There was a time when web pages had to be written specially for mobile devices and most devices available in the market just couldn’t display regular web sites designed using HTML.

The Safari browser on the iPhone and iPod touch devices is responsible for more than half of the world’s mobile Internet usage and it doesn’t look like that uptrend is going to change soon. The reason behind this popularity is that, unlike other smart phone browsers, mobile Safari can display regular webpages as well as desktop based web browsers.

But, while the iPhone and iPod touch browsers display almost all websites perfectly, using a mobile specific theme you can offer a lot of advantages to your visitors.

For one, the mobile optimized pages will load a lot faster. The fonts will be optimized for reading on a device with a small screen and last but not the least, the user won’t have to scroll and zoom just to read the content.

But, if you’re worried that you’ll have to do a complete rewrite of your blog’s theme to make a mobile optimized version, don’t worry, WPtouch is here to your rescue.

WPtouch is a wordpress plugin that completely changes the way your blog looks on a mobile device like the iPhone, iPod touch or the Android. In that sense, it acts more like a theme for your blog rather than a plugin.

If you’re using wordpress version 2.8 or above, the easiest method to install WPtouch is to login to the admin panel and click on the “Add New” link under Plugins.

Search for the term WPtouch and when the WPtouch plugin shows up in the search results, click on the Install link to install it automatically.

Once the installation is completed, you can activate the plugin by clicking on the Activate link on the same page.

The plugin will now be installed and activated, ready to start serving a mobile version of your blog to your iPhone totting visitors.

If you want, you can just leave it at that and WPtouch will happily keep serving your visitors as long as you want, but if you’re like me and like to customize each and every part of your blog, I’d suggest that you give the Settings pane a look and customize certain aspects of WPtouch to better match your blog.

Click on the WPtouch link under Settings.

This is where you can change the theme’s style, colors and the icons used. When you’re happy with your custom changes, click the Save Options button.

If you use the WP Super Cache plugin on your blog, like I do, then you need to make some more changes to the your setup.

Click on the WP Super Cache link under Settings and check the tick box that says “Mobile Device Support” and click the Update Status button.

Scroll a little further down the page and you’ll find the Rejected User Agents text box. You need to add the following user agents to the list that is already there.

• phone
• ipod
• android
• dream
• cupcake
• webos
• incognito
• webmate
• opera mini
• blackberry9530
• blackberry9500

Save the list.

That’s it. You can now happily declare your blog as the most mobile friendly blog in the neighborhood.

Make Your WordPress Blog iPhone Compatible Using WPtouch originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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2. [Hacking WordPress]: How To Clone And Migrate Your WordPress Blog To New Server
3. How to Create a Multi-national Blog Without Being a Language Expert
4. How To Create A ‘Maintenance’ Holding Page When Upgrading Your WordPress Blog
5. 10 Great WordPress Plugins That Turn Your Blog Into A CMS

1. Database settings

define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere');
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

This is the first thing that you need to configure in order for WordPress to work. In most cases, you only need to change the database name, username and password. For the DB_HOST, ‘localhost’ should work most of the times. If not, ask your server administrator for details.

2. Changing the database charset value

define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');

You won’t have to change this value 99% of the time. Change this only if you are very sure that your database is using a different charset.

3. Changing the database character set sort order

define('DB_COLLATE', '');

Once again, change this only if you know what you are doing. If not, leaving it blank is the best option.

4. Authentication keys

define('AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here');

The authentication keys are used to insure better encryption of information stored in the user’s cookies. Go to https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ to generate a new set of keys and copy/paste them into your wp-config.php file.

If you are using WPMU, you will see three extra sets of authentication keys:

define('AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here');

5. Table prefix

$table_prefix = 'wp_';

This $table_prefix settings allow you to change the default wp_ prefix before your WordPress installation.

Note: If your existing database is already using the default wp_ prefix, changing this value will not change the database value, and it will also cause your site to break. To change your existing table prefix, refer to this tutorial.

6. Language and Language Directory

define('WPLANG', 'de_DE');
define('LANGDIR', 'mylanguagedirectory');

If you are using a language translation file for your blog, this is where you define the language that you are using and the location of the translation (.mo) files.

Defining of LANGDIR is optional. If it is not specified, WordPress will first look up the wp-content/languages folder, follow by wp-includes/languages for the .mo file.

7. Defining the Home and site url

define('WP_SITEURL','http://your-site-url.com');
define('WP_HOME','http://your-site-url.com');

The SITEURL refers to the actual installation path of WordPress (the file path where the wordpress files are located) while the HOME refers to the URL that you want your visitor to access. There are several uses for this

1. For security measure. Install your wordpress in subfolder and have your visitors access them from the root directory
2. Migrating to new URl. When you are moving to a new URL, you can easily restore your database by pointing the WP_SITEURL and WP_HOME to the new URL. No editing of the database is required.

8. Revision count

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', FALSE);
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

Change the number of post revisions for WordPress to record. Giving it a value of FALSE (without the quote) will turn post revisions off.

9. Modify AutoSave Interval

define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 160 );

When editing a post, WordPress uses Ajax to auto-save revisions to the post as you edit. You may want to increase this setting for longer delays in between auto-saves, or decrease the setting to make sure you never lose changes. The default is 60 seconds.

10. Define new wp-content location

define( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR', $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/blog/wp-content' );
define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://example/blog/wp-content');
define( 'WP_PLUGIN_DIR', $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/blog/wp-content/plugins' );
define( 'WP_PLUGIN_URL', 'http://example/blog/wp-content/plugins');

Since WP2.6, you are allowed to move the wp-content folder to other destination and still get it working. You just need to specify the filepath of the new location in the wp-config file.

11. Access external configuration files

require_once(‘FilePathToConfigurationFiles’);

For developer, if you need to access external configuration file from within WordPress, the place to define it will be within the wp-config.php. This is useful when integrating another software with WordPress. For example, to integrate bbpress with WordPress, add the following

require_once(‘filepathtoforums/bb-load.php');

to access to the bbpress functions in WordPress.

12. Managing your cookies

define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', '.yoursite.com');
define('COOKIEPATH', preg_replace('|https?://[^/]+|i', '', get_option('home') . '/' ) );
define('SITECOOKIEPATH', preg_replace('|https?://[^/]+|i', '', get_option('siteurl') . '/' ) );
define( 'ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH', SITECOOKIEPATH . 'wp-admin' );
define( 'PLUGINS_COOKIE_PATH', preg_replace('|https?://[^/]+|i', '', WP_PLUGIN_URL)  );

The cookie definition is meant for sites with unusual domain setup. If you are using sub-domains to serve static content, you won’t want WordPress to track the cookies for the static sites. Simply define the COOKIE_DOMAIN option to limit the domain tracked by the cookie.

13. Debug

define('WP_DEBUG', true);

The WP_DEBUG option is especially useful when you are developing a WP site. It allows you to see what went wrong in the code. In actual production site, this option should be turned off (FALSE) as it can affect the performance of the site.

Additionally, if you are planning on modifying some of WordPress’ built-in JavaScript, you can enable the following option:

define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true);

This will allow you to edit the scriptname.dev.js files in the wp-includes/js and wp-admin/js directories.

14. Configure Error Log

@ini_set('log_errors','On');
@ini_set('display_errors','Off');
@ini_set('error_log','/home/example.com/logs/php_error.log');

This option allows you to turn on php error_logging and logs them to a specific file. This is especially useful for those who have no access to the php.ini file.

15. Increasing memory allocated to PHP

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

Specify the maximum amount of memory that can be consumed by PHP. This setting may be necessary in the event you receive a message such as “Allowed memory size of xxxxxx bytes exhausted”.

