5 Advantages Google+ has over Facebook!!!!

I have been using Google+ for almost 3 weeks now and there is still a long way for it to go before it starts really competing with Facebook. I think they have really integrated Google products and services nicely into a social network.

I felt there are 5 key advantages that Google+ has over it Facebook which might just cause a lot of headaches to Facebook over the next few months and years.

#1. Money

Yes, Facebook also has a lot of money but Google has a lot more than Facebook. Google can invest half a billion dollars for then next 5 years in Google+ only to make sure Facebook’s rise is kept in check.

Facebook does not have that sort of portfolio and will have to out do Google+, as it cannot outspend it.

#2. No Dependence on 3rd parties

Facebook depends on Skype for improving it’s chat services along with having video chatting via the browser. This is mutually beneficial to both Facebook and Skype.

Google+ depends on technology they have built with Gmail and Google voice for powering chatting between Google+ friends and groups. Google also owns Android, Google TV and Chrome OS which can power a successful social product even more.

#3. Standalone products

Google+ has been built more like a common meeting point for all their services like Gmail, Chat, Maps, Voice, photo sharing with Picasa and YouTube. This means it’s a social network made for bringing together different services offered by Google.

With Facebook there are no standalone products for video or images. I cannot share images and albums with people without a Facebook account all that easily like I can with Picasa.

#4. Search

Google has its own search engine which everyone considers the primary source of traffic for almost any website. Facebook has some integration with Bing to have Social Search but the results are not as powerful as yet to really get Google worried.

But a powerful search feature built into Google+ will certainly give Facebook more headaches to deal with.

#5. No Pressure

Facebook started as a college product and with its founders quite happy to see it spread across universities in the United States. Facebook evolved without the pressure of competing with the big boys of social networking. MySpace and Geocities were the social services back then.
The lack of pressure to beat these large companies meant Facebook could keep innovating and changing without upsetting too many users. Now Google+ is in the same situation. It is not expected to defeat Facebook in a face-off and it can quietly improve its service, without worrying too much about how users might react.

Facebook’s really big advantage…

I do not mean that Google+ has won the fight against Facebook. Not by a long shot, as only recently Facebook announced it is used by over 750 million people. So how many people use Google+ will finally end up deciding it’s eventual success or failure.

What are your views about Google+ and Facebook when compared? Do drop in your comments.

BuiltWith – Check website analysis and SEO information with Online Tool!!!!

Webmasters and bloggers all over want to know more about their competition. This usually means looking up other websites. Getting too obsessed with the competition can actually be harmful, but a little bit of analysis and understanding is a good way to learn from your competition. BuiltWith is a website which allowed me to look up a lot of useful information on just about any website.

BuiltWith Features

• Just type in the name of the URL of the website you want information about. Once that is done a report is generated.
• I could look up the website’s technology profile. Information like which servers are used and which platform, the site was hosted on including the version of the platform. It also gave information regarding which analysis tools (eg: Google Analytics) and advertising services (eg: AdSense, Ad Words and infolinks) were used.
• Also it look up information on the Widgets and social media features which are present on the website.
• When it comes to SEO related information, I got to look up decent information regarding keyword frequency and top 10 keywords being used. To view SEO related information you have to register free to access the data.

As I continued using BuiltWith, I found it quite useful to learn about various other platforms and things common to websites using those platforms like Blogger.com or WordPress.

Do drop in your comments and views.

Link: BuiltWith

Get Complete Analysis of Any Website with Online Tool!!!!

Bloggers and webmasters are always looking up other websites to have a better understanding of their own websites. Even when it comes to SEO tactics, learning from respectable websites is a better way to improve your site’s visibility and accessibility. With WooRank, I could get a complete analysis of just about any website.

WooRank, even crawls a website to check if there is duplicate content on your website. Such content can be deleted as it can adversely impact your website’s value in terms of SEO.

