Free Blog Things & Blog Stuff

Funny Things for your Blog

2011-11-07T14:00:00.000-08:00

DailyHaHa.com has lots of funny pictures and videos that can be embedded on your blog, the following pictures are just a teaser of the good stuff you can find for your blog.

Free Twitter Background Sites

2011-10-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

Twitter is one of the most used sites on the net, and twitter lovers always need useful “things” to make twitter their “own”, So here are a few things for all you twitter fans, Happy Tweeting, with Style!!!

http://www.custombackgroundsfortwitter.com

Some really good custom backgrounds for twitter and facebook graphics, While many are paid versions, there is also a section for free twitter backgrounds.

http://www.twitterbackgroundsgallery.com

Their site says “Twitter Backgrounds Gallery is the largest showcase of unique Twitter backgrounds submitted and recommended by Twitter users worldwide.” 1644+ free backgrounds, also don’t miss the resources, top10 and other useful sections

http://www.twitter-images.com

Professional looking site, with free backgrounds arranged using tags and categories.

http://twitrounds.com

Some good backgrounds for twitter, with easy installation instruction for manual install or auto install tool for people having no idea how to customize their twitter.

http://www.twitterbackgroundimages.com

They have a lot of graphics that can be used as background wallpapers for your twitter, especially interesting is their Twitter Logo Section.

http://www.twitterbackgroundsbase.com

Lots of quality stuff here, has an automatic install tool for installing the custom background. unfortunately the manual install doesn’t seem to work.

http://twitterbugg.com

Simple and clean free templates for twitter.

Meet the Google's Facebook : Google+

2011-10-04T23:28:00.000-07:00

Google+ opens its door for everyone, now everyone can join and its free.

I think that Google+ is heavily inspired from Facebook's success and poised to be the next challenger to facebook in the social networking arena. So, where does that leave Google's Orkut? Facebook's popularity can be attributed to the clean uncluttered interface which is very user friendly, and its speed on even slow networks and mobile access.

Google itself has some advantages here, It's Orkut is still alive and kicking, YouTube for sharing video and integeration of Gmail and time tested ad-strategy with Google Adsense.

Those who still like to be invited at Google+ send us a message with your email, we will send you a Google+ Invitation.

Improved Counter Service : StatCounter.com

2011-09-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

All professional bloggers use a visitor/page counter service on their page. Most of us have used StatCounter for a while and now with StatCounter's improved interface, we can surely recommend our visitors to give it a try.

Here's the visitor data, which gives detailed report of visitors coming to your page.

Visual representation of the geographical area of your visitor/readers.

Screen below shows which search engine helps to locate your site/pages better.

Visitor data showing, the resolution of their monitor settings

Data about the browsers your visitors are using

She says, YOU are my friend

2011-09-17T11:29:00.001-07:00

Free Facebook Username and Facebook Mail

2011-09-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

If you are a Facebook user, you can get a facebook username before someone else gets it, So if you are fast, you could get a personalised facebook url with your name, which is cool. here's what our facebook url looks like
http://www.facebook.com/freeblogthings. What's more, you will also get a free facebookmail account, like <yourusername>@facebookmail.com.

To register your facebook username, make sure you have verified your account, which is typically done by adding a mobile number and verifying the code sent to the mobile number. You will find the option to add the mobile number to your account by logging in to you facebook account and going to account settings, and on the left pane click on "mobile" link.

After you have verified you account, go to account settings, and click on the "username" link, in the input field enter your desired username and register it, if it's available.

Once you are done, go to your home page and click on the "messages" link. On the top portion of the page you will get a link to claim your free facebookmail address.

How to Add +1 Button to Blogs

2011-07-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

Google's own version of "facebook like buttons", which helps visitors to recommend your blog/site. in their own words...
"...By adding the +1 button to your blog, you’re providing an easy way for your visitors to recommend your posts to their friends right from your blog. Here’s how it works: Let’s say you blog about biking. One of your readers, Tom, finds your recent post about mountain biking interesting, and clicks on the +1 button. Now, when Tom’s friends and contacts search for biking or mountain bikes and your post appears in Google search results, they might see an annotation showing that Tom +1’d your post, helping your content stand out."

Following are the Instructions to get this button on your site.

Blogger/Blogspot Users

To add the +1 button to your blog, you’ll need to enable Share buttons on Blogger. To do this, go to Design > Page Elements on your Blogger dashboard, find the Blog posts area, click on Edit, and select the “Show Share Buttons” option. If you are already using Share buttons, the +1 button will automatically show up as a new share option.

Other Blogs and Websites
First, Go to the URL : http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button

There are customization options for you, choose the size that suits your page,

The code is generated in the textbox for you, If you are using classic templates(VERY OLD!), you need to place the first 2 lines in the head section and the remaining code has to be pasted where you want +1 button to appear.

Source: http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/06/add-1-button-to-your-blog.html

Free URL Shortener from Google

2011-04-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

Tweeting is one of the popular activites online nowdays, So here's a service from google that makes your tweeting more convenient, a free URL shortener which will make your links on your tweets from

http://www.somedomainname.com/thepageofinterest/section/paragraph/page.htm

http://goo.gl/wedf

Mass Follow Twitter Users

2011-02-14T23:51:00.000-08:00

If you spend a long time searching for twitter users and then follow them one by one, a free service from http://www.mass-follow.com can help.

Mass Follow allows you to search by keyword and then mass follow the users returned in the results. Enter your Twitter username and password on the main page to log into your account, once logged in you will see a keyword search box. Enter your keywords separated by commas. Select the users you wish to follow or select all, then mass follow them! You can follow upto 100 users at a time.

Twitter Follow Me Buttons in Blogger

2011-01-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

Many of you use third party twitter follow me buttons, well that's a matter of choice, just in case if you were wondering if twitter itself has some official buttons, then log in to your twitter account and check out the buttons, maybe you would be tempted to use one.

Tweet Button for Blogger

2011-01-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Twitter's official tweet button is here, you can find the button on the page http://twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton ,
You can get a small button like the one below

First you can optionally customizable your twitter button :

Next Enter your twitter username account in the first textbox :

That will generate the code which needs to be added to blogger, Just go into the layouts and add the code to javascript/html plugin and you are done.

Another Online Anti-Virus Service

2010-08-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

I have used AVG antivirus and cloud panda antivirus, and iam recently using Kaspersky commercial anti virus, All of which have been quite good products, there are however times, where you need extra security from other viruses, this is where a free online service from VirusTotal comes into reckoning.

You can upload a file from your hard disk or even email the file to scan as an attachment. Following are to use this service using Email :

The sending process is as follows:

Create a new message with scan@virustotal.com as the destination address.
If you wish to receive the results as plain text, write SCAN in the subject field. If you wish to receive an XML attachment with the results, write SCAN+XML in the subject field.
Attach the file to be scanned. Such file must not exceed 20 MB in size. If the attached file is larger, the system will reject it automatically.

Or, Use a small uploader utitlity from http://www.virustotal.com/advanced.html#uploader

Or, Use the browser addons for Firefox or Chrome http://www.virustotal.com/advanced.html#browser-addons

Google Translate Widget for Blogger

2010-07-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Google now offers a new tool as a piece of javascript which can be added to your site or blog.

The code to add this useful tool can be found at http://translate.google.com/translate_tools?hl=en&layout=1&eotf=1. Blogger users can use the widget below to add this tool to their blog.

[One Click Add +]

Free Twitter Logos and Icons

2010-01-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Here are some nice Twitter Logos and Icons from Twitter http://twitter.com/about/resources/logos

Twitter

2009-09-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

If you thought blogging was an easier way to publish content for the majority of people, consider twitter as a micro-blogging tool. Twitter is one such service which is becoming a rage among bloggers. you come across the twitter gadgets and twitter bookmarks on many popular blogs and websites, which is an indication of growing popularity of twitter. Many of you already know of Twitter and for those who don't know, this is how twitter describes itself.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Twitter has a clean and simple interface, it makes publishing content easier and faster, even simpler than most blogs. once you have registered on-site, you can start posting your updates(not more than 140 chars. at a time), you will eventually get people who will "follow" you around on twitter and make you more popular. Twitter, is the latest tool for blog promotion as well, Register on-site and create your own space on twitter, publish frequent updates using the main site, desktop clients, mobile devices or widgets and gadgets developed by third party and create a fan following, which will send free traffic to your blog.

