Windows taskbar showing only one item per IE instance (not one per tab)

After I installed IE9 on Windows Server 2008, found that in Windows taskbar for Internet explorer are showed items for each open IE tab. If you are get used to showing only IE browser instances in Windows taskbar like me then you just found easy guide how to conifgure your IE to show only one item in Windows taskbar per instance.

So, you have many tabs opened in Internet Explorer, and widnow taskbar display many previews, one for each opened tab. On image below, two instances of IE are opened, first instance have two opened tabs and another IE instance have one opened tab.

And you think it would be better if only one preview per instance of IE will be visible. In our example we want to have two previews (imagine what a mess will be if you have dozen of open tabs) for each IE instance one without tabs:

Solution:

• Click the Tools option at the top right corner of your Internet Explorer browser window and then click on Internet Options
  
  
  




















• Internet Options --> General --> Tabs --> Settings
  
  
  




















• uncheck option "show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar *", click OK and restart your Internet Explorer.

Now you configured your IE to show previews in Winodws taskbar only for each instance not for tabs.

Top Seven Tools For Budding Webmasters

You’ve finally finished building your very first website and whether you built it from scratch or used a template from Wordpress or Joomla or some other CMS source, unfortunately your work is still not complete. Even if you’ve packed the site with thrilling content and wonderful writing and the design is impeccable, you’re still going to have to wade into the somewhat murky world of search engine optimisation if you want people to actually read it. This article will look at the very best tools to help you tweak your site for the search engines.

Before you do anything however, you’ll need to look into what keywords you should be targeting to get your site to rank well in the search engines. Whether you intend to run your own organic SEO campaign or go for Pay Per Click advertising you’ll still need to choose the right keywords before you do anything else and this is best done, initially at least with a pen and paper. Take half an hour to quickly note down all the search phrases you would use and the words you would type in if you were searching for a site like your own. Repeat the process for your competitor’s site and you’ll very soon have a decent list of search terms that will bring the right kind of traffic to your site.

 
Now you’re ready to start working on search engine optimization you’ll need to get to grips with some of the tools that will make your day to day work a bit easier. Here are seven which are popular with webmasters:

Google Analytics – Google provide Google Analytics for free, allowing site owners and webmasters to track the activity on their website and to study certain categories such as average time spent on the site, bounce rate, pages viewed per visit, page views and page hits. Google Analytics is invaluable in helping you to make sense of your site’s search traffic, the value of your keywords and the performance of your content.

Link Diagnosis – A popular tool for analysing links and link competition. Link analysis reports on link competition by giving you details of a competitor’s links. Link Diagnosis lists page rank and anchor text amongst other things, but is limited to use with the Firefox browser.

 
SEO Logs – SEO Logs offers a wide range of tools such as Keyword difficulty check, SEO optimizer, on-page SEO and Google tools for detecting any fake PR results. Also useful are the included HTTP headers and status check features, the back link analyser, the domain age checker, Adsense profit calculator and the ability to compare Alexa rankings.

Alexa – Alexa is another tool you should get to grips with. Alexa is used as a way of measuring websites’ popularity by using browsers toolbars. 

 

Key Complete – Key Complete is best used for working out a competitor’s keywords when conducting a PPC campaign. A useful online tool.

 

SEO Moz – One of the main tasks performed by SEOmoz is to detect any errors on your site, monitor and track your traffic and research keywords. Receives reports from search engines including Yahoo, Google and Alexa.

Widexl – Widexl is useful to help you understand link popularity and the pages that link to your website. In addition there is a Meta tag analyser which looks at keyword density, meta tags, page loading time and other similar SEO related details.

Alex is a blogger and seo consultant. He currently writes for the Bedouin Group on finance and the contracting sector, covering everything from mortgages to umbrella companies.

 

Avoiding the Hackers while Browsing the Internet

Even though internet security has become much more advanced over the last few years, cyber criminals are still at the same game of trying to get malicious software installed onto user’s computers.  The newer versions of Internet Explorer are very good at stopping Trojan horse viruses from getting on your computer in the first place but many people still ignore the warning signals and go ahead and download the bad software anyway.  This is because hackers are using a new strategy called social engineering.

This new kind of hacking involves making the computer user think that they need to download this software in order to view a certain video, open a file, or view a certain website.  These schemes are hitting the social networking world hard as well.  Facebook users are seeing messages from “friends” asking them to rate a picture or check out a video.  When the user clicks on the link it sends them to a website asking for them to download the software so they can view it.

Internet Explorer and other secure internet browsers are detecting these Trojan horse techniques, but still some people are ignoring those warnings and downloading the malicious software anyway.  In fact Yahoo news just ran a story that claimed that Windows users are downloading malicious software at a rate of over 7% for every download.  This alarming rate means that more people are getting bad software installed on their PCs and laptops all the time.  The best way to beat the hackers is to be aware of what they are doing and know how we can stop these harmful tactics.

Another tactic is to make the computer user think they have a virus installed on their computer and that they need to download a certain “anti-virus program” to get rid of it.  In all actuality, this “antivirus program” is the virus itself.  Never trust a pop-up asking you to download an anti-virus program you have never heard of.  Or at least look up the name of the software first and see if it is legit or not.  In most cases if you have a good anti-virus system like Kaspersky or Norton you will not need to download a new one.

