Tips for evaluating quality of web content

Here is a simple guide for evaluating the quality of content on a web or blog. Today internet has become a rich environment of web pages, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, free research services, media types and more. It can be a challenge to figure out which content to trust. This guide will help you to identify the type of site you are visiting and to evaluate its content.For example, to evaluate the content of a blog, the author has point out the following -

• Most blog postings focus on a discussion of issues rather than day to day personal or recreational activities.
• Blog postings are signed by an identifiable author.
• The author has expertise on the topic of the blog.
• Comments on blog postings emphasize substantive discussion of the issues.
• Blog postings are cited on other blogs. A blog search engine such as Technorati can help to determine this, and general search engines are also useful.
• Links to the blog or its individual postings are saved on social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us./li>
• New blog postings appear fairly regularly – though archived blogs can contain useful material.

Read full story here. You can also download it as pdf file.

A different email service - Woomail

We are all familiar with different email services like Gmail, Yahoo mail, etc; here comes a different mail service –Woomail, a more comprehensive and more secure mail service that eliminates spam, viruses and unwanted messages forever. Your inbox will only contain hand written messages from your friends, family and approved contacts.
Woomail is not the typical web mail we are all familiar with. It is curious that even send an e-mail to any friend who uses another system; it receives the same message a link to respond, like the option to respond in any web mail is not work with Woomail. On the other hand, we have the merchant key, which will help us online transactions where you have to get a message to complete it. Full details
The service is free for individuals and offer 1GB of free space.
[source]

Back up your blog post with Blogbackupr

It is always good to have back up of your blog posts as a precaution, but normally free blog services like blogspot have no straight method to back up a post. Wordpress paid service lets you do it from the control panel.BlogBackupr is an online application that just needs your blog URL to create a full backing of posts using RSS feeds. It does not require registration but if your e-mail address so that you have access to a panel where you can see your tickets, download backs in three formats (xml, txt and html), and even restore your blog if you have any problems.
The service works with any blog that have an RSS feed. If your blog engine is Wordpress its back up all includes full posts, comments and categories. It is a great tool for a blog that do not provide a backup / restore system themselves.
>>BlogBackupr
[source]

A different related post widget for your blog

Most of the Wordpress blogs and some of the Blogspot blogs are using the related article/post widget on their blog and are very useful for a reader to find similar articles. Here is a special related post widget for your blog – Arkayne, which automatically links your pages to similar content around the web. All you have to do is simply install a widget (JavaScript code) on your blog and Arkayne will do the rest. No need of RSS feed URL or account setup to use Arkayne. Details here.The Arkayne widget can be easily customized to match your site. You can configure the widget like the number of links displayed on your blog or the minimum relevancy required, etc. Currently this widget is available for Blogspot and Wordpress users and the set up is also quite easy.
[source]

Google Talk Chatback Widget for your blog

Google has released a new widget -Chatback Badge that allows your blog/site visitors to chat with you, whenever you're signed in to Google Talk. All you need to copy and paste a piece of small code in to your blog or site.

With this chatback badge anyone can chat with you even if they haven't signed up for Google Talk or a Google Account. The badge will display your online status (whether you're available to chat or not) and, optionally, your status message. You can also change the title of your badge, and control whether you want to show or not your online status.
To create a Chatback badge, you need to be a Google Talk user and will need to be online and available (with a green ball next to your name) in Google Talk to enable people to chat with you.
[source-blogoscoped]

Webshare, file explorer in AJAX and PHP for your FTP server

WebShare is a web2.0 open source project written in Ajax/PHP, designed to handle files and folders hosted on a distant FTP server through web-based interface.With a simple browser, you can view, copy, edit or save your Web documents as easily as they were on your own computer. But especially, you can access and share it from anywhere. The administrator can create many accounts or share points with precise restrictions and keep control on all the users and documents.
This is a very comprehensive tool, some of the features that have are:

• Different views of files, either by list, thumbnails, details, etc.
• Editing HTML and TXT files from the same browser interface.
• Navigation advanced image galleries, either print or slide.
• Playing MP3 files from the same interface.
• Access to the server in a public or authentication.
• Basic functions of a scanner, create, delete, move, copy files and directories.

