New Facebook Photo Viewer

Posted on February 7, 2012 by admin

I’m kinda digging the new photo viewer for Facebook. It’s more readable and more people would put actions into it. What do you guys think?

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Quick Tip: How To Fall Asleep Fast

Posted on February 3, 2012 by admin

I found that the most effective way that will surely put you to sleep is when you read boring books or books that doesn’t interest you while laying down. I fall asleep so fast whenever I am trying to force myself to study. I’ve been struggling how to get rid of my bad sleeping habit until I realized why shouldn’t I do this? Ha ha!

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Iphone App: SimSimi

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin
Simsimi Iphone App

Simsimi Iphone App

So I found out about this Iphone APP from one of my close friend called “SimSimi”. It’s really a cute one. Try talking to him and he’ll answer back just like SIRI. I’m sure you’ll have fun! Download it free at Itunes.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

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Facebook Cover Size

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin

The cover size for the new Facebook Timeline is 851px in width and 315px height. Hope that helps! You may crop photos or create your own covers using this size.

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Customize Your WordPress Blog & Build an Audience

Posted on November 2, 2011 by rivera

Want to quickly give your blog a fresh coat of paint and make it stand out from the pack? Here’s how you can customize your WordPress blog and make it uniquely yours.

WordPress offers many features that help you make your blog the best it can be. Although it doesn’t offer as many customization features as full WordPress running on your own server, it still makes it easy to make your free blog as professional or cute as you like. Here we’ll look at how you can customize features in your blog and build an audience.

Personalize Your Blog

WordPress make it easy to personalize your blog. Most of the personalization options are available under the Appearance menu on the left. Here we’ll look at how you can use most of these.

Add New Theme

WordPress is popular for the wide range of themes available for it. While you cannot upload your own theme to your blog, you can choose from over 90 free themes currently available with more added all the time. To change your theme, select the Themes page under Appearance.

The Themes page will show random themes, but you can choose to view them in alphabetical order, by popularity, or how recently they were added. Or, you can search for a theme by name or features.

One neat way to find a theme that suites your needs is the Feature Filter. Click the link on the right of the search button, and then select the options you want to make sure your theme has. Click Apply Filters and WordPress will streamline your choices to themes that contain these features.

Once you find a theme you like, click Preview under its name to see how your blog will look.

This will open a popup that shows your blog with the new theme. Click the Activate link in the top right corner of the popup if you want to keep this theme; otherwise, click the x in the top left corner to close the preview and continue your search for one you want.

Edit Current Theme

Many of the themes on WordPress have customization options so you can make your blog stand out from others using the same theme. The default theme Twenty Ten lets you customize both the header and background image, and many themes have similar options.

To choose a new header image, select the Header page under Appearance. Select one of the pre-installed images and click Save Changes, or upload your own image.

If you upload an image larger than the size for the header, WordPress will let you crop it directly in the web interface. Click Crop Header when you’ve selected the portion you want for the header of your blog.

You can also customize your blog’s background from the Background page under Appearance. You can upload an image for the background, or can enter a hex value of a color for a solid background. If you’d rather visually choose a color, click Select a Color to open a color wheel that makes it easy to choose a nice color. Click Save Changes when you’re done.

Note: that all themes may not contain these customization options, but many are flexible. You cannot edit the actual CSS of your theme on free WordPress blogs, but you you can purchase the Custom CSS Upgrade for $14.97/year to add this ability.

Add Widgets With Extra Content

Widgets are small addons for your blog, similar to Desktop Gadgets in Windows 7 or Dashboard widgets in Mac OS X. You can add widgets to your blog to show recent Tweets, favorite Flickr pictures, popular articles, and more. To add widgets to your blog, open the Widgets page under Appearance.

You’ll see a variety of widgets available in the main white box. Select one you want to add, and drag it to the widget area of your choice. Different themes may offer different areas to place Widgets, such as the sidebar or footer.

