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Sunday, August 31, 2008
STRAWBERRY MACHINA | CLEAN XML BLOGGER TEMPLATE
Strawberry Machina is a clean WordPress theme designed by Clean WordPress. This theme is bloggerized by TechFlaps.
Please do not remove the credits at the bottom of the template. You can edit it but keep the existing links intact.
Strawberry Machina Clean Two Column XML Blogger Template
Strawberry Machina Blogger ThemeColumns : Two
Major Color : Red, Grey, Black & White
Installation : How to install an XML template?
Instructions : Take a Backup of your Existing Blogger Template!
For the theme to appear as it is in the preview download all the images here and host it with some of your preferred image store like PhotoBucket.com or ImageShack.com.
We are sorry that the bandwidth for our image store service is nearing the limit and we are forced to do this.
Strawberry Machina - Clean Two Column XML Blogger Template Cool Header
Strawberry Machina - Clean Two Column XML Blogger Template Customized Comments & Form
TIPS
Header Tag line : To change the tag line [Another Cool Template from TechFlaps] to something of your choice open the template code and find the following piece of codeThen replace the text in RED to something of your choice!
<div class='headline'><h1>Another Cool Template from TechFlaps</h1></div>
Menu - To change the menu items, find the piece of codeand replace the part in RED with the links of your wish.
<ul>
<li class='first'><a href='/'>Home</a></li>
<li class='page_item page-item-2'><a href='http://www.techflaps.com/search/label/Template' title='More Blogger Templates'>Templates</a></li>
<li class='page_item page-item-2'><a href='http://www.techflaps.com/search/label/Blogger%20Tricks' title='Moere Blogger Tricks'>Blogger Tricks</a></li>
<li class='page_item page-item-2'><a href='/feeds/posts/default' title='Subscribe to RSS'>RSS FEED</a></li>
</ul>
Any suggestion, criticism or doubt, leave comments on.You can have more templates here.
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Saturday, August 30, 2008
MashedLife | Making Life Easier For You
Other day I brought before you a web based personal assistant which allows you to keep track of your usernames and passwords you use to access various web based services. The service, named Pageonce, delivers everything Web users love about the Internet including relevant products, services and offers, and nothing they don't.
The service increases the security of your Internet accounts by assigning different user names and passwords to each account and managing them from Pageonce. The service allows you to manage all family members' frequent flyer accounts from one place, defend against identity theft & online fraud by being aware of account statuses in real time.
Today, I am presenting before you another web service that offers the same genere or service named, MashedLife. The service allows you to access all of your online accounts from one secure place, log in to Facebook, YouTube, online forums, Digg, or any sites from any PC, Mac, even an iPhone w/o typing username/password.MashedLife is not only for the busy trendy types. For senior & little family members who can't keep track of their online fun & social accounts, you should set up MashedLife accounts for them.
- MashedLife.com
The service is free, so other than having to clear the hurdle of consciously entrusting it with your login information, its a quick test. It is also being positioned as a very safe and secure facilitator. Once your information is saved, and you later return to a page, a MashedLife bookmarklet sends the website data and a “big random number” to request information registered with the service. This process is said to operate “on top of SSL.” once MashedLife authenticates the transmission, it “encrypts and sends it back via the secure HTTPS session.”
MashedLife | LIFE IS GETTING MORE EASIER
When you navigate to a site's login page, click on mashed life's bookmark from the browser. From your browser, the mashed life bookmark sends the login page and a big random number with the request as the key to further encrypt the communication on top of SSL.The bookmark is actually a "bookmarklet", a small piece of Javascript code that performs the bookmark login action for you.
Because the bookmarklet code knows which site you are at when you click on the login bookmark, you need only one Mashed life login bookmark to log in to all sites.
Mashed life bookmarklet decodes encrypted information inside your browser, fills in your account login information, and logs you in. All this happens with just one click without the user to type in the username/password.
Mashed Life is not a proxy. It is just filling out the login form to help the user log in, then transfers the control back to the user's browser to communicate with the target site directly. No communication goes through Mashed Life after you are logged in to the target site.
Mashed life supports Yubikey for strong authentication. And the login is immune from key logger attacks in this way:
The difference between Pageonce and MashedLife is that MashedLife uses a Secure Socket Layer for its transactions, and I think this is an advantage of MashedLife.MashedLife
Website : www.mashedlife.com
Location : Sunnyvale, California, United States
The Mashed Life Service is an online service where individuals that have signed up with Mashed Life can create and save encrypted entries containing confidential information. Once you're logged into MashedLife, you can simply click on the link next to each stored account to launch a new tab or window and do bookmark login, or direct login if that site allows.
