Tag: Online Tools

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Reviews

URLXray: X-ray vision for short-urls for Twitter

Many Twitter users had to deal with onMouseOver issue with Twitter. This was created because of a security vulnerability on Twitter. That vulnerability has been fixed for now but one of the most basic vulnerable part of Twitter are the short URL’s. The reason is mainly that we do not know where we are being directed. This makes it a little dangerous.

URLXray is a nice online tool to quick look up a short URL and display the complete URL. This usually is very useful if you are using Twitter through the browser and not a desktop application.

Features of URLXray

  • Just enter the short url in and click on X Ray button. This shows the original URL where you are being directed.
  • Visiting the URLXray website every time to unravel a short-url is not really practical. This is why URLXray has a nice clean bookmarklet which works with most browsers out there.
  • I liked URLXray because it has a simple and clean interface. Also it has a bookmarlet and add-on or extension which works with one browser only.
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I use Twitter and Facebook extensively. As a blogger I do end up clicking on a lot of short-urls. I do not recommend looking at all the links with URLXray but only the tweets or updates which are suspect. This is usually when there is a generic message or no message accompanying the short-url.

Do you know about similar web tools that unravel where a short-url takes you? Do drop in your comments with your views.

Links: URLXRay website | URLXray Bookmarklet

Categories
Tips

Give your photos a Halloween touch with Google’s Picnik

We all love messing around with our photographs. I mean who does not like using a bit of Photoshop or change the background and pretend we were standing on the moon and not in the backyard. There are a few image editors online with interesting features and one of them is Google’s Picnik.

Now that Halloween is close, Google has unveiled some new features with Picnik to give your photographs a touch of vampires and ghosts.

Great move by Picnik!

This is a really great move by Google to get some much-needed publicity for Picnik. Picnik is a website with great features to edit images online. It was acquired by Google a few months ago.

Google Picassa web albums are nowhere close to being as famous and Yahoo’s Flickr. I guess this is a way to give Picnik and Picassa a bit of publicity.

Go ahead and give your images a few interesting touches with Picnik. Look up their Halloween specific features.

Do you use online image editors? Which one is your favorite? Do drop in your comments.

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Reviews

Create and manage online to-do lists with FishMemory

To-do lists are very important for most people who work a lot online. I usually used Sticky Notes applications with Windows 7, I have on my computer. This helps me keep track of all the things I need to do. But sticky notes application is quite a simplistic one and a slightly more complex one might be quite useful. This is where I love the To-do list online service from Fish Memory.

Features of To-Do List with Fish Memory

  • I like To-Do lists to have a simple interface. This is why I find using Google calendar a little uncomfortable when it comes to using it daily. Fish Memory supports multiple to-do lists which can be created.
  • Notes can be added to the lists along with tasks can be marked complete and incomplete. It is an ideal way to plan a small personal project and track its progress over the few days.
  • It also allows creating reminders which can send out a reminders every day or even on a particular day of the week.
  • I can also share these to-do lists with others through email or make a particular list public. 🙂

Alternatives to this site can be Remember the Milk add-ons or even Task lists Gmail. I like using Fish Memory lists here more because it shows complex functions in a simple layout. This makes it quite useful for people who want to use a new online tool and not spend time figuring it.

Do you make to-do lists online? If you have other online tools then do share through your comments.

Link: Fish Memory

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Reviews

Bookmarklet Combiner: Combine all bookmarklets on a browser into a single one

Bookmarklets are often used by people like me who share things on social networks or bookmark a website on Delicious or for that matter even for subscribing to its RSS feed.

I recently came across Bookmarklet Combiner which allowed me to combine all my bookmarklets into one single bookmarklet on the browser.

What is a bookmarklet?

Bookmarklet is basically a JavaScript code which is saved as a bookmark on the browser. When you click on the bookmarklet it runs as script. It is often used to share a link on social networks or even to subscribe to a websites RSS feed.

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Bookmarklet Combiner Features

  • Visit the Bookmarklet Combiner web page.
  • Drop in the link of all the bookmarks you want to combine and rename them separately. Something like in the image above.
  • I could select how the bookmarklets are combined. Either you can see them in a drop down menu or to run all combined bookmarklets. I personally found having the bookmarklets show in a drop down menu.

Once done I could share the bookmarklet link with others too. Usually in most cases I prefer to drag and drop a bookmarklet on my browser instead of installing add-ons or extensions. The main advantage is they basically work the same way on all browsers.

Do drop in your comments and let me know if you use Bookmarklets often?

Link: Bookmarklet Combiner

(via Madras Geek)

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News

Update: Twitter has a security hole which is being exploited

Twitter has always had the potential for being a security risk. This is mainly because the links that are shared are trusted but as most of them are short URL links there is no way to know where that link was pointing towards.

Recently according to Sophos, there is a link which is being posted on Twitter. These links are usually onMouseOver JavaScript code. This mean even if you are surfing on Twitter and mouse over the link it can end up redirecting to unwanted pages.

Image Credit: Sophos

I am pretty sure Twitter will close up this security hole. But there are some things we can do avoid this sort of JavaScript Code on a link.

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How it affects your account?

You end up sending links or retweeting a link without permission. This can make using your twitter account from the website pretty impossible unless you delete the retweeted link.

There is a pop-up. Until now these pop-ups have been harmless but the potential to infect or redirect to 3rd party website is there.

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Tips for Security with Twitter

  • Ideally this is infecting only accounts of people using Twitter.com website. This means if you are using 3rd party apps you are reasonably safe.
  • Do not click on any tweet which only has a link. Even if this is from an account you trust. The same goes for Direct Messages (DM).