Web Avatars

2009-09-09T13:41:00.001-07:00

Avatar's are graphical representation of your online identity that you assume when participating on discussion forums, blogging or in any of the social networking sites like orkut, technorati, digg etc. There are variety of images available freely on the internet which you can choose as your own avatar. An avatar is like your first impressions, which people notice instantly and as it's said "First impression is the best impression".

Check out the following sites for some cool, funny and awesome free avatars

http://www.allavatars.com

http://www.free-avatars.com

http://www.coolavatars.net

http://www.avatarhell.com

Slideshow gadget for blogger with random pictures

2009-07-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

Get this widget and similar other free widgets for your blog from http://www.widgetbox.com

Link Exchange ?

2008-07-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Hi, thanks for stopping by, We love to get your messages, including the link exchange requests, but in order to maintain a PR standard, we are only considering link exchange with blogs/sites with PageRank of at least 2 or above. So, Here's the link in case you want to add our link to your pages :

<a href="http://zerodollarchallenge.blogspot.com" title="Free Blog Things & Blog Stuff">Free Blog Things & Blog Stuff</a>

Feel free to contact us at

Blog Comics

2008-07-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Make your blogging more fun, by giving your visitors reason to smile. Put some funny Blog Comics on your blog using a free service from Blaugh.com

Blaugh.com makes the installation of its funny blog cartoons on your blog, easy and hassle free. No registration is required! Just explore the site and find the cartoon that you would like to put on your blog. Below the cartoon will be the HTML code that you need to add to your blog/post. copy the entire code from the textbox below the blog comic and add it to your post or blog.

Locate your Site Visitors using Clustrmaps

2008-06-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

ClustrMaps.com brings a widget that shows the location of your site visitors on a tiny map that could be easily put on your blog. They provide the HTML that gives you a tiny map. The location of each visit is based on the IP address of the computer used.

When it loads, it increments a counter and shows the locations of all visitors to your page. Clicking on it zooms in to a big world map, and (optionally) lets you zoom in to the continents, as in the example below

[ Not the original size here ]

For the live demo of this widget in action please visit http://clustrmaps.com

Another Popular ShoutBox for Blogger

2008-06-06T04:11:00.000-07:00

In one of our earlier posts, we had introduced you to ShoutBox from MyShoutBox.com. Recently, We've found another free and popular shoutbox for blogger. This one comes from ShoutMix.com

Here's a screenshot of the live demo on their homepage

The installation is hassle free, It only take 3 simple steps to get your own shoutbox

Guard against viruses using Free Online Virus Scanners

2008-06-03T11:06:00.001-07:00

Viruses are annoying little programs which mess up your computer. In past we've recommended using a resident anti-virus program to actively defend against virus attacks. We had also suggested trying out the google pack which includes Norton Security Scan and loads of other useful software

As a second line of defence, We advice you to periodically check your computer using Free online virus scanners. The following links takes you to the reputed antivirus company sites, which install a small piece of code in your browser(ActiveX/Java) to scan your computer.

Glitter Text/Graphics for Blogs

2008-06-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

[ Clipart from http://www.glitter-graphics.com ]

There are times when adding animation and glitter works well for your blog. Animated GIF's are a popular way to get the attention of your visitors. Many of us just like to add some blog things for fun, If you would like to dazzle your blog with glitters then head to http://www.glitter-graphics.com. While you are there, grab some avatars , cliparts and videos.

[ UPDATE: Just recently, as our visitors pointed out there seems some problem with the video service of this site ]

[ Video from http://www.glitter-graphics.com ]

The site also has a collection of MySpace, Friendsterand Xanga Layouts.

About copyrights of the graphics, the FAQ says:

"..All graphics are free for personal use: no strings (or pricetags, for that matter) attached towards us.."

So, using the graphics for your personal use on your blog is legal and permitted. Our tip is to use animation cautiously and wisely, think out beforehand which graphic would work out best for your blog and try to keep the animations to absolute minimum, too much blinking graphics will distract your visitors from real content.

[ Clipart from http://www.glitter-graphics.com ]

Create PayPal Donate link instead of a Button

2008-05-19T01:29:00.000-07:00

After our earlier post on How to add PayPal donate button to your blog, We were asked if there is a way to generate a PayPal Donate Link instead of a button. Here's how you can generate a text link.

If you don't have a paypal account yet, you can get a free account

After you have your login ID/password, Login to your account. Then click the
"merchant services" tab.

scroll down and on the right sidebar, find the box labelled key features, click on the link named "Donations"

After clicking on that link, you will taken to "Create paypal payment button" page, just make sure that donations is selected in the "Accept Payments for" dropdown box. You can type a name/id for this button

Down below you can customize your paypal button by selecting options like using smaller button, displaying credit card logos, changing language, currency, contribution amount or use your own graphic as a button.

Step 2 & 3 are optional and requires a business account, so leave them for now. and click on create button.

On the next page you get the code for your website/blog, just copy the entire code from the textbox and paste it to your blog or website.

The next page generates two code boxes, the first one is for the button and the second one is text link for email and sites, copy the entire code from the second textbox and paste it into your template of your website or blog, where you want it to appear. You can choose to display your own anchor text and wrap the code around it. eg: Remembering 9/11 Victims

XML blogger users read the post on How to add HTML or JavaScript into blogger

MyBlogLog Widget for Blogger

2008-05-16T01:55:00.001-07:00

The MyBlogLog Recent Readers Widget by MyBlogLog.com ( now owned by Yahoo! ) is not just popular on Blogger blogs, but its a favorite amongst other bloggers too. Recently the widget has been given a cosmetic change to make it look graphically appealing. I guess it does look good. The colors of the widget are also customizable.

The widget will help you create an online community of admirers and fans of your blog. The more people join your community, the more likely you are to attract traffic to your blog.

The address of your community on MyBlogLog will be like http://mybloglog.com/buzz/community/_________ ( you can have a keyword of your choice in the blank space)

It's easy to add a blog or site to your MyBlogLog profile. First, you need to get a Yahoo! Id. Most people already have it and if you don't you can always get a free account from http://www.yahoo.com

On your profile page, click Add Blog/Site I Author.

You will be taken to a page on which you can add the details of your blog or website. Fill out the details and your blog will be added(the screenshot of your site will be added automatically).

Once your site is added to your profile, the next step is to create the widget for your blog. Your blog should be listed under "My Sites and Services", It will also have a link labelled "Widget" beside your blog. Clicking the "Widget" link will take you to the page where you can customize the color of your widget

The textbox labelled "Your Code", generates the widget code that you need to copy to your blog template(preferrably on your sidebar). XML blogger users read the post on How to add HTML or JavaScript into blogger

Here's a live demo of the MyBlogLog Recent Readers Widget on BlogThings Labs and Why not join our community, Right Now?

Avoid becoming a victim of Credit Card Fraud

2008-05-16T01:55:00.000-07:00

Credit Card fraud is on the rise, As part of our "Internet Safety" tips series, we are suggesting certain steps that can help you avoid being a victim of Credit Card fraud.

The first step to prevent your credit card from being misused is to not let your card fall into the hands of fraudsters. There are many tutorials/how-to's on the internet on credit card fraud that suggest..

"..be on the lookout for houses where the houseowners are on a vacation and have their house locked down but left their mailbox unprotected where the banks will send them their credit card."

This seems to be the most popular method of getting hold of other's credit card. So, take the hint! NEVER leave your mailbox unprotected, take steps to ensure the privacy of your mailbox.

According to this article in BBC..

..A fraudulent card transaction takes place every eight seconds and cloning is the biggest type of credit card fraud.

Cloning (also popularly known as 'skimming') can happen in seconds. So, Whenever using your credit card on malls, resturants and hotels etc., request that the the card is swiped in front of you, Don't let your card out of your sight and pick up all receipts. To pick up more tips, you should also read this article on BBC on How credit cards get cloned

Extra care needs to be taken if you use Credit Card to buy on the Internet. Sure, It's so convenient to use the credit card to buy online, but remember that there are other ways to pay for your purchases for eg. "Cash on delivery" for instance. Use your card on well known and reputed sites, also make sure that the site is using SSL.

You are adviced not to use your card on public cafe's, computers with public access as they could be running malicious programs(called keyloggers) to steal your personal information.

The last tip is to use paypal for online purchases, PayPal is the safer, easier way to pay and get paid online, Pay without revealing your credit card or bank information. Now many people like you, use paypal instead of using credit cards.

