One Tip A Day » Blogging

How to Add an Online Image Editor to Your Website

Umar — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:13:49 +0000

If you have a website which works with images (for example, lets users upload images or share images on your website to their social media networking accounts) then it would be a great idea to provide your site visitors with the option to edit images online. If a person wants to set his profile picture on your site, he can upload the original photo and then edit it in the online editor (available on your site) then put up the resultant image as the picture. Similarly if you have a funny picture up on your site which users can share on Facebook, enabling them to edit it online makes things more convenient in case they want to crop the image.

You do not need to do anything extremely fancy with you site’s code to add an online image editor on your website; all you need is Picmeleo.

Picmeleo is a free online photo editor that any third-party developers can integrate to their website. To use the service, click on the blue SIGN UP BUTTON on the homepage and create an account by entering yours and your website’s details.

After signing into your account, you can obtain the code for the editor; all you will need to now is embed this code into your site and you will have given your site visitors an online image editor.

You can also preview the editor before actually pasting the code on your blog. The loading process may take a little whole so give it some time. Here’s how it looks

Some of the tools this editor contains are Crop, Scale, Rotate, Auto-fix, and Filters. If you do not want your users to be able to extensively edit the image on your site, you can choose to exclude some tools which Picmeleo offers in its editor. This is a unique feature of this online image editor.

Overall the easy integration of Picmeleo into your website is what makes it so special. Give it a try on your website, and in the comments let me know how your experience with it went.

5 Free Websites to Keep Track On Your Website Uptime

Umar — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:27:35 +0000

Being a blogger it becomes really important to know when a website goes down because whenever a site disappears just like that there is nothing much you can do really. But at least you can keep tabs on whether or not a site is online. With the following five services, you will easily be able to do so:

1. WasItUp

With this great online site, you can ask to be emailed at an account you specify if a certain site goes down.

For the more technical reader, here is how WasItUp functions: WasItUp performs a HTTP HEAD request and checks that the status code is 200 OK. If you provided a text to match, the site performs a GET request, checks that the status code is 200 OK, and check that the text is present/not present in the returned HTTP body.

Yes, that means you can also check sites for specific words and be notified if the words no longer exist on the site.

WasItUp checks your sites every five minutes and lets you add up to 10 sites to monitor.

2. WhenDOUP

WhenDOUP performs a similar function and sends you an email if the site you specify goes down. And additional feature of WhenDOUP is that if that site that went offline comes back online, you can choose to be notified.

WhenDOUP checks the site’s status about every fifteen minutes.

3. AreMySitesUp

AreMySiteUp offers two plans: paid and free.

People using the service for free can choose to be notified by email or SMS text messages if a site goes down. The site checks up to five sites in the free plan; the checks are performed twenty-five times a day.

The paid plan includes the keyword inclusion check (which WasItUp offers for free). In the paid plan a user can add up to a hundred sites and have them checked at fifteen minute intervals. In addition to being notified via email and SMS text messages, paid users also get Twitter integration and RSS feeds.

4. MrUptime

This tool is primarily a Firefox add-on that keeps on trying to reach the site in the background, while you continue browsing other sites. Of course this can lead to bandwidth being unjustly consumed however MrUptime can come greatly in handy when a certain site is not currently loading well and needs to be refreshed constantly. At the cost of a little bandwidth, you are able to instantly know if your site is down or back up.

5. Basic State

This website offers great services completely free of charge. It lets the user add unlimited sites, checks them on fifteen minute intervals, and shows a daily uptime report that goes back fourteen days. Basic State will suit most users looking for a site-checking service.

Try all the five services out and settle on the one best for you. No more will you have to unpleasantly surprised about a site going to down.

Know How Many People Are Sharing Your Site Content

Umar — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:19:02 +0000

Say you are a website owner. You know that getting traffic to your site is your number one priority. In order to ensure that, you need to know what changes you make positively and negatively affect different forms of traffic your website is receiving. Therefore it becomes important to know not only the amount of traffic your site experiences, but also what percentage of that traffic belongs to what category (e.g. advertisements, people sharing links with friends, etc.).