[Source]

Web Button collection

If you work with web design this web button collection with all the colors and flavor may makes inspiration to design a new button.
The collection has more than 140 buttons of all types and colors. Even though most of them have copyright, this web buttons are ideal for a little inspiration to design a new button.
[source]

Control bandwidth of your Internet connection

Here is a simple, free tool, Bitmeter2 that allows us to control bandwidth usage of internet connection. It allows visually monitoring internet connection by displaying a scrolling graph that shows your upload and downloading speed over time.
The different colors on the graph represent your upload and download speeds, the display updates every second, and the current speeds are also displayed numerically in the lower part of the window.
You can also view your old usage data, data used last few hours, days or weeks, from the Statistics window
And, if your ISP restricts certain limit for downloading each month, the ISP Restrictions screen would be useful, just enter details of your monthly quota, and BitMeter will warn you when you approach your limit.
The application is compatible with all versions of Windows and Microsoft needs to be installed. NET frame work 1.1.
More details and downlod
[Source]

AOL launched Xdrive Desktop Lite

The AOL service Xdrive, free 5GB personal hard drive on the Internet has launched Xdrive Desktop Lite, an application for its users which allows uploading and downloading files even easier.
The application is a kind of file manager that can be upload files simply by dragging it to the window. Other options like link code to files allow users to put these links on their blog or web sites so that any one can download the files.
Xdrive provides 5GB of free storage space online and is the best alternative to other storage devices.
[Source: Noticiastech]

Free video editing software from Pinnacle

Pinnacle, the well-known company specialized in Video Editing program has introduced a free version of video editing software- VideoSpin for Windows. The software is 100% free and is a good alternative to Windows Movie maker, but with much more functionality.

The main features of the program are:

• Mixing between videos, photos and music
• Add titles and transitions
• Load your video on the web in a matter of minutes
• Direct upload to YouTube and Flash supported
• And it is totally free

The software supports following formats

Import:
• Video –AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, DIVIX, WMV
• Audio – MP3, WAV, WMA, M4A, AVI

Export:

• Video - AVI, MJPEG, MPEG1, MPEG2, WMV, Flash, Divix (Optional)
• Audio – Dolby 2Channel, MPEG1, MP3, AAC

File size: 150MP

More details and Download

[License: Free]

Wordpress premium theme Blogger template

This Blogspot template includes all the features of the original WordPress theme and all you need to do is configure them.

Following are some of the main features of this template.

• 1. Very cool sidebar tab switching without the page reloading (Never used on a Blogger template before!)
• 2. Three 125×125 ad spots on sidebar
• 3. Dynamically created header tabs
• 4. Recent comments and posts widgets
• 5. Topics and Blogroll widgets

See Demo here

Download the Template

More blogger template from this author (more than 100 templates)

More blogger template category

[License: Free]

Analyze your blog’s rank and value

Genuine Site Rank is a tool to analyze a web site’s or blog’s relative significance and value. Site Rank gathers and analyzes data on a site’s popularity, inbound links and many other attributes. In the end you will get a general value of a site in percentages. The higher the percentage, the higher should be the significance of the site analyzed.Just enter your sites/ blog URL,Genuine Site Rank provide information like basic info like page title, Meta tag, key word and thumbnail preview image of you site, Position in Google search results, Google page rank and Alexa rank, position in social book marking site like delicious, Digg, Domain Age, Domain Maturity and finally your rank in percentage and your sites value in dollar.
License: Free
Link to Genuine site Rank

Find out a blog’s feed status and page rank

Ratingburner is ranking tool for blogger. Here you can see a blog’s total number of RSS readers, its page rank, monthly subscription changes and last post, etc. You can also submit your site for analysis. Just enter feed url of your site and get the rating.