16. Cache

define('WP_CACHE', true);

Activate the WP_CACHE for better site performance.

17. Custom User and Usermeta Tables

define('CUSTOM_USER_TABLE', $table_prefix.'my_users');
define('CUSTOM_USER_META_TABLE', $table_prefix.'my_usermeta');

Save the user data to other table instead of the default wp_users.

18. Save queries for analysis

define('SAVEQUERIES', true);

The SAVEQUERIES option allows you to see all the queries made to the database. You can then analyze those queries and see the function that called it, and how long that query took to execute.

NOTE: This will have a performance impact on your site, so make sure to turn this off when you aren’t debugging.

To view the queries, place the following code in the footer of your theme:

<?php
if (current_user_can(’level_10′)){
global $wpdb;
echo “<pre>”;
print_r($wpdb->queries);
echo “</pre>”;
}
?>

The code above uses the level_10 capability so only the administrator will see the query results.

19. Override of default file permissions

define('FS_CHMOD_DIR', (0755 & ~ umask()));
define('FS_CHMOD_FILE', (0644 & ~ umask()));

The above two options allow you to override the default file permissions. You won’t have to define this in most cases. However if your webhost uses restrictive permissions for all user files, then this is the way to go around it.

20. FTP/SSH Constants

define('FS_METHOD', 'ftpext');
define('FTP_BASE', '/path/to/wordpress/');
define('FTP_CONTENT_DIR', '/path/to/wordpress/wp-content/');
define('FTP_PLUGIN_DIR ', '/path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/');
define('FTP_PUBKEY', '/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa.pub');
define('FTP_PRIKEY', '/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa');
define('FTP_USER', 'username');
define('FTP_PASS', 'password');
define('FTP_HOST', 'ftp.example.org:21');

WordPress allows you to upgrade the core version and plugins from within the backend. However, some of you might not be able to enjoy the benefits due to the FTP connection issue. Simply update your wp-config file with the necessary FTP credential and your WP upgrade function should work fine.

21. Control Proxy Access

define('WP_HTTP_BLOCK_EXTERNAL', false);
define('WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS', 'api.wordpress.org');

The above options allow you to access external hosts from your domain. This is useful if you are in a restrictive environment (such as your comapny’s intranet) and you need to access an external host.

Protecting wp-config file

With so many information in the wp-config.php file, the last thing that you want is for hacker to see your wp-config file and gain access to your database.

Add the following code to your .htaccess file to prevent hackers from accessing your wp-config file.

# protect wpconfig.php
<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

Did I miss out any tricks? Leave it in the comments

Useful WordPress wp-config Tricks That You May Not Know originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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1. 4 Hidden WordPress Features That Are unknown to Many
2. [Hacking WordPress]: How To Clone And Migrate Your WordPress Blog To New Server
3. 8 Useful Tricks To Clean Up & Streamline Your Wordpress Database
4. The Safe Way to Change your WordPress Database Table Prefix
5. 7 Simple WordPress Tricks That You Thought You Know

Like many other types of social sites, these document sharing sites have the same basic idea to them; post all of your documents and presentations for all to see. Large companies like Ford use these sites to share fact sheets and marketing PDFs. They can be a really great place to research a topic or get ideas for a project you you may be stuck on.

Some of the sites offer the option to buy documents such as contracts, invoices and even ebooks. I noticed, while perusing through some of the sites, quite a few publishers and online magazines have accounts.

1. Doc Share

Doc Share offers a great variety of documents to view and download. Four categories (Business and Legal, eBooks, Essays or Guides and Instructions) make finding the type of document you are looking for easier, While these categories are fairly broad, they do help narrow your search.

The Social Part

You can give “kudos” up or down similar to Reddit or Stumbleupon. Of the three, Doc Share seems a little more laid back. When I went to the site for the first time, one of the recently added documents on the homepage was song lyrics and another was celebrity mug shots. The layout is a bit bland too.

2. Doc Stoc

Doc Stoc has millions of documents, both pay and free, in an easy to use layout. The layout is a little more categorized than others making it much easier to sift through the myriad of shared documents. (*note – while writing this post, I found A LOT of spam documents on this site. They were really easy to spot though.)

The Social Part

If you find something you like, you can save it to a folder. These don’t need to be files you have uploaded, anything on the site can saved. What I have used this particular site for in the past is finding great templates or inspirational presentations.

Of the three, this seems to be the least social on-site. It has basic sharing options like a Twitter button and you can embed a document into your site. To me, this one feels more like going to the library versus a Barnes and Noble or used bookstore.

3. Scribd

Scribd seems to be the most hip site of the three. They overhauled the site this past summer and added all kinds of features. Simple things like signing in with your Facebook info or Open ID show these guys are a bit more in-tune with whats going on.

There are plenty of categories to help narrow your searches. In addition to categories, the community tab lets you search for popular people you may want to follow.

The Social Part

This is the most social of the three. Scribd lets subscribe to other peoples feeds. You can update your on-site status with what you are reading by pasting a link to the document you are reading or publishing. This update is called a “Scribble”.

If you come across a presentation you want your Facebook or Twitter followers to know about, you have the buttons share. Others are also available along with the the code to embed it into your site.

How do social document site help you share your documents with your other communities?

image credit: Saxoji

3 Sites to Easily Share Your Documents With Others originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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Lunascape is the first multilingual, triple engine browser developed in Japan. It combines the four main web browsers – Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, and Safari. This mean that it supports the three layout engines, or rendering engines, that are used to create the four browsers listed above: Trident (Internet Explorer), Gecko (FireFox), and WebKit (Chrome/Safari). Currently, it only works on Windows.

One thing that I really liked about the browser is how customizable it is. When installing it, I am able to choose the default layout engine, or rendering engine that I want to use.

This doesn’t mean that I can’t quickly change to the other engines. In the lower-left hand corner, there is a globe icon that allows me to change the browser for that web page I am viewing.

You can even associate a web page with a specific layout engine, even if it’s not the default. This is especially useful when you need to test a web site/blog on various browsers.

You can even use Lunascape as a portable browser instead of having it installed on your system.

Lunascape allows you to import bookmarks from Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and various others. I found it a little strange that it didn’t allow you to import bookmarks from Safari or Chrome, since Webkit is one of the inbuilt layout engines.

Lunascape comes preset with four different skins – Default, Cool, Silver, and Simple. They are equivalent to the four browsers that Lunascape has. If you don’t like any of those, you can change the web skin to the 190 different web skins that were created by users. Users can also create their own skin and upload it into the skin library that Lunascape has online. There are some great skins in the library, so don’t forget to check it out.

The plugin library is not as vast. There is only one plugin available: Twitter plugin. This allows you to have the Twitter tool in the Lunascape browser. There should be more plugins available, or allow users to use the plugins from the other browsers. Looking in the Lunascape forum, it seems that users will have the capability of using Internet Explorer and FireFox plugins in Lunascape in the next release (currently in beta). Additionally, users are also able to register add-ons that they created for the browser.

Lunascape has a great built-in RSS Reader that allows you to add a single RSS feed or import an OPML file.

There is also a RSS Ticker that scrolls at the top of the browser with your RSS feeds.

It doesn’t seem that the RSS Reader and the RSS Ticker are associated with one another, which is a bad flaw. The best way to handle this is to allow you to pick and choose which feeds in your RSS Reader you want to be in the RSS Ticker. This will eliminate the redundancy of having to add an RSS feed to two different places, and not be overwhelmed with too many items scrolling at the top of the browser. A good thing is, the RSS settings are easily customizable and allows for the ease of subscribing to RSS podcasts.

In Lunscape, you are able to search different search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Ask, Technorati, Ebay, and Amazon. This is great because you don’t need to have more than one toolbar to search the different search engines.