I do recommend that every computer user at least has a good malware detecting program on it.  Some of the most popular ones are Ad-Aware, Advanced System Care, and Super Anti-spyware.  I know the last one has a funny name but it is very thorough in detecting and deleting any kind of spyware, malware, or even adware from your computer.

The biggest problem with these malicious programs is that they can eventually lead to your identity theft.  Certain thieves are targeting specific users in a method called spearphishing which involves showing you pop-ups and warnings that relate to something you were just searching for online.  Or maybe you just took a vacation and the window will display something about your trip.  The hackers figure that with better security in internet browsers they need to use mind games to hack into our lives.  But to keep your identity safe you should only download programs that you know and trust.  Even if it takes doing some extra research just to be sure, it is worth your time and effort.

Phillip is a writer for an ID theft awareness site that compares some of the best identity theft protection services and writes reiews of each one.  You can also find some cool products like RFID blocking wallets to help protect your credit cards.

Free Software Alternatives for Work, Creativity, and Play

Finding quality software for your work, creativity, and entertainment does not have to be expensive. With the following free and open source software alternatives, you can get good software for free, without the strings attached to most commercial software.

1. Instant Messenger

Non-Free: AOL IM, Yahoo IM, Google Talk

Free:

Pidgin – Pidgin supports a wide range of IM protocols, including Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Google Talk, MSN, and many more.

Adium – Adium is specifically designed for Mac OS X, providing full Mac integration. Like Pidgin, it supports just about everything from Facebook to Google Talk.

aMSN – aMSN is an MSN Messenger clone that focuses primarily on being compatible with the Windows network. Nevertheless, it is available for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and other operating systems.

2. Web Browser

Non-Free: Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Google Chrome

Free:

Mozilla Firefox – The browser that made open source cool is still one of the most widely used. It is available for just about every desktop and mobile platform in nearly every language you can imagine.

Chromium – Chrome is Google's entry into the Browser Wars, but its license is non-free and has raised some privacy issues. Fortunately, the underlying code, Chromium, is free and open, and you can find versions of it for just about every OS.

3. Image Editing

Non-Free: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Paint.NET

Free:

Gimp – Gimp has been called the Poor man's Photoshop by some, but it is also a unique and powerful image editor on its own.

Inkscape – Inkscape is to Illustrator what Gimp is to Photoshop. It is a vector image editor that has a boatload of features and native SVG support for creating standards-compliant web images.

Pinta – Modeled after Paint.NET, Pinta is a free and open alternative drawing/editing program that is designed to be simple.

4. Music Player

Non-Free: iTunes, Winamp

Free:

Amarok – This KDE-based music player contains all the major features you would expect, including Internet streaming.

Songbird – More than just a music player, Songbird is also a music browser. It is like the Firefox of music players and has its own share of extensions and themes.

aTunes – If iTunes were free and available on every platform, it would be aTunes. Cover art, lyrics, playlists, it's all there.

Exaile – Exaile could be considered the GTK version of Amarok 1.4. It is lightweight but powerful, providing all of the music player features of much larger programs.

5. Mp3 – Mp3 is a widely-used audio format, but it is laced with patents, making it non-free. Moreover, it is not even the best quality format on the market.

Ogg Vorbis – Ogg Vorbis, despite its strange name, compresses files that are just about as small as Mp3 files but with a much better audio quality. According to UK server hosting provider 34SP.com, it is a web standard format and streams audio through HTML5-compliant browsers.

FLAC – Free Lossless Audio Codec – FLAC is lossless, meaning you get CD quality at a fraction of the file size.

6. Torrent download

Non-free: uTorrent – BitTorrent went commercial a few years back, but that does not mean you have to do the same.

Free:

Transmission - This Mac/Linux torrent client is very lightweight and gets straight to the point: downloading torrents.

FrostWire – FrostWire supports Gnutella and BitTorrent, and is part of an entire network (called FrostClick) of artists who give their music and other works away freely for people to enjoy.

qBittorrent – qBittorrent provides the features of uTorrent but is free, open source, and available on all platforms. Based on the QT toolkit, it is also very fast and easy to port to new OSes.

There are many other free software alternatives out there. Feel free to share your favorites and help others enjoy the freedom.

Tavis J. Hampton is a writer web specialist with over a decade of experience in writing, information services, and Linux system administration.

Email signature

How to create email signature for Outlook, Windows Live, Gmail or Yahoo Mail? In this short article you will find guidelines for adding signature to your mail.

How to create signature for Outlook

To learn how to add signature and for more information about signature in Outlook follow links:

• How to Create an Email Signature in Outlook
• How to Create an Email Signature in Outlook - Step by step Screenshot Walkthrough
• How to Insert a Graphic or Animation in Your Outlook Email Signature

Set Up Windows Live Hotmail Signature

Here is a link for Windows Live signature:

• How to Set Up Your Windows Live Hotmail Signature

Add Yahoo mail signature

Links for implementing and changing Yahoo mail signature:

• How do I add or change a Yahoo mail signature?

Adding a signature in Gmail

To implement a signature in Gmail follow links:

• How to Set Up an Email Signature in Gmail

Yahoo search direct - new feature

Yahoo! Search Direct is a new feature introduced on March 23 2011. Search Direct contributes to users finding answers and navigating the web using fewer keystrokes. Yahoo! Search Direct delivers answers and direct access to websites before you complete a query or click the search button. Here you can try how Yahoo search direct works: search.yahoo.com.

