Youth Inspirational Point

Unlock Idea Net Setter(Huawei e1550)

2011-09-20T18:37:00.001+05:30

Is your device unlock code attempts is over..?? is their are no any option for entering unlock code..?? is their any network error problems occurs..?? Its time to left all issues back and flush old (network locked)firmware with this new one.It will definitely fixes all your issues.Let see how to unlock your Idea Net Setter(Huawei e1550).

1). Huawei E155X update(Firmware)

2). Huawei Unlocker(Unlock n Flash Code Calculator)

Follow the Steps to Unlock your Modem successfully

Step 1: Download and run the Huawei Unlocker to generate the Unlock and Flash Code.Put your device IMEI number in the ImEI box,it will genrate two codes unlock and Flash Code.Write down the Flash code carefully this is the code what we required later.
Step 2: Now Download and run the Huawei E155X update(modem should be inserted while running the huawei update),it will search for your modem.
Step 3: It will ask for the password put the Flash Code here as a password that we generate previously.

Now you will see your modem will blinking continuously , don't get panic every thing is happens perfectly.When update process is complete try to insert other network sim and njoy..!!!

Note: Please ensure there are no power cut offs during Flashing Process.

** Try it at you own risk. i am not responsible for any damage caused by any means.

The Social Network, Or “The Facebook Movie”

2011-08-26T14:56:00.000+05:30

The Upcoming Movie From Colombia Pictures, The Social Network, Or “The Facebook Movie”, Is Based In Part On The Book "The Accidental Billionaires".
Have A Look At The Very First Teaser Trailer Of The Facebook Movie:

See Your Image On Google Search Results Along With Your Blog Articles

2011-08-21T19:34:00.001+05:30

If you write a blog or have a website where authors can contribute stories, here’s a new feature in Google - Authorship - that you’ll find very hard to ignore (and you should not).
Google can now display your name as well as your profile picture in search results next to stories that you may have written. The picture will in turn link to your Google Profile page.

What’s the advantage?

As a content creator, this is an important feature for you because you can now indirectly claim authorship of your content on Google search pages.
There’s another advantage as well – your Google CTRs may improve. That’s because a Google page is often chock-full of text and thus people might be attracted more towards a result that has some visual element (the author’s photograph) attached to it.

How do I implement this?

Like it? The good news is that implementing authorship markup into a site is extremely simple and the whole thing should not take more than a few minutes.
Let’s get started:
Step 1: Create an “About Me” page on your blog, if you haven’t done that already, and link the about page to your Google Profile page.
This is important. While creating the hyperlink to your Google Profile page, do remember to add rel="me" to the link as shown below

<a href="http://yourwebsite.com/about/" rel="author">My short bio</a>

Step 2: Next you need to ensure that all the blog stories that you have written include a link to your “About Me” page. This hyperlink should have the rel="author" attribute as shown below.

<a href="http://yourwebsite.com/about/" rel="author">My short bio</a>

Step 3: This is the last step. Sign in to your Google Profiles account and under links, add a new custom link that points to your “About Me” page. Tick the option that says “This page is specifically about me” and save the changes.

That’s it. Wait for Google to re-crawl your new content and then test your links. Open the rich snippets tool and copy-paste the URL of one of your recent stories in the preview box. If the results say verified author (see the next screenshot), you are all set.

Troubleshooting tips:

If Google is still not willing to display your profile picture in search pages, here are some things you can try:
1. Make sure your author page is complete with some pictures, you have written a bio and that you have linked to your other social profiles. Also, the author page should be on the same domain as your articles /stories.
2. Your Google Profile should also be complete with your bio and include links to your own site as well as your other online profiles.
3. Google will pick the picture thumbnail from your Google Profile page and thus use an actual picture of yourself (not an icon). The picture should look good even when compressed into a 50x50 thumbnail image.
Good luck!

Turn Windows 7 Into Windows 8

2011-08-20T20:11:00.000+05:30

You may have heard about the microsoft's upcoming operating system 'Windows 8' which is powered by Metro UI. Metro UI has been tested in 'Windows Phone 7' and it was a big success. You can turn your windows 7 os look like windows 8's user interface with the help of Zetro VS 1.0

How To: Turn Windows 7 Into Windows 8?

* Download Zetro from This Link.
* Extract the zip file.
* Open 'Extras' folder.
* Run 'Theme Patcher'.
* Click on all patch buttons in that program.
* Then open 'Theme' folder and copy all the file in it.
* Paste it into 'C:\Windows\Resources\Themes' folder.
That's all, Now you can enjoy the new Metro UI instead of the old Aero UI.

How To: Start Using Google+

2011-08-19T19:53:00.003+05:30

Google+ is a new social networking website developed by Google. Google+ has the power to dominate facebook with its simplicity and the way it makes social life easier.

How To Get A Google+ Account?
Google+ is still working on an invite only registration. This invite reminds me the time when Gmail was launched.
Luckily, I got an invite from my friend.
Why Is Google Making Google+ An Invite Only Registration?
Google wants to make Google+ more valuable. Now peoples are busy in asking a google plus invite from their friends, relatives, and on social networks like twitter and facebook. Some of them are selling the Google+ invites on ebay also.
How To Get A Google+ Invite?
For getting a google+ invite, You can ask your friends who are already started using Google+. Or you can simply comment here with your gmail id, I will send you an invite.

For more information on Google+, Go to Google+ overview page.

Facebook adds a Newsfeed to the Chat Sidebar

2011-08-19T19:34:00.001+05:30

Facebook had added a mini newsfeed in the sidebar that is always visible and thus you keep track of all your friends activity from any other page on Facebook. You can also like or comment on a story from the newsfeed itself.
Unlike the newsfeed on the Facebook homepage, the feed in the sidebar updates live as new stories are added and though you can’t pause the feed, you can always read the old stories in an infinite-scroll style.
Changes to Facebook Chat
If you aren’t a huge fan of the new chat window in Facebook, you can now adjust its height such that only your online friends are visible in the sidebar.

The mini newsfeed of Facebook is integrated with the chat sidebar and you can only hide it if you also hide the chat window.

Free Premium Web Hosting For 1 Year

2011-08-15T15:45:00.000+05:30

Are you planning to start a blog or website, But not able to afford a premium web hosting?
Here is a perfect offer for you. Get a premium web hosting from jumpline for one year without paying a penny.

How To: Get 1 Year Free Webhosting From Jumpline?

Go to Jumpline.com
Then click on Order Now from below Stacked Plan.
From the next page, Select Annual Term and click Continue.
On the next page, They will ask you to register a domain name. Register if you need a premium domain name, Or else you can use a Rs89 .in domain or free .tk domain.
Then create an email address and on the next step, fill your details. You have to provide a credit card number to them, Alternatively you can use the free virtual credit card.

After registration, They will send you a confirmation mail followed by your account details(may take upto 3 days).

Get .IN Domain Name For Just 89 Rupees

2011-08-15T15:06:00.000+05:30

Bigrock has introduced an interesting offer for those who need a domain name. You could get a .in domain name for just Rs.89.

How To Get A .IN Domain For Just Rs.89?

Visit Bigrock.in
Search and choose your .in domain.
Click on Proceed To Cart.
If a pop-up windows appears, Click on No Thanks.
In the coupon code field, Type the coupon code: AFFDISC
You will see the refreshed cart with domain cost reduced to Rs.89.
Then sign up for a Bigrock account, If you are not having one already.
Then pay using Net Banking, Debit Card (ATM Card), Credit Card, And some other payment options for Indian customers.

.in domain name normally costs around Rs.650. So don't loose this chance. Bag your favorite name now!

Link: Bigrock

List Of All Google+ Cheats

2011-08-08T20:16:00.000+05:30

Google+ cheat sheet are some quick codes and hotkeys which makes Google+ better for you. Continue reading for the complete google+ cheats.
Google+ Cheat Sheet
See the google+ cheat codes..

Image source: Mashable

How To Pay For Online Products And Service From India If You Don't Have A Credit Card?

2011-08-08T20:13:00.000+05:30

Are you one of those guys who are willing to buy products and services online but finding dificulty in paying for it because you are not having a credit card. In this post I'll provide you a perfect solution, You can create a virtual credit card with your atm debit card.

Who'll Provide Me Virtual Credit Card

Entropay, Its an online virtual credit card provider which will help you to create a virtual credit card which can be used for buying products online and paying online services. And its free to create a virtual credit card.
How Can I Transfer Money To My VIrtual Card?
You can transfer money from your atm debit card, I've used my syndicate bank account's visa atm debit card for adding fund to my entropay card.
You can add any amount between $20 and $2000 in a single transaction. You'll get charged 4% of your transferring amount as a service charge.(That's $4 for $100)
My Experience with Entropay
I reached entropay when I was in need of an hostgator webhosting account and I was finding difficulty in paying for it, As I was not having a verified paypal account or a credit card.
The only thing I had was a standard bank account and an atm debit card (visa).
Then I created an account in entropay and they provided me a virtual credit card without paying anything.
After that, I added an $100 to my virtual debit card, They charged $4 as service charge. And I used that credit card for purchasing hostgator webhosting.
I'm a satisfied entropay customer since 18+ months.
How To Create A Virtual Debit Card Using Entropay?

