Thursday, July 8, 2010

Woopra: Live Web Tracking and Analytics Tool

4:56 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Google Analytics is no doubt the best free analytics tool available for webmasters and bloggers. It is an essential service to track visitor and blog/website statistics.

Several complaints have been heard from people about Google Analytics saying that it updates only once in 24-48 hours and does not include any sort of live visitor tracking tool. There are many other tools that offer live tracking, but they don’t even come near to Google Analytics when website analytics is concerned.

Woopra: Live Web Tracking and Analytics Tool

Woopra is a new live web tracking and analytics tool that lets you analyze your websites/blogs in real time. It is targeted towards small and medium websites (particularly bloggers) with up to tens of thousands of daily page views.

It is still in private beta but if you signup, there are 90% chances that yuo will be accepted soon. Current restrictions also include the number of websites you can have tracked for the beta. It has a very intuitive interface and offers advance features that include many graphical visualizations such as, charts, maps and panels.

Some of the basic Woopra features are:

  • Live Visitor Tracking
    Live tracking enables webmasters to analyze visitor statistics in real time and can track over 40 different statistical events and analytics.
  • Rich User Interface
    Woopra’s rich graphical user interface has n delays in the response time as comes with web-based programs. And it is designed to be flexible, with plans for future development of various color schemes and themes.
  • Manage Multiple Blogs and Websites
    You can track multiple blogs and websites at the same time and the quick site tabs at the top of the Woopra panel lets you acess them with one-click.
  • Deep Analytic and Search Capabilities
    The huge data can be easily searched for more deep analysis as specific user names, IP addresses, geographic locations, user browsing data, visitor history, visitor paths, arrival and departure points.
  • Chat With Visitors
    Woopra allows you to initiate chat sessions with visitors without any installation. This sounds quite creepy, and I myself scared a few of my friends by saying: Your PC has been hacked! Thanks for visiting Sizzled Core.
  • Visitor and Member Tagging
    You can tag regular site visitors with names to monitor their activities easily.
  • Easy Installation and Update Notification
    It is very easy to install and set up. WordPress and vBulletin users can use the official Woopra plugin instead of manually adding the code. The desktop application can be installed on any recent version of Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Currently, Woopra is offering tons of features for free to all the private beta users and will later also add premium services.

I would recommend all bloggers to signup for Woopra because of its ease of use and the depth of statistics it provides!

Woopra: Live Web Tracking and Analytics Tool

Upgrade Wordpress to 2.6.3 Quickly

4:55 AM SHAZIA MALIK

WordPress 2.6.3, which was released yesterday, is a patch release that fixes two security vulnerabilities involving Snoopy, a library that WordPress uses internally.

All WordPress users should upgrade to the latest WordPress version to avoid being a victim of this particular vulnerability. There are many obvious and less obvious ways to upgrade WordPress, a few possible ways, in decreasing order of required time, are:

  • Download the latest WordPress source, unzipde it on your harddisk, connect to your server via ftp and transfer the files. Then follow the upgrade instructions on the WordPress website. This is the method Windows users are most likely to use ;-)
  • Do the above, but transfer files via scp
  • Log on to your server via ssh / putty, do a wget http://wordpress.org/download/ to download the latest installer zip file. Unzip using unzip latest.zip. mv the required files to your WordPress folder and run the installer using the instructions from the WordPress website.
  • Download and install the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin on your WordPress blog. Go to the plugin page and follow the simple instructions each time there is a new upgrade available. This is suitable if you are running a single blog.
  • If you want to upgrade from 2.6.2 to version 2.6.3 , you simply need two files [file1] and [file2]. Just download and overwrite these files in your wp-includes folder, afte changing their permissions, using any one of the methods listed above. Doing it via ssh/wget/cp should take less than a minute.

Whichever method you choose to use, do keep your WordPress installation up-to-date to avoid potential problems and hacking attempts.

Moderate WordPress Comments from Desktop

4:54 AM SHAZIA MALIK

It’s been a while since I last shared an Adobe AIR tool. The last one I posted about was about GMDesk which lets you run Google services from your desktop.

Many blogs have comment moderation enabled to prevent from spam. Even this blog uses comment moderation, and I daily have to moderate a big pile of comments. This has just been made easy, thanks to Daniel.

Moderate WordPress Comments from DesktopModerator is an AIR-based app that lets you moderate comments on your WordPress-powered blogs right from your dekstop in rela-time and you don’t have to login to your Dashboard just to approve/unapprove comments. Some features included in this early release are:

  • Viewing unmoderated comments.
  • Dock and system tray notifications of the number of unmoderated comments.
  • Accept, delete, and spam comments from within the desktop client.
  • Close application window, or minimize it to the system tray while running.
  • Shows the Gravatar icons for the user who posted the comment.

