Pic of the Day - 26th May

Imtiaz Zainule, right, of New York, looks up as he poses for a picture with Nicole Dhillon, of New York, under the sculpture 'Unconditional Surrender', on Friday, May 21, 2010 in San Diego. The sculpture, by J. Seward Johnson, commemorates the iconic image by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on Aug. 14, 1945, during the celebration to mark V-J Day, the end of World War II. (Photo: AP)

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50 Amazing Blogger Tricks & Hacks

Well in this article, I’ve post an amazing collection of 50 Amazing Blogger Tricks Hacks which are useful to bloggers using the Blogger platform.




1. Expandable Posts or Read More Hack

2. Recent Posts Widget

3. Recent Comment Widget

4. Top Commentators Widget

5. Remove Label Post Count

6. Add Page Element to Header and Blog Posts

7. Sticky Posts in Blogger

8. Add Images or Icons to Sidebar Links

9. Remove NavBar in Blogger

10. Add Scrollbars to Blog Widgets

11. Add Favicon to Blogger URL

12. Simple Search Widget

13. Wrap Adsense Ads in Post Body

14. Special Effects for Peekaboo Posts

15. Page Navigation Hack for Blogger

16. Uploading Animated .gif Image to Blogger

17. Making Pull Down Menu

18. Add “Print this” Option in your Blog

19. Speed up your Blogger Page Load Time

20. Random Background Image

21. Ratings for Posts

22. TabView Widget

23. Adding a Front Page to your Blog

24. Creating Thumbnail Pictures

25. Adding a BreadCrumb Trail to your Blog Post

26. Showing your Blogger Labels as Vertical Tabs

27. Navigation Bar

28. Add Digg Button to Blogger Post

29. Social Bookmarking Widget

30. Add Signature to your Posts

31. Add Background Music

32. Embed Comment Box Below Blogger Post

33. Remove Word Verification from Blogger Comments

34. Show Blog Post Headers In Archive

35. Disable Right Click on Blog

36. Label Cloud in your Blog

37. E-mail Icon Generator

38. Podcast in Blogger

39. Transparent Background

40. Rounded Corner Headers

41. Insert Powerpoint and PDF Files

42. Flash for Blogger

43. Author Comment Highlighting

44. Control Number of Posts in Label Pages

45. Sidebar Comments Display

46. Show Recent Referrers

47. Language Translation Widget

48. Postpone or Delay your Blog Posts Via E-mail

49. Add Clickable Pictures to your Blog

50. “Email Me” Link

51. Make your Blog DoFollow

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Researcher analyzes dreams through Twitter

Starting today, Twitter users can send synopses of their dreams (in 140 characters or less, of course) to the Twitter handle @dreamshrink. Researcher Jennifer Parker, with the University of West England in Bristol, will choose 10 of the most interesting dreams and will parse out their meaning through the micro-blogging service by the end of this week.

The dream analysis will be posted on Friday.

The project is intended to help Parker expand her research on dreams worldwide, according to the BBC. The dream posts are also tied to the release of James Cameron's "Avatar" for purchase on the Internet in the UK. Cameron is said to have thought up the idea for that blockbuster movie in a dream in the 1990s.

The British video site blinkbox.com is behind the promotion.

The film is also available elsewhere for download, according to CNET:

Vudu and Sony's PlayStation Network are the only major streaming/download services to carry the HD version at launch (sorry, Amazon VOD and QRIOCITY), so if you want to watch "Avatar" in HD at home, you'll have to buy one of those two futuristic files or risk being branded a Luddite to actually get the physical Blu-ray.

Parker told the website bristol247.com that dream analysis on Twitter is a "ground breaking opportunity."

“I am already planning to use data as the basis for a future book that will analyze the efficacy of Twitter as a means for data collection and hopefully present this information in a peer reviewed journal," she told the site. "This type of media is going to be essential in moving dream research forwards using state of the art technologies.”

Can you fit a dream in 140 characters? Do you feel comfortable writing about your subconscious in public on the Internet? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Does Facebook know who you'll date next?