How Yahoo! search direct really works?

When user type a search query in the search box, Search Direct displays a dynamic tray below the search box using the following layout:

• The left-side part displays phrases that were used as search queries across the Yahoo! network. These queries combined with search term popularity and other relevancy factors are used to select these suggestions.



• The right-side displays answers and rich content from Yahoo! properties or other websites and resources. When mouse over any of the terms with your pointer, on the left-side, displays new content on the right-side. You may see answers, enhanced links, or rich content, including icons, images, and related information on the right side.

Yahoo! search direct very closely mimics Yahoo's own Search Assist, launched in November. Yahoo Search Direct predictive-search technology comes several months after Google Instant.

Few words about Google Instant

Google Instant is a relatively new search enhancement that shows results as user type search query. With Google Instant user can adapt his search on the fly until the results match exactly what he want. Google instant is available to Google users.

Benefits of Google Instant

• Faster Searches: By predicting user search and showing results before he finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search



• Smarter Predictions: Even when user don’t know exactly what he looking for, predictions help guide his search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so he can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.



• Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before user eyes. Until now, user had to type a full search term, click return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as use type, helping him to see where he is headed

Yahoo! search direct vs. Google Instant

I am using Google as a primary search engine and find Google Instant very helpful. Yahoo! search direct is a nice new feature but in my opinion Google instant is better designed and more easy to use. At this moment I try search.yahoo.com with a search term: "direct search". First term offered by yahoo is: "yahoo direct search" with a suggestion for top sites: "How do I turn off Yahoo direct Search?". It is not a very good sign for this new technology :)

Do not count my visits in GA - cookies

Here is a guide how to exclude your visits from GA (Google Analytics) statistics with help of cookies. If you have static IP address you can learn how to exclude your IP address in google analytics by clicking this link. In linked article you can also find do you have static or dynamic IP address.

This tutorial for excluding your visits in GA is simpler than most other tutorials you can find on Internet about same topic. Main goal of this article is to help blogger users to count off their visits from GA records.

Exclude your own traffic from GA records with cookies

• First go to web page you track with Google Analytics


• copy code below and paste this code in address bar of you browser (don't forget to click enter)
  
  

  javascript:pageTracker._setVar('DoNotCount');alert('Cookie has been created')

  
  


• With this line of code in browser address bar you will create cookie for visited site with content "DoNotCount" or other if you change colored text. If you want to check created cookie visit my article Check cookies on my computer



• now you need to create filter



• In your Google Analytics click Edit
  
  
  


• Click Add filter in the Filters Applied to Profile box
  
  
  



• enter filter name, for filter type choose Custom filter, choose Exclude. For filter field choose User defined. For field pattern enter same text you set in javascript we paste in address bar (colored text, in our example: DoNotCount)
  
  


• now you need to wait few days and GA (Google analytics) will no more count your visits. This guide was tested on my blog and it works.

How to use Google Sidewiki

In this article you can learn what is Sidewiki, how to install and use Sidewiki, how Google Sidewiki work and Sidewiki features, how to block Sidewiki and some (controversy) impressions about Sidewiki. I discover Sidewiki two days ago after after updating my Google toolbar. Sidewiki was launched in September 2009.

What is Sidewiki and how it is functioning

Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where users can read and write comments about current web page. Sidewiki allows web surfers to leave comments about pages as they surf the web and to read Sidewiki comments leaved by other surfers. So if you have Sidewiki enabled you can view Sidewiki entries posted by surfers who visit web page before you.

Now with help of Sidewiki every web page can be commented in one unique comment system. To see Sidewiki entries or add your own Sidewiki entrie you must have Sidewiki installed on your browser (Google toolbar or Sidewiki bookmarklet) and Google account. Sidewiki users can also rate Sidewiki entries. This rating is visible when a user click on more hypelink of some Sidewiki entry (Useful? yes, no)

To summarize, Google Sidewiki user can:

• view Sidewiki entries (comments) entered by others Sidewiki users for current web page


• write his own Sidewiki entry about web site


• rate existing Sidewiki entries


• write Sidewiki entry about selected area of text

Install GoogleSidewiki

Prerequisites to use GoogleSidewiki:

• you must have Google account


• to use Sidewiki you need to install Google toolbar. Sidewiki is integrated in Google toolbar


• if you don't want to install Google toolbar (privacy issue or any other issue) or your internet browser don't support Google toolbar you can use Sidewiki bookmarklet

How to use Google Sidewiki

To see Sidewiki entries visit some web page and click on Sidewiki icon on your Google toolbar or click on Open Sidewiki icon on left side of page.

If you have signed up with google account you can write your own entries or rate entries of other Sidewiki users. If you are page owner, you can write a special entry that will remain the top entry for this page.

Very interesting feature is to write Sidewiki entry for selected area of text on web page. Select some text and click on the write entry icon and you will write Sidewiki comment about selected text.

How Sidewiki order comments

The key factor in ordering Sidewiki entries are:

• Use of sophisticated language


• Sidewiki user’s reputation: Are user's comments being voted up or down, or reported as abuse?


• Siedwiki user’s history

Profile rank is very important. Similar to PageRank that reflects web page authority, Google Profile have its own Profile rank which is important when Sidewiki ranking comments.

HTML in Sidewiki entries

You can ask yourself : Can I make hyperlinks in Google Sidewiki entries? Yes, you can.

