New iPod Touch Nearly 50 Percent Faster Than The Old Model

This article explains why getting an iPod Touch is a good idea. The latest versions are about 50% faster than their predecessors.

New iPod Touch Nearly 50 Percent Faster Than The Old Model

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Post Summaries on Blogger With Read More

Here is a great little gadget for Blogger allowing for posts to be summarized on the main page. Why is this worth using? You don't have to change your template in Blogger, just use a tag!

Post Summaries on Blogger With Read More

Facebook Features Right From Browser

Here is a toolbar that is intended to give you all your tools in Facebook on your browser toolbar!!!



Source

Pay Pal Donation Widget- Updated

Well, I managed to add a Donation request for a PS3 on this blog as a test on the information I placed a couple of days ago. Let's see how this goes. Original article can be read here

If you like this blog,help me to buy a PS3!

Geek Chart - Your Geek Chart

I found a great tool that generates a pie chart based on your activity over the past 30 days on various websites.




Mmcelhaney's Geek Chart


Geek Chart - Your Geek Chart

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Blogger's Buy me a Beer - Paypal donation

Ever wanted to put a widget on your blog so that people can donate directly into your pay pal account? Here is how you do it. I'm thinking that I will test this one out by making me a "Buy Me a PS3" widget soon for the side bar of this blog. Let's see how this works.

Adding Google sitemap to blogger.com blog account

I just found a great article on how to add a Site Map to
Google for a blog hosted at Blogspot. Read the following link from Wikipedia to understand why you would want do this. And here is a the link for how you would do this: Adding Google sitemap to blogger.com blog account

Tag Cloud Generator

I've been researching tag generators. I have found several websites where you just have to put your website in it and you will get HTML generating your own tag cloud.

Tag Cloud Generator
Make Cloud
Blogger Feed uRL

Individual post visitor counter with Google Analytics ~ Blogger Tips and Tricks

Although there is not an easy way to get the number of views on individual posts in blogger there is a way to get an idea of how many visits there are per post using Google Analytics! Trust me, I'm going to be using this little hack.


Individual post visitor counter with Google Analytics ~ Blogger Tips and Tricks

Blogger Releases the new version of the Label Widget

Blogger has released a new label gadget. Use it either in cloud or list form. source

Commenter Widget

Here is a great widget I found from WidgetForFree. It is easily installed in Blogger and list the top commenters out of the last 100 comments. Who has commented the most? This is how you find out.

Further info and Installation

Blogumus - Animated Tag Cloud

Image via Wikipedia

Use this article to make a tag cloud. Blogumus

See the example in the side bar. It's easy to use but before you do you should make sure that you simplify your labels and make sure they don't have special characters

How to Change the Favicon in Blogger

I came across this great article on how to change the FavIcon in the addressbars of browser. This is a nice little tactic.

How to Change the Favicon in Blogger

The Ironman Widget

Issuu Now With Better API

We have a good news. We can do more with Issuu. Here is an article talking about the new features..


Issuu Now With Better API’s

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Creating Free Flash Websites

I have heard about a service that allows you to build flash websites and widgets for free. You just go to Wix.com and it allows you to pull almost any popular flash trick you have seen using drag and drop technique. It makes it really simple! Here is an example:



Free website - Wix.com

Adding Polls to Web Site/Blog

I have found 2 ways to put polls in your blogger post. Most tools allow you to put polls into the side bar of your site, but if you want to put it in your post you have to go through a little work.

1. Method One -
I like this method just fine. You just use the widget for installing a poll into the blog and then copy and past the HTML for generating into the post that you want.

2. Use a service like PollDaddy. You get a free account, design the poll, and then get the code to make the poll as a flash object. Then you can paste it where you want it. This my preferred method!

Tweetstream

Here is a cool tool that allows users to add near real-time twitter stream to any website or blog. You can get it at TweetSteam.

Tweet-A-File

I've just come across another Twitter tool designed to allow users to share files with one another. This one is pretty cool. Just login using your twitter account, browse for the file on your computer you want to send, and then send it. The homepage is at Tweetafile.

Addendum to Summarizing Blog Posts

As I mentioned in the previous post there is a way to automatically summarize your blog posts with thumbnails. However I found the problem that when you go to the full post, you can't return back to the listing without hitting the "back" button on your browser. So I added a code to add a link to allow the user to return to the main pages. Add the following to the next line after the the steps proscribed.

<p><a href="[URL]">Return to main page</a></p>

Summarizing Posts on a Landing Page

I have looked at some ways of trying to change my blog to make it more user-friendly. One suggestion made by friend Mariano suggested that I add the function of summarizing my blog posts on the main page and giving the reader the option of reading further. The idea is to make the blogs load faster and make it more easier to use.