Moderate also supports the upcoming WordPress 2.7. Since this is an early release, expect it to be buggy. The only two requirements this app needs is WordPress 2.6+ and Adobe AIR 1.1.

Download Moderator

WordPress 2.7 Beta 1 Released

4:53 AM SHAZIA MALIK

We have already been teased enough by the screenshots and features of the upcoming WordPress 2.7. And again a lot of buzz has been created before the actual release of WP 2.7.

Finally the first beta of WordPress 2.7 is now available for download. The WP Team has been working hard on the pretty visuals you will see. At the moment, there are many glitches in WP 2.7 for IE and Opera, but it works fine in Firefox and Safari.

For all those who are eagerly waiting for the full version of WordPress 2.7, there’s a small bad news. It won’t be releasing on November 10th, 2008 as planned before since the WP Team is two weeks behind schedule. What you get on Nov 10, is a Release Candidate release of WP 2.7.

Nothing has been said about the final release date, but they won’t take long since the Release Candidate version will be released next week. For now, enjoy the first beta!

Download WordPress 2.7 Beta 1

Google SEO Book

4:53 AM SHAZIA MALIK

We all know that Webmasters Tools by Google are here to help webmasters in every inch of their website career, but did you know there is a Google SEO book available?

I never did, until my friend tweeted about it. Well, there is nothing new in this book but simply the basics covering every aspect of the Search Engine Optimization. This e-book has been named as “SEO for Beginners”.

In this book you can find out about all the terminologies, and important things taking part and organizing the whole SEO setup, but from Google’s aspect.

In this book some basic questions are also well answered, like:

  • Can Google index your site?
  • What are Robots and what Robot.txt means?
  • What is really controlling Google indexes ?
  • Robots.txt vs. Meta tags 9
  • How to controlling caching and snippets?

Or if you are searching the ways to Increasing visibility of your content, some best practices are also mentioned by Google itself.

Download Making the Most of Your Content – A Publisher’s Guide to the Web – PDF file

Google Optimisation Essentials Video Series

4:52 AM SHAZIA MALIK

The main key to earn maximum revenue from Google AdSense is to optimize your ads well for your blog.

Google Adsense has now started giving recommendations for the best optimization of the Google Ads for your blog or website. So far they have made two posts on such tips. Below is a brief overview of what AdSense said about optimizing your ads.

I – For AdSense Ad Units

Last Week they released their first video enforcing towards an important logic while putting AdSense adverts and making more out of them. This logic was Bigger is Better. Yes, they recommend that bigger add size will give you the maximum opportunities for your AdSense revenue.

These three ad unit were their recommendation regarding choosing the best size of your ads.

  • 300×250 medium rectangle
  • 728×90 leaderboard
  • 160×600 skyscraper

Video:

II – Design to Impressing Your Audience

This is the second and latest from the AdSense Team in their Optimization Essentials for publishers. In this they have showed the importance of design, and what colors you should use for ad units. In most cases, publisher ads with contrast suit best and webmasters stick to them for years. But at some places, like this blog, you will find ads with blending colours.

They suggested the following tips:

  • Using colors that either blend or complement with site’s colors. Make the ads a part of your site.
  • Using lighter colors for borders, or no border at all.
  • Using the rotation colors strategy.
  • Occasionally switching the location of your ads on the page.
  • Implementing saved sets of frequently-used colors as a palette.

Video:

Oxite: Blog Engine by Microsoft

4:51 AM SHAZIA MALIK

We hardly know of anything that Microsoft has contributed to the open-source community, and almost a week ago, Microsoft launched its very own blogging platform which is surprisingly open-source, which means free!

Oxite is the blogging engine powered by Microsoft technologies which can be used for small personal blogs to large corporate websites as a CMS (content-management system).

This has been launched in competition with WordPress, which is by far the most popular open-source blogging publishing platform. But it is more ASP.NET driven and only corporate web developers would like to use it.

WordPress has one of the biggest user and developer community, and provides the power and flexibility that no other CMS can provide. In my opinion, Oxite is no match for WordPress in any way!

If you are curious to see any blog powered by Oxite, check out MIX Online.

Download Oxite and more info here.

Embed RSS Headlines Using Google AJAX Feed API

4:49 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Now with Google’s code generating tool, it’s very easy to embed RSS headlines into personal sites or at other places where JavaScript is allowed. All you have to do is choose a style, feed expression and generate the code! Can it get anymore easier? The code can be easily customized to suit your web-design, contains no ads and is a great tool for web beginners.