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Saturday, August 30, 2008
ERROR : THE REFERENCE TO ENTITY "XX" MUST END WITH ';' DELIMETER
Many of you might have came across this error while making some changes in your template code. This normally happens when you add some advertisement codes or some Javascript references where we pass more than one parameter to the Javascript function.
For example, I want to include the code<scriptinside the blogger template code, which just shows a SPHERE IT link below my posts. This will get me an an error at the time I try to save the template. The error will be like this.
src='http://www.sphere.com/widgets/sphereit/js?t=classic&p=www.techflaps.com' type='text/javascript'/>
BLOGGER ERROR : THE REFERENCE TO ENTITY "XX" MUST END WITH ';' DELIMETER
If you ever, ever encounter with this error just make a simple change in the code change the'&'
before the'p'
to
. This will solve the issue.
If there are more then one &VARIABLE_NAME=VALUE combinations, just change all the'&'
before the VARIABLE_NAME's to.NOTE : One thing you have to notice that this error occurs only when you try to paste the code directly into the Blogger Template code. If you try to include the code inside a widget there won't be any issues. The difference is because, when you try to paste the code directly into the template code, the blogger engine tries to validate it and causes error. While if it is inside a widget the engine validate the widget, not the code at time when we save it.
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Saturday, August 30, 2008
Swap The Blogger Title To Increase Traffic
Swapping your blog title between posts or between post pages and front pages is an SEO trick and will help you to get more and more traffic to your site. A normal title for a blogger blog will always show the Title of the blog only and leaves the page post title.
Swap Blogger Title and Increase Traffic
We can swap the blog title based on the page the user is in and different title for different post pages. Follow the steps given below.
STEP 1 : Find the line of code given below in your blog tempalte code.<title><data:blog.title/></title>
STEP 2 : Replace the code you found in STEP 1 with this<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
</b:if>
STEP 3: Save your Template and you are done.
Hope this works for all you bloggers, let me know of any issues and concerns.
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Saturday, August 30, 2008
MANTIS | XML BLOGGER TEMPLATE
Mantis is a two column XML Blogger template designed by ourblogtemplates.com.This template with the dark background and cool green foreground shades makes this very attractive.
Mantis Blogger Template
Header Image : The header image doesn't come with the template file. To put the header image in your blog, left-click on the image below and save the actual size into your computer. Then, upload the image into the Header Page Element in the Layout section of your blog.
Right Click and Select Save As
If you want to use your own image for the header, the image has to be 820 pixels wide (with any height) to fit the header nicely.
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Friday, August 29, 2008
HOW TO CREATE EXPANDABLE POST SUMMARIES
This has been covered by a lot of bloggers in many blogs and nowadays can be seen in almost all the blogs. This is a nice trick to show only the summary of posts in your blogs front page and a link to the full post. Users who want to read the rest of the post can click a link to see the full post. This trick is useful when you have much bigger posts or have more contents to show in the front page.
We will see how to create an expandable post summary in blogger using only CSS styles. We are not using any JavaScript or doesn't require and complex coding for this. Just copy the code as shown in this post and paste it in your blog template and you are ready to go.
To achieve this we need to complete three steps and are described as given below. The tree steps contain three components : a CSS Style, a Read More link and some change in the blog settings.
STEP 1 :Back-Up you existing Template. This is extremely important as you are going to play with the code and if something bad happens you can always revert back to your existing template.
If you don't know how to make a backup of your template follow these steps.- Go to Blogger Home
- Now go to Layout >> Edit HTML
Layout >> Edit HTML - Click on the Download Full Template link and save the XML file in your system. If something bad happens you can upload it again and can restore the existing template.
Always Take a Backup of Your Existing Template Before Playing With It!
STEP 2 : Go to Blogger Home. Navigate to Layout >> Edit HTML.Layout >> Edit HTML
STEP 3 : Remember to select the check box Expand Widget Templates.
STEP 4 : Find the piece of code as shown below.<p><data:post.body/></p>
STEP 5 : Now replace the above given code with the piece of code as given below. Just copy the code given below and replace the two lines you found in the templates code as said in STEP 4
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<style>span.fullpost {display:inline;}</style>
<b:else/>
<style>span.fullpost {display:none;}</style>
</b:if>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'><br />
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>Read more!</a>
</b:if>
STEP 6 : Now after this if whenever you creates a post, you need to include the tags<span class="fullpost">
and</span>
inside your post content like this.This is the summary of my post.<span class="fullpost">And here goes the rest of the post content. Read the full post here.</span>
When your post is displayed in the front page it will be like this.This is the summary of my post.
