Category Archives: Free Press

Android/Linux, GNU/Linux, Technology, Web Services, WordPress

10 Android Apps That Bloggers Should Have

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1. WordPress

WordPress App for Android is available at Google Play Store. Using this App bloggers can maintain their blogs from their Android Device. This App is useful for both self-hosted blogs and blogs hosted on wordpress.com

Download WordPress App

2. Tumblr

If you maintain a Tumblr micro-blog then you should try this App. Using this app you can post content, read and write messages, schedule post activity, manage multiple Tumblr blogs and view contacts of Tumblr blogs in your address book etc.

Download Tumblr App

3. Google Drive

It helps you to store all kinds of documents, audio, video, images, pdf etc in cloud and also sync all documents across multiple devices connected to your Google account.

Download Google Drive App for Android

4. Blogger

Try this App if you blog on Blogger. Functionality of this app is still very limited as compared to the WordPress App.

Download Blogger App

5. Writer

Writer is a simple text processor that provides you distraction-free writing environment on your smartphone which is very useful while writing long posts.

Download Writer App

6. Disqus

Disqus commenting system for WordPress is getting very popular these days because its integrated community features brings people back and keep them engaged. Using this App you can access all commenting features of you blog from your smartphone.

 Download Disqus App

7. Tape A Talk

Tape A Talk is a voice recorder App. Bloggers use this App for recording interviews etc. This App can upload audio-recording to many online services and blogs.

Download Tape-A-Talk App

8. GAnalytics

GAnalytics is mobile version of Google’s famous service ‘Google Analytics’. This App gives a good account of your blog traffic, usage statistics and bounce rates etc.

Download GAnalytics App

9. Flipboard

Flipboard allows you to open Facebook, Twitter and Google+ streams. Using this App you can browse your blog’s Facebook Page, social news, comments etc

Download Flipboard App

10. Photo Editor

Using this App you can crop, edit, resize, add effects, texts and drawings to your photos before posting them to your blog.

Download Photo Editor

Facebook, Technology

Facebook Announced SPDY Support

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Facebook has announced SPDY support. Here is Facebook’s response to the call for expressions of interest in HTTP/2.0. Providing faster and more secure online services to users, the features in need for HTTP/2.0 are:

  •  Multiplexing
  •  Transport layer encryption
  •  Zero-latency upgrade
  •  Per-request flow control
  •  Server push

Check Details Here.

What is SPDY ?

SPDY means speedy. It is an experimental networking protocol developed primarily at Google for transporting web content. Its main objective is to reduce loading time of any web page. It modifies the way HTTP requests and responses are sent over the wire.

SPDY transports the web content using fewer TCP connections by multiplexing large numbers of transactions to one TLS connection. Read Mozilla Hacks: SPDY Brings Responsive and Scalable Transport to Firefox 11

Technology, Web Services, WordPress

Embed Flickr & Picasa Photostreams In Web Pages As A Flash Slideshow

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Use PictoBrowser for embedding your Flickr – Picasa Photos in your website.

What is a PictoBrowser?

PictoBrowser a free web application that displays Flickr and Picasa images on websites and blogs.

How to get a PictoBrowser?

  1. Visit here
  2. If this link doesn’t work then visit http://pictobrowser.com/
  3. Click PictoBuilder at the top left corner of the page.
  4. Enter your Flickr/Picasa username.
  5. Choose images.
  6. Set Tag or Groups.
  7. It outputs some HTML code
  8. Copy that HTML code and paste it in your website or blog.
  9. If you use WordPress then you may paste it inside your posts and pages.
Technology, WordPress

Adding JavaScript Inside Your WordPress Posts

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While writing any post change mode from Visual to HTML and paste your javascript there.

Excluding this there are many plugins available which allows you to add javascript in WordPress posts.

You may try this plugin also Custom fields shortcode. Although this plugin hasn’t been updated in over 2 years but it works good without  showing any error in my blog.