Google AJAX Feed Headlines Rotator

Choosing a style is very easy. You get to choose from three styles vertical, vertical stacked and horizontal. You can see an example of the horizontal style in the image above. In feed expression, you just add the name of the blog, and Google will find the feed for that blog itself and show you its direct feed URL. If you think that’s all what you need, press Preview button to see how it looks. Finally, when you are done with adding blogs, press the Generate Code button. You can copy/paste the code on any page where JavaScript is allowed.

This is a very useful tool for bloggers who write on multiple blogs and would like to display a headline rotator on each showing the latest headlines from all his blogs. FeedBurner also provides this feature as Headline Animator, but it displays headlines only from one feed URL.

Download WordPress 2.6 Beta 1

4:48 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Finally, the first beta of WordPress 2.6 has been released, with many new features in it and is now available for download. WordPress is one of the world’s favourite blogging platform. This release won’t be as big as WordPress 2.5, but will be worth upgrading to, because of the number of interesting new features it has. WordPress 2.6 is slated for a mid-July release which will have many usability improvements including the features mentioned below.

Features

Here’s a brief list of new features that are included in this beta, and will be included in the final WordPress 2.6 as well.

  • The old bookmarklet is back in WP 2.6
  • Caching of Admin Dashboard files with Google Gears
  • Theme previewing like in WordPress.com
  • Built-in post word counter
  • Ability to relocate your content directory
  • Drag-and-drop sortable galleries
  • Customizable default avatars
  • Bulk delete, activate, and deactivate for plugins
  • Plus lots bug fixes and performance improvements

For a complete list of updates in WordPress 2.6 Beta 1, head over here.

I waited for about 3 months before I finally upgraded to WordPress 2.5 after its release, but looks like I will now upgrade to WordPress 2.6 as soon as it gets released because of its new features.

Download

Download WordPress 2.6 Beta 1

How To Remove Navbar In Blogger Blogs

4:46 AM SHAZIA MALIK

You see a navigation bar on the top of every blog hosted at Blogger. With this navigation bar, you can search blogs, visit the next blog, sign in or create a new account. You can even flag a blog for posting some objectionable content.

One thing I like about WordPress.com blogs is that they don’t display any navigation bars at the top or at the bottom, but here at Blogger.com they don’t provide any option to remove it. I was hoping to see an option to remove this in the latest Blogger Draft features.

But who needs them when you can manually tweak it not to display the navigation bar.

How To Remove Navbar In Blogger Blogs

1. Open your Blogger dashboard.

2. Go to your blog’s Layout settings > Edit HTML

3. Look for:

/* Variable definitions
====================

4. And above that add:

#navbar-iframe { display: none !important; }

5. Save your settings and open your blog now. The navigation bar will be gone.

Here’s a sample blog that you can see without the navigation bar: http://freehostingoffers.blogspot.com/

WordPress 2.6 Released – Download Now!

4:44 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Yesterday, the first release candidate of WP 2.6 (codename Tyner) was released and a day later, the final version of WordPress 2.6 is out and is now available for download.

WordPress again brings in lots of new features and usability improvements with its latest version. They have also done some minor tweaks to improve its security.

What’s hot and new in WordPress 2.6

  • One of the major features to be added is the WordPress Turbo, that uses Google Gears to save your WordPress Dashboard files on PC and load pages at lightening speed.
  • Then comes Post Revision, with which one can track all the changes made to their posts and restore any old saved data if needed.
  • The Press This! bookmarklet is back. This was one feature that many people missed in WordPress 2.5.
  • Now blog admins can preview themes on their blog using Theme Preview without making them live for everyone. You can test it for possible errors and fix them before applying it for everyone.
  • Other minor features include word count, bulk management of plugins, image captions, revamped image control and reordering of Galleries are just to name a few.
  • WordPress 2.6 fixes a total of 194 bugs.

More details on features and bug fixes can be found on the WordPress blog.

Download

You can download the latest WordPress from the link below:

Download WordPress 2.6

Sunday Highlights – 3

4:41 AM SHAZIA MALIK

hey readers! Enjoying your Sunday? :) I hope it’s going well for you. It’s almost night time here and I had awesome day today. This week has been great for me. I finally got over with my laziness and upgraded to WordPress 2.5.1 yesterday. :)

May 19, 2008 – May 25, 2008

  • Amazing Face Art
  • Upload Files To Multiple File Hosts At Once
  • Download UXtheme.dll Patch For Windows XP SP3
  • Free Webroot Desktop Firewall License Key
  • Google Hacks – The Ultimate Google Exploit Tool
  • IE7Pro 2.3 Released – Download Now

  • Free Facebook Themes
  • Download Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 Special Edition
  • Ad-Aware 2008 Final Released
  • WordPress 2.6 Features
  • Rapishare Happy Hours Detector – Firefox Extension
  • 50 Rapidshare Search Engines
  • Sneak Peak At The New Facebook Profile Design
  • How To Try Out New Facebook Design

Happy Birthday WordPress

4:41 AM SHAZIA MALIK

My favourite blogging system and the best CMS around turns 5 today, on May 27. I started using WordPress in Feb. 07 on DJ Flush’s (of Sizlopedia) recommendation. I was always a big fan of Joomla, and thought it was the best CMS around. But I just tried WordPress once, and since then there is no looking back!