Most of the widgets offer configuration options. Click the down arrow beside its name to edit it. Set them up as you wish, and click Save on the bottom of the widget.

Now we’ve got some nice dynamic content on our blog that’s automatically updated from the net.

Choose Blog Extras

By default, WordPress shows previews of websites when visitors hover over links on your blog, uses a special mobile theme when people visit from a mobile device, and shows related links to other blogs on the WordPress network at the end of your posts. If you don’t like these features, you can disable them on the Extras page under Appearance.

Build Your Audience

Now that your blog is looking nice, we can make sure others will discover it. WordPress makes it easy for you to make your site discoverable on search engines or social network, and even gives you the option to keep your site private if you’d prefer.

Open the Privacy page under Tools to change your site’s visibility. By default, it will be indexed by search engines and be viewable to everyone. You can also choose to leave your blog public but block search engines, or you can make it fully private.

If you choose to make your blog private, you can enter up to 35 usernames of people you want to be able to see it. Each private visitor must have a WordPress.com account so they can login. If you need more than 35 private members, you can upgrade to allow unlimited private members for $29.97/year.

Then, if you do want your site visible from search engines, one of the best ways to make sure your content is discovered by search engines is to register with their webmaster tools. Once registered, you need to add your key to your site so the search engine will find and index it.

On the bottom of the Tools page, WordPress lets you enter your key from Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to make sure your site is discovered. If you haven’t signed up with these tools yet, you can signup via the links on this page as well.

Post Blog Updates to Social Networks

Many people discover the sites they visit from friends and others via social networks. WordPress makes it easy to automatically share links to your content on popular social networks. To activate this feature, open the My Blogs page under Dashboard.

Now, select the services you want to activate under the Publicize section. This will automatically update Yahoo!, Twitter, and/or Facebook every time you publish a new post.

You’ll have to authorize your connection with the social network. With Twitter and Yahoo!, you can authorize them with only two clicks, but integrating with Facebook will take several steps.

If you’d rather share links yourself on social networks, you can get shortened URLs to your posts. When you write a new post or edit an existing one, click the Get Shortlink button located underneath the post’s title.

This will give you a small URL, usually 20 characters or less, that you can use to post on social networks such as Twitter.

This should help build your traffic, and if you want to see how many people are checking out your site, check out the stats on your Dashboard. This shows a graph of how many people are visiting, and popular posts. Click View All if you’d like more detailed stats including search engine terms that lead people to your blog.

Conclusion

Whether you’re looking to make a private blog for your group or publish a blog that’s read by millions around the world, WordPress is a great way to do it for free. And with all of the personalization options, you can make your it memorable and exciting for your visitors.

If you don’t have a blog, you can always signup for a free one from WordPress.com. Also make sure to check out our article on how to Start Your Own Blog with WordPress.

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Create Your Own Twitter-style Group Blog With P2

Posted on November 2, 2011 by rivera

Would you like a great way to post stuff quickly online and communicate with your readers? Here’s how you can use the P2 theme to transform WordPress into a great collaboration and communications platform.

What is P2?

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms, and we have looked at many ways you can use WordPress to publish content online. But WordPress can also be a great platform for microblogging, similar to Twitter or group discussion boards. Most default themes are designed around regular blogs, but P2 is a special blog theme designed to transform your site into a communications platform. It’s easy to setup and use, so let’s look at how your group can use P2 to stay in touch.

Get a Blog for P2

First, you’ll need a WordPress blog to run P2. If you’ve already got a free WordPress.com blog, you can use it, or you can signup for a free one. Check out our article for more info on Setting up a Free WordPress.com Blog.

P2 works much different than standard WordPress themes, so you’ll likely not want to use it for your main site but instead will want to use it for a separate project. If you already have a WordPress.com blog but would rather keep it the way it is, go to the My Blogs tab on WordPress.com and click Register another blog. This will give you a brand new blog you can use with P2 for free.

Enter a name and title for your new blog, and click Create Blog.

