A good percentage of road accidents happen due to texting and mailing activities while driving the vehicle. With the advent of new technologies, more and more distractions are being introduced. However, with a smart mobile application you can reduce this significantly. It's a free app that acts as a assistant and lets you pay more attention to your driving activity.
DriveCarefully is an excellent mobile application that automatically checks your emails and sms on your behalf and read them aloud while you're on the go. It can auto-detect English, French and Spanish languages.
DriveCarefully is available for BlackBerry, Android, Nokia, iPhone and Window Mobile. This pretty much covers almost every smartphone in the market today. Once configured, this application automatically gets activated after sensing GPS activity in your smartphone. This ensures you don't have to manually start it every time you start driving.
The free version is good enough for listening to mails and sms. If you want to auto-reply sms and emails after listening, you can buy the pro version. Simply say whatever you want in reply and it automatically detects your speech and fill in the text and sends email/sms on your behalf.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
How To Safely Check Emails And SMS While Driving
10 Best Ways To Self-Publish Your Own Book
Book publishing was a pain long back when people used to run behind publishing houses to get their book published. But things have change drastically in last decade or so. Now there are numerous online book-publishing services that let you publish your own book either for free or for a very nominal cost. Let's check out these excellent services that can help you publish your next book easily.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing - It's one of the favorite book publishing services for freelancers and writers. Amazon lets you publish your own book in their Kindle store. You can offer subscription-based access to your published content and can earn decent money through this service.
Lulu - This amazing online book publishing service is very popular among publishers. The fee is very nominal and you have complete control over different aspects related to book publishing. You can either publish an eBook or go for hard cover version.
Outskirtspress - If you're looking for several flexible book-publishing plans, this service is the best choice. You get your full royalty and control over publishing once you sign up with a plan. You can also get your book published on Amazon kindle store. All plans also include book promotion strategies and help from the professional staff.
Createspace - This is yet another excellent book publishing service from Amazon. The collection of free tools equips you with all the skills necessary to publish your own book in no time. Simply upload your manuscript in desired format and get your book published for a huge Amazon marketplace.
CafePress - This awesome service gives you free tools for creating your own book. Once it is completed, you can use their true print-on-demand service to get your book published in various formats. They charge a fixed base-price amount and let you decide the retail price. The difference between the two is your earnings. Cafepress handles all of your book promotion, selling, customer service in an efficient manner.
Blurb - It is one of the most popular book publishing services. Blurb's excellent book creation tools lets you create visually appealing content in quick time with minimum hassle. Once you've completed your book, order eBook or hard copies and let the blurb professionals market your book to millions of readers.
iUniverse - It's a professional and very popular book publishing service that provides several plans to self-publish your own book. Marketing and promotion is handled by iUniverse where you're guaranteed good sales (provided you have some good stuff) because of their long experience in book publishing business.
Dog Ear Publishing - If you are planning to self-publish a book with minimum budget, Dog Ear is the best choice. They offer all the tools to create and publish your own book. You own the copyright and have full control over your content and royalties. Dog Ear manages the printing, promotion and distribution on your behalf.
FastPencil - I'm really impressed by this free book writing and publishing software. This excellent software makes the whole book writing and creation process very easy. Once completed, you can publish your book or an ebook through free design templates. From within the software, you can publish your book to Amazon kindle store.
AuthorHouse - It's one of the best professional book publishing services that help writers self-publish, market and sell their own books. A team of experts from AuthorHouse assists you in marketing and selling, while the professional tools lets you create an awesome book with minimum efforts. There are several flexible plans and you can easily contact them before opting for any plan.
Monday, August 29, 2011
How To Use A Collaborative Whiteboard On Web
Whiteboards are the life and blood of schools, laboratories, universities and companies. They present a way to share, elaborate and present your ideas and concepts in an effective way. A typical whiteboard consist of a plain surface with a stylus pen to scribble just about anything on it. How about sharing an online whiteboard with your team across the web in real time?
Well, with ScribLink it's a cakewalk. Simply, visit the web site from a Java-enabled browser and in no time you'll get a whiteboard with cool features having the ability to add team members for real-time collaboration. Did I mention it's free at the same time?