ShoutBox for Blogger

2008-03-27T22:46:00.005-07:00

What is cooler than a guestbook, chat and bulletin board? It's a Shoutbox from MyShoutBox.com

This is a feature packed free service for blogs and websites. Here's a list of features that MyShoutBox.com offers

You can add this shoutbox to your blogger blogs after an easy and fast registration process. After Registration you are given a ID/Password, with which you have to login to access your shoutbox management area. Select the link "Code Generation" and set the options for your shoutbox( or leave the default settings, you can always change that later! ) and click "Generate Code".

Classic templates users of blogger can copy-paste the HTML code into their template. XML Blogger users see this post on How to add HTML/JavaScript to Blogger.

Creative Commons License for Blogger

2008-03-27T22:46:00.004-07:00

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."

To get the creative commons license for your blog go to http://creativecommons.org [ Opens in a New Window ]. On the top of the page, click "License you work" link to continue. On the next screen you can select the licensing options for your blog.

After you select your license you can choose a graphic for the license and the HTML code will be generated on the page.

Classic templates users of blogger can copy-paste the HTML code into their template. XML Blogger users see this post on How to add HTML/JavaScript to Blogger.

Feedjit Widget for Blogger

2008-03-27T22:46:00.003-07:00

Feedjit.com offers 4 widgets for bloggers and webmasters.

The most popular feedjit widget(which you may have seen on other blogs already) is the "Live Traffic Feed" Widget.

If you are a Blogger Layouts(XML Blogger) or TypePad user, the readymade widget on the site will install the code on your blog in a few clicks. Other blogs and websites will have to copy-paste the code from the site into their template.

Technorati Widget for Blogger

2008-03-27T22:46:00.001-07:00

Technorati.com is a collection of large number of blogs and is visited by people all over the world looking for blogs to browse. Your objective should be to get visitors from Technorati.com to visit your blog.

The first step in this process would be to join Technorati and go through the "Claiming your Blog" process. You are more likely to attract more visitors, if your blog is ranked high on Technorati. So get the Technorati Widget and request your visitors to vote for your blog.

Here's how you get your widget. Sign into http://www.technorati.com/signup [Opens in a New Window] with your user id and password.

In your account area, Click on the link labelled "Favorites" on the Technorati navigation bar. On the next screen, Under the sidebar heading "Ins and Outs", find the link to your favorite button, where it says :

"Buttons: Help Technorati members favorite your blog with a button."

If you have added multiple blogs to Technorati, you will have to select a blog from the combo box to generate the code for that blog. The page generates three different code blocks. choose the one that suits your page and copy the code and paste into your template(Classic Templates users). XML blogger users read the post on How to add HTML or JavaScript into blogger.

Attract traffic using Blog TopSites

2008-03-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

Joining Blog TopSites are one of the ways to bring traffic(Free!) to your blog. It takes just a bit of effort on your part to get going. Generally, you will need to register with the site and get your blog approved. Once approved you get your personalized code block that you need to add to your blog. This code will help visitors of your blog to vote for your blog. The more votes you get, the higher you climb on the list and are more likely to get more visitors.

Here's a small list of Blog Topsites where you can register your blog :

http://topsites.blogflux.com/
http://www.topbloglists.com/
http://www.blogelites.com/
http://blog505.com/
http://topblogsites.net/
http://www.topblog.ws/
http://www.blogista.net/
http://topsites.technoized.com/blog
http://blogsites.in/
http://www.stateyourblog.com/
http://www.blogranking.us/
http://www.blogsontop.com/
http://www.topblogarea.com/
http://www.blogrankings.com/
http://www.top100bloggers.com/

Internet Safety Advice : Deceptive Text Links

2008-03-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

On the Internet, we all come across text links that are linked to other pages/sites. When these links are clicked they take us to a new destination. for example [ http://www.google.com/ ], link takes you to google homepage as expected. However, a harmless looking text link could be a deceptive link that could lead to a site specifically set up for stealing personal information.

Here's an example of what Iam talking about

http://www.google.com/.

The above link takes you to the yahoo homepage instead of google.com. As HTML coders will point out, links are constructed with two pieces of vital information : destination url and anchor text

Anchor text is displayed to the user as a clickable link and destination url is where the link is intended to go. in the first example both the destination url and anchor text are the same and therefore the link works as expected, however in the next example the destination url has been modified to link to yahoo.com instead of google.com and therefore the user is taken to yahoo.com

How can this be a threat to me? you might ask. Let us imagine this scenario. You are browsing a random site and you are presented a link to login to your gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail, where you will get the link to download some goodies. the page that opens looks exactly like the regular web mail service you use, but this random site has used a deceptive link to take you to a different site that has been cleverly constructed to match the look and feel of your regular web mail. Once you enter your email address and password on this site, it is logged and the security has been compromised.

How can you protect your personal information from deceptive links? Firstly, do not blindly trust the links on every site. To get to your regular web mail service, type the URL in the Address Bar to get to Web Mail Service.

Reading feeds/headlines in FireFox

2008-02-27T11:10:00.000-08:00

If you use firefox, you probably already know that firefox is much safer than other browsers, it's also highly customizable with themes and addons. Have you used the "Live Bookmarks" feature of firefox? It's a great time saver. firefox let's you bookmark the feed of the site/blog you are visiting as a "Live Bookmark"(Provided it publishes one). Everytime you explore your bookmarks, the feed is updated and headlines are shown in a submenu.

Here's how this feature is used:
After the page is loaded, look for the "dish" icon on the statusbar.

Hovering your mouse over the icon will show you if the site/blog publishes it's feed and clicking it will prompt you to save the site as "Live Bookmark". Once you are done saving, take your mouse to the "Bookmark" menu and explore the bookmark you just added. Firefox will fetch the feed for you and you will never have to fire up your standalone/web based feed readers anymore.

Never used FireFox? There is always a first time sometime.

Internet Safety for Girls

2008-02-25T10:38:00.000-08:00

Here we discuss some general Internet Safety Issues and steps to take to improve security on the internet.

One of the most common ways by which Internet Security is compromised is by using a bug-ridden internet browser. It raises serious security concerns when a malicious hacker targets a known vulnerability in the browser. It is therefore recommended that you use a safer browser that is less prone to attacks. I have used FireFox+Google Toolbar for quite a while, I strongly recommend that you download and try it. You will see that with the help of the google toolbar, it is able to block annoying popups too. FireFox, is and always was free to use and can be uninstalled easily if you arent impressed with it.

Once the browser is secured, you should get the official updates for your operating system. Most users nowdays use Windows XP, So all XP users should get Windows XP Service Pack 2 to better defend you operating system. Get the Windows XPSP2 from any of the following locations:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/default.mspx

http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/xpsp2.html

The download can take a while as the files could be above 250 mb and make sure you have a genuine copy of Windows XP installed.

Install a good anti-virus package for protection against viruses. There are a few free Anti-Virus packages that offer decent security, such as

http://www.grisoft.com/

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

http://www.free-av.com/

http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-8-Free-Edition.html

If you are serious about internet security then you should consider using a commercial anti-virus package. Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee Anti-Virus are well known packages of which the latter is highly recommended if you can afford it.

Finally, As a layer of protection against SpyWares, download and install the following Anti-SpyWare utilities:

Microsoft Windows Defender - [ Download ]
Ad-Aware - [ Download ]
Spybot - Search & Destroy - [ Download ]

Run these utilities on a regular basis to clean out the spyware junk from your system.

The tips above will improve your overall internet security, So how about a nice, friendly kiss for sharing these tips with you, Girls? ;-)

Update: Norton Security Scan is now included with the google pack, See what more is included in the google pack.

Image Hosting (ImageShack, Photobucket and more..)

2008-02-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

Whenever you need to post an image on your blog, you will need to upload a photo to blogger directly. That however does not give you much freedom to work with the image and even renaming the image is not quite possible. It is therefore recommended to have a Image Hosting account for use with your blog. The good news is that there are many free image hosting providers that give you good features at absolutely no cost. My personal favourite is Photobucket, but below is a list of other free image hosting providers that you can use to post images on your blog. Many of them are now allowing free video hosting as well. Some of them will not require you to register with them too.

http://photobucket.com ( Images + Videos )

http://www.imagecabin.com/ ( Images + Videos +MP3 & more.. )

http://tinypic.com/ ( Images + Videos )

http://imageshack.us/ ( Images + Videos )

http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/ ( Images )

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ ( Images )

http://www.theimagehosting.com/ ( Images )

http://www.imagevenue.com/ ( Images )

http://www.piclynk.com/ ( Images )

http://www.filehigh.com/ ( Images + Videos + Cursors )

http://www.theimageplace.net/ ( Images )

http://www.imgplace.com/ ( Images )

http://xs.to/ ( Images )

http://www.myonlineimages.com/ ( Images + Videos + ZIP & more.. )

Installing Google Analytics in Blogger

2008-02-09T11:10:00.005-08:00

To track your site/blog using analytics you need to have an account with Google Analytics, If you already have a Google Account you can use that username/password here or you can always sign up for a free google account. In either case you need to go to http://www.google.com/analytics [ Opens in a New Page ]

After you login with your username/password, you will be in your dashboard area.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and find the link to "Add Website Profile".

