GotChance http://gotchance.com/blog web (design + development) and other geeky stuff ! Fri, 21 May 2010 19:33:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 GotChancehttp://feedburner.google.com Google Launches Font API http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GotChance/~3/BHCc2PZEdq4/ http://gotchance.com/blog/2010/05/21/google-launches-font-api/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 19:16:34 +0000 Hari http://gotchance.com/blog/?p=622 Google has announced the launch of its new Font API which enables anyone to use fancy fonts on their websites. This is done using CSS3’s @font-face. You can select the font from Google’s font directory and they provide your a CSS file to link to. Just add it to your web page and you’re free to use the font anywhere in your CSS.

I currently use Mido from FontSquirrel for headings on this blog. Its basically the same technique. But Google just makes it easier. Also, Google’s font API will be faster and also you can save a handful of bandwidth by not loading the font files from your server.

Google’s API competes directly with the freemium service TypeKit and the still-in-stealth service FontDeck. But, Google’s font directory is still very young and they have only 18 fonts available currently, compared to TypeKit’s 400+ fonts. But, its Google. The font directory will expand rapidly very soon. Also, its free. Who doesn’t love freebies !?

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]]> http://gotchance.com/blog/2010/05/21/google-launches-font-api/feed/ 1 http://gotchance.com/blog/2010/05/21/google-launches-font-api/ All New GotChance.com http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GotChance/~3/P5SDmqTAtPg/ http://gotchance.com/blog/2010/05/09/all-new-gotchance-com/#comments Sun, 09 May 2010 17:10:05 +0000 Hari http://gotchance.com/blog/?p=587 As you can see, i’ve redesigned GotChance.com completely. Comments and suggestions are welcome. From here on, i’ll be blogging quite frequently here, on web designing and web development. A couple of posts have been lined up already.

Also, i’m available for freelance projects. If you’d like to hire me, get in touch.

And finally, i’ve been working on a couple of web apps recently. I’ll be writing about them soon.

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]]> http://gotchance.com/blog/2010/05/09/all-new-gotchance-com/feed/ 6 http://gotchance.com/blog/2010/05/09/all-new-gotchance-com/ My New Twitter Background http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GotChance/~3/akNoG24Mu4Q/ http://gotchance.com/blog/2009/06/10/my-new-twitter-background/#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:30:20 +0000 Hari http://gotchance.com/blog/2009/06/10/my-new-twitter-background/ I’ve been owning a twitter account for a long time, though i use it only less. All these days i never cared about my twitter background and was happy with the default one. As i started to get more and more followers, i said to myself “this is the time to put a customized background. do it before its too late”. And, today i did it. I didn’t spend a lot of time on it. Just some 2 minutes of Photoshop work. Looking forward to hear your comments on how it turned out. Check out the screnshot below, or live on my Twitter page.

twitter-capture

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]]> http://gotchance.com/blog/2009/06/10/my-new-twitter-background/feed/ 4 http://gotchance.com/blog/2009/06/10/my-new-twitter-background/ Is It That Important To Get Rid Of Wordpress Search ? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GotChance/~3/QWI880GJvRw/ http://gotchance.com/blog/2009/06/09/is-it-that-important-to-get-rid-of-wordpress-search/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:47:05 +0000 Hari http://gotchance.com/blog/2009/06/09/is-it-that-important-to-get-rid-of-wordpress-search/ Today, this post from ProBlogDesign popped up on my Google Reader and made me wonder “if it is that important to get rid of Wordpress search ?”. I know i’ve already written about Wordpress Search. But, it is a topic worth taking a second look at. Quickly read through that post and do the search on ProBlogger today. The post that i mentioned has been promoted to 17th position from its earlier 12th position. How cool.

Wordpress, sure, is an awesome piece of blogging software. But, why is the search functionality of Wordpress so poor ? What are the basic flaws ?

  • Search results are sorted according to date, while all search results should be sorted according to relevance.
  • Wordpress searches only “title” and “content”. While that may be logical for a “blog”, the search SHOULD include comments, author, category etc.. For eg, when i search for “Hari”, it is supposed to bring up all the posts written by me, with the priority being as follows : 1) having “Hari” in title. 2) having “Hari” in post content. 3) having “Hari in comments. and 4) lastly, doesn’t have “Hari but was written by me. But what happens actually ? The top results are the posts which contain the word “sHARIng”. How funny…
  • Another example is when i search for “Advertising”, it is supposed to bring up the posts from my Advertising category. But, only one post from that category actually appears in the results. Whether or not the post contains the term “Advertising”, i (a human) have classified it under Advertising. Wordpress should give priority to my classification rather than some dumb SQL query.

I noticed that some of the top blogs on my Google Reader have replaced Wordpress Search with alternatives.

Is Google CSE the only Answer ?

Google CSE is a really good service. But, should you use it on your blog ? With the “google”ish layout and the Ads, you completely lose the blog feel of it. Also, for an average blog with many hundred or few thousand posts, the Google search algorithm is not absolutely necessary. You can live with certain changes to your Wordpress Search algorithm. For details on tweaking your Wordpress search, do take a look at this post.

Do you have any other suggestions to improve Wordpress search ? Share with us in the comments.

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