Lunascape has various bookmarklet that have been taken from the three layout engines that you are able to use and customize to the way you want. They are sectioned off by Trident, Gecko, and Webkit, so you know where the bookmarklet came from. It gives you the capability of customizing the browser even more than you already can.

Overall, I have to say that Lunascape is a browser that web developers should use. There are a couple of issues with the browser, but nothing that takes away its customizability and usefulness.

Lunascape

Lunascape – The World’s First Triple Engine Browser originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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For all it’s simplicity, a lot of people still shy away from using Wordpress because installing and maintaining it requires a certain level of technical knowhow. Specifically, the knowledge of installing and managing a PHP/MySQL stack and dealing with all the problems that can happen with a botched Wordpress installation.

So, without further ado, we’ve written this post that’ll not only teach you how to install a complete PHP/MySQL stack on your Mac but also teach you to install and configure a fully functional Wordpress install, all without leaving the comforts of your own computer.

MAMP, which stands for Mac-Apache-MySQL-PHP and is an all-in-one solution for people who do not want the hasle of installing and configuring the individual components on their system.

Follow the download link on the MAMP site to get hold of the latest DMG image and double click the image to mount it in the Finder. The download is a bit heavy at about 170 MB but it will be totally worth it … trust me.

One of the best things about OS X is the ease with which software can be installed. To install MAMP in your system just drag the MAMP icon to the Applications folder.

Double click the MAMP icon to launch control panel.

MAMP will automatically start the Apache web server and the MySQL database server and also launch an instance of your default browser to tell you that everything is working fine.

Keep this window open – We’ll need it in a while.

MAMP also bundles a version of phpMyAdmin along with the complete PHP/MySQL stack.

phpMyAdmin is a web based software to manage MySQL databases and we’ll use that to create a database for our Wordpress install.

Click on the phpMyAdmin link in the browser, and when it loads up in your browser, give a name for the new database and press the Create button.

That was probably the easiest MySQL install I’ve ever done.

Now that we have all the infrastructure in place for Wordpress, head over to the Wordpress website and download the latest version of the software.

Unzip the file that you just downloaded into the htdocs folder inside the MAMP folder – /Applications/MAMP/htdocs.

You should now see a wordpress folder inside htdocs. Browse to this folder and open the file named wp-config-sample.php using a text editor.

In this file, find the lines which say:

‘DB_NAME’ – replace ‘putyourdbnamehere’ with ‘the name of the database that you created’
‘DB_USER’ – replace ‘usernamehere’ with ‘root’
‘DB_PASSWORD’ – replace ‘yourpasswordhere’ with ‘root’

Save the file and rename it to ‘wp-config.php’ from ‘wp-config-sample.php’.

Now, open this address in your browser – http://localhost:8888/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php.

Follow the wizard and at the end of it, use the temporary password that the wizard created for you to login to your shiny new Wordpress Install. That’s it ! You now have a fully functional Wordpress install on your computer to play with all the themes and plugins that you want.

How to Install and Test Wordpress on Your Mac originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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2. How To Easily Reset Your WordPress Password via phpMyAdmin
3. The Safe Way to Change your WordPress Database Table Prefix
4. 11 Ways To Secure Your WordPress Blog
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If you want to check your Google analytics data from desktop, then here is a very good Adobe Air app called Trakkboard. It let’s you check Google analytics data of different website accounts from your desktop. You do not have to keep your browser open all the time and be logged in at Google Analytics anymore.

How to Download Trakkboard

In order to download the Adobe Air application, you have to first register with the site. Just head over to this page and submit your email address to request a key.

Hit the “request Key” button and you will receive an email containing the verification link to verify your email address. Click the verification link and you are done with verifying your email address.

Once you click the link, you will be redirected to a page containing your Trakkboard license key. After that click the “install now” button and the application will start  to install Trakkboard in your computer.

Immediately after the installation you will receive another email containing your Trakkboard license key. Do not lose this License key as you will need it to start the desktop application.

That concludes the installation part. Now let’s see what Trakkboard has to offer.

How to use Trakkboard to View Google Analytics reports from Desktop

After the installation is complete start the application and put the Trakkboard license key and hit next.

The next step involves choosing a password for Trakkboard. This password is not your Google analytics account password. Instead, this password is used to protect your Trakkboard data in case anyone else wants to sneak peak into it.

After choosing your password, you have to enter your Google analytics account details. This will be used to Login to your Google analytics account and let you see the website data from desktop. If you have multiple Analytics account, don’t worry as you can always add another account later on.

That’s it. Hit the Finish registration button to complete the installation. Now you are ready to use this amazing software.

Using Trakkboard – Features , Widgets and Interface

The entire Trakkboard interface works in widgets. You have to select a website profile from the upper bar and select the corresponding widgets to display them into the application.

Just select a time span and the widget type. After that click save and your widget is placed in the application panel. Here is how the Trakkboard panel looks with all the custom widgets set up.

You can drag and drop widgets to your preferred locations. If you feel the application is getting cluttered with too many widgets, you can always open a new tab and organize your data.

Available Widgets in Trakkboard

There are quite a number of widgets to choose from. And they are :

1. Total visits over a definite time span.
2. Total number of page views
3. Traffic sources
4. Medium
5. Top Keywords
6. Bounce rate
7. Time on site

I guess all these features are more than sufficient for you to analyze the data. However the benchmarking feature hasn’t been implemented yet.

Adding a New Google Analytics account

If you have multiple Google analytics accounts, then you can add them up from the control center.

Well that’s about it. Have you tried out the new desktop client for Google Analytics ? tell us what you think about it.

How to Manage Multiple Google Analytics Accounts from Desktop originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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If you are new to blogging and are looking to install your first WordPress blog, then it is easy. Simply change the $table_prefix entry in wp-config.php file, upload the file to the server, then proceed on with the famous 5-mins installation.

For those who have already been blogging for sometime, follow the method below to change your table prefix.

Preparation

Download the following two plugins, install and activate them in your WordPress blog.

WP-DBManager (plugin download page)

Wordpress Table Rename (modified version,  original download page)

Note: I have make a slight modification to the WordPress Table Rename plugin to include changes in the later version of WordPress, but credit must be given to SEO Egghead for creating such an useful plugin.

Get started

Before you do anything to your database, first perform a db backup.

On the left pane, go to Database –> Backup DB. Do a backup of your database.

Next, go to Settings –> Table Rename

Enter a new term for the table prefix.

Click the Create New Tables button to generate new tables with the new prefix. If you have a big database, this process will take a long time.

When it is done, you will see the success message.

If you have a big database, the page might issue a timeout and show a blank page.

Verify your new database tables

Now go to Database->database. You should see the new tables in place.

Migrating your blog

While the plugin provides a way to change the table_prefix value in wp-config.php file, it won’t work in most cases unless you have set the wp-config.php file readable/writable (which I strongly advised against). The best way is to change the value manually.

With your favorite FTP program, download your wp-config.php from the root server.

Open it up with any text editor and scroll down to the section where you see

$table_prefix = 'wp_'

Change it to

$table_prefix = 'YourNewPrefix_'

Save it and re-upload this file back to the server.

Almost there

You have just completed the migration from the old table prefix to new table prefix, there are still several things that you need to do

1. Browse through your site and make sure all the pages, images and content are loading correctly. If you see errors, or that the site is not loading, change the $table_prefix back to ‘wp_‘ and re-upload back to the server.

2. Browse through the settings for each individual plugin and make sure that all the configurations are intact. Some of the plugins use the table prefix for their storage and these values were not changed by the plugin. For such plugins, you will see the settings fall back to their default values. What you have to do is to reconfigure it and re-save it. It will now store in the database with the new table prefix.