Useage:

Use [cf] shortcode in your post content to show the custom field value without editing any of your WordPress theme files.

For Example:  [cf] FieldName[/cf] returns value of ‘FieldName’ custom-filed.

Check similar plugins here.

Facebook, Social Media

Facebook Groups Start Showing Who Saw Each Post

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Yesterday Facebook introduced a new group feature on Facebook’s Newsroom. Facebook groups are the places for similar interests, activities, ideas where your are free to share things with the people having common interest on a particular subject. You can join a group to get connected with the communities, organisations etc.

Now when you visit any group  you can view who’s seen each post and you can easily get updated with the group’s ongoing activity. Like in Open Source Council (a Facebook group) if you share a link or may be your blog post then you will see who got its update.

Social Media, Technology, Twitter

Get Twitter Service Updates Through Its Different Accounts

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@twitter: Always wondering what’s happening.

@twitterapi: The Real Twitter API. I tweet about API changes, service issues and happily answer questions about Twitter and our API. Don’t get an answer? It’s on my website.

@twittermobile: To get Mobile Updates

@spam: Suspect Twitter spam? Let us know (http://bit.ly/Tweport)! Follow @spam & @safety for helpful info, and check out our favorite tips: http://bit.ly/spamfav

@feedback: Collecting ideas and feature requests! We can’t reply to everyone but we do actively read your @mentions!

@support: Updates from Twitter User Support. We’re unable to assist with account suspension/verification.

@safety: Twitter’s Trust and Safety Updates! Twitter HQ · http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/76036 

@fledgling:A Twitter wine project that promotes literacy around the world. San Francisco · http://www.fledglingwine.com

@hope140: Now @TwitterGood Highlighting forces of good in the Twitter community.

@twitterbusiness: Twitter for your business, community group, government organization or school

@twitterads: We tweet for brands. San Francisco, CA · http://advertising.twitter.com

@twittercomms: Talking to everyone, all at once! · http://blog.twitter.com/

@twitterSF: San Francisco born and bred. Looking to make a positive impact on our hometown.

@mobilesupport: Updates from Twitter Mobile Support. · http://support.twitter.com/groups/34-mobile

@twi: The official Twitter India account

@twitter_kr: 트위터 관련 다양한 소식을 전해드리는 공식 트위터 대한민국 계정입니다! 대한민국 · http://blog.kr.twitter.com/

@twitter_es: ¡Bienvenidos a la cuenta oficial de Twitter en español! ¿Eres nuevo? Empieza aquí https://twitter.com/#!/welcome San Francisco, CA · http://blog.es.twitter.com

@twitter_fr: Bienvenue au compte officiel de Twitter en France ! Pour plus d’infos rendez-vous sur http://blog.fr.twitter.com ! San Francisco CA · https://twitter.com/welcome

@twitter_de: Der offizielle deutsche Twitter Account!———http://blog.de.twitter.com Bei Support-Fragen findet ihr Antworten unter https://support.twitter.com/forms

@twitter_pt: Bem-Vindos à conta oficial do Twitter em português!http://blog.pt.twitter.com/

@twitter-ru: Приветствуем вас на официальной учётной записи Твиттера на русском языке! Сан-Франциско, Калифорния

@twitter-tr: Twitter Türkçe resmi hesabı http://blog.tr.twitter.com

@twitter_twj: 日本語版Twitter公式アカウントです。東京 · http://blog.jp.twitter.com

@twittermedia: Tracking cool, meaningful uses of Tweets in media, tv, sports, entertainment and journalism. Send us tips! San Francisco ·  http://media.twitter.com

@jointheflock: Twitter Recruiting: All the deets about who we’re hiring, what we’re doing and why you should come and work here! Check out www.twitter.com/jobs for more. San Francisco, CA · http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vccZkELgEsU

@gov: Updates from the Twitter Government & Politics team, tracking creative & effective uses of Twitter for civic engagement. RTs & examples≠political endorsements.