Alternately, if you have your own server or hosting account, you can run P2 on WordPress from your own server. Check out our articles on how to Quickly Install WordPress With Softaculous or Install WordPress Manually via FTP.
Once again, make sure you use it on a blog that you want to devote to P2, so if you want to use this for a side project, you might want to install WordPress on a subdomain on your server, like p2.yourdomain.com.

Setup P2 On Your Blog

Once you’ve got a blog to use, it’s time to setup P2. As mentioned before, P2 is simply a theme that runs on WordPress, so here’s how to add it to your WordPress.com or self-hosted site:

- WordPress.com

Once you’ve got a WordPress.com blog to use with P2, login to your dashboard and open the Themes page from the link under Appearance on the left-hand sidebar.

Enter P2 in the search box, and click Search to find the theme on WordPress.com.

Click Activate under the P2 header to immediately start using P2 on your blog. That’s all there is to it; it’s extremely easy to start using P2 on WordPress.com blogs.

Self-hosted WordPress

Installing P2 on a self-hosted WordPress blog is a bit more difficult. To install P2, login to your site’s WordPress Dashboard, and select Themes under Appearance on the left-hand sidebar.

Select the Install Themes tab on the Themes page.

The easiest way to install P2 is to simply search for it in the search box. When the results load, click Install under the P2 preview image to install it directly on your blog.

Click Install Now in the popup box to confirm you want to install P2.

Once its installed, click Activate under the installation info to begin using P2.

Using P2

P2 is very easy to use, and once you’ve activated the theme, it’s fully ready to use. Just open your blog, and post anything directly from the page itself; no more messing with the WordPress dashboard to get a post out.

There are separate post options for status updates, blog posts, quotes, and links. You can also upload and insert pictures, videos, and more directly into P2 posts. This makes it very quick to post almost anything to your blog, though again, P2 is best for short-form notes and updates.

Here’s how some of the different post styles look. Not your typical WordPress blog, eh?

Posts and comments will automatically appear on the page, and you’ll receive a notification when something new is received. This makes it easy to stay on top of an ongoing conversation.

You can reply to comments and posts inline without refreshing the page.

If you love keyboard shortcuts, P2 is great for you. It includes shortcuts to browse through the posts, reply, hide comments, and more. These will be easy to use if you’re used to keyboard shortcuts on Google Reader and similar sites.

P2 is a great way to post your own stuff quickly, but it is really useful when multiple people are posting. This way, you can use it like a group chat or discussion board, and everyone in your team, class, business, or more can post stuff for everyone else to see.

To enable this, select the Theme Options under the Appearance menu.

If your blog is running on WordPress.com, you’ll see the option to allow any WordPress.com member to post. Note that anyone can register for a WordPress.com account, so this would let nearly anyone post to your site. Alternately, you can add multiple authors to your site, but still leave the public posting option turned off. This will let everyone in your group post updates, pictures, and more, while allowing other visitors to read and comment on posts.

On Self-hosted sites, P2 lets you allow any registered member to post. This is a great option if you’re using P2 for a support forum or similar site, or if you want to make your blog private as described below.

Make Your WordPress P2 Blog Private

If you’re using P2 for private group or business discussions, you’ll likely not want the whole world reading what you post. So, you might want to consider making your site private. This works differently depending on your setup, so follow the directions below for your blog:

- On WordPress.com

It’s easy to make your P2 blog private on WordPress.com. Open the Privacy page from the Settings menu on the left.

Now, select the last bullet to make your blog private, and click Save Changes.

Visitors will now be required to login with their WordPress.com account before they can view and add to your P2.

Once your site visibility is set, you can enter user’s WordPress.com usernames to allow them to view and add to your P2 blog. Note that a free WordPress.com blog may only have up to 35 users; for unlimited private blog users, you’ll need to upgrade for $29.97/year.

If you’re running WordPress on your own server or hosting account, you won’t be able to set your blog as private by default. There are several plugins you can use to make your site private, however, so let’s look at adding the Absolute Privacy plugin to make our P2 private.