Features of Woorank website analysis tool

• Woorank displays the usual information like per month unique visits to the URL of the website. This is taken from sources like Google AdWords tool and Alexa rankings.
• Then it shows the in-site SEO analysis, which includes information on meta description, meta keywords and even the number of header tags.
• It also gives information on if all the pages (the tool will look at all posts as different pages) on the website has different titles.
• It also gives good information on if the website is doing a good job of being complaint. This usually means looking up sitemap, robots.txt and other things that gives a good clues on where your website can improve.

Woorank is a great service get a nice analysis of your own domain. I would recommend using it on not just your domain but other respected domains to look up where your domain might not be up to the mark.

If you liked using WooRank, you might also want to check up on Builtwith – which is also similar service to look up SEO details.

Try out Woorank and do drop in your comments and views.

Link: Woorank

Use Multiple Search Engines Simultaneously [Searchr]!!!!

When I search for images for my blog posts in Google images, I might not find the desired image. Then, I will try searching on Flickr, if I can not find it there, then I would search in another image-based search engine and the hunt continues.

This consumes a lot of time and sometimes I wish there was a search engine which shows results from all the top search engines at one place, so we don’t need to switch between different search engines.

If you’re like me then Searchr might work like a charm for you as it does the same i.e. showing up results from the top search engines.

Six types of searches can be done on Searchr, they are Web, Images, Torrents, Videos, Files and Mp3 Downloads.

Searchr Features

1. Web search: You can get search results from the top 7 search engines namely Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, Wikipedia, Dogpile and Yippy. It misses Altavista which is better than Yippy
2. Image search: All in all, there are seven image-based search engines, the major drawback here is that, it misses Flickr. Iconfinder is great addition as you can find icons of all types and sizes in it.
3. Video search: The videos section is a bit buggy, as the YouTube video results doesn’t load up. Dailymotion and Metacafe could’ve been added instead of AOL videos.
4. Torrent search: It lists the major Torrent search engines like isoHunt, BtJunkie etc.
5. File search: Uses Google’s site: syntax to search for files in popular file hosts like Rapidshare, Hotfile, Megaupload etc.

So, have you tried Searchr? How is it? Drop in your opinions!

Link: Searchr

Encode information about yourself in a Barcode!!!!

With the rise of retailing, came the rise of the now familiar bar-code. The black and white bars of differing widths, can encode a certain amount of information. This information in shops is usually prices and serial numbers for more efficiency. On tickets a barcode might be used to counter black marketeers.

Barcode yourself is a web tool with which we can create our personal barcode with information like age, gender, location.

Barcode yourself features

• The website basically allows entering some vital personal information like your gender, age, country, height and weight.
• Then this information is taken and a barcode is generated.
• I had the options of downloading this bar-code as an image on my computer or evening getting a printout.

With Phones that can read bar-codes and even create them, such tools can be quite useful to encode details without being to obvious.

Try out Barcode Yourself and create your own unique barcode. It is created by Scott Blake, a bar-code enthusiast and artist. Do drop in your comments.

Link: Barcode Youself

“Giveaway of the Day” – Download Licensed Software for Free Everyday!!!!

People generally tend to look for pirated versions of software that are available for download from torrents and tons of other resources.

An interesting website I came across recently is Giveawayoftheday.com which provides a licensed copy of a particular software everyday for download.

Each day you will find a new software available for download for 24 hours. This is a completely legitimate service and the giveaway is provided with prior permission from the publishers of the particular software.

The software which this website provides for download range from audio editing, audio/video conversion, up to alternatives/add-ons to MS-Office, office utilities etc. You can check their previous Giveaways till today here.

You can add Giveaway of the Day to your RSS feed, or get email updates everyday as well.

Few things to remember:

• A particular software is available for download only for a period of 24 hours and cannot be downloaded later.
• You cannot re-install a particular software after a PC crash or install the program on another PC after the giveaway day is over.

Link: Giveaway of the Day

Download All Free Web Apps You Need From One Place! [All My Apps]!!!!

As a web user, there is a good chance that you have more than a handful of apps on your computer. I like installing and checking up on new apps all the time. Sometimes the problem is, we can lose track of all the apps that are out there.

I find All My Apps, a useful website because I can look up all free and paid apps online in one single place.