Sidewiki support

• font formatting tags such as bold tag - <b> tag


• italicize tag - <i> tag


• hyperlink tag - <a> tag


• paragraph tag - <p> tag


• break line tag <br /> tag

For complete list of supported HTML tags visit Using HTML in Sidewiki entries

Don't like Sidewiki and want to block Sidewiki on your page

For those who think Sidewiki is not welcome on their web site there is javascript code you can implement and Sidewiki entries will not be accessible.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.sidewikispam.com/sidewikispam.js"></script>

With this code snippet you can stop side wiki spam (if you think that way). I found this code on sidewikispam blog. I make test on blogger and it works. In my opinion Sidewiki is welcome on my blog.

Thoughts about Siedwiki

• Sidewiki, enables anyone to comment on any web page


• Page owner can't control Sidewiki entries about his page, what if a page owner do not want anyone put comments about his web page?


• Google have its own system to rate Sidewiki comments and order those comments (entries)


• good rated Sidewiki entries are on the top of comment for web page, Sidewiki entries with bad rate will be buried and visitor will not see those entries, so Google decide which comment will stay for some web site


• what if some inappropriate entry is on the top? Web owner can't delete it.


• some bloggers claims that Google takes comments away from web sites and puts them on Google


• what if someone in Google doesn't like some site and decide to show only negative comments for that site, yes they say it is a algorithm, but algorithms are written by people and can be used for manipulation


• are Google capable to stop spammers who will try to use Sidewiki for their spam

Where are cookies stored on PC

Find where are cookies stored on your computer with IE, Firefox or Chrome internet browser. This article will guide you how to find and inspect cookies with help of your favorite internet browser. You can find instructions to find location of cookies for internet explorer, Mozilla Firefoox and Google Chrome.

Let's first explain what is cookie. Cookie is a message given to a web browser on client PC by a web server. The internet browser stores the message (cookie) in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify user.

Locate cookies with IE 8

• In IE8 click Tools --> Internet options
  
  
• In General tab click Setting under browsing history
  
  
• Final step is to click "View files" button in Temporary Internet Files and History Settings window and directoy with cookies files will be opened.

Find cookies with Firefox

• Click on Tools --> Options
  
  
• Click privacy tab, for drop down box choose Use custom settings for history
  
  
• Click button "Show Cookies" and Cookies window will be displayed. There is search option, you can view details for specific cookies or remove selected cookie
  
  
  

Find stored cookies with Google Chrome

• Inside Customize and control Google Chrome find and click Options
• Select Under the Hood tab and click Show Cookies button
  
  
• In cookies window you can search, inspect and remove cookies on your computer

Realed topics:
Show hidden files and folders on Windows 7

Unfollow twitter user who do not follow you back

How to unfollow twitter users who do not follow me back? Why to follow twitter users who not follow you and how to do it? In main twitter application there is no simple way to find users who do not follow you. You can inspect your twitter users one by one but it is time consuming process. And now you ask yourself what is a simplest way to extract twitter users who do not follow you? In this article you will find answer on this question.

You can get list of twitter followers who abandoned you on your email or find it with help of web twitter application and unfollow them.

Manage twitter users who do not follow me back

Your Twitter Karma - this excellent web application allows you to manage your followers and users who follow you. You can get list of all followers or all users you follow.

For every twitter user there is:

• user name


• user image


• information does user follow you


• information does you follow user


• last user activity

Thanks to those information, you can make decision what to do with each user individually. You can check twitter users you want to make some action on them and decide what to do with them.
Possible actions are:

• Bulk follow - follow all checked twitter users


• Bulk unfollow - stop follow all checked users


• Bulk block - block all checked users

There is web application friendorfollow with similar functionality but in my opinion Your Twitter Karma is far better choice.

Track twitter users who stop follow you back

NutshellMail - allow you to get mail summary for twitter every day (you can chose how often you would like to receive summary).

In this summary you get:

• New Followers


• New quitters


• Send Tweets


• Direct Messages,Retweets and @Replies

New quitters are twitter users who stop following you. This is the way to actively tracking your twitter account. With NutshellMail you can track and other social services such as facebook and Myspace.

Force google reindex of site

You want to google reindex your web site as soon as possible? In this artcile you can found how google works, how do you know did google indexed your web page, how often does google reindex, how to tell google to (re)index your web page or site.

How google works

Googlebot is a web crawler that finds and crawl web pages. Googlebot sending a request to a web server for a specific web page, downloading the entire page, then handing it off to Google’s indexer. It request many different web pages simultaneously. When Googlebot fetches a web page, it collect all the hyperlinks appearing on the page and adds them to a queue for subsequent crawling. Those hyperlinks are crawled later, and hyperlinks from those pages are collected too. This technique is called deep crawling. Deep crawling allows Googlebot to probe deep within individual web sites.

Googlebot gives the indexer the full text of the web pages it finds. These pages are stored in Google’s index database. When user submit a query to Google Google's index database is used to return best web pages in google's result page.