As this is activated even with mouse-over and not just on clicking on the link best is to avoid visiting Twitter.com. I am sure because of re-design a lot of regular users are also visiting Twitter’s website.

Are short url’s a real blind spot when it comes to websites like Twitter or Facebook. Few years ago we hardly clicked on links sent on email. We are more prone to do so with Twitter and Facebook around now a days. Do drop in your comments and views on this.

Categories
News

Flickr is 5 billion photos strong!

Flickr is a great website. It is one of my favorite websites along with YouTube, specially when I want to pass some time on the internet. Almost everyone who is actively storing and looking up photographs online will be using Flickr if not at least would have tried a few times.

Google has Picassa web albums but nothing really comes close to beating Flickr.

Recently Flickr announced that the 5 billionth photo was uploaded on to their website.

You can view this image on Flickr here.

Some Interesting Trivia on Flickr

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  • Flickr was born out of FlickrLive. It was basically for live sharing of images on multi-user chat rooms way back in 2004.
  • Flickr was bought over by Yahoo in 2005 leading to rumors that Flickr might be renamed as Yahoo Photos which already existed. Flickr was a better product and instead of it being assimilated into Yahoo Photos, Yahoo Photos was discontinued in 2007.
  • Flickr is widely regarded as the only big successful service which Yahoo can boast about.
  • Flickr is widely used by professional photographers and people photographs taken even in the US President’s White House are released on Flickr without copyright.
  • Over 3000 images are uploaded on Flickr every minute.

A while ago I remember writing about YouTube completing 5 years. I think Flickr and YouTube are probably changing the way the web would be used 10 years from now.

What are your views on this? Do drop in your comments.

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Reviews

Check availability of a name across all social media

The internet is a fish market. No one really owns anything and that is actually true even for something as unique as your name or nickname. Social Media or social networking websites have burst out in numbers. NameChk is a great website. I could check my name’s availability on various social networks within seconds.

About NameChk

  • Just enter your name or the name of your blog and let the website check for availability of the name across 50 social networks.
  • This is very useful when launching a new service. For instance I am launching a new service or blog and want a particular name across social networks to represent the brand. NameChk can be very useful creating if all the major social networks you want has that name available.
  • There is no need to login or register for using this service. 😉

This website checks across all social networks. You might want to check out how to check a keyword across the internet which would help in starting off with a new venture and name it appropriately.

What are your views on snapping up names on Social Networks? Do you know of any similar tools? Do let me know through your comments.

Link: Daily Blogging Tips

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Reviews

Check loading speed of multiple websites

Many people have obsessed on the time it takes for a site to load up on the browser. Recently, Google had declared that how fast your website gets loaded will have an impact on SEO or page ranks.

I think when it comes to blogs, speed might not have such an adverse impact but I am sure it got a lot of bloggers wondering how their website performed when compared for speed with others (competitors). 🙂

Which loads Faster is a website that tests loading speed for two different websites from one page itself and compares them.

Features of Which loads Faster

  • The image above showed two websites being tested for loading speed. We used Devils’ Workshop and wpVeda.
  • There are added features or repeating tests and capturing data.
  • Another interesting feature is Race. This allows multiple websites to load up and be tested in a group. The group with fasted loading speeds wins the race. 🙂

Apart from Google looking at loading speed, a site which is slow can finally end up frustrating visitors too. So it would be a nice idea to compare your website for speed against some popular ones.

Do try out Which loads Faster and share with us what are your views on loading speed for websites? Are they any important? Do drop in your comments.

Categories
Tips

Use Twitter bookmarklet to share any webpage

Sometimes I come across a great article or a photo gallery and it is impressive. So decided maybe some of my friends on Twitter might want to look this up. I look around for the Tweet meme button or even Twitter’s own re-tweet button. It’s nowhere to be found.

Now I copy paste the address of the post, shorten it in Hoot suite which I use to handle my Twitter account and then share it on Twitter.

Now Twitter has introduced a bookmarklet which allows the user to share a page on Twitter from the browser with no need of a re-tweet button at all.

How to get Twitter Bookmarklet?

Just look up the Twitter Share Bookmarlet page and look up the bookmarklet icon. Drag and drop that button into your bookmarks section on any browser.

Once done look up any page you want to share online with Twitter. Just click on the bookmarklet and it will show up a pop message you can customize and share the tweet on Twitter. (see image below)

This is not really a path breaking  feature and there are many alternatives out there with the same functionality. But the difference here is that this is one more feature which Twitter has shared as its official service and not let developers continue make a killing on it.

Will Twitter bury the very developers which made it the interactive buzzing forum it is now with thousands of different applications? Do drop in your views through your comments.

Categories
Reviews

Create mosaic posters using Facebook, Twitter and MySpace friends

I have always found these mosaic posters which are created using other smaller images quite fascinating. I always wanted to create something similar with images taken from my friends on Facebook or Twitter. There were a few web services but none of them were free.

Enter Frintr which allowed me to create images which you can see below from the profile images taken from people I follow on Twitter or from my Facebook friends. 🙂

Features of Frintr

  • Just visit the website and select which social network you want to use to create a mosaic image from your friends. The social networks covered are Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.
  • Once you select the social network it will prompt you to sign in with your account credentials.
  • This will start creating a mosaic patterned images from your friends on the network. It is low resolution and hence free.
  • I could also change the image which I wanted rendered in mosaic format. 🙂

I had written about this cool tool which created videos of your Twitter account and usage automatically. Similarly I find Frintr very cool. Go ahead and try it out. Share you mosaic image on Twitter and Facebook and do drop in your comments.