All My Apps Features

• The apps are all arranged neatly under different categories like web, office, games, video and even development for developers.
• A list of all the apps you need to download and install on your computer can be created within seconds (image below).

• After registration for a free account, I could share the list of apps I chose via Twitter and Facebook. I could also share this through a widget on my blog, thanks to an embed code that is generated.
• A helpful feature is a trending apps list which shows the apps that are now popular and new. This is a great way to keep in touch of new useful apps there might be out there.

If you are looking at a backup of all free apps you have, it will a good idea to have a list created on allmyapps and bookmark it.

Do try out All My Apps and drop in your comments.

Link: allmyapps

India Rail Info: Best portal for Indian Railways inquiry!!!!

Finally I gathered enough courage to start writing about this website. Confused? India Rail Info is one website for Railway inquiries I have been using for past 1 year and there is no reason I would start using any other website, not even the Government railways portal. Since the portal hosts “so many” features, I would be unable to discuss them all here. However here are few of the important and unique features.

Excellent Navigation

Get a list of trains between any two stations or even just type out the Number or Name of the train. The website even helps you in completing names.

Personalized Experience

Login using Facebook or Google account and get to do all things with your history constantly saved. For e.g. PNR status lookup, Trains lookup, Blog entries and a lot more is saved.

PNR Prediction

The first of its kind, though not official but ofcourse helpful. This one I love to use as I can get recommendations from people on whether my waitlisted ticket will get confirmed or stay as waitlisted. You too can predict for other people and this builds up your profile. For e.g. you predict over 3 PNR entries & 2 prediction turns correct, so your profile will display an accuracy of 66.67%.

No Advertisement

Many people often think of it as a government-operated website as there is not even a single Advertisement hosted. What an irony, that even our Government railway inquiry website hosts so many advertisements that I go crazy using it.

Patience is Exciting

By this I just meant that initially the website may look a bit complex to you (so what? even Indian Railways is a complex network ), however if you just have some patience and try few features, you would definitely like with it.

 LINK: India Rail Info

 

Search Engine to get Pin Code of Addresses in India!!!!

Finding address is a very easy task thanks to the several mapping websites. Even in India, to get addresses and directions to a particular place is usually very easy. But, what stumps me most times, is that I usually do not know the pin code of a particular place.

For example, I often take down the correct address to send a courier to my relatives but forget to ask for the pin code.

Get Pincode Info is a nice search service which displays the pin code of a place you enter.

As you can see in the image above, I typed in the address or locality and city. This was enough for it to search for the pin code and display it. It also shows some related links from the web about that address or locality the user has entered.

The best part is we can edit the pin code with an enter an HTML link as reference.

Next time you are stuck for a pin code of a place, use Get Pincode India for a quick remedy.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Get Pincode India

Register Your Brand with Google+ : Google+ Entity!!!!

Google+ has decided to not allow fake names or fake ids for creating Google+ profiles, much like Facebook does. Facebook pages are a goldmine for brand managers to really engage fans and followers daily with updates and even helping with customer service. 

For blogs like the one you are reading this article one, a Facebook page is a must for people to follow and look up articles.

Google+ has to have something similar to Facebook pages to compete against it. At the moment Google is allowing businesses to register with Google+ Entity profile.

It is still experimental and it will be used see the effect of brands with the Google+ experience.

If you are looking to join Google+ Entity program, register here.

Do you think Google+ can come up with something more interesting than Facebook Pages? I guess if they allow more customizable option, it could be quite the killer idea.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Google+ Entity Application

Readings: A replacement for Google Reader!!!!

There are many apps which act as replacement for Google Reader (Feedly, for instance), but I never liked any of them. Reason is simple, I can’t cope up with their interface, which is completely different from that of Google Reader. On the other hand,  Readings is something similar to Google Reader and that’s why I like it.

Readings is a new feed reader, especially for those who are bored with Google Reader. You may call it as a Modern Google Reader.

Where ‘Readings’ is better than Google Reader

• Start Page: Readings shows the top stories from the sites you’ve subscribed to, the relevancy of the top stories will certainly increase after it gains a considerable amount of users. Google Reader’s start page doesn’t show top stories, it just shows the articles from the feeds you’ve subscribed.

