Well, we are very curious with our competitions. Sometimes, we really want to know how much of the subscribers do they have too? For me, I haven't publicly shown my feed subscriber counts yet even though I am having a quite impressive number for me.
Well, anyway, if you want to view the feedburner counts of the blogs that don't display, you might be able to see it if you're lucky. In fact, lucky here means those blog owners should have got change of mind and should be stupid too.
Here's how to achieve this.
This is my feed address.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BridgeToNova
If you want to see my subscriber, you should type in the address bar as follow.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/BridgeToNova
What do you see now?
I'm not lying to you. You can't see my counts because I know this trick and I've already prevented from it by deactivating in my feedburner dashboard. But hey, there are a lot of bloggers out there who don't know this and you can check their feed counts.
We all are worried about our privacy on the World Wide Web. With technology advancing and bad boys are releasing bad things every day, we all have to install the antivirus and antispyware that we think would protect us from evil.
We normally ignore that our trusted applications might sometimes be tracking on us. Even if their intention is to improve their program not to invade our privacy, I do mind.
Let's take a look at Adobe InDesign CS3.
Thanks to Dan from uneasysilence, he noticed that when you start Adobe InDesign CS3, the applications try to connect to 192.168.112.207. Yes it is look like an internal IP address. But hey, take a look again, it is not! It is actually connecting to 192.168.112.2O7.net. You see? Really evil, huh?
Well, Adobe says they want to know more about their users. But, in my opinion, putting behavior analysis software in an application without informing the user is really bad thing. But the worst thing is that the 2O7.net URL was chosen to spoof it like a local address. They are intentionally spying on us. I don't know about how other people would feel, but for me, I've lost trust in Adobe.
Let's start the new year with the best tip. I've told you guys about how to avoid spammer by using one-time disposable email services. That could really save you from a lot of email spammers. But what about telemarketers? It is quite annoying to receive a call from someone you don't know and talking about the product you're not interested at all. Yeah, nowadays, spammers are everywhere.
I've found a website called Numbr, which provide disposable US phone numbers. This service is very useful especially if you want to list your phone numbers in MySpace, Facebook or any other social networks.
I've no idea about their business model as they provide this service absolutely free. You can forward to any US landline or mobile phone no. After one month, your number will expire, but you can renew for free in your control panel. The best of all, their website states that your number will never be reused.
I've always enjoyed Firefox handy feature of saving login and passwords for web sites. But I've never aware that without using Master password, other people could easily view our stored passwords in plain text.
Go to Firefox Tools -->> Options.
After that go to Security tab, then click on Show passwords.
See? You can see all your stored passwords that simple.
How to prevent this?
You can set a Master Password by clicking Set Master Password. Remember by setting a master password, you need to provide your master password for every session of Firefox before using your stored passwords. Anyway, that's a lot better than someone easily sneak away all your confidential.
RSS feed is a very convenient way to keep in touch with our favorite website. But what annoy me most is some of my favorite website don't have RSS feeds at all. So that I have to manual check regularly whether they have updated their content or not.
One of my friend told me there are many websites that offer to keep you updated with our favorite website which don't have RSS. After filtering through googling results, I found these two websites (Feedity and Feed43) suit my need.
By using these websites, you can enjoy the following services:
Data syndication facility to web-based services and SMB's globally.
Web data integration with backend systems, databases, and mashups.
Create a custom RSS web feed for any ANY webpage!
Easily track and monitor changes to your favorite web sites.
How their service work is that they converts free-form HTML or XML documents to valid RSS feeds by extracting snippets of text or HTML by means of applying search patterns, and then joining these snippets together using output templates to form user-friendly content of feed's items. The principle of extracting specific data from source documents is also known as “HTML scraping”.
Yes, I'm combining two of these web sites technique to explain it just like one website because basically these two web sites work the same way.
Believe it or not Google china can find many software easier than ordinary search. Seeing is believing. Let's try now.
Go to http://www.google.com/intl/zh-cn/
Type the name of the program you want followed by cracked download (for example : Office 2007 cracked download)
Then click the third button.
All the results will be in Chinese. Just click randomly and you can download the software you want with no waiting time and no download limit.
I'm not sure downloading from Chinese site will be faster than your favourite download sites. So if this not work for you, just stick to the method whatever you used to. I'm not responsible for any of your action. This is just a tip.