PHP, Technology, WordPress

Creating WordPress Multisite Network

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    • Install WordPress
    • Add the following line just above /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
    • define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);
    • Last step enables the Network Setup item in your Tools menu.
    • Go to Dashboard => Tools => Network Setup.
    • Do as directed. It will ask you to choose from the following two network options:
  • Sub-domains — a sub-domain based network in which sub-sites use subdomains. Example: http://lamp.sangkrit.net
  • Sub-directories — a path-based network in which sub-sites use directory path. Example: https://sangkrit.net/lamp
    • If you choose sub-domain network option then you will need to generate wild card from your c-panel check this tutorial: Subdomain Network: Adding A Wild-Card DNS In DNS Server
    • Network details get filled in automatically but you are free to make changes:
  • Server Address: The domain of the URL to access your WordPress installation.
  • Network Title: The title of your multisite network.
  • Admin E-mail:  Super admin’s email address for whole network.
  • Click the Install button.
  • Follow on screen instructions.  It provides you with cold blocks to add on your site’s wp-config.php and .htaccess files and prompts you to create a directory:
  • Create a directory for media file uploads. Directory should be writable by webserver.
  • Add the specified lines to your wp-config.php file
  • Add the specified lines to your .htaccess file
    If you do not have a .htaccess file, then create it in root directory.
  • Clear your browser’s cache and login to your site.
  • From your Dashboard at the top left corner you will see My Sites menu. Now you may visit your Network Administration from My Sites => Network Admin => Dashboard.
GNU/Linux, Social Media, Technology

Google+ iPad App Is Now Available

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Google+ new app for iPad is now available at iTunes App Store. Today Google announced this app’s release on its blog.

The best feature of this app is  Google+ “Hangouts”. Using this app one can start video chat with up to 9 friends anywhere, anytime. You may turn on ringing notifications to make your friends know about the Hangout. Google recently launched events feature on Google Plus, using this app you can manage them right from your iPhone.

Introducing New Features of this App. Google writes:

The Google+ app for iPad was designed with the device in mind. Your stream styles content based on popularity, type and orientation. We’ve also added unique ways to interact with the app—lean back and try these out:

  • Pinch and expand posts right in your stream to add your comments
  • Use two fingers to drag a post from your stream to easily re-share it
  • Start a Hangout from your iPad and stream it to your TV using AirPlay
PHP, WordPress

Migrating Multiple Blogs To WordPress Multisite

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  • Export content of your existing WordPress installations from Dashboard=> Tools=> Export
  • Install WordPress
  • Activate Multisite by adding define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true); in your wp-config.php
  • Open Dashboard of your new WordPress installation.
  • Open Tool=> Network Setup from Dashboard and do as directed.
  • Create blog for each site you like to import.
  • Import each site’s content you exported from old installations from Dashboard=> Tools=> Import
  • Install all themes and plugins of your old site if you like and network activate them.
  • If your old installations have their own domain names then Map domains to your main site using MU Domain Mapping
PHP, Technology, WordPress

Embedding RSS Feed In Your WordPress Posts And Pages

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Open Your themes function.php and add the following code at the bottom:

include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.’/rss.php’);

function readRss($atts) {
extract(shortcode_atts(array(
“feed” => ‘http://‘,
“num” => ‘1’,
), $atts));

return wp_rss($feed, $num);
}

add_shortcode(‘rss’, ‘readRss’);

Save function.php and whenever you need to embed RSS in any of your post or page write the following short code inside your post:

[ rss feed=”https://sangkrit.net/feed” num=”5″ ]

In the above give short code replace https://sangkrit.net/feed with your feed address and in num=5 replace 5 with the number of posts you like to show.

Note: Remember there is no space between [ and rss feed and num=”5″  and  ] so after you copy the short code; check the space, remove it (if there is some space) and then publish it.