• Subscribing to Feeds: You get a nice list of top blogs in Readings, you can narrow the results by selecting the category. You can also subscribe to the feed of a specific author (like me!) so, even if the author writes on more than one blog, you will be getting the articles and Google Reader can’t do this.
• Interface: Readings’ interface is neat and simple, it also makes use website favicons, nothing more to say here.
• Sharing: I’m not at all satisfied with sharing options provided by Google Reader, but Readings rocks in sharing articles! Irrespective of the feed you’re viewing, you can see the Facebook like, send and Tweet buttons, and at the end of the each article an Add this widget is also embedded.

• Readability: You can change the font size from the left sidebar while reading an article, don’t have any time to read your favorite article? Click on Read Later and you can read it from the Unread section afterwards, no need of Instapaper! They do provide a handy bookmarklet to send interesting articles to Unread section!

Where it could improve…

• Subscribing To Feeds: I said subscribing to feeds in Readings is easy and better than that of Google Reader but wait, there’s a big disadvantage, you can’t import feeds from a .opml file! I have subscribed to 30+ blogs and it will take some 10-15 minutes to subscribe to all the blogs (Readings take time to cook the feed, it’s not instant). While, this is not the case with Google Reader, you can easily import feeds there.
• Organizing Feeds: In Google Reader, I have all my feeds categorized and that keeps my Google Reader organized, now, you can’t do this on Readings! You can’t create folders (or tags) and drop feeds into it as you do in Google Reader.
• No Unread Count: The Unread count in Google Reader gives you an idea of how many articles are left unread, Readings lacks this.
• Customizing The App: You can customize Google Reader to the deepest using Reader Plus and many such apps but will developers come forward to develop add-ons for Readings? Certainly not!

Readings is pretty new, so there’s a scope of improvement, hope they will come up with new features in the future. Do drop in your comments.

Link: Readings

Get Latest Articles and Videos with Real-time Encyclopedia!!!!!

In this age of information, there are literally a million things happening around us. RSS readers and search engines usually do a good job of keeping people informed. Sometimes you just want to catch up some real-time buzz.

For example I wanted to look up recent results on Google Plus, Zomobo gave me all the latest trending links on YouTube, Twitter and even Wikipedia articles.

Zomobo Features:

• Just enter the query into the search box and get results nicely arranged. This is a great way to learn what is latest about a topic along with actually learning about it.
• It shows relevant links to Facebook pages and Twitter accounts along with a few public documents and links.
• Other categories where information is arranged is Blogs, News and related images.

I think this web service, would be a very useful service to learn about something new on the web. I think it is like a enhanced version of Wikipedia.

Do try out Zomobo and drop in your comments.

Link: Zomobo

Get Photos from Multiple Users in a Single Photo Stream with Liveshare!!!!

When a party takes place, people take photos on their phones. Then they tend to upload all these photos on the web on Facebook or any other social network or image sharing service. This creates a disjointed stream of photos and it becomes very tedious to get them all in one place.

LiveShare a product by CoolIris, allows sharing images in single photo stream by multiple users.

LiveShare Features:

• Users need to register for an account or just sign up with their Facebook credentials. If you are sharing photos on Facebook to signing up with Facebook is a good idea.
• Then we can create Private or Public streams. Private streams can be shared with others via email. Other can also stream photos they take of the same event in that particular stream.
• This creates a live stream of photos of a particular event from multiple sources.
• I used the browser version to test my account, but it does have an iPhone, Android and Window 7 Mobile apps that can make sharing  and viewing via smartphones very easy. 

Try out LiveShare next time you are partying out with friends and do drop in your comments and views.

Link: LiveShare

TubGet – Free Online Tool to Download and Convert Videos!!!!

People spend literally several hours a week watching videos online. YouTube and Vimeo are the big boys of online video streaming, and often users might like to download the videos or a song into a mp3 version for listening to at a more convenient time or when offline. 

Tubget is an online web service which allows downloading of videos from YouTube and Vimeo.