You can write text, make free-hand drawing, embed pictures, make geometric shapes and can also write complex mathematical equations on this whiteboard. You can also use the undo button to get back accidental deletes.
Adding team members is damn simple! Get a link from the sidebar and share it with your team members through email or instant messaging.
Libre Office : An Alternative To Open Office And Microsoft Office
Each one of us has used at least one office suite to create documents, slides, presentations, balance sheets and other type of documents. There are several suites to create such content and users have much more choices than ever before. If you cannot afford a commercial solution, there are some good open source and free office suites, and one of them is LibreOffice.
Unlike other office suites, LibreOffice is quite light on system resources and gives the same features and performance with ease. It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Developed by a large community of developers, it is constantly updated with new features on regular basis.
Users who work on Microsoft Office can easily migrate to LibreOffice as it supports the same features and functions in a much efficient manner. You can tons dozens of LibreOffice extensions developed by the community to add some spice to your office suite. These extensions enrich and extend the functionality of your existing LibreOffice install.
As I said before, one of the major advantage of using LibreOffice is it's ability to consume very less system resources. All major file formats from it's competitor are supported and you can import/export and save your files in your favorite office suite's version.
Friday, August 26, 2011
How To Manage Your Cyber Cafe Easily
If you're running a cyber cafe with decent number of terminals, at times you may feel the necessity to track all the users in a better way. Generally, this work is done manually and sometimes correct tracking and billing is not possible due to absence of any automated system to do the same. Fortunately, there's a free and effective solution to this problem.
HandyCafe is an excellent cyber cafe management software with loads of features that are at par with commercial solutions. It comes in two parts - server and client. Install the server on your monitoring and billing computer, while client part is installed on user terminals.
Once both parts are configured, you're ready to offer the best service to your cyber cafe users. HandyCafe supports network monitoring, time-tracking, billing and cafe members' management.
You can remotely administer all the client computers with time-out sessions. I particularly liked the USB lock mechanism that enables you to remotely enable/disable client computer's USB ports to avert installation of any malicious software.
You can also create keyword-based filters to prevent opening of certain web sites. Automated warning popup messages are supported to ask users to discontinue browsing such sites. A complete billing management solution ensures your cafe members are charged correctly without any dispute. You can remotely reboot, shutdown and can monitor their desktop screens to observe any suspicious activity.
HandyCafe is completely free and comes with lifetime license without any restriction. I've tested it on a home network of 3 computers and it worked exactly the same as it is claimed. Worth a try!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
How To Convert eBooks To Different File Formats
If you're an avid eBook reader, you may sometimes feel the need to convert your collection in a different format for different reasons. It can be a strategy to store your (eBooks on Kindle) in a more storage efficient (optimized) format. Generally, converting an original eBook in a different file format results in loss of style, structure and information. However, with a good eBook converting tool you can convert an eBook into your preferred format very easily.
Hamster is one of the leading free eBook converters. It supports over 200+ devices including popular Kindle readers from Amazon, Sony, Apple and other popular brands. You can also convert eBooks directly from your smartphone as Hamster supports large numbers of smartphone models.
It can convert an eBook in TXT, Adobe PDF, FB2, LIT, HTMLZ, PDB, LRF and PUB format. Batch mode processing ensures that you can convert more than one eBook in one go. The conversion process is damn simple! Simply choose the files and apply the conversion parameter. Thereafter, Hamster does all the conversion work automatically and you're notified when the conversion process is completed.
The desktop version is lightweight with intuitive and attractive interface. I tried converting two eBooks on my Windows 7 box, and it was a pleasing experience with no glitch.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
How To Build An Awesome Resume That Rocks
Job owners often struggle to build and share their resumes online. Generally, they upload a .doc format to job sites where it lies invisible, until a potential employer clicks to see it. This reduces your resumes visibility considerably decreasing the probability of getting the right job. But, there are some good resumes building services that offer unique ways to market your skills.
RESUMEBAKING is one such free service that not only lets you create a rocking resume through it's easy to use interface, but also markets it hard for maximum visibility.
You can start using this service by connecting your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. The resume creation process involves pre-made forms that just need to be filled. Once you've entered all the information (including your photograph), you can proceed to the next step of selecting a template/theme for your resume.