How to know did Google indexed web page

To check did google (re)index a web page use "site:" search operator:

• site:[URLOfWebPage]

Examples for checking did google re(index) a web site:

• site:interestingwebs.blogspot.com


• this Google query will return all pages on interestingwebs site which are indexed


• in case you can't find some web page in result list, it can be concluded that this page is not indexed

Examples for checking did google re(index) a web page:

• site:http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/2009/06/tips-for-html-link-code.html
  
  
  


• in case google return result you know web page is indexed


• with this method you know if page is reindex only if title of web page is changed, for example if I changed title to "HTML code tips" and Google return "Tips for HTML code" I can know that web page is not yet reindexed (yet)

How often does google crawl

It depends on the web page. Some pages be crawled every hour, some pages every day and some pages every few weeks or months. Generally if it is consistently adding new content to web site or page have a lot of backlinks (links pointing to web page) google crawler will probably come back more often. Google don't index sites, Google index pages. So on same site one page can be crawled on daily basis while other on can be crawled once in the month. If you submit sitemaps regularly you can most likely speed up the Google crawling for your site.

Force google to reindex site

You can add your url on Google add url page and wait. When your URL is submitted, it is in google queue and google will index your site when it find appropriate. Unfortunately you can't force Google to crawl your site now and index the content.

What is twittering and best twitter apps

What is twittering?
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send (twittering) and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates (tweets) are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Twitter is often described as the "SMS of Internet".

Twittering example

• Twitter user BlogAndSEO tweet message "Just write article about twittering"



• when twitter user BlogAndSEO click on button update message is published (tweeted) and all 20 followers of user BlogAndSEO will see his message (tweet)
  
  



• Now, all followers see a new message, more followers more people see this message

Retweet - what it is and how to retweet

The retweet ("RT") allows Twitter users to share the best links, and tweets they find from others.

• 20 people see message of user BlogAndSEO because he have 20 followers, but in case one of the twitter followers retweet this message, let's say user the_gman all of the_gman followers will see BlogAndSEO's message, and hey, the_gman have 92521 followers!!!


• the_gman send this message : "RT @BlogAndSEO: Just write article about twittering"


• Twitter user BlogAndSEO benefit from retweet because the_gman have many followers

Short guide how to retweet

RT @OriginalPoster: RetweetedMessage

Retweet example
RT @BlogAndSEO: Just write article about twittering

How to know you have been retweeted

Go to web address http://www.retweetist.com/users/. Enter the user name and you will get last 30 day retweets for entered twitter user. This is how you can track your retweets.

Manage twitter followers

Twitter followers are twitter users who follow your messages. One of the methods to increase number of twitter followers is to follow other twitter users. Because you follow twitter user there is a chance that he will follow you back, specially if you share common interest with him.

To find and follow twitter users by tag use : wefollow application.
Enter tag and you will get twitter users who have most followers and twittering about chosen tag.

Twubble - can help expand number of people you follow — it searches twitter friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow

Mycleenr - sort twitter friends by time of their last tweets. It can be used to easily delete inactive users from friend (following) list

Just Tweet It - directories with twitter users, very useful. You can add yourself to one of this directories to get more followers. You can find Twitter Tools Directory also.

Twitter buttons - if you have your own web site or blog you can put a twitter button which link on your twitter account. This is one more way to get more twitter followers. On site Twitter buttons you can find some interesting twitter buttons.

Tweeting links

You want to put hyperlink in tweet. Don't worry, it is enough to write URL and twitter will automatically convert it to linkable short URL.

Example:
Text entered in twitter:

just write new article about making your own strip http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/2009/09/make-your-own-comic-strip-online.html

Posted twitter message:

just write new article about making your own strip http://bit.ly/17K9F1

For those who want more control with links in tweets I suggest tinyURL web site.

This is useful in case:

• you want to write fully 140 character tweet and don't have enough space, make tiny URL before posting tweet and save space for more text


• you want decide to how you tiny URL text will look like (for example http://tinyurl.com/comicweb for original url http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/2009/09/make-your-own-comic-strip-online.html)

Twitter hashtags

The twitter hashtag is used to designate topics or categories of information in tweet. A hashtag is a way for others to find information about your keywords even if they are not following you.

Format for hashtag: #WORD
Hashtag example: #blogspot

When you have tweet with hashtag, twitter users can click on hashtag (it is linkable) word and see last tweets which have this hashtag. For example if you click on this #blogspot hashtag you will find last real-time tweet results containing #blogspot hashtag.

Oes Tsetnoc - Seo Contest

Oes Tsetnoc - what it is? Accidentally I came on one blog with this title and learned, Oes Tsetnoc is Seo Contest in reverse order.

The Targeted Key Phrase for this SEO Contest is:

• Oes Tsetnoc

Winner is a person who will be first in Google Google's organic SERPs for the targeted keyword Oes Tsetnoc. The main prize is a $1,000.00 Cash. For 2nd Place prize is $300.00 and for 3rd place prize is $200.00. The contest starts on September 10, 2009 and ends on December 15, 2009. Maybe is not too late to catch the train!!!

More information about Oes Tsetnoc contest and how to sign in find on promojunkie web page

Oes Tsetnoc - 16/09/2009 - Beggining

First, I will try register to Oes Tsetnoc competition (if it is not too late). Later, I will inform you what is going on.

Oes Tsetnoc - 17/09/2009 - Few tips

I haven't get notification from Oes Tsetnoc that I am joined in contest. Still waiting...
Good news, Google is indexed my Oes Tsetnoc web page and my position today is 16th.

