Last week I ran into a small problem when trying to put an audio book onto my iPod. The audio book was in .wma, or Windows Media Audio format, my iPod doesn’t like that format. A quick Google searches lead me to one of the simplest pieces of conversion software that I’ve used in some time.
Switch is a multi-platform dead simple program to use. Simply tell it where the directory of files lives that you want to convert, point it to the directory where you want them to end up (or the same one), along with what format you want them converted into and click a button. I seriously wish more software was this easy to use.
On my core 2 duo Macbook with 2GB of RAM it took about 4 hours to convert 12 .wma files into 192 kb/s .mp3’s. This isn’t a five-minute job to do, and I fully expected it to take some time, so plan ahead.
Sound quality, to my untrained ears was identical.
Ease of use for this multi-platform software, being able to handle dozens of file formats and being free means this small app will stay installed for some time.
Searching is big business. Those listings on the right side of any Google search are there because someone paid money to advertise there. Same goes with the top 2 or 3 links. Google makes a lot of money off of these paid placements, which are there based on their dynamic search technology. Google has also come under fire for the way in which it ranks sites, called Page Rank, it is a top secret way they calculate what search results should be at the top for any given term, based on their algorithm that, some have suggested, is based on the number of in-bound and out-bound links from other sites.
Google is the killer app of this decade, no one is doubting that. It is so popular it has become a verb, people just say, “Can you Google this for me?” which is almost impossible to do with anything anymore. So what if a new search engine comes along and tries to flatten the playing field?
That is exactly what Cuil (pronounced Cool) is trying to do. They claim to index three times the number of sites Google does and display them in a three-across pattern. That alone is kind of unique for searches, as they have always gone vertically. They have also implemented tab searches, a kind of, well maybe if you were looking for camera you might also want to look for digital camera. The search engine works, that really isn’t a question, but why should I use it?
Google does so many things now, like simple and complex math problems, fast weather look-up, package tracking from UPS and other services, all the way to stock quotes and word definitions. For me, it has eliminated the need to go to specialized sites if I can just put a special query in the Google search bar in Firefox. Cuil is also missing an image search function, something even Microsoft and Yahoo have worked into their site.
Cuil has some cool features, like roll overs, drill-down menu’s and the tabbed feature mentioned earlier. They are taking on the proverbial 800 pound gorilla by going after Google too. My two cents say that Cuil will have a small cult following for a while but ultimately, this will only make Google stronger.
Lately I’ve been doing more and more web design and with that comes graphic design, photo placement, text alignment, so on and so forth. While I’m building a site out, I often find myself needing to know the exact distance in a column or row so that I can size a graphic or photo to fit properly. This is where PixelStick comes into play.
This tiny Mac only piece of software will show you distance and angles shown your screen, perfect for web developers needing to know how wide something is to fit a proper graphic in. Prior to using this tool, I used to screen grab a site, open in Photoshop and then crop down to determine the distance. Now all of this is gone!
Anyone who does web or graphic design work should give PixelStick a try, and it’s totally for free. The only requirement is Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
From what I can recall, the Google start page was launched into beta more than two years ago and it had no official name. I instantly started to use it as that is about the time I really started to fall in love with RSS feeds and wanted / needed a better way to keep track of them. Since launching, many of the bugs have been worked out and a slew of new improvements for the service, which is, at the heart, an RSS reader, yet deliver so much more.
The official name for the web service is iGoogle, although no one really seems to know why and to access it you must point your browser to google.com/ig. Using this service for more than two years, I feel I can give it a fair review because I use it every single day.
Layout: By default, iGoogle is three columns wide and seems to hold an unlimited number of feeds vertically. There are now more than a hundred different themes for the page to skin them however you’d like, some will change dynamically based on your zip code, for sunrise / sunset as well as rain / snow / sun. Across the top are tabs; these are separate screens to help keep you organized. For example, I use one for Home tab; these are feeds and gadgets I use most. I also keep separate feeds based on interests, having one specific to Art & Photography, another for Celebrity Gossip, and so on. These tabs, help me keep everything separated yet still really easy to find and use.
Appearance: As stated above, there are themes available to skin the homepage to fit your liking. I use different skins for each of my tabs; this helps me quickly identify which tab I’m on just by visual. Recently, they’ve added a whole slew of artist’s themes by some very famous people and opened up the API to allow others to create and submit themes.
Use: You need a Google account to use iGoogle, not a big deal if you use Gmail already. Once logged in, you can add any site’s RSS feed by clicking the RSS logo on that page or, if using Firefox, the RSS icon in the address bar. You’ll be prompted as to how you want to use the feed, choose iGoogle Home Page and it will be added. To arrange the feeds in the order you want, simply drag them around. To move them into a new tab, simply drag that feed to the new tab. This is, by far, one of the simplest layouts I’ve used. There are also options to expand and collapse feeds and designate how many posts from any given feed you want displayed, default is three. The one feature I really don’t use is the ability to expand any particular feed and read it on the homepage. I don’t do this because the columns are a bit too narrow if there are photos in the blog post, they often get cut of. My preference has always been to read a blog post on that particular blog anyway.
More: There is an Add Stuff button on the iGoogle page that will show you the most used RSS feeds and Gadgets. Gadgets are simply things like dynamic weather integrated in, Quote of the Day, stock tickers, Gmail integration, etc. Personally, the only gadget I’ve found useful is the weather, but I have several friends that use Netflix and eBay widgets religiously.
