Visualization of BRPS Code

This post is off-topic but I feel it's fun to share. The following videos are generated by Gource. They visualize how the code of BRPS were committed.

BRPS had stayed in one of my repos, the first one is a extraction version of that repo. As of April 2009, it moved into its only repo, and the second video shows the activities in its repo after.

Go to video page on YouTube

Go to video page on YouTube

If this kind of video catch your eyes, here are more of mine.

[Apology] Blocking by mistake

As of 1/6/2010, I modified the Blocking Policy, I added

"Failed installation/script removed blogs — Script installed without key or incomplete installation. Blogs have removed the script. (Added on 1/6/2010)"

At beginning of this year, many blogs have reach 3-month reviewing period. So, I started to review those blogs which haven't got accepted or blocked. I found out many of them are not using Key or installed the script incorrectly causing BRPS not working. I don't bother to notify the blogs owners, I don't have that free time to do so. Besides, the error message has been showing up for more than a month, how could a blogger not checking there own posts after publishing?

The second part of the addition, "Blogs have removed the script," it's also true that many blogs have removed the script after installing. I see no harm to block them since they don't use BRPS anymore, by blocking them so they won't show up after 3 month for reviewing.

But I made a huge mistake, because I check HTML source code in home page. If you install the script into your Template, not by adding a new HTML/JavaScript gadget, then the script wouldn't show up, they would only show up in a single post page.

I forgot that part, therefore I must have blocked some. By the time I found out, I had no idea how many had been blocked by that mistake.

So, if you install the code into your Template, just go ahead to ask for unblocking. I will check up as soon as possible. (I will still review first to check your content)

Sincere apology to you.
Sorry, again!

Ads On

I have put ads on website and this blog. Don't worry, your related list will never ever be contaminated.

Need your idea!

I believe I can claim that BRPS is a relative stable app now. So I think I have to move on, find my next target to work on.

So, here, I am asking for your idea. It can be anything to help you blog, another widget perhaps? Or you can jump out of this Blogger thing, anything could help you on anything as long as it is programmable. Hey, I do coding, remember?

Please do not be shy to respond with this! Shout out your ideas, I will do the rest for you!

And it will be free and open source!

The first donation to BRPS

Be honest, I didn't expect to receive any donation at the time I put on the donation button. I silently put it on website and blog without writing about it in any place. About 8 hours ago, I received the first donation to BRPS.

I am very thankful for the support from this donor, Deborah Swain, go check out her blog, Living in Rome.

If you also want to donate, please go to this newly created donation page and please read the notice before you donating.

Thank you for reading this!

PS. this would be the only post about donation and donor. I posted it because it's the first.

About Loading...

I think I must address this issue because of newly added change. When you see "Loading..." and it takes a lifetime to stay in your way. It does not mean anything but the server encounter the problem, it simply replies 500 Internal Server Error to client-side JavaScript (brps.js).

In plain English, there might be a bug in BRPS and it couldn't resolve it, it couldn't fail gracefully, so you never get a nice error message.

The client-side JS does have a code to deal with it, to catch the error, but I do not know why it does not work. I will be investigating it when I want to .

Again, "Loading..." do not mean your blog is blocked, is accepted, is unaccepted, it simply says BRPS goes wrong with something.

Why Enforce Using The Key?

(Last updated on 2009-11-27)

The reasons are simple,

1. I want to prevent some people keep duplicate blogs with same template.
2. I want to prevent pre-installed template, not every blog owner wants Related Posts.
3. I want to make sure you have the chance to read the Blocking Policy.
   

The new key is easier to install, you only put ?key=[YOURKEY] into the previous code. You can get the key and the instruction here.

One key can only be used for one specific blog and this is the point to stop those badass bloggers (They don't deserve that title). They have to manually get the key for each blog. If you are a normal blog, this will not take you much effort because you should only have one or a few blogs.

This change will only affect unaccepted blogs. If you do not see a message to ask you to add this new key, then it means your blog is accepted.

If you have more questions, please post at discussion group.

Updated on 2009-11-27 11:15 pm UTC

I made few change to the code and without checking. So you may have see "Loading..." and no more on your blog. It should be resolved and "Loading..." has nothing to do with being blocked or being (un)accepted. It's just a code getting stuck, it's an error on server side.

And you have not updated your installation code and saw "Could not find the key...," please use your browser refresh button to make sure you get the latest client-side JavaScript. If your blog is accepted, it should load the related list without the key specified, or you will be asked to go to obtain a key.

The problem should be gone as you read this update, sorry for the inconvenience.

And this is for record, the completed requests:

I have no idea why 8pm UTC could still have those request completed. Anyway BRPS would be having very light server load for a long time. :-)