Archive for August, 2009

Rule No.1 of Flash Banner Design

I saw this flash banner few times but never really seen the end part. Whenever it came up I thought, well those Mudah.my guys are really advertising a lot! In fact, Mudah is really the biggest advertiser of Google AdSense in the region. So I thought it was their banner.

myclassifieds myclassifieds
myclassifieds myclassifieds

The thing is I never saw the end frame until today! They are not Mudah, but MySimplifieds.com (see below) Continue reading →

online backup tools

net.tuts has a great roundup of 10 online data backup tools here.

WordPress as Invoice Management System & Auction Site – Part7

This is a continuation of series on “Different Uses of WordPress”. Previously I have covered:

In this post we will be looking at two more uses of WordPress.

WordPress as Invoice Management System

    WP Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to your clients through your blog’s Admin Panel. The plugin ties into WP’s user management database to keep track of your clients and their information.
    .
    wp_invoice.png

    Credit card payments may be accepted via Authorize.net, MerchantPlus’ NaviGate, or PayPal. For recurring billing the plugin uses Authorize.net’s ARB API that will allow you to setup payment schedules along with invoices.

    Price: Free
    URL: http://twincitiestech.com/services/wp-invoice/

WordPress as Auction Sitewp auctions

    WP Auctions WP Auctions is a WordPress plugin which enables you to host auctions on your blog.

    Plugin Features:

    • Place auctions in a post or page
    • Auctions for registered users only
    • Accept PayPal, wire transfers or checks
    • Create and manage as many auctions as you like
    • Upload multiple images for each auction
    • Sell items on ‘Buy It Now’ basis
    • Show 3rd party ads when there are no auctions
    • Compatible with Google Adsense and any other CPC program.
    • RSS feed for your auctions, and many more features…

    Unfortunately it’s not a free plugin, it costs $39.99.

    Price: $39.99
    URL: http://www.wpauctions.com

Free eBook from DailyBlogTips

make_money_blogging_scocco.pngDaniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips.com released his free ebook on Make Money Blogging topic. I just downloaded it and skimmed through the contents of the book. It’s a great book with no nonsense content, Daniel discusses things as he always does, right to the point. (hate those people who just write nonsense so that the ebook has more pages)

It’s a good ebook for ‘to-be-bloggers’, but for those of you seasoned bloggers, I don’t think you will find something new. It’s also not only talking about ‘making money’ per se, title might be misleading in that sense, it’s more about blogging, namely; starting a blog, avoiding mistakes, choosing a niche, frequency of blog posts, making money etc. So making money is just one portion of the ebook.

Contest: Win one of 2 Laptops

With launching of his ebook, he is also organizing a contest giving away two Acer notebooks. Entering to the contest is easy. 1) Just tweet about it – this gets you 1 entry. 2) Review the ebook (like me :) – and this will get you 5 more entries. Contest closes on Monday 31st August.

Details: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/make-money-blogging/

Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress

wapple_plugin.pngHere is a new, another WP plugin that will turn your blog into a mobile friendly blog for all handheld devices. It’s a new plugin that was launched just two months back by Rich Gubby.

I had disabled my previous mobile plugin because it was giving me errors after using it for some time. Maybe I will give this plugin a try.

There are few reasons why this relatively new plugin is better than the other plugins that are in the market. In their own words…

  • Other mobile plugins for WordPress use a default mobile style which results in an inconsistent experience for your users, Wapple Architect Mobile plugin for WordPress retains the styling of your site from web to mobile.
  • There’s no redirection to a mobile version of the blog – URLs are exactly the same on web and mobile giving you the ability to promote and use one single domain!
  • No transcoding happens here – the mobile version is written in WAPL (an advanced mobile markup language) that results in a completely tailored solution perfect for your mobile visitors.
  • Other plugins try to replicate every single feature and plugin you’ve installed onto the mobile version. We know what mobile users want and have written this plugin with that in mind – the result is a far better user experience.

If you like it, give it a try.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/

Transfer your blogspot blog and get free domain name

wordpress hosting wpWPWebHost specializes in wordperss blog hosting. Currently they are offering free domain name for all bloggers who transfer their .blogspot,com based blogs to them.