Go to entropay.com and click Sign up now.
Provide your details on the sign up page.
On the next step, They will ask you for a funding source, Enter your ATM card number, Card type, Valid from, Expiry, Card holder name, etc..
For visa debit cards, You need a verified by visa account for activating your card. In this case, I'm using syndicate bank's visa debit card. For getting verified by visa account you have to go to www.syndicatebank.in and click Verified by visa.
You'll be taken to a new window, Click 'click here' below the Global debit card .
Click Abridged Registration.
And continue to register for verified by visa account. (for more information on verified by visa, click here)
Use that verified by visa account with entropay registration.
On the next step, You can add fund, Or you can skip it for later.
After signing up successfully, They'll provide you a new virtual shopping card.
You can use it with any kind of online purchasing where visa card is accepted.

What Else I Can Do With Entropay?

You can receive money with a low transaction charge, You can order for a physical credit card which can be used with any ATM (Its too costly).

You can also transfer money from your entropay card to your bank account. Click here for more details.

How To: Close A Paypal Account

2011-08-08T20:07:00.000+05:30

Because of the paypal's recent restrictions for users in India, Many Indian users are getting forced to close their paypal account. In this article, I will show you the simple way to close your paypal account.

How To Close Your Paypal Account?

Closing a paypal account is a simple process. Follow by steps below.

First go to paypal.com and signin to your account.
Then click on profile tab --> See my old profile page.

Then click Close Account which is under the Account Information.

They will ask you for some confirmation, Just confirm it and you will will get a successful account closing message.

An Introduction to Google+

2011-07-13T14:54:00.000+05:30

The tech media has spent the vast majority of the last week focused on Google’s newest product, an ambitious platform called Google+ that the company hopes will break through their dry spell in the social arena and make them competitive.

It’s early days — for many people it’s next to impossible to even get in — but things are looking positive. The app has been met by a largely positive reception and my stream shows no sign of slowing down as users keep posting after the novelty wears off.

Circles

Circles is a foundational feature of Google+, and it’s what makes it so different from other social networks — and bridges the gaps between them. With Circles, you control who you share what information with, making mutual relationships where intimate information can be shared, Facebook-style, a possibility, while still allowing the unidirectional model of Twitter that allows you to follow people you find interesting without them having to follow you back.
The interface for organizing your Circles is pretty cool too, but I don’t think it’s the animations that’s blowing people away.
If I want to make a post that is viewable only by my family members, I can. If I want something to be viewable by the public, that’s possible too. There are no “all or nothing” scenarios here as there are with Facebook. This means Google can perform the roles of both Twitter and Facebook and puts it in a very powerful position.

The Circles interface.

Stream

The stream is where you can view incoming information. It’s much like the Facebook news feed or your Twitter stream, but Circles gives you control over what you’re looking at here — it’s not just for deciding who to share content with.
In the screenshot below I’m viewing content that has been shared by people I know from my role at The Next Web. I can easily jump between Friends, Family, Acquaintances, or the Following Circle that’s like a bucket for interesting people I’ve never met.
As is the de facto standard today, the stream updates in real-time. There are some issues that Google engineers are actively working to fix — old posts tend to float to the top more easily than on other networks.

The Google+ stream is the equivalent of your Facebook news feed.

Sparks

Sparks is billed as one of the main features of Google+ but doesn’t get as much airtime at the moment. That’s because it’s one of the few areas where Google seems to have not invested much effort into creating something truly useful. Sparks are feeds of information based on defined topics, but if you take a look in the screenshot below where I’m looking at the pre-defined Spark called “Films” there’s no curation to the content. The second result has something to do with a sniper shooting a civilian who was filming him in Syria — tragic, but not exactly what I’m thinking of when I want information about recent films.
This feature could be a lot better. It could make discovering and subsequently sharing interesting information a breeze, but not until the results are much better. This would be a perfect place for some sort of integration with Google Reader, where the content has already been curated by both publishers and subscribers.

The Sparks interface.

Hangouts

Hangouts is one of the most impressive parts of Google+. The underlying technology isn’t that incredible — we’ve had Skype video conferencing for years. But Hangouts can handle ten or twenty people at a time without problems, and more importantly, it’s not the technology but the execution that makes this feature impressive. Video calls need to be arranged and specific people need to be called in, but with Hangouts, anyone from selected Circles can drop in and out. It’s an evolving social space like your local bar, not a rigid call structure, and that distinction is important. It makes Hangouts pretty revolutionary.

You're given a chance to fix your hair before you enter a Hangout.

API

No doubt you’re wondering: when’s the API coming? Google says it will be here soon, and if they’re telling the truth they’ll have introduced an API much faster than Facebook did. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of apps come out of Google+ that weren’t possible using other social platforms.
There have been clues that Google+ Games is coming, and rumors that there’s a partnership with social gaming giant Zynga involved. Will Google+ be the next platform for casual game developers to tackle? We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m leaving at the first hint of Farmville spam.
What do you think about Google+?

Facebook To Unveil Skype-Powered Video Chat Next Week

2011-07-02T21:34:00.000+05:30

Facebook’s “awesome” announcement next week has been spoiled. The social network will reportedly be unveiling a Skype-powered video chat platform.Facebook’s Seattle team was behind the new feature, according to TechCrunch. Skype and Facebook already have a serious partnership that integrated Facebook social data directly into the Skype client. Now it looks like Skype will be coming to Facebook.
This isn’t even the first time we’ve heard about Skype-powered video chat on Facebook. Rumors surfaced last year about such a product, but it never materialized.
The report is sparse on details about how it will work. Will it require a software download? Will it support group video chats? Undoubtedly it will be a major addition to the Facebook platform. Google+, the search giant’s answer to Facebook, launched with a group video chat feature, Google+ Hangouts. Google is seeing a lot of traction with the feature, but if Facebook can release a video chat product next week, Google+ Hangouts may not seem as revolutionary.
We’ve reached out to Facebook and Skype for comment.

Update: While Facebook and Skype aren’t saying anything officially, our sources confirm that Skype-powered video chat on Facebook will indeed be launching next week.

What’s New in Opera 11.50

2011-06-29T19:09:00.000+05:30

Speaking as a developer, Opera’s version numbering seems sensible. Unlike Chrome and Firefox's rapid updates or IE’s ridiculously sedate pace, Opera normally release a new browser once or twice a year. The version number is incremented when it’s right to do so.Opera 11.50 is out now and it’s brimming with lovely new features. Come on Opera — as the last bastion of logical updates, it should have been version 12! The most obvious change is the redesigned interface:

The differences are subtle, but 11.5 sports a lighter, sleeker and cleaner look. It’s easier to concentrate on web page content and Opera claim it’s faster. I like it.

Speed Dial Extensions

Perhaps the biggest change is speed dial extensions. Rather than simply providing quick access to favorite sites, extensions can add dynamic information to the Speed Dial page. Essentially, it’s a personal home page or set of desktop widgets on the start-up screen. A few extensions will be available today including Read It Later, Webdoc and StockTwits.
To help you manage your favorites and extensions, a new flow feature provides an unlimited number dials. Sizes are automatically adjusted for your screen or you can specify your own zoom level.

Password Synchronization

Password sync has finally arrived in Opera Link. The browser implements strong security so passwords are encrypted on the client using your Opera account password and a randomly generated key. No password is ever stored or transmitted as plain text, so that should reassure those affected by the recent high-profile security breaches experienced by Sony, Nintendo, the CIA and other organizations.
For more information, see Security of synchronized passwords with Opera Link.

Under the Hood

The developers have fixed thousands of bugs and upgraded the rendering engine. It should result in a 10-15% speed improvement for CSS and SVG rendering.
The browser has always been on the cutting edge of HTML5 and it now supports Session History and Navigation, the W3C File API, classlist and the <time> element.
Finally, if you’re a Dragonfly Fan, you’ll be pleased to hear that version 1.1 will be available shortly (please, please, please can we have CSS line numbers and links!)Opera 11.5 builds on what was already a great browser. If you don’t have it installed, head over to Opera.com and become one of the many thousands featured on their live download counter.
What do you think of Opera 11.5?

Google’s Focus on Quality and the PostRank Acquisition

2011-06-29T19:04:00.000+05:30

Google has stressed the importance of quality content on multiple occasions. In May they published a blog post titled “More guidance on building high-quality websites” where they outlined what counts as high-quality content. Some of the advice:

Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?

Google clearly places value on quality content, but how do you programmatically determine quality content? That might be where PostRank comes in‚ their technology analyzes blog posts for engagement analysis, or how the blog’s audience engages with the content.
Google’s purchase of PostRank gives them the technology to analyze content for audience engagement similar to how their PageRank algorithms analyze websites for link popularity. The technology will be finding its way into several of Google’s products in the near future, such as Analytics and Reader. But PostRank will also likely be used to determine organic search engine ranking.