Head over to the Plugins section on the left menu, and select Add New.

Enter Absolute Privacy in the search box, and then click Install Now on the Absolute Privacy plugin description.
Confirm that you wish to install this plugin.

Finally, click Activate Plugin after it has installed.

Now, when someone visits your site, they’ll be redirected to the WordPress login page. You can create new accounts for your users manually, or if you want to let people register and access your P2, open the WordPress Settings page in your Dashboard and check the Anyone can register box.

Conclusion

No matter what size of community or group you’re communicating with, P2 makes it easy to keep all of your discussions on the page. It’s especially easy to use on a free WordPress.com blog, so we think this is a great option even for users who may already have their own hosting service. P2 shows that WordPress can be used for a wide variety of sites beyond traditional blogs, and we’re excited to see the great ways you can put this to work today.

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Create a Beautiful & Easy to Update Blog With Tumblr

Posted on November 2, 2011 by rivera

Are you tired of your old blog and find it too much trouble to maintain? Here’s how you can get a fresh new start with a new, free Tumblr blog.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur and want to share your latest products with the world or a mom with parenting tips to share, chances are you have a blog or have considered starting one. Blogs are great to share your thoughts and favorite things with the world, but most blogging systems can be cumbersome and difficult to manage. Tumblr is a different take on blogs. It is built around the concept of sharing what is most important to you, and makes it very easy to post pictures, videos, quotes, links, and even traditional blog posts. It takes the work out of blogging, and lets you focus on your content. Let’s take a look at how you can create a Tumblr blog for free.

Getting Started

Signing up for a free Tumblr blog is very simple. Head over to Tumblr.com, and simply enter a username, password, and URL for your new blog. Note that the address for your new blog will be your_blogname.tumblr.com. Don’t worry about finding the perfect name; you can always change it in the future. Click Sign up and Start Posting when you’re finished.

You’ll be asked to confirm that you’re a human by entering a Capatcha. Enter the text in the image, and then click I’m human!

Now, you’re ready to start posting. Two clicks, and you’re already done!

Select one of the icons along the top of your Tumblr dashboard to post whatever you want. You can post a photo, quote, link, chat, audio, video, or even a text blog post.

The editor is simple to use, and gives just enough tools to make it easy to post like you want. Standard keyboard shortcuts for bold, italics, and more work as normal in the online editor. Click Create Post when you’re ready to publish your thoughts to your blog.

Posting a picture is similarly easy; click Choose File to upload your picture, and then add a caption if you wish. Alternately, you can post a link to an image, and it will show up, or you can even take a photo from your webcam.

We especially liked the Link post option, which makes it easy to share interesting articles and websites and add your own input about them.

Quickly Customize Your Blog

Once you’ve created your first post, Tumblr will prompt you to customize your blog. Enter a title, upload a portrait of yourself or a logo for your blog if you like, and click Show all appearance options for more customization options.

Here you can easily change your blog’s title, description, theme and more. Change anything you want, and then click Save in the top right corner.

Tumblr offers dozens of beautiful themes, including free and premium ones. Select a theme to preview it on the blog preview below. We’ll be showing you more tricks and tricks on customizing your Tumblr in an upcoming post, so feel free to experiment and come back for that.

Keeping Up With Other Tumblrs

As you may notice, your Tumblr Dashboard shows other posts underneath your posting buttons. These are recent posts from Tumblr blogs you follow, so by default you’ll see posts from the Tumblr team.

Click the heart to show you like a post, or click the notes link to see who else liked a post.

If you want to read older posts, scroll down and Tumblr will automatically load them.

After you’ve posted to your Tumblr and customized your blog, Tumblr may prompt you to follow your friends and other interesting people. You can enter your email credentials to see if any of your friends are using Tumblr, or check out some of the featured blogs on the left.

Whenever you’re reading a blog that’s powered by Tumblr, you’ll notice buttons on the top right. Click Follow to see their recent posts on your Tumblr dashboard.