After selecting your template, your resume is published instantly with a unique url through which it can be accessed anywhere. The potential employer can email, print or share it on social networks directly from your resume page.
What I liked most is the analytics section. This section tracks all the clicks and gives the detailed data about who viewed it. You can also share your resume on various social networks from within the dashboard. Once a potential employer shows interest in your resume, you'll get instant notifications through your resume baking account.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
How To Find Best Hotel And Flight Options With Ease
Are you a frequent traveler? Do you struggle to find best hotel and flights deals while traveling frequently? Are you sure, your local travel agent is giving you the best available option in your budget? Finding good yet affordable flight and hotel options in an area is one of the biggest challenges for a traveler. Fortunately, we can find the best flight and hotel options right from our desktop.
HipMunk helps you in finding the best hotels in an area. It also lets you find the best available flight options between two destinations. Simply type the city name that is completed through auto-complete input field facilitating easy selection of the correct city. You must provide the start-n-end date for room availability.
For best flight options, simply enter the two destinations with flight dates, and you'll get the most popular, reliable flight options to consider for your trip. You can apply various attributes to the result set to filter unwanted results. This helps in making the correct decision.
HipMunk also offers a free iPhone/iPad application to search for best hotels and flights.
Monday, August 22, 2011
12+ Ways To Get Short URL For Your Google+ Profile
Since the launch of Google+ social networking service, millions of people have joined to test-drive Google's latest attempt to capture social networking domain. So far, it has acquired positive reviews from the majority. Since it is quite new and is in closed beta stage, vanity urls for profile pages are not yet supported by Google+. But, there are several services that give you short Google+ URL for your profile.
So lets get started and see these awesome Google+ URL shortening sites that make your Google+ profile much easier to share with your friends and peers on social networks. Remember, all these URL shortening services require you to provide your Google+ profile ID as shown below.
Gplus.to - It's the most popular and one of the first Google+ profile URL shortening services. It also shows the most popular (number of redirects) users on the home page.
onGPL.US - This service has a clean and soothing interface. Simply provide your profile ID and your desired username to get started.
Gl+ - It's yet another popular Google+ profile URL shortener devoid of any clutter. The interface closely resembles Google+ interface.
plus.ly - Since bit.ly is one of most popular url shortening services, it was just a matter of time to see a similar service for Google+ profile URL shortening.
TOPL.US - Just keep counting! This is one more Google+ profile URL shortener for you. Which one you prefer is up to you.
gPlusNick - This service is also used by large number of Google+ users. It also showcases latest users in sidebar on both sides.
dirpl.us - With it's black & white and clean interface, this Google+ profile shortening service is among the front runners for top 10 services.
Goplus.us - This short url does make sense and indicates where you're going to land. It's a popular option and is used by large number of users.
gplus.name - This is the most minimalistic and simple Google+ profile URL shortening service. You just have to paste the entire profile url and it automatically extracts the ID to build the short version.
gpuser.com - Now this is something unique. This service creates a random user name if nickname field is leaved empty. I wonder how many people are going to leave that field empty!
Plusya - This is one of my favorite services. Reason? It provides rich analytics apart from creating the short profile URL. You can see traffic overview, referrals and geo-location of traffic redirected through this service.
+.name - If you want to get the most unusual and different short url for Google+, then this service gives you that. It uses +.name/yournickname to generate short vanity urls.
gtPL.US - This site looks quite similar to gplus.to and provides similar url shortening interface. Although it's not quite popular but the short url is good enough to be considered for a shorter vanity url for Google+.
Friday, August 19, 2011
How To Prolong Your Hard Drive Life
Everything is mortal, and so is our computer's hard drive. Generally, a hard drive may last anywhere between 5 to 15 years. This sharp difference in the average life span is due to the number of hours a drive may be used and the type of disk intensive activity a user may initiate on his computer. With some useful tips, we can prolong our hard drive's life by up to 30%, and these methods are very easy to implement.
Hibernate your system when not in use - This tip is often ignored that can significantly increase the disk's life. When you put your computer in hibernate mode, the disk activity is reduced to almost negligible.