What does the Google PostRank acquisition mean for you and me?

Google is Going More Social

Google has already been moving in that direction, adding a +1 button for user feedback in search results and by tying all employees bonuses to the company’s success in the social space. It’s clear Google is serious about being a major contender in social. PostRank gives them the ability to measure how people interact with content, essentially giving them a social “quality score” that they can use to judge the content’s quality.

Less Emphasis on Links

PageRank is going to play a lesser role in determining page quality and organic ranking in the coming years. Incoming links are definitely one major factor in the popularity and quality of a web page, but they are too easily manipulated. J.C. Penney and BMW have been in the news for buying links and other “black-hat” strategies to increase PageRank, and they’re just the high-profile examples. Thousands of companies purchase links or setup their own link farms to manipulate PageRank and improve their position on Google.
Social engagement is much more difficult to fake. Shares on Facebook and Twitter (and to a lesser extent comments on blog posts) are not completely anonymous – they require users login details. Google will be able to determine how popular content is with real web users, which is likely a better indicator of quality than backlinks.

More Social Analytics

We should also see more social analytics data show up in Google Analytics and Feedburner products following the integration of the PostRank technology. PostRank’s publisher analytics data shows number of mentions on social platforms such as Twitter, Digg and Delicious as well as who shared the content.
The information is valuable in determining what kind of content is more likely to be shared (or go viral). As social grows and drives more traffic, this will become just as important as determining which content gets searched most frequently, helping us to write content that is more likely to be shared. In turn, writing content that is more likely to be shared will probably influence organic search engine rankings as well.

More Third-Party Integrations

PostRank is already used to determine quality and ranking on a number of prominent online lists, including the AdAge Power 150. Google effectively put a stamp of approval on PostRank’s technology – expect to see more third parties using PostRank to help them evaluate individual content or entire websites.

What Will You Do for a Living when the Web Is Dead?

2011-06-29T19:02:00.000+05:30

My nephew’s wife was frustrated. The “easy-to-use” site-builder software she was using to make the church camp website with was anything but. To make matters worse, their “free” hosting service came with a price—banner ads that randomly appeared on the site. And she found no help on the home front … unlike so many of the nephews out there that have built websites for their uncle’s business, mine was not one of them.
So in desperation, she turned to her Facebook friends to ask if anyone knew of a free and easy-to-use website builder—one without ads. A well-meaning friend replied:

That is so last decade. Why don’t you just make a Facebook fan page? It’s 2011; you gotta catch up with the times!

She even offered to set the page up for her.
Her thinking was reflected in a 2010 WIRED article entitled, The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet. The author makes the point that, the more we access the Internet using our smart phones, iPads, and gaming devices, the less we are using the Web or visiting websites. Is the rise of the app causing the decline the website? Welcome to Web 3.0.
You may or may not agree with the author, but here’s my point: Don’t assume the stuff you sell today will be the same stuff you sell tomorrow. When I quit my web business in early 2006, “social media marketing” was barely a blip on the radar. But if you believe the blogosphere, it’s now the Next Big Thing.
To paraphrase author Michael Gerber, the technical person (read, web designer / developer / SEO expert) looks inward at his skills and asks, “How can I sell this?” But the Entrepreneur looks out at the needs of the market and asks, “How can I fulfill this?” So let me rephrase my question. What will you do for a living when the Web as we know it is dead? What will you do when your skills no longer fit the needs of the market? Will you end up like the thousands of unemployed U.S. steel workers? Or like the ice harvesters of the 19th Century?
The Internet as we know it is going to be forever changed—if Facebook has their way, that is. In case you missed the memo, Facebook and Google are locked in a near-epic struggle over who will ultimately control the Internet and its content.
Another WIRED article describes “Facebook’s 4-Step Plan of Online Domination.” It starts with 200+ million Facebook members contributing billions of pieces of information, photos, and videos, resulting in a virtual “second Internet” … residing entirely on Facebook’s servers.
With all of this data, Facebook hopes it can get its members to access their content on their servers using Facebook search rather than Google. They’ve even made it possible for members to communicate and share with their friends without having to log in to Facebook, by allowing you to ‘like’ content on a network of “partner sites” or apps (adding even more content to Facebook’s servers). And to further their agenda to becoming the gateway people use to access the Internet, they’ve recently introduced Facebook email so people will think, “I’m already on Facebook anyway; I’ll just send Mom a message through Facebook rather than my email” (or Gmail).
Once they’ve accomplished this, they can sell targeted ads everywhere—not just on its own site, but across all of its partner sites and apps. If they’re successful, Google search and Google AdWords will be a thing of the past. If you think that’s too far-fetched, think about what Yahoo once was and what it is today.
Is Google nervous? You bet they are. And here’s why. When you search using Google, all they know about you is your IP address, so all Google can tell that website owner is: “The seven people who visited your website were from Ohio.”
But Facebook can say: “Here are the names of the people that ‘liked’ your content, how old they are, what college they went to, what music they listen to, what books they read, how many children they have, who their other friends are …” It’s a marketer’s dream! Think Google isn’t nervous? Think again.
The face of the Web and the Internet is changing. No-one, not the media, not even the experts of the day, foresaw the Internet coming into existence in its current form. And no one truly knows what it will ultimately become. Don’t assume the stuff you sell today will be the same stuff you sell tomorrow. So I ask again: “What will you do for a living when the Web is dead?”

Are Traditional Search Engines Failing?

2011-06-29T18:59:00.000+05:30

According to interviews with Stefan Weitz, traditional search engines are failing users. Indexing keywords and checking backlink quality is a flawed 12 year-old concept which no longer works on the modern web.
So who is Stefan Weitz? He’s Bing’s director.
The more cynical among you will conclude this is obvious marketing spin, but Weitz raises a few interesting points:

Search engines have difficulty understanding keyword context. When a user enters “jaguars” are they interested in the big cat, the car manufacturer, or the Jacksonville football team?
Search engines are relatively slow to index dynamic real-time data such as tweets or Facebook comments.
Search engines index web pages but people often want the underlying data, e.g. stock prices, flight times, weather reports, etc.

In an attempt to make results more relevant, Bing has integrated Facebook recommendations. If a trusted friend of yours ‘likes’ a specific restaurant, it’s position will be raised when you use an associated search term.

Backlink Breakdowns

Google and Bing analyze backlinks to rate the importance of a page. If someone links to your article, it’s a ‘vote’ for that content. The vote is given more weight if the link originates site which receives many backlinks itself.
The Search Engine Optimization industry attempts to manipulate this metric. Techniques range from link baiting — creating good content which encourages backlinks — to more dubious methods. Most of us have experienced blog spam comments or useless automatically-generated link farm pages in search results.
Google, Bing and other search engines work hard to restrict black hat SEO practices with varying levels of success.

A Social Network Solution?

Microsoft owns a small share of Facebook so it’s not surprising they want to utilize that data. Google has implemented it’s own experimental “+1″ feature which allows users to rate the relevancy of a search result.
While I’m sure it will help some queries, the technologies raise a new set of problems:
Sign-in shenanigans
To receive rated results you must have a Bing account, a Facebook account and be signed into both. This slashes the potential audience — especially when many corporations ban Facebook in the workplace.
Most people are data consumers
The majority of people rarely publish content. Only a small proportion ever click a ‘Like’ button or send a tweet because it takes effort. In most cases, only those who have a strong positive or negative opinion will rate a product or write a short review.
It may be possible to collate some information by analyzing a user’s actions, but assessing their emotional attachment is far more difficult.
People are fickle
Facebook may be the most popular social network today but you would have said the same about MySpace a few years ago. Bing’s data is only as relevant as the users who remain on that system.
Not all content is rateable
While it’s easy to rate a website, page, product or service, how can you assess the quality of the underlying data. You might ‘Like’ a sunny weather report but that doesn’t stop it being wholly inaccurate when snow starts to fall.
Social networks can be manipulated too
Search engine positions are directly related to revenue so it’s only a matter of time before SEO experts discover new ways to exploit the social networks. Any number of psychological or technical tricks can be employed to make people ‘Like’ specific content. It occurs now so you can expect more companies to take advantage of the techniques.
It’s early days for social networking search integration so time will tell whether it improves results. But sorry Mr Weitz, I remain skeptical about any claims it will supersede backlink metrics.
Is traditional search failing? Will the social networks save us? Have you experienced new SEO exploitation practices? Comments welcome…

Browser Trends, June 2011: Chrome 11 Becomes the World’s Second Favorite Browser

2011-06-20T18:58:00.000+05:30

Last month’s browser trends report indicated how well Firefox 4 and IE9 were doing in the month after their release. They’re still growing rapidly, but Google has capitalized on market turmoil caused by browser upgrades. If we look at individual versions, Google Chrome 11 has overtaken Firefox 3.6 to become the second most-used browser with a 16.07% share. IE8 still tops the chart with 29.06%.