With all the tons of exciting features, and ease of usability and flexibility of designs, there can be no better CMS than WordPress. I would like to congratulate, Matt and all other WordpPress developers, on its birthday and would like to see it grow more in the coming years.

If you are interested in reading my WordPress related posts, then head over to the WordPress category.

WordPress Teaser From Sizzled Core

Here’s a teaser for what’s going to come in the next few days! I’m not going to further open my mouth about this.

Sizzled Core New Theme

By the way, no, it’s not the WordPress Dashboard! :)

Coming Soon: Google Adsense For RSS Feeds

4:40 AM SHAZIA MALIK

FeedBurner is finally rolling out the most-awaited feature for Google AdSense: AdSense for RSS Feeds. The rumours were on for quite some time now, and yesterday they finally announced that they will be releasing it next week.

Previously, only a few beta-tester publishers were allowed to use AdSense for RSS Feeds. But from next week onwards, all publishes will be able to enjoy the benefits of this ad-publishing program. Initially, it will be experimented with a few AdSense publishers, and then soon will be expanded for everyone.

Ad Sample

Ads RSS Feeds

Image Source: Digital Inspiration

One of the biggest advantages I see for bloggers in this program is that, the more feed subscribers you will have, the higher you will earn, since the ads are CPM based. Ad units will be created and managed from the AdSense Setup tab and you can find the earning reports from the Reports tab. You will have full control to manage your campaigns along with using ad channels in AdSense.

More details will be out soon when it officially gets released.

Sunday Highlights – 4

4:39 AM SHAZIA MALIK

First, I would like to apologize for my absence from my blog, without any notice, for 2 days. Actually, I recently bought a new PC and was having a few compatibility problems between my new motherboard and my Internet modem. My PC was restarting randomly without any errors. I was worried if there was any fault in the hardware, but 2 days of playing with things myself, I found the actual problem. Everything is now back to normal, and regular posts like before will resume. :)

Let’s head on to this week’s highlights now.

May 26, 2008 – June 1, 2008

  • Introducing Windows 7 With Real Screenshots
  • Happy Birthday WordPress
  • Turn Windows XP Into Media Center With Media Portal
  • FeedReader 3.13 Midrelease 2 Released
  • Yahoo Messenger 9.0 Beta Gets New Features
  • How To Revert Back To Old Google Favicon
  • How To Uncompress Files Online With WobZip
  • Help Firefox Achieve A World Record

May 08 – Blog Roundup

4:37 AM SHAZIA MALIK

The last time I did a roundup post was somewhere in November 2007, when my stats were dropping. But since then, a lot of things has changed. I took a 4 months break because of my exams, and then returned back at the end of April and having posting regularly since then. The stats have been pretty interesting than what they were back in November.

Now let’s kick off with this year’s first roundup post, and first begin with the best posts of the previous month. Do let me know which one you enjoyed the most.

Blog Posts:

  • RapidShare Happy Hours Detector (2)
  • Free Orkut Themes (first wave)
  • How To Install Windows Vista On PSP
  • How To Type In Bold In Google Talk
  • Free Facebook Themes
  • WordPress 2.6 Features
  • 50 Rapidshare Search Engines
  • New Facebook Profile Design (How to apply?)

Click here to read all the posts made in May 2008.

Connect:

If you would like to add me on social networks, click here!

Blog Traffic:

Traffic graph

Unique Visitors: 71357
Pageviews: 486578
Page/visits: 2.29
New visits: 89.24%
Average Time: 00:02:04

Traffic Pie Chart

Search engines dominated my this month’s traffic and I think it’s really good.

Earnings:

Adsense: $222
Kontera: $38

Total: $260

Top 5 Keywords:

  1. orkut themes
  2. rapidshare happy hours
  3. orkut theme
  4. rapidshare happy hour
  5. rapid share happy hour

Feed Readers:

The increase of feed readers this month has really amazed me! At the start of previous month, my feed readers were 220 on average, and in the end on May, they are 420! My target is of 500 readers by the end of June.

May rocked for me! How has it been for you all?

