What Can You Do With Digg?

I’ve known Digg for a while but never think about to join it till now. So what is Digg? What can you do with it? I am curious about that so I searched the Internet for answers. The lists below are  the things I’ve found so far:

• According to Digg’s own definition: it is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, it surfaces the best stuff as voted on by its users.

• Digg is a social news website and everybody can join freely.

• Digg’s contents and links are submitted by its own users.

• When a Digg’s user submits his/her content, it will go into the “Upcoming” stories section.

• Other people will read the new coming content. If they like it, they will “Digg” it.

• If your story receives enough Diggs, it will be promoted to the “Popular” section and will be listed on the front page on Digg’s site.

• A Digg’s user can also use the “Bury” button to filter out bad links, off-topic content and duplicate entries.

• Other thing a Digg’s user can do is to discuss the story in the comment section.

It is all for now. If you find some  interesting things that are related to Digg, feel free to comment them here. 

Free Useful Color Wheels Online

I know a lot of the times I run into the problem of changing my website’s look and feel; especially changing colors in my CSS file. In order to find the matched colors, I need to search the Internet for a color wheel, but you don’t have to do that. For your convenience, I’ve found some useful color wheels that can even convert hex codes to decimal RBG or vice versa. I am sure you are going to love them:

• Color Wheel – Generate HTML code from the online color wheel char. Also makes it easy for you to convert RBG-Hex color.
• Color Blender - Allows you to blend two colors into a set of other colors in between.
• Color Codes Converter – Converts RGB to HEX and HEX to RGB.
• Color Schemer – Generates a set of different colors that you can match to your own.
• Copy Sense – A couple of design and color utilities here will assist you to achieve your fulfillments.
• DHTML Goodies Color Schemer – This useful tool allows you to find matching colors for your website.
• Infohound Color Schemer – This simple tool helps you to experiment with various color schemes.  
• The Man in Blue Technicolor – This is a very useful tool that provides all combination of colors for a website.

I am sure there are more free color wheels out there online. If you know some of the good ones that I’ve missed, please leave your comments here. Any other comments are welcome too.

How to Add a Sitemap to Your Blog/Website?

If you are searching an answer of how to add a sitemap to your blog/website, then this post is for you. Here I’ll talk about how to create a HTML sitemap so don’t confuse it with XML sitemap. See the difference from this post: What is The Difference Between HTML Sitemap and XML Sitemap?

• First you need to pick one of Free sitemap generators Online. I personally prefer to use XML-Sitemaps.com, but you may find others useful as well.

• Next follow the instructions in one of the Free sitemap generators to generate a HTML sitemap for your blog/website.

• Then log in to your blog/website admin area and create a new page for it.

• Every time when you create a new post you’ll need to update your sitemap. I just simply add my new post to my existing sitemap.

That is it. Some people like to place their sitemap in footer. That is because they believe that search engines will last crawl the sitemap before it exits the blog/website. I don’t know it is true or not but it is up to you to take the action.

How to Ping Your Blog?

Why do you need ping services? There are many answers for that question. First, it may be that you want everybody know about your newly posted article(s). Second, by using ping services your blog/website might be indexing right away from search engines. Thus it may in term increase your web traffic. If you use self-hosted WordPress blog, then you may follow the steps below to implement ping services.

• Log in to your admin and click on Settings/Writing.
• Scroll all the way down, copy and paste the following list into the box under Update Services, and save it.

  http://1470.net/api/ping

  http://api.moreover.com/ping

  http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

  http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

  http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

  http://bblog.com/ping.php

  http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

  http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

  https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast

  http://ping.blo.gs/

  http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

  http://ping.feedburner.com

  http://ping.myblog.jp

  http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

  http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

  http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/

  http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

  http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

  http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

  http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

  http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

  http://rpc.wpkeys.com

  http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

  http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

  http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

  http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

  http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

  http://www.wasalive.com/ping/

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

• After that WordPress will automatically ping your blog whenever you publish your new post.

For the WordPress.com bloggers, your blog has already built in with ping service Ping-O-Matic as your default ping service. If you want to manually ping your blog using ping services other than those offered in Ping-O-Matic, then you may find pingmyblog.com useful. It allows you to selectively choose your choices of ping services to submit.

The above list of ping services is working as of this post is being written. However, if you find any of them is no longer working, please inform me. I’ll appreciate that.

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Free Online Logo Generators

A simple and powerful way to help your customers to recognize your company is using logos. It also brings personal touches to your website. If you like to design your own logo like me, then you may find this post useful. I searched the Internet and found some Free and useful online logo design tools and listed them below for your convenience. You can choose one or two to design your own logo the way you like. So feel free to browse and have fun with them.