Let’s examine the full StatCounter statistics in more detail…

Browser	April	May	change	relative
IE 9.0	2.32%	4.57%	+2.25%	+97.00%
IE 8.0	30.24%	29.06%	-1.18%	-3.90%
IE 7.0	7.82%	6.39%	-1.43%	-18.30%
IE 6.0	4.14%	3.84%	-0.30%	-7.20%
Firefox 4.0+	7.59%	14.23%	+6.64%	+87.50%
Firefox 3.5+	20.90%	13.95%	-6.95%	-33.30%
Firefox 3.1-	1.19%	1.12%	-0.07%	-5.90%
Chrome	18.27%	19.38%	+1.11%	+6.10%
Safari	5.04%	5.01%	-0.03%	-0.60%
Opera	1.90%	1.83%	-0.07%	-3.70%
Others	0.59%	0.62%	+0.03%	+5.10%
IE (all)	44.52%	43.86%	-0.66%	-1.50%
Firefox (all)	29.68%	29.30%	-0.38%	-1.30%

This table shows market share statistics for desktop browsers. The ‘change’ column shows the absolute increase or decrease in market share. The ‘relative’ column indicates the proportional change, i.e. 18% of IE7 users abandoned the browser last month. There are several caveats so I recommend you read How Browser Market Share is Calculated.
There are two primary reasons Chrome 11 has overtaken Firefox 3.6 to hit the Number 2 slot:

Chrome updates itself automatically. The majority of Chrome users have version 11 even though version 10 was the predominant browser last month.
Firefox 3.6 usage has dropped as users migrate to Firefox 4.0.

Firefox 4 has almost doubled within a month so I expect it will overtake Chrome shortly. However, Firefox 5 is due within a few weeks so that could complicate matters for Mozilla.
IE9 usage has doubled too, but a greater proportion of users abandoned IE6, 7 and 8. Two-thirds of Chrome’s growth is caused by users migrating from Microsoft browsers; it should hit 20% by next month.
I have also solved the riddle of last month’s growth in “other” browsers. It was, ahem, a mistake I made in my spreadsheet. Apologies. It didn’t affect other figures, but those not using IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera now total a more realistic 0.6% of the market.

Mobile Browser Usage

The table above does not include mobile browsers. According to StatCounter, desktop browsers account for 94.25% of all web activity. Mobile browser usage is growing sedately and its 5.75% is dominated by:

Opera Mini/Mobile — 21.81%
Android — 17.01%
iPhone — 16.71%
Nokia browser — 16.50%
Blackberry — 12.76%

The mobile market is more varied than most developers realize and testing multiple platforms is difficult. While you may own and test the latest 4G smartphone, remember to consider those with less capable devices.

How Browser Market Share is Calculated

2011-06-20T18:54:00.000+05:30

I post a browser market share report every month or two. I hope you find them interesting or at least revel in the news that IE6 usage is dropping. However, they often result in more questions than they answer. This is my attempt at explaining how browser market share is calculated. It’s a theoretical overview rather than a mathematical thesis and calculation methods will differ from system to system.

What market share isn’t…

Before we discuss what market share is, perhaps it’s best to determine what it’s not:

1. Browser downloads

The number of browser downloads is not a viable method of comparing market share:

All operating systems are provided with a default browser and many users will never consider an alternative.
You could download a browser many times but never install it.
You could download a browser once and install it on hundreds of PCs.
Browsers which implement automatic updates would be disadvantaged.

2. Browser installations
Browser installations are similarly flawed:

You may never use the browser that came with your OS. IE is installed on all Windows PCs but it doesn’t follow that IE has the same 90% market share as Windows itself.
You could install another browser and never use it.
You could install and uninstall the same browser multiple times.

That’s not to say the figures aren’t useful, but they’re not necessarily indicative of market share.

So what is market share?

The first cause of confusion is that market share tables show a percentage of users. In reality, market share is determined from actual browser usage. The figures are probabilities.
Assume browserX has a 50% market share. If you examine a random file hit on a random website, the chance that browserX was used is 1 in 2. It doesn’t matter whether you look at a random hit, visitor session, or an individual user — the same probability will apply.
Since we’re calculating browser usage proportions, the underlying data does not need to record individuals. However, the results retain a direct correlation to users. We could conclude that:

everyone uses browserX 50% of the time, or
more realistically, 50% of users use browserX all the time

The result is somewhere between those two extremes. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter — we’re analyzing the usage patterns of a group.

How market share is calculated

When you visit a website, every file request (hit) is logged and your browser is identified from the user agent string passed in the HTTP header. Essentially, if 50% of hit requests are from browserX during period P, it has a 50% market share at that time.
The reality is a little more complex. File hits can be ambiguous because different browsers can download different resources, e.g. IE conditional stylesheets or pre-caching linked pages. Therefore, systems may only analyze the actual page view or make other adjustments.
The next important consideration is the sample size — how many sites and hits are analyzed. There’s no such thing as an “average” website:

SitePoint.com has a technical audience so Firefox and Chrome usage is higher than others.
the audience’s country has an impact, i.e. Opera is more popular in Europe and Russia than the US
the day and time affect usage patterns. For example, IE use is normally higher during weekday office hours than evenings or weekends.

Statistical anomalies reduce if you analyze a wide range of websites from many different countries. In essence, more data results in more accurate browser usage figures. StatCounter analyzes traffic from 3 million websites throughout the world — that appears to be a healthy sample size.

Ahh, but what if…

There now follows a list of frequently-asked browser market share questions. If I haven’t answered your query, please leave a comment below.
Q: Internet usage is growing.
The number of internet users increases every day. Therefore, it’s possible for a browser’s market share to drop while the actual number of users increases.
Multiply the number of web users by the browser proportion to estimate changes in population … assuming you can find reasonable net usage figures.
Q: Would visitor or user sessions be more accurate than page/file hits?
No. It wouldn’t result in better data because you’re reducing the sample size and introducing unexpected issues. If you only had session data, 3 hours recreational browsing on a single site would equal 30 seconds browsing for a work-related topic. Since many people use IE at work, it would be given an unfair bias over another browser used at home.
Remember we’re analyzing browser usage: it’s not necessary to understand individual user behavior.
Q: I use more than one browser. Am I counted multiple times?
It doesn’t matter. Individuals often have complex browsing patterns, e.g. you may use Firefox 80% of the time and Chrome 20% of the time. That usage is recorded; if you were the only person sampled, Firefox would have an 80% market share.
Q: What about geeks using the net for 18 hours a day?
Market share is a record of browser usage. A heavy user’s browsing carries more weight than someone running IE6 once every month.
However, assuming the sample size is large enough, the effect of an individual or group’s browsing habits is negligible and will not skew the results. For every geek or technophobic, there are thousands of people using the net for an hour or two per day.
Q: My browser uses an incorrect user agent string.
It won’t be identified correctly but, again, you’re in a minority and it’s unlikely affect the results by a significant margin.
Q: How accurate are results for regions or individual countries?
A smaller sample size results in less robust data. I would have more faith in US-only figures than those for Antarctica.
Q: My site’s statistics are different?
They will be. Many factors influence browser usage and few sites can be compared against the global average. Always check your own figures first.
Q: I don’t believe any of these numbers!
A healthy dose of skepticism is good for you. Blindly using a report without understanding the underlying data or analysis is dangerous.
Coming soon — Browser Trends, May 2011.

Google Drops Support for “Old” Browsers in GMail and Apps

2011-06-20T18:47:00.000+05:30

Browser testing is a pain. There’s nothing worse than completing your web masterpiece only to find it breaks in browser X, version Y on OS Z when the user’s eating a tuna sandwich and facing North.
Google suffers the same distress but, within 2 months, they intend to solve the problem. According to their official blog:

Google Apps will only support modern browsers. Beginning August 1st, we’ll support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, we’ll begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version.

Google’s new policy has been determined by development teams who want to make use of modern HTML5 techniques such as file drag-and-drop or desktop integration. Older browsers should remain usable for a while, but certain application features will fail or be disabled. Eventually, an old browser may stop working altogether.
The policy raises a number of interesting questions. Both Google and Mozilla have implemented rapid release schedules and Firefox 5 is due within a few weeks. At that point, Google will abandon Firefox 3.x — a browser which was superseded only a few months ago and still enjoys a sizable 14% market share.
The bigger news is IE10. It could be released before the end of 2011 and, once that happens, Google will drop support for IE8 — the world’s most used browser and the only version of IE which can be installed on Windows XP. According to StatCounter, XP is used by almost 46% of the net population and many corporations are entrenched on the aging operating system. If they’re using Google Apps, they’ll either need to upgrade or migrate to an alternative browser. Either way, that incurs staff retraining or OS purchase costs which could outweigh the savings made by switching to Google’s products.
Given the rapid updates made to Chrome and Firefox, Google’s definition of an “obsolete” browser could be a version that’s been around for little more than 3 months. Few developers test beyond the current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera but, like it or not, IE remains a special case.
It’s a brave move by Google. I admire their reasoning, but I’d be nervous about implementing a similar policy.

Would you?