Mariano suggested a method where each post is summarized in the HTML using small changes in the blog's template and in the post itself. This method is great because it give you so much control over what the post looks like when the blog loads. The problem is that in order to take advantage all older posts will have to be augmented but every new post will have the structure in place and I am too lazy to add the HTML to the older posts because I have blogs containing more than 500 posts. Here is the code on how to make it happen from Mariano himself and you can visit Mariano's blog, Atheism is Dead, to see it in action.



I have found another alternate method to do something similar. I like this method a little better because it automatically summarizes the posts and puts a thumbnail of the first image in the post in the summary. In order to pull it off, you just need to follow the steps in the following website: Automatic Post Summaries for Blogger with Thumbnails. You have control over how many words are in the summary as well as quite a few other things.

Scientific Calculators

Image by D-Kav via Flickr

I'm an engineer and sometimes mathematical calculation show up on my blog. In order to make it easier to do the math and for my blog readers to check the calculations themselves I looked for calculator gadget solutions. I have found two options that I like.

Maths-Whizz Scientific Calculator
This one is great for a blog or website and completely free. It has all the functions and features I crave. Had I had it college, I would have needed no other calculator. As for some of the pre-built features that other calculators have like converting units of measure, I don't need those. I'd rather convert them myself.

eCalc
This one I liked too, but it seems to be best for a desktop uses. The other things is that it's not free - $15. Good freeware, however.

True Twit for Twitter

Get tired of spam tweets? How do you know if the person you are considering to follow isn't a script "bot" but a real person? I just found out about a service called True Twit that is a third party verifier. It a twitter user can respond to the service the person is added to your followed list otherwise the tweeter is ignored.

Zemanta - Blog publishing Tool

Image via CrunchBase

I just found out about a free browser add-one that works a little like Apture but offers different things. It's called Zemanta. One of the features I like most is that it can add a "re-blog" button to your post. Readers can select a portion of the post they like and easily re-post it on their own blog. It also helps in choosing tags, collecting images and videos, and collecting relevant links. You can download it and find out more information at the following link.

Zemanta TypePad from zemanta on Vimeo.

It's different from Apture in that the tool is part of the browser and not part of your blog.

Twit This

I just saw a tool I liked for twittering blog posts called Twit This. It is used to easily tweet a post with the press of the a button. What's different is that you can select a word or phrase that answers the Twitter question "What are you doing?" with your link in your post to the Twitter stream. It's pretty cool. If you want to use it follow the following link: http://twitthis.com/tools and Cranial Soup.

Recent Posts Widget for Blogger with Thumbnails and much more..

I just found ot about a great little gadget that lists the latest posts of your blog. apparently, you can put it anywhere that accepts HTNL. It's pretty Cool. Get it here and see it in action in the left side bar.

Automating Excel from VB.Net - Link to Excel Lost

I've been maintaining some software of years that i wrote that compares inventory data with GIS data. It uses some of Excel's spreadsheet function to pull this off. I use Excel's object library to get the effect. It's worked great until recently and ironically the problem shows up most consistently on the fastest computer I've ever used at work up until now. In the middle of processing, I've been getting an error message that says that the "link to the spreadsheet has been lost" and then the program crashes. For days I could not find the problem. But then when I stepped through through the VB.Net code stey-by-step the program worked then I realized it was because I allowing the steps in Excel to finish before the rest tof the program continued. It turns out that because my program and Excel are being processed in different threads, the Excel thread could be lagging behind my code. I have had to put code into a function in VB that tells the processor to pause for a certain number of milliseconds. 1000 milliseconds is 1 second. Therefore

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000)

makes the program pause for 10 seconds which would give the excel thread 10 more seconds to complete what it is doing. It's my theory.

Tweeting Music via Blip.fm

I was watching Attack of the Show and they spotlighted a tool that allows you send tweets with embedded music links. The service is called Blip.fm and you can also take advantage of several other great social networking tools and services.

Homepage

Get Paid For Clicking Ads

If you want to get paid by viewing ads and not having to pay anything I think I have found the perfect opportunity. I got a link from Twitter and it does not require doing anymore than referring it to other people and looking at advertisement while you are surfing the internet. I've looked into it and its easy. Download a toolbar and use it to search the internet. Click on the "Ads" button and a list of ads based on the page you are on pops up in a side bar. Click on any that interest you, and you can see the amount of money you earn increase. The downside is that you are going to have to see many, many ads before you make anything substantial. At least it is free. As Kevin from Attack of the Show signs off his minute-long segments on free games: "What do you want for nothin?'"

If you are interested, follow the following link, register, and get clicking.
Get the Bar

Publishing Links

If you have used Twitter or Facebook then you know that sometimes you want to post a link to website but many urls are long and hard to use and in twitter it can really eat up your 140 characters. I mean you could use TweetDeck or some other third party tool to shorten your URL to something more manageable. I found this online tool called bit.ly and it will shorten any URL you put into it and also allows you to tweet the link in twitter, and even tracks the number of times someone clicks on the link.

bit.ly