What we are going to talk about today lets the site owner know how many times his/her site content is being shared by actual users via email. As mentioned earlier, this helps the site owner better analyze the traffic statistics and improve the overall website being run. More to the point however, this tool helps you know how many people are showing enough interest in your site to consider it worthy enough to email to another friend.

Let us end the suspense by revealing what this thing is named: MailCounter. Mailcounter comes in the form of JavaScript or WordPress code snippets. When you add this code to your blog or site, a badge appears which lets users email that particular page quickly, simply by clicking on the badge. Here is how the badge looks like:

Here is how the code snippet in JavaScript looks like (the image has been taken from the homepage of MailCounter; to copy the text, visit their page):

In WordPress:

Once you incorporate either one of these codes into your site, the MailCounter badge will appear. If a user clicks on it, the counter’s value will increase by one and the user’s default client’s email box will appear:

The default message is already filled out. All the user does is specify the ‘To’ section and click on ‘Send’.

The entire process is quite simple and easy, facilitating site owners a great deal.

You will also find at the end of the homepage of MailCounter ten most recent pages shared via the badge. Do check them out; some of them are quite entertaining.

Check out MailCounter

Ad.ly – Make Money Online With Sponsored Tweets

Tony Williams — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:01:55 +0000

Want to know how to make money from twitter? Even if you only have a few hundred followers you could make money by sending automatically one tweet per day featuring a message from an advertiser. Ad.ly is a new service that injects a maximum of one tweet per day featuring advertising. Twitter users get to set their price and advertisers then can purchase those slots. Some bloggers are making more than $100 per ad.ly tweet! There’s also a referral program for users, where users get paid a decent 12% of the income that their referrals make.

Some users may object to receiving adverts from the accounts that they follow, but the backlash is likely to be minimal – how much damage can be done in 140 characters?

Ad.ly is quick to join and setup will only take a minute. Give it a try and let us know how you get on with Ad.ly.

Web Hosting For Geeks

Tony Williams — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:15:11 +0000

One of the areas that new site owners don’t tend to worry about when they start a website is where it is hosted. However, not worrying about where your site is hosted can cause problems further down the road, particularly if your site is successful. For instance this site started on free hosting which it outgrew within 2 months, and then I moved to a Virtual Private Server and then eventually onto a dedicated server owned by a friend.

Deciding which web hosting is best for you is not easy, but here are some pointers:

Free Hosting: You might be able to get free hosting from your ISP. Free web hosting is best suited for small sites with low traffic, like personal sites. It is not recommended for high traffic or for real business. Technical support is often limited, and technical options are few. You also may not get a very nice url
Virtual (Shared) Hosting: Normally good cheap solution to having a dedicated server. Most hosts will give you a domain name, but make sure you get guaranteed resources as other sites sharing your server could be hogging them. Shared solutions often offer multiple software solutions like e-mail, database, and different editing options. Technical support tends to be good.
Dedicated Server: Doesn’t get any better than this – your own server that isn’t shared. It doesn’t come cheap though and is best suited for large web sites with high traffic, and web sites that use special software. In return you will get a very fast and secure server. Also has the best support options available.

Even once you’ve chosen what type of hosting is best for you, it can a lottery choosing the best host or getting the best price. This is where services like Web Hosting Geeks can help:

Web Hosting Geeks provide independent reviews of the best web hosting providers. Users can also submit reviews of hosts they have used, so that other users can see who are the best rated hosts in each category e.g dedicated server or vps hosting.

Annual awards are also given out in several categories such as Best Blog Web Hosting or Best Budget Web hosting.

Java Vs. JavaScript: How Improper Use Of JavaScript Can Damage Sites

Tony Williams — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:52:38 +0000

It is quite understandable that Java and JavaScript are often confused for one another. It’s not just that they have very similar names. Both are Object Oriented Programming languages that were created for large IT companies (Java for Sun Microsystems, JavaScript for Netscape) in 1995. The two languages, however, are different, and it’s important not to try to use them interchangeably.

