Author: Jeffro

Jeffrohttp://jeffc.meEnjoy writing about, talking about, and helping others with WordPress
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Turn WordPress Into Personal Hub

Wordpress.com LogoSean Aune from Mashable.com has put together a useful list of 30+Tools that help turn your WordPress blog, into a personal hub of information. Using your blog as a central hub, allows you to keep in touch on multiple networks using one site.

 

I’m not sure which of these tools I might install onto this WordPress install because I think, most of the subscribers to this blog are looking for useful information, not a series of posts which are nothing more than clippmarks that I have found on the web. However, installing one or two of these might help out on those days when I can’t think of anything to write, yet I need to put some sort of content onto this blog.

With more of our lives being lived online, it’s nice to centralize our media as much as possible. New aggregated social networks are springing up, but did you know you can do much of this already from your blog? These 30+ WordPress tools will help you display and run more of your digital life from WordPress itself.

Some of the tools include, Blogmark Integration, Facebook Comments, StumbleCrumble, MeeboMe Plugin, WP-ICQ-Status, MasterWish, Phoogle, and Facebook Photos. Check out the entire list by reading, 30+ Tools to Turn WordPress into a Personal Hub

If you happen to install and use any of the tools listed in that article, please let me know how they worked out for you.

Break.com Unviels Customizable Video Player

Break.com LogoAs reported by Mashable.com , Break.com has unveiled a new feature which allows users to customize the embedded video player to their liking similar to YouTube.

 

You must have a registered account on Break.com before you can create your own embedded player. Users can choose between a preset design, or you can customize the player through a series of background colors and text.

Break.com is my favorite video site that I have been watching for over two years now. I’m happy to see them keeping pace with the other video sites out their on the net. This is a crowded space to be in right now but, I feel that Break.com will hang around for quite a long time as the videos they have on their site are first class comedy. Here is a video, which highlights the new customizable video player.

http://view.break.com/345588 – Watch more free videos

iWebTools Visual Page Rank Checker

iWebTool LogoUsing this tool will enable you to view all the links along with the pageranks on the page that you require to view.

 

For those that do not have the SearchStatus FireFox extension which shows you a sites pagerank along with it’s Alexa ranking, can use this site to figure out the page rank of not only that web site, but of all the sites that link to that particular page.

Visual PageRank Checker

Giving this tool a try using my URL, I noticed just how many sites I link to which have a page rank of 5 or higher. The visual pagerank checker loads the website in question and then places little pagerank icons next to every link within the website. What is interesting about this tool, is that, I can actually view the page rank for a tag which is linked to Technorati. For example, the tags blogger, podcasts, seo, and twitter all have a pagerank value of 6.

Give this tool a whirl yourself and let me know what you think. http://www.iwebtool.com/visual_pagerank

Zeusbox Releases Free FeedIcon Set

ZeusBox LogoZeusbox has released a free RSS Feed icon set under the Creative Commons 3 license. The icon set contains 34 PNG icons which range in size from 16 pixels to 32 pixels. Zeusbox has stated that they will update the icon set, so if you have any requests, be sure to visit their site and leave a comment. Zeusbox asks that the requested icons be related to FEEDs. You can download this stylish icon pack by clicking here.

Icons Included In The Pack

Ajax Powered Password Strength Meter

Password Strength MeterCode and Coffee has put together a password strength meter using Ajax to check the strength of a given password in real-time. Google and other web services are picking up on the trend of using these meters to inform new users, just how strong their chosen password is.

Using Code And Coffee’s demo page, I typed in the password, ( password ) and the meter read, VERY SECURE. Obviously, the algorithm needs some work, but the good news is, you can actually change the way the algorithm works. Code and Coffee decided to base their password algorithm off of Intelligent Web. Their algorithm calculates how many different combinations there are for a password, as it’s being entered, then determines how many days it would take to crack the password. The algorithm returns a percentage that is turned into a GUI for end users to see.

