WPtouch 3 Pro WordPress Taxonomy Support

Last update : July 20, 2013
I use the WPtouch 3 Pro plugin for my WordPress Family Blog, together with the User Access Manager (UAM) plugin, created by Alexander Schneider. I noticed that the taxonomy support of WPtouch 3 Pro does not work as expected. All categories and tags are displayed on the mobile without respecting the restrictions defined by the UAM plugin. The reason is that WPtouch retrieves the taxonomy informations directly from the database with an SQL request, instead of using the wordpress functions get_categories() and get_tags(). For categories WordPress even offers the function wp_list_categories() with formatting support.

Usually I don’t like to modify the core code of WordPress themes and plugins, but in this case the only feasible solution to solve this problem was to change the two functions wptouch_fdn_ordered_cat_list() and wptouch_fdn_ordered_tag_list() in the WPtouch 3 Pro theme foundation file plugins/wptouch-pro-3/themes/foundation/root-functions.php.

function wptouch_fdn_ordered_tag_list( $num, $include_count = true )

I changed the following code :

echo '<ul>';
$sql = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy INNER JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}terms ON {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy.term_id = {$wpdb->prefix}terms.term_id WHERE taxonomy = 'category' AND {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy.term_id NOT IN ($excluded_cats) AND count >= 1 ORDER BY count DESC LIMIT 0, $num");
if ( $sql ) {
foreach ( $sql as $result ) {
if ( $result ) {
echo "<li><a href=\"" . get_category_link( $result->term_id ) . "\">" . $result->name;
if ( $include_count ) {
echo " <span>(" . $result->count . ")</span></a>";
}
echo '</a>';
echo '</li>';
}
}
}
echo '</ul>';

by the new code :

$args = array (
'orderby' => 'count',
'order' => 'DESC',
'exclude' => $excluded_cats,
'number' => $num );
$categories = get_categories($args);
echo '<ul>';
foreach ($categories as $category) {
echo '<li><a href="' .get_category_link($category -> term_id). '">' .$category -> name. '';
if ($include_count) {
echo '<span> (' .$category -> count. ')</span>';}
echo '</a></li>';}
echo '</ul>';

function wptouch_fdn_ordered_cat_list( $num )

I changed the following code :

echo '<ul>';
$sql = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy INNER JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}terms ON {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy.term_id = {$wpdb->prefix}terms.term_id WHERE taxonomy = 'post_tag' AND {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy.term_id NOT IN ($excluded_tags) AND count >= 1 ORDER BY count DESC LIMIT 0, $num");
if ( $sql ) {
foreach ( $sql as $result ) {
if ( $result ) {
echo "<li><a href=\"" . get_tag_link( $result->term_id ) . "\">" . $result->name . " <span>(" . $result->count . ")</span></a></li>";
}
}
}
echo '</ul>';

by the new code :

$args = array (
'orderby' => 'count',
'order' => 'DESC',
'exclude' => $excluded_tags,
'number' => $num );
$tags = get_tags($args);
echo '<ul>';
foreach ($tags as $tag) {
echo '<li><a href="' .get_tag_link($tag -> term_id). '">' .$tag -> name. '<span> (' .$tag -> count. ')</span></a></li>';}
echo '</ul>';

The new code provides the same WPtouch features and functionalities as the old one and is fully compatible with the UAM plugin.

One disadvantage of core changes in a plugin is the need to replace the modified files when an automatic update of the plugin is done. This was the case in July  2013 when the new versions 3.0.5 and 3.0.6 were loaded.

oEmbed

oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows a website to display embedded content (such as photos or videos) when a user posts a link to that resource, without having to parse the resource directly.

An oEmbed exchange occurs between a consumer and a provider. A consumer wishes to show an embedded representation of a third party resource on their own web site, such as a photo or an embedded video. A provider implements the oEmbed API to allow consumers to fetch that representation. The response returned by the provider can be in either JSON or XML.

The following types are defined :

  • photo
  • video
  • link
  • rich

The authors of oEmbed are Cal Henderson, Mike Malone, Leah Culver and Richard Crowley. Among the providers of oEmbed are Youtube, Flickr, Vimeo, WordPress and Slideshare.

Hall of Shame

Last update : June 10, 2013
Here is the list of users who tried to hack my private server :

IP addresses Countries
61.178.107.21 China
114.80.202.30 China
123.233.247.119 China
88.150.128.27 UK
200.136.247.111 Brazil
210.107.122.210 Korea
219.144.17.74 China
117.189.241.74 China
125.46.13.163 China
46.21.161.37 Netherlands
183.221.125.10 China
219.239.26.9 China
198.46.149.4 USA
85.25.150.88 Germany
61.142.106.34 China
61.155.150.217 China
202.164.33.205 India
58.215.82.148 China
216.254.200.117 Canada
218.54.23.118 Korea
223.82.244.19 China
223.5.3.200 China
189.26.255.11 Brazil
79.143.83.6 UK
60.255.71.68 China
61.156.238.56 China
166.111.27.43 China

Here is the list of users who tried to publish spam comments to my blogs :

IP addresses Countries
91.232.96.xxx Germany
188.143.234.127 Russian Federation
188.143.232.31 Russian Federation
91.121.170.197 France

The Whois Lookup shows that these IP addresses belong to Internet Service Providers (ISP). The individual users are anonymous. Nevertheless I will update regularly this Hall of Shame list to track all abuse trials.