Or, if you really like a post, click the Reblog link. This will open a window where you can post a link to the post on your Tumblr blog, and you can also add comments or extra info in the Description field if you want.

If one of the Tumblr blogs you follow posts new content while you’re on your dashboard, you’ll see an update beside the Tumblr logo. Refresh the page to see the new posts.

The Tumblr Follow system is like a blend between RSS feeds and following someone on Twitter, and we’ve found it very easy to use. If many of your friends and colleagues are using Tumblr, you may find yourself heading to your Tumblr dashboard to find out what’s going on. But even if you only want to post yourself, the Dashboard still makes it easy to post whatever you want.

Conclusion

Whether you want to share your pictures or practice your writing skills, Tumblr is a great option for blogging. We’ve found it much easier to use than other blogging systems, while still looking nice with advanced features. While WordPress edges closer to being a full blown Content Management System, Tumblr is back at the origins of blogging, helping users post what’s most important to them. Come back for more Tumblr content soon, as we’ll show you how to customize your Tumblr blog, share your content with the world, and more!

If you want to get an idea of what you can expect from Tumblr, several How-To Geek team members have Tumblr blogs. Not all of them have been updated recently, but you’ll get the idea.

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Convert Photos to Flash for Your Website

Posted on November 2, 2011 by rivera

Looking for a quick and easy way to convert your photos into a flash slideshow for your website? Now you can with Photo Flash Maker Free.

Installation

Installation for Photo Flash Maker Free is extremely quick with only three install windows (and no EULA) to sort through.

When you start the program you will see the “Main & Slideshow Wizard Windows”. Notice that you can easily disable the “Slideshow Wizard” (lower left corner) so that it does not appear each time you start the program.

This is what the “Main Window” looks like once you close the “Slideshow Wizard”.

Photo Flash Maker Free in Action

There are two ways to start creating your new flash slideshows…using the visible three step toolbar or by using the wizard. Using the three step toolbar will allow you to choose the “between photo” effects to suit your personal style. For our example we chose to use the wizard.

To get things started go to the “File Menu” and select “New Project From Wizard”…

You will be presented with the “Add Images to Slideshow Window” and can browse for the photos that you would like to use.

Once you have selected the photos that you would like to use click “Next”.

Choose the “Frame Style” that you like best and click “Next”. For our example we chose “Photo Only”…

The final part is to choose the names that you would like to use for the “swf & html files”. Once that is finished click the “Publish Now! Button”.

At this point you can choose to immediately view your files or wait until you have closed the wizard and then view them.

Here is the swf file opened directly in Firefox…

Followed by the html file with the flash file embedded. Notice the “advertisement-type listing” at the bottom…this is extremely easy to remove by editing the html file in Notepad (or your favorite text editor). See screenshot below for the exact text to remove.

The only drawback to using Photo Flash Maker Free is the momentary banner at the end of the slideshow…but it is a very small price to pay for such a nice file.

For those who would like to remove the textual “advertisement-type listing” at the bottom of the webpage here is the exact code that you will need to select and delete. Afterwards the webpage is clean and ready to go…

Menus

The menus for Photo Flash Maker Free are simple and straightforward. Here you can see the “File, View, & Photo Menus”…

And the “Music, Create, Preference, & Help Menus”.

Options

There are three parts to pay special attention to in the “General Options Area”:

You can delete the “Default URL” and leave it blank without any effect on your flash files
It is recommended to deselect “Show Title on each photo” to keep your flash files looking clean (unless you want to label your photos)
Make certain to set the JPEG quality to 100 to get the best looking result for your photos

Select the settings that best suit your needs for background music (if you are adding any to your files).

Make any background color and scale adjustments that you desire.

Conclusion

If you have been looking for a way to add some photo fun to your website, then Photo Flash Maker is definitely worth taking a look at.

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Blog from Anywhere Instantly With Posterous

Posted on November 2, 2011 by rivera

Do you find it too difficult to keep your blog updated? Let’s take a quick look a Posterous, an increasingly popular hosted blog system that lets you post anything to your blog by simply sending an email.

