This is not a tech-article but I hope most geeks will like this.
Following is video footage of Commencement address by Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, delivered on June 12, 2005, to the graduates of Stanford University. In his speech Jobs talked about 3 small stories from his life. They are really motivating and inspiring to all geeks who want to swim against the stream…
Also if you like to read text of his speech, its here. [ PDF Version ]
I specially like his story about connecting the dots…
Long list of supported features and appealing user interface will make scrapboy your sweetheart. Designed with keeping minor details in mind, scrapboy take care of missing feature on individual social networks. So do not think it as another desktop-way to access few online sites.
As a simple example, have a look at facebooks’ birthday reminder feature enhanced in scrapboy…
Still latest facebook chat feature is not available in scrapboy as it is integrated into Digsby. But on the other hand scrapboy is much more centered around social networking sites while digsby is yet to support orkut.
Link: Scrapboy | Download (via Inside Orkut)
Related: Access Orkut From Facebook
In old days people used to bookmark websites which they want to stay connected to. The process was, bookmark a site and then manually open it to check if website/page has been updated. I do still use bookmarks, but the purpose is only to note down important web pages. Updates must be tracked via formats like RSS. Its easier, simpler and fully automatic approach.
So what is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format used to deliver information from websites and pages that get updated regularly. An RSS document (which is called feed) contains either a summary or the full content from a website.
The main benefit of RSS is that it enables people to stay connected with their favorite websites without having to visit them. Once you subscribe to a particular RSS feed, you will automatically receive updates from the website that publishes the feed, whenever they release new content. (excerpt from rssday.org)
Check this video…
If a picture is worth 1000 words, then video must be worth a million words! And videos created by common craft team are surely worth a billion words. Here is video they created to explain RSS…
Still if you left with some doubt in your mind visit rssday.org and I bet you will learn what RSS is for sure! Also have a look at wikipedia entry on RSS.
So next time better looks for RSS feeds than bookmarking your favorite blogs/news sites. 🙂
Links: Subscribe to this blog 
Many fellow bloggers who missed it, was eager to know about next bloggers meet. The wait is over now, atleast for Mumbai bloggers, as next meet is scheduled in Mumbai on Sunday, the 27th of April, at 3 PM.
You can register for meet here. Its free! If you are new to IndiBloggers, then you may need to create a new account for registration.
Venue:
Joshi's Kohinoor Hall, Banquet Hall (Ground Floor), Veer Savarkar Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai- 400025 Landmark - Opposite Siddhi Vinayak Temple
Please correct me, if map is wrong. Just created it and guess I have never been to this place before! 😉
Date & Time: Sunday, the 27th of April, at 3 PM
Contact: First check event page
Thats it! Enjoy the event.
Unfortunately I have some other important appointment on Sunday so I wont be able to attend it. But if you are a blogger and in Mumbai, don’t miss it.
You may get a free T-Shirt as well… 😉
Links: IndiBlogger | Mumbai meeting page
First something about Kontera…
Kontera is a In-Text advertising program. The double-underlined hyperlinks on this blog and at many other places on Internet is by Kontera.
Although its contextual in nature like Adsense, the way they serve ads make it unique. So you can safely use Kontera along with Google Adsense. More details are here…
My story with Kontera…
It was August 2006. I was new on blogosphere. Like most fellow bloggers, I started with blogspot and Adsense. I was so naive that I did not know what feeds, wordpress, paypal and other bloggers favorite jargon means.
All I had, one friend Anil Wadghule in entire blogosphere who was never interested in making money out of his blog and my faith in this medium to make living out of it.
So I started my search for ways to monetize my blog and somehow landed up on kontera. At that time, the only thing caught my eyes was simplicity to use Kontera. So I signed up for Kontera on August 28, 2006.
It took more than one year to get my first $100 payment but that’s altogether a different story. All I can say now, I am the person to blame for that.
Coming back to Kontera Affiliate Programs…
Although they never promoted it aggressively, Kontera do have an affiliate program. But its requirements are..
So its not open for new joiners by default. But don’t worry as there is an alternative ‘invite a friend’ program which also works good. (read more…)
Thanking Kontera…
Yep, as you might have guess by now I am into the Kontera affiliate program now. And reason to thank for is, I have given this privilege despite failing to complete all of above three requirements.
I am yet to make $100 per month, but considering my good and long standing with Kontera, Vered Avrahami, Publisher Services Manager at Kontera, decided to give me a chance after our 8 days of email discussion.
Of course it will help me make some more bucks without a doubt, but what’s more important in this case is, they make me feel honored. 🙂
So thanks a ton kontera and specially Vered for this. I feel it would not have been possible without Vered. She is nice, quick and encouraging throughout the discussion.