• Just type in the URL of the video from YouTube or Vimeo and click on start.
• Once done, the video will be processed and will be ready to be downloaded. It also gives option for cropping the video before you download it.
• Users can also select sound quality, video resolution along with the type of file you want the video to be downloaded into.
• It supports AVI, MOV, MP4 and other popular video formats.

Try out TubGet and do drop in your comments.

Link: TubGet

10 Great Tools to Light up Google Plus Addicts!!!!

Google+ is still in private beta but developers have already put their mighty efforts and built many extensions, bookmarklets, add-ons, user scripts, web apps and much more! This post lists all those tools (webapps, extensions and everything in between) which can make Google+ better in all aspects.

#1. Color Plus

Let’s start with the most basic tool. Most of the geeks/bloggers (including me) didn’t like the color of the Google bar and many wanted to customize it, there are many ways to do this. If you’re on Chrome then Color Plus might do the work for you. Using Firefox? No worries, there’s a userscript for that.

Links: Color Plus (Chrome-only) | Google bar color changer (Userscript-works on all browsers)

#2. Gplus.to

Shortens your Google+ profile URL, hopefully Google will introduce this feature in the coming days. Just choose a nick name, enter your profile ID and you’re done! Your shortened URL will be something like this – http://gplus.to/nickname

Link: Gplus.to (Web app)

#3. Block Plus

(Image credit)

Some say that the best feature of Google+ is its integration with the Google bar, no doubt, it’s a wonderful feature but it may make a bit unproductive as it follows you everywhere (on all Google sites).

Block Plus removes the Google+ integration from the Google bar and you may continue doing your work than concentrating on Google+ notifications. Another Userscript, Google+ notifications blocker, does the same thing but eventually works on all browsers.

Link: Block Plus (Chrome-only) | Google+ Notifications blocker (Userscript- works on all browsers)

#4. Plusbar

This is a nice addition to Google+, Plusbar is a bookmarklet which converts Google+ into your entertainment dashboard. You can watch BBC News, Al Jazeera, Nasa TV and many other live streaming channels directly from Google plus.

Plusbar Demo

Link: Plusbar (Works on all browsers)

#5. Surplus

This is just the opposite to Block Plus, Surplus makes it easy to check your Google+ updates on non-Google sites. Apart from checking updates, you can also post links/normal text. You can also turn on desktop notifications and sounds in the options.

Link: Surplus (Chrome-only)

#6. PlusFeed

PlusFeed allows you to follow Google+ posts of anyone by subscribing to their feed. To get the feed address, replace Google_plus_ID in http://plusfeed.appspot.com/Google_plus_ID with your Google plus ID and subscribe to it using your RSS reader.

Link: PlusFeed (Web app)

#7. Like +1

Even though Google+ is liked by most of the beta testers, only a very few of them left Facebook and decided to choose Google plus as their primary networking tool. So, as with the arrival of Google+, the +1 button has got some meaning and many started +1’ing (along with liking) their favorite articles.

Like +1 combines +1 button and like button into a single button, so that you can save a few seconds. Your +1’s won’t appear instantly, it may take a minute to appear.

Link: Like +1 (Chrome-only)

#8. Extended Share

Share your Google+ posts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with a couple of clicks. Just click on Share on.. present beside the Share option and choose the site on which you want to share the post. 

Link: Extended Share (Chrome-only)

#9. Find People on Plus

Pretty self-explanatory, it’s a directory of all the people who signed up for Google+, it detects your area and shows user suggestions. Apart from acting as a people directory, it is also a showcase of Google+ statistics and top Google+ users which I found interesting.

Link: Find People on Plus (Web app)

#10. Google+ Statistics

While Find People on Plus shows some mild statistics of every Google+  user, Google+ Statistics is better if you want to checkout graphs, following trends etc. You might know about Twitter Counter, the same guys have built Google+ Statistics.

You can also track your Google+ statistics by signing up using your Google account. It also provides a statistics widget which you can embed on your site.

Link: Google+ Statistics (Web app)

Bonus Tools

#11. Move Your Photos

This chrome extension will help you in exporting all your Facebook photos to your Picasa account. If you’re migrating to Google+ then this one will be handy, as you don’t need to manually export the photos.