On the next screen select the option to "Add a profile for a new domain".

Click continue and on the page that follows, type the URL of your blog.

The final screen will generate two tracking codes for your blog. make sure you are on "New Tracking Code(ga.js)" tab

This is the code that you need to copy/paste on your blog. We are now going to install google analyics tracking code to your blogger blog.

Go to http://www.blogger.com [ Opens in a New Page ] and login with your id/password.

Once you are logged in go to your dashboard, where you have to click the "Design" ~~"Layout"~~ link(beside the settings link) of your blog. make sure you are on the "page elements" sub-tab, where you can easily add and arrange page elements.

You will now add a gadget by clicking the "Add a Gadget" link

From the popup that appears, you can add many gadgets to your blog, this time we need to scroll down to the HTML/JavaScript option and click the "+" sign beside it to add it to your blog

This will open a final popup where you paste your code(your google analytics code) under the "content" textarea. I prefer not to give it a title because the code is invisible, so leave the title field blank and click the button to "save changes"

ShareThis BookMarking Widget

2008-02-09T11:10:00.004-08:00

Another free service from http://www.sharethis.com offers a bookmarking widget for your blog(s). This bookmarking widget allows the visitor of your blog to bookmark your blog in any of the popular social bookmarking sites, much like the widget from http://www.addthis.com ( read the post here for details ). you can also customize the widget to match the "look and feel" of your page.

PageRank Link Directory

2008-02-09T11:10:00.003-08:00

The PageRank Directory contains links to directories that accept submission of individual sites or blogs. Please feel free to browse through. I estimate that this page will become a PR2+ page over time.

Web Directory - Add URL to Search-Group.com
Eastlink Directory

Blogger Hits Counter

2008-02-09T11:10:00.002-08:00

How do I find out who has been to my blog? How can I track my visitors? How can I see where my site visitors are coming from?

These are the most frequently asked questions by bloggers. The solution is to install a "Hit Counter" on your blog!

[Google Analytics Screenshots]

Once you install a Hit Counter on your blog, you can get lot of useful information about your blog. like Popular Pages, Referring Pages, Keywords, Geographical location of visitors, Browser Statistics etc.

Although there are several free "Hit Counters" from which you can choose from, there are three services which are the most popular with bloggers. StatCounter, Google Analytics and Sitemeter.

[Statcounter Screenshots]

[Sitemeter Screenshots]

Here are other hit counters(free services) with our recommended
ratings:


Google Analytics
http://www.sitemeter.com
http://www.activemeter.com
http://www.histats.com
http://www.whatcounter.com
http://www.shinystat.com
http://hitslog.com
http://www.addfreestats.com
http://www.ezwebstat.com
http://www.advancedsitestats.com

We blog for YOU! So, If you would like to help us by a donation, which
will encourage us too bring more articles like this. No amount is too
small for donations.

FavIcon for Bloggers

2008-02-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

What is Favicon?

Favicon is an acronym for "Favorite Icon". Nearly all professional sites use it nowdays. As it shows up right next to the address line of the adressbar and favorites list in Internet Explorer and probably on other browsers too. If you have your pages hosted either on paid hosting or free hosting, hosting the favicon is not a problem, however if you are using a blog service, you are out of luck as all blog providers would reject the *.ico extension. This is where you need a free service provider such as http://www.myfavatar.com/

Use this smart tool to get a favicon from an image stored on your disk. you can get an animated favicon using this free favicon tool. Just follow this link and get your favicon in seconds http://zerodollarchallenge.blogspot.com/2006/05/favicon-generator-form.html

Getting paid for blogging?

2008-02-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

Are you getting paid for blogging? or getting penalized by google for posting paid reviews?
It is now official that google is taking action against sites/blogs with paid posts/reviews.

Bloggers and Site Owners who were members of "Paid for Blogging" sites such as PayPerPost.com, Smorty.com, SponsoredReviews etc. must have noticed that their google PageRank has been reduced to 0.

Google's official statement in its webmaster guidelines says:

"Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."

The guidelines add that not all paid links violate their guidelines, since "Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results"

It recommends that the links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag "(The most preferred method in blogs) or Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file.

If a blog/site has lost its PageRank and wants to get it back then it has to comply with the google webmaster guidelines by using the above mentioned recommended practices. Once that's done, you can follow Matt Cutt's advice and read the Official Google Webmaster blog which suggests :

"The site owner can address the violations of the webmaster guidelines and submit a reconsideration request in Google’s Webmaster Central console. Before doing a reconsideration request, please make sure that all sold links either do not pass PageRank or are removed"

BookMark Widget

2008-01-30T02:12:00.000-08:00

This is a preview of the bookmark widget which will let you bookmark my blog at your favorite social bookmarking site(s). You can also choose the option of adding a regular bookmark. See the bookmark widget in action on my left sidebar.

Get this widget for your blog/site. Signup for a free account at http://www.addthis.com/ and follow the detailed installation guide for DHTML bookmarking widget.

Ping blog directories for blog promotion

2008-01-10T11:24:00.001-08:00

Once you have submitted your blog to the directories mentioned in this post( http://zerodollarchallenge.blogspot.com/2008/01/submit-your-blog-to-blog-directories.html ).You can think of pinging the blog directories. While the blog directories will index your blog periodically, sometimes you would want them to index your blog soon after you publish your new content and you stay ahead of competing blogs. By manually sending "pings" you will notify the blog directories of fresh content. You can use any one of the following "pinging services":

http://pingomatic.com
http://pingoat.com
http://pinger.blogflux.com
http://www.kping.com
http://feedshark.brainbliss.com
http://blip.lco.net/SubmitForm.aspx
http://pingates.com
http://ping.in
http://autopinger.com
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
http://www.pingmyblog.com

Submit your blog to blog directories

2008-01-10T11:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of blog directories and links where bloggers can submit their blogs and/or blog feed. Submitting your links to these directories will increase the overall presence of your blog, improve pagerank, bring more visitors to your blog.

http://www.weblogs.com/
http://feedburner.com/
http://my.yahoo.com/
http://www.blogrolling.com/
http://www.weblogalot.com/
http://topicexchange.com/
http://blo.gs/
http://syndic8.com/
http://pubsub.com/
http://www.blogstreet.com/
http://www.icerocket.com/
http://www.technorati.com/
http://www.newsgator.com/
http://blogdigger.com/
http://www.moreover.com/
http://www.newsisfree.com/
http://weblogs.se/
http://blogmatcher.com/
http://blogpeople.net/
http://catapings.com/
http://holycowdude.com/
http://bulkfeeds.net/
http://effbot.org/
http://octora.com/
http://feedster.com/
http://coreblog.org/
http://focuslook.com/
http://www.a2b.cc/
http://www.rubhub.com/
http://www.blogshares.com/
http://www.geourl.org/

How to add HTML/Scripts to blogger

2008-01-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

Blogger users(XML LAYOUTS) can easily add HTML or JavaScript code to their blogger blogs. Here are the instructions to add HTML/Scripts to your blog :

Firstly, login to your blogger account, go to your dashboard, where you have to click the "Layout" link(beside the settings link) of your blog. make sure you are on the "page elements" sub-tab, where you can easily add and arrange page elements.

You will now add a gadget by clicking the "Add a Gadget" link

From the popup that appears, you can add many gadgets to your blog, this time we need to scroll down to the HTML/JavaScript option and click the "+" sign beside it to add it to your blog

This will open a final popup where you paste your code(HTML or JavaScript) under the "content" textarea. Give it a title on the title textbox and click the button to "save changes"

Blogger Polls

2007-12-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

A polling system is very essential to a blog. My observations are that visitors interact with the website using a voting system more than they do using comment system or sending email. This could be due to the "laziness factor" as interacting with the voting sytem takes just a click or two. Therefore my recommendation is to have a blog poll on your blog for making your visitors interact with your website/blog, keeping their laziness factor in mind.