The BuildMobile Muster

2011-06-20T18:39:00.000+05:30

Rife speculation regarding Apple’s purchase of the iCloud.com domain. The LA Times suggests cloud music to rival Google and Amazon. MG Siegler suggests a much broader cloud media service.
Next week is WWDC week, which will answer the iCloud question. Expect coverage of Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5 and deep Twitter integration, but don’t expect new hardware.
Great stage presence and showmanship, don’t miss Asus’ Padfone Unveiling. Great strides forward with Android, the question is whether this will be Gingerbread or an Ice Cream Sandwich.
Microsoft have been Previewing ‘Windows 8’ and demonstrating at the D9 conference. The interesting aspects are the claims it will work on small screens and large, with touch and without.
Chris Clark spends a Nexus S Month. Chris is smart, concedes his iOS preferences upfront, stays honest and has some good notes on Android. He also works for Square.
The legendary Joe Hewitt released Scrollability that ‘gives your mobile web apps a pretty darn good approximation of native scrolling’. Check out the script and examples at GitHub.
HTML5 & CSS3 ‘For the Real World’ is awesome, and it is out in the wild. You can ask for a free sample chapter, courtesy of SitePoint.
Russ Weakley and Nick Randolph rocked REMIX11 this week. Russ’ CSS3 slides are on SlideShare and Nick’s Windows Phone Developer Workshops are, like us, to be continued.

Time to Raise Your Rates.

2011-06-20T18:08:00.001+05:30

When It’s Time to Raise Your Rate

Ultimately, you will have to determine when it’s time to raise your prices. There are lots of factors to consider such as inflation, rising cost of expenses and labor, competitors’ pricing, and more. You also have to account for your increased experience and skill set.
Another important factor to consider is capacity. Supply and demand applies to services just as it does to products. If you currently have more work than you can handle, increasing your pricing can help. The natural result of increasing your pricing is that you will have fewer clients (though I’ve not always found this to be the case). You can make the same, or even more, revenue while freeing up some time. Or you can use the extra revenues to add staff and finance your continued growth.

How to Raise Your Rate

Some providers choose to keep current clients on their old rate, while charging new clients the updated and higher hourly rate or pricing structure. You may have a feeling of loyalty to your current clients, which is natural. However, every company must raise its prices it’s just part of doing business. Don’t feel bad about raising the rate of your current clients, just do it the right way.

Give Ample Notice.

Don’t raise the rates on your clients without letting them know. Give at least a month’s notice, but preferably two or three months notice. Send them a letter in writing notifying them of the new rate or pricing.

Don’t apologize.

You have nothing to apologize for, does your attorney or accountant apologize for raising their prices? Simply state the new rates and when they go into effect.

Honor Any Agreements.

If you currently have any contracts open, you should of course honor the pricing agreements you have already signed. Once they have been fulfilled, your new pricing should go into effect.

Plan for Regular Rate Increases

Inflation is a fact of life. To keep up with inflation, and your growing skill set and experience, you should plan for regular rate increases over time. They don’t have to be annually, but that is certainly an easy interval.
Having smaller, regular price increases over time is the best way to stay profitable. If you increase prices by ten percent every year for five years, your rate could increase from $75/hour to $120/hour over time. What would you rather see as a client – a one time increase from $75/hour to $120/hour or an annual increase from $75/hour to $83/hour? Not to mention, regular price increases will bring in more revenue over time than more seldom increases. Don’t wait until your higher expenses force you to raise your rates, do it proactively.

Create Client Agreements

Hopefully you have signed contracts for all your project work ‚ we’ve talked about that a lot in the Tribune and on the SitePoint Forums. Signed contracts are imperative for any projects you work on, but what happens after the project is over? Do you have an agreement that covers all the hourly work you do for your clients?
If you are like us, you have a substantial amount of billable work that isn’t covered by a specific project (or contract). I strongly recommend creating client agreements that outline transfer of intellectual property, hourly rates, turnaround times, rush fees, and payment terms. They can have many of the same clauses as a contract for a specific contract, but should be worded so that they cover your entire client relationship (or anything not covered in a specific contract).

6 Tools for Testing Mobile Web Designs

2011-06-19T17:21:00.000+05:30

One of the most important processes when designing for the web is testing. We’re all aware that one of the challenges of web design is ensuring the site looks good in multiple browsers. As the mobile web becomes more and more important, you’ll also want to know how your existing site or widget looks on a mobile device, but there are so many devices, how do we test them all?
As the number of people using mobile devices increases, so too does the pressure to ensure that our websites look good and are legible on a mobile device. The ideal, and unrealistic situation, would be to test on real handsets, but obviously this would be impossible for most designers. Fortunately, there are number of tools available online, allowing you to put your site through its mobile paces.
Device Anywhere is a commercial operation, allowing customers to sign up and test “Any Device. Any Network. Anywhere.” There are a range of subscription plans but you can sign up for a free trial.

MobiReady is tests mobile-readiness using industry best practices and standards. After testing you receive a free report outlining how well your site performs.

Opera Mini is a live demo of the Opera Mini browser that functions like it would when installed on a handset.

W3C Mobile OK Checker performs a range of tests on a web page to determine its level of mobile-friendliness. The short report produced will tell you where you’re going wrong.

dotMobi Emulator emulates a real mobile phone web browser. It’s a bit limited as you can only choose from two different phones you like as a skin.

iPhoney, as you could imagine, is specific to iPhone testing. It’s a downloadable application that is precise to the pixel, so useful for the designer working on iPhone apps.

There are other simulators and emulators available, particularly if you’re willing to pay, but this set will give you a fairly easy method of testing designs for free. Have you used these or any other tools to check your designs?

Alternative Mobile Interfaces: How to Set Up SMS and Voice Menus

2011-06-19T17:08:00.000+05:30

Now that mobile devices out number personal computers, it is imperative that we take into consideration all of the functionality that these devices give us. There has been plenty of talk about “mobile websites” and sites for “small screen devices”. Whatever you call this new breed of ubiquitous, always-on, always-connected tiny computing devices, we shouldn’t overlook some of their greatest assets.
Throughout media history, as we read a new paradigm, we tend to look back at the previous both for inspiration and guidance. When television began, it aped radio. People sat around a table and discussed topics. The only different between the radio and television is that you could see the people as well. As time progressed, people realised that the TV was a new medium unto itself. We saw similar attempts when the Web first became possible too. Service providers offered “channels” for entertainment. The Web was trying to be like television. We soon realised that the Web was different and had so many more possibilities.
We are now transitioning from the large desktop and laptop computers to small “smart” phones and “dumb” internet connected objects. So, like all media transitions, we look at the previous and try to apply the same thought processes. Accessing information on your phone is very different from accessing via your computer terminal. There are various reasons why this is, from screen size and resolution, to processing power, user-input (T9, soft/hard keyboards, touch, voice, sight, etc.), to situational characteristics. Are you using your device during a commute or on your couch at home or both?
As we mitigate issues with our current Web experience to account for much of these new paradigms in which people find themselves accessing this information, we tend to overlook some of the key benefits that phones and other mobile devices have over existing computer experiences.
This article isn’t about how to make a “mobile website”. Is it better to use media queries, to target specific devices, to run several front-end templates for different browser and device types, or even have separate sites? These are overlooking the more obvious question of whether the Web is the right medium in the first place.
This blog is all about building for mobile. Phones are first and foremost designed to make calls. Phones also have the quirky ability to handle asynchronous push messages called SMS. As designers and developers, we tend to jump straight into what we know best, the Web, but taking a few moments to stop and think about the alternatives could prove to be even more valuable to your customers.

Short Messaging Service

SMS messages are great ways to interact with customers. No matter what “social media experts” expound about the virtues of the social graph, boring old email mailing lists still generate incredible amounts of traffic, sales and return on investment. SMS messages can also fill this niche on phones. With the ability to push a message out to your customers, periodically or interactively, it is a tool to get the word out in a direct and personal manner. Many services exist to allow customers to send a message to a short-code, a 5 digit number, with some keywords and instantly get an automated reply. This is useful when requesting travel information, events for venues or other data. You simply text a keyword, possibly a bus-stop number, and you get how long until the next bus arrives. Maybe you text a venue name and see who is playing that night, or a post-code and get the next 5 days weather forecast.
Since these messages are asynchronous, the order doesn’t matter when they are sent. Each is time-stamped and will be accepted when the network can deliver it. For television voting, you could call a number, but the lines might be busy. With SMS, you send off the message and it gets delivered at a later date with a time stamp. This is important because it can handle large spikes. In emergency situations, such as tsunamis or earthquakes SMS broadcasts can be life savers. Inversely, services like Ushahidi can accept SMS messages and track the information.
SMS communications is an excellent way to accomplish out-of-band communications. If you forget your password, rather than emailing it to you, a temporary code can be sent. This allows for one more layer of authentication beyond just a name and password.
There are plenty of services out there that allow you to send and receive SMS messages for processing. I’ll be discussing an example of a service called Tropo in the next section.