I wonder whether Apple marketing guys has got anything to do other than to attack Windows Vista. I mean Apple should tell their potential customers about how good their MAC is and why they should get it. Not simply making a stupid ads like below.
I've noticed that many webmasters become very obsessed with Tinyurl.com services. Of course, I can't deny that tinyurl indeed provide very useful service for all of us. But there are many alternatives available too.
Why shouldn't you rely on TinyURL?
Do you know that if you solely rely only on TinyURL.com for URL shortening services, if it faces technical difficulties, then all your links could become broken. If you google for tinyurl.com reported outrage, you can find it happened already.
Shouldn't you use URL shortening services at all?
Of course not. URL shortening services help us a lot. Making our life a lot easier by not having to post longer url. Also keep our affiliate links save from danger hand. I'm not saying you shouldn't use URL shortening services, but I'm suggesting that if you use URL shortening services, don't use tinyurl.com for all your links. Try to make balanace with many alternatives out there.
Where are the alternatives?
Here are my favourites. You can google for many more.
Long long ago, based on the counter speed of Gmail page, I wrote an article that Gmail will reach 3 GB in 2008.
But recently, Google increased the speed of the counter and now Gmail has got over 4GB already. Some people even suggest that Gmail will reach 6GB at January 2008. If you're using Google Apps like me, they've adjusted the storage boost for our custom email addresses too. If you're Premier Edition users, now you will get a mighty 25 GB space instead of 10 GB.
Some of you might say that Yahoo! have already offered unlimited storage for their email. Are you aware that Yahoo! not only they reserve the right to delete MISUSED accounts but also limit their attachment size at 10MB (Gmail now allow 20MB).
I have been wondering when Google will celebrate 9th birthday since the beginning of this month. But today, as in their homepage Google officially celebrate now.
Why Google birthday is varying from year to year?
In September 1998, Google Inc. opened its door in Menlo Park, California. The door came with a remote control, as it was attached to the garage of a friend who sublet space to the new corporation's staff of three. The office offered several big advantages, including a washer and dryer and a hot tub. It also provided a parking space for the first employee hired by the new company: Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology.
Already Google.com, still in beta, was answering 10,000 search queries each day. The press began to take notice of the upstart website with the relevant search results, and articles extolling Google appeared in USA TODAY and Le Monde. That December, PC Magazine named Google one of its Top 100 Web Sites and Search Engines for 1998. Google was moving up in the world.
The exact date they celebrate their birthday will depend on their people appetizes for birthday cake. (See my previous post about When Google Birthday for details)
We all have our favorite musicians. But sometimes, our favorite singer release new album once in three years or more. We want to listen music quite similar. We have to look for related artists from online store such as Amazon.
I have found this very interesting website, Music Map, that let us search similar artist to your favorite one. They will return the search in the draft map. The closer the artist name to your favorite (which is in center), the higher probability that you'll like that artist too. See the following screenshot that I search for Eminem alike.
Obviously, for my instinct, I know that 50 cent, DMX, D12, Nelly, Dr. Dre and 2Pac are rapper, I don't think there's any reason Celine Dion should be related to Eminem. I mean I've never heard of her rapping. Okay, nothing is perfect.
Even though, it's not sure bullet proof, it's enjoyable.
I know internet search become one of daily routines in our life. All people use major four search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN (Windows Live) and Ask. Actually, most people search internet in that order. First they try Google, after that Yahoo, after that MSN (Windows Live) and then Ask. We all know that Google is the king of the king in search engines market. But wouldn't it be nice your search terms to search simultaneously on all four major search engines.
You should try Dogpile. It will search your keywords in all four and then return you with results and even where that result come from.
For examples, my search for bridge to nova returns at No. 9 and only from Google (Yeah, that's why I said they are the king).
You should try it too. It's really fun to see which one return what. By the way, if you wanna know more about Google search, don't forget to check out my Google search tips article.
If you have no idea what Smorty is, let me give you a brief introduction. Smorty is a blog advertising service connecting advertisers with bloggers. Advertisers can pay bloggers to write opinion posts with links back to the advertisers' site. In other words, Smorty is another pay-per-post, get paid to blog service.
As I've already got paid from Smorty, I'll share you all the experience I have with them. They are very quick in reviewing my blog (only 1.5 days). For posts approval, as in their FAQ stated, it won't take more than 5 business days (cool, huh?). For payments? This is the best part of it. They pay weekly via paypal and they are very quick to pay. It would take only 4-7 days to get paid after your post have approved. Even though they are a small, new company, if they keep their good work, I'm sure they will be one of the major income sources for bloggers.