The poll that I found attractive enough to include in my blogs is from http://www.dpolls.com
Here are others that you can try as well :
http://www.blogpoll.com/
http://www.polldaddy.com/
http://www.vizu.com/index.html
http://www.pollpub.com/
http://www.addpoll.com/
http://www.blogpolls.com/

Add Digg This! button to blogger

2007-11-18T18:28:00.001-08:00

Add Digg This! button to blogger( XML Layouts )
This is a preview of the "Digg This!" button that can be added to your sidebar. See the preview below, click the "add to blogger" button to install it on your blog.

Preview:

For Classic Templates users(HTML, JavaScript knowledge required)

Click the "Template" tab, then go to "Edit HTML" subtab.

Find the "<$BlogItemBody$>" tag, and copy-paste the code below, under the "<$BlogItemBody$>" tag

Save and Publish your blog.

Add StumbleUpon button to blogger(XML Layouts)

2007-11-18T18:28:00.000-08:00

This is a preview of the StumbleUpon button that can be added to your sidebar. If you are happy with the preview, click the "add to blogger" button to install it on your blog.

Stumble it!

Blogger Widgets

2007-08-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

Love & Astrology Gadget for your blog

2007-07-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

To add this gadget to your blog :

New XML Layout users:

Log into your blogger dashboard.
Click on Manage : Layout
Then on "Page Elements" subtab
Click "Add a Page Element" link, where you want to add this gadget
Choose Html/JavaScript from the popup.
Insert the code below and click Ok

Classic Template Users :

Log into your blogger dashboard
Click on Manage : Template
Then on "Edit HTML" subtab
Insert the following code on your template where you want the gadget to appear.

Hunkdujour Widgets

2007-07-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Hunkdujour.com offers a free service to show off a daily new picture of a hunk on blogs/websites. We have created widgets for XML Users of blogger to simplify the steps needed to use their service to show the pictures. (XML Users only need to click the "+ Add to Blogger" button to install the hunkdujour widget.)

Classic Template users and other blogs/sites can copy the code for any of the versions below and paste it into their template/pages.

Tiny Version(150 Pixels)

XML Blogger Users :

Classic Templates Users / Other Blogs & Websites :

<a title="Hunk du Jour" href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/" name="Hunk du Jour"></a><br /><a href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/blog/archives/2006/01/hunk_du_jour_for_your_site.asp">Put on Your Page</a><br />

Small Version(200 Pixels)

XML Blogger Users :

Classic Templates Users / Other Blogs & Websites :

<a title="Hunk du Jour" href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/" name="Hunk du Jour"></a><br /><a href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/blog/archives/2006/01/hunk_du_jour_for_your_site.asp">Put on Your Page</a><br />

Medium Version(250 Pixels)

XML Blogger Users :

Classic Templates Users / Other Blogs & Websites :

<a title="Hunk du Jour" href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/" name="Hunk du Jour"></a><br /><a href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/blog/archives/2006/01/hunk_du_jour_for_your_site.asp">Put on Your Page</a><br />

Large Version(500 Pixels)

XML Blogger Users :

Classic Templates Users / Other Blogs & Websites :

<a title="Hunk du Jour" href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/" name="Hunk du Jour"></a><br /><a href="http://www.hunkdujour.com/blog/archives/2006/01/hunk_du_jour_for_your_site.asp">Put on Your Page</a><br />

Getting Free Content for your Blog

2007-06-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard before "content is king". Bloggers are mostly content writers. It is the content that drives traffic to your blog or website. To get more web traffic, you would add more useful content to your blog/site, however you might not be able to come up with quality content as regularly as you might wish(Reasons could be laziness, lack of motivation/interest, blogging fatigue, monotony etc.). In this situation you probably would want to keep your blog fresh with new content by getting free content for your blog/website.

The easy-lazy way is to use the free available content from article submission directories, which host articles from variety of authors on various topics, most of the directories will let you use the content if you follow the terms of usage and give proper credit to the author. Most times, you just have to publish and unlatered with the author/site credit resourcebox in the post footer. However do read the republishing terms of the sites, whose content you want to use as the terms might be different for different sites.

Here's a big list of article directories ( Bookmark & Share!) :
http://www.articledashboard.com/
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://www.content-articles.com
http://www.justarticles.net
http://www.amazines.com/
http://www.free-articles-zone.com
http://www.myownezine.com
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.websition.com/
http://www.isnare.com/
http://www.articlesbase.com/
http://www.theleadingarticles.com/
http://www.articleworld.net
http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com
http://www.ladypens.com/
http://www.articlesandauthors.com/
http://www.articlerich.com/
http://www.article99.com/
http://www.ezau.com
http://www.articleblast.com/
http://www.articlesfactory.com/
http://www.seo-writer.com/reprint/articles.html
http://www.my-articles.com/
http://www.en.articlesgratuits.com
http://www.activeauthors.com/
http://www.articlestreet.com/

Get visitors from google blogs to yours

2007-06-15T03:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a smart tip for those looking to drive a little traffic to their site/blog. Subscribe to the Official google blogs which are of your interest. I generally subscribe to the feed of those blogs of google services that I use frequently, like adsense, analytics, adwords, blogger etc.

Whenever a new article of your interest is published on Google Blogs, go ahead and make a blog post about the article and include a live link to the page, such as

Source : http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/06/success-story-from-india.html

Then, a link to your post will appear directly under the post that you have linked to. Notice that people visiting Google blogs would occasionaly stop by and check out your blog. Don't over-do this trick though, otherwise your blog will look like a discardable collection of irrelevant articles from google blogs.

Did you come from one of the Google blogs? YES! You see this tip works !

Installing StumbleUpon links within Blogger/Blogspot

2007-05-25T22:30:00.004-07:00

Download one of the StumbleUpon Icons from it's icon set here . Upload this picture somewhere on the web.

(This is a preview of the available icons, select and upload any one of them.)

Login to your blogger dashboard, click manage->template.
On the template tab, find <$BlogItemBody$> tag
Copy-Paste this code just below the <$BlogItemBody$> tag

<a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$">&title=<$BlogItemTitle$>'>Stumble It!</a>

Replace **LINK TO stumbleit.gif** with the full path to the image that you uploaded.
Save & RePublish your blog.

Sample Preview:

Stumble It!

NOTE : This installation only works with classic templates of blogger. XML Layouts users, check out this post http://zerodollarchallenge.blogspot.com/2007/11/add-stumbleupon-button-to-bloggerxml.html

How to add paypal donate button to your blog

2007-05-25T22:30:00.003-07:00

PayPal, is an eBay Company,It enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online.

If you don't have a paypal account yet, you can get a free account

After you have your login ID/password,
Login to your account. Then click the "merchant services" tab

scroll down and on the right sidebar, find the box labelled key features, click on the link named "Donations"

Step 2 & 3 are optional and requires a business account, so leave them for now. and click on create button.

On the next page, copy the entire code from the textbox and paste it into your template of your website or blog, where you want it to appear. Congratulations! You have just added paypal donate button to your blog.

XML blogger users can paste this code by adding HTML/JavaScript gadget to their blogger blog.

(See the demo below)

Blog Graphics

2007-05-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

Finding Images/videos/icons and stuff for your blog is a challenging and time consuming excercise. Here's my "unofficial" and "incomplete" list of resources for blog graphics.

Bigoo.ws - Over 50,000 images, all classified as glitters, backgrounds, cursors, quotes, animations, icons etc. Also has layouts and widgets for MySpace, Hi5, Friendster.

Stock Exchange - Free for personal use. Read the license here. [ License ]

Yotophoto.com - Indexes images in the public domain or available for free usage under various forms of "copyleft" licensing.

Freefoto.com - Free photographs for private non-commercial use on the Internet.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net - Free for use in blogs, with some conditions [ License ]

Blogger Help itself list these blog graphics resources for your blogs:

Openphoto.net
Flickr Photos - Only those with creative commons licences are free to use.
http://search.creativecommons.org/ - This search engine should throw up many image resources that can be used on blogs and websites for free.

This list will always be in a "work in progress" mode, as we discover new and better blog graphics for blogs. Do you know of a blog graphics site that you want to share with us? leave your comments.

Standard Feed Icon

2007-05-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

While exploring other sites and blogs, you must have come across those orange coloured feed icons that give you an option to subscribe to that site's/blog's feed. Chances are that you are already publishing your own feed.

Here's a free resource that will give you more color options to choose from(for the feed icon), you can also download other file format of the icon to modify and customize for your blog/site.

http://www.feedicons.com

25% of the People Online Use Firefox, do you?