FeedCompare: Compare FeedBurner Subscriber Count

4:36 AM SHAZIA MALIK

If you thought Alexa is the only tool from where you can compare traffic stats of site, then think again! I’ve found a new tool which lets you compare your FeedBurner subscriber count with up to 4 blogs/sites in a row. Visit the FeedCompare site, and just enter the FeedBurner feed name, or enter the FeedBurner feed URL. Then click the red “Compare” button to view the comaprison.

FeedCompare screenshot

This tool can be very useful for bloggers who want to compare their feed readers count with other blogs or sites.

Visit FeedCompare to compare feeds!

Windows Live Writer Gets New Features

4:35 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Windows Live Writer (WLW) is one of the most widely used blog editor, and is my favourite too. In fact, this post is also being written on WLW. Yesterday, Writer Zone announced a new Technical update to Windows Live Writer which includes a number of improvements and new features. A brief listing of the features have been given below.

Windows Live Writer

One of the most notable feature is the crop and screenshot feature which can now be down right from Windows Live Writer without the use of Paint or Photoshop. Another interesting feature is of visual effects i.e reflection, rounded corners etc. that can be added to our images. We can also rotate images by a custom angle in WLW now. Other features that can be found in this update are:

Video and Image Publishing Enhancements

  • Upload videos to Soapbox
  • Image cropping and tilting
  • Additional border styles
  • Support for LightBox and other image previewing effects (like Slimbox, Smoothbox, and others)
  • Support for centering images

Editing Enhancements

  • Auto Linking
  • Smart quotes/typographic characters
  • Word count

UI Improvements

  • Revised main toolbar
  • Tabs for view switching
  • Improved category control with search/filtering

This is not the final version, and is only meant for plugin developers to test their plugin compatibility with the upcoming latest release. I didn’t found any problems with this Technical update, but you may still encounter bugs and application crashes as it’s not the final version.

Download

You can try out this Technical update of Windows Live Writer from here.

Big List Of Ping Services

4:34 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Wondering what’s ping? It’s nothing near to the game ping-pong, :p in fact, using ping services you can notify and update different blog directories and search engines, that you’ve updated your blog. And the sooner your new content gets included in the search engines and blog directories, the higher are the chances that you get more traffic from these sources.

Below is a list I found on DailyBlogTips, and would like to share it with you all. I have also included some of the ping services that were not included in the list I found.

WordPress bloggers can update their blog’s ping list from their Admin Dashboard > Options > Writing.

  • http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
  • http://api.feedster.com/ping
  • http://api.moreover.com/ping
  • http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
  • http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
  • http://ping.amagle.com/
  • http://ping.bitacoras.com
  • http://ping.blo.gs/
  • http://ping.feedburner.com
  • http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
  • http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
  • http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
  • http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
  • http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
  • http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
  • http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
  • http://rpc.newsgator.com/
  • http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
  • http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
  • http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
  • http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
  • http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
  • http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
  • http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
  • http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
  • http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
  • http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
  • http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
  • http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
  • http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
  • http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
  • http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
  • http://1470.net/api/ping
  • http://api.feedster.com/ping
  • http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
  • http://api.moreover.com/ping
  • http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
  • http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
  • http://bblog.com/ping.php
  • http://bitacoras.net/ping
  • http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
  • http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
  • http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
  • http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
  • http://coreblog.org/ping/
  • http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
  • http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
  • http://ping.amagle.com/
  • http://ping.bitacoras.com
  • http://ping.blo.gs/
  • http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
  • http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
  • http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
  • http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
  • http://ping.feedburner.com
  • http://ping.myblog.jp
  • http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
  • http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
  • http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
  • http://ping.weblogs.se/
  • http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
  • http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
  • http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
  • http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
  • http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
  • http://rpc.newsgator.com/
  • http://rpc.pingomatic.com
  • http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
  • http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
  • http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
  • http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
  • http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
  • http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
  • http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
  • http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
  • http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
  • http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
  • http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
  • http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
  • http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
  • http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
  • http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
  • http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
  • http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
  • http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
  • http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
  • http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
  • http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
  • http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

Free RapidShare Premium Account Giveaway

Okay readers, I just got over with the free domain giveaway, and now I̢۪ll soon be giving away a free RapidShare Premium account. Subscribe to my RSS feed so that you don̢۪t miss out this chance!

FeedDemon 2.7 Released

4:32 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Newsgator gas released a new version of FeedDemon, the best RSS reader for Windows. FeedDemon 2.7 includes several bug fixes, many new features and tons of performance improvements.

The most notable newly added feature is the “Find Feeds“. Now you can subscribe to multiple feeds related to your query at the same time. And best of all, FeedDemon is still free!

FeedDemon 2.7

Download FeedDemon 2.7

For some reason, the FeedDemon home page still says FeedDemon 2.6, but if you download it, the installer is actually for FeedDemon 2.7.