Of course, there is some area to improve too. The thing that confused me is their Smorty scoring system. I've got 500 score when I first join. After I've completed my first job, my score jumps to 505. But a week later, my score drop to 500. And then, it drops again without any explanation. I'm sure this problem will be resolved by Smorty soon.
Overall, I highly recommend you to sign up for Smorty if you blog for money or you're looking for extra income source for your blog. There are many get paid for blogging programs out there, but I haven't seen any service that reacts as fast as Smorty in approving the posts and paying the money. I'm sure you'll enjoy Smorty as they treat bloggers and advertisers exceptionally well.
We all love Firefox and most of us are using Firefox. The reason I love most is because of Adblockplus plugin. I have got many websites that I want to make my homepage. One of my workmate teaches me how to do it.
It's very easy.
Go to Tools-->>Options-->>Main Type all the web addresses you want separated by | For example : www.google.com|www.bridgetonova.com|www.yahoo.com
Every time I start Firefox, it open three tabs automatically with three of my favorite web sites open. I love Firefox.
Have you ever wonder when is Google birthday? It's somewhere around in September. Here is the official explanation.
Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake.
While we are waiting for Google celebration of their 9th birthday, you can enjoy Google Corporation history. It's really interesting.
Last month I posted about how to avoid spammer by using 10minute mail. Even though 10minute mail service is great, some websites already start blocking their addresses.
So, here are my favourite one time email services. They are really helpful if you want to sign up for stranger websites.
Getonemail : This service is very similar to 10minute mail and no one can accidentally get your email as it randomly assign from server.
Mailinator : You can use autogenerated address and record it, use whenever you need again. The cons is that whoever know that email address can access your mailbox too.
All the webmasters need traffic first. In the hope of finding so-called magic formula, we should focus on the quality content first. Cow have got great articles about how A-listers' bloggers are guilty. Check it out!
Here is my compilation of all the Google search tips everyone should know about.
Search within a range : You can search in Google within a desired range. You need to type in the range as separated by “..” but make sure you specify the unit as well. For example: LCD 21..32 inches
Synonym Search with "~"(Tilde) sign : If in case you want to search for the term as well as it’s synonym, then just add the “~” sign in front of your search term, you will see the links for the same terms synonym. For example: ~fun~image would return fun image as well as joke image, humor image, joke pic, etc.
Omit certain word with "-"(minus) sign : If you want to omit certain word, you can add the "-" sign in front of your search term. For example: if you search bill microsoft, you'll get all the results relating to Bill Gates and Microsoft, but if you search bill -gate microsoft, you'll get the real bill about microsoft.
Definition search : You can use "define:" to search definition of a word. For example:if you search define:lcd, you will get definition of lcd all over the net, it's more complete than Answers or Wiki.
Use of "?"(question mark) sign : If you are uncertain about the spelling of the word or you want all possible words, you can use the "?" sign. For example: if you search sun?day, you can get results such as sun earth day, or the word sun-day.
Use of "*"(asterisk) sign : Not sure about how it's different with "?" sign. But you can try the example and you'll understand. For example: if you search friend*, you will get words like friends, friend to friend, friend society. Compare the result with ordinary friend search, you'll know how to use "*"
Search for exact phrase with quotation mark "": If you want Google to search all the words you type, use quotation marks. This feature is available in Advance search feature too. For example: if you search "just like that" with quotation, you will get results containing exact phrase "just like that"
These tips are worth knowing and you should try all of them, they'll be useful for you one way or another. As Google is always tweaking their search engine and algorithm, I'm sure there'll be more interesting tips always.
If you're planning to build online store or are looking for Shopping cart software, I would like to introduce you Ashop Commerce ecommerce software.
To get it setup for Ashop Commerce shopping cart software, you don't need any knowledge of HTML, graphic design or programming skills. They have already provided you with super-easy setup tool.
By using that shopping cart, accepting credit cards couldn't be easier. Ooh, they also integrate Google Checkout feature. Their pricing plan vary from $39.95/mo to $189.95/mo depending on the disk space and number of products your store would handle. They also provide a lot of add-ons feature to add with additional fees if you need. Before you commit yourself, you can try their 10 day free trial first.
My personal advice to you is that if you're doing real business online, you should well spend your budget on shopping cart software and let the expert handle it for you as they are also the winner of Best Technology in Small Business award 2006.