• Cool Text: Logo and Graphics Generator – This logo and graphics generator allow you to create what kinds of images you like and fill out the form to create your customized logo in just minutes.
• Web 2.0 Logo Creator Online. Design and create Free logos -  Use this simple logo creator to get your own logo. Then save it to your PC.
• Free Logo Design Engine | Logo Maker | Logo Generator - This website allows you to create your Logo and buttons for Free.
• Logo Generator – your logo is just a click away – This website provides logo templates of all kinds including text only, icons, animals, artists/craftsmen, and more that you can use to design your own logos.
• Text Based Logo Generator – This is a really simple tool. You just type your text in the text field, pick a style, and create your own text based logo.
• Cool Archive – Free Logo Generator – This free tool allows you to create your logo in minutes. You can save your images as .jpg or .gif files.
• Design An Instant Free Logo Online! – This website lists 6 logo types that you can choose from and create your own logo with your choice.

Alternatively you can use Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 to create your own logo for your website. If you use Microsoft PowerPoint 2007,  then go to Home tab, in the Slides group, you need to click Layout and then Blank. But if you use Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, go to Format menu, then click on Slide Layout. If I missed your favorite one/good one out there, please let me know.

How to Implement Google’s Translation on WordPress.com Blog?

While checking the summary statistics in StatCounter about my website, I discovered that many of my visitors are from foreign countries other than United States. I also have seen many blogs/websites embedded Google translation service with icons of their corresponding country flags. So I think it is very important that you can provide this kind of service for your visitors. Although the translation service provided from Google is not perfect, hopefully Google will improve it further in the future. If you are interested and want to implement the codes on your blog just like mine here. Follow the steps below:

• Download the widget codes here. It provides 22 languages with its corresponding flags.
• Login to your WordPress Dashboard; click on Design/Widgets.
• Click on Add next to text; you should see text widget is added to the right sidebar.
• Click on Edit to open up its text area; put the above codes there; give a title if you wish.
• Click on Change to save it.
• Move this text widget wherever you like it to be.
• Finally click on Save Change to save it.

If you use Google Blogger as blog platform, check out these articles: Translate Your Blog/Website in Different Languages – Part 1 and Translate Your Blog/Website in Different Languages – Part 2.
Enjoy!

Generate Your HTML Sitemap Using Free Sitemap Generators Online

Free sitemap generators are over the place on the Internet. You can utilize them to generate a HTML sitemap for your blog/website just like the one I have on my navigation bar of this blog. Pay attention here that I am not talking about a XML sitemap which is mostly used to submit to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines. If you want to know the difference between them, then check this article out here: What is The Difference Between HTML Sitemap and XML Sitemap? It is a good practice to have a HTML sitemap for your blog/website because you don’t want your visitors to get lost while they are visiting your site. So it is very important to have one. I searched the Internet and gathered some useful Free sitemap generators below. So make sure you check all of them out; and they are Free for use online.

• XML-Sitemaps.com – This tool allows you to create both XML sitemap as well as HTML sitemap. Besides it generates Text sitemap and ROR sitemap at the same time. Free for maximum 500 pages indexing.

• Google Sitemap Generator – This online tool generates XML sitemap and HTML sitemap as well. It includes a very handy wildcard exclusion feature too; able to check errors. Free unlimited use. Some people find it very, very useful.

• Google Sitemap Generator and Editor – This Free online tool allows you to generate and edit Google Sitemaps, HTML and Text sitemaps. I use it quite often. It builds in an ability to check your broken links too.

• HTML Sitemap Generator – This online tool is very easy to use. Just type in your url; enter the information I want to exclude in the ignore areas. It will create a simple HTML sitemap for you.

If you know any sitemap generators that can generate both XML and HTML sitemaps online, let me know in the comment section.

Relate article
How to Add a Sitemap to Your Blog/Website?

Create a Favicon With Free Favicon Generators Online

There are so many Free Favicon Generators out there on the Internet. I used some of them to generate my favicons. Then I replaced all of my blogs and website’s default ones with them except for this blog (can’t do anything about it since it is WordPress.com blog). While I was searching around to generate my favicons for my blogs and website, I found countless of them on the Internet and listed them below for your reference (if you are interested in replacing your favicon one day). To be honest with you, I don’t know which one is better. I just found them and listed here. You may have to try them out if you are interested; but I can tell you which ones I have used to generate mine:

• FavIcon Generator – Use this online tool to easily create a favorites icon (favicon) for your site. Capable of generating desktop icons as well.
• favicongenerator – Create free favicon.ico page icons with Favicon Generator, instantly make custom Favicons for your website.
• FavIcon from Pics – Free and easy to use online tool that can create favicon (.ico) images for browser address bars, favorites and tabs, from pictures, logos and other graphics.
• favicon.cc – favicon.cc is a tool to create or download favicon.ico icons, that get displayed in the address bar of every browser.
• freefavicon – Generate a free favicon for your website from an image.
• ^{editor’s pick} Favicon Editor – Make your own favicon with this online editor.
• 256 Pixels.com – 256 Pixels – a daily favicon design challenge.
• ajaxload.info – Ajaxload – Ajax loading gif generator
• ^{editor’s pick} Favicon Generator – Favicons generated here contain text instead of images in order to be descriptive, but are colored to be nice looking.
• Buddy Icon from Pics – Buddy Icon from Pics.
• CoverIcon – Convert ICO to PNG or PNG to ICO with this little web application.
• Favicon Generator – Web script lab, Free and easy to use online tool that can create a favorites icon (favicon.ico) images for browser address bars, favorites and tabs, from pictures, logos and other graphics.
• Favicon Generator and Gallery – Create favicon.ico files to customize the marketing logo in Internet Explorer’s favorites/bookmarks using our free online tool.
• ^{editor’s pick} Favicon Icon Drawing Program Online Free – Draw your own favicon or icon online for free using this entirely, web-based, non-Java icon gnerator.
• GraphicsGuru – Free and easy to use online Favicon Generator tool that can create Firefox-compatiable favicon .ico images.
• Generate It – Free online favicon generator. A favicon is a small, 16×16 image that is shown inside the browser’s location bar and bookmark menu when your site is called up.
• Favicon Generator Tool -A web-based favicon generator that can create custom favicon icons for your website.