The world of Robots by IEEE Spectrum

IEEE Spectrum, the award-winning technology magazine, published in October 2012 an interactive iPad app featuring the world’s most amazing robots.

robot_ieee1

IEEE Spectrum iPad App main page

robot_ieee2

IEEE Spectrum iPad App webpages

The most advanced robots on the planet (more than 120 are presented with 360° views, interactive images, detailed specs, exclusive articles, and hundreds of photos and videos.

IEEE Spectrum presents on its website more resources about robots :

Turn your smartphone in a robot

Last update : June 1, 2013
At recent robotic and toy fairs (Japan 2012, Innorobo 2013, Toyfair 2013, …) several machines were presented that are basically mobile phones on a robotic trolley. The most advanced robots of this type are presented below :

SmartPet
by Bandai ;
TechPet in Europe and USA
iPhone three colors : black, white, pink ;
SmartPet App
smartpet
Name Smartphone Features Picture
ROMO
by Romotive
iPhone 4
iPod Touch 4
face detection,
telepresence, navigation,
machine vision,
SDK
romo
RoboMe
by Wowwee
iPhone telepresence,
speech recognition,
face tracking
robome
SmartBot
by Overdrive Robotics
iOS
Android
Windows Phone
expansion port,
Arduino support,
front lights,
wheel encoders,
NFC,
14 mounting holes for accesssories,
speaker + buzzer
smartbot
R.Bot
by rbot.ru
iOS
Android
connectivity : WiFi, 3G, 4G,
continous operation up to 8 hours
r.bot
Yo!Bot
by Zeon Tech
iPhone,
iPod Touch,
Android device with Adobe Air support
Apps available to control the bot  Yobot
Romibo
by Origami Robotics
iPod Touch configurable companion,
for therapy and research
 romibo

Le portail internet luxembourgeois consacré à la médiation scientifique

www.science.lu, le site scientifique du Luxembourg destiné au grand public, vient d’être lancé. Il s’agit d’un portail internet commun consacré à la médiation scientifique de tous les acteurs de la science et de la recherche au Luxembourg. Une trentaine d’institutions et d’associations participent à ce site. Le portail dispose également d’une page Facebook.

Portail luxembourgeois des sciences; rubrique Juniors

Portail luxembourgeois des sciences; rubrique Juniors

Wowwee Robots

Last update : May 25, 2013
WowWee Group Limited is a Hong Kong-based company that focuses on breakthrough consumer technologies. The company was formed in 1982 by the two brothers Richard and Peter Yanofsky. In 1998 the company was purchased by Hasbro (formerly Hassenfeld Brothers, founded in 1923 by Henry, Hilal, and Herman Hassenfeld). In 2007, WowWee Ltd was acquired by Optimal Group Inc. (NASDAQ: OPMR).

Wowwee is best known for their BEAM (acronym for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics) robots created by physicist/roboticist Mark Tilden, starting in 2001 and by Sean Frawley, starting in 2007.

The different robots created by Wowwee are listed in the following table :

Release Year Robot Name Picture
2001 B.I.O. Bugs  biobug_predator
2003 G.I. Joe Hoverstrike hoverstrike
2004 Robosapien robosapien1
2005 Robosapien V2 robosapien_v2
2005 Robosapien Junior  robosapien_jr
2005 Roboraptor roboraptor
2005 Robopet robopet
2006 Roboreptile roboreptile
2006 RS Media robosapien_rs
2007 Roboquad roboquad40
2007 Roboboa Roboboa
2007 Robopanda robopanda2
2007 FlyTech Dragonfly flytech-dragonfly
2008 Femisapien Femisapien
2008 Rovio rovio_orig
2008 Tri-Bot Tribot
2008 Mr. Personality MrPersonality
2008 Wrex The Dawg wrex
2008 Bugbots
four different styles : Flapper, Trax, Skipper, Zook
Bugbot Trax
2009 Joebot joerobot
2009 Roborover Roborover_2
2010 Roboscooper roboscooper
2013 Robosapien X Robosapien-X
2013 Zombiebot zombiebot
2013 RoboMe
iPhone controlled
Best of Toy Fair 2013
robome

Additional informations about Wowwee robots are available at the following links :

HEVC = H265

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a video compression standard, a successor to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding), currently under development by a Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) of the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG), defined as ISO/IEC 23008-2 MPEG-H Part 2 and ITU-T H.265. HEVC is said to improve video quality, double the data compression ratio compared to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and can support 8K Ultra high definition television (UHD) and resolutions up to 8192×4320.