Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

Recently Entrecard released the Entrecard toolbar. It’s especially helpful for people like me that have more than one blog, although any Entrecard user would find it helpful. On the far left is a pulldown menu that allows users to switch the Entrecard account they’re dropping with on the fly. The next menu, from the left side, shows you how many credits you have in the Entrecard account you’re logged into and how many drops you’ve made that day. The next menu after that will take you to your favorites and all of the categories. The last menu on the far right allows you to choose what types of sites you want to drop or advertise on. The little green arrows allow you to navigate to the next site and the next ten sites. The Entrecard toolbar is free and works on Firefox 2 and 3.

• None Found

It’s great to include pictures on your blog, no matter if they’re personal or related to something you’re writing about. It’s not always possible to take the picture you need yourself, so it’s helpful to have a list of places that offer free photos. Here’s a list of some of the most popular free photo sites.

• StockXchng - my favorite
• EveryStockPhoto
• Free Foto
• Free Images UK
• Free Photos Bank
• Free Range Stock Photos
• Free-Stock Photos
• Free Stock Photos
• Image Blowout
• ImageAfter
• Morguefile
• Picture Perfect Digital
• Stockvault

• Spock
• 25 free magnets
• Need some free photo prints?

I received an email a couple of weeks ago promoting a new site called Blogatiser. I finally checked it out yesterday, and here’s the story. Blogatiser allows members to submit articles they’ve written. Other members can vote on the articles. The more votes an article gets the higher it rises in visibility on the site, sending the author more traffic. Right now only seven votes are needed to get onto the front page. Yes, I know you’re thinking that it sounds like Digg. Here’s how it’s different than Digg. Blogatiser is a revenue sharing website, sharing 75% of Adsense revenue with its members. Also, Blogatiser is do follow, that is to say that it does not use redirects for your links so get free back links.

• Feedjit
• New blog ranking site launched
• Who sez your comments

I found myself wondering something about internet affiliate programs recently. I applied for the Disney Movie affiliate program, thinking I’d place it on my entertainment blog. My application was declined. Now here’s my question. If it’s free to join an affiliate program, and if both the advertiser and the publisher make money if someone clicks on an ad, why would they decline an ad? If nothing else it would be getting their brand noticed, even if noone did click on it. So does anyone know the logic behind this? I really would like to know.

• Are you making money with affiliate programs?
• DoubleClick Performics now the Google Affiliate Network
• Why Socialspark is great for Mommy bloggers

Many of you have either heard of Entrecard, know what Entrecard is or use Entrecard. Well, the gang at Entrecard is at it again. Earlier this week Entrecard announced some big news. Entrecard users are now able to buy Entrecard credits directly from Entrecard from a link in the dashboard. There’s more. Bloggers will now earn Entrecard credits every time they publish a post on their blog. Bloggers are eligible to receive 25 credits each time they write a post. The only catch is that this is limited to receiving credits every three days. Lastly, you can earn Entrecard credits by writing on the Entrecard blog. The number of credits a blogger receives depends on the topic, value and quality of the post he/she writes. That’s it for now! Happy dropping!

• Entrecard Comment Rush
• Computer Chit Chat May Entrecard giveaway
• Entrecard toolbar

Click Here for a Chance to Win a Nintendo® Wii™! Charter area residents that visit this site and register are put into a drawing for a complete Nintendo wii video game console system. The wii will come with everything needed to play out of the box including the console, a stand, sports games, one remote, one nunchuk, one sensor bar, one ac adapter and one av cable. Now that’s a great prize, because the wii is a really fun and hot game system. It is the best video console idea yet in my opinion, because it’s fun for the entire family while promoting exercise and movement.

While at the site Charter area residents can participate in an auction. The item being auctioned is a lifetime of Charter high speed internet. Qualified residents, determined by zip code, that are 18 years or older can participate. It doesn’t matter if you are a current Charter customer or not if your zip code is within the specified areas. People that meet the geographic requirement can preregister to bid from yesterday March 5, 2008 through March 11, 2008. Bidding begins on March 12, 2008 and ends on March 26, 2008. The bids will start at $10, and there is no reserve.

Good luck to all, for both the wii and the lifetime high speed internet!

• None Found

I’ve been seeing the Feedjit widget for a while on other blogs and decided to try it. For those not familiar, Feedjit is a small free script that when displayed shows where your recent visitors have arrived from. I went to the Feedjit site today to sign up and get the code, or do whatever had to be done. I saw an announcement that said that new widgets had been released today and that installation and configuration had been simplified. I decided to try one of the new widgets, which displays the day’s most popular post. All you have to do to use Feedjit is select which widget you want to use, copy the code and then paste that code into your blog. Feedjit currently offers four widgets - Live Traffic Feed, Live Traffic Map, Live Recommended Reading and Live Page Popularity. It took me less than one minute to install the widget on this site, which is in the left side of the sidebar nearest posts. It’s neat. I think I’m going to try some of the others on some of my other sites.

• New blog ranking site launched
• Spock
• How do you sell online?