Distinguishing Between Java vs. JavaScript

Functionality is the primary distinction between Java and JavaScript. Java is a full language that creates standalone programs such as the very popular Java applets. These are separate files that may be embedded into an HTML document on your browser but are not part of that document. The Java code is entirely separate. JavaScript cannot create standalone programs, though. JavaScript, in contrast, consists of code that is written directly into the HTML document, so it is actually part of the document.

Advantages to JavaScript vs. Java

Using JavaScript programs as part of the HTML documents can have its advantages. The language is easy to understand and use, and changing the program is simply a matter of rewriting some of the code in the document. Conversely, a Java program can be more complicated and is more of a hassle to change. Java programs must be written in machine language and then compiled into a form where it will fit into the HTML document where it is resting. Changing the code is not a simple matter of rewriting; the changes must happen in the original code, which must then be recompiled and reinserted into the HTML document all over again.

Advantages to Java vs. JavaScript

Nevertheless, what you give up in ease of use you gain in functionality when it comes to Java. Java is a much more versatile language. Since it can create standalone programs, it can be used to design programs that can fit into almost any site and serve a wide variety of purposes. If you are a more experienced programmer, you will probably prefer Java. Most Java programmers are familiar with C and C++, while anyone with basic HTML programming experience should be able to use JavaScript with little difficulty.

Reading Java and JavaScript

Remember that reading Java and JavaScript programs requires different platforms as well. It is possible that your browser supports both Java and JavaScript, but you should keep in mind that just because a browser supports one does not automatically mean that it will support the other.

Since websites coming out now a days are so dynamic, web hosting providers and offering java web hosting solutions with their account. Do check for the options before buying hosting service.

JavaScript was great when it was introduced. It allowed developers to really spice up their sites and to actually make them interactive with the client. A website can also gain some control over the browser as JavaScript is designed to tell the various browsers how to interpret code and allow a website to change independent of the server. When you scroll over a button or see pictures changing on their own or when you click a button and fill out a form, that could all be JavaScript. It was also easy to implement and could easily be integrated into HTML. It made it easy for many people to make great sites but there were also some dangers with JavaScript. With JavaScript you can create popup windows or even re-direct people to another site. This is a major security issue.

Improper Use Of JavaScript: What happens if an incorrect window pops up?

It’s great to have popup windows and to have forms available for customers to fill out. It’s almost essential for any site that is eCommerce based. The obvious problems with popup windows and JavaScript is that it is much easier for hackers to enter your site with JavaScript and embed a popup window in your site requesting your customer’s private information or they can even re-direct customers to a new site without the customer even knowing it. Even worse, it is very hard to detect when and where these popup windows will come up in your site. Done properly it could fool just about anyone into giving up sensitive information. If you’re a bank or an online poker site you will be transferring funds and that can easily be re directed through the use of JavaScript.

Improper Use Of JavaScript: Incorrect features can happen anywhere!

Using JavaScript improperly can cause unique features to randomly appear and it will happen at the wrong time and location on a site. Pictures could move independently when you don’t want them to. Buttons can change independently and even worse popup windows can just spring up. So it can completely ruin the visual looks of a site. Another problem is if you want to use JavaScript to create popup windows and the user has the pop up windows feature turned off in the browser, the client will then never even see that information or feature. It is great to still use JavaScript and even though there might be some security risks one should always keep in mind that there are always security risks with any option you choose when you are building out your site. Weigh the options and make the best decision for your site.

Faster WordPress With Web Optimizer Plugin

Tony Williams — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:19:48 +0000

A 10 second search on Google will turn up numerous posts giving tips on how to speedup Wordpress. In fact, a 10 second search on this site would probably do the same! If you’re tired of reading Wordpress optimization posts that you don’t understand or are too hard to implement, then a quick way to speedup WordPress is to install the Web Optimizer plugin.

The Wordpress Web Optimizer Plugin provides a 1-click way to automate all clientside improvements that should significantly increase load speeds. Out of the box safe presets are chosen, although there are other options that are disabled. If you do enable the extra options then it’s best to do one at a time to check that your blog is still loading correctly.