Via [Digital Inspiration]

Free RapidShare Premium Account Giveaway

Hey readers, I just got over with the free domain giveaway, and now I̢۪ll soon be giving away a 1 month free RapidShare Premium account. Subscribe to my RSS feed so that you don̢۪t miss out this chance!

WordPress 2.6 Features

4:32 AM SHAZIA MALIK

The talks about WordPress 2.6, the next version of WordPress, have already started. WordPress 2.6 is going to be another much-awaited release because of the introduction of many interesting features and usability improvements in it. I’ll give you a very brief overview of what this latest version of WordPress is going to offer.

WordPress 2.6 Features

  • New and improved bookmarklet (Yes, it’s coming back!)
  • Post words count
  • Shif-click checkbox selection hack
  • Wiki-style revisions management of blog posts
  • Google Gears support for writing posts offline
  • Identicons

If you would like to know more about these features, head over to WordPress Expert.

Demo Site

A demo site for WordPress 2.6 Alpha has been set up. If you would like to try it, visit:

http://wp.chrisjohnston.org/wp-admin/

Username: admin
Password: demo

WordPress 2.6 demo

Looks like its about time I upgrade my WordPress to the latest version. Don’t know what’s making me less interested in upgrading!

Schedule Posts For Later Publishing In WordPress

4:30 AM SHAZIA MALIK

WordPress is, no doubt, the best blogging platform and CMS (Content Management System) available. There are endless features in it, and since the new version, WordPress 2.5, is out it’s even more fun to use it. I’ve been using WordPress for the past 1 year now, before that I was with Joomla and worked on that. But seriously, WordPress is more easy, user-friendly and faster to use.

Here’s a small WordPress tip I would like to share with you all. As you all know, previously, I took a 4 months break because of my exams. In the meanwhile, you you kept getting posts on Sizzled Core regularly for some time, even when I was busy studying. That’s one of the features why I love WordPress so much. WordPress has a built-in feature by which you could time-stamp your posts for later publishing.

Like if you plan to go on a tour to a different city/country for a week, and you know you won’t get time to blog, then all you have to do is sit down one fine day (before going), write down posts for the next 7 days and time stamp them one for each day. Pretty useful, eh? Your readers won’t even notice much difference whether you wrote it that very day, or was it written at some other day.

How To Schedule Posts For Later Publishing In WordPress

1. Complete your post in the WordPress dashboard of your blog.

2. After completing, in the right sidebar menu, under Publish Status, you will see Publish immediately.

wordpress timestamp schedule post

3. Click the Edit link beside it.

4. Set the date and time of whenever you want your post to get published.

wordpress timestamp schedule post

5. Click Publish (don’t click Save, or it won’t get lined up for publishing).

Next time you leave for a holiday, don’t forget to write down posts for your readers to avoid traffic loss! I hope this trick has been useful to you, and do tell me if you already use this tick and how does this helps you.

New Macbook Pro Core i5 and i7 Models Now Available

4:27 AM SHAZIA MALIK

The much awaited moment has finally arrived. Apple has announced the new 15 and 17 inch Macbook Pro which comes with new i5 and i7 processors.

Few hours back, Apple Online store was down due to maintenance and upgrading.

The new Macbook Pros are finally on the Apple Online Store and the good thing is, there is a reduction in the price of Macbook Pro 17inch. The new price of 17 inch Macbook Pro is $2300 while the price of 15 inch Macbook Pro is $1800. However, there is no change in the price of 13 inch Macbook Pro. Furthermore, the hard disk has been upgraded to 500 GB.

To view the complete specifications, check here

So, will you get the new Macbook Pro?

iPhone 4G/HD Dropped in a Bar

4:26 AM SHAZIA MALIK

iPhone 4G/HD pictures claiming to be leaked images of the upcoming iPhone device have been popping up now and then online. But none of us is sure how authentic they are.

Something interesting was found by Engadget today. A device which seems to be the iPhone 4G/HD was found in an iPhone 3G case dropped in a bar.

iphone-4g-hands-on-1

iphone-4g-hands-on-2

So, does this look like the real deal? iPhone 4G/HD?

WWDC 10 Live Video Streaming Links

4:22 AM SHAZIA MALIK

WWDC 10 is about to get started in about 45 minutes and and the excitement is at its peak! You can catch the live streaming of the keynote from several places here. WWDC 10 Live Keynote!

Here I will be posting the live video streaming feed links I’ll find online to watch WWDC 10 online live!

WWDC 10 Live Video Streaming Links

Here’s one I have found so far. Bookmark this page or keep it opened as I will be refreshing it as soon as I find more working ones! Video is always better than live keynote blogging! ;)

UStream WWDC 10 Video Streaming

Watch here if the above video doesn’t work!