WordPress

Tips For Successful WordPress Site Submission To Search Engine

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  1. You can submit your site to search engines through many resources. You may do so manually. Whatever method you choose search engine welcomes the site if your content is good.
  2. Search engine scans all content whenever a site is submitted. So be sure about content, it should be there in your site.
  3. Your site should have at least 9 posts so that search engine can get something to examine and evaluate.
  4. Never submit your site to same search engine more than once a month. Never let a search engine note your anxiousness.
  5. Always be ready to copy-paste or write a brief description of your site in about 200 words.
  6. Submit those categories that belong to search engine’s directory.
  7. Keep a list of your website’s various “addresses/URLs” .
  8. You can submit your site’s root directory,  various categories and feeds to search engines. This expands your search coverage.
  9. Keep a track of what you have submitted and when to avoid random re submission.
Android/Linux, WordPress

WordPress Blogging From Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Nokia, WebOS

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Making your website’s theme mobile compatible or installing any mobile theme for your WordPress site is good but you can also choose from different mobile apps available for WordPress blogging through smartphone.

WordPress for Android

You can use this for publishing new posts to your blog, responding to comments, getting notified and much more from you Android machine.

Website | Download

WordPress for iOS

iOS app lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Website | Download

WordPress for BlackBerry

Post to your WordPress blog from your BlackBerry. Manage comments and media, upload videos and more with this BlackBerry native app.

Website | Download

WordPress for Nokia

Nokia app allows you to edit your existing blog content, add new posts and pages, manage comments, and more — directly from your S60 or Maemo-powered Nokia device.

Website | Download

WordPress for WebOS

WebOS represents a different way to blog. It uses Sliding Panels that makes managing existing content on your blog intuitive and powerful.  You can use visual editor for posting content to your blog.

Website | Download

Social Media, Technology, Twitter

Twitter Introduced Search Autocomplete And Search Within People You Follow

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Twitter has introduced new search features.

  • Search Autocomplete And
  • Search Within People You Follow

In addition to recent updates to searching feature these two new features would be making twitter search more complete by putting you closer to what you are looking for.

Search Autocomplete displays a dropdown set of like keywords while you enter them in the search box. It is more useful if you are searching any topic with hash-tag.

Following list gives a brief introduction to new features. List was released by Twitter with its new search update:

  • Spelling corrections: If you misspell a term, we’ll automatically show results for your intended query.
  • Related suggestions: If you search for a topic for which people use multiple terms, we will provide relevant suggestions for terms where the majority of that conversation is happening on Twitter.
  • Results with real names and usernames: When you search for a name like ‘Jeremy Lin,’ you’ll see results mentioning that person’s real name and their Twitter account username.
  • Results from people you follow: In addition to seeing ‘All’ or ‘Top’ Tweets for your search, you can also now see Tweets about a given topic from only the people you follow when you select the ‘People you follow’ view. Viewing Tweets about a topic from just the people you follow is a great way to find useful information and join the conversation.

Here are some tweets showing how people reacted on this new feature:

Features of related search suggestions, search autocomplete and spelling corrections are also available in Twitter for iPhone and Android.

Social Media, Technology

Social Crawlytics – Free Social Sharing Analysis Tool

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Social Crawlytics is free service used to scan website and provide reports on each page for all  major social networks.

They give you there plans out of which two are free and for the third plan which is for super large websites they ask you two contact them for information. As shown in the given image:

Start by logging-in with your Twitter Account. Click Login With Twitter.

It will ask for your permission to authorize Social Crawlytics to use your account. Authorize the app and you will be redirected automatically to your Social Crawlytics Dashboard.

Now enter the URL you want to analyze, click SUBMIT, follow few more steps and get statistical overview of progress of your articles which have fared across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Delicious, Google+ and Stumbleupon.