Read More
And when you click on the Read More link it will take you to the page for the post article where the whole article is shown like this.This is the summary of my post.
And here goes the rest of the post content. Read the full post here.NOTE : The first part of code which is in RED in STEP 5 sets the style for the post content. It checks whether the page displayed is an actual full post page and if its is displays the whole content. If it is not, that is, if the page is the blog front page it sets the span's display style as none which makes the part of the article which is inside the<span class="fullpost">
and</span>
tags invisible.
When the user click on the Read More link, it takes the user to the item page where the whole article is displayed and the span style is set asinline
, which shows the whole article to the user.
The part of code which is in BLUE places a link whcih links to the articles page if the page is blog front page.
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Friday, August 29, 2008
KNOW WHO IS FOLLOWING YOU? | BLOGGER'S NEW WIDGET
Would you like to know who enjoys reading your blog? Or stay updated with your favorite blogs right from your Blogger dashboard? You can do those things and more with Blogger’s new Following feature.
By following your blog, your readers tell you and the world that they’re a fan of what you post. Your Dashboard now shows you how many followers each of your blogs has. With a click on the Followers icon, you can browse your followers, see what blogs they write, and read the other blogs they’re following.
Know Who All Are Following Your Blog!
Now that you know who your Followers are, you can show them off by adding the Followers gadget to your blog’s sidebar. From the "Layout | Page Elements" tab, click "Add a Gadget" and select "Followers" from the gadgets list. The Followers gadget shows the profile pictures of your followers and gives your readers a "Follow This Blog" link to join up, too.Those who are not able to see the gadget in normal dashboard, you might have to login to Blogger int Draft. For that go here.
Your followers can stay updated with your blog with the Reading List that we’ve added to the Blogger Dashboard. The Blogs I’m Following tab automatically shows the latest posts from all the blogs you follow. You can follow any blog from your reading list, even blogs that haven’t added the Followers widget or aren’t hosted on Blogger. Just click the "Add" button and type in the blog’s URL.
If you’re a Google Reader user, you’ll now see a special folder in Reader called "Blogs I’m Following," full of the subscriptions for all of the blogs you follow. You can follow blogs you’ve subscribed to in Reader, too: From the Reading List on your Blogger Dashboard, click "Add," then "Import from Google Reader."
And.... there's more to come! Blogger is in the process of integrating with Google Friend Connect so you can give your readers more engaging social features.
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Friday, August 29, 2008
IF NOT YAHOO, THEN CIAO | MICROSOFT ACQUIRES GREENFIELD
Microsoft has agreed to buy Greenfield Online, owner of European price comparison website ciao.com, for about $486 million to boost its Internet search and e-commerce business in Europe.
Microsoft, whose $47.5 billion bid to buy Yahoo earlier this year failed after a protracted battle, said on Friday the acquisition should benefit its Live Search platform.
Greenfield's properties include Munich, Germany-based Ciao, one of the leading price-comparison and online-shopping sites in Europe. Ultimately, Microsoft said, Ciao's technology platform, online community, and merchant relationships will be integrated with Microsoft's Live Search.
Microsoft has a 2 percent market share in Europe and 9 percent worldwide, behind both Google and Yahoo. In Europe, Microsoft is also outranked by online auction site eBay and Russia's Yandex.
The deal calls for Microsoft to commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Greenfield for $17.50 per share, or roughly $486 million."The team at Ciao has built a passionate consumer community based on intuitive technology and extensive merchant relationships that we believe will deliver incremental benefit to the Microsoft Live Search platform."
-Tami Reller, Vice President for Windows and Online Services,Microsoft
Ciao.com offers advice on purchases, mainly of consumer electronics, and encourages users to join a network of shopping experts to share opinions. It makes its revenues from e-commerce, merchant referrals and advertising sales.
Wilton, Conn.-based Greenfield, which acquired Ciao in 2005, also owns an Internet survey business, which Microsoft plans to sell off. Microsoft said it has already secured an unnamed buyer for that unit.
The companies expect both deals to close during the fourth quarter of 2008. Completion of the Greenfield sale to Microsoft does not depend on Microsoft's disposal of the online survey business, the two companies said.MicrosoftWebsite : www.microsoft.com
Location : Redmond, Washington, United States
Founded : April 4, 1974
Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. They are a veteran software company, best known for their Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, but they have also ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and Xbox. They have made a presence on the Web with the MSN internet portal and Microsoft Live search, but have been widely criticized for their failure to penetrate this market.Greenfield Online, Inc.Website : www.greenfield.com
Location : 21 River Road, Wilton, Connecticut , U.S.A
Founded : 1994
Greenfield Online (SRVY) is a global interactive media and services company that collects consumer attitudes about products and services enabling consumers to reach informed purchasing decisions about the products and services they want to buy; and helping companies better understand their customer in order to formulate effective product marketing strategies.