Database of Windows exe programs

ExeLib is a database for Windows process information, where you can find information like the name of an exe file, its description, its effects, its risk factor, and some other information also.

The main usage of this site is to check what is running on your computer. By checking your task manager, then looking up executables on here, you can find information about each process on your computer, then, work on figuring out which you need, which you don't need, and which you really don't want on the computer - then remove them.

FCC Ribbon Manager- Insert sticker on your Wordpress blog

FCC Ribbon Manager is a plug-in for Wordpress blog that lets you add a side ribbon on your blog without touching the template file or the CSS (Badge usually shown on upper corner of the right hand side of a blog)

The usage of this plug-in is very easy. Just download the plug-in, decompress it and upload it on the mask of plug-ins. Once there you activate from the panel of administration, proceed to set it up. Specify the URL of the image that you want to use as a badge, its dimensions, and where you want to link an alternative title. Finally choose the location of the sticker and ready.
[source]

Windows Live Messenger 2008 Calendar

Here is a brand new 2008 Windows live messenger calendar. Graphics for different seasons are very attractive and available in 1024x768 screen resolutions. You can download it for free from Dotnetwizard.

Get Free Link Exchange with Spottt

Spottt is free link exchange service from Adbrite. Anyone with a web or blog can trade links with other like minded sites or blog.

It’s very simple, just sign up with Spottt; you will get a small piece of code, which you will then put on your site, that’s all. Other Spottt member’s ads will make appearance on your site and yours will be on their site.

[source- hongkiat]

LiveWorldWebcam- Thousands of live webcams from around the world

Want to see live web cam show from around the world, LiveWorldWebcam is the perfect place. Divided in to different category like country, city, etc you can see everything from beaches to highways around the world, passing through volcanoes, mountains, speed circuits, etc.

I checked some of the web cams and found working perfectly, but some other stops respond. Some of them are slow to update.It is a good resource for those who want to spend the time or they want to see how some parts or cities of the world are now.

[source-dosbit]

Corporate logo in web2 Stylr

Corporate logo in Web2Stylr - provides inspiration to design a new logo

Download free Windows Server 2003, Visual Studio, Expression studio, etc from Microsoft

Microsoft is offering students around the world access to professional-level developer and design tools at no coast through DreamSpark. DreamSpark is an initiative from Microsoft designed to “inspire students to explore the power of software and encourage them to forge the next wave of software-driven breakthroughs."

The DreamSpark program includes Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Visual Studio 2008 Pro; XNA Game Studio 2.0; Visual Studio 2005 Pro, Expression Blend; Expression Design, etc.

Currently this opportunity is available for the students in the US, UK, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium and more countries will be added in future.

More Details

[Source – Sofpedia]

Access Hotmail and Yahoo mail through Thunderbird

We know that some of the free email services like Hotmail and Yahoo mail do not support Email clients like Thunderbird to access mail (Access via POP or IMAP), instead we need to sign in to their web site to access it.

If you want to access free email services like Hotmail, Yahoo mail, AOL, etc through Thunderbird, an extension to Thunderbird is there called Webmail which integrates web site based email accounts in to Thunderbird, this allows Thunderbird to download and to send emails using the web site.

This extension currently supports Thunderbird 2, and to use the service, installs the Webmail extension firstly then install the service extension, example Hotmail or Yahoo mail extension.

Related Posts

Access Hotmail through Windows Desktop mail

Access Yahoo mail through Outlook Express

[Source-Puntogeek]

Search and Download MP3 songs

Here is another search engine for MP3 songs- Whatmp3 which is quite simple in design and very easy to search a song. Search results are also not bad. You have option to hear the song before download.

Online Music mixer-Create your own Ring tones and Music loops

MyBytes is a Microsoft sponsored project for the student community and every one can use it for free. This online service allows you to make ring tones and original songs using the library of loops and sound effects inside your web browser –Just like a compact version of Fruity Loops or Adobe audition.