It has bees said, A man is known by the company he keeps, but I must say here for Vered, A Company is known by people they keep! 🙂
Link: Sign-up for Kontera
Spokeo is a social network aggregator that automatically brings your friends’ updates across various web services. It supports 40+ services including Blogger, Digg, Flickr, Fotolog, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Picasa, Slide, Twitter, Veoh, Xanga, Yahoo! Videos, YouTube.
In addition to supporting social networks, Spokeo is a full feed reader, able to track any blog or website that has RSS feed.
Finding Friends: There are 3 ways to find and add friends into Spokeo.
Misconception: Spokeo is not a social network as many people think. It does not support messaging, blogging, photo or video uploading, or any social network features. Moreover, it syndicates only publicly available information. So Facebook (except notes & shares) & Orkut like sites can not be supported.
Overall I like the concept but hated few things like 1000 contact limit and slow speed. Still worth giving a try!
Links: Spokeo | List of supported Networks
Related News Aggregators: PopUrls | newsflashr
Now in desktop category my long time favorite pidgin got serious competition from digsby which not only operates across multiple IM network and do email notification job but also makes your life easy on social networks like facebook, myspace & twitter. Surprisingly there is no donut for orkut users at this time! 🙁
One option that will surely beat other desktop IMs is compulsion to create digsby account. With this option you will have all your accounts’ information stored on digsby server.
This is good as you don’t need to re-enter multiple account info every-time you install digsby on a new machine. For people like me who uses atleast 5 PC’s in daily routine, this is something I want from long time. Also its good from security point of view as you will need to enter only digsby login info from unsecure places like public cyber-cafes!
Other Notable Features:
The only thing I am not sure about its chat-history feature. Its there but it will be great if they maintain chat-history on server-side like IM History does.
As of now its available for Windows only. But Mac & Linux versions are also on the way. So cheer up! 🙂
Links: Digsby Homepage | Features List
Contact page is something every serious blogger must add on their blog.
Many bloggers just create a contact page or worse put their email id somewhere in sidebar. Reason to do this includes spam problem, laziness, not enough technical knowledge, etc.
There are many sites and plugins available to do this easily. One such plugin we are using at Devils Workshop is WP-ContactForm: Akismet Edition plugin. Those who know about akismet might have already guessed that this plugin takes care of all spam automatically.
Although the developer of this plugin mentioned some issues with wordpress 2.5, its working here as smoothly as it used to work on earlier wordpress versions.
Now all self-hosted WordPress bloggers can follow steps below…
<!--contact form--> as it is there. You may write anything before and after it.Here is screenshot of editor
For more advance options, Go to Settings >> Contact Form options. You can check our contact page right now!
Note that this plugin needs Akismet pre-activated for the spam-filtering to work. Otherwise, all messages will be sent straight to you, unchecked!
Links: WP-ContactForm: Akismet Edition | Akismet
So here I am presenting quickly recap, of March month…
We received 54,457 unique visitors and more than 100K page views in March only. As can be seen in following graph, I messed up things in February. But that mess taught me lots of things which together helped us march to success!
(Source: Sitemeter)
While in 50K visitors around 10K was from stumbleupon on post discussing 5 Best torrent search engines, I guess still 40K is good number. That means more than 1K unique visitors per day. Something I dreamt long time back… 🙂
We also crossed 1000 FeedBurner readers mark on 14 March. This is much more important than other things because at first I thought, it was some kind of spike and will eventually go down, but since that day the counter never went down below 1000!
Also as we have now 3 different feedburner feeds alongwith many other feeds like comment feeds, the actual readers base is much larger than shown in FeedBurner counter.
On earnings front, total rise is around 6 times. With this pace, it will be easier to switch to full-time blogging in June as per my current plans!
Our Google Adsense earning are 3 times higher while rise in traffic is around 2 times. In other income sources, kontera earning increased by 7 times and our affiliate earnings shoot up to $128 from mere $3 in February!
I will be sharing my secret what worked for me with you in coming days! As per earning considered, check out kontera, if you don’t use it!
Thanks again for helping us reach new heights! 🙂
Recommended Links: Kontera
One of our reader Deepak Jain wants to add Adsense banner ads in his blogspot blog.
While its simple to add any HTML/Javascript code in blogspot blogs using HTML/Javascript new element, option to add such element is by default disabled in header menu.
The problem can be easily seen in following two screenshots which are taken from Layout >> Page Element panel…
A. Default Options..
B. After Enabling "Add a Page Element" Option…
Once Add a Page Element option comes there, you can edit blogs header as simply as editing sidebar. Putting Google Adsense ads in header won’t be any different than doing same in sidebar!
# Steps to Enable Add a Page Element Option…
1. Go to Layout >> Edit HTML Option
2. Search following codes in Edit Template box…
<div id='header-wrapper'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'>
3. Make following two changes
4. Click on Save Template!
That it! Just go back to Page Elements tab and you will see Add a Page Element Option there! 🙂