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
TWITTER TWEETS | WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT SPAM
After a malicious profile was found on Twitter which hosts link to a Trojan downloader the company is now working very hard to get rid of these kind of malicious and spam profiles from its profile. They are taking stern steps to reduce the number of spam and malicious profiles in Twitter.
Twitter Tweets | We are Serious About SPAM!
Recently they launched a new admin tool that allows them to deal more efficiently with spam when they found it. With this the support staff can no easily review and suspend spam accounts as well as they can change the content of the profile to read like "This account is currently suspended and is being investigated due to strange activity", which will keep others warned.
They are also making use of community powered alerts, through which, they take note, when someone blocks a spam account. If more and more people are blocking that account they take these as feedback and acts upon it. This is good as suspending a spam account only works after is has already caused some damage and this will alert them with potential spam account alerts.
Also, as it says in the Twitter Blog, they are going to hire more people who will work only upon systematic identification and removal of spam on Twitter.They will work together with our support team, and our automatic spam tools.
At the end, however, Twitter is making a disclaimer that they don't have a magic wand which they can wave or a switch they can flip to make it all go away. Its good that they are taking spam accounts seriously and are actually doing something to fight against it. But as they themselves said, what is the use of blocking an account after it have done much damage?Twitter
Website : www.twitter.com
Service : Micro-Blogging
Available Language(s) : English, Japanese
Location : South Park, San Francisco, California
Founded : March 2006
Twitter is social networking and micro-blogging site that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message.The service was started by Obvious Corp, and had launched the Japanese version in April 2008.
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
INTERNET EXPLORER BETA 2 | NEXT BIG THING??
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 was release by Microsoft on Wednesday. The world’s largest software maker said the latest version — beta 2 — of Internet Explorer, which has a market share of about 75 percent, comes with new features to enhance privacy, ease-of-use, and security.
Fast, safe, easy. Internet Explorer 8 takes the Web experience beyond the page for quicker and more reliable browsing with peace of mind.
Microsoft, About Internet Explorer 8
I was using the Beta 1 for sometime and found it very disturbing. The appearence had improved and they had added some new functionalities. But the basic thing got worse with the Beta. Inline HTML editors in some sites were not working at all and the CSS style displays were pathetic.
But with Beta 2, after working with it for last few hours, I can feel the difference. Smooth and perfect. No glitches so far. the tabs are working perfectly. I haven't been into much of the function provided but it seems that the Internet Explorer Beta 2 have much in it to stand atop other browsers.
Many new features had been added with this version of the beta but the noticable features are as follows.
Increased Performance : Internet Explorer 8 includes many performance improvements that contribute to a faster, more responsive web browsing experience in the areas that matter most. Internet Explorer 8 starts quickly, loads pages fast and instantly gets you started on what you want to do next with a powerful new tab page. In addition, the script engine in Internet Explorer 8 is significantly faster than in previous versions, minimizing the load time for webpages based on JavaScript or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX).
InPrivate Browsing : Sometimes you don’t want to leave any trace of specific web browsing activity, such as when checking e-mail at an Internet café or shopping for a gift on a family PC. InPrivate Browsing in Internet Explorer 8 helps prevent your browsing history, temporary Internet files, form data, cookies, and usernames and passwords from being retained by the browser, leaving no evidence of your browsing or search history.
Peace of mind for parents: If parental controls are activated, InPrivate Browsing is disabled.
You can start InPrivate Browsing by opening a new tab and selecting Start InPrivate Browsing or selecting it from the Safety button on the top right corner of the browser window.
SmartScreen Filter : Internet Explorer 8’s new SmartScreen Filter builds upon our leadership in the detection of phishing sites and now helps protect you against inadvertent installation of malware—or malicious software—which can compromise your data, privacy, and identity while also damaging your computer and valuable data.
This site has been blocked by the SmartScreen Filter.
If the SmartScreen Filter is active and you attempt to visit a website that isn’t considered safe, the below screen will appear prompting you to take alternative actions.When active, the SmartScreen Filter will also notify you when you attempt to download software that is potentially unsafe.
Accelerators : Now you can get more done, more quickly on the Web. Accelerators provide instant access to information like maps, Web search, translation, email, blogging, and more.