You can find instructions for using the mixer on the mixer page. When you're finished creating your track, you can either save it to work on later, or set rights and publish it for use in the MyBytes community or download it as MP3 file.

>>>MyBytes

[Source - Digital Inspiration]

Powerful data recovery software for free download

TestDisk and Photorec are powerful free data recovery software available for download under GPL license. TestDisk was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition table, etc).

While Photorec helps to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from Hard Disks and CDRom and lost pictures from digital camera memory, etc. Both the applications are available in a single package and run under Windows all, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX and Sun Solaris.
Testdisk can perform the job like - Fix partition table, recover deleted partition, >>Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup, >>Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector, >>Fix FAT tables, >>Rebuild NTFS boot sector, >>Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup, >>Fix MFT using MFT mirror, >>Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock.
Photorec recognizes numerous file format including ZIP, Office, PDF, HTML, JPEG and various graphics file formats and works with HardDisks, Cdrom, Compact Flash, Memory Stick, SecureDigital, SmartMedia, Microdrive, MMC, USB Memory Drives, etc.

Full documentation and other details available at Cgsecurity

However, in my opinion, this program is not very user friendly. We should have some knowledge about different file system, partition and all to operate it. However this is powerful software in this category and is free.

Requirement: Window all, Mac OSX, Linux, FreeBSD, Sun Solaris

License: Open Source

File size: 2.7Mb

Download

Windows Seven Gadgets beta for free download

Windows Seven gadgets (beta) project is a collection of some application for Windows XP /Vista that enhance your desktop as well as simplify your works. The application is light weight and only 1.3Mb to download.

You can download and test some of the gadgets that may be included in the seven projects.

Get licensed version software and games for free every day

It is true that you can download and use licensed version software and games for free. All the applications are presented in its full functionality, without any limitations, that is it’s a registered and legal version

Remember that it provides only one program each day and is available for download only 24hrs and also you need to install it the day you download it, because connection to their server is required for installation. (How they provide commercial version for free?)

The limitation is that, you have no choice to select an application for download, because only one application is available each day and you can’t reinstall it.

If you like visit the site at Giveaway of the day for download

[Source]

Wordpress style comment system for Blogger

We know that in blogger /blogspot, readers need to click on a new page or new popup window to leave a comment on our post. The worst thing about it is that, sometime this just makes the reader too lazy to leave a comment, even they want to.

There are some methods to replace this type of comment system. Jackbook.com introduced a hack for it. But, required some knowledge about template and html coding are to do it successfully. Another one is Haloscan, but limited features.

The Intensedbate commenting system is one of the best among others which have more control over comments with a social flare. It is really easy to do, just download your full template and upload to IntenseDebate, they do the necessary changes, then you can copy paste your template (expand widget before copy paste) A comment widget is also available.

I think there is no need of much explanation required, just visit the site and follow the instruction. Features here…

>>The only thing I dislike with this is that it can’t work on browsers with JavaScript disabled.

>>See a live demo site here

[Via – Makeuseof]

Free e-book to Customize your Blogger templates

The Cheats’ Guide to Blogger Template Design is a free e-Book which helps you create a new look for your blogger blog. This e-Book will offer you many options and examples to customize your existing Blogger template quickly and easily.

Divided in to 5 chapters, this e-Book will help you understand the basic techniques of blogger template design, from configuring background images to creating a custom header, using clickable buttons and much more!

Each chapter in this e-book covers different aspects of Blogger template. Following are some of the features of this e-Book.

• New examples of template customizations
• An entire chapter about customizing stretch (fluid) templates
• How to use buttons, banners and images
• Many useful resources for template customization
• An optional download folder containing all of the templates and images used in the e-Book

>>Download the e-Book
>>Related posts:A handy reference guide to Wordpress

MooColorFinder - retrieve website colors

MooColorFinder is a simple online tool that allows us to extract the colors that used in a web site. You can extract HTML color from any website, no matter whether it is used inline CSS file or imported from other sources.