Clean and defrag system at least once a month - Avoid installing unnecessary software on your system. This increases the size of registry and the number of drivers which significantly increases disk activity during system start up. Using a system cleaner like CCleaner and a disk defragmenting utility can reduce disk activity thus increasing the hard drive's life span.
Shutdown your system properly - DO NOT switch off your power plug when system is doing intensive disk activity. Always shutdown your system properly so that disk's read-write head can be parked appropriately. Switch-off a system during intensive disk activity may result in head crash making the disk almost unusable.
Secure from physical wear and tear - Exposure to extreme heat, shock or water may result in disk malfunction. When you system is not in use, cover it with appropriate waterproof sheet to avoid any mishap.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
How To Shop Online Without A Credit Card
If you're an avid Internet user, you may have shopped and tried to shopped online. Online shopping can be done in different ways through credit cards or through third-party payment processing services like PayPal. However, in some countries, users cannot use third-party payment services due to regulations by local governments. In such cases, credit card is the only option to make any online purchase.
But, if you have limited earnings, you may hesitate to get a credit card. So how to shop online in such circumstances? Well, there's an easy solution to that. All you need is an ordinary HDFC bank account with a regular debit card. NetSafe is an excellent service by HDFC bank that lets you create temporary virtual MasterCard/Visa credit card for online shopping.
Once you're registered with the service using your debit card details, you can generate a virtual credit card instantly whenever required. You can set the maximum limit associated with a card to avoid any mishaps. These temporary cards are for one-time usage and are expired after 24 hours.
There are two advantages of using this service. First, you don't need to own a credit card to shop online, and secondly, your actual debit card information is not revealed during online transaction. Remember, this virtual card cannot replace actual credit card for payments through swipe machines in shopping malls and hotels. It can be used only for online purchase.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
How To Reduce Your Internet Activities To Boost Your Productivity
Web surfers can be broadly categorized in two groups. First one are those casual surfers who check their mails once or twice a day, and second one are online almost 24 hours. The latter group face many difficulties like less productivity, health problems and strained personal relations. Here are some tips to increase your productivity by avoiding unnecessary web browsing.
Create a timeline - One of the best ways to cut down your Internet activities is to create a rough draft of your daily activity. Fill in hour-by-hour details and keep it pasted in front of your desk.
Avoid checking mails in morning - This is the worst practice that greatly reduces your productivity. Keep the morning hours to finish drafts, articles or some other important work, rather then cleaning your inbox.
Install Internet blocking software - There are some good software that temporarily blocks specific sites for a definite period of time. While doing an important work these blocking software comes very handy.
Remove the clutter - Keep your desktop clean with only essential shortcuts. Uninstall messengers, games and other time consuming junk.
Automate things - Use filters, canned replies in GMail to reduce the time spent in processing the mails. Make templates of other commonly used documents to significantly reduce your working time.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
How To Share Your Printer Across The Web
Do you want to use or share your printer on the go? How about your friend in North America printing an important document (intended for you) directly on your home computer? Sounds great? Well, you can do it very easily through Google Cloud Print. It's free and support wide number of ways through which you can share your printer across World Wide Web.
Google Cloud Print supports classic printers as well as HP ePrint printers, which are Google Cloud Print ready. To register a classic printer, you'll need a Chrome browser, while HP ePrint printers can be registered from any browser.
This excellent service can be used on Chrome, Android, iOS or any other mobile device. You can use this Chrome extension to enable Google Cloud Print support directly in GMail and Google Docs.
After you've added your printers, sharing them is very easy. Simply click the 'Share' button and invite your contacts to get connected with your printer. I've tested it with classic Cannon bubble jet printer and it worked like charm.
Monday, August 15, 2011
How To Monetize Your Social Networks
If your're a blogger, you must be already familiar with advertisements generally shown on blogs. Have you ever thought about monetizing your Twitter, Facebook or YouTube account? Yes, you can post sponsored videos and tweets to earn good money from your active social media accounts.
All you need is an account on MyLikes. You can directly connect your Facebook, YouTube or Twitter account with your MyLikes account.