Common accelerator showing driving directions
Tired of cutting and pasting information from one website to another for everyday tasks? Now there’s a better way. Accelerators give you ready access to the online services you use everyday—from any page you visit. Now you can simply select some text and then click on the blue Accelerators icon. For example, you may be interested in the location of a business featured on a webpage. In the past, you would need to copy the address from the webpage, navigate to another the webpage for a mapping service, and paste in the address. With the “Map with Live Maps” Accelerator in Internet Explorer 8, you can get an in-place view of a map displayed directly on the page.
Visual Search : Search is one of the most frequent and important things you do online. The new Internet Explorer 8 Search Box takes results to a whole new level by adding graphics and images, helping you find exactly what you're looking for, quickly and easily.
Instant search provides intelligent search suggestions and visual clues.
Now you can type a search term and see real-time, relevant search suggestions from your chosen search provider and your browsing history. Click on a suggestion at any time to immediately execute the search without having to type the entire word or phrase.
Web Slices : Web Slices puts you in control of the information you care about most. Now you can subscribe to specific content within a page and monitor things like auction items, sports scores, entertainment columns, weather reports, and more. Internet Explorer 8 automatically delivers updated information directly to a Web Slice in your Favorites Bar, all without leaving the page you're on.
A Web Slice preview on the Favorites Bar
When new information becomes available, the Web Slice will become highlighted. When you click on the Web Slice in the Favorites Bar, it previews relevant information. Clicking on the preview takes you directly to the site for more information.
Suggested Sites : If you love that site, try this one. That's the idea behind Internet Explorer 8's new Suggested Sites feature. At your request, Internet Explorer 8 can use your browsing history to suggest other sites you may like or find useful. It's another way that Internet Explorer 8 helps you utilize the Web to its full potential.
Find on Page : Searching for a keyword or phrase on a Web page is easier than ever. In Internet Explorer 8, the Find on Page search feature is built right into the browser and each instance of the search item is highlighted for a streamlined and efficient experience.
The new find on page toolbar in action
The toolbar is integrated below the tab row, so that it does not obscure any content on the page. Instead of waiting for you to type an entire search term and hit Enter, the toolbar searches character-by-character as you type. Matches are highlighted in yellow on the page so that they’re easy to identify.
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
ENHANCING GMAIL | USE GOOGLE REDESIGNED
Bored with the same interface and skins of GMAIL? You can change it to something attractive using the FireFox Add On Google Redesigned. This is a Mozilla FireFox extension designed by Globex Designs which will change the whole look and feel of popular Google Services. This is achieved with Cascading StyleSheet (CSS) files which are loaded on the client's browser.
Use Google Redesigned to Enhance Your Gmail Look & Feel
The extension simplifies the use of these styles by providing auto-updates, easy management and notifications of changes. You can also download and use the styles individually by going to their respective pages.A complete redesign of popular Google services, Google Redesigned loads and manages several CSS style sheets that change the appearance of popular tools.
Gmail Inbox after Installing Google Redesigned
Google Redesigned is built for Mozilla based browsers (FireFox, Flock, Ice Weasel, and such). Users using other browsers will not be to install the extension. FireFox 3 and Flock 2 are highly recommended as certain styles will not work correctly on older versions of the Gecko engine. As well the FireFox 3 engine provides much faster performance for handling these styles.
This extension can also be used to enhance the appearance of Google Calendar.Although the extension will work on FireFox 2, Flock, and Songbird, it is strongly recommended to use the FireFox 3 browser for best performance and reliability.
Google Calendar after Installing Google Redesigned
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
FACEBOOK HITS 100 MILLION USERS
Popular social networking site Facebook today announced that they hit 100 Million users today.
We hit a big milestone today -- 100 million people around the world are now using Facebook. This is a really gratifying moment for us because it means a lot that you have decided that Facebook is a good, trusted place for you to share your lives with your friends. So we just wanted to take this moment to say, "thanks."
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder, Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder, Facebook
Mark said that they spend all their time here trying to build the best possible product that enables you to share and stay connected. He said the news of growing so quickly all over the world is very rewarding. He thanked for all the users support and stay tuned for more great things in the future.
This really is a great milestone for Facebook. The rumor was in circulation that Facebook hit 100 Million users for last few days. But Mark announced it officially yesterday at the Facebook Blog.
Well, we wish Facebook all the Best Wishes!!Facebook
Website : www.facebook.com
Location : Palo Alto, California, United States
Founded : February 1, 2004 | Cambridge, Massachusetts
Employees : 500 (March 2008)*
Annual Revenue : US$150 million (est.)*
*As per Wikipedia
Facebook is a social networking website launched on February 4, 2004, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, when he was a student at Harvard University.The free-access website is privately owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
UBIQUITY FROM MOZILLA | INTERNET IS GETTING SMARTER
Mozilla Labs has rolled out an experimental Firefox plug-in that promises to streamline the way Web surfers manage the mountains of information online. The technology will be called "Ubiquity," and is Mozilla's solution what it sees as a common and time-consuming problem Web surfers face when they try to compile information from the Web.