Full features:

Simple 1-click installation

overall website acceleration in 1 minute;
express install requires no advanced knowledge;
default options guarantee optimal performance;
monitor for traffic / visitor’s time savings;
average speed up is 300-500% (up to 1000% or 98 by YSlow).

Powerful and fast algorithm

caching for minimized files;
caching for gzipped files;
fast HTML code parsing (3-10ms);
server side load decrease (by number of requests).

CSS / JS files merging

dozens of JavaScript files are combined into 1;
dozens of CSS files are combined into 1;
libraries can be excluded;
inline code and external scripts are included by default;
all code is minified and compressed.

Unobtrusive JS and dynamic loading

by default scripts are moved to ;
scripts can be moved to ;
scripts can be loaded on onDOMready;
counters can be moved to ;
ads can be moved to ;
no blocking scripts!

HTML minify / strip comments

simple and fast regexp for HTML code;
comments can be striped;
one-string mode for HTML code.

Earlier flush of content (first 1-2 Kb)

can help for CPU intensive websites.

CSS Tidy / simple regexp for CSS

CSS Tidy 1.4 to minify CSS;
if no CSS Sprites and data:URI simple regexp is used;
minimization up to 50%.

JSMin / Packer / YUI Compressor for JavaScript

YUI Compressor if java is installed;
JSMin by default (with conditional compilation);
Packer for non-gzip systems;
minimization up to 50%.

GZIP for HTML / CSS / JS / ICO files

via .htaccess if it is possible;
via PHP for HTML / CSS / JS (ob_gzhandler);
static gzip to prevent CPU wasting;
additional check via cookie;
minimization up to 85%.

Optimized .htaccess for Apache

mod_gzip;
moddeflate (+ modfilter);
mod_mime;
mod_rewrite;
mod_headers;
mod_expires.

Client side caching for CSS / JavaScript / HTML files

10 years for CSS / JavaScript;
GET param to clear cache;
optional HTML caching;
conditional caching (ETag);
customizable time for HTML.

Client side caching for static assets

docs / video / others;
via .htaccess.

Server side caching for minified CSS / JS / HTML files

static gzip;
static combine & minify;
prepared HTML file.

CSS Sprites (background images merging)

up to 3 images from 100+;
optimized via smush.it;
no initial Sprites required.

data:URI (+ IE7- hacks)

for images up to 24 Kb in size;
.cur, .htc, .eot, .ttf files excluded;
* html hack for IE6;
*+html hack for IE7;

Multiple hosts for static assets

HTML images + CSS images;
15+ default hosts;
optional auto-check for availability;
need only DNS records and aliases in server configuration.

CSS Images optimization (via smush.it)

PNG can be reduced by 30%;
GIF can be reduced by 60%;
JPEG can be reduced by 20%.

PHP4/5 — Apache module or CGI

tested on Denwer;
tested on VPS;
tested on shared hosting;
tested on collocation;
PHP4 backward compatibility.

Auto-update

additional security;
no need to download & install;
all options are saved.

How To Display Content Only For Certain Browsers

Tony Williams — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:35:47 +0000

I had some rogue code on my website that readers told me was causing Internet Explorer 8 to crash. I didn’t want to remove the offending code completely, so I searched Google for a way to show the code for all other browsers, and different code just for Internet Explorer 8.

The solution was simpler than I thought, e.g. the code for my solution was:

You are not using Internet Explorer.

More: Conditional Comment

Translate Your Website Into Over 40 languages

Tony Williams — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:53:15 +0000

Our sister blog have discovered a new tool called ConveyThis, that combines online translators from Google and Babelfish into one button. After answering a few questions, code is created that allows you to translate your website into over 40 languages:

After registering you will also have access to stats showing how many times your website was translated, and into which languages.

More: ConveyThis

Use NetDrive To Map FTP Servers To Windows Drives

Tony Williams — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:04:09 +0000

Although there are some great FTP clients out there, they can still be a bit fiddly to use. If you are uncomfortable using FTP then maybe NetDrive is for you. This free client (for home use) allows you to map FTP servers to Windows drives, so you don’t have to login everytime to your FTP accounts.