Facebook, Social Media

Facebook Introduced App Center

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I just logged in my Facebook account and got a notification “Introducing App Center” on side bar. I clicked it and now I can see a left sidebar showing category group of ALL, WEB & Mobile followed by a list of different categories:

  • Games
  • Entertainment
  • Facebook
  • Lifestyle
  • Music ‘
  • News
  • Photos & Videos
  • Sports
  • Travel & Local
  • Utilities
  • Requests

You must be knowing about each category and what it stands for as Facebook Apps are not new, only App Center is development.
Now I come to header which is showing two blocks on top left corner with these names:

  • Mobile Apps
  • Timeline Apps

Top Right corner of header shows random adds of different apps.

Body section shows two columns:

  • Suggested Apps (left column) Personalized app suggestions for you.
  • Friends’ Apps (right column) Apps that your friends have used recently.

After I scrolled a little I can see a menu of The highest rated and most used apps as follws:

  • Top Rated
  • Trending
  • Top Grossing

After moving back to home I can see icon of App Center in apps menu on left sidebar under groups and favorite section.

Facebook, Social Media

Now You Can Listen Music With Your Friends On Facebook

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Facebook launched new music feature. Now you can listen music with your friends on Facebook . If one your Facebook friend plays music then you and a group of other friends can join him and each one can listen the same track at the same time.

How Facebook Music Feature Works?

Check music note in the Facebook chat sidebar to know which of your friends are listening to music. You can listen the same track with your friend by hovering over their name and clicking the listen button and the music will play through the service your friend is using.

You can chat with your friends about what you are listening, others are also free to join that chat and listen along but if you want you may control your listening with others through settings.

Facebook, Social Media, Technology, Web Services

Facebook Is Working On Want Button

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Facebook is testing Want Button similar to Like Button which is used across all pages on Facebook. Developer Tom Waddington said that a Want Button is added to the Facebook Javascript SDK as an XFBML tag <fb:wants>. Facebook has yet not listed this extension publicly. The button is for the objects marked as products on Open Graph.

Developers may use this new feature of Facebook for creating their Want Buttons  but authorization of any third party application is necessary to make it work.

Facebook Want Button is a Flop or Not?

Facebook Want Button would be quiet different from Facebook Like Button. Like Button shows individual interest but Want Button would be good for business purpose.

On one hand Facebook Like Button shows the user interest in product. Anyone can show his interest on certain product likewise a person who don’t have money to buy Apple I-Pad doesn’t mean that he don’t like it.

And, On the other hand Facebook Want Button would be showing individual’s interest on getting the product or buying it. Hence it reduces ambiguity for advertisers and target audience become more clear.

How Facebook Want Button Works?

Following is the tag released by Tom Waddington for Facebook Want Button:

<fb:want href=”…”></fb:want>

Reaction of Facebook Regarding Want Button

They responded that they are always testing new Platform features, however they have nothing new to announce.

Facebook, Social Media, Technology

Facebook Has Removed The Home Page Ticker

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I just noticed that Facebook removed the home page ticker but some of subscribers of mine are telling that it is still visible on their home page. I just figured out that many others are also experiencing the same as many stories are appearing on Twitter (check latest ones here and here) about the vanished Facebook Ticker. Some are telling it would be back soon like Randy Hamilton. Some are telling that Ticker is back again etc. etc. But it is still not visible on my Facebook home page.

What is a Facebook Ticker?

Facebook Ticker shows you the things  in real time.

Features of Facebook Ticker:

  • It keeps up with the latest news as it happens
  • You can listen to music with your friends
  • You can hover (or click) over a story to join the conversation

Ticker shows live happening stories like status updates, friendships, photos, videos, links, likes and comments. This activity is visible elsewhere on Facebook but Ticker let you see this as soon as it happens.

PHP, Technology, WordPress

How Automattic Makes Money

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WordPress is Free, Opensource and Priceless software from Automattic used for creating website, blog or something like that. You can download WordPress from www.wordpress.org for free.

