Addy's Life Stream

May 12, 2010

NewsYCombinator, TechMeme Meet TopicFire's News Aggregator

It's all about news, news NEWS and i'm a fan of the UNDERDOG. 25% of my information relies on the famous newsycombinator and about 5% can be credited to TechMeme. The rest is a mixture of Facebook, RSS and lots of manual plodding - the traditional way.

Today much to my excitement i discovered a gem of a news site to add to my barrage of content, TopicFire; the best part is the customization whereby i can add all my favorite topics (economy, tech, world) for a clean signal of content. Plus points here are you have the RT and like features going plus a great mix of pictures and media (including Flash).

If you take a look around the web sphere you'll notice that there is loads of duplicate content floating around from one site to the next. I've already found some GEMS on Topic Fire and that's important for me or anyone who is looking for cutting edge content.

End of the day, for me its keeping my hand on the pulse of information. I'm glad i found this handy site, it's a KEEPER..

Link: TopicFire

Filed under // News

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April 17, 2010

Using The Twitter API To Display Hover-Cards In Thesis

Setting up your Thesis Theme for hover cards (an API feature I like alot) is really quite simple. It involves a couple of steps in which all you have to do is simply add some scripts to your header and footer in Thesis. For those who aren't running the Thesis theme refer to the note at the end of this post.

Goto http://dev.twitter.com. Click on Register an application, you'll find the link right there on their home page. You will be redirected to the Register Application Settings. Fill out all the necessary information to register your application, it's straight forward enough. Make sure to add your description and leave a trailing slash in the CALLBACK URL. Note that your callback url and application website should refer to the same domain/subdomain.
After saving your application you should be redirected to a page with some code on it. If not, then the redirect will take you directly into your Application Settings where all you need to locateyour API key. Note down your API Key..
Once you've successfully registered your app and noted your API key head on over to the Thesis Options page (you can find that in your WP admin under Thesis Setting > Thesis Options) next is to locate the "Stats and Software Scripts" heading. Under that heading in "Header Scripts" add this piece of code below. REMEMBER to replace the X's belew with your Twitter API key or it won't work.

<script src="http://platform.twitter.com/anywhere.js?id=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX">

</script>

<script type="text/javascript">

twttr.anywhere(function(twitter) {

twitter.hovercards();

});

</script>

Your last step involves adding the code below to your Footer Scripts (under the same heading "Software and Scripts", but in the footer section.

<script type="text/javascript">

function onAnywhereLoad(twitter) {

// this is the callback function you specified in your initializer

twitter.linkifyUsers();

};

</script>

That's about all you have to do and and the API will handle the rest. Now when you write a blog post if you want to use the hover-card function just add the @ before the name of the Twitter User in your post. Like @Tech_Blend or @A_Bokhari - of course it won't work here but you can see it running on my main blog.

Remember you don't even have to add a link, just the @ sign before the handle name. There are other methods to use the API and I'll cover that in a later post; if i get the time.

Note: If you're not using the Thesis theme all you have to do is follow the same steps and add the scripts to both your header and footer in the corresponding Wordpress files. You can also do the same for a normal website..

Filed under // Twitter

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March 13, 2010

Social Media: Is Voice-Based Bubbly the New Twitter?

A hot new social-networking service dubbed Bubbly, which is essentially a voice-based Twitter, is quickly gaining popularity among Indians. And thanks to Bollywood celebs being early adopters, Bubbly is growing virally and with virtually zero marketing spend.
Bubbly is the brainchild of 5-year-old mobile and social app firm Bubble Motion, which is based in Silicon Valley and Singapore. Its first product was BubbleTalk, a person-to-person voice-messaging service that, instead of SMS, sends mobile audio messages and has about 100 million users now.

In rolling out Bubbly, Mr. Clayton plans to skip North America and Europe and focus on fast-growing, mobile-savvy markets such as India, Japan and Brazil.

via adage.com

Service Takes Off in India With Zero Marketing; Brazil and Japan Are Next.

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March 5, 2010

Alice In Wonderland: Trippy Video Game Coming Soon!

via telegraph.co.uk

Alice In Wonderland for the Nintendo Wii is being released by Disney Interactive Studios to coincide with the release of the Tim Burton movie this week.

Filed under // Games

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February 13, 2010

Coming Soon: RIM's Twitter App for Blackberry SmartPhones

If you're a Blackberry user, get started!! Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones is available right now only through beta invite, but it will soon be available to everyone through Test Center in BlackBerry App World. About time that Rim got on the again..