NetDrive Features

Mounts remote storage as a local hard disk on your PC
Data transfer by drag and drop files in windows explorer
Able to run files(video, audio and any other .exe files)
Mounts drive automatically when Windows starts.
SDK for enterprise OEM license available.
It enables you to customize the user interface and optimize functions related to your service.

More: NetDrive

Blogging And Wordpress Hosting

Tony Williams — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:01:50 +0000

Blogging is a fundamental part of today’s Internet-based businesses. Frankly, if your company makes any use of the Internet whatsoever, and there are few companies these days that don’t, then you need a blog. It doesn’t matter if you don’t consider yourself a particularly great writer or aren’t sure that your business has something special to say. You need to find a way to create a compelling, eye-catching blog and keep it filled with fresh content.

Why Blogging is Important

Blogging is what keeps a static website dynamic. You may have a great product, service or general brand to sell, but it’s hard to keep people excited about those things when you have a two-dimensional screen with content that never changes. If everyone knows what they will see on your website, then there’s less incentive to visit. When you have a constantly fresh blog, though, people will always come back to see what’s new. That’s traffic you can use. On top of that, search engines are impressed with fresh content, so a good blog can improve your search engine ratings. Finally, blogs present a good opportunity for link-building. When you visit another blog and leave a comment with a link to your own, it can direct people towards your website.

Blogging and WordPress Hosting

Of course, if you’re going to set up a blog, then you’ll need a platform and host. WordPress is a great place to start. It’s easy to set up and use, and its open source protocol means you can use the tools created by WordPress experts to constantly update and customize your blog so it’s just right for your needs. Remember, you’re going to have your WordPress blog professionally hosted. You could go to a WordPress.com free hosted blog, but this is considered less professional and won’t help your traffic as much.

For blog hosting you can find some best wordpress hosts listed in webhostingsearch.com.

Maintaining a Blog

You should always look for ways to update and improve your blog. The Internet is about keeping things fresh and keeping things moving. The more successful you are at doing that, the better you should be at generating traffic and drawing attention to your business.

Extract Text From an Image into an Editable document

Umar — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:03:11 +0000

One of the things I hated back at school were the projects. Not because of the work involved , if anything I was very proactive when a group assignment came along, but with the advent of computers all our projects were supposed to be typed up, in a neat format, and that is what I hated!

I soon learnt about OCR (optical character recognition) which is a way to extract text from an image and convert it into an editable text document. I did try it out but for all its advantages it also had an equal number of disadvantages : expensive software, undesirable results , and in some cases additional hardware.

The benefits of course are: articles and excerpts don’t need to be retyped by hand, OCR-ed text can be reused anywhere. For instant, college course papers to displaying excerpts in a party banner etc.

FreeOCR aims to give you all of that for free! about the only thing you have to invest is a little of your time and scanning your documents (if needed). Once you have your images just go to the website open upload it using the provided space and within a minute you’ll should have a editable version of your text!

There are are some limitations such as not being able to convert more than 10 images per hour and that images should not be more than 2MB but all things considered its a great service!

Omnistar Mailer – A Powerful Web Based Email Marketing Software

Tony Williams — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:37:32 +0000

Omnistar Email Marketing Software is a powerful and well-built piece of software for email marketing. It makes it very easy for you to manage and deploy email and newsletter campaigns. The best thing is that you can control it entirely from the web. Its easy to use system is just perfect for creating, sending, and tracking setup reminders, surveys, and newsletters. The software also offers a step-by-step getting started wizard with plenty of customizable email templates. This way, even if you do not have any technical expertise, you can still create professional HTML emails easily.

Omnistar Mailer helps you maintain the list of your customers and create surveys to get feedbacks from them. The entire system is very easy to use. In fact, if you still have some confusion about how to use a particular feature, you can take advantage of their audio-video tutorials. If you are maintaining the list of subscribers yourself, you will have a very tough time doing an analysis manually. On the other hand, this PHP/MySQL software program automates the process for you by generating analytical reports so that you could easily tweak and test different campaigns and optimize their performances by working on the areas of improvement.