Oes Tsetnoc statistics can be seen here using the following search string: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=oes+tsetnoc&btnG=Search

My approach is that Oes Tsetnoc keywords are first two words in title (keyword prominence). Those keywords you can find in URL of page too, http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/2009/09/oes-tsetnoc-seo-contest.html. Keywords in URL can be very important in google ranking search result page. And "Oes Tsetnoc" keywords are repeated in article which is important for keyword density.

Oes Tsetnoc - 18/09/2009 - Link building I

Today I promote Oes Tsetnoc post through Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon. My mission is to get more backlins. I tried to find web sites who are interested to link my post in exchange to bi mentioned in list bellow.

There is a list of Oes Tsetnoc competitors who agree to link this post:

• oestsetnoc.us by Kristi - one of the best oestsetnoc blogs


• oes-tsetnoc1.blogspot.com by Ronnie

If you want to be in this list, leave a oes tsetnoc backlink in your blog, leave a comment in this post to inform me and I will link you back.

My position today is 17th in google search result page for term "oes tsetnoc". No response from promojunkie about registration to oes tsetnoc contest

Oes Tsetnoc - 19/09/2009 - Registering

Finally I found myself in promojunkie result page. Now, I am officially competitor. My position drop down on 19th position.

Oes Tsetnoc - 19/09/2009 - Down, down, down

My rank in Oes Tsetnoc contest is rapidly falling down. Now my position is 71st place. Why?

I believe it is a result of my SEO (de)optimization day before. Probably Google algorithm recognize SEO change as unwanted.
What to do?
First, I will sit down and cry for few hours. Then, my intention is to wait a few day and track position in Google SERP. If page position will not go up, I will undone my yesterday action, and see what is going to happen.

Oes Tsetnoc - 25/09/2009 - Bottom

In this moment this page is very low, below 400th position for Oes Tsetnoc term. Hardly position can be worst. Today, I undone my optimization done week ago.

Firstly, my optimization was to surround every oes tsetnoc words with <span> and </span> tags. It appears to be bad SEO optimization. We will see if better ranking will come.

Backlink : Webmaster Forum

Make your own comic strip online

Do you know that you can easily make your own comic on web. And you don't need to be artist. There is a strip generator on web. You can use made characters and just dragging those characters in your strip or make your own characters. You can add bubbles with text inside it (speech balloons), different objects and shapes.

stripgenerator.com is very funny and easy to use. I believe that stripgenerator is one of the best comic generators on web. My rate is excellent. Try and see!

Let's see a comic I maked in 15 minutes:

What can be done with strip generator

• use existing drawings of humans, beings, objects, shapes and bubbles



• easy drag end drop of existing objects to strip



• add speech balloons and enter your text



• change size and rotating existing objects



• add and remove frames



• generate a custom character



• embedding comics in other web pages



• searh strip gallery...

Guide to make your own strip (comic book) online

• go on stripgenerator.com



• click on "Create strip"



• drag & drop objects in frames and make your own comic



• you can use character generator to create your custom made characters
  
  
  



• you can embed strip with copy & paste code in embed text box

On stripgenerator page you can publish your strip blog, leave messages on their forum, search last strip blogs...

No tooltip bug in Firefox 3.5

After upgrading firefox to 3.5.2 version I noticed that there is no tooltips. Tooltips are missing and instead of missing tooltip there was small white rectangle cursor box. I found solution for this problem with a help of google.

It is no tooltip bug (or blank tooltip bug) in Firefox 3.5. Solution is to uninstall and reinstall the latest version of Google toolbar for Firefox. To be sure that problem is in Google Toolbar try to start Firefox in safe mode. If Firefox in safe mode properly display tootips then source of problem is in one of the add-ons (probably Google Toolbar for Firefox)

To uninstall Google toolbar for Firefox click Tools-->Add-ons, choose on Google toolbar and click Uninstall

This article refer to no tooltip bug or blank tooltip bug in Firefox 3.5.

How to create online survey

Believe or not, making survey on internet is very easy. Here you will find brief step by step tutorial how to create your own web survey (poll) with help of Google docs forms. After online survey is make and published visitors can fill poll and their responses are automatically added to your online spreadsheet. Google docs are really useful and easy to use tool. Here you can see example of online survey.

Sample Google Docs online survey:



Creating online survey

• First go to Google docs and log in


• to successfully log in you must have Google Account


• in case you do not have Google Account go to Google Accounts


• Go to menu "New" and click on "Form"
  
  
  


• In the form template that opens, you can add any questions and options you'd like


• Enter title and description


• Enter Question title


• Choose question type

Question type can be:


• Text


• Paragraph text


• Multiple Choice
  
  
  
  


• Checkboxes


• Choose from a list


• Scale




• Choose whether or not to make it a required question


• Now you can add new question, (to get a new question, click the “Add Question” button at the top left of the page) or save and publish your survey


• You can change Theme if you like


• You can email the form (survey) to people, which allows them to fill it out and submit it right from their email, embed survey into your site or blog (it didn't work on my blog) or place a link to survey on your site


• You can review responses as:


• summary
  
  
  


• spreadsheet
  
  
  

You can use summary to display results or process data in spreadsheet. It is your choice. I find this Google tool very impressive and user friendly. My recommendation to everyone is to take a look at Google Docs and explore their functionality.

Step by step guide to create sample online survey:

• In Google Docs go to menu "New" and click on "Form"


• Enter title "Test survey"


• Enter description "This survey is for testing and demonstrating purpose"


• Enter Question title "1. Enter your name?"