You need to login to Facebook and grand permission to the app, as this app has become popular lately, it may take more time to migrate the photos.

Link: Move Your Photos (Chrome-only)

 

#12. GTools+

With GTools+ you can customize the interface of Google+ such as editing the Google bar components, changing the position of the chat box, pinning the Google bar to the top and much more. It can also be used for translation and to setup notifications for Google+, you can even customize the color of notifications.

Link: GTools+ (Chrome-only)

#13. Agent G+

There are many extensions and add-ons to post sync your Google+ posts with Twitter and Facebook, but this one is extension-free. You just need to authorize the app in Twitter and Facebook and post a Google+ update of the authorization string you get (share it with only + Agent G).

Once you have done that, you can sync your Google+ posts by simply sharing the posts with +Agent G.

Link: Agent G+ (Web app)

So, that is it. If you know some worthy Google+ tools, do share them through the comments.

Watch Megavideo, VideoBB, VideoZer Videos Without Time Restrictions Using Sheepser!!!!

In the past, we have told you about several services to overcome the 72 minutes time restriction on Megavideo. If you are still unable to bypass Megavideo time limits, a new service is here to help you out.

Sheepser streaming service provides users with an unrestricted video players which allows you to watch videos instantly without limitations. The service currently supports videos from Megavideo, VideoBB, VideoZer and more among others. In order to view a video from these services without time limits and restrictions, you will have to copy the video URL and paste it into in Sheepser.com.

Once you do that, Sheepser will start playing the video on their site in their own player. You can watch unrestricted videos on the site, which means that all the time limits on watching videos will be removed.

Sheepser also provides backup servers in case one of them is not working while allowing users to embed the videos on websites. Services such as Sheepser can come in pretty handy when you want to watch longer videos on sites like Megavideo.

Sheepser also provides users with a handy bookmarklet which can be used to directly open videos in Sheepser without having to copy the link. Go ahead and give it a try, it works pretty well.

How To Increase Google Crawl Rate On Your Website!!!!

What more you can Do for an already optimized and good ranking site? When making changes to these types of websites you have to be very cautious about the effects of the changes. This is because even with a small change the frequency of the search engine crawl rate varies dramatically. This article is all about how to increase the google crawl rate on your website.

Here are some of the ways that might help you in increasing the frequency of search engine crawling;

Increase the PR of your website: websites with higher PR are noticed to have been crawled more frequently. You can work on getting links from websites that are crawled regularly or with high PR. This in turn helps you in the increase of the frequency of Google visiting your site.

Update content regularly: Search engines have a tendency to index new posts almost instantly. So it is very important that you integrate regular updated content on your website. Also, if your home page contains snippets of your Latest posts, this will also help in regular crawling. Try introducing small pieces of updated content so that the search engines will notice frequent changes on your website and shall come back to visit frequently.

Reduce your page size: It has been observed that the faster the page gets loaded, the more beneficial you are in case of crawl rate. So try reducing or keeping your page size to a limitation so that the website becomes faster and uses less bandwidth. This is definitely going to increase the search engine’s crawl rate.

Sitemap helps a lot: Uploading of sitemaps has proved to increase the crawl rate. Both XML and HTML sitemaps are equally active in increasing the crawl rate on your website

 

Techinline - Remote Desktop Software!!!

Technology and communications are developing at a rapid phase in Internet. Now people want all the Latest technologies for their Internet solutions such as Easy to use Remote Desktop solutions. With Techinline Remote Desktop software, people can now access remote desktop without installing any software.

Not only Techinline is simple to use, but also available at affordable price with good reliability and security for people working on a remote connection. Techinline provides quick solutions for users who can use their services very easily.

What is Techinline and How to use it?

Techinline is company which provides Convenient Remote Desktop Control with which you can view, diagnose and rapidly solve your customer’s problems anywhere in the world. This remote desktop software allows you to instantly access and control a remote computer over the Internet, across firewalls and proxies, using any browser. There is no need to install any software or download any software. This helps to provide high speed support and improve your customer support Quality.