Omnistar Interactive is offering our readers a fantastic 10% discount to One Tip A Day readers by entering the promo code: onetip at their order form.

Omnistar Mailer – A Powerful Web Based Email Marketing Software

Omnistar Email Marketing Software is a powerful and well-built piece of software for email marketing. It makes it very easy for you to manage and deploy email and newsletter campaigns. The best thing is that you can control it entirely from the web. Its easy to use system is just perfect for creating, sending, and tracking setup reminders, surveys, and newsletters. The software also offers a step-by-step getting started wizard with plenty of customizable email templates. This way, even if you do not have any technical expertise, you can still create professional HTML emails easily.

Omnistar Interactive is offering our readers a 10% discount by entering the promo code:

onetip

at their order form.

Make Money By Claiming Your Blog On Amazon Kindle

Tony Williams — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:25:36 +0000

Amazon Kindle is a great attempt by Amazon to corner the market in electronic books. It’s wafer thin at 1/3 of an inch, making it the same thickness as a magazine. It’s being pushed hard by Amazon and could be the next big thing.

As part of the Kindle service there’s a list of blogs that Kindle users can subscribe to for a fee, typically $1.99 per month. To be listed, blog owners have to register and setup their blogs and if your blog is subscribed to you get 30% of the revenues.

Now I’m not saying this is going to pay off your mortgage, but given that it only takes 2 mins to do it’s definitely worthwhile.

Reveal Hidden Short Urls with TinyURL Decoder

Umar — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:11:35 +0000

Ever hear of a TinyURL? A few years ago there was a time when giving links to others had them cringing in disgust as they saw a blue highlighted mammoth string of digits and letters filling up the screen. So how was one to control the clickable ugliness? Why shorten the URL of course!

Unfortunately this little blessing has turned into a menace of its own. The simple reason being that since you can’t seen the whole URL string (which is hiding behind the shortened URL that you actually can see) you don’t really know what you’re clicking on. Once internet mass marketers got hold of the technology they started hiding links to their products, affiliate links or unwanted pop-ups etc.

To avoid any such surprises, affiliate links, or other deceptive uses of TinyURLs, you can install a Greasemonkey script called TinyURL Decoder. It is a small script that lets you go back to old days when you could see exactly what you were clicking on so that you can make an educated guess on whether its worthwhile or not.

All you need to do is place `TinyURL decoder’ script in the appropriate directory of your browser and thats it. It should start working instantly. Also, the service is just not limited to TinyURL. In fact there is a huge list of other URL shortening services that it supports.

Scheduling Made Easy with TimeBridge

MoiN — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:52:25 +0000

Whether you’re a sales agent or a business owner, your sole focus is on one aspect at all times – get more business! For the proactive professional this means running around setting up appointments, meeting clients and deadlines, utilizing whatever time you have in the most efficient way possible.

The reality is, a large chunk of the professionals time is spent not on how to present his ideas, services or product – but in playing secretary to him/herself! Calling clients, setting meetings and getting things done. Sure, it looks easy when reading about it – but no one ever tells you about the countless numbers of rescheduling that usually occurs, or constantly hearing about `oh I never received an email about that meeting’. Soon your calendar starts looking more like a football playbook than an organized sales persons planner!

Today appointment scheduling has shifted to Outlook, Google calendar or Apple iCal, but that doesn’t mean the mess has gone away. If one important client decides to change an appointment you will end up calling all your clients for that day just to accommodate them. The question is – is there a way to handle this without hiring a separate secretary!

Well now there is! TimeBridge is a San Francisco-based startup focused on making it easy to schedule meetings and appointments. With the ability to sync with Apple iCal as well as with established calendar apps such as Google and Outlook. TimeBridge’s main pull is in the simplicity with which it gives its participants optional times and dates for each appointment.