Just enter the URL of a Web site, mooColorFinder shows you the color in a rich color palette.

Via - Xyberneticos

Blogroll for blogger

Blogroll or link list of blogs are one of most common and recommended element of a blog. The latest widget, Blog List from blogger helps you do more than that.

”Blog List displays a list of links to your favorite blogs with an optional icon. If you link to a blog with an Atom or RSS feed, however, the Blog List can show the date of the blog’s last update or even the title and snippet of its most recent post” quoting from Blogger in draft.

Remember that the new widget is in beta stage, if you want to access it, log in to your account from Blogger in Draft and not regular log in

Following are some of the features of this widget:

>>Options to set the number of blogs to show in the list and whether they should be sorted by update time or alphabetically by blog title.

>> The list of blogs can be imported directly from Google Reader

>> It gives the possibility to include every blog your favicon automatically

To add this on your blog, just login to your account from Blogger in draft and select Bloglist from the ‘Add page element option and add url of a blog or import directly from your Google reader

What about Yahoo! News Globe?

Yahoo!News Globe

Online Button generator for your blog or web site

The FreeWebStuff is an online web button generator that allows you generate royalty free web 2.0-styled web buttons, that can be used with any web layouts or templates as graphic user interface elements.

We can make beautiful buttons with in minutes by choosing the design, which can be Vista style, Mac, Gel or Plastic, then proceed to choose the font, size, color of the same, and so on. Then you can download the button.

Link- FreeWebStuff

HTML Playground – learn html

If you are new in the blogosphere and have interested in learning HTML to improve your blog or simply want to improve your knowledge of this language, the language used for almost all Internet pages, HTML Playground is a website where you can learn to serve each of the labels used in HTML, that you can play with them changing some attributes and seeing the results immediately.

Link - HTML Playground

Via - Carlosleopoldo

Create your own parody logo of popular brand name

Want to make your own parody logo of famous brand name, TV channel, movie title or music title? At Fontparody you can create it with like fonts.

Just select any of the categories like brand name, movie, music, etc and select a title, for example CNN, and type your own text in the box and click on create button. There are also options like font color, background color and image size to choose. After that you can save this logo. Site language is Korean.

>>Link to the site

Secunia PSI – protects against Software Vulnerabilities

The computer security company Secunia has designed a free security tool, Secunia PSI (Personal Software Inspector) which helps us secure our computer from software vulnerabilities (Vulnerabilities from the Operating System down to browser, email client, office application, IM, and so on).

Software vulnerability is basically a programming error/flaw in a software application that can be utilized by hacker to intrude in to our system to perform some actions like automatic installation of viruses, Trojans, key loggers, or other malicious code.

“Programs such as anti-virus, personal firewall and anti-spy ware are good measures of protection, but they will NOT protect you from the threat of software vulnerabilities - despite what many of them promise!” said Secunia.
The only solution for software vulnerability is to keep installed software updated. Unfortunately, most software vendors are not completely forthcoming about security-related releases, results much damage to the user. Here comes the importance of Secunia SP1.

Secunia PSI analyzes the PC and shows which software is insecure in our computer and provides options to solve the problem. The scanning based on a database of around 4200 applications.

The application is weigh only 458Kb and installation is simple. After installation run the app, remember to connect your computer to internet. Just scan your PC (Process is very quick) and it shows any problem with any of the application installed and provides remedies to solve the problem.

Supports - Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Server 2003

>>Download

License - Free

Test your Browser for Security Threats

Testing our browser for any security loop hole is a good idea because most of the attacks to our computer came through the browser. If your browser shows frequent inconsistency you have to think about it. Most of these problems occur when people are start adding or removing different third party extensions, add-ons or toolbars to a browser. Even though some of these add-ons or extensions are having great helps to us, some add-on contains malicious code or it cause inconsistency to the browser.