Mozilla Launches Ubiquity | Web Mashup Software"Most people do not have an easy way to manage the vast resources of the Web to simplify their task at hand. For the most part they are left trundling between Web sites, performing common tasks resulting in frustration and wasted time.Ubiquity 0.1 focuses on the platform aspects while beginning to explore language-driven methods of controlling the browser."
Aza Raskin, Head of User Experience, Mozilla
Ubiquity is a new utility under development at Mozilla. It uses a command-line-like interface to let users more easily tie together content found on the Web -- e-mail, videos, maps, photos, etc. To make it work, users simply tell it what they want it to do, and Ubiquity takes it from there.
The main goal of Ubiquity is to simplify the time-consuming interactions that Web surfers typically perform on the Internet today, Raskin said. "It's even worse on mobile Relevant Products/Services devices, where limited capability and fidelity makes this onerous or nearly impossible," he added.
Browser users now must use cut and paste along with a separate Web site such as Babel Fish to translate foreign-language content on the Web. With Ubiquity, however, users simply highlight the text they wish to translate, then right-click to open a menu of commands that includes the "translate" option. The text is then automatically converted into English and inserted right onto the original Web page.
Ubiquity also features a separate command-line box that opens in the upper left-hand corner of any Web page whenever a user presses the Ctrl and spacebar keys simultaneously. The command line, Raskin said, empowers users to control browsers with language-based instructions.
Raskin expects Ubiquity to enhance the free flow of information that has become a trend with sites such as Twitter. However, that open conduit for information is largely in the hands of developers.
"We're going to see a continuation of that trend, but now we're going to take that power from the hands of developers and put it in the hands of users and users who don't have any technical expertise whatsoever," he said.Mozilla Foundation
Website : www.mozilla.org
Location : Mountain View, California, United States
Founded : July 15, 2003
Revenue : $66.8 million (2006)
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operate key infrastructure and control trademarks and other intellectual property. It owns two taxable for-profit subsidiaries: the Mozilla Corporation, which employs several Mozilla developers and coordinates releases of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, and Mozilla Messaging, Inc., which primarily develops the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
HOW TO PLACE ADS ONLY IN INDIVIDUAL BLOG ITEM PAGES
Many of you might have noticed in some blogs that when the posts are displayed at the front page of the blog there are no advertisements in that post. But when you click on the post header, it takes you to the post page where the whole post is shown as a single item and some advertisements appear below the header or after the post.
Place Advertisements in Individual Post Pages!
Well you can also do this in your blog. Whatever be the advertisement, be it Google Adsense, Text-Link-Ads, Adbrite, ShoppingAds etc. Just follow the steps given below and you can also show advertisements in the individual blog posts page.
This is a cool trick because when the posts are displayed at the front page its takes less space and the display is much distracting. You can make your advertisements appear above the or below the actual post content only if the users clicks on the article link and goes to the individual article page.
STEP 1 :Back-Up you existing Template. This is extremely important as you are going to play with the code and if something bad happens you can always revert back to your existing template.
If you don't know how to make a backup of your template follow these steps.- Go to Blogger Home
- Now go to Layout >> Edit HTMLLayout >> Edit HTML
- Click on the Download Full Template link and save the XML file in your system. If something bad happens you can upload it again and can restore the existing template.Always Take a Backup of Your Existing Template Before Playing With It!
STEP 2 : Get the Advertisement code snippet ready. Let take for example a Google Adsense snippet, which is of dimensions 468 X 60. The code snippet for this will be like this.<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";
/* 468x60, created 8/21/08 */
google_ad_slot = "XXXXXXXXXX";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
STEP 3 : Now go to Blogger Home. Navigate to Layout >> Edit HTML.Layout >> Edit HTML
STEP 4 : Remember to select the check box Expand Widget Templates.
STEP 5 : Find the piece of code as shown below.<div class='post-body' expr:id='"post-" + data:post.id'>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
STEP 6 : Now replace the above given code with the piece of code as given below. Just copy the code given below and replace the two lines you found as said in STEP 5<div class='post-body' expr:id='"post-" + data:post.id'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";
/* 468x60, created 8/21/08 */
google_ad_slot = "4890812987";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
</b:if>
<div style="clear:both;/">
<p><data:post.body/></p>NOTE : This piece of code actually checks whether the page displayed is an Item Page or not and if its is, it displays the advertisement and if not then advertisement part is not displayed. The code <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'> does the part of checking whether this is an Item Page [individual blog post page] or not.