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg genuinely cares about your relationship status. Well, maybe not genuinely, but he may look into it if he’s bored.

One of Zuckerberg’s favorite pastimes is determining Facebook users’ relationship patterns, according to David Kilpatrick’s upcoming book, “The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World.”

Are you constantly chatting with your girlfriend’s best friend? Do you spend more time on your crush’s Facebook page than your boyfriend’s?

You don’t have to be honest with us, but don’t bother lying to Zuckerberg.

A handful of tech blogs have published an excerpt from the book that says Zuckerberg uses certain factors to determine whether your relationship is on the outs and who you’ll likely be dating next.

All Facebook, a blog about the social-networking site, posted this passage:

“By examining friend relationships and communications patterns (Zuckerberg) could determine with about 33 percent accuracy who a user was going to be in a relationship with a week from now. To deduce this he studied who was looking which profiles, who your friends were friends with, and who was newly single, among other indicators.”

So what's your take on Zuckerberg as Cupid? Is his theory on this credible, or just creepy? If he offered you an insider's prediction on your significant other’s romantic future, would you take it?

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Google unveils 'replay' search feature

It's already easy to find relevant Twitter updates in Google real-time search results. Now, thanks to a new Google feature, you can see what people were tweeting about a topic last week or last month.

Google on Wednesday introduced a “replay” feature that allows users to search tweets posted at any given point in time - down to the minute.

Let’s say you're curious to see what people were tweeting about Kathryn Bigelow the night of the Academy Awards on March 7. After you type her name into Google's search field, select “Show Options” on the results page and then click “Updates.”

A timeline will appear above the results, allowing you to zero in on tweets by the hour or minute. They spiked late in the Oscars telecast, when excited viewers began tweeting about Bigelow becoming the first woman to win Best Director.

Here's a preview of what the new feature looks like.

“By replaying tweets, you can explore any topic that people have discussed on Twitter,” wrote Dylan Casey, Google product manager for real-time search, in a post on Google's blog.

For now, users can explore tweets going back about two months - to February 11 - although Google promises that you’ll soon be able to search as far back as the very first tweet on March 21, 2006.

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Facebook to simplify privacy controls Wednesday

Heeding widespread concerns about how much of its users' personal data it shares on the web, Facebook said it will begin implementing simpler privacy settings on Wednesday.

"I can confirm that our new, simpler user controls will begin rolling out tomorrow. I can't say more yet," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told CNN in an e-mail Tuesday.

Currently, users of the popular social-networking site must navigate through some 170 privacy options. Some Facebook members have said they're confused by the settings, while others have threatened to delete or deactivate their Facebook accounts until the site gives them more control over their info.

Tuesday's announcement suggests Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making good on a recent promise.

"There needs to be a simpler way to control your information," he wrote in an op-ed piece published Monday in the Washington Post. "In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services."

The recent backlash against Facebook came after the site, which has more than 450 million members, introduced a new tool last month to spread Facebook users' preferences and data to partner sites around the web.

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Twitter claims 105 million registered users

Twitter has more than 105 million registered users, co-founder Biz Stone said Wednesday.

The announcement, at the micro-blogging site's Chirp conference for developers, marked the first time Twitter has announced it number of accounts. The tally - 105,779,710, to be exact - is significantly more than outside analysts had estimated.

The company also says it's adding 300,000 accounts per day, with much of its growth coming outside the United States.

The number, of course, doesn't address how many of those accounts are active. It comes after months of outside speculation that the number of monthly visitor to Twitter's main page had peaked – after astronomical growth in early 2009.

Web analytics company Compete estimates that Twitter's number of unique monthly visitors has stayed roughly the same since June 2009.

But on Wednesday, Stone said most of Twitter's daily traffic comes from third-party applications, which often don't require a stop by the site's main page (which nevertheless got a makeover last week).

As Mashable's Adam Ostrow notes in a blog post from the conference, the number still pales in comparison to social-networking giant Facebook's more than 400 million registered accounts.