• Click on Add question button and choose "Paragraph text"


• Enter Question title "2. Please tell us your opinion about this tutorial"


• Click on Add question button and choose "Multiple choice"


• Enter Question title "3. Do you find this tutorial useful?"


• In Option 1 enter "Yes"


• In Option 2 enter "No"


• Click on Done


• Click Save

Top 10 things you can do with Wolfram Alpha

After some research of Wolfram examples I have find those 10 most interesting examples to share with the world. Some examples are useful and some are interesting. Examples are sorted by relevance. First example is most interesting and so on.

1. Get data about recent earthquakes - really impressive, you can see earthquakes in world map in last 24 hours (or broader time interval) by magnitude.
   
   Example : earthquakes
   
   To see you need to type earthquakes in wolfram alpha






2. Get salary data for a given occupation - Enter word salary and occupation. You will get salary data for entered occupation (median wage, history, people employeed ...).
   
   Example : salary progammer
   



3. Generate report for life expectancy - You will get median life expectancy, highest(with country)life expectancy, and lowest life expectancy. There are also life expectancy rankings by countries and more demographics data


Example :


• life expectancy


• life expectancy in Andora




4. Rank countries - you can rank countries by some criteria


Example :


• 5 richest countries


• 5 poorest country


You get first 5 countries by GDP per capita, by GDP and by poverty fraction.





5. Country comparison - compare two countries (by location, area, demographic data, economic)
   
   Example: America, India



6. Find the definition of a word - enter definition and word you want to define
   
   Example: define soldier
   
   Result: soldier - serve as a soldier in the military



7. Find words matching a pattern - write word and with exchanged letters with low line. This can be very helpful if you can't remember the word.
   
   Example: _oun_e_
   
   Wolfram will return:
   
   b | o | u | n | c | e | r
   b | o | u | n | c | e | s
   b | o | u | n | d | e | d
   b | o | u | n | d | e | n
   b | o | u | n | d | e | r
   c | o | u | n | s | e | l
   c | o | u | n | t | e | d
   c | o | u | n | t | e | r...




8. Find anagrams of word - type "anagrams" and desired word
   
   Example : smart
   
   Wolfram will return : marts and trams
   



9. Compute a time difference - type Date to Date and you will get time difference.
   
   Example: Mar 21, 2009 to Sep 7, 2009


Wolfram alpha return 5 months 17 days


10. Do a mortgage computation - you can calculate monthly payments, mortgage totals and payments and balances. Very nice.
    
    Example: mortgage 100,000 Euros, 7%, 25 years
    
    

Wolfram Alpha (also written WolframAlpha and Wolfram Alpha) is an answer-engine. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might.

My main objection on Wolfram Alpha is that I couldn't find list for some term. For example I wanted to get list of all occupations but didn't find a way. If you enter pharmacist in Wolfram it knows that it is occupation. Same thing for animals, dinosaurs...

Of course Wolfram Alpha can do many other things but those I found most interesting.

jQuery don't work but there is no error message

I installed IE 8 and take a look at cool new features. Everything seemed nice, but then I noticed that in my article with jQuery examples my demos which using jQuery code not working. It worked well in Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer 7. Compatibility view does not help. There was no error message but nothing happened when clicked on button which fired jQuery code. Testing html pages on my local computer with jQuery code don't work too.

i tried to go on jQuery documentation in Internet explorer 8 but couldn't find a working demo. But with other browsers same page have a properly working demo.

There are examples of web pages which uses jQuery and doesn't work well in IE 8 (without throwing error) but worked on other browsers:

• http://www.webdesignerwall.com/demo/jquery/



• http://www.webdesignerwall.com/demo/jquery/

Does jQuery work on Internet Explorer 8?


Yes! It looked like IE 8 is a source of problem but it is not.

Security setting is a reason why jQuery doesn't work. Active scripting must be enabled. It was disabled and because problem listed in this article appeared.

To enable Active scripting:

Click Tools --> Internet Options --> Security tab

Select Internet zone (world globe) --> Click Custom level



Click on Enable Active Scripting and clik OK.

IE developer tools - integrated in IE 8

Do you want to debug jscript, inspect and edit HTML code directly from web browser?
Internet Explorer 8 includes tools that Web developers need to efficiently debug
their sites directly in Internet Explorer. Developers can debug a site's HTML, CSS, and Microsoft® JScript from within Internet Explorer 8 (with developer tools), rather than switch between Internet Explorer and a separate development environment.
This article give a brief review why and how to use IE 8 developer tools.

Why use Developer tools?

You may want to quickly debug JScript, investigate a behavior specific to Internet Explorer, or test a new design or try solutions to a problem. In these and similar scenarios, Internet Explorer 8 includes easy-to-use Developer tools that have a few important characteristics:

• Integrated and simple to use - An instance of the Developer Tools comes with every installation of Internet Explorer 8. This enables debugging on any machine running Internet Explorer 8. In addition, the tools only load when needed to limit the impact of the tools on browser performance.


• Provide a visual interface to the platform - Instead of reverse engineering how your site works or modifying your site to output debug information, the Developer Tools let you look into Internet Explorer to view its representation of your site.


• Enable fast experimentation - When prototyping a new design or testing fixes in previous versions of Internet Explorer, you likely edit your source, save it, refresh your page in the browser, and repeat. The Internet Explorer 8 Developer Tools streamline this scenario by letting you edit your site within the browser and see changes take effect immediately.