Farmville for iPhone, Farming Comes to iPhone in June!

4:22 AM SHAZIA MALIK

WWDC 2010 is going on live right now and guess what was just announced? Okay, so you did read the title… Farmville for iPhone! Yes, the farming craze has just been announced for the iPhone.

Farmville for iPhone will be available by the end of June for the 1 year anniversary of the launch of Farmville. Flash dead?

farmville-for-iphone

More details will be updated later.

iMovie for iPhone for $4.99 in the App Store

4:21 AM SHAZIA MALIK

iMovie for iPhone app has just been announced and is now available in the App Store for $4.99 only!

It works just like the iMovie desktop app, but on a smaller screen! It gives you almost all the features for premium video editing and a lot more!

imovie-for-iphone

iMovie for iPhone Features

Here are the features of iMovie announced at the WWDC 10 a few minutes ago.

  • Records geolocation in videos
  • Transition effects
  • Themes
  • Video export to 360p, 540p and 720p

You can download it from the App Store for $4.99 for your iPhone!

imovie-iphone

Photo Credits: Engadget

iOS 4.0 is the iPhone OS 4

4:20 AM SHAZIA MALIK

iOS 4 download now available! Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, just announced at the WWDC 10 event (day 1) that the iPhone OS 4 has now been renamed to iOS 4.

The good part? It is now available for developers and will be available for download for public soon!

Not much details right now, but will be added soon in this portion. Check back soon!

Download iOS 4 for iPhone, iPod Touch

You can download iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod Touch here: Download iOS 4 for iPhone, iPod Touch

Unannounced Features of iPhone OS 4.0

4:20 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Steve Jobs announced some of the most exciting features for the iPhone OS 4.0 which is to be released in summer for the iPhone and iPod Touch and later this fall for the iPad.

Most of the emphasis was on the main seven features that were demoed and announced today. In total, there are over 100 new features added in this latest OS 4.0.

iphone-os-4.0

We have already covered the seven main features briefly, now let’s put soem light on the list of announced features.

iPhone OS 4.0 SDK Features

  • Accelerate
  • Automated testing
  • Quick look
  • In-app SMS
  • Photo library access
  • Full access to camera/video data
  • Full map overlays
  • Over 1500 new APIs
  • Embed PDF meta data
  • Carrier information
  • Date formatters
  • Image I/O
  • Address Data Detectors
  • Calendar access
  • Performance Profiling Tools
  • Date Data Detectors
  • Half-curl page transition
  • Power analysis tools
  • iPod remote control accessories
  • Call event notification
  • ICC profiles

So these were just the featues that have been added in the latest iPhone 4.0 SDK for developers to play with and develop better apps.

iPhone OS 4.0 Features

So now, let’s move on to the list of features not announced by Apple at today’s events but will be included in the iPhone OS 4.0:

  • Gift apps
  • Spell check
  • Create playlists
  • Tap to focus video
  • Places in Photos
  • Home screen wallpaper
  • File and delete Mail search results
  • Search SMS & MMS messages
  • Bluetooth keyboards
  • 5x digital zoom
  • Web search suggestions
  • Edit from Outbox
  • Choose image size in Mail messages
  • CardDAV
  • Nested playlists
  • Sync IMAP notes
  • Birthday calendar
  • Persisten Wi-Fi
  • iPod out
  • Recent Web Searches
  • Rotate photos
  • Multitasking
  • Folders

… And a lot more!

iPhone OS 4.0 Multitasking Video

4:19 AM SHAZIA MALIK

We have already seen what Apple has to offer in the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0. My favourite feature in the iPhone OS 4.0 is multitasking! That is one feature I can’t live without in a smartphone and that is what might make me move to an iPhone when the next-gen iPhone comes later this year.

iPhone OS 4.0 beta (8A230m) firmware is already available for download for developers now.

Here’s a quick video I found on YouTube which demonstrates the multitasking feature of the iPhone OS 4.0 on an iPhone 3GS.

iPad Widgets for Homescreen, Coming Soon?

4:18 AM SHAZIA MALIK

So, yes, they are coming in future! Widgets for the iPad home screen is imminent. Yesterday, at the iPhone OS 4.0 event, Jason Chen of Gizmodo asked Steve Jobs if they have moved away from widgets?

He replied that they have just shipped it over the weekend and rested the next day. On asking if it was possible, then yes, Steve replied, “Everything is possible.”