3. (Optional) Go to the Database –> Empty/Drop Tables, check the Drop button for all the table with the old prefix. Click the Empty/Drop button to remove them from your database.

Important: Do this only if you are sure that the new tables (with the new prefix) are working correctly.

Note that this is purely optional. Leaving your old table in the database will not hurt your blog and it can serve as a backup and allow you to switch back to them quickly in the event your blog got hacked into. However, if you have a big database, the extra tables could add plenty of overhead to your server. So, make your own judgement.

Last part

Once you are happy with everything, backup the new database. If you have previously schedule a daily backup, you have to reschedule it again to include the new tables.

You can also deactivate and uninstall the WordPress Table Rename plugin. There is no use for it now.

That’s it. You have successfully changed your WordPress database table prefix.

Image credit: naokomc

The Safe Way to Change your WordPress Database Table Prefix originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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1. [Hacking WordPress]: How To Clone And Migrate Your WordPress Blog To New Server
2. 8 Useful Tricks To Clean Up & Streamline Your Wordpress Database
3. Useful WordPress wp-config Tricks That You May Not Know
4. 11 Ways To Secure Your WordPress Blog
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Amaya is an open-source HTML editor created by the W3C. If you don’t already know, W3C is an international community that develops Web standards. It was founded by Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited as inventing the World Wide Web. In 1998, Amaya was invented. Since then, there have been various releases that have given more functionality to Amaya.

Amaya is the most user-friendly HTML editor that I have come across. One of its features that is very similar to Dreamweaver is that you are able to split the screen to view the visual editor and the HTML code. In this way, you are able to code while seeing the changes, or you can do the other way around. It’s a great way to learn HTML, if you don’t know already. On the sidebar, you are able to easily modify the HTML, like in Adobe Dreamweaver. Different profiles can change the way they see the sidebar displayed.

Another great feature is the CSS functionality. With the press of a button, you are able to create a CSS stylesheet. You do not have to know CSS in order to create one, which is great for people trying to learn CSS and/or if you are trying to design a stylesheet quickly. This is a great way to have your site’s formatting and style be in a different file than the HTML code. It provides a way to add flexibilty to your web site/blog. It also has a debugger to check your code for errors.

One good thing about Amaya is that it allows five different user editing profiles, so if someone wants to change the behavior of the Amaya tool, he/she can have his/her own profile that is different from someone else. In addition, Amaya runs on Linux, Mac, and/or PC, so regardless which OS you are using, you will be able to use Amaya for your coding project.

What’s can be improved on?

Amaya is a quick and neat HTMl editor. I couldn’t find any issues, except that it needs to keep up with the new technologies. For instance, it isn’t made to build smartphones apps, which I saw in other free HTML editors. It also doesn’t support Ajax, which is being used more and more.

When it comes to features, Amaya is definitely not on par with Dreamweaver, but if you are looking for a free, simple, and useful HTML editor, then Amaya is a good candidate.

Have you use Amaya before? Tell us what you like/dislike about it.

Amaya: A Simple, Yet Useful Alternative to Dreamweaver originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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1. Removing keywords

A common websearch function applied to email. You can filter out items containing certain words. For example, if I want to get a list of all my MakeTechEasier messages, but not those relating to pingbacks, I can remove items containing that word from my results with the minus sign.

2. To: and From:

Probably the simplest and most often used search function is the ability to specify sender or recipient. By specifying a name or email address you can narrow results to items written by (or to) a name or email address. In this example, I’m trying to get all the emails I’ve written about MakeTechEasier to Damien.

3. CC:

Much like To: and From:, you can filter to show messages with a certain person in the cc or bcc fields. Here I am searching for all party-related messages that involve my good friend The Dude.

4. has:attachment

This one’s pretty self-explanatory – you can get only the results that have a file attached. In this example Im looking for all emails from my sister that may have pictures of her kids.

5. filename:

Similar to #4 above, but this time you can specify an exact filename, or even just part of a filename in an attachment. I can improve upon my previous search by specifying that I want only results with pictures attached.

6. OR

No search system is complete without at least a few boolean operators, and GMail is no exception. While AND is implied in most searches, sometimes you need OR to get the results you want. In this example, I’m trying to get messages about Christmas plans from both sisters.

OR, by the way, does have to be in caps.

7. is:

Another very handy one, is: lets you see only messages in a certain state, like read, unread, or starred. Here, I’m trying to get any emails from Damien which I had previously marked as important (starred).

8. label:

Labels are already a very useful GMail feature, and the search function only makes it better. You can tell the search to return only messages with a particular label attached. If I have a Work label for all my work-related emails and I want to find a message relating to last year’s company picnic, I can use label: to avoid getting messages relating to my countless other picnics of 2008.

9. (Parentheses)

I just recently learned about this, and I’m very glad I did. Using parentheses you can group items for use with things like OR. Parentheses can shorten what might otherwise be a long search string. Let’s say I’m searching for the XBox Live names of my friends Adam, Galt and Joe. I could write out three separate from: statements much like #6, or I could use parentheses to group items together.

10. Combinations

A few of these examples have combined the search options into single queries. GMail gives nearly unlimited flexibility when combining complex search options. You can get extremely detailed results by combining the options to return exactly what you want. The following is an attempt to bring up all messages from both of my sisters about all our prior Christmas plans, that also have pictures attached, but not including our trip to Kentucky.

10 Useful GMail Search Tips originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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For those of you who don’t use bookmarklets or arent quite sure what they are, here is a brief description.

What are Bookmarklets?

Bookkmarklets are a tiny java script application designed to add one click functionality to your web browser. There are hundreds of different uses, many of which save the need to run a desktop program.

A few programs with bookmarklets that have been mentioned on Make Tech Easier before are:

• Webnotes
• Hootsuite
• Zementa
• Evom
• Posterous

Why Use a Bookmarklet?

The main reason to use them is to save time. As an example:

To email a copy of the Webnotes post to someone, use the “Gmail This!” bookmarklet. A window will pop up just like when the compose button in Gmail is clicked. The link and email subject are automatically added. If you want to add more to the body of the email you can explain what the link is before you email it.

Other reasons to use bookmarklets are:

• Sharing things quickly on a social media site
• Spell check
• SEO
• URL shortening
• Adding the site to a social bookmarking site (ie Delicious, Digg, Reddit)
• Subscribing to a RSS reader
• Eliminating the ads and bloat for printing

20 other useful bookmarklets

1. Share on Facebook

Share sites on your Facebook wall or send as a message

2. Share on Friendfeed

Share links on both Friendfeed and Twitter with this one bookmarklet

3. Gmail This!

If you are going to pick one from this list to try, pick this one. It will save immense amounts of time and keep distractions at a minimum.

4. Evernote

Great for the avid Evernote user. send a link with tags, web clip, and notes to the notebook of your choice. This is a very quick way to add things without keeping the page or desktop app open all the time.

5. Serendipity (Reddit)

Randomly displays a site. A lot like Stumbleupon

6. Add to RTM

Quickly add a reminder or to-do

7. Vox This!

Add content to your Vox Blog

8. Readability

If you do a lot of reading on the web, this customizable bookmarklet will rock your world. It removes the bloat and formats the text in a way that is easier for YOU to read.

9. Spell Check

Checks spelling of any page, even published pages. Any word spelled wrong or not in Firefox’s dictionary will be highlighted.

10. Subscribe in Google Reader

Fast way to add a RSS feed to your Google Reader

11. Xray

Great for web designers. Click the bookmarklet then on any item on a page. Information like dimensions, position and border is displayed.