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Free Image Hosting for Your Blog?

A lot of bloggers like to have their images hosted in a third party server. Why? There are many reasons; maybe they don’t like the bandwidth they’ve got from their own server; maybe they don’t like the limitations offered by their own server; or maybe they like to save the bandwidth from their own server. Whatever the reason is, it leads us to the conclusion that we want to host our images Free on the third party server. There are plenty of them out there on the Internet. I’ve searched the web, found a handful of them, and listed them below with a table for your reference:

Name	Sign Up	Free	Hot Linking	File Size	Image File Type	Video File Type	Speed & User Difficulty	Deleted If Not Been Accessed	Maximum Bandwidth	Maximum Storage
ImageShack	no	yes	yes	1.5MB	jpg, jpeg, png, gif, bmp, tif, tiff, swf	not support	fast & easy	1 yr	100KB per hr	unlimited
TinyPic	no	yes	yes	250KB	jpg, jpeg, gif, bmp, png, tif	avi, mov, mpeg, divx, 3gp, qt, dv	fast & simple	unknown	unknown	unknown
Free Image Hosting.net	no	yes	yes	3MB	gif, jpg, bmp, png,	not support	unknown	60 days keep for ever if registered	unknown	unknown
Photobucket	yes	yes	yes	1MB	gif, jpg, jpeg, png, bmp, swf	3g2, 3gp, 3gp2, 3gpp, 3p, asf, avi, divx, dv, dvx, flv, gif, moov, mov, mp4, mpeg4, mpg4, mpe, mpeg, mpg, qt, wmv, xvid, rm	fast & easy	unknown	25GM/m	1GM
IMGSpot	no	yes	yes	650KB	jpg, png, gif	not support	depends	no expiration	unlimited	unlimited
ImageVentue	no	yes	yes	1.5MB	jpg, jpeg	not support	unknown	1 yr	unlimited	unlimited
FileAve	yes	yes	yes	unknown	all file types	support	unknown	60 days	4.5GB/m	50MB
AlkaSpace	no	yes	yes	20 megs	jpg, gif, png	not support	unknown	unknown	1000 megs	200 megs
MyNetImages	yes	yes	yes	512KB	jpeg, jpg, gif, png	not support	unknown	no expiration	unlimited	999MB
Host-A	yes	yes	no	unknown	all file types	support	unknown	unknown	550MB	20MB
Image-Upload.net	yes	yes	yes	1MB	jpg, jpeg, png, gif, bmp, txt, zip	not support	fast & easy	unknown	1GB	100MB
Phosted	no	yes	yes	350KB	jpg, gif, png, bmp	not support	fast & easy	40 days	1GB	unknown
ImgFreeHost	no	yes	yes	250KB	gif, jpg, png,	not support	fast & easy	60 days	unknown	unknown
ImageCave	yes	yes	yes	250KB	bmp, jpg, png, gif	not support	fast & easy	unknown	unlimited	10MB

Do you like some of the Free online image servers listed above? Will you consider to try some of them? Or did I miss your favorite one out there?

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Get a Trackback Service for Your Blog

If you don’t know what a trackback service is, you may find out from this post. A trackback service is a mechanism that allows two blogs to communicate each other. Suppose you find an useful article and it is related to what you like to say, so you decide to write about it and link to this article in your post. If both blogs support a trackback service, then you may see your post’s permalink as well as excerpts showing up on the other blogger’s comment section. See the screenshot below:

This is fun since I am always curious of who links back to my blog. It is one way that I can track what post(s) of mine the other bloggers are interested in. Getting a trackback service can help you boost your blog/website traffic too. So it is important that your blog supports a trackback service.

Some blog softwares supporting automatic pinkback service are WordPress, Movable Type, Typo and Community Server. However, Google Blogger still doesn’t support a trackback service yet. Instead it provides a backlink service from Google Blog Search. You may find out how to get a third party trackback service for your Blogger from this article: Get a Trackback Service for Your New Blogger. Learn How?. As for WordPress.com/WordPress.org blog, go to WordPress Dashboard, click on Settings/Discussions/; make sure you click to tick Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks.) to enable it. See the screenshot below:

Click to enlarge the picture

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