Let say you want to schedule something with a certain person doing a specific work you asked, TimeBridge will send an email to him/her which will have 5 different time frames – he/she will be requested to choose which time suits them by selecting between “Yes,” “no,” and “Best” for each time option. Once the choices have been made, an email will be sent back to the original sender with their preferred time. Timebridge will then automatically check the original senders schedule and if that person’s `Best’ time matches up with the theirs — then TimeBridge will automatically set the appointment and send out confirmation emails! If there’s a clash in timings (e.g. the original sender will not be available during the specified time) then he/she will be notified by TimeBridge of the conflict.

TimeBridge can do this not for one client but ALL the clients you have on your calendar, at the same time! Regardless of how many appointment mails are sent back TimeBridge will juggle them around and set the appointments automatically until it hits a situation where there is absolutely no time combination within your schedule that will work with your client.

The amazing thing is that this part of TimeBridge’s service is absolutely free! Once you have set up a successful appointment, you may also use TimeBridges online screen-sharing and phone meeting services for a really low fee ($8.95 p/m) compare that to approximately $40 p/m using WebEx or GoToMeeting.com. This is especially useful for a conference call with multiple clients (eg, when showcasing your service/product).

In these hard times it pays to be smart and effective, TimeBridge is just the tool to tip the scales in your favor!

Optimize Page Speeds With Google Page Speed

Tony Williams — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:49:01 +0000

Google have launched a new Firefox Addon called Page Speed that works with the Firebug extension to provide webmasters with ways to improve the page speeds. The tool is so good, that Google have been using it internally to improve their web pages. The tool is very similar to Yahoo’s YSlow.

Page Speed provides a lot of information on why your pages are loading slowing, and will even optimize images for you. It also highlights any Javascript and CSS loaded by your pages that isn’t needed, which can be removed for faster load times.

More: Page Speed

How to Resize Images and Add Effects Online

Umar — Sun, 17 May 2009 01:35:39 +0000

I earlier reviewed a free web service that allows you to add reflection effect to photos online in two simple steps. Today, I’ve confronted another simple yet helpful tool which lets you resize your images in hardly less than a minute.

Picresize is an online image resizer utility which enables you to quickly resize and crop photos while your on the internet. Picresize doesn’t require any registration and helps you get the job done in seconds.

To get started all you have to do is log on to the website and upload your image from your computer. Once done it will open up a new page where you will be able to resize your image according to your need. In addition to that you can use the one click feature to add special effects to your photo right away.

Select your preferred options and save image in PNG, JPG and GIF format.

Check out PicResize

Automatically Upload Your Tweeted Pictures on Flickr

Umar — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:33:22 +0000

Twitter is one of the fastest growing Social Media Network out there. Just like FireFox and it’s directory of all the free add-ons Twitter is quickly catching up and further plans to make things really easy for everyone.

There must be lots of us who already know and use “Twitpic“, a free web service that allows you to share pictures on Twitter. It also supports lots of other Twitter applications such as TweetDeck and many more mobile applications as well.

Recently I’ve confronted another cool tool known as “TwitPickr” that is responsible for uploading tweeted pics directly to your Flickr Photo Album. All you have to do is

1. Enter your Twitter username

2. Select the images you want and
3. Click the upload-button.

Once done, approve the authority to Flickr and Twitter. It’s really as simple as it look. It is an excellent add-on for those who regularly use Twitpic.

Convert Text to Video and Gain Huge Traffic

Umar — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:01:52 +0000

I have seen tens of different online applications that lets you convert your text to audio. Today, I’ve confronted one that will allow you to turn your articles to Videos. ArticleVideoRobot seems to be a very useful software that converts your text into a movie in less than 3 minutes of time.

All you have to do is copy and paste your article in the content box and leave the rest to ArticleVideoRobot. The biggest advantage of creating videos out of your article is that the video counts separately for each video website you submit it to. What this means to you that with a single click your video will be going out to 17 different video websites.

If you use the servive sensibly you can distribute these videos to top websites and top social networks to gain huge traffic. Here are the simple steps you will need to use to create your video

Paste your article in the content box
Arrange your article into paragraphs
Summarize each of the paragraph
Select your movie background
Set your background music
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You can download the trial version here or check out the official website for additional information.