But it's closer than most observers would have guessed, which bodes well for Twitter a day after it rolled out an advertising plan that it hopes will turn the much-talked-about site into an actual moneymaker.

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MySpace unveils new event calendar

MySpace, which has long been an online hangout for musicians and music fans, is now making it easier for users to keep up with musical happenings.

The social-networking site unveiled its new global events calendar Thursday. Called MySpace Events, the feature is a “global platform that supplies artists and users with tools to create, discover and share events including an easy-to-use calendar,” said Marcus Womack, director of events and ticketing, in a MySpace blog post.

Users also will have the opportunity to sync their MySpace Events with Facebook and Twitter, making it easier for people to manage their “entire social calendar and share events across the Web,” Womack said.

MySpace will add different types of events - sports, nightlife and arts happenings - in addition to the “concerts and pop culture events” already featured on the site, Womack said.

The site also will allow users to receive alerts about future shows of their choice and purchase tickets through MySpace, a service made possible by the site’s partnership with Ticketmaster and Live Nation.

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4 tools to help reclaim Facebook privacy

To some users and tech writers, it appears Facebook won’t let anything stand in the way of its quest for World Wide Web domination. Maybe not even its users’ privacy.

As most Facebook users already know, the social networking site has yet again updated its privacy settings. And the “guide to privacy on Facebook” can seem more like an encyclopedia than a guide. Some users have become so confused that they've chosen to leave the site entirely.

But, thanks to a few independent tools floating around in cyberspace, it's gotten a bit easier to navigate the maze of Facebook settings. Here are a few tools and websites that caught our attention:

ReclaimPrivacy, a donation-based project, recently launched a tool that scans your Facebook page’s privacy settings. It alerts users when their privacy settings have defaulted to public.

SaveFace, which is free to install, automatically sets users’ settings - contact information, search settings, friends, tags, connections, personal information and posts - to “friends only.”

TinEye is not specifically for privacy conscious Facebook users. However, the reverse image search engine can be useful when looking to see if an image posted on Facebook has made its way across the Web. Simply upload a photo and let TineEye search the Web to see if the image has been used elsewhere.

Finally, there's OpenBook (warning: potentially offensive language), a site that doesn't exactly help you manage your Facebook privacy settings, but it might scare you into wanting to keep your info private. The site lets you search through public status updates. Some really embarrassing stuff shows up.

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Britney passes Ashton atop Twitter

Alas, poor Ashton

You may have beaten us to 1 million followers on Twitter, but that's so last year. Now, Twitter is Britney's world.

Over the weekend, the official Britney Spears Twitter account passed actor Ashton Kutcher's feed as the most popular on the microblogging site.

Both are closing in on a whopping 5 million followers - Britney had about 4,946,000 as of late Monday morning, compared to Kutcher's 4,942,000.

Her new place in the top spot comes despite the fact that Britney's feed, in contrast to Kutcher's ultra-personal musings, is largely filled by posts from her manager, Adam Leber, and other staffers.

She does chime in from time to time, though, with posts like "Happy mamas day ya'll!! -Brit," on May 9. The most recent Britney post on Twitter - where many popular users are always updating their status - is from last Wednesday.

There was no acknowledgement of the milestone on the feed.

On Kutcher's Twitter feed , he addressed the seismic shift in the Twitterverse by dismissing it.

He's been doing promotional interviews for his upcoming movie "Killers" and said that - behind "Are you having a baby?" - the most popular question from reporters has been about being passed by Britney.

"Answer 'I don't care. Aren't u suppose 2B a movie reporter?' " he wrote Sunday night.

Aside from the mind-boggling realization that Britney has at least 5 million fans, the most interesting aspect of the news may be what the numbers say about Twitter's growth - or at least the growth of its most popular users.

Just over a year ago, Kutcher and CNN's breaking news account, @CNNbrk, were publicly racing to become the first Twitter account with 1 million followers (that CNN account now has just over 3 million).

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