All posts by Chris Zalamia

"The knack [to flying] lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams Internet Junkie. Blogging/Social Media/SEO Hobbyist. Nerd.

How to Install Free HTTPS SSL on Shared Host Without Root Access

I’m going to show you how to set up a free SSL certificate on shared hosting without root access. All you will need is access to your cPanel and a website called Get HTTPS for Free.

Get HTTPS for Free takes you step by step through the process of generating a free HTTPS certificate from the non-profit certificate authority Let’s Encrypt! However, if you have no clue what you’re doing it can be quite daunting, so I’m writing this guide for you 🙂 Continue reading How to Install Free HTTPS SSL on Shared Host Without Root Access

How to Format a Hashtag on Reddit

Reddit does not use hashtags, but sometimes you may want to type one out. Hashtags show up normally in post titles, but in the comment section the # symbol before text creates a header.

Typing “#hashtag” in the comment text box would show up as

hashtag

 

So if you want “#hashtag” to show up normally you need to use an escape sequence. This means you must type a backslash first like this:
\#hashtag

If you’d like to display a header sized #hashtag you could type:
#\#hashtag

If you want to go further and actually have the hashtag link to a search of that term, try this:
[\#hashtag](https://www.reddit.com/search?q=hashtag&sort=relevance&t=all)
replacing both instances of “hashtag” above with whatever keyword you’d like.

Remember, you do not need to do this for post titles, just in the text of a text-based post or the comment section.

If you want to test it out, try using one in a reply to one of your old comments where nobody will notice, then delete afterward.

The Feedburner Dilemma: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Feedburner, Google’s web feed management service, hasn’t been developed or supported in years. FeedBurner APIs and Adsense for Feeds shut down in 2012. Google has already shown itself willing to shut down popular services like Reader. While Feedburner is still functional now, all signs point to the service getting shut down sooner or later. What is the best way to handle this situation?

Continue reading The Feedburner Dilemma: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

What Does Winamp Detector Plug-in Do?

When you install Winamp, you will see an option for a “Winamp Application Detector” plugin. If you install it, you’ll notice it listed among your browser plugins in Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

What is it?

Answer from Ben Allison, Winamp Dev Team Lead Developer:

The “application detector” lets websites (well, really probably only winamp.com) know if Winamp is installed. We also added “winamp://” links to perform a limited number of “open such and such in winamp” kind of actions (similar to other programs that do similar things with protocols e.g. emule, aim, itunes). The browser plugin is simply a means of making sure it’s actually going to work before launching winamp://whatever in the browser. It really doesn’t do anything else – no information transferred besides the installed version. As for the benefits, umm, let me get back to you on that.

via Winamp Forums

How to Filter Gmail Headers & Stop “Via” Spam

In this article I will show you how to use a Google Apps Script to mark certain messages as spam based on their headers.

This script basically checks the 5 newest inbox messages every 10 minutes looking for a specific header. If it finds that header it will mark the message as spam automatically. Of course, you can modify the code to fit your needs. Continue reading How to Filter Gmail Headers & Stop “Via” Spam

How to Add an Instagram Feed to any RSS Reader

instagram-plus-rss

Instagram may not offer native RSS feeds, but it is still possible to generate feeds through 3rd party web applications.

Here are three options currently working as of November 22, 2016:

Queryfeed

Queryfeed creates an RSS feed for Instagram as well as Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Visit Queryfeed, scroll down to the Instagram section, enter a username, hashtag or geo-location and hit “Search” to generate your feed. The free version caches results for 3 hours and limits RSS items to a max of 10 per feed.

Instatom

http://instatom.freelancis.net/username creates an atom feed from your Instagram account. Just replace username with the appropriate username.

RSS-Bridge

RSS-Bridge is an open-source “PHP project capable of generating ATOM feeds for websites which don’t have one.” You can set it up on your own server, or just google “rss bridge” and you’ll find several hosted installations that you can use freely.

For example, rssbridge.buddylist.co is one of the top results. Go there and scroll down to the box labeled Instagram Bridge, enter the desired username, and choose the type of feed you want. Feed options are Atom, Html, Json, Media RSS, and Plaintext. RSS-Bridge also features feed generators for a wide variety of other sites including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and more.

You will be able to subscribe to the resulting feeds in Feedly, InoReader, The Old Reader or whatever reader you choose.

Previously listed services that no longer generate Instagram feeds: Websta, Iconosquare and Ink361.