• Optimize application performance - Identifying and fixing performance issues is usually an iterative approach done by focusing on one scenario at a time. With the Internet Explorer 8 Developer Tools script Profiler, you can collect statistics like execution time and number of times a JScript function was called as you test your application and use the profile report to quickly identify and fix performance bottlenecks.

How to use Developer Tools

To begin using developer tools, click the Developer Tools icon in the Tools drop down menu (or press SHIFT+F12):



The Developer Tools have three modes: HTML, CSS, and Script. Each mode provides tools for inspecting and debugging that content type.

HTML mode

HTML mode lets you explore the DOM tree exactly as it exists in Internet Explorer. The DOM tree lists elements as well as attributes and values.
For example we can go on www.google.com. Open Developer Tools and choose HTML tab.



Clicking an attribute or value makes it editable. If we click on title and change "Google" to "My Google Test" after removing focus from the editable value commits the change back to Internet Explorer and causes the page to update immediately.
Now title bar text is "My Google Test".




To visual select an element, enable Select Element by Click (first icon (arrow) or CRTL + b) and click any area of the site.
In example below "Select Element by Click" is clicked (1) and then is clicked on Advanced Search (2). In the end Text is edited to "Advanced Search Test" (3).




The Layout tab displays a visual representation of the box model and corresponding values for the selected element:

• The offset values display the distance to the parent object as defined by the offsetLeft and offsetTop properties


• The margin, border, and padding values display corresponding values specified by the author


• The innermost values are the element's height and width as defined by the offsetHeight and offsetWidth properties<(li>
  

The Style tab and Trace Style tab are very similar. Style tab lists all style rules that apply to the selected element in cascade order, with overruled styles struck through while in Trace Style styles are grouped by property instead of by rule. This makes the computed value of a property immediately visible. So we can say that Style view is inverse of Trace Style.

Example of Style view:



Example of Trace Style view on same HTML element:



CSS mode

In CSS mode, choose any CSS file used on the site to view an expandable tree view of all style rules in the file.


Example of JScript debugging with developer tools in IE 8

To see how to debug java script code in IE 8 you can go on test page with IE 8 and follow instructions :

1. Turn on Developer tools (press F12)



2. Click on Script tab



3. Insert breakpoint on line 10





4. Click "Start Debugging"


• To debug currently running script sessions that started with script debugging disabled, Internet Explorer must first refresh the page. Before refreshing, Internet Explorer displays a dialog box asking if users want to refresh or cancel.





5. Click on button "Call function".


• Button Call function calling jscript function "calculate"







6. Now you are in debug mode. Click on tab Locals and you will see that value of variable is 1.



7. Click on icon Step Into (F11) to execute current line of jscript code and go on next


• Step into - Executes the next line of script and pauses, even if the next line is inside a new method. (Keyboard shortcut: F11)


• Step over - Executes the next line of script, continues until the next line of script in the current method, and then pauses. (Keyboard shortcut: F8)


• Step Out - Continues executing script until the next line in the method that called the current method. (Keyboard shortcut: SHIFT+F11)


• Continue - Continue running script without pausing until hitting another breakpoint (if any are set).(Keyboard shortcut: F5)


• Break All: - Pause execution before the next script statement to be executed





8. Now you are at line 11. Take a look at Locals and you will see that i has value 11 (this is because line 10 : i = i + 10, so 11 = 1 + 10)


• The Locals tab within Script mode displays the name, value, and type of all variables available in the current execution scope. So with help of Locals tab you can track values of variables.






9. Go to line 11, move mouse pointer to i, right click and choose "Add Watch". You can see that variable "i" is added in Watch tab.





• Use the Locals pane to view local variables and the Watch pane to monitor a custom list of variables. You can add variables to this list by right-clicking in the source and clicking Add Watch or typing the variable name in the Watch pane.



10. Click on Call Stack pane and you should see that "JScript - onclick function" fired "calculate" function.



11. After two more steps (click "Step Into" two times), function "calculate" called function "divide", we are at line 20 inside function "divide". Call Stack pane provides a list of execution contexts : divide is called by calculate which is called by "JScript - onclick function"





• To jump to any stack item, double-click the item. The debugger will bring that method into view in the Primary Content Pane. On the picture calculate function is clicked in Call Stack pane (call to divide function line 20 is highlighted in green color)

Profiler

The Profiler gives you data on the amount of time spent in each of your site's JScript methods. Since you can start and stop the JScript Profiler at any time during application execution, you can collect multiple profile data for the specific scenario that interests you.
Let's see on example:

1. Go on test page with IE 8, choose profiler pane and click on button "Start profiling"


2. On test web page click button "Call function"





3. Clik Ok to close Message Box



4. Click Stop Profiling in Profiler Pane


Now we have list of functions and their spent of time. Function divide is very simple so it takes 0 ms. Function calculate takes time needed to click Ok on message box. Even onclick is event that fired function calculate. Maybe this is not best example but it is good enough to understand main concept of Profiler.



The profile reports can be viewed with either the Functions or the Call Tree view, which can be selected from the Current View drop-down list.

- The Functions view lists all the functions used

- The Call Tree view provides the hierarchy of calls

Related articles on this blog:
New features in Internet Explorer 8



Related articles from other sources:
Discovering Internet Explorer 8 Developer Tools on MSDN