2007-05-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

"People are switching to Firefox fast as ever, while IE's share drops every day!"

read more digg story

According to stats released by W3Counter , Firefox is the first choice for almost 25% of the people using the net. Have you downloaded firefox?

Blogthings for Girls Only

2007-05-16T02:02:00.000-07:00

Freshen up your blog or website by adding a widget from Hunkdujour.com and display a new picture of a hunk daily on your blog.(See the sample below). 4 display sizes are available for your blog. Ready to install it to your blog? See the Hunkdujour Widget for Blogger

Wondering where to get the glitter images that you see on other blogs? then read our post on Glitter Graphics for Blogs

Related :
Internet Safety for Girls

New Blogger Layouts and Google Analytics

2007-05-07T09:20:00.004-07:00

Need some help in Installing Google Analytics in Blogger? or did you stumble here looking for New Blogger Layouts? Try our Template & Layout Finder.

Some people have reported that the new drag and drop layout of blogger does not work with google analytics. When testing the problem myself. I found out that the code which is typically in the format of

<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-XXXXXX-X";
urchinTracker();
</script>

is changed to

<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-XXXXXX-X";
urchinTracker();
</script>

upon saving and probably that breaks the code. Actually this is an installation problem. you can't copy paste the code into the blogger layout code( because its XHTML code now). Google Analytics site recommends that you paste the tracking code before the </body> tag. That install procedure is outdated.

Below are the instructions for installing Google Analytics tracking code to new drag and drop layout of blogger/blogspot without problems.

Login to your dashboard and click "Manage : Layout"
On the template tab, select Page Elements
On Page Elements, click Add a page element( I recommend adding it to the bottom of the page)
On the pop up window click the "Add to Blog" option beside "HTML/JavaScript" Option
On "configure HTML/JavaScript" popup window, paste the Google Analytics code in the "content textarea"
Leave the title "blank" and Save Changes

Now, Google Analytics should be working on your blog. Leave your comments if Something still does not work.

Note : Google Analytics is working on a new version ( Which will probably be XHTML compliant). See more on this http://analytics.blogspot.com/2007/05/new-version-of-google-analytics.html .

Update: Some of the visitors have pointed out that the above method does not work correctly now,So, unless we find a workaround to make Analytics work with the new blogger, both would remain incompatible.

AdSense Abuse Techniques and Countermeasures by Google

2007-05-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

You must have seen the use of floating layers on many sites (generally created using DHTML & JavaScript). Since these layers can move dynamically and could be programmed to follow the mouse, Placing Adsense Ads on these layers can be unintentional clicks on the ads. Google therefore does not allow the ads to be placed on floating layers.

Images as Graphical pointers beside ad units were preferred way of many ad publishers to grab the attention of the visitor who would otherwise have ignored the ads due to the “ad blindness” behavior. In this technique images or flash objects are used in order to deceive the visitors into clicking the Ad by suggesting a link between the image/flash object and the ads. Google therefore disallows any images or flash objects beside the ads, which could suggest any link between the two.

Some publishers tried to hide the “ads by google” tagline by customizing the background color of the page and the color of the ad itself so that it would blend into the page and hardly be visible to the visitor and the ads would look like regular links. Google now uses an image tagline on ads that will not blend into the background.

Some publishers altered the adsense code to make the ads appear as a “single line link” and then camouflaged them in between the navigation links or their recommended links. Google strictly prohibits any alteration of its adsense code.

Some publishers would load the ad in a floating frame (<iframe> tag). The frame dimensions would hide the fact that it is a google ad. In fact the user wont be able to tell that the ad is loaded using a hidden frame. Google does not allow ads to be loaded that way. (No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages.). Although, this technique does not alter the adsense code. Google policy states “Elements on a page must not obscure any portion of the ads”, Therefore it is an unacceptable practice.

Some publishers place ads adjacent to the site interaction objects, such as navigational links, Flash/JavaScript Games & Buttons, Download Buttons, under popups or anything that requires frequent clicking. Some accidental clicks are received on those ads.

Also, One of the most common abuses of adsense that is done unknowingly by many is that they place a wide skyscraper ad on the right hand side of the page, adjacent to the scrollbar. Whenever an Image ad is displayed on the wide skyscraper the entire area becomes a “click zone”(unlike the column of text ads). Clicks are received when the user, instead of clicking the scrollbar accidentally clicks the ad. Google now considers the clicks with very low returns to the advertiser as invalid clicks and threatens to disable the account of the publisher.

The Techniques described above are for Information purpose only. Under no circumstances does this article suggest that you abuse the Google Adsense program using the techniques described above. Furthermore the author does not take any responsibility if anyone gets banned/ejected by google as a result of using the techniques described above.

AdSense Tip of the Day

2007-05-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

So, what URL do you type on your addressbar to get to the official AdSense site? is it http://www.google.com/adsense , Here's an AdSense Tip that will save you some time and keystrokes. type adsense into the addressbar and press ctrl+enter, the browser will connect to http://www.adsense.com and auto redirect to the official Google Adsense page. I hope this tip is useful to you.

Delivering your content on Mobiles

2007-05-04T05:20:00.002-07:00

Now, your site visitors can have the contents of your site delivered right into their mobile phones, Get your personalized button at http://www.hubdog.com/gui/affiliates.aspx and add this functionality to your blog for free.

The button might look like the one below, you can add it to your sidebar.

Reduce clutter from your blog

2007-05-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

Have you seen those 10-15 or more social bookmarking buttons for technorati, digg, del.icio.us, stumbleupon, google bookmarks, yahoo myweb etc. on other pages/blogs? Instead of having all those buttons you can have a single bookmarking button from Addthis.com.

Free Blog Skin

2007-04-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

If you are in need of a new free blog skin , we have just introduced our own template search engine for you! Search includes blogger classic templates as well as XML Layouts.

Search Layouts & Templates

PageRank Widget for Blogger

2007-04-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

PageRank Widget for Blogger will display the pagerank of the current page.

"Classic Templates" users and users of other blogging platforms /websites, can copy the code into their blog templates. Blogger XML users only need to click on the "Add to Blogger" button.

Preview :	[One Click Add+]
OR Old blogger Users(Copy-Paste HTML) <a href="http://www.getrank.org" target="_blank"></a>
Preview :	[One Click Add+]
OR Old blogger Users(Copy-Paste HTML) <a href="http://pr.statistx.com/pagerank-display.php" target="_blank"></a>
Preview :	[One Click Add+]
OR Old blogger Users(Copy-Paste HTML) <a href="http://www.pagerankbar.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.pagerankbar.com/prbutton.png" alt="Page Rank Checker Button" border="0" /></a>
Preview :	[One Click Add+]
OR Old blogger Users(Copy-Paste HTML) <!--Begin Code pagerank-tools.com --><br /><a href="http://www.pagerank-tools.com" target="_blank"></a><br /><!--End Code pagerank-tools.com -->

Blogthings

2007-04-12T00:42:00.000-07:00

A "blogthing" could be a piece of code, an image, a web service, a script or a "thing" that can be put on a blog. The purpose of adding a "blogthing" could be from making your blog visually appealing to extending the functionality and overall usefullness of the blog.

Bravenet.com, offers Web polls, Hit Counter, Chat rooms, Photo Albums, Cartoons, E-Cards etc. for all free members.Get free web tools, click here

These are the blogthings that can be put on your blog:

Blogger Layouts & Templates : STAND OUT of the crowd, dress up your blog to look different from the rest.

Link Exchange for Bloggers

Polls/Voting for Bloggers

Free Favicon resources and additional information about favicon.
Image Hosting for Bloggers for additional space for your images

Google Pagerank Checkers to display your Google Pagerank on your blog.
Hit Counter for Bloggers for tracking your visitor habits and preferences.
Free Webspace : Get free webspace from google( i.e. googlepages!).
Free Scripts (DHTML or JavaScript) for additional functionality for your blog.

More resources that Iam working on are

Monetizing your blog
Blog Quizzes
Blog Polls
Blog Messageboards and Blog Forums
Blog integeration with other popular services like google or yahoo services.
Blog Search, Blog Directories & Search forms on your blog.
Blog Icons
Blog Activism - Supporting social, enviromental and humanitarian issues using your blog.
and much more...

What blogthings can you expect to find here? All of the blogthings found here are free of cost for use in your blogs/website or atleast the partial features that they provide are for no cost. My recommended blogthings are included on top of the list of blog resources which I use myself or have used them before on my blog.

blogthings

Essential Blog Things: Blog Template or Blog Skin

2007-03-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

Looking for New Blogger layouts? Try our specialized search engine.