Posterous makes it drop-dead simple to create a new blog. Simply open your favorite email app, and create a new email to post@posterous.com.

Seconds later, you’ll receive a new email from Posterous. This message will contain a link to your new post on your blog; click it to go check out the blog you just created by sending an email!

Here’s our first post listed on our new blog, that was created seconds after we sent our first email. Note that our blog has a autogenerated URL based partly on our email account’s name.

You can now keep posting new content to your Posterous blog just by simply emailing post@posterous.com, but if you’d like to personalize your blog and choose a custom blog.posterous.com or your own unique yourblog.com address and more. To do this, click the link at the bottom of the email you received.

Now, enter a site name and password that you want, and click Sign Up to start customizing your Posterous blog.

Now you can add your name, picture, and a bio to personalize your Posterous profile if you wish.

You’ll be asked to find your friends from your email and social networks that may be using Posterous, but you can skip this if you want.

Strangely, you’ll have to confirm your email address again once your signed up. Check your email and click the link, and your account will finally be fully setup.

Customize Your Posterous Blog
Once you’ve confirmed your email, you’ll be able to manage your blog from the Posterous dashboard. There are tons of options here, so let’s look at some of the most major ones.

You can even post a new blog post directly from the web dashboard if you want, or of course continue posting by simply sending an email to post@posterous.com.

The most important part of the dashboard is the settings panel. This lets you change a lot of your blog’s feature. Most people will want to customize their blog, and Posterous has many options for personalization. Click the Edit Theme button beside Look and Feel to edit your theme.

Now you can choose from several premade themes, or customize the CSS on your blog’s theme to make it look just like you want.

One nice features is Google Analytics integration, which lets you see how many visits your site’s getting. Click Edit to get started with this.

Now click Add Google Analytics, and enter your Google Analytics tracking code. You can signup for Google Analytics if you haven’t already by following the first steps at this tutorial, or if you already have an account, here’s how to find your tracking code.

Another thing you may notice on the left sidebar is Autopost. Select this to have Posterous automatically update a variety of online services whenever you post content on Posterous.

Now, you can add all the services you want. Posterous can automatically post on your other WordPress or Blogger blogs, post updates to Facebook and Twitter, and more. This way, you can actually use Posterous as an easier way to automatically update all of your services by simply sending a single email.

If you’d rather move all of your content to your new Posterous blog, Posterous can import your content from a wide variety of blogs, photo services, and more.

No matter what you want to post, or where you want to post it, Posterous is a nice blogging option that makes it easy to use your existing services easier. Its online dashboard is definitely more complicated than simpler options such as Tumblr, but you can always just post via your favorite email client which makes it easier to post. We’ve heard from many readers who really liked Posterous, so feel free to give it a try, and let us know what you think!

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Automate Filling in WordPress Comment Fields

Posted on November 2, 2011 by rivera

One of the more annoying things about visiting blogs is having to fill out all the comment fields. They are the same on every blog (including this one). Sure, you can hit the down arrow key and Firefox might remember what you typed last, but it’s still a pain, especially as a blogger when you want to leave a lot of comments.

A much simpler way is to use an application to fill out the fields for you. I’ve chosen the Texter application, just because it’s the latest software that I’ve been playing with.

Download and install the software, and go through the tutorial on the download page. Once you’ve got it installed, hit Ctrl+Shift+H to bring up the Add new hotstring dialog, and enter the following, making sure to set the dropdown to “Script”, or else it won’t replace the {Tab} with an actual tab key.

My Name{Tab}my@email.com{Tab}http://www.mysite.com{Tab}My Message Here

You’ll want to give it a unique hotstring, something that you wouldn’t need to use in other applications. I chose wp1.

So now just type in wp1 into the name field in any comments box:

Hit the tab key, and you should see it auto-fill in the fields, and position the cursor in the comment box so you can write a personalized comment.

This tool is unbelievably useful.

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