12. Share on Tumblr

Easily share a link on Tumblr

13. BugMeNot

Use BugMeNot database of usernames and passwords to sign in to “registered users only” websites, like news sites.

14. Boxqueue

Add videos to your Boxee Queue for viewing later. You need both a Google account and Boxee account to make this bookmarklet work.

15. DiggThis!

Quickly add sites to Digg.

16. Password Generator

If you have trouble coming up with secure passwords all the time, save some time and energy by installing this bookmarklet.

17. Google Translate

Super handy for those times when you end up on a site written in a language other than your native tongue.

18. TweetBurner

You know there had to be at least one Twitter something or other in the list.

19. Pagezipper

Features like continuous scrolling and auto resizing of images for your browser window make viewing sites less work.

20. Printliminator

Eliminate items on the page you DO NOT want to print. Great for pages or blogs without a printer friendly version of the page or post.

Including the one we have previously mentioned at MakeTechEasier, here are 25 of the useful bookmarklets that you can place in your browser. These are only a small portion of what is available. All of them are made to save time or make your browsing experience more personalized or enjoyable.

What bookmarklets do you use?

Image credit suchitra prints

25 Time Saving Bookmarklets You Will Want to Have in Your Browser originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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One option may be to download all the videos in your computer from different video sharing sites and then uploading them back in your preferred video sharing site so that you can get all the videos and create your customized channel. But this process would take hours of work and you can’t get it working in a day or two at least.

Yubby: Create Your Own Video channel from 30 Video Sharing Sites

If you are looking to create a Video channel comprising of videos from different video sharing sites (Youtube, Google video, Metacafe etc) then look no further than Yubby. Using Yubby you can search for videos in more than 30 video sharing sites at once. After you have searched for the videos, the service lets you create a video channel containing all of your chosen videos. The videos can be categorized into channels and you can also embed the video channel in your blog. (See example)

Search for videos

Go to the homepage of Yubby and search for your desired videos. Based upon your keyword, the site will search the top 30 video sharing sites and list the videos one after another. After that you can just drag and drop the videos and start organizing your custom video channel. The interface is very simple and there aren’t any bells and whistles.

You can even restrict your search to specific video sharing sites, if you want. Just click the search options and you are presented with a board containing the names and logos of all the video sharing sites that Yubby supports. Select the sites you want and then you can filter your results.

The search results can be sorted by relevance, newest and view count. You can also search videos by tags and owner name.

Previewing your Video Channel

Once you are finished adding videos and creating the video channel, you can preview it by clicking the “Play Channel” button.

To know more about your video channel just hit the “Video Overview” button. It will show you the following :

• How many videos are added in your channel.
• The tags assigned to your videos.
• The rating of the videos in the respective video sites.
• How many people have viewed the video today.

What makes Yubby impressive is that you can even search for a particular video in your video channel. So if you have added a large number of videos to your channel you need not worry at all. Just go to the video overview tab and you can search for a particular video.

Sharing and Embedding your Video Channel

Sharing and embedding videos is also dead easy. Go to the “Embed” tab and you are given the code of your video channel. You can further customize your video playlist widget to match with your style and feel.

Copy the Html code and you can put the video channel in your blog or Myspace profile. Here is a sample video channel created using Yubby

Registering an Account with Yubby

You do not need to sign up and register for an account to use Yubby. However with a Yubby account you can manage your video channels at a later date. After some weeks, if you wish to add another video to your video channel you can do that from your Yubby dashboard. Other features include : Uploading photos to your Yubby account and having a free blog with Yubby.

To wrap it up, Yubby is a useful web service where you can create specialized video channels and publish these channels in your blog or social media profiles. It also supports Wordpress integration so novice bloggers can get started in minutes.

How to Create a Video Channel From Different Video Sharing Sites originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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What does it do?

There are two aspects to OneSwarm – the private, secure, friend-based OneSwarm network, and the standard P2P. The developers took an existing Bittorrent client (Azureus) and heavily modified it to include support for their private network. They added a web client (you can control your file transfers through a web browser, even remotely) and included software for finding and inviting friends into your swarm.

Even if you have no interest in the secure swarm aspect, OneSwarm makes a great torrent client. It’s built on the Azureus classic UI which is a high quality mature torrent client. All the P2P benefits of Azureus matched with the extra functionality of the web client gives OneSwarm a very powerful feature base.

How does it work?

There are two methods of using OneSwarm, a web client and a desktop client. Both are usable immediately after installation, but the developers seem to encourage use of the web client. That’s where I’ve found most of OneSwarm’s unique features. The desktop client is more or less a standard Bittorrent client. So far, I’ve found the web client to be the way to go when working with OneSwarm friend-based transfers, but the classic desktop client gives more options for standard torrent downloads.

Windows users who’d like to use the desktop client instead of web can do so by right-clicking the OneSwarm icon in their system tray and choosing Show Classic UI. Linux users – access to the desktop client could vary widely based on your choice of desktop environment. Because of this, and to highlight the unique features of OneSwarm, this article will focus on the web client.

Getting Started

If your system didn’t take you to the web client automatically, you should be able to access it by opening your browser of choice to http://127.0.0.1:29615/. There you’ll find the opening screen for the OneSwarm web client.

For those who aren’t networking geeks – 127.0.0.1 is the address a computer uses to identify itself. By putting that into your browser you’re telling it “open the web page running on this computer”. The OneSwarm web client runs a small webserver on your machine so you can access the web client.

Finding Friends

The main concept behind OneSwarm is Friend-To-Friend transfers. When you first connect to OneSwarm, you’ll be asked to add friends. The first, and easiest way to do that is to choose “Use Default Settings”. This will connect you to the OneSwarm community server. Within a minute or two, you’ll see names pop into your Friends list. Users of the community server can all see each other, but cannot, by default, see each other’s files. Everyone on the community server is a “limited” friend by default and cannot trade files.

There are multiple other ways to add friends, all of which can be found by using the Add friends button below your contacts list on the left. For me, the GMail/Google Talk option would normally be a great way to add my friends, but as of the time of this writing, that feature does not appear to be working correctly. I have settled for using email invites through the Redeem/Create/View Invitations option.

When my friends get the invitation in their email, they can install OneSwarm and click the link included in the invite to become a OneSwarm friend. For example, I sent an invite to Tara, who has named her computer “Hank”. She downloaded the OneSwarm client, clicked the link in the invite, and now OneSwarm sees us as friends. She shows up on my Friends list as well as the community server with which she’s registered.

Friend Access

As noted earlier, friends by default are set to “limited” status. They cannot see each other’s files or initiate any transfers. Fortunately, removing that limitation is quick and painless. You simply choose Friends from the navigation panel on the left, and you will have the full list of friends. Click the one you want to share with, and remove the check for “Limited”.

From now on, Tara can browse through all the files that I have shared and choose whatever she’d like to download. Speaking of sharing…

Sharing Files

At the heart of any P2P app is the sharing of files. There’s not much point otherwise. To allow certain files to be shared over OneSwarm, you just add those files or directories to your Shared list. On any section of the OneSwarm web client you’ll find the Share button near the top of the screen. This will let you choose what to share. Here, for example, is one user’s files that they’ve chosen to open to the OneSwarm network.

I can download whichever of these files I like and choose where to save them. In addition, OneSwarm appears to have read the ID3 tag information for the music files, and added the album art to the thumbnail view. A nice touch.

I’ve found OneSwarm to be a very elegant, well-designed system. I’ve often looked for (and written about) ways to securely transfer files over the Internet. Some of them are simpler than OneSwarm, but not nearly as friendly and versatile. I’ll be sticking with OneSwarm for a while.

What about you?