If you suspect your browser for any problem, running a browser security check will do fine. Here is an online tool - Bcheck-that checks our browser for any security loop hole. It tests only Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera and no support to Safari.

Via - Makeuseof

>>Link - Bcheck

How to Configure Firefox to free Proxy server

A proxy server serves us mainly in two ways - It increases the network speed of our internet connection and hides our identity by hiding our IP address.

A proxy server (not every) save information and files that are requested by many other proxy users in a special database called "cache". When you request a web page behind a proxy, the proxy server first look into these "cache" and if the same information is found you will get it without a delay.

An anonymous proxy server hides our IP address and hides information about us and our interests. It is useful, for example, to overcome some restriction on users from certain countries, cities, geographic regions or even restrictions on some IP address. So a proxy can be used for browsing blocked sites like Flickr, MySpace or YouTube, etc.Here is an example to use a free proxy server with Firefox.

• Firstly get a list of free proxy servers from here or here
  
• Then choose an IP address and port address from the list (example: 220.227.64.155. and 8080)
• Now run your Firefox
• Go to-Tools-Options-Advanced
• Click on Network-tab then-Settings
• Now choose Manual proxy configuration. Enter the IP address in HTTP Proxy and Port address in Port. (Example: 220.227.64.155 and 8080 respectively). Also check the box 'Use this proxy server for all protocols'.
• Click OK.

Try different IP address and port address for different result. I found that some of them are fine and others give very bad results. And of course you can delete it if you don’t want.
>>Related Post- Surf faster than before

Resources for icons, vector graphics and vector wallpapers

DaPino-coloda offers a good amount of design resources like icons vector graphics, vector wallpaper, etc for download.

The site has some really good designs, and the best thing is that even the most of the icons and resources are in PSD format. So anyone can modify each design with Photoshop according to the tone of our blog.

All resources are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0.

>>Via - Xyberneticos

>>Link - DaPino

Gimado - Search and download mp3

Gimado is a search engine for MP3 songs. Like other search engine it is also give better search result. Gimado is a simple form of mp3 search engine that would search all over the Web for MP3 files. In the search results has the option of listening to the songs online or downloaded for free to your computer.

Online virtual multilingual keyboard

The main purpose of this online virtual on screen multilingual keyboard is to let everyone- usually travelers/tourists or anyone in front of a foreign computer- to write, type or search the internet in their own language.

And also the possibility to change the keyboard language at internet places around the world may not always possible. These places usually allow you to view sites in your language due to IE language encoding, but don't allow you to type in your language (because of administrator or system limitations).

Furthermore, even if you can change the language, you'll probably find yourself in front of a keyboard with a different language layout, and you'll have to guess the position of the keys.

However, this online virtual keyboard solves those problems by allowing you to type in your language, and to view your language's keyboard layout on-screen in a virtual Semi-Real keyboard. It also allows you to simply type in a different language without messing with the operating system settings.

>>Link

See lyrics in Windows media player

Lyrics Plugin is an extension to Windows media player and Winamp which allows viewing or taking lyrics from your favorite songs. Just start listening to your favorite songs and lyrics will be displayed automatically, and if a lyric not found, you can also add it yourself .

You must select the proper directory of the player to install the plug-in. For example, by default Windows media player is installed on ‘C’ drive; C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player. For Winamp select the installed directory.

To view the lyric of any song that playing you must check whether it is activated on your player. For Windows media player – View – Plug-ins – Lyric-plug-in, click it to activate.

>>Download

Via - Knxdt

AutoRuns - provides comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of Windows

AutoRuns for Windows V.9.10 is now available for download. This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system boot up or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. This application, Autoruns, goes beyond the MSConfig utility included with Windows Me and XP.You can configure Auto runs to show locations including Explorer shell extensions, registry, toolbars, browser helper objects, Win logon notifications services; etc. More details...
Autoruns works on all versions of Windows including 64-bit versions.
Download
Via-Noticiastech