Add StumbleUpon Buttons To Your Site To Increase Traffic

Tony Williams — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:32:23 +0000

Every month or so, one of my pages makes it onto StumbleUpon? Although not quite as scary as getting onto Digg in terms of the volume of traffic sent, it is still very impressive.

StumbleUpon have now made it easier for publishers to encourage readers to submit their content.? They’ve created a nice wizard that automatically generates the code for your site to get readers stumbling:

All you ave to do is pick a graphic and tell StumbleUpon what type of site you have, and the code is automatically generated.

You don’t need a StumbleUpon account to add the buttons.? If you are a member, then add me as a friend.

More: StumbleUpon Buttons

10 htaccess Hacks To Speedup WordPress

Tony Williams — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:19:11 +0000

Today’s post may be a bit more technical than my usual posts, but these htaccess tweaks have made such a big difference to my wordpress blog, that I just had to share them.

Editing a .htacess file may seem daunting, but as long as you backup your old file using a FTP client, then you can’t go wrong. The tweaks in this great guide allow you to:

1 – Redirect WordPress RSS feeds to feedburner with htaccess
2 – Remove /category/ from your WordPress url
3 – Using browser cache
4 – Compress static data
5 – Redirect Day and name permalinks to /%postname%/
6 – How to: Deny comment posting to no referrer requests
7 – Redirect visitors to a maintenance page
8 – Protect your WordPress blog from hotlinking
9 – Allow only your IP adress on the wp-admin directory
10 – Banning a WordPress Spammer With htaccess

To read the htaccess tweaks in full click here

Matt Cutts From Google On Keywords In The Url

Tony Williams — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:41:27 +0000

One of the oldest tips for improving SEO is to add keywords to the url. This goes way back to the early search engines such as Inktomi (remember them?).

This still holds true and has been recently confirmed by Matt Cutts from Google. In the following video Matt says:

“If you’ve got an existing solution that works for you, it’s not really worth going back to change your urls. It may worth considering when you’re doing a new site.”

For more advice, check out the full video with Matt Cutts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRzMhlFZz9I

Add WordPress WP CSS Plugin For Speed

Tony Williams — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:01:11 +0000

Here’s a very quick tip for all WordPress users. Adding the WP CSS Plugin can speedup your page loading times by compressing and removing the whitespace from your CSS files. May sound too simple, but this plugin definitely works!

The latest version includes:

Ability to add CSS files to specific page/post
Concatenate CSS files into a single file (comma separated)
Improved security
Reduced URL outputted

More: WP CSS WordPress Plugin

Webmastery 101: How To Cut Fat And Build Muscle

Tony Williams — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:38:08 +0000

No, this is not a late New Year’s resolution post. I’ve just read a brilliant post over at Connected Internet that gives some great tips on how to optimise your site, cut out the blot, and drive lots and lots of traffic.

The tips given include how to use a robots.txt file, how to validate HMTL and CSS, and how to use SEF urls.

More: Connected Internet

Tidy Up WordPress Emails With Clean Notifications Plugin

Tony Williams — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:42:29 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, I love Wordpress and with every release my love affair intensifies. I’ve been using WordPress for nearly 4 years and I’ve never considered switching to another platform.

However, there are some basic things that WordPress does badly. Take the emails notifications that are sent to users who leave or subscribe to comments. Why oh why are they formatted so badly, with ugly urls making them hard to read?

I’ve just installed the Clean Notifications plugin for Wordpress and this does a great job of removing the ugly full urls and replaced them with nice tidy links.

More: Clean Notifications Plugin

Add NicEdit WYSWYG Text Editor To Your Site

Tony Williams — Wed, 21 May 2008 22:35:39 +0000

Every blogger wants more comments and one way of doing this is to make it easier for readers to leave comments. If you are a WordPress user then there are several good comment quicktag plugins out there.

If you want to add a full WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor to your site or blog in one quick step, to make it even easier for your readers to leave comments then check out NicEdit. Just by adding one line of code anywhere to your site, you can get a great comment editing box like the one below:

I’ve just added NicEdit to this site, so you can try it out below by leaving a comment.

Update: I’ve removed this as it has issues in some browsers

More: NicEdit