Once you've joined the league, you can get sponsored videos and tweets for your fans and followers. Why it works better than regular ads? Well, tweets and videos are generally not seen as an advertising medium and people tend to interact with it more easily. The advertisements campaigns accepted by you can be based either on a cost-per-click (for tweets) or cost-per-view (for videos) model. The pricing depends how active and large is your fans or followers base.
So get started and leverage your existing social media accounts with ease through MyLikes.
Friday, August 12, 2011
How To Share Rich-Text Notes Instantly
We often take notes through various note taking desktop applications. Generally, sharing these notes with our friends and peers is not easy. Either we have to print them or have to copy-paste them in email. How about creating a rich-text note (with multimedia elements) that can be shared instantly with friends? Sounds great? Let's see how we can do that.
JustPaste.it is an excellent free service that lets you create awesome notes in no time. What's special about this note making application is the ability to give a unique url to each note. You can share a note by sending this unique link to your network.
The note making process itself is extremely flexible, which supports rich-text and images too. Apart from regular typing, you can import text from Microsoft Word or a web page. With the help of integrated rich-text editor, you can easily insert images within the note. You can also embed videos within the note through [video] tag. JustpasteIt also supports embedding of complex mathematical formulas with the help of LaTeX. Once you've completed your note, you can create a unique url handle (if available) or can get the automatic generated note url. You can also export your notes as a PDF file to attach them in emails.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
DotSpotting : Get The Real Picture About Places On Maps
We are all familiar with maps. They are a credible source to know about geographical locations. Generally, a normal map consists of locations and their names. Some maps may also contain additional information like terrain and geo-coordinates. Sometimes, we want to know much more about a place than just name and terrain and geo-location. This additional information can help us better understand that area.
Dotspotting can easily give you that additional information that is curated by the community itself. This additional information can be theft or crimes in a particular area, hospitals, restaurants, hotels, SUV accidents in an area, historical places, churches, ATMS or just about anything you can imagine.
You can also contribute to the project by uploading your data and creating a map for the people. Simply upload your data in CSV , RSS (GeoRSS), XLS or TXT format with relevant information and you'll be creating your own map with dots (places) representing the exact location and the data associated with that dot. You can also embed these maps and can also share it on different social media networks. You can also upload geo-tagged photos from Flickr and Google Maps to speed up the map creation process.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
DoubleClick for Publishers Adds Support For Serving Mobile Ads
If you're using DoubleClick for Publishers as your preferred ad-serving engine, here's a good news for you. DFP now supports ad serving for large number of mobile devices and mobile operating systems. These additional features are completely free and are tightly integrated with the existing regular ad-serving mechanism.
You can choose among dozens of mobile device manufacturers and your targeted mobile operating system while creating a line item. You can configure the most famous 320x50 mobile ad format to get the best results. DFP generates mobile optimized ad code to deliver the best performance without any glitch. You can also configure Adsense and AdMob advertisements to be displayed in case you run out of your inventory.
This way, you get an option to fully utilize the ad-space in all circumstances. The targeting is pretty flexible allowing you to target specific manufacturers, OS versions, city, postal code (USA and Canada) and much more. I'll suggest you to first try it on a test device and then go for actual implementation, so that you can be assured of correct rendering of adverts on your blog or web site.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
How To Create A Photo Mosaic That Rocks
It's an old cliché - "Picture says a thousand words", and holds so true even today. Just imagine a world wide web with photographs? We all share and post pictures with our online social contacts and also use them on our web sites and blogs. Sometimes, we need to add some spice to our pictures. And making a mosaic is one of the ways to liven up the picture.
Mosaically is an online service that lets you create stunning photo mosaic in no time. It's quite flexible and can create mosaic through different sources.
The most favorite option is mosaic creation from pictures and albums in your Facebook account. Simply connect mosaically to your Facebook account, and it will create a dazzling photo mosaic combining all the pictures.
You can also upload a large picture or multiple pictures from your desktop to create different types of mosaic as per your needs. Another handy option is providing a url rich in embedded pictures. Mosaically pulls all the pictures on the web page and automatically create a mosaic out of them. You can customize the tile size and the orientation and style of your mosaic very easily through sliders. Instant preview of changes makes it easy to fine-tune the mosaic settings.
