Error Activating The WordPress Theme

I am trying to tweak the looks of my blog since last few days. I tried Digg 3 for a while, but some how it felt too much as if the theme was meant if I was trying to sell stuff. Just didn’t like it.

So when I was trying to activate new theme, I kept on getting this error

You are not authorized to use that theme.

So I got confused. Quick googling revealed that it was my browser, not wordpress.com. I’m currently on one of the nightly build of Firefox 3.1b2pre a.k.a Minefield. It has been great using Minefield so far, except for such minor blow-ups once in a while 🙂

So while the link above suggested using Firefox, they surely didn’t mean bleeding edge version.

In case you are curious, I used Google Chrome to activate the new theme.

Google Reader Recommends

I have been a long time Netvibes user. I used to get all the feeds on my Netvibes personal home page. Then moved to Google Reader few months ago, just to check.  I was thrilled and happy to say the least.

Off course, It is not without it’s problems. But overall, I like the simple and inbox type look of Google Reader. Since last few days, I noticed the Top Recommendations box on the Home screen. What I realized was that since google knows my identity, it can track my search patterns. Then it is just a matter of recommending the correct blogs, based on what I was looking for during last few days. It is simple but brilliant.

I may not subscribe to all the blogs Google recommends, simply because I subscribe to those blog which will keep me interested in long run. My search patterns may be of temporary nature. But I am sure to visit some of them.

Hats off to Google for adding value to my web experience.

HTML Signature in Gmail – Firefox Extension

If you are looking to use the professional looking HTML signature to be used with multiple web based email services, look no further.  Wisestamp Firefox extension is way to go !!

HTML Signture for gmail – GreaseMonkey Script

As you know, my first option was not to use gmail web interface, and use desktop client instead. If you wish to use the web interface though, here is another option.

Benefits :

1. Unlike my previous suggestion, it works with gmail Web interface.
2. GreaseMonkey scripts are supported on most of the major browsers like Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer.
3. Supports multiple signatures. Will ask you which one to insert (Cool)
4. Works for replies and forwards, as well as composing new emails.

Here is the link to the script itself. You will need the GreaseMonkey extension installed.  If you are using Firefox, you can get is here

HTML Signture for gmail

I do not understand why google at times ignores some features that are widely available in competing products (liked and demanded on google platform by users).  e.g blogger did not have tags and categories, neither spam protection while most other competing blogging platforms had these features for years. This was one the (rather two) reasons I moved to WP from blogger.

xReporter 1.3 : Problem and Solution

For my latest project, I tried Apache’s xReporter. The instructions where pretty clear but I was unable to go past the login page.  Couple years ago (in 2004 to be precise) someone had exact same problem, but there was no clearcut solution.  But with little troubleshooting and googling, I was able to get past this problem in couple of hours. The objective of this post is to help someone in future, till xReporter updates its documentation.

Google Reader Tip : Marking an item as unread

The ability to mark an item as unread is important for me. I generally skim through the headlines in the morning, and save the important ones as unread, to be read later. But it is not very obvious how to do this from google reader interface. But little bit of googling provided the solution.