I’ve tried a few dedicated RSS readers and a few other start pages but I keep coming back to iGoogle for the ease of use, clean design and easy customization. My current start page has 5 tabs and more than 100 total fees. Within minutes I can scan all of them and checkout articles that I might be interested in reading.
Try: www.google.com/ig
Let’s face facts, bloggers write, for the most part, so their articles can be read. They want them read for any number of reasons,
- Internet fame
- Potential to make money from ads
- Obsessed with statistics
- Conceited
- Enjoying knowing someone is reading what you wrote
- Etc.
Most of us enjoy knowing that someone is reading what we as writers spent time and energy to write, the side effects of money and fame can be nice as well, but how to achieve? One simple way that I’ve found is to ask people to view your site. But how? Where? Relying on Google search results can take time and not everyone reads your MySpace bulletins or the tweets you obsessively send via Twitter, digg.com isn’t working that well and neither is Stumble Upon, and it may not be in your budget to buy ad space on a more popular site right now, so what can you do?
Email blog owners who have written similar articles and let them know about the one you wrote. Yes, it’s that simple. Don’t do this with every article you write, pick your very best and send the links to the biggest and best blogs out there. Don’t ask them to review your site or link to it, simply let them know you have written similar material that they or their readers might want to use and you like their site. Be honest and don’t make it sound cheesy.
How do you find people with similar articles? Try Google Blog Search and look for articles written in the last week or month. Does this really work? Absolutely. I used this technique last week, here’s what I did and the results from it.
They filmed part of the Transformers II movie in my town last week and some co-workers got behind the scenes photographs of the set and a video. They gave me permission to blog about it, which I promptly did. Next, I did a Google Blog Search for similar sites and found the Transformers Live Action Movie Blog, the owners email is displayed on the left sidebar. This is the email I sent him:
I saw you recently published an article & photos regarding Transformers 2… wanted to share with you one my recent articles with more photos and a video (with more videos being edited now for publication).
Thought your readers might enjoy these: http://www.randomn3ss.com/2008/06/05/exclusive-filming-of-transformers-2-photos-and-videos/
That’s it. Within a few hours, they published this article that contains a link to my site’s homepage and the direct link to the article. More than 1,000 unique visits came to that specific article over the following 12 hours from the Transformers Live Action Movie Blog. I’d call that a success.
I’ve used this technique sparingly as not to become a burden on anyone, seem pushy or ungrateful for what others have done for me. Using this method though, I have successfully had articles linking to my sites on Lifehacker.com, GetRichSlowly.org, and several other very well known high traffic blogs.
I’d love to hear about some success stories from people who give this a try. Not every email you send will have great results, but it does work. Keep an open mind too when a fellow blogger approaches you with an idea or to share content.
Apple is currently announcing all kinds of iPhone related stuff right now at a keynote speach, happing at WWDC, a lot of bloggers are excited about the new features, functions and price points. How excited? Well check out how many tweets MacRumors has sent, if it loads at all. I keep seeing this wonderful illustration from twitter:
Twitter seems to be taking over the Internet tubes and picking up more steam as of late. I still can’t really explain what it is to my non-tech friends, but surmise to say, if you are a blogger or an Internet tech-head, you probably use and abuse twitter.
Lately, I’ve actually been really into twitter and have been following people left and right; in return I’m getting followed. The trouble, in my eyes, is that twitter’s search tool for finding relevant people is far from good.
Welcome to Summize. It allows you to search, in real time, people’s tweets. This is really cool if you are looking to meet people who tweet on topics that you are into. I actually found out about Summize from someone who started to follow me, based on thinks I tweet about.
It’s a fast, simple site that allows you to meet and follow all kinds of new and creative people on twitter. I’d also like to throw out an invite for everyone to follow me at, http://twitter.com/mikepanic.
For nearly the last two years I have been blogging, writing nearly a thousand articles. Lots of time, energy and creativity go into these words I write, and I publish them in the hopes that others will not only read them, but enjoy them, apply them and leave comments or ask questions. The one evil of the Internet is Spam though, and over the last few years Spam bots have been attacking blogs like no other. This is partly due to the number of new blogs being created.
The problem is comment spam. These are comments that are left on articles that usually point to some website that tells you how she’d like you to be thicker and longer lasting, or how to find a great deal on your next new car. Nothing of value, in face, these types of comments detract from the credibility of your content and worse, possibly lead to your readers leaving from clicking on a bogus link. There is help.
Shortly after one particular article got bombarded with tons of traffic from several social bookmarking and networking sites at once, the comment spam started to roll in. Using WordPress, my preferred platform for blogging, I set out to find some sort of Captcha system to add to blog posts to help cut down on the spam. Generally speaking, I don’t like anything that interferes with a users experience, but this plug-in is a must have.
Did you pass math? adds a small math question to the bottom of your comment box, above the submit button. It prompts the commentator to do a very simple math equation, like 7+3= [fill in the answer]. The plug-in can be found here: http://www.herod.net/dypm/ – and while it hasn’t been updated in two years, I don’t see that as a problem, it simply works. To install it, simply download to your computer from their site, unzip the files and upload [via FTP] two PHP files (English is default, but support is there for dozens more). Login to the admin section of WordPress, activate the plugin and you are done.
Since installing the Did you pass math plug-in, my comment spam has been near completely eliminated. As an added bonus, there was zero negative feedback and no backlash from the my readers after installing. Some even thanked me for not using a true Captcha system, since they can often be very hard to read. My suggestion would be to install this when first setting up a blog, so you aren’t in a situation like me, trying to fix a broken problem while it is being broken even harder.
