RavenPlus Version 1.0.504

If you have been following my blog, you would have realised that I have made a couple of improvements and bug fixes to RavenPlus since the release of RavenPlus Version 1.0.503. After about a year, I think it is about time I release a new version of RavenPlus - Version 1.0.504 .

My Checklist When Releasing A New Version Of RavenPlus

Dear ME,

I have noticed that you were struggling with yourself while trying to build the updated release of RavenPlus version 1.0.504 yesterday. RavenPlus version 1.0.503 was released roughly about a year ago, and it is quite obvious that you have forgotten the steps.

To prevent this from happening again, I have taken the liberty to write down and document the steps for you. Confucius say : "the palest ink is better than the best memory". Keep this safe somewhere. I'm sure you will need it - again and again.

RavenPlus: Getting iframes To Work Correctly

Here is an update to my previous work on iframes in RavenPlus. If you recall, my first attempt only allows iframes to be placed at the end of a blog post. Well, not anymore with this fix, as you can see with the Amazon iframe banner ad above.

Closeup Photography With A Compact Camera

I must admit, I am a greenhorn in photography. To be honest, the camera that I bought about a year-and-a-half ago is actually the first I have ever owned. Not surprisingly, most of my pictures were taken using the 'Auto' mode on the camera. But at times when my shots of flowers, for example, were bad, I will put my camera into 'macro' mode, hoping that somehow I will get some improvements in my shots since they are meant for closeups. But unfortunately there was none, despite me following the instruction as written in the user manual. And this includes the zooming part, i.e. the zoom indicator on the LCD display was always green.

My First Winning Closeup Shot

But about 2 weeks ago I did something different. I decided to do my own zoom by physically positioning my camera at about 6 inches away from the subject - a butterfly on a flower. I was take aback when I first viewed this picture on the camera's LCD display. The result was stunning; my first winning shot in 'macro' mode as you can see above. The fine details captured were just staggering, something that I have not expected since I was using a low end digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix L27. I think this shot could have been even better if I were to have used a tripod since I do not have steady hands. Obviously, camera with fancier macro lenses would give even better magnification and thus better closeup shots.

Mentioning Someone From Google+ Mobile

+Mention-ing someone in a Google+ post or comment is a neat way of grabbing someone's attention; whether to ask them a question, to give them credit or just simply to thank them. When we +Mention someone, a link will be created between our post or comment and the person mentioned. A notification will also be sent to the person mentioned.

Call me weird but I have always liked accessing Google+ (Facebook too in fact) via its mobile site on my Windows desktop PC. Google+ pages on the mobile site just loads faster compared to its desktop version because of its minimal bandwidth requirement. But there was one problem - I had never found a way to +Mention someone from Google+ Mobile. This has subsequently led me to wrongly assume that it was not possible to +Mention someone from Google+ Mobile. But after something like 2 years, I have finally found a way. I accidentally stumbled upon this workaround about a week ago when I clicked on the About page of MacroAddict on Google+.

I have tested it out by Google+ mentioning myself in a test post and found that it actually works. I have tested it on Google+ Mobile running under both Opera desktop (just remember to use the URL for Google+ Mobile: https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream) and Opera Mini. I guess I must have not looked hard enough previously.

The Steps To +Mention Someone

To Google+ mention someone in a post or comment, just type '+' followed by the person's Google+ numeric ID (A Google+ profile custom URL will not work; it must be a Google+ numeric ID).

RavenPlus: Find (& Replace) And The "Save" Button

I think this is the second last oddity that I have encountered with the "Save" button in the editor window in Raven/RavenPlus. Even though modifications have been made to the blog post via a "Find and Replace", the "Save" button remains disabled if it was disabled previously. The workaround here is similar to the Spell-Checking problem i.e. we fire an "onkeypress" event back into the editor.

The Black Bird Of December - Asian Koel

While growing up at the place where I now live, the only black bird that I know of are Crows. I get to see these Crows almost everyday when they fly, as they still do now, from South to North in the mornings and in the reverse direction come evenings, squawking as they fly slowly up high overhead.

These days, there is another rather big black bird, a migrant bird in fact, that comes visiting only in the month of December - 10th December to be exact for this year. They are the Asian Koel. I think they are quite common in the coastal areas. But up to about 30 or even 20 years ago, I don't think I have ever heard or even seen one before. I wonder why and when did they decided to move inland?

Map Of Old Greentown, Ipoh

I have searched and I could not find a map of OLD Greentown (Ipoh, Perak) online. I do have 2 partial maps of Greentown from Shell and Mobileoil (circa 1960) but they were no good simply because they were incomplete. Someone did give me a 1959 contour map of the Ipoh district earlier this year but I could not reconcile this map with what I know. There were no road names (which make things harder) and for about half of Greentown the roads were not properly drawn. Just some blocks on the map to denote 'houses' and I have to resort to guessing where the roads/lanes are - and I got myself confused.

Old Greentown

My only resort then is to draw the map myself. And with a little help from here and there, this is the result of my attempt: a map of OLD Greentown that I knew and grew up in during the 1970s and 1980s. Do click on the map below to view in full size.

The Returning Bee-Eaters

The Bee-Eater birds, they are back in Ipoh, Perak. Like the Brown Shrikes, they are migratory birds too. Out of the 4 species that have been known to exist in Malaysia, I have only spotted 3 so far. It seems that the high-wires in front of my house is their favourite roosting place, probably because of the many flowers that everyone has in their front-yard. More flowers mean more insects and that is the best place to look for food. They can usually be seen in the afternoons between 2 pm to 4 pm.

Chestnut-Headed Bee-Eaters

The first to return was the Chestnut-Headed Bee-Eater. They were first spotted on 17th October 2014. Prior to this, they were last seen on 20th May 2014, based on the time-stamp on my photographs of them. I wonder if they have migrated elsewhere as I have not seen them in recent weeks. Maybe back North as it has been reported that they do not go further South than Ipoh in the Malaysian Peninsular.

RavenPlus: Spell-checking And The "Save" Button

Here is another quirky behaviour in the editor window in Raven/RavenPlus. Similar to my previous post on "drag-and-drop", this problem will also only be apparent if the first thing that is done after opening an existing blog post for editing is a spell-check, or when we do a spell-check right after saving our blog post while editing. If one or more words were "replaced" via the "Spell Check" dialog box (by clicking on the "Replace" or "Replace All" button and thus modifying the blog post), the "Save" button on the toolbar remains disabled. To enable the "Save" button, what I used to do was to insert and then delete a blank space. But that can't be right, and it should not be happening in the first place.