How to Share Files Securely with OneSwarm originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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My main personal homepage has been iGoogle for a long time. I use the tabs to keep things sorted. In those tabs are a some RSS feeds, a couple gadgets, webmaster tools and some mindless time wasters. I have to admit, I really don’t use the different things on the homepage much; they are what I am used to.

When I am sitting at my desk and trying to focus on work, it is all too easy to lend my attention to something much more interesting than what I should be doing. Going to a search site or looking at the auto suggestions when typing in a bookmark tag can easily steal your attention.

I have recently been trying out a different homepage at work. 43marks isn’t as flashy as some of the homepages out there, but flashy is usually distracting. How 43marks differs from other homepages, is how much it offers in such a simple layout. 43marks combines two things people use on a daily basis: bookmarks and search engines.

Having four options to search at your fingertips without all of the typical distractions and random links associated with some sites is a breath of fresh air. Google, Yahoo, Bing and Wikipedia are probably the most commonly used search engines. All of them aggregate the “top sites” in a different way. Type in a search term and get the results from Google; to see what Yahoo,Bing or Wikipedia simply click that tab and the results shift to the other search engine’s results.

To personalize your 43marks homepage, follow these steps:

1. Click on the the “customize yours” tab in the top right corner of the main page.

2. Enter in a user name, email address and a password twice.

3. Once you are all set up, you will have a default list of bookmarks and RSS feeds.

4. To change the bookmarks and RSS feeds, click [Manage]

5. Three options are presented to you: Manage Bookmarks, Manage RSS Feeds and User Settings.

If you want to wipe the slate clean, 43marks does give an option to delete all bookmarks.

6. In the RSS Manage RSS Feeds tab, the same option to start from scratch is available.

* A pretty easy way to add a feed is to click on the RSS icon most sites have. This will pull up a page with the feed address listed. The feed URL should look something like this – http://feeds.feedburner.com/MakeTechEasier

The RSS part works well, but if you want to change a feed from ESPN to Make Tech Easier, you need to delete the old one and add in the new name and address.

7. In the User Settings, you are presented a four options:

• Choose whether you want your page to be private or public so anyone can see your list of bookmarks and RSS feeds. If you choose public, just give our the URL to your page. Mine is 43marks.com/trevor_dobrygoski

• How you would like the RSS feeds displayed – Expanded or collapsed
• The maximum number of books marks to display in each category column
• How you want the bookmark or RSS link to open when clicked

With all of the distractions present to anyone who works online, 43marks is a great solution to wrangle the information you NEED to look at and none that you don’t.

What tools do you use to cut down on distractions when you work online?

Get Your Homepage Organized With 43marks originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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Tabbloid let’s you create a pdf newsletter from a group of Rss feeds of your choice. It’s way simple and you don’t have to be a geek to get started. You choose one or more feeds, give them your email address, set the time you want to receive the newsletter and forget the issue. Tabbloid will pick the latest articles from the feeds and will merge them into a singe pdf document. You will receive the document in your email inbox at your preferred time.

How to set up your own Tabbloid

1. To get started with creating your own Tabbloid, you do not need to register or set up an account. Just open the Tabbloid Homepage and click to get started.

2. In the next page, choose the Rss feed url and enter it. Here we are using the Maketecheasier Feed as an example.

They also provide you with some sample subscriptions like technology,business,politics etc which you can subscribe to but i would prefer subscribing to MakeTechEasier to get an idea how things work inside Tabbloid when you subscribe to an individual site or a group of sites.

3. As soon as you paste the feed url the site will present a confirmatory message asking you whether you really want to subscribe or not. Just hit the big Yes button to subscribe to the feed and add your preferred feed in Tabbloid list.

4. In the right hand pane you can see the list of feeds you have subscribed to. You can remove a feed from the pane and add another one at any time.

5. Now you need to set up the email details and delivery options.

<

As you can see, it’s pretty simple and straightforward. Enter your email address where you would like to get your Tabbloid, set the day and time save the delivery options. You can set a daily or a weekly delivery of your pdf newsletter.As i am a web addict and check my email daily so i would love to get the newsletter daily.

As soon as you save the options a confirmatory email would be sent at your given email address.

Now that you have confirmed your email address, it’s time to actually preview the pdf newsletter by clicking the “Generate Sample issue now” button. A Tabbloid of the rss feed will open as pdf inside your browser.

Here is how the Maketecheasier Tabbloid looks

You can view the complete Tabbloid sample here

The daily email you receive as part of the newsletter will contain all the contents of the recently published articles in the feeds you have subscribed. Along with the email, you will have an attachment which will contain the pdf.

You can subscribe to multiple feeds and get a compact newsletter if you want. All in all, it’s a very handy way to get all the blog updates as pdf documents delivered straight in your inbox, daily.

Tabbloid: Convert Rss Feeds into PDF Newsletters and get them as Email originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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5. Get Your Homepage Organized With 43marks

If you are not quite satisfied with the official Facebook desktop application or other desktop clients have a look at Facebook –Photo uploader. It is a new desktop client for Facebook, released by Adobe with really useful features.

At first you need to download and install the application. You will also need Adobe Air, if you already don’t have it.

To get started with the app you have to enter you Facebook account information as a one time authentication process.

After that you have to grant permission to the application so that it can access your news feed and wall updates. Just click “Allow access” to grant the required permissions. The application will log you in. After you have logged in you will be presented with your Facebook timeline as shown below.

Updating Your status

Updating your status is easy enough. Just click on the last status message and you can edit it and share the new status with all your friends.

Comments

You can instantly comment on any link or story shared by your friends. But the downside is that you can neither see who else has commented in that story nor you can read the comments posted by others.

Facebook chat

This is what makes this app my favorite. You can chat with your Facebook friends from the desktop and without having to visit your Facebook profile in the browser. Just navigate to the chat tab and you can see which of your friends are online.

Mini Mode

If you feel bothered due to the fact that the high resolution mode is taking up much of the screen space, just switch to the mini mode with the touch of a button. Click the small arrow in the top right corner placed next to the minimize window.

Uploading photos

Uploading photos in your Facebook albums in also easily achieved. Just navigate to the “Upload” tab and the app asks you the name of the album where you wish to upload a photo. You can also create a new album and upload your photos to the new album straight away.

After selecting your album click “Add photo” or just drag and drop the image into the application. The photo will be uploaded and added instantly in your album. You can crop a photo, tag it and even rotate it from the application itself.

Apart from uploading photos you can also view the photos of your album with a complete full screen slideshow.

View a profile

Just click the name of any Facebook friend in your timeline and the profile opens up in the desktop client. You can see complete information of your friend including the pages he/she reads and the groups they have recently joined.

Apart from the above mentioned features you can also see the list of all your Facebook friends and various other event invitations that you have received recently.You can even browse to any Facebook profile and read his/her status updates, notes, pictures or other posted items. So if you are a Facebook addict and can’t imagine your life without it, then you must try this new desktop tool. This application runs on the Adobe Air platform so it will run in Windows, Linux and Mac.

Other Facebook desktop clients

Apart from Facebook photo uploader there are two other Facebook clients worth mentioning.

1. Tweetdeck: The popular desktop client for Twitter, Tweetdeck recently added Facebook and Myspace integration. Not as versatile as the Facebook photo uploader but you can read your status updates and the updates of your friends in much the same way you read your tweets. Again it’s very basic and you do not get “The Facebook feel” as they name it.

2. Seesmic: Another desktop application for Facebook lovers is Seesmic. Check them out if all you want is a very basic and compact Facebook lifestream on your desktop.

The New Facebook Desktop Client By Adobe And Why Should You Use it originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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1. Google Docs

Google Docs is a great place to design, store, and collaborate with other people on your resume. Your resume can be exported as a PDF, RTF or a Word document for easy viewing by your potential employer. With hundreds of easily customizable templates for both resumes and cover letters, this is a easy choice.