Replace "pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" with your Google Adsense Publisher ID.
STEP 7 : Save your template and you are done. This will show a Google Ad of dimensions 468 X 60 in each posts individual page.
If you have any issues regarding this, please feel free to ask me. Let me know about your feedback and comments.
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
How To Add Tabbed Navigation In Your Blog Sidebar
Many of you might have seen beautiful tabs in the sidebar of some blogs, which holds two to three sections in a single area, thereby saving a lot of space in your sidebar. This will also enhance the appearance of your blog, also helps the readers to have most thing in a single place, rather that scrolling up and down for to navigate through your site.
This really frees up some space for you to place some advertisements, in the space which was earlier occupied by some widgets. We will see in this post how to add a SIDEBAR TAB in your blog.
STEP 1 :Back-Up you existing Template. This is extremely important as you are going to play with the code and if something bad happens you can always revert back to your existing template.
If you don't know how to make a backup of your template follow these steps.- Go to Blogger Home
- Now go to Layout >> Edit HTMLLayout >> Edit HTML
- Click on the Download Full Template link and save the XML file in your system. If something bad happens you can upload it again and can restore the existing template.Always Take a Backup of Your Existing Template Before Playing With It!
STEP 2 : Copy the below given code and paste it above the ]]> part in your existing code./*==========================================================*/
/*==================== SIDE TABBER =========================*/
/*==========================================================*/
#tabsidebar-wrapper{
width: 320px;
/* This will manage the width of the tab content. Usually this be smae as your sidebar*/
float: left;
margin: 0px 0px 15px 10px;
border: 1px none #E6F0F2;
}
.tabberlive .tabbertabhide {display:none;}
.tabber {display:none;}
.tabberlive {margin-top:1em;}
.tabber h2 {
border-bottom:2px solid #5B0;
margin-bottom: .3em;
padding: 0;
line-height:1.2em;
}
.tabber .widget {margin-bottom: 1em;}
.tabber .widget-content {margin: 0 0px;}
ul.tabbernav{
margin:0;
padding: 8px 0;
border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
}
ul.tabbernav li{
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
display: inline;
}
ul.tabbernav li a{
padding: 8px 0.5em 7px 0.5em;
margin-right:2px;
border: 1px solid #CCC;
background: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
}
ul.tabbernav li a:link { color:#00638d;}
ul.tabbernav li a:visited { color: #00638d;}
ul.tabbernav li a:hover{color:#45A100; background: #E6F0F2; border-color: #ccc;}
ul.tabbernav li.tabberactive a{
background-color: #E6F0F2;
color: #45A100;
border-bottom: 1px solid #E6F0F2;
}
ul.tabbernav li.tabberactive a:hover{
color: #369;
background: #E6F0F2;
border-bottom: 1px solid #E6F0F2;
}
.tabberlive .tabbertab {
background: #E6F0F2;
padding:5px;
border:1px solid #ccc;
border-top:0;
}
.tabberlive .tabbertab h2 {display:none;}
.tabberlive .tabbertab h3 {display:none;}
This is the CSS code that renders the appearence - colors, fonts and borders - for the tabs.
STEP 3 : Copy the below given code and paste it below the ]]> part in your existing code.<script src='http://holytrinityde.googlepages.com/tabber.js' type='text/javascript'/>
This is the Javascript file that contains the code which actually displays the contents you specify in tabs.
NOTE :If posssible plase download the javascript file HERE and host it with your preferred provider.
STEP 4 : Copy the below given code and paste it in the sidebar division in your code. In almost all the templates the sidebar division starts with this statement <div id='sidebar'>. Find for this piece of code in your template.
Find the SIDEBAR division in Your Blog Template
Copy the below given code and paste it below the <div id='sidebar'> statement.<div id='tabsidebar-wrapper'>
<div class='tabber' id='tab1'>
<div class='tabbertab'>
<b:section class='sidebar' id='tabbertab1' preferred='yes' showaddelement='yes'>
<b:widget id='Feed1991' locked='false' title='Recent Posts Articles' type='Feed'/>
</b:section>
</div>
<div class='tabbertab'>
<b:section class='sidebar' id='tabbertab2' preferred='yes' showaddelement='yes'>
<b:widget id='Feed2112' locked='false' title='Recent Comments' type='Feed'/>
</b:section>
</div>
<div class='tabbertab'>
<b:section class='sidebar' id='tabbertab3' preferred='yes' showaddelement='yes'>
<b:widget id='Label99' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'/>
</b:section>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Now that the Editing the template code is done, click on the SAVE TEMPLATE button. This button appears at the bottom-left corner of the HTML Editor box.