Monday, August 8, 2011
How To Create An iPhone App Without Any Coding
iPhone has a large user-base with millions of users across the world. Applications are the life and blood of today's smartphones. iPhone's application hub (iTunes Store) hosts thousands of applications for the users. How about designing your own iPhone application and earning money from it? Don't worry it's free and doesn't require any coding or programming knowledge.
AppMakr is an excellent iPhone application creating service that lets you create a resource mashup application in minutes. You can self-publish it on iPhone Store and can also monetize it.
Start with providing your web site's or blog's url as shown below. Content from your site will be pulled along with embedded images and you'll instantly get a preview of your application in a simulated iPhone screen.
Register your account and start editing your iPhone application to give it a desired look with an option to monetize it as well. Provide an application name no longer than 11 characters, else the extra characters will be stripped off.
Add a splash screen that will be shown every time the application will be started. You can also add a custom logo for your application. A typical iPhone can have multiple tabs for additional functionalities, apart from the default home tab.
Fortunately, AppMakr application creator lets you add additional tabs to enrich your iPhone app. You can not only add more RSS feeds but can also create separate tabs for photo albums, location aware feeds, message posting tab and much more. I'll prefer to add archives, categories RSS feeds in different tabs to facilitate easy browsing of the content.
Next, you can add header image of your application and can also define border background colors as per your requirements. Don't forget to enable sharing capabilities for your application. This option lets the user share your application content on Facebook, Twitter and Email. If you're offering premium content, you can also configure login screen for the subscribers. Simply awesome!
And last but not the least is application monetization. You can either choose ads from leading mobile ad platforms or can add custom JavaScript code that displays ads of size no more than 320x50. You can easily get these ad codes from Adsense for Mobile.
Once your application is ready, the last step involves submission to iPhone Store for approval. Once approved, it will show up in iPhone Store's directory in the appropriate category where users can search and download it. So go ahead, and create your own resource mashup application right away!
Friday, August 5, 2011
How To Display Real-Time Tweets Through jQuery Plugin
We often display latest or selective tweets on our web site or blog. Some of these tweets are static, while others loop in through last dozen tweets. How about showing a real-time tweet stream in your blog's sidebar using fast and optimized jQuery plugin? Here's how to do it.
jQuery LiveTwitter is a highly customizable plugin to display real-time tweets in an efficient and optimized way that doesn't slow down your site. Simply download the plugin and host the JavaScript and associated files on your web server.
Here's a sample usage on how to display your own real-time tweet stream.
/***** Include in header *********/
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript" ></script>
<script src="jquery.livetwitter.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
/****** Some CSS Styling *******/
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
body {background: #E1EBFF; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: #111; margin: 40px 120px; line-height: 1.4; }
h2 { margin-top: 40px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; }
a, a:visited { color: #066999; }
a:hover { color: #111; }
.tweet { background: #fff; margin: 4px 0; width: 500px; padding: 8px; -moz-border-radius: 8px; -webkit-border-radius: 8px; }
.tweet img { float: left; margin: 0 8px 4px 0; }
.tweet .text { margin: 0; }
.tweet .time a { font-size: 80%; color: #888; white-space: nowrap; text-decoration: none; }
.tweet .time a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }
#twitterSearch .tweet { min-height: 24px; }
#twitterSearch .tweet .text { margin-left: 32px; }
</style>
/*** Call the plugin in body ***/
<h2>Searching for <em<span id="searchTerm">bacon</span></em>..</h2>
<div id="twitterSearch" class="tweets"></div>
<p id="searchLinks">Change to: <a href="#">bacon</a>, <a href="#">pasta</a> or <a href="#">celery</a>.</p>
<h2>User timeline for <a href="http://twitter.com/freshtechtips">@freshtechtips</a></h2>
<div id="twitterUserTimeline" class="tweets"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
// Basic usage
$('#twitterSearch').liveTwitter('bacon', {limit: 5, rate: 5000});
$('#twitterUserTimeline').liveTwitter('freshtechtips', {limit: 5, refresh: false, mode: 'user_timeline'});
// Changing the query
$('#searchLinks a').each(function(){
var query = $(this).text();
$(this).click(function(){
// Update the search
$('#twitterSearch').liveTwitter(query);
// Update the header
$('#searchTerm').text(query);
return false;
});
});
</script>
That's it! You can customize the various options and CSS as per your needs. A complete documentation is located here.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
How To Share Your Favorite Content From Browser Address Bar
While stumbling content, at times I share an article or blog post with my Twitter and Facebook friends, but generally I do it by manually by copy pasting the url and titles within the respective service client application. However, there are several browser add-on and plugins to directly share content from within the browser, but none of them is as flexible as Mozilla F1 Messaging.