Advantages of Techninline

Some of the advantages of Techninline Remote desktop software which made it as one of the top Remote Desktop softwares are given below:

Reliability and Security

When we think of remote desktop software, the first thing that comes in to mind is security of your data. Techinline is a secure remote PC access software that provides 128-bit SSL encryption for all remote desktop sessions. There is no security information and highly confidential data stored on Techniline side which ensures safety and security for your applications.

Affordable Price

Techinline provides a very competitive price and lowest among its fellow market competitors. Success of Techninline lies in providing highly sophisticated remote desktop for affordable prices.

Customer Support

Techniline Customer support through Email is very quick and they give response with in 12 hours of receiving the query. Not only the email support, the FAQ’s they provide give complete details regarding most of the common issues that are faced during remote desktop software for new users.

Overall TechinLine is one of the leading remote PC access software providers in Internet today. Their high security data encryption proves its reliability. They even provide a 15 day trial and you can check their performance, reliability and security.

Start using Techinline today to maintain a successful business online.

Backup Your Blog With A Backup Plugin!!!!

All your hard efforts of writing, advertising, marketing and administrating strategies can become a total waste if you have not taken any measure of backing up your blog. Well, you might be thinking about the Hosting companies that take all the responsibilities to backup your account. But what if there’s a failure in their part? You must have your own backup system for your blogs.

To help you survive in such situations, there are wide ranges of backup plugins already available in the market for WordPress. The major and essential job in your part is to choose an appropriate one for your blog and sit back relaxed. Among the long list of Backup Plugins, the three most popular plugins for Wordpress are; WP-DBManager, DBC Backup and WP-DB-Backup.

All these three backup plugins are really very handy for your Wordpress blog – easy to install, provides your blog with the feature of automatic backup and most importantly are user friendly. Although, this three are among the most popular one’s but still they differ in their capabilities and ratings among themselves too. 

So, if we further compare these three backup plugins, the one that satisfies all the basic features is the DBC Backup. However, choosing a backup plugin is completely based on your requirement. So, if you have not yet used any backup system for your Wordpress blog, the above information might help you to choose one that best suits your requirement.

For more information and download of each these backup plugins, check out the links – WP-DBManager, DBC Backup and WP-DB-Backup.

ManageWP:An Amazing Way To Manage Multiple Wordpress Blogs From One Dashboard!!!!

Do you own multiple WordPress blogs? Are you really tired of managing them all at a time? Here’s a solution to your problem. If you are the one having multiple wordpress blog, ManageWP is what you need right now. ManageWP is an outstanding tool to manage multiple wordpress blogs from a single dashboard.

 

In short ManageWP is a service offered by Wordpress to all its users, making their job easier than ever. This modern technology tool lets you manage all your blogs from a single centralized dashboard, thus making your job easier and time saving too. Getting started is very easy involving signing up and setting up your own account. Add your wordpress blogs into your account and you can now manage all of those from your dashboard.

Whether you own multiple blogs or someone who manages more than one blogs of many clients, the must have tool for you is ManageWP. The ManageWP itself is built on a wordpress blog. Before adding your blogs to this tool, your first step should be to add the ManageWP Worker Plugin into all your blogs that you want to manage. You then have lot options open at the control panel and the sites area to perform on each of your blogs individually.

ManageWP is not just only a time saving tool but makes your blog management more convenient too. With logging into just one wordpress blog gives you way to manage all your other blogs from the same dashboard.

Twitter URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service is best for u, make a Try!!!!

How many times have you wanted to share a link with your Twitter followers but it was too long? Sometimes when you’re chatting with a friend and he’ll send you a link that takes up a whole chat window. Has that ever happened to you? Probably.

To help us in these kinds of situations, “the good people of the Internet” created a tool called an URL shortener. URL or link shorteners will take your long web addresses and give you a simple short URL that will fit into any tweet, won’t break comments or blog posts.

How Do URL Shorteners Work?

The logic behind URL shortners is simple; take the long URL, process it through a hash function of some kind and generate a short URL which is paired with the long one. Once you request the short URL, the system will look it up in its database and redirect you to the corresponding long URL.