Voice Menus

Have you ever called your bank or another company and gotten that dreadful voice menu system? You know, the one that asks you “Press 1 for a service representative, press 2 to query about your account, press 3 for lost cards…”. They can be a real pain. They are cold, monotone, boring and usually unresponsive to your actual needs. Let’s not blame implementation issues for ruining the whole concept of voice menus. Used correctly, they can offer an excellent way for your customers to quickly get information via a medium they are familiar with. Just because phones are now outselling personal computers, it doesn’t mean that every phone has the newest version of WebKit on a 3G network! Plenty of people still use non-smart phones on a daily basis. What percentage of those people are your potential customers that you are missing?
Building a voice menu system seems like something that costs a fortune and only enterprise level companies are capable of doing. If that’s what you thought, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Today, companies like Tropo and Twilio allow you to create amazingly complex telephony applications with only a few lines of your favourite programming languages.
To see just how easy it is, lets create a few quick applications right now.

Step 1

I am going to walk you through using the Tropo.com service, so you need to sign-up for an account. The entire service is free. You only pay to guarantee a quality of service. So as a developer, you can test as long as you like for free, but if you put this into production, you’ll need to pay a few dollars a month for volume. Either way, it is still much cheaper than trying to develop this yourself in house.

Tropo Step 1

Step 2

We need to create a new application. This is where we attach code, phone numbers and other metadata. Choose to create a Scripting app rather than WebAPI. For the Application Name, you can use BuildMobileExample. You then want to choose hosted file, this just means that the code will sit on their server. In the future, you could run it on your web server so you can access your own databases and other resources. For now, we’ll keep it simple and use their hosting. Give this file a name, something like BuildMobileExample.php and create the file. You can choose from a variety of languages, including JavaScript. In this example, I’m using PHP, but it is easy to translate into anything else. Create the Application.

Tropo Step 2

Step 3

Let’s edit the hosted file you just created. Click on the “Your Hosted Files” tab at the top then click Edit next to the file we just created. You should now see a pop-up box that is empty. Let’s fill that in with some simple code saying:

<?php
say("Hello World");
?>

Step 3

Save this with “Update File” and go back to the “Your Applications” tab. Under the BuildMobleExample application, you should see the Skype Voice number assigned to your application. You can also add additional phone numbers in a country near you. Skype numbers are free to call, so this is a good way to test.
When you call your new number, you should hear a computer voice say “Hello World” back to you. Tada, you have now created your first voice application. That wasn’t very hard! Let’s now edit that file and do something more useful.

Step 4

Asking a question! Using voice, you can accept menu commands and interact with your customers over the phone. It must be said, that we are all used to really bad experiences. If you are planning on adopting voice menus, you should really do your homework. Understand why cash machines choose depth versus breadth in their menus. How many choices is too many? Is there a way to go back? It isn’t easy, but done well it can be a valuable resource.
Using Tropo, if you want to ask a question, you simply add the ask() function. It takes two parameters, a string the system will read and an array of attributes. In this example, I am going to ask a simple diner menu choice. Would you like, beef, chicken or vegetables? The array has an attribute called “choices”, which is a comma separated list of potential answers. I also set a timeout and a few additional parameters to handle bad choices, time out issues and correct answers. Each of these functions is further defined to do some next step. In this case, after a customer makes a choice, it simply replies with a say() about how wonderful the choice is.

<?php
say("Hello World");
ask("What do you like better, beef, chicken or vegetables?", array(
choices =>"beef, chicken, vegetables",
timeout=>5.0,
onTimeout=>"onTimeout",
onBadChoice=>"onBadChoice",
bargein=>false,
onChoice=>"onChoice"
));
function onChoice($event) {
say("That's crazy, me too!");
}
function onBadChoice($event) {
say("Sorry, I did not understand that!");
}
function onTimeout($event) {
say("I know it's a hard choice, just call me back when you've figured it out!");
}
?>

At this point, you should have a high level understanding of how to give commands and accept input via the phone using Tropo. Now you can go on to build much more complex voice menu systems to handle requests specific to your services.
Tropo has plenty of documentation about their API and scripts. You can read a lot more, and learn about how to play MP3s back over the phone as well as send and receive SMS messages.
Debugging audio menus can be very difficult. If you make mistakes, the phone just won’t ring. It has plenty of room for improvement, but don’t get too worried if you call and it says “invalid phone number”. That’s the phone’s way of saying “syntax error”.

Conclusion

Having a mobile interface via voice or SMS allows for you to augment museums, venues, transportation and cities with an additional layer of optional information via a device that already exists in most people’s pockets. Imagine a voice system where you could ring-up and ask for a list of amenities or give two street corners and the database will respond with appropriate information. Not through some shiny app that requires several different build platforms or permission from vendors, nor is it some HTML5 geo-locating webpage only available on the top 1% of smart phones. It is a system that could be easily deployed world-wide in any city, town or village that has a cell tower within range.
Building for mobile doesn’t only mean Web Standards, Android or iOS. There is a whole world of audio and SMS communications which is open to you. These features of a phone are incredibly robust, mature and exist on more phones than have web browsers. So the next time you think about opening your company and services up to customers via phones, consider not simply repackaging an existing medium, but focus on the devices’ strengths as a unique opportunity.

Geolocation in the Browser

2011-06-19T17:03:00.000+05:30

Geolocation is undoubtably one of the most useful features of smartphones, and much attention has given to native apps that take advantage of it. Less appreciated is the fact that it’s now feasible to build web apps and sites with geolocation capabilities. The W3C Geolocation API Specification proposes a standard for accessing location services in the browser via Javascript. The spec is recent but is already widely supported by modern browsers. Now is the ideal time to consider how a location aware mobile site could benefit your users.

Current browser support for the W3C Geolocation API

iPhone 3.0 +
Android 2.0 +
Firefox 3.5
Safari 5.0
Chrome 5.0
Internet Explorer 9.0+

How the Browser Finds You

There are a number of methods employed in geolocation. Your browser may simply lookup your IP address, or ask Google for the location a nearby wifi hotspot. A desktop browser, with no access to GPS, will resort to one of these methods and they are not particularly accurate. Chrome misses my current location by about 15km, but it’s good enough to tell I’m in Melbourne, Australia.
Your phone has access to better information. It can access the position of the cell towers it’s talking to and take a reasonable stab at your actual location. Last but not least, the phone will activate its GPS hardware which can pin you down to within a few meters. The GPS chip draws significant power from a phones battery, so be considerate: if this level of accuracy isn’t necessary, don’t use it.
As with native apps, permission for the browser to use your location is always opt-in. Users will be receive a request to access their location, and can reset permissions at any time via their browser settings. The challenge is ensure users trust you to use their location responsibly, and for your site to offer value with—or without—access to the location data.

The Code

If geolocation is supported, a global navigator.geolocation object will be available:

if ( navigator.geolocation )
{
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(handlePosition);
}

getCurrentPosition will request location from the browser and pass a position object to the specified callback:

function handlePosition(pos)
{
alert("Your location is: " + pos.coords.latitude + ', ' + pos.coords.longitude);
}

Try it:

The position object should have the following properties:

coords.latitude in degrees.
coords.longitude in degrees.
coords.accuracy approximate, in meters.
coords.heading degrees from north (0…360).
coords.speed in meters per second.
coords.altitude in meters above sea level (approximate – I wouldn’t rely on it!).
coords.altitudeAccuracy in meters.
timestamp a DOMTimeStamp object.

There’s a good chance many of these will be null, you can only rely on coords.latitude and coords.longitude.
There are also a number of reasons getCurrentPosition may fail: location data may simply be unavailable, or the user may have denied access. A second callback can be specified to handle errors:

if ( navigator.geolocation )
{
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(handlePosition, handleError);
}
function handleError(error)
{
switch (error.code)
{
case error.PERMISSION_DENIED:
// User denied access to location. Perhaps redirect to alternate content?
alert('Permission was denied');
break;
case error.POSITION_UNAVAILABLE:
alert('Position is currently unavailable.');
break;
case error.PERMISSION_DENIED_TIMEOUT:
alert('User took to long to grant/deny permission.');
break;
case error.UNKNOWN_ERROR:
alert('An unknown error occurred.')
break;
}
}

Your web app should handle all cases gracefully. If a user declines to share their location, consider offering alternative content or features that do not rely on geolocation. Further consideration can be given to your users with options passed to getCurrentPosition:

options = {
enableHighAccuracy: false,
timeout: 30000, // milliseconds (30 seconds)
maximumAge: 600000 // milliseconds (10 minutes)
}
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(handlePosition, handleError, options);

enableHighAccuracy is essentially a hint that you want GPS data (rather than less accurate methods such a cell tower triangulation). As mentioned above, GPS drains the phone battery and isn’t always required – set this to false if you only need a general area.
timeout specifies how long you’re willing to wait for location results.
maximumAge tells the browser you’re willing to accept a result from within, for example, the last 10 minutes. If the phone has done a location lookup in that time (possibly for another site/app) it will return a cached result. Again, this is a way of being kind to the phone’s battery life.
What if you need up-to-the-minute location data that updates when the user moves? You can use watchPosition:

if ( navigator.geolocation )
{
navigator.geolocation.watchPosition(handlePosition, handleError, {
enabledHighAccuracy: true,
maximumAge: 60000
});
}
function handlePosition(pos)
{
console.log("Heading: " + pos.coords.heading);
console.log("Speed: " + pos.coords.speed);
}

In most instances this level of accuracy won’t be required. With valid privacy concerns around the use of location data, it’s important to only access information your need and use it responsibly. Some simple guidelines:

Consider the value you’re providing to your users in return for their location – don’t simply collect data for the sake of it!
Be kind to phone batteries – use enableHighAccuracy: false if you only need a broad location.
If you store location data, make this clear through on your website (and in your site’s terms & conditions).