Their starter plan starts from $6.67/month when you order for 1 year, or $5/month if you order for 2 years. Even if you have a high traffic blog, their 500GBs of monthly bandwidth should be enough for 99.99% of the bloggers.

Website: WPWebHost.com

Change Detection in Websites

ChangeDetection is a great tool that I have been using lately. As the name suggests it’s a free service for website (or page) change monitoring, whenever the change occurs it will notify you via email.

changedetection.png

You can specify the type of changes in the preferences; whether it’s a sizable change or when the text is removed from the page or when the page is updated with new content etc.

When it’s useful? It’s useful for keeping track of newly launched sites, for example when the site is up but you see a sign saying “we are in private beta now, come back later” etc. type of websites. Or websites that do not have RSS or other types of communication tools that can notify you of the new updates. Or just to keep track of your own websites… for example when it gets defaced :) sure it will notify you when your site is hacked and the content is changed. But let’s hope that you won’t receive such a notification, ever.

Website: http://www.changedetection.com

su.pr

stumbleupon launched their own url shortening service called su.pr. they say it’s the only service that can help to drive traffic to your site. wordpress plugin here.

Ninja Affiliate WP Plugin ($30 Off)

Pawan the creator of popular Ninja Affiliate WP Plugin has informed me that he will be offering $30 discount on the plugin until this friday (that’s three more days).

ninja affiliate $30 off

Ninja Affiliate is a plugin that can simplify the process of linking certain words in your blog post to your affiliate links. To know more about the plugin read this post of mine that i wrote last year.

Last year when I was conducting free giveaway contest for this plugin, Pawan was nice enough to give me free copy. Since then I fell in love with this plugin and would say it totally worth the money (now for $67 only).

Plugin Site: http://www.mbpninjaaffiliate.com

Apple Products that failed

apple_disasters.pngIt seems that every product that Steve Jobs touches turns to gold right? iMacs, Macbooks, iPods, now iPhones… the guy is a genius!

But it seems not “every” product. Here is a list of 10 products by Apple that for one reason or another failed.

What this tells us? It tells that as a person and entrepreneur you should never stop growing, learning, launching new products and projects. Don’t be discouraged by the first fail, instead learn from it and do something new, better! Learn from Steve Jobs, have 10 failed products but have 5 killer ones.

Man… i have to do a new software, I am stuck with one Color Picker for how many years?! :)

P.S How many projects you have done and how many had failed?

How is your media diet looks like?

According to research by Ball State University’s Center for Media Design, average American spends around 8.5 hours a day staring at the screen – be it iPhone, TV, Monitor, GPS…etc.

Based on this research Wired released a so called timetable for healthy media diet (see below). Basically you start of with 9 hours and supposed to divide your time accordingly between different media.

media_diet.jpg

Does your media diet looks like above? Balanced? Mine not so much, I am like stuck on the second and half of third level for all the 9 hours ;)

Source: Wired

WordPress: Displaying Related Posts Without Plugin

When I was installing my related posts plugin I remember it was quite difficult to do it, since you had to tweak here and there. But now it’s possible to display related posts without any plugin. Just add the code into your theme (index.php or single.php) and you are done.

You can display related posts based on two selections: by tags or category.

Related posts based on Tags

The code below once added at the end of your post will display 5 Related Posts based on the similar tags.

<?php
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
if ($tags) {
$tag_ids = array();
foreach($tags as $individual_tag) $tag_ids[] = $individual_tag->term_id;

$args=array(
‘tag__in’ => $tag_ids,
‘post__not_in’ => array($post->ID),
‘showposts’=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
‘caller_get_posts’=>1
);
$my_query = new wp_query($args);
if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
echo ‘<h3>Related Posts</h3><ul>’;
while ($my_query->have_posts()) {
$my_query->the_post();
?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php
}
echo ‘</ul>’;
}
}
?>

Related Posts Based on Category

And the following code will display related posts based on the category i.e from the same category. Continue reading →