This excellent add-on is sleek and fast with a gorgeous interface. All you need is connecting your relevant accounts to which you want to share your favorite posts and articles. You can also configure your bit.ly account for better user engagement insights.
The sharing process is damn simple! Simply press the F1 icon in the address bar, and a pop up appears with a space to express yourself. The shortened link to the current web page is automatically appended and sent to all (or selective) connected accounts. It's supports posting to Twitter, Facebook, GMail, Google Apps, Yahoo! and LinkedIn.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
How To Create Your Own Help Desk System For Free
If you're running a small business and offer technical support to your client-base, presence of a web-based technical support system is a must. This not only addresses grievances of the current user base, but also serves as a medium to improve and refine the offered services. Although there are many commercial help desk solutions, but they are quite expensive.
Support Incident Tracker (or SiT!) is an excellent free and open source help desk system that's ideal for technical support and incident tracking system including calls and emails. It's web-based and supports up to 13 popular languages. It also includes LDAP and knowledge base to provide enriched help system to the end-users.
This incident tracking system is highly configurable that includes support for service level agreements (SLA) and logs of each incident. Customized email templates, advanced search and support of additional plugins makes it one of the best free incident tracking systems. It also has flexible profile management (engineers (support staff)/end-users) module to create different levels of incident tracking groups.
SiT! also have dozens of customizable cool themes to suit your business needs with an option to add your branding. You'll need a general web server running PHP and MySQL to install this application.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
How To Add Advanced Custom Search Functionality To Your Website
Your web site's content cannot be leveraged to its full extent, unless you provide a convenient way to search the desired content. Generally, we add a default search box provided by the content management system that presents the results on the basis of keyword. But sometimes, it also presents unrelated content simply because that keyword appeared in a post. 
These search functionalities are not only primitive, but are limited only to a web site or blog's content. SearchBlox is free software to deploy custom search solutions not just for a web site, but also for an intranet, RSS collection or protected content. It is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platform.
SearchBlox supports 37 different languages and can be deployed quickly without any hiccups. Unlike general search functionalities, SearchBlox algorithms present results on the basis of context, rather than blindly pulling content on the basis of keywords. With a web-based console, you can manage almost every aspect of your custom search solution for your web site or your private intranet.
SearchBlox has different crawlers for RSS feeds, HTTP/HTTPS and for public and protected content, that index and organize the data in an efficient manner to return the most optimal and accurate results for a given query. If you're looking to add some spice to the search functionality for your content, SearchBlox can give it a push.
Monday, August 1, 2011
6 URL Expander To View Shortened Links
Nowadays, web is full of social media applications and services where content is aggregated and shared by millions of people. More than before, people tend to shorten the content urls before sharing them on various social media networks. But there are threats associated with short urls that may land you on a malicious site. Thankfully, some url expanding services let you preview the expanded version very easily.
KnowURL: It is a reliable url expanding service. Simply provide the shortened url and you'll instantly get the original version of the destination url. A Google Chrome extension is also available made by KnowURL.
ExpandMyURL: This is yet another url expanding service supporting all major url shortners like tinyurl.com, bit.ly and is.gd.
AppBrain: It's an excellent url expanding application for Android platform. This free application is light and extremely reliable for expanding shortened urls on your Andriod mobile phone.
LongURL: It's one of my favorite url expanding service. Apart from the web version, you can also use a Firefox extension or a Greasemonkey script to preview short urls while browsing the web.
Clybs: If you're worried about suspicious. malicious sites hidden behind a shortened url, use Clybs to expand it. This handy service intelligently scans the destination url for any malicious activity and warns you in advance.
longSHORE: Similar to Clybs, this url expander examines the url to sniff any threats associated with the destination url. A handy Firefox add-on is also available made by this service.