Google Maps

Now we’ve covered the basics of geolocation let’s see how it fits in with Google maps. Maps support can be added to your web app with:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=true"></script>

The sensor parameter indicates whether you are using a sensor – i.e. GPS – to detect location. For mobile applications this should be set to true. We can further tailor our map with some user agent detection – this snippet will give Android and iPhone users a full screen map:

function detectBrowser()
{
var userAgent = navigator.userAgent;
var mapDiv = document.getElementById("map");
if (userAgent.indexOf('iPhone') != -1 || userAgent.indexOf('Android') != -1 )
{
mapDiv.style.width = '100%';
mapDiv.style.height = '100%';
}
else
{
mapDiv.style.width = '600px';
mapDiv.style.height = '800px';
}
}

iPhones also pay attention the <meta name="viewport"> tag. This disables zooming the page so that pinch-to-zoom will be applied only to the map.

<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" />

Now to setup the map itself:

var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map"), {
zoom: 10,
mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP
});

That’s all there is to it. See the Google Maps Developers Guide for the full set of map configuration options. We can now update our handlePosition function to use the map:

function handlePosition(pos)
{
// Google maps use a different location object (LatLng) which we can convert to easily:
latlng = new google.maps.LatLng(pos.coords.latitude, pos.coords.longitude);
// Center the map on the current location.
map.setCenter(latlng);
// Drop a marker on the current location
marker = new google.maps.Marker
({
map: map,
draggable: false,
animation: google.maps.Animation.DROP,
position: latlng
});
}

What’s New in Google Chrome 12

2011-06-19T15:58:00.000+05:30

Chrome 12 was released last week. You didn’t notice? Few people did. I hadn’t intended writing this article but a few people on Twitter convinced me otherwise (thanks @Mahen23). To start, let’s take a look at the usual list of improvements:

hardware-accelerated 3D CSS
the ability to analyze and delete Flash cookies within Chrome
a new safe browsing feature which protects against malicious file downloads
improved synchronization of browser settings
better screen reader support
new PDF save and print buttons
launch installed apps from the Omni-bar
14 security holes plugged.

Chrome 12 also marks the end of an era: Gears has gone. Google Gears was launched in 2007 but development was abandoned a year later. The plug-in provided local data storage, JavaScript threading, desktop integration and geo-location but these have been superseded by standard HTML5 technologies.

Built-in JavaScript De-obfuscation

Merging and minifying JavaScript files has several benefits:

Files, sizes and download times are reduced.
Code processing speed can be improved.
It hides your cutting-edge scripts from prying eyes.

Unfortunately, a minified script is impossible to debug. The code is an indecipherable mess contained on few lines which cannot have breakpoints set. Here’s an example from Google Analytics:

Nasty. However, a quick right-click option will de-obfuscate the script into lovely readable source code:

Built-in de-obfuscation is incredibly useful, although there are a couple of hitches:

JavaScript minifiers often replace long function and variable names with shorter alternatives, e.g. MyLongFunctionName() becomes A(). De-obfuscation can never bring back the original names although you should be able to recognize patterns within your own code.
Setting breakpoints on de-obfuscated code is more limited. Functions run in response to an event or timer can be analyzed. However, it’s not possible to break at code run when the page is loaded since the script has not been de-obfuscated at that point. Let’s hope the Chrome team address the issue in a future version.

For me, this is the most exciting development in Chrome. It may tempt you away from Firebug or Dragonfly when testing live code.
Have you discovered any great new features in Chrome 12?

How To Make Money With AdSense

2011-06-19T15:40:00.003+05:30

"How to make money with AdSense" is one of the most popular topics in Internet marketing forums and the subject of many books and special reports. Its popularity isn't surprising given the extensive coverage of AdSense in mainstream newspapers and magazines as well as the program's importance in driving Google's every-growing advertising revenues. Website and blog owners can't help but perceive Google AdSense to be an easy way to make money online.
While it's true that adding AdSense a web page is trivial -- all you do is paste some JavaScript code that Google generates for you -- learning how to make money with AdSense -- especially how to really make money -- is decidedly non-trivial. Like anything, it takes time and effort. There are no overnight successes with AdSense.
The key is to know what to work on. Four factors come into play:

Traffic. By far the most important factor is how much traffic you can drive to your pages. After all, you only make money when visitors click (or in some cases view) the ads shown on your pages. If no one's visiting your site, you won't make any money. If you want to make more money with AdSense, you need more traffic. (That traffic should be targeted, too, otherwise smart pricing will kick in and reduce your earnings.)
Niche. The niche you're targeting also has a huge effect on your AdSense earnings. You need to target niches where advertisers are actively seeking customers: if there are no advertisers, you won't make any money. The simplest test you can do is to search Google for related keywords and see how many ads appear in the "Sponsored Links" section on the right-hand side of the results page. If there are few or no ads, that's a sign that the market's not a big one and probably isn't a great choice for monetization via AdSense. (But you may be able to monetize it in other ways.)
Content. AdSense is all about content. It's not about search results. It's not about random collections of scraped data. There's a reason why AdSense users are called publishers: it's because they publish content. You need great content on your pages, written for humans and not search engines. Content is what's going to keep visitors on your site, looking for the information they need. The longer they stay, the more chance they'll click an ad.
Optimization. Many AdSense publishers spend too much time trying to optimize their pages when they should be spending their time on getting more traffic and writing more content. Luckily, many AdSense optimization techniques do double duty as search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Concentrate on the basics, like:
- Blending ads by removing borders and matching colors.
- Positioning the ads in the "hot spots" of a page.
- Choosing the right ad formats.
- Tracking performance with channels.
These and a few other techniques can make a dramatic difference in your earnings -- but only if you have enough traffic.

Note that even a poorly-optimized AdSense site can make its publisher a lot of money if draws a lot of traffic with quality content in a competitive niche. Don't place too much emphasis on AdSense optimization.
There are no secrets to earning money with AdSense. You just need to learn the right things. Take the time and effort to learn how to:

Drive traffic to your pages.
Find and exploit profitable niches.
Create valuable content.
Optimize pages for AdSense and SEO.

Master these skills and you'll know exactly how to make money with AdSense!

The Best Sources For AdSense Traffic

2011-06-19T15:38:00.001+05:30

The secret of AdSense success is AdSense traffic. Traffic containing visitors primed for your website topic, ready to deliver the all important click. Nothing is more valuable to an AdSense publisher than extremely receptive visitors... more specifically AdSense traffic.
Traffic numbers are important, but you could potentially have hundreds of impressions per day and only get a few clicks on your AdSense ads. Whereas others may have a relatively low number of visitors going through their site but have a significantly higher click-through-rate (CTR).
How can you get higher CTR's? How can you get AdSense traffic passing through your site?
There are many factors that can determine the 'quality' of traffic you get. For example, bought traffic (which you are not allowed to use if you use AdSense on your site) is extremely poor quality. Some publishers in utter desperation risk the wrath of Google and buy traffic in order to boost their AdSense earnings. This type of traffic can boost the number of impressions you have but because the source of traffic is artificial, the source has no interest whatsoever on the website topic or your AdSense ads.
AdSense traffic from social bookmarking sites also tends to be of moderate to poor quality for AdSense users. Visitors coming from these sites generally make poor ad clickers due to the fact that users from social bookmarking sites like Digg often arrive at a website looking for specific types of information. They are focused, savvy and very blind to AdSense ads.
Basically the source of traffic coming to your site is important. The best types of AdSense traffic are those coming from a source that helps them seek out your website. These are primarily visitors that discovered your site through the use if a search engine. If your AdSense website is found through a search query, the visitor will be primed for your website and your ads. If your website is well optimized with well researched keywords and contains good AdSense ads it is very likely that you will get very respectable CTR's.
Of course the AdSense topic has a major impact on CTR's. You are more likely to get a click from individuals looking for 'flights to London' than those seeking out information about 'how to format a hard drive'. But no matter what the topic is, you are more likely to get better CTR's if your traffic is coming primarily from search engine traffic.
However, AdSense traffic coming from search engines can even be more primed and focused for your site and ads. By using well researched keywords in your website, you can get your site appearing on very specific web searches (especially those using long-tail keywords). Visitors seeking very specific information often respond positively to correspondingly specific ads that appear on your sites.
The secret to AdSense traffic is the source of the visitors passing through your site. Only through good search engine optimization and keyword research, can you get quality AdSense traffic passing through your site via search engines.

Can You Choose Your AdSense Ads?