Code and Coffee has released the javascript file along with the demo.html page that you would need, in order to add one of these password meters to your site or service. There is also a detailed explanation as to how the code works which can be read, by clicking here.

WordPress 2.2.2 Released

WordPress LogoJust wanted to pass along that WordPress 2.2.2 was released the other day. This release includes only security and minor bug fixes so they should not cause any plugin or theme compatibility issues, so you have no good excuse not to upgrade.

 

Click here to see the list of bugs and security upgrades that took place. One of these fixes was a CROSS SITE SCRIPTING Vulnerability. These things are popping up all over the place.

Download the latest update here

Solving The SUPPLEMENTAL Problem

Image Highlighting A Supplemental Result

There is quite a bit of discussion going on across the net about this SUPPLEMENTAL INDEXING problem that so many people seem to be having. In this article, HowToSpoter explains what their particular situation is and describes the steps they took to put their supplemental pages back into the original Google index.

What is a Supplemental Result?
Supplemental results are generally pages that Google has determined to be secondary to other, more relevant pages that Google has indexed on your website. In effect, supplementary results are actually a secondary database of results that are only called upon when the most obscure queries force Google to check all its indexed resources.

It’s definitely a good read, especially if your dealing with this problem yourself. I have heard through the grapevine that Google is planning to get rid of their supplemental index, but I have yet to confirm this rumor. At any rate, I tried to find a supplemental result for HowToSpoter.com and apparently, they have fixed their problem as I couldn’t find any.

*TIP* To see if any of your sites pages are listed in the supplemental index, type site:www.mydomain.com *** into Google. Replace MYDOMAIN with your actual domain name. Let us know how many results you find by leaving a comment.

10Links Consumes SPAM Sandwich

10Links.net Logo

10Links.net the site I reviewed a few days ago has temporarily gone under because of the vast amount of spam that was getting into their site queue. This is easily understandable considering their submission form, at the very least, didn’t provide a CAPTCHA image to ensure that human beings were the ones submitting websites.

10Links.net has vowed to keep the archive of links public while informing us that they are currently in the secondary stages of their next project. Don’t ask me what their next project is because they didn’t tell me! Whatever they are working on, I’m sure they will be using some sort of Anti-Spam measure this time around.

Participate In A Forum Within Your Niche

V7network LogoProblogger is doing their blogging tips for the month of August and the tip for August 3rd centered around joining and then participating in forums that are part of your niche. Taking this tip to heart, I typed a search string into Google and a few minutes later, I discovered the v7n Webmaster Forum. This forum contains topics that I’m interested in such as SEO, Blogging, Marketing, Graphic design, ect. Because these topics are directly related to the content that I post regularly on this site, participating in this forum should be a piece of cake.

I’m participating in a forum not only for the extra boost in traffic to this site, but also to create new relationships. Relationships are one of the most powerful tools a blogger can posses as in most times, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Using this forum, I can gain a new level of knowledge of the topics I discuss which will help me out when I am suffering from writers block. The forum also provides me an avenue of sharing information that I have learned which is one way in which I can give back to the community.

So do yourself a favor. Look for a forum that relates to what you blog about and participate in it. In the long run, you’ll be glad you did.

If you happen to join this same forum, be sure to look me up as my handle is Jeffro2pt0.

Jjot Review – Take Notes In A Flash

Jjot LogoMore and more people are devoting more and more time online. Remembering this and remembering that is becoming increasingly difficult, but by using a note taking service such as Jjot, your online world can become a bit more manageable.

Synopsis:

The Jjot team is made up of the founder, Phil Crosby, and a few different hackers. Jjot is, simply put, a note taking service and nothing more which allows it to be lightning quick. Jjot is powered by Mootools, a powerful javascript framework and Amazon’s giant computer network. Other projects you may have used that have Phil Crosby written all over them are Ninjawords, Breadcrumbs and InstallPad.

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