But you know how Automattic makes money as it gives everything for free. No, it don’t give everything for free but yes most of its applications and the core software WordPress is absolute free for you.

Now lets see how WordPress makes money:-

VIP Hosting

WordPress provides VIP Hosting for major brands like Time Magazine, NewYork Times, CNN, Boing Boing and also TechCrunch etc. To know more brands hosted on WordPress VIP Hosting CLICK HERE

WordPress offers you two types of VIP hosting:-

Akismet Anti-Spam Technology

Akismet is an automated spam killer used by millions of blogs. Using this you don’t need to spend long time on deleting spam. WordPress makes money through Akismet as it offers different plans to bloggers for use Akismet.

For using Akismet you have to signup by choosing one of the following plans to get an API key:

  • Enterprise: Costs $50/month. Here you get multiple site access. It is good for companies having low web traffic.
  • Pro: Costs $5/month. It gives single site access. Good for small non-personal sites and blogs.
  • Personal:  Costs $0 to $120/year. Good for non-business personal blogs.
  • High Volume: Companies with or over 100k calls per month pays per call. Costs $100/month minute.

Premium Features

These are the optional priced per year upgrades offered by WordPress:

  • Be the master of your domain: Costs: $13.00 – $25.00/year. For controlling your online identity you may add your own domain name. Like www.example.com instead of www.example.wordpress.com This feature can be added to you existing WordPress blog.
  • Extra Storage: Costs $20.00 – $290.00/year. This is used by the bloggers whose content is running out of space.
  • Custom Design: Costs $30.00/year. Bloggers use this to customize blog’s fonts with a point-and-click interface. No coding required.
  • VideoPress: Costs: $60.00/year. Uploads your videos, get them converted into different formats including HD etc. Including many more features.
  • Go Ad-Free: Costs $30.00/year. Time to Time WordPress displays Ads on your blog for logged out users. You may turn off the Ads by using this feature.
  • Guided Transfer: Costs $129.00 . This feature is used for transferring a WordPress site.
  • Premium Themes: You may upgrade to premium WP Themes for adding more options to site customization. Pricing for each theme is displayed under the theme on your dashboard.

Google AdSense 

This is what most of us use to make money online by putting Google Adsense on our web content. This is a free program by Google that empowers online publishers to earn revenue by displaying some Ads on their content. As I had already told you that time to time WordPress displays Ads on your blog for logged out users, this is what Google Adsense.

Support Networks

If support forums aren’t enough to solve your problem then you may switch to support networks.

VaultPress

This is WordPress’s security, backup and support. It backup you blog automatically without any security flaw.

Plans and Pricing follows:

  • Basic: Costs $15/Month per site. Gives realtime backup and automatic restore during disaster.
  • Premium: Costs $40/Month per site. Gives back-up restore and continuous security scan.
  • Enterprise: Costs $350/Month per site. Gives solutions for large scale WordPress Installations.

Poll Daddy

This is Online Survey Software with both free and paid plans as follows:

  • Free: This is absolute free for ever not a trial or something like that.
  • Professional: Costs $200/Year.
  • Corporate: Costs $899/Year
Facebook, Technology

Changing Facebook Page’s Username/URL

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I Just Changed Facebook Page’s Username. Now URL of Opensource Book page on Facebook  is not www.facebook.com/OpenLAMPbooK but now it is www.facebook.com/opensourcebook  You may also do so just follow the following steps:

  1. Login to your facebook account.
  2. On the left sidebar, just above the chat faces click the Page of which you want to change the URL.
  3. On the top you will see  three buttons: Edit Page | Build Audience | Help
  4. Click Edit Page 
  5. Form the drop-down menu select Update Info.
  6. On The Third line You will see Username 
  7. On the right side of Username click Change username link
  8. You will seeing your old Username side by you Page name.
  9. Change it, type the new one and click Check Availability.
  10. That’s all. Save the new Username and start using it.