2011-06-19T15:37:00.000+05:30

AdSense delivers great click-throughs and high revenues for one reason: the ads are targeted to what the user wants. Google's robot picks out keywords on your page, gets a grip on what your website is about and delivers links that take users to sites that interest them.
That's great news... up to a point. As much as you want your users to click on ads that look interesting, you might not want to trust to a robot to pick those ads - and you might prefer to have ads on your page that pay the highest amount possible for each click.
But you don't get the choice. You can do lots of things to improve your AdSense revenue, from selecting the layout of your ad unit to choosing the color and size of the font, but one thing you can't do is slip into Google's database and choose the ads. If you could do that, no one would ever choose the low-paying ads.
That doesn't mean you can't do anything at all though. The fact is, some smart publishers have been noticing all sorts of interesting results after playing with their HTML code and changing some of the text on their Web page. And some of those results have been very surprising indeed.
For example, some publishers have found that placing keywords in certain positions on the page can have an immediate effect on the ads served. The owner of a site about recreation vehicles then would be able to do a little research online to find the highest paying keywords in his area and then - if he knew where those hotspots were - he could place those keywords in the right areas on the page. In addition to the usual ads about camper vans and RV's that his site would receive, the publisher could be certain that at least one of the ads was the highest paying possible. That's the sort of knowledge that's worth money in your pocket.
Why some areas of a Web page should be more important than others is a mystery well kept by Google's programmers. But some of Google's ad secrets are leaking out - and they're being snapped up by smart publishers who understand that knowledge and strategy are the key to massive AdSense revenues.

Make Money With AdSense

2011-06-19T15:34:00.001+05:30

I know many of you want to make money with AdSense. And I also know that many of you have been making miserable money out of AdSense, even though you have reasonable amount of traffic to your site. Each day your AdSense is merely earning you "pennies and dimes", so to speak.
Here is one very important tip for those who want to make money with Google AdSense. Select your niches wisely.
Your content is excellent, the website is well designed and the ads are positioned in spots that are known to convert well, yet the amount per click is disappointingly low, right?
So, what is the problem? Simple. You are targeting the wrong market. You see the price per click of AdSense varies. Some advertisers pay a lot of money in some niches, whereas in some other niches, you can only get one cent per click. So it's very important to know what kind of money is spent on any given niche before you decide to target it.
For instance, the student loan niche is known to be an extremely high paying niche. So are niches like the credit card, weigh loss and debt consolidation. They are all high paying niches as well. Find out which are the high paying niches.
That is the reason why you need to pick your niche correctly if you want to make money with AdSense. Choosing the right niche can make a vast difference in your earnings.
So, how do you know which are high paying niches? Use the free PPC analysis tool SPYFU. It can provide estimates on what people are currently paying per click for keywords and phrases. It doesn't tell you how much you'll be getting per click on your adverts per se. But it provides you the estimates of cost per click paid by advertisers. Or you can use Google AdWords Keyword Tool to find out the estimated average cost per click.
The next time before you start a site to make money with Google AdSense, do your homework. Look for only profitable niches and you are on the way to riches!

Capitalizing On AdSense Pay Per Click Ads

2011-06-19T15:26:00.001+05:30

Making the most out of AdSense pay per click ads can be a little tricky. In most cases, site owners can't recommend that visitors click on the ads and buy the products. If they do so, they can run the risk of losing those ads. But, they can build up content that's relevant and appealing enough to help entice visitors to look at the ads and they can even do their part to help make those AdSense pay per click ads look pretty intriguing on their sites, too.
To help out those who are new to AdSense, here's a little primer on the program and some suggestions for making AdSense pay per click ads pay off.
AdSense is a web-based advertising program offered by Google. It places ads directly on others' web sites, enabling them to earn money from the traffic their sites naturally generate. Many of the ads offered are AdSense pay per click ads. The AdSense pay per click ads work by giving site publishers money for each person who visits their site and clicks through on an ad. Some ads can really pay off with big dividends, too, so it's always beneficial to capitalize and try to make the most out of those AdSense pay per click ads. Here's how:
·Make sure AdSense pay per click ads look good on a site. Try to make them look like they belong there. It's okay to draw attention to the AdSense pay per click ads by using borders and boxes, but make the fonts and colors blend in with the site so they look and feel a part of it.
·Try out different types of AdSense pay per click ads. The options in AdSense pay per click ads include banners, skyscrapers, text ads and even video ads. Try a variety of these AdSense pay per click ads to see which combinations works the best.
·Give the ads good placement. AdSense pay per click ads will not pay off if visitors don't see them. This means it's important not to bury AdSense pay per click ads on the bottom of pages or out of readers' sight.
·Make content relevant. The more relevant content is to the AdSense pay per click ads, the more likely a conversion is to happen.
·Increase overall traffic. Making money off AdSense pay per click ads often is a numbers game. The more overall traffic, the more likely it is for AdSense pay per click ads to pay off.
AdSense pay per click ads can create a pretty serious revenue stream for just about any web site. Turning natural traffic into paying traffic, the key in making AdSense pay per click ads work is making them appealing enough for visitors to actually click through.

Google AdSense Payment Method

2011-06-19T15:24:00.000+05:30

Reading through the information on Google's AdSense website will help you to avoid mistakes that may get you rejected. Google benefits by more people using AdSense, so offering it for free was the best thing they could do. Makes sense - a visitor is about to leave, and has one of two choices:
(a) visit another page on the site, or
(b) click on a high "paying" Google AdSense ad, prior to leaving the site Serving them with a wide-choice of AdSense ads in the format which is statistically proven to have the best CTR, is an obvious choice.
I would definitely like to know which the best formats are, and if I am doing anything wrong in my AdSense account settings, I definitely will want to plug the holes there. "Watch out, it could be the next most prominent event since Google AdSense," writes UK marketing consultant Julie Vernon in her article "What is Pixel Promotion All About. Regular monitoring of traffic log and your AdSense reports: Monitor your AdSense reports and your traffic logs regularly (at least once a day). How does the person make money-using AdSense?
To stay in accordance with the new quality score guidelines, you may want to remove all AdSense ads from your landing pages, create or find more original content for your sites, ensure that your landing page has at least 500 words, and check to make sure that your ad relates perfectly with the content of your landing page. And you can do this barter trade on an ongoing basis so that you always have a constant supply of valuable AdSense keywords which you can use at your site or blog as one of the ways to make more money from AdSense. o Another no cost benefit that AdSense offers is the use of their Google search box technology. To increase AdSense revenue you will have to distribute ozone articles and press releases.
Now you can Generate Incredible AdSense Income and Drive Massive Traffic to your website and/or offer, writing articles and submitting them to 1000's. AdSense will automatically generate ads related to your topic and advertise these on your site. There are plenty of ways to make money from a website like this, and if you search the other articles here about Google AdSense or Yahoo YPN you can learn how this works. Content Properties Despite the recent measures taken by search engines to diminish the effect of keyword stuffing, this technique is still used by some Sees who generate pages filled with meaningless keywords to promote their AdSense pages visit AdSense-income-exposed.com.
Speculation Galore Smart Pricing has triggered a HUGE amount of speculation on the part of AdSense publishers. AdSense, Bloats and a host of other advertising options are available for loggers to choose from. AdSense Composition Techniques Explode visit guardAdSense.com and Your Earnings You get into some real details on this video - fonts, colors, text sizes, borders, headlines.

Google AdSense Tips - 3 Closely Guarded Secrets How Rocket Your AdSense Earnings

2011-06-19T15:22:00.000+05:30

Google AdSense is a great way make money online and provide you with a very good monthly income but there are of course many things that you need to know in order to be able to build a successful AdSense site which continues to make you money even as you sleep by using the power of the internet.
By following these 3 simple tips you will increase your AdSense earnings and make much more money from your affiliate site by implementing some very simple but very effective changes to your site.

Tip 1 - Make sure you use the default Google blue palette colour

When you set up your AdSense blocks or units you need to make sure use the Google default blue colour but only for your titles of your ads. Also you need to choose the light grey colour for your text and URL. It does not matter what theme, colour background, or layout you use for your AdSense site, using this set up will increase your clicks and revenue for your site.

Tip 2 - Make sure you use a friendly AdSense theme

When you build your AdSense site you need to always use a theme which is going to compliment your ads by that you need a theme that is clutter free, fairly basic but still tidy, a theme which has a sidebar, and you need to be able to customize many different aspects of your sites structure. An excellent option is semi logic or semi loaded themes, they have great options and are a perfect choice for building affiliate sites with.

Tip 3 - Always only create content around keywords with a good CPC

When you build your AdSense site you dont just want to rush off and build an AdSense site around the first product or keyword that you think will make you money. You need to check each keyword for the CPC or cost per click to see how much advertisers are spending for there ads. You only want to create content around keywords which get a good CPC, good being around at least $1 per click as an average. Any lower and you will need a lot more traffic to make any reasonable income from your AdSense site.
These are just 3 powerful tips which you can use starting today but there are many more other great ways how you can explode your sites income and if you would like to find out what they are you can get access to some free videos below.