from doing the same thing.

Anyway some robots may ignore instruction in the robots.txt and continue to craw your site including those files or folders that have restrictions. So for highly sensitive files or documents, i would recommend you to use password protection for more privacy.

Kontera Technology has introduced the new model of In-Text advertising to help publishers making money online more easy than before. Kontera Hybrid is a completely customizable, publishers can include they own advertising or choose to display advertisers from within Kontera’s network even set the preferences to rotate both of them.

Kontera Hybrid publishers give users an easy way to interact with contextually relevant content, increasing both average time spent on your website and total page views.

Currently available for selected publishers only, if you already have an account ask them by email (hybridpub@kontera.com) to include you as a Hybrid publisher.

More closer to Wordpress 2.5, the development team has launch the Wordpress RC2 to the public after many feedback on their testers mailing list (more than 30 emails a day!). Matt is also embedded a screencast on that news release about the major changes at Wordpress. So if you never try the 2.5, you may want to see what’s new on the upcoming version.

Don’t forget to check the plugins compatibility with Wordpress 2.5 or themes compatilibity with Wordpress 2.5. If you’re ready to test the new version, just download it from wordpress release archives page. But there is one thing that make me confuse, why Wordpress 2.5 RC3 is ready to download on that page without any news?

Here is the stock.xchng alternative for free stock photo, it’s called Freerange and you’re absolutely free to use the photo for commercial and non-commercial use. Support advertising (adsense) revenue sharing on their page, submitter get paid when visitors click on the ads at their submissions.

Freerange Stock was formed with the goal to provide quality stock photos for commercial and non-commercial use. For free. We feel that free stock photos can be good photos. Freerange is an advertising revenue supported photographic community.

I’ve been try to download a couple photos there and i agree if the photos have a great quality. Just a note, all photos are in JPG format.

Smashing Magazine rolls out the 20 list of free and first-class wordpress themes. If i must to choose who is the best, i will choose The Massive News “Mobile Edition”. Why? It’s simple cause i really like the concept about mobile, i’m sure at the future getting mobile is a must for us. We can browse anything at anytime and anywhere with mobile devices like iPod Touch or others.

For the complete list go to the 20 more free first-class wordpress themes page or try the massive news mobile edition demo.

If you want to turning your wordpress interface via plugins, maybe you would like to consider this wordpress plugins:

• WordPress Mobile Edition by Alex King
• Wordpress PDA by Imthiaz