Ever wonder if a page has been stumbled by anyone? Try this, it usually works for me.
When you’re on a post that you want to know has been stumbled, use the review bubble in the stumble toolbar.
When you click on the review bubble, you will be taken to a stumble page and will most likely see one of two things.
One is a message saying stumble has no record of that post and a suggestion you either vote like or dislike.
The other is the stumble page showing who discovered it, who has stumbled it, what category it is in and any reviews.
If you’re wondering why someone would do this instead of clicking the thumbs up or thumbs down button, here’s why. I will not stumble my own posts. I don’t like to compliment myself. Yes some are better than others, but if one is so bad I’d vote it down then I shouldn’t have written it in the first place. So if I have a post I think was really good that I know was read, I might be curious to know if anyone had stumbled it. So I just look at the review bubble as described above and I know. It’s that simple.
Happy stumbling.
If you found this helpful, please stumble it.

• Blogatiser social bookmarking
• Firefox add-on for website translation
• New blog ranking site launched

Ever wonder which blog gets the most traffic and is the most influential? You wouldn’t be alone, lots of people do. Now that IZEA will be paying $1,000 to the blogger in the number one spot for each week in February, more bloggers will be trying to write their best articles and bring in as much traffic as possible to give their blogs a boost. That’s $4,000 they’re shelling out! Wondering how will they calculate who’s number one? Listen up.

Here’s a little background for those that don’t know. Late last year Big G started punishing bloggers that monetize their blogs in certain ways, particularly the buying and selling of paid posts and links. All of a sudden the all important page rank became Page Spank for those of us little fish in the big blogging sea, and just like that we had page rank of 0. This severely limited some of the marketing opportunities available to us, also impacting income. IZEA knew that blogs do have worth and value without Page rank and had previously set out to create a remedy for a situation such as this.

IZEA came up with Real Rank, a method of calculating the traffic and influence of blogs on the web. The long term goal is that Real Rank will become an accepted replacement for page rank and Alexa data that will be used when purchasing blog marketing. You’re wondering how it works. I’ll tell you how. A piece of javascript installed on a blog collects and reports data based on the traffic the blog actually receives. The result is the blogs Real Rank, where it stands among other blogs. Factors that effect Real Rank include unique visitors, active inbound links and page views. The neat part is, you (the blogger) choose what you want displayed. Wondering where it’s displayed?

One of the places you can see a blog’s Real Rank is on IZEARanks.com. There’s no big catch to being listed there and there’s no troublesome installation involved. If you put that one piece of javascript code into your blog then your blog and Real Rank will be visible to advertisers and other bloggers. In case you’re wondering, this is a completely different code than a Pay Per Post code, so you won’t get spanked for having it on your blog.

Wondering what’s displayed? The above picture is a screenshot. You can select to view Real Rank, page visitors or unique visitors, within time periods of one week to one year. The cute little lightbulb slider allows you to adjust the time period you’re looking at to see how the blog is trending. On the bottom is an option to allow the viewer to compare up to ten blogs at once. It’s pretty neat. One thing I wish was shown on the screen is the categories a blog falls into. The site is certainly interesting to surf. If you want to be entered into the drawings for any of the four $1,000 prizes hurry over there and sign up. Good luck to those who enter!

• SearchStatus Firefox add-on tells you more than rank
• Feedjit
• Alexa, Ilikea!

Michael tagged me for this through Entrecard and I promised him I’d participate. Here goes.

Rule #1

Copy all the links below (make sure its alphabetized) and replace a single link under the appropriate alphabet. If your domain name, or even the title of your blog, starts with an ” A,” you’d replace the link under that alphabet and put the replaced link at the bottom. Also, don’t forget to credit the tagger, or where you got the list from, at the end of the list with a full URL of the post so that a pingback gets generated.

1. acowboyswife.com
2. bloggingcents.com
3. computerchitchat.com
4. delusionsofgrandeur.org
5. everythingandanythingblog.com
6. forumfinder.net
7. gothic-peach.net
8. happykeg.com
9. ipentimento.com
10. juliesjournal.com
11. kabalyero.com
12. ladylike4.com
13. michaelpark.net
14. notjustmama.net
15. originalmx5.net
16. patrickdevivo.com
17. qweddings.com
18. rowdigrl.com
19. shirleysdelight.com
20. thesocalledme.net
21. utada-online.net
22. valmg.com
23. wickedbabylon.com
24. xaviermedia.com
25. yimto.com
26. zbudapest.com

Replaced link: http://www.chatbugkaren.com/myroad/
Previous tagger: http://michaelpark.net/2008/01/19/viral-linking/

Rule #2

You now have to “tag” at least five people and encourage them to participate so that this thing spreads like a virus. Remember, though, that not everyone’s into these kinds of things, so don’t be upset if they don’t participate. Just simply replace your tag. Remember to tag blogs only and no pornographic ones as we do want to keep the integrity as a blogging community. TIP: Tag your frequent EntreCard droppers via its messaging system.

As for me, I will tag the following:

• http://sandystyl.blogspot.com/
• http://hterry.com
• http://sewingmom.com/
• http://corrinrenee.com/
• http://ami-chan.net/

Rule #3

Just like any other “meme” out there, ask a question for your taggees to answer along with your own answer to the previous question. This is optional.

In answer to Michael’s question, I started blogging about three years ago
To those that I’ve tagged, when did you start blogging?

Thanks all!

• Entrecard Credits News
• Who sez your comments
• A new blog meme is born!