One of the things I usually do when I login to my dashboard is to check on site stats. While I was browsing Shortstat, I found a site that was relatively new. I mean, it was the first time for this site to show up on my stats. Curiosly, I clicked on the url and was brought to this blog.

I found out that it was a tech blog owned by a Malaysian blogger. As I browsed thru the first few entries, there was nothing unusual about it. The regular tech news and stuff. Then when I reached the 3rd and 4th posts, I was surprised to see that both were about two topics that I also blogged about a week ago, Kool IM & Blogmusik.

So what I did, I read the full entry for each post. First was the Kool IM post. I was more surprised to read that the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs were exactly the same with my own post, word-for-word! Then I went to the next post, about Blogmusik. This entry was totally copied from my post. No paraphrases, quotes or anything. Not even a trackback for that post. But at the end of the entry he posted a link to the source, which of course was no other than my blog.

UPDATE: I decided to show you a comparison of my entries and the other guy’s entries.

Kool IM

Me:

Kool IM is the latest thing in web chat services.

What is it you say? Kool IM is an Ajax instant messaging client that works with major instant messaging services that allows logging onto AOL, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, Google Talk & Jabber, eliminating the need for an instant-messaging client on the user’s computer. The most popular web instant messaging clients are Meebo and eBuddy. While other competitors include ILoveIM and Mabber.

Kool IM integrates features from Meebo and eBuddy. It uses a pop-up window for the buddy list and for chatting like eBuddy. Like Meebo it allows users to create accounts, so you won’t have to login every time for each service.

I tried it out earlier and it was okay. Personally, I still prefer Meebo for one major reason, “pop-ups”. I hate pop-ups. Most browsers try to eliminate pop-up windows. In Meebo you have your buddy list and chat windows integrated inside the same browser window and you can drag them around or resize them.

These things are helpful especially if you’re in the office or the machine you’re using doesn’t allow you to install an instant messenger client. One example is a computer lab where as a simple user, you don’t have access to install programs. Just launch a web browser, type in the url, login to your accounts and you’re good to go!

Blogger guy:

Now, you do no need to open every single messenger if you gonna chat with your friends with different software (instant messaging client). With Kool IM, you can make them into one. Save space, save memory, and save time too. Why not have a try ?!

Kool IM is an Ajax instant messaging client that works with major instant messaging services that allows logging onto AOL, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, Google Talk & Jabber, eliminating the need for an instant-messaging client on the user’s computer. The most popular web instant messaging clients are Meebo and eBuddy. While other competitors include ILoveIM and Mabber.

Kool IM integrates features from Meebo and eBuddy. It uses a pop-up window for the buddy list and for chatting like eBuddy. Like Meebo it allows users to create accounts, so you won’t have to login every time for each service.

Blogmusik

Me:

Blogmusik is a new site that allows you to listen to on-demand songs online for FREE!

Blogmusik uses a Flash-based virtual player that looks exactly like an iPod and works exactly like one. It includes a Play/Pause button, Skip button (Previous track and Next track), Volume control, a Playlist button to access your saved playlists and an option to share it to a friend. You can also change the player skin to black or white. Regular users can only listen to songs one at a time. While registered users can create/save playlists and save songs into each playlist.

The site can be accessed in two languages, English and French. To register, just provide an email address and password. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a menu on top. Click on New Playlist and type a name for that playlist. Now that you have a playlist, you can start adding songs to it. To search for songs, type on the space provided right below the virtual iPod. Type in the name of the artist or title of any song, click OK and it will show you the search results on the right side of the player. Look for the song that you like and click on Save and choose which playlist you want to save it to. Repeat the same steps to add other songs. In your playlist, use your mouse wheel to scroll thru the songs. Registered users can also manager their playlists (delete songs, change song order). I was hoping that they’d let the users, edit the file name of the song coz some of the files had very long names and had some extra info that I wanted to edit.

Blogmusik is still in it’s Beta version so expect some bugs and improvements in the near future. Also, be aware that the site opens a pop-up every few minutes or after every song. I have no problem with it coz Firefox blocks it right away. If your browser doesn’t automatically block it, you might have to do it manually coz if you don’t, you’ll have a lot of pop-ups while you’re listening to the songs.

Note: Earphones not included. Hehe

Blogger guy:

Blogmusik is a new site that allows you to listen to on-demand songs online for FREE! Blogmusik uses a Flash-based virtual player that looks exactly like an iPod and works exactly like one. It includes a Play/Pause button, Skip button (Previous track and Next track), Volume control, a Playlist button to access your saved playlists and an option to share it to a friend. You can also change the player skin to black or white. Regular users can only listen to songs one at a time. While registered users can create/save playlists and save songs into each playlist.

The site can be accessed in two languages, English and French. To register, just provide an email address and password. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a menu on top. Click on New Playlist and type a name for that playlist. Now that you have a playlist, you can start adding songs to it. To search for songs, type on the space provided right below the virtual iPod. Type in the name of the artist or title of any song, click OK and it will show you the search results on the right side of the player. Look for the song that you like and click on Save and choose which playlist you want to save it to. Repeat the same steps to add other songs. In your playlist, use your mouse wheel to scroll thru the songs. Registered users can also manager their playlists (delete songs, change song order). I was hoping that they’d let the users, edit the file name of the song coz some of the files had very long names and had some extra info that I wanted to edit.

Blogmusik is still in it’s Beta version so expect some bugs and improvements in the near future. Also, be aware that the site opens a pop-up every few minutes or after every song. I have no problem with it coz Firefox blocks it right away. If your browser doesn’t automatically block it, you might have to do it manually coz if you don’t you’ll have a lot of pop-ups while you’re listening to the songs.

I didn’t expect that someone would even bother to do this. Now I know how Cathy felt when this happened to her (although hers was a bit different coz the copycat blogger was using her rss feeds). I’m not gonna post his url here coz it’s just gonna drive site traffic to his blog. Hehe. You can send me an email and I’ll give you the url. Btw, I already sent an email to that guy and asked if he could change his entries and make it more like his own work or atleast quote me. We’ll see if he replies and does something about it. I’ll keep you guys posted.

I just recently found out that an upgrade to WordPress 2.0.1 messes up the WP-ShortStat plugin.

At first, I was wondering why my stats weren’t changing after 1 day, I still had the same stats. Checked my Blogflux Mapstats and saw that there were several new hits. I knew something was wrong with the plugin, but I didn’t know what. I checked my databases using phpMyAdmin, there was nothing wrong with my tables. Next thing I did was to deactivate the plugin, drop the tables used by the plugin and then reactivate the plugin. This didn’t fix the problem.

I thought of doing a Google search using the keywords “shortstat not working” and found a thread in the WordPress support page. I saw one fix posted by one user and tried it but it still didn’t fix the problem. Then one post gave a url to one blog and I followed the link and ended up in a German blog. Hehe. I didn’t understand a thing but I saw that it had a link that had shortstat in it, so I clicked on it and found myself in an English page. In that entry, it had a download link to an edited version of Shortstat. I downloaded the file, uploaded to my plugins folder, activated it and it worked! Thank goodness!

You can download the updated version of the ShortStat plugin here.

Extra: I added a Live Preview for the comments and I’ve activated the Tiger Admin plugin again which works nicely with WordPress 2.0.1