It is a good idea to keep your resume up dated. If you set a reminder in the calendar of your choice to update your resume quarterly, you will have less work if a lay off strikes. Another benefit to updating your information often is you are less likely to omit important details about your accomplishments.

2. Ingboo

Ingboo is a service that gives you a way to aggregate search results from a huge number of sites. In the job tab; Simply Hired, Craigslist and Hotjobs are 3 of the 11 sites from which you can be notified of newly posted job opportunities. The updates can be emailed in a daily digest, as soon as new results appear or at a selectable time of the day. Ingboo also can send updates right to your Twitter account. If none of these methods to view the results are appealing to you, going to Ingboo.com to see the results is always an option too. Ingboo is working on a Blackberry app which will help you keep up with your searches while mobile.

3. RSS

If you are using an RSS feed reader for viewing new posts on blogs and websites, using it for your job search will be a piece of cake. If you are not using any kind of RSS feed reader, Google Reader and iGoogle are good options to those who have a Google/ Gmail account. If not, other services for Mac, Windows and mobile devices are available.

The way to use RSS for a job search is simple. Create a search the same way you are accustomed to on a site like Monster.com. Instead of saving the search, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the RSS feed button.

You will be prompted to choose what reader you want to use. Once subscribed, all of the new jobs will arrive in this feed within moments of being posted. Here is what a feed would look like on your iGoogle hompage.

4. Google Alerts

If you are looking at a specific company’s career page, the odds of them having an RSS feed with job updates are pretty slim. In this case, you can set up a Google alert for when a page changes (if a job is added). The results can be emailed to you weekly, daily or as soon as a change happens. This is done with some advanced Google search formulas like these:

if you were looking for a job at Apple

(inurl:job OR inurl:jobs) site:apple.com

if you were looking for a job anywhere in Denver, Colorado.

(inurl:job OR inurl:jobs) denver

(inurl:career OR inurl:careers)

These alerts work well because most companies post job openings on a page with [job] or [career] in the URL. By adding in a site:operator or a location, the search is narrowed and becomes more useful to you.

5. InSide Job

Usually apps on Facebook aren’t thought to be very useful in the search for a job. Granted Facebook can be a good way to network (when you aren’t distracted by Farmville or Mafia Wars); this is one application however, is making a good argument to be on Facebook.

Here is how their webpage describes the app:

Inside Job lets you contact people who have interviewed, worked, or are currently employed at the places you want to work at next!
InSide Job users can also:
-Get the inside scoop on their prospective employer before the interview;
-Network with people in similar fields; and
-Find the right people to hire as service providers.

6. A Blog

A personal blog is a good thing to keep up on whether you are working or not. Many free blogging platforms (Wordpress.com, Blogger, Typepad…) give you an avenue to let people and potential employers get to know you. You can choose to display work accomplishments, personal stories, your thought on your industry news or anything you would like others to know about you.

The more positive information is on the web about you when a client or potential employer is looking you up on the web, the better. Job hunting is a full time job. You need to market yourself and control your online profile/ information in a way no other generation has before.

Leave any job searching tips and tools in the comments below.

Image credit bjmccray

6 Useful Web Apps To Help You Job Hunt originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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Message Management

One of GMail’s strengths is its ability to handle large volumes of email while allowing you to keep things organized. Wave built on GMail’s experience and has also included some useful features for keeping things in order. For starters, you’ve got Folders which work like GMail’s labels and everything else’s… well… folders. You can drag and drop waves into these folders and they will not show up in your inbox. To view that message you can either click the title of the folder or choose All at the top of the Navigation pane.

As you can see in the screenshot, you can also colorize each of the folders individually. I can see how this could be helpful if you have a LOT of folders and want to use colors to group them together, or if there’s a particular folder you want to keep highlighted to catch your eye.

In addition to managing waves through folders, you also have two ways to essentially forget about a message until it’s needed. First, you can Mute a wave, so that it no longer shows up as unread even when it has been modified by others. If you just want a wave out of your inbox but still want to know when it’s been updated, you can Archive that message. You won’t see it until someone makes an update to that wave. Both muted and archived waves will show up in searches and in the All section.

I’ve found it useful to archive almost everything. When a wave has pretty clearly ended, I’ll set it to Archive and leave only messages I intend to keep alive in my inbox. If anyone happens to update one of those waves, it’ll pop right back up in my inbox like normal. Without this I think it wouldn’t take long for Wave to feel a bit overwhelming, if you use it frequently.

Embedded Replies

One messaging feature I really like is the ability to embed a reply inside the original message. In this example, Tara wrote the original message, and instead of creating a separate reply or copy & pasting her words, I can choose any spot in her message and insert my reply.

Private Branches

Let’s say you’re in a wave with everyone at the office. Your boss is discussing the importance of TPS reports. Suddenly, a witty remark pops into your head, and you have a choice. Do you uphold your status as the office comedian, or bite your tongue to keep your job? Wave provides a third option – create a private branch. Only the people specified in that branch can see those messages. In this example screenshot, there are many people in the wave but only the person I included in my private reply can see what I wrote.

Managing Contacts

The only really notable feature about the contacts is that you can do an incremental search for people in your contact list, as demonstrated below. My only complaint is that Wave does not apparently include GMail type status messages with the contacts. I’ve seen no word so far on whether or not that will be a feature in future Wave revisions.

Extensions

We covered extensions briefly in our first report on Wave, but there’s plently more to be said. Extensions can be installed and removed through the Extensions Gallery, which is a wave itself. For me, the extension gallery showed up in my inbox the day after I activated my Wave account. In it is a list of available extensions you can choose to install.

One of the most notable aspects of Wave in regards to extensions is they Google strongly encourages independent developers to create their own Wave extensions. The recommended language is Java but they also have a Python client library. As a fan of Python I think this is great news.

Bottom Line

With the many clever options Wave provides for message management and extensions, Wave is clearly going to be a contender for online communications. Right now the biggest obstacle is establishing a firm user base, as Wave is only useful if all your friends and associates also use it. Leaving the system open will work to Google’s benefit in that sense, as future users won’t be limited to just the official Wave website and client, but will be able to communicate over any wave-compatible platform. I, for one, look forward to seeing what the future holds for Wave.

Google Wave – Round 2 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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Slowly but surely Google has been adding a feature here and a feature there. Some have been bigger steps than others; all of them are chipping away at the reasons you need to buy an office suite. I’m not going to get on a soapbox and shout to the world. I will however, give you a few nifty tips to make using Google Docs spreadsheets a little easier.

1. Lookup

Much like other spreadsheet programs, Docs can do calculations and formulas. The question to ask is the other programs would be, “Do you have built in Google search?” No? Hmmm…. well anyway, here are a couple handy formulas to enter into the desired cell to utilize Google’s search. Make sure to keep the quotation marks surrounding the terms you are adding.

The values will automatically update as the information changes; imagine the possibilities.

=GoogleLookup(”entity”; “attribute”)

Replace entity with something like Ireland and attribute with population.

=GoogleFinance(”symbol”, “attribute”)

An example for this function would be:  =GoogleFinance(”AAPL”, “Price”) The result would end up being what ever the current stock price is.

=GoogleTranslate(”text”, “source language”,”target language”)

The translation function is really cool. It allows you to translate a word or a few sentences from English to Modern Greek or Chinese to Spanish. The most difficult part is having to use ISO 639-1 country abbreviations.

For easy access check out this list of all the functions available.