STEP 5 : Now we need to add some thing in the three tabs we just added, click on the Page Elements link which appears at the top of the page left to the Edit HTML link. The layout will of the blog will be shown to you.
Look out for the TABS in the sidebar section of your blog layout. They normally appear like as shown below.
Find the Tabs Section in Your Blog Template
NOTE : You might be wondering that you have added three widgets and its showing only one in the Layout >> Page Elements. Don't be panic. All the three widgets are there. Click on the numbers 1,2 or 3 above the widget in the tabs section to navigate between the widgets.
Now click on Edit link on the widget to edit the widget, add the feed URL for Recent Posts and recent Comments of your blog. The feeds URL will normally comes like this for Blogger blogs.Recent Posts : http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogpost.com/feeds/posts/default
Recent Comments : http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogpost.com/feeds/comments/default
After making the changes in the widgets click on save and that's it. A new tabber tab with three tabs is added to the sidebar section of your blog. The tabber tabs as it appears in my blog looks like this.
New Tabber Tabs in My Blog
There is another post about adding tabs in your sidebar by Amanda of BloggusBuster.com.
-
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
101 : TECHFLAPS CREATING SOME WAVES
I started posting articles in this blog four months before, from May 2008 with a doubt of whether there will be somebody to visit this blog and read the articles I am posting. Now after four months and 100 posts I feel pretty comfortable and is really looking forward to post more and more articles.
I started blogging in 2007 January and tried a lot of different topics and in all of them I lost my interest after 20-20 articles as there was nothing much to cover for me. I was a design buff and was always changing the designs of my blog, which made me to search over and over again for new blog templates. I thought why should I start a blog for these blog templates and which provides some tricks and tips to make the blog more useful, which is scattered in the net.
With the blog name bloggerweb20template.blogspot.com I started this blog. Well, you heard it correctly. That really was a long name for a blog or a website. I realized that it was a bad choice when it comes to website/blog names, when it comes to traffic and visitors.
So I bought a domain named www.techflaps.com, and started blogging under this domain and needless to say, it’s going pretty well. When searching for a good domain name I was literally searching the dictionaries to find a right name and I stumbled upon this Flaps, which means Waves and I adds a tech fro technology before it. And thus born www.techflaps.com.
Still now this blog is in a growing state and I can see my traffic is going up, I am getting more and more visitors, thanks for all the visitors. I was looking at the Google Analytics results for my blog and it turned out like this. This looks really good for a starter blog.
Google Analytics for www.techflaps.com
This was only for two weeks and I am getting a good number of visitors, taken into account the age of my blog and the frequency in which articles are posted. I am proud that I too can get some visitors from the vast Internet. It’s very difficult to keep the users visiting your site again and again, given the vast amount of available alternative in Internet. But its interesting to see that 1/3rd of my visitors are returning visitors.
Google Analytics | 1/3rd of Visitors are Returning Visitors
Still it's not a good thing that the visitor length is less and only a small portion of the visitors stays in my site for more than 10 seconds. I do believe that this can be increased by posting more and more interesting articles. A reason for this might be the visitors from traffic creating sites like entrecard.com and others. I have and entrecard in my site but the traffic provided by them is useful just to increase the visitor count. They are not concerned about reading the stuff here or visiting my site, rather interested in their entrecard credit. Still they are getting some traffic, better than nothing.....
Length of Visitors in my Site is not Good! Need to Work Out
I am getting a lot of new visitors though. This is really encouraging as new visitors count is more than half of the total visitors in my blog. The blog is getting attention from someone, at least. Thanks for all the referrers’ though. This really matters a lot for a blog which is just 4 months old. Now I have to keep them all as my loyal visitors, and that is a pretty tough job.
Retaining New Visitors is a Tough Job
Approximately 61% of my site traffic is through referring sites and the top in this list is digg, stumbleupon and entrecard. Of these I can rely upon digg and stumbleupon as they provide me serious visitors who are interested in the articles posted in my blog. Search engines get me 15% and 25% is direct traffic.
More than 60% of Visitors are Through referring Sites.
Statcounter is also giving me pretty good analytics for the traffic and for the same time period I am getting much more amount of visitors than I was anticipated.
Statcounter Analysis is Alos Good for the Blog
This is the 101th article in techflaps.com and I am pretty excited about the future of this blog. Hope I will get more and more visitors and the site will catch more publicity among serious blogger.
Just let me know how you feel about the blog and the articles and any suggestions to make the blog and articles more interesting and useful.
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