(download)

Filed under // Mobile

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November 23, 2009

Render Your Wordpress Blog On Popular Touch Devices With WPTouch

If you’re a wordpress user on the go than this is the plug-in for you. WPTouch renders your Wordpress blog to a web – application experience for popular touch devices including the Iphone, Ipod Touch and Android.

The makers of the plugin boast high performance on mobile viewports and the feature-rich admin interface gives you a plethora of options including social media icon control, adsense , skins and push notifications.

The mobile mode theme is modeled after Apple’s App Store Design and flawlessly integrates with any them you run. If you’re worried about your users not being able to see your regular site don’t, there’s an option that can switch between the two views easily.

Out of the few plugins I've seen this is by far the best and I've listed some of my favorite features below:

AJAX, jQuery & JS effects (for fast loading)
Ajax comments, posted in real time
iPhone/iPod touch native post e-mailing support
Admin selectable custom icons for pages, logo, bookmark icon

Be sure to check out this plugin, it's easy to install you can get going in minutes. Read More on the feature set and screenshots of the admin interface here.

Filed under // Mobile Wordpress

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November 20, 2009

Google Chrome's Stats For Nerds Tab

I love Google Chrome, its fast lightweight and user control over tabbed browsing is superior to any other browser I've used in the past. Open up 20 tabs rearrange them quickly (much easier than FF) and even pop them out of their dock and onto your other screen (for dual monitors)

For the Memory geeks out there a cool feature that most people don't know about is the "Stats For Nerds" tab. You can find that here:

Control The Current Page > Developer Tools > Task Manager - "Stats for Nerds" OR SHIFT + ESC.

If you aren't using this browser you should be, it's an exciting platform with a bright future especially now with Google Chrome OS on its way.

Filed under // Tech

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November 20, 2009

Success = 1,000 True Fans

A True Fan can be defined as someone who will follow anything and everything you produce. Depending on the context here, they will can't wait to see your new work, thoughts, style or blog posts. The probably even have a Google Alert setup so they can find the all the content you push.

Another way to state this is, you need to convert a thousand Lesser Fans into a thousand True Fans.

If you're looking for success within your niche, take a step back and really think about this. How you do it is entirely upto, start out with a strategy and then engage in it. It's certainly easier said than done people, but if you don't start now then you'll be missing out and years will go by without you knowing "What if?".

Filed under // Entrepreneur

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November 18, 2009

Scan Your Wordpress Install For Vulnerabilities With This Nifty Plugin

If you're a wordpress user heavily consider tightening up your security on your blog if you haven't already. These days there are tons of hackers out there looking to inject malicious code into your blog, and for no reason - just because they can.

This little Wordpress Security Plugin is a great start and will help you secure:

Passwords
File Permissions (This is usually the most vulnerable.)
Database Security
Version hiding
WordPress admin protection/security
Removes WP Generator META tag from core code

Though there is alot more you can do to secure your Wordpress blog, the Wordpress Security Plugin will help you take care of the basics. Get it done, it'll only take you a couple of minutes - you won't regret it later if your blog gets compromised by hackers.

Filed under // Wordpress

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November 17, 2009

Don't Let Twitter Tame You — You Tame Twitter

We all know how addictive Twitter can be, and if you're not careful you can get sucked right in. Most tweeters i know spend on average at least 2 consecutive hours of their day on twitter sharing links, talking back and forth to one another, and Retweeting their favorite users tweets. Within those two hours its easy to see how much recycled content floats in and out of the stream.

A SIMPLE STRATEGY:

Instead of spending back to back hours on the popular micro-blogging platform try spacing out your tweets throughout the day. A simple method that worked for me is: Tweet for 15 minutes about 2-4 times a day leaving a couple of hours gap in between. What's important is to have your quality and valuable links/thoughts on your stream without your users having to drill down to find them (past the more button on the web app). You can compare that too pagination on blogs and sites, its highly unlikely that people will click on the "Read More" links.

A WORD ON CONTENT

If you feel you can get to the best content in one sitting, I would have to disagree with you. Content on the web and especially prolific sites whom update their content do that at different intervals per day (depending on the site). You're much better off understanding the patterns and internal loops in Twitter and tweeting the "good stuff" when it arrives fresh on the scenes.

FORTUNE 100 COMPANIES SHOULD GET THIS

Its a fact that most Fortune 100 companies don't get twitter because they don't spend the appropriate amount of time to gain a good level of followers and engagement + they are busy with their own corporate lives.

What better place to maximize your exposure than Twitter? For executives or "The Busy Crowd" a simple yet effective approach can pay off big-time in the long run; but only if they consistently stick with a logical strategy (The key being consistent engagement at set intervals throughout the day). After all time is money in all of our lives.

Filed under // Twitter

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