2. Google Doc Forms

A Google Docs Form is a very simple way to add a survey to an email or website. The basic idea behind these forms is to gather information and automatically aggregate the results into a spreadsheet. You also have the choice to get an email notification when someone completes the form or add a gadget to your iGoogle page to track all of your surveys.

Creating a form is really straightforward.

1. From the main Google Docs screen, choose New — Form

2. If you don’t like the plain blue and white color scheme, you can pick a new one by clicking Theme.

3. Click apply on the new theme to start editing.

4. From there, simply type in the question, choose the type of question you’d like it to be and if it is required to complete the survey.

5. If you click the Share button, there is an option to email the survey or even get the code to embed it into a web page on your site.

3. List View

List view is a fast loading version of a spreadsheet you can publish or embed to your website. The settings you determine in the Share menu will carry over to the spreadsheet you embed.

One of the coolest parts is the spreadsheet is auto-updating. If, for example, you have stock quotes or dollar amounts from a fundraiser; these will all be updated on the embeded version instantly.

If you are a Google Sites user, you can add a editable version of the spreadsheet onto the page by going to the Insert menu.

List view provides a few basic ways to modify data:

• edit cells
• add rows
• filter and sort data
• cells with formulas can’t be edited in this view

4. From Your Mobile

If you have an Android, iPod touch/iPhone or Nokia S60, you can access and manipulate your Google Doc spreadsheets. I was a little disappointed there isn’t a Blackberry or Windows Mobile access, but I’ll live.

• Create shortcuts to your spreadsheets on your home screen
• Edit cells
• Add data
• Sort columns to give you relevant data first

5. Styling

Even though it isn’t an option in a drop down menu, the forms can be modified. You do have over 70 themes available, but if that isn’t enough for you, here are a few tips to spice them up even more by Gill Smith.

What are your productivity tips for Google spreadsheets and forms?

image credit: TaopaiC

5 Tips for Google Spreadsheets originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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5. 6 Google Sites You May Not Know About

Sites often release their API or even their source code to build upon. Because of this, sites like Google Maps are frequently used in mashups.

Below are some of the interesting mashup sites that you may not even know they exist.

1 .Lastfmlovetweet

I use this all the time. Everytime you “Love” a song on Last.fm it is automatically updates your Twitter account. It adds the hashtags #lastfm and #love to your tweets.

2. Ask.mosio

SMS a question and have it answered by a community of users. Think of it like the ‘phone a friend‘ lifeline on Millionaire, but through SMS. They also have apps making your mobile device even more useful.

3. Facesaerch

Yes, you didn’t read wrongly, nor did we type wrongly, the ‘a’ and the ‘e’ were in the right place. What Facesaerch does is to show your Facebook updates in a iTunes Coverflow way.

4. Hotelmapsearch

Uses Google maps to mark hotels in a specific city. Select specific criteria (ie price, brand name, or number of stars) to narrow your search.

5. Flickrsudoku

Basically it’s sudoku with pictures from Flickr showing numbers.

6. Pixelpipe

Upload your pictures and video to your 100+ social networks, photo/video sites and blogs with this uploader

7. Tweetwasters

Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve wasted using Twitter? Here is your chance to see.

8. Fotoland

See where the Flickr pictures were taken via Google Maps

9. Memry

The classic game of Memory with Flickr pics

10. Skatespotter

Find great spots to skate or skateshops marked on Google Maps.

11. Coffeeseeker

If you are a caffeine addict like I am, use this one to find coffee shops within a user selected distance from you on Google Maps.

12. Openfilm

A mash of commercial and user submitted videos. It is very indie stuff for the most part.

13. Dvdzreview

Reviews of new DVD movies. If you like what you see, you can buy it or rent it from numerous places.

14. Triplify

Triplify is a site which searches Yahoo, Google and Bing and displays the results in a slightly more visually appealing way.

15. Tweetbars

Show off the real you by displaying tweets in your email signatures or website. This little piece of HTML code is all you need.

16. Twitpay.me

If you want to send me a couple dollars you can send it via Twitter using this cool little tool. (@trevord209)

17. Windowshop

Window shop for popular items on Amazon.com in an interesting way. Use the arrows to navigate through the stacks album and book covers.

18. Let Me Google That For You

I like this one a lot. Do you get a lot of lazy people asking you to look something up for them? If so, this site will give them the results they are looking for, but make them feel lazy for asking.

19. Kvetch

This one is basically a Twitter complaint aggregator. Some are pretty funny.

20. 2realestateauctions

eBay real estate auctions mapped out via Google Maps. Get directions and see the neighborhood without leaving your couch. If you like it, get directions and go make an offer.

That’s all for now. Do share your favorite mashup sites with us in the comments.

Image credit: delgaudm

20 Fun and Interesting Mashup Sites originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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So what is it exactly?

According to Google:

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Intriguing, but not very specific. Suffice it to say, each “Wave” is like an email thread or message board post. The difference is that you’re not just posting a series of replies (though you certainly can use it that way), you’re making changes to a single document. Each change becomes a branch of the original message. You can roll a wave back in time to see how the conversation has evolved. If you get added to a pre-existing wave, you get the whole thing – the document (or thread) as-is, along with its entire history. Waves can be embedded into blogs, so any time a change is made to that wave it can show up in something like Blogger in near real time. We’ll cover the most interesting Wave features in more detail as we go.

Using a Wave

The Wave exists online, and can be accessed a few different ways. The most common would probably be through a “Wave Client”, ie a GMail-like web app that displays your Waves in the browser window. Here is an example of the main wave.google.com

On the far left we’ve got a pretty familiar webmail style menu, with the usual Inbox, etc. Below that is your contacts. Wave seems to have imported my GMail contacts and added those who are also signed in here. The center pane shows your message history much like any email client, including the pic for each participant in the wave.

Things get more interesting when we get to the right pane. Here we can view, edit, and create waves. In this example, I wrote a Kurt Vonnegut quote to Crystal. She responded not by creating a separate reply, but by editing my original words. When I get back to Wave and see her message, Wave highlights the changes she has made.

This means you could use a single wave to have multiple people, say, write a paper for school or collaborate on a family Christmas list. All changes are essentially real time, each change creating a new branch with a complete backup history. In fact, Wave provides a playback feature that allows you to step through the document from creation to the present.

Extensions

Wave expects and encourages user-developed extensions. As it’s still in development, there aren’t many choices yet. The extensions that do exist are all fairly useful. First, you can perform a Google search and include the results in the wave. No real surprises there.

Next is the single-click Yes/No box. Of all the things to include in an early release I’m a little surprised the Yes/No box was one of them, but I suppose it demonstrates some of the things you can do with extensions.

The results were unanimous.

There is also a Maps extension, which is another single click surprise. I have to admit, this would make it a lot easier to exchange directions.

As I write this, a new wave just arrived in my inbox for the Google Wave Extension Gallery. I can browse and install new extensions from within the wave. Presumably the wave will be updated as new extensions come out.

Conclusion

There is FAR more to Google Wave than I could possibly cover here, and this is still a fairly early development version. For those who want all the details, you can find a LONG (80 minutes) video of the tech demo here. For something with so drastically different from email on the technical side, Wave manages to feel surprisingly comfortable. The technology is certainly impressive, and it’s easy to adjust to the Wave way of doing things once you’ve spent a few minutes using it. As for usefulness, that’s a little harder to judge. From what I’ve seen, Wave only works if everyone else is also using it. As great as the map feature may be, the recipient would of course need to be a Wave user as well. Not that this is a flaw in Wave exactly, but it does place a limit on how useful it can be. I think it’s got a lot of potential, and I’ll be keeping a Wave tab open for a while to see how things go, but I won’t go closing my webmail tab just yet.

Google Wave – The Future of Email? originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

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