Long and short URL pairs are kept in these databases forever, because you never know when you’re going to need the same link, right? Some URL shorteners keep track of long URLs, so if a large number of users try to short the same URL, they will all get the same short URL.

One of the most useful features of (some) URL shorteners is that you can customize the short URL. Tired of the random string like /XgfR3 – why not get something like /newblog – it’s more memorable and it even looks better.

Why Should I Use URL Shorteners?

Nowadays, link shorteners are mainly used for aesthetic reasons – to keep your messages nice and readable. But there are several more reasons why to shorten your links, no matter how long (or short) they are:

• Long links will break in e-mails, so the recipient will have to select that long, multi-line link, copy it and then paste it into address bar;
• Hiding affiliate links will help you to get points with your affiliate partner. People probably won’t click an affiliate link if they see it, removing the referral part of the URL;
• Statistics are useful (and mandatory) if you’ve got some kind of an online job. You need to know how many times the link was clicked, which site sends most of your visitors and all other kinds of data (which a lot of URL shorteners give you).

The 4 Most Popular URL Shorteners

Is.gd

Is.gd is a URL shortener which can take up to 5000 character long URLs and compress them into 18 character ones. The interface of the site is basic but it doesn’t need anything more. Just paste the link and click the button.

Once shortened, you’ll have the option to generate a QR code of the link which you can later print on you flyers or business cards. Is.gd will also allow you to create a custom URL and even log statistics for your links.

is.gd URL Shortener

The true power of is.gd is its bookmarklet, a link that you can place in your bookmark bar. When you want to shorten a web address, just click it and you’ll instantly get the shortened link.

Ow.ly

Ow.ly became popular along with HootSuite, a popular web based Twitter application. Since it’s so connected to HootSuite, ow.ly has pretty limited options; just basic shortening and a button for copying the short URL to the clipboard. Before shortening a URL you must enter the CAPTCHA code, which makes it less practical for frequent usage.

ow.ly URL Shortener

If you’re a HootSuite user, you will find ow.ly very practical as it’s implemented into the application and will give you a detailed insight of your links.

Fwd4.me

Fwd4.me claims to be UK’s No. 1 URL shortener. With Fwd4.me you can create custom short links and check the statistics of your short link  by adding question mark at the end.

Fwd4.me URL Shortener

Web application developers will love the Fwd4.me’s free API (Application Programming Interface) which can be used in your applications.

Bit.ly

The Mother of all URL shorteners is probably bit.ly. Bit.ly is a really powerful tool when it comes to URL shortening and analyzing the links. Once shortened, you can edit the short URL to something custom and more memorable. If you’re a Google Chrome user, there is a bit.ly chrome extension, as well as the bit.ly bookmarklet for any other web browser.

Oh, and the bookmarklet is really something! You can edit the URL, tweet it or send it to Facebook or e-mail, put the link in a bundle and check out stats of the links! What are bundles, you might ask; it’s just a custom made collection of your short links, created for somewhat better management. You should try it out!

Bit.ly URL Shortener

Analyzing the links in bit.ly is a feature of its own. You will get all the graphs you will ever need, see the list of the reffering sites and countries where your visitors come from. Bit.ly has its own bitly-powered news app News.me

TinyURL

TinyURL is not packed with options, but it is the first URL shortener ever, dating back to 2002. This shortener was very popular in the pre-Twitter era, but other websites have since surpassed TinyURL. When you have to watch out for every character in a 140 limit, is.gd’s 18 character link is much better than TinyURL’s 26 character “short” link.

TinyURL, the pioneer of link shortening

Nevertheless, TinyURL should be mentioned and should be thanked for starting the short link business.

Who Else is Using URL Shorteners?

A large number of companies use shortened links in their tweets and publications. They use proprietary shorteners and nobody else has access to them, but it would be a shame not to mention these great examples:

• WordPress uses wp.me;
• Mashable uses on.mash.to;
• Facebook uses on.fb.me;
• Time uses ti.me;
• New York Times uses nyti.ms.

Have you spotted any interesting short URLs like the ones mentioned in the article? Let us know in the comments!