September 2007

Last Saturday I mentioned that I signed up for BlogRush, and that I’d be reporting back with the results today. Well the stats (Dashboard) section of BlogRush kicked in this week, so now I know how many folks I’ve referred, how many “credits” I’ve earned, and how many visits BlogRush has sent my way. Like others, the results aren’t great. [click to continue...]

media hive is a cross-platform (works in OS X, Windows and Linux) streaming media management project. With it, you can access your media collection from any web browser, and play your media from anywhere you have Internet access. This tutorial will guide you in setting up and using media hive. [click to continue...]

After being appalled at what I saw when I viewed Simple Help in my Smartphone, I decided it was time to figure out a way to make this site more appealing to folks using mobile browsers. It didn’t take long for me to find Alex King’s WordPress Mobile Edition plugin. If you follow the instructions outlined in the README (included with the download) it only takes about 30 seconds to convert your WordPress installation to a very usable site for mobile web browsers.

Simplehelp in a mobile browser

Simplehelp post in a mobile browser

Update: all 3 invites gone. I’ll update again if/when I have more.

I havehad 3 invites to the beta service Jango. My initial thoughts on Jango are very positive. It has the social aspect of Last.FM and the streaming and ’suggest similar artists’ features of Pandora. Big plus - it works in Canada (Pandora does not).

Leave a comment below and I’ll send invites to the first 3 people. Cheers!

If you’re a fan of the ‘Netvibes style” home page, and find yourself spending more and more time on Facebook, 360Gadget might be your new favorite Facebook app. The recently launched 360Gadget allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds, quickly access your POP mail account, search the web, watch YouTube from inside news feeds - all from within one Facebook page.

360Gadget	Add a Feed
With maps and notes	Expanded view

This overview will explain your options when it comes to using Google services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Search, Google Maps and even YouTube - with your Windows Mobile device. Though the screenshots are specific to Windows Mobile 5.0 on a Smartphone, they will be similar for Pocket PC and Windows Mobile 6.0 devices as well.

It’s also worth noting that all of the services were downloaded and/or accessed without using ActiveSync once - so Mac/Linux users who own Windows Mobile devices aren’t left out.

1. Google Calendar
1. Web based
2. GCalendarSync
3. Using SMS
2. Gmail
1. Web based
2. Google for Mobile
3. Built in POP client - “Messaging”
4. Other POP mail clients (Flexmail)
3. Google Reader
4. Google Search
1. Web based
2. Using SMS
5. Google Maps
1. Web based
2. Google Maps for Mobile application
6. Google SMS
7. YouTube
1. Web based
2. Using Avot mV

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If you find yourself unable to view a web page in Internet Explorer Mobile (aka IE Mobile, formerly Pocket Internet Explorer), and you’re confident it should display properly, try clearing the cache and cookies. To do so, follow the steps outlined below.

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Instead of reviewing or introducing you to BlogRush (for that you can check out ProBlogger), I’m going to try something a little different. I’ve signed up, added the code to my sidebar (though admittedly not giving it ‘ideal’ placement) and I’m going to leave it up for one week. Then I’ll report back next Saturday on how much (if any) traffic that it has driven. Like others, I’m a bit skeptical - but we’ll see. First update after the cut -

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I recently stumbled across a fantastic little program that allows you to specify a webmail service (like Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail etc) as your default email program. When you click on a mailto: link, instead of Mail opening, your specified webmail service will launch in your default browser, with the email address pre-filled in a “compose” window. This tutorial will guide you through installing and setting up Webmailer for OS X. [click to continue...]

Update: There’s now another tutorial on how to monitor your Internet bandwidth usage in OS X. You may want to give it a view before this one, as it’s free, and the one below involves software that isn’t free. Both solutions work well, but this one (outlined below) does have more reporting options.

Somewhat similar to my How to monitor your Internet bandwidth usage in Windows tutorial, this one will show you how to do the same, but in OS X. As a number of ISP’s are now disconnecting customers for using “too much” bandwidth (this one in particular), knowing exactly how much you’ve downloaded (or uploaded) in a given month can be very helpful. [click to continue...]

If you’d like an invite to Yahoo’s new social network “Mash”, just leave a comment (please use a valid email address in the Email Address field). For what it’s worth, I’m not particularly impressed.

From their site:

“The Google Analytics widget is an Adobe AIR application that runs on your desktop and displays basic stats for your Google Analytics account.”

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If you’ve lost your Windows password and you’re locked out of your computer, you can use the Ophcrack LiveCD to recover your password(s). This tutorial will guide you through doing just that. [click to continue...]

At some point yesterday (Nov 12th, 2007) Google Webmaster Tools got a bit of a redesign. And at least one new feature was added - Subscriber stats. Now you can view the number of users who have subscribed to your RSS feed(s) using Google products such as iGoogle, Google Reader, and Orkut.

Are there any other new features I missed?

Screenshots:

Dashboard Overview	What Googlebot Sees
Google Subscriber Stats	Tools Overview