Using a default template for your blogs will make it look like a face in the crowd. In order to make your blog interesting you have to make cosmetic changes to it first. Changing the template with a custom template or skin is a good start in giving your blog a facelift.

I have a few of my own templates at http://costum-template.blogspot.com and a preview of my stylish free blog template. More templates can be found at :
http://freetemplates.blogspot.com/
http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/
http://freeblogspottemplates.blogspot.com/
http://freeblogger-templates.blogspot.com/
http://www.isnaini.com/blogger-templates/
http://www.templatepanic.com/

How Do I Leave Comments

2007-03-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

Blogger.com offers a good commenting system built into it's blogging platform. You can find the link to "Post a Comment" under every blog post. Clicking on the link will open a new page where you can enter your comments and read what others have commented on that post.

Depending on the security settings of blog, you might have to log into your blogger account and/or pass the visual verification process to post your comment. Additionally, you might have to wait for the comments to be moderated by the blog author, before it is added on the comments page. To discourage spamming in comments, all links on the comments will automatically carry a "rel=nofollow" attribute.

Freegooglepack Info & Download (Official Link)

2007-03-21T02:32:00.000-07:00

Google Pack is a collection of essential and useful software like google earth, picasa, google desktop, google screensaver, google toolbar, firefox+google toolbar, adobe reader, Norton security, spyware doctor, google talk, skype, realplayer, google video player, gallery HD images etc. Download the google pack while it is still FREE!. Click the image below to continue with the download.

NOTE : ONLY for users of XP, Vista & MAC

Bloggers Choice Awards for your Blog

2007-02-09T11:10:00.001-08:00

http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com is where you can submit your blog and nominate it for any of their categories. People can then vote for your blog and comment on it. If you want to use the bloggerschoiceawards badge's on your blog, Get your badge for your blog after you nominate your site.

Link Back Code

2007-01-13T11:34:00.000-08:00

<a href="http://zerodollarchallenge.blogspot.com" title="Free Blog Things & Blog Stuff">Free Blog Things & Blog Stuff</a>

Terms of Fair Use

2007-01-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

Please feel free to link to any article on this blog. If you use the images that are posted on this blog or would like to republish an entire article on your blog or website, kindly include this linkback code in the footer of the article.

Republished with permission from Blog Things & Blog Stuff

Free Blog Template

2006-09-16T04:17:00.000-07:00

Are you interested in giving your blog a facelift? you can download the template for your blogger blog from Blogger Layouts & Templates. This is the preview of the blog template.

Note : This template will work only with the classic templates of blogger. Please select classic templates to use this template on your blog.

What is included in Google Pack

2006-08-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

Here's what google pack is all about :

Google Earth : View satellite pictures of earth, Zoom from space to street level.
Norton Security Scan : One of the best antivirus packages.
Google Desktop : Desktop Search application from google.
Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar : Safer browser with popup blocker.
Adobe Reader: View PDF files.
Skype : free voice, video calls & making cheap phone calls.
StarOffice : MSOffice Alternative
Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer : block pop-ups and autofill forms
Spyware Doctor Starter Edition : Detects and removes spyware, adware, trojans and keyloggers
Picasa : Find, edit, and share your photos in seconds
Google Photos Screensaver : Display photos from your PC and photo sharing sites
Google Talk: Google's own instant messenger.
RealPlayer : Play popular media formats, organize music and videos.

Making Favicon

2006-05-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

Select an Image on your disk from which you want to generate a FavIcon.

Link Directory

2006-05-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

Oris Directory
Grand Url
Iraneda Web Directory
http://www.sgblog.com
Back Link Site
Blogs Directory

Google Sitemaps Builder :
SiteMaps Builder is free online service, creates Google XML, HTML, and Text Site Maps for Yahoo submission, validates your links at your website, reports about incorrect and broken links.

Picture Hosting for Ebay | Free Picture Hosting Site | Hosting MySpace Pictures :
Fast picture hosting for ebay,power seller tools,message boards & online auctions - Easy image hosting and linking!

Indian Telemarketers having nervous breakdowns due to verbal abuse

2006-04-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

Workers in India are having nervous breakdowns after being abused by fed-up Australians but they aren't getting much sympathy. Quote: "Some companies are regretting outsourcing their business to India because of the damage it does to their products' reputation." Finally!

After This article got quite a number of responses, I decided to blog about it and Also create a poll.

read more digg story

Blog from Microsoft Word | Free add-in from Google

2006-04-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

Google.com has released a useful add-in for Microsoft Word, which enables bloggers to use Microsoft Word as a blogging, editing and publishing tool. You don't even have to open up the browser. Check your system specifications whether this add-in is compatible with your system.( http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1180 )

The add-in is free to download from here http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html .

Note: This add-in does not work with newer layouts of blogger ( KnownIssues.blogspot.com ). There also seems to be an issue with MS Word2007 Blogger Feature.

Blog Promotion Secrets | blog search engines & blog directories.

2006-04-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

Technorati and Digg are a good place to submit your blog. People look for blog content at Technorati every day. Almost every site will ask for following information.

Blog Title

Blog URL

Blog Description

Blog Keywords

Your name

Your Email

Blog Feed URL

Blog Photo

Keep the above mentioned information ready while submitting to these sites.

http://www.blogging101.com/blog-search-engines.php
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Be an Active blogger.
The more you blog the more chances there are that your blog will attract visitors. Let people comment on your blogs and reply to them when asked, this way you are building a relationship with your visitors and also getting good feedback on your post. When some of your posts start getting more attention than other posts you should follow up the article with an extended post. That will give your blog more popularity.

Help the search engines help you
Always make good use of page titles, post titles. Use titles, which accurately describe your post and make a powerful impact on the readers mind. Be aware that in most cases the visitor will read the post title in a fraction of a second and decide if he/she wants to continue reading. You have to provide an interesting and hopefully short and descriptive title. Also make sure that you format your post title differently than the article itself, like making it bold or different color, size etc. Don’t use too many capital letters in your sentences. It gives an impression of being a spam log or in short “splog”.

Using Graphics and Images.
I have to admit that ever since I got a high-speed connection to the Internet, I almost used to forget that there are still so many users who are on dial-up connections and the blog shouldn’t choke on their connection. Try to use minimum graphics and external scripts on your blog, optimize your images before using it on your blog. You can find free online graphics optimizers.

Track user hits to your site / blog
Install a hit counter on your blog/site. There are many free ones you can choose, I personally recommend statcounter. By studying the stats you can actually gain useful knowledge about the blog visitors. It will help you find out what things you are doing right and what you aren’t.

Format your content for better readability
Lets face it, We all hate to read a post where ideas are crammed into one long paragraph. Long paragraphs make the posts very boring to read through and chances are that your visitors will not even read the whole paragraph. Make wise use of text formatting features on your blog post. Split different ideas within a post into different paragraphs and try to keep your posts short. Split the posts itself and let the visitors decide if they want to read more of your posts.

Be an active commenter
Read others blogs and write comments on their blogs. You should also leave a link to your blog and you could get some visitors from that blog / website. You can also join forums, discussion groups etc. but be careful to post your comments on relevant forum topics and do not spam the forums or mail of the visitors.

Remember always that there are only two golden rules of blog promotion
Rule 1: Promote your blog today as best as you can
Rule 2: Come back tomorrow and re-read both the rules again.

Free Pixel Advertising for Blog Promotion

2006-04-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of “Alex Tew”? A couple of years ago, nobody had heard of him. He was a 21 year old who wanted to make some cash on the Internet. He came up with an idea and within 4 months he managed to touch the million dollar mark. His Idea was to create a webpage to sell ad space (pixels) to advertisers and create a site not very different from the classifieds column of the local newspapers.

At first glance, the concept of this website must have looked quite similar to “Free for All” link sites to the advertisers then, why would anyone want to advertise on a site which was just weeks old and mostly unheard of. Alex’s Idea was Original and Unique. He publicized his concept to an extent where it started making some money and made it into news stories. Soon, more people started taking interest on his site and this brought more advertisers to his site and more revenue and popularity. Its popularity grew steadily and was mentioned in numerous websites, magazines, news clippings, newspapers etc.

Alex Tew’s story as published by BBC is here ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4585026.stm ), and his homepage is http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/. Many websites took up his concept to create copycat sites and some actually managed to make good revenue from it. His success also made some people jealous his website had to face DdoS attack for ransom. Someone out of jealousy created the site http://www.ihatealextew.com/ or perhaps this was another way to cash in on the popularity of the milliondollarhomepage.