At the developer’s preview yesterday, Apple announced several new exciting features for the iPhone OS 4.0 which is to be released in summer for the iPhone and iPod Touch and later this fall for the iPad. iPhone OS 4.0 SDK is now available for download for developers.

apple-ipad-video

iPad Widgets for Home Screen on iPad OS 4.0

Jason Chen:

Q: Why have you veered away from widgets on the iPad?
A: We just shipped it on Saturday. And then we rested on Sunday.
Q: So widgets are possible?
A: Everything is possible.

This pretty much shows that Apple is indeed working on iPad widgets for home screen on the iPad OS 4.0, which will be released sometime in Fall, as Jobs said.

Could this also mean widgets on the iPhone? In the next iPhone OS 4.1 update? Possibly. Let us know your view in the comments below!

How to Install iPhone 4.0 Beta Firmware without UDID

4:17 AM SHAZIA MALIK

In order to try out the new iPhone 4.0 beta, you need to have a developer’s account on Apple in order to install and try out the latest beta OS from Apple for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. But today I’m going to share how you can install iPhone 4.0 beta without UDID registration.

iPhone OS 4.0 beta was released in a developer’s preview event a couple of days ago which brings over 100 new features to the iPhone OS with multitasking being the biggest one!

How to Install iPhone 4.0 Beta Firmware without UDID

Yes, it’s possible! iH8sn0w has shown a way how you can activate and install iPhone OS 4.0 beta firmware without UDID registration on your device. Simply follow the steps below to give it a try:

  1. Decrypt your firmware files and get the rootfs.dmg file.
  2. Open the rootfs.dmg file within the IPSW file.
  3. Then navigate to System/Library/CoreServices and copy over SystemVersion.plist
  4. Now open SystemVersion.plist
  5. Remove the following two lines from it
    ReleaseType
    Beta
  6. Add it back into the rootfs.dmg file, overwriting the old SystemVersion.plist.
  7. Now restore the new IPSW file to your device.

Video link by iH8sn0w: http://www.twitvid.com/UI21P

Note: We’re not responsible for any damage to your iPhone, iPod Touch by trying the above tutorial. Please try it on your own risk!

Opera Mini for iPhone Available in App Store

4:17 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Apera Mini for iPhone has finally been approved by Apple and is now available for download in the App Store. First Opera Mini for Android, and now finally the iPhone!

Opera has gone a great deal to get Opera Mini approved for the iPhone and iPod Touch users. It was submitted to Apple back in March, but none of us had expected Apple to approve it.

opera-mini-5-iphone

This is what the Opera CEO has to say in the press-release:

“We are delighted to offer iPhone and iPod touch users a great browsing experience with the Opera Mini App,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “This app is another step toward Opera’s goal of bringing the Web to more people in more places.”

opera-mini-5-iphone-1 opera-mini-5-iphone-2 opera-mini-5-iphone-3 opera-mini-5-iphone-4 opera-mini-5-iphone-5 opera-mini-5-iphone-6 opera-mini-5-iphone-7 opera-mini-5-iphone-8

I have just installed mine ad have been playing with the browser, and no doubt it’s the fastest browser available right now! Page rendering is way better than on the Android version of Opera Mini. You may also like to check out our Opera Mini for Android review!

For now, Opera Mini is only available for iPhone and iPod Touch. May be sometime later, Opera will release an iPad HD version too!

Apple Store Down, New MacBook Pros Coming?

4:16 AM SHAZIA MALIK

Apple Store is down, and this only means one thing, that the new MacBook Pro 2010 can be released today.

All the rumours are pointing towards only one thing, that yes, indeed, Apple is most likely to update their MacBook Pro lineup today.

new macbook pro 2010

Last week, Macworld Australia heard from sources that new MacBook Pro models will be announced next Tuesday, that is today, the 13th of April. Their source is also familiar with Apple product cycles and inventory levels.

Stay tuned to find out what Apple will, most likely, reveal today. New MacBook Pro with Core i5 and i7? New iMacs? Or both?

New MacBook Pros Leaked Specs

4:13 AM SHAZIA MALIK

The new MacBook Pro 2010 models are just round the corner and looks like there has been a leak of specs of the upcoming new MacBook Pros.

AppleInsider has collected some bits from its sources and they tell that Apple will unveil the new MacBook Pros today and they all come with new processors and a 4GB RAM minimum.

new-macbook-pro-2010-leaked-specs

According to them:

According one person familiar with the matter, each model will ship with 4GB of RAM, including 2.4GHz and 2.66GHz 13-inch models, 2.4GHz, 2.55GHz and 2.66GHz 15-inch models, and a 2.53GHz 17-inch model.

Additionally, the new line may include three different types of screens options: Glossy, High Resolution Glossy, and High Resolution Glossy with Anti-Glare. A second person familiar with the mattered adds that at least some models will support 512GB of Solid State Drive (Flash) storage.

The Apple Store is currently down, but this information will show up once it gets back!