Alex Tew started a whole new concept of pixel advertising. I found out that pixel advertising brought more visitors to my blog than google. If you need traffic you can also try out the free pixel advertisements that are being offered by some of the sites.
You can use the google search box to search for the sites where you can advertise your site/blog for free

A positive google pagerank for $0 Challenge Blog

2006-04-06T06:04:00.000-07:00

Finally, Google took note of the $0 challenge blog and this blog jumped from 0 pagerank to pagerank 3. I suppose this is both good as well as bad news. Firstly, Iam happy that without any paid marketing or even paid services I managed to create a pagerank 3 Blog/Website, On the other hand, Iam worried that this blog will be spammed with spam links in order to improve their pagerank. That is not the way to go. Instead just $1 will get you on the frontpage of my blog for one whole month. Interested anyone? maybe someone will take an interest to just congratulate me for getting a pagerank 3.

Free Blog Promotion and Writing Quality Content

2006-04-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

Most people want to promote their blogs in the most easiest of ways, And hope that scores of people would line up to read their ~~crap~~ weblog. Well, this is for all those people who have not yet been able to find the pages related to blog promotion authored by blogger.com

Firstly, blogger.com advises to try out certain settings on blogger itself. The document suggests to set the blog to ping weblogs.com. Quite frankly, I am not sure if this makes much of a difference. Lets move on to other suggestions.

Further, it suggests that we activate our navbar( The navigation bar on top ). Clicking the "nextblog" button it says is quite "popular". So, I also joined in the bandwagon and started clicking the "nextblog" button without much thought. I came across a few blogs that did not enable their navbar, but still showed up while I was clicking through. That brings us to the main question, why should we enable the navbar then when some blogs still show up without showing them?

The next suggestions of using "Email this post", "switching on the site feed" and "add your blog to blogger listing" is quite useful and I suggest to follow the suggestions as advised by blogger.com

Writing Quality Content: This is what makes one blog stand out from the crowd or should I say BlogCrowd. Sometimes we just run out of ideas to write new content on the blog. On those days I choose to surf other blogs and pick up ideas to use on my blog ( I said "pick up" ideas NOT steal their content, be careful not to copy paste their content on your blog. ). Read the popular stories on google news, subscribe to some of the feeds of your interests and write content based on that knowledge.

Get the news while its hot and If its is an "exclusive", meaning If you can provide some content( picture, audio or something related to story) which isn't on the internet already, bake your blog with "exclusive" content and let your audience feast on that "Cake". I remember, one such instance when a sensational and controversial news was published in the newspapers and some people took up the story and "blogged" about the story. Soon people who had read the story in the newspapers, landed on these blogs. Always try to be the first in these situations. If you delay, your traffic is split with higher ranking sites.

Nowadays, the technology helps you to stay ahead of the competetion. Many people are not even aware that you can post to your blog here at Blogger.com just by sending email. If your blog gives you more options such as mobile blogging( blogging using mobile phones ) and publishing pictures using your camera phones, take advantage of these technologies and stay a mile ahead of the rest.

Lastly, do check the grammar and typos on your post, spelling mistakes just look really bad. Use an automated tool to check the correct usage. blogger.com provides spell check as an effective tool built into the interface. You will learn more blog promotion tips and hints in future. Bookmark this site for further reference.

Here's the blogger topic on blog promotion :
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1060&topic=44

$0 Challenge Blog on Yahoo

2006-04-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

Currently the Zero Dollar Challenge Blog has climbed to #6 spot on yahoo.com . Check its current position here
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=zero+dollar+challenge&fr=FP-tab-web-t&amp;amp;toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

However Zero Dollar Challenge Blog is #1 of Yahoo! India
http://in.search.yahoo.com/search?p=zero+dollar+challenge&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1 and

Yahoo! Asia
http://asia.search.yahoo.com//search?p=zero+dollar+challenge&meta=vc%3D&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1

Update : The $0 Challenge blog had climbed upto #2 spot on yahoo.com when it was last checked. Any chance to climb on #1?

Get listed as #1 at Google

2006-03-27T22:00:00.000-08:00

When I was new to blogging, All my blogger friends would brag about their blogs being #1 at google. Actually, becoming #1 at google isnt as difficult as some people would like you to believe. Here's your tutorial to become #1 at google. Remember, this is not a Search Engine Optimization tutorial. This article aims to teach newbies, a few tips/tricks about google, to get their blog/website to rank at the topmost position of the blog.

First do a google search of your blog url . So putting theory in practice, I shall do a google search of "zerodollarchallenge"(no spaces or quotes). Make sure that there are no Top Level Domains listed in the search, ie :zerodollarchallenge.com, zerodollarchallenge.net, zerodollarchallenge.org, zerodollarchallenge.info etc. At the time I started this blog, there were no such domains listed against my blog url. If you see Top Level Domains listed, try your another blog url. Once you find the right blog url, Submit that blog url to google http://www.google.com/addurl/ .

Sit back and relax, It could take some time so check back after a few months, So keep adding some good content to your blog. Try the google search after the long wait and you might just see your blog listed on #1 if you do a search for your blog URL. Go on, Start bragging about being #1 on google..

Note: this method does not guarantee a #1 rank on google, it has a 90% success chance.

Blog Link Building

2006-03-27T08:19:00.000-08:00

Let us help you out a little in your blog promotion campaign, we will give you a free reciprocal link even if you have a new blog(We keep checking the blogs and non-serius blogs drop out of our Link Building List)

Wan't a Technorati link exchange as well? then add our blog to your technorati favorites( We have a technorati widget on our sidebar for your convenience) and leave a comment on our Free & Easy Link Exchange for Bloggers page.

Free & Easy Link Exchange for Bloggers

2006-03-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

Google measures the importance of this page as

The easiest way to exchange links, link to my blog with the following code and leave a comment on my blog with your link, your link will be added if you are a new or serious blogger, I generally give all blogs a link as an encouragement so that they can blog better, As the list gets longer, low quality blogs will drop out of the list so get going blogger!.

<a href="http://zerodollarchallenge.blogspot.com" title="Free Blog Things & Blog Stuff">Free Blog Things & Blog Stuff</a>

Are you a member of Technorati.com? Just add our blog as your favorites and put the word in our ear and we will return the favour by adding your blog to our favorites, as simple as that!

Here are the TOP 25 blogs that managed to "Hang in" while others just dropped out of our TOP25 list.

Newly Added : (The following people exchanged links with my blog. you could be one of them too, so join them.)

Hints to decide where to host your blog

2006-02-18T22:02:00.000-08:00

I decided that the first thing I need to have is a website or a blog of some kind to create an online presence. I decided to have a blog because It is a more reliable way to be online as free web page providers tend to go down without warning. Atleast a blog can stay online far longer than that(and for FREE!).

Yahoo 360, Is the blogging service that yahoo provides. You can start using Yahoo blogs if you already have a Yahoo ID. There are no additional hassles for signing up for their blogging services seperately. Yahoo blogs are for complete newbies. You can fill in the content in minutes and your blog is ready. Yahoo 360, however doesnt allow modifications to the template or adding external scripts and functionalities. Yahoo 360

Msn spaces is the blogging service of MSN/Microsoft. Like yahoo it also gives limited options to customize the template of your blog. Although they are suited for complete newbies. The drag and drop interface requires no HTML knowledge and no programming experience to set up your blog. MSN Spaces

Other free popular blogging services are Wordpress , Livejournal , Movabletype , Multiply .

Why did I choose Blogger.com then? Firstly it was owned by http://www.google.com which is providing these services for free. Since Google is a big company, It is certain that It will not close down or commercialize these free services in near future. Also It gives a great opportunity to earn a little revenue from the blog or any web page using "google adsense". If you are interested in signing up for it, there is a link to the adsense on the right pane of this page.

What is a $0 challenge?

2006-02-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

What are the things that other people add to their blogs to make it look cool! or hot! or sexy? I learnt that there are so many resources and addons that people can use on their blogs to improve the look of their blogs or add functionality to their blog. Many of these blog stuff and blog things are free of cost. The only challenge is to find the right things for your blog. Although this blog aims to be a guide for the bloggers, many of the hints, tips, hacks etc. are also relevant for personal website who look for third party enhancements for their site.

What is life without a little challenge? The Zero Dollar Challenge is the motivating factor of this blog, A personal review on the free internet blog things and stuff and a dummies guide to get started in blogging and a directory for finding those cool things for their blog/website for those, Who have never blogged before.