Earlier today CrunchGear reported on a new form of Twitter span that was taking the service by storm.

What was happening was that a spam bot appears to be putting out thousands of tweets for a service that allows people to watch movies free, including Harry Potter, Ice Age 3 and the new Transformers movie. The problem being that, not only would such a service almost certainly be illegal, it doesn’t actually exist and the URLs just forwarded to what author John Biggs described as “essentially a phishing scam that eventually dumps out out into an opt-in survey scam.”

While that type of spam is not uncommon, what makes this case at least somewhat unique is that the tweets were sent in the format of fake retweets from Twitter celebrities. Such popular Twitter users as Penn Jillette, Stephen Fry and Perez Hilton have all had their names used.

It is unclear how many people are being taken in by the scam or how much risk there is to them, but it raises a lot of questions about Twitter and how safe it really is.

How the Scam Works

At this time, the tweets seemed to be fairly formulaic. If you are unsure if a tweet you’ve seen is part of this scam, see if it fits the template below:

RT @CELEBRITY-NAME (U can watch/I just watched/we just watched/etc)”MOVIE-NAME” Movie free online here YURL-LINK MOVIE-NAME

Pretty much anyone who sees these tweets should recognize that they are garbage and should be wary of the legality of watching recently released movies for free online.

Clicking the link, which I do not advise, takes you to a page that shows you a still of the movie and makes it appear you can play the film only to present you with a “survey” that you must complete before watching the film. However, according to others, filling out the survey does nothing as the process is never-ending and seems likely just an attempt to glean personal information.

In short, if the reports are correct, there’s no free movie at the end of the rainbow.

Concerns About Twitter

If the tweets, which appear to be coming from spammy usernames with many numbers at the end, would almost certainly be ignored if it were not for the fact that they were using the names of celebrities in order gain trust where, otherwise, none would exist. Combine this with the fact that many ware watching these movie titles on Twitter, it seems at least probably these tweets fooled a decent number of people.

However, as the CrunchGear article pointed out, it raises concerns about the reliability of Twitter. This spam attack, for example, puts users at the risk of identity theft and other issues while subjecting the impersonated celebrities to potential harm to their reputation.

Just like email spammers can spoof anyone else’s email address to send out their junk, any Twitter user can put words into any other Twitter user’s mouth with a fake retweet. Furthermore, they can direct other users to almost any site they want thanks to URL shortening services that make it easy to hide the real destination.

These factors make Twitter a big potential risk to both ones professional and computer security. Though anyone can always say something about you, on Twitter it is easy for others to say something as you and have other believe it. This is unlike email spam, which is very rarely seen and is almost never believed.

Though this isn’t enough to discourage me from using Twitter, the usefulness of the product has to be weighed against the potential harm, it will almost certainly give companies and celebrities some pause.

Bottom Line

The good news is that Twitter seems to finally be cleaning this mess up. As I was writing this story, the search I had open for the topic “free movie” seemed to stop working and, with a refresh, most of the spam tweets disappeared.

Still, it is only a matter of time before there is another spam attack like this one and there’s only so many times Twitter can clean up after the fact before people begin to get frustrated, annoyed and worried enough to leave.

Security seems to be a major issue for Twitter these days and this is just one facet of the problem. However, it is definitely one of the more public ones.

When it comes to networking on Twitter, you need a place to start. Find people that will benefit you when connecting with others, and you’ll be set on the right track for creating pockets of useful communities within the Twitterverse. There are a few ways to get started on this. One way is to perform a regular Twitter search on topics that are of interest to you. See who’s tweeting about these topics, and follow them. From there, you can interact with them by mentioning their username in your own tweets, especially in reply to a tweet update that they’ve posted.

But if you’d like a more automated way in which to get started along a similar path, with more longevity than a manual Twitter search, check out Followformation. This Twitter application lets you pick several categories that may be of interest to you. Choose as many of these categories as you’d like, or create your own category.

Next you select how many top Twitter users you’d like to follow. The minimum is ten. Per Followformation’s standards, a top Twitter user is the one with the most users per given category.
This could ultimately be problomatic, as a user with a high number of followers may not be an expert on your particular topic of interest, or that topic may not be central to their regular Twitter conversation. To this end, it’s best to merely experiment with Followformation and its recommendations for the time being, and keep an eye on the content coming fromthe Twitter users you actually choose to follow (as opposed to merely receiving keyword updates from a wide range of users).

While there are a number of different tools out there that provide recommendations for topics and individual users that you can follow, some of which are included in things like Twitter desktop clients, Followformation has a nice user interface and a simplistic format that’s very easy to use. There are helpful features such as a preview window that displays the users tweeting about a given category when you scroll over it.

What would make Followformation additionally useful would be filtered views, additional subscription options for collective tweets coming from recommended users, and perhaps an easier way in which to update and manage the categories you’re following once you’ve registered with Followformation.

You’re on another deadline; maybe you’re wondering how to approach the topic you’ve chosen.  What steps can you take to ensure you convey the right message to the reader?

Sometimes it helps to create order before you begin writing. You should decide a few things before you begin:  This is especially helpful if you’re writing a guest post for someone else’s blog.  Go read the material that’s already there and pay attention to the comments as well.  Once you’ve decided that your topic will fit the niche of the blog, there’s a few questions you can ask yourself.

1. Who are the readers? What are the readers looking for? What do they know or want to know? What opinions do they have?

2. What is your purpose of writing? What do you wish to accomplish in your writing? Are you writing a general article, a how-to article, a review?  Is your solution relevant to the problems’ of the readers?

3. Do you want the readers to smile, think or agree with you? Do you want them to understand something?

4. How can you narrow your focus? Which slant would best fit your purpose for writing on your topic material? What points would most appeal to your readers? What details would engage or persuade them?

Most effective writing is centered or unified around a main point. All your sub-points and details should be relevant to that point. Even if you are writing books for pleasure, your story will have one central theme or point and all the details and scenarios that your characters will go through should lead up to one main point or conclusion.

Keep the readers in mind and ask yourself the above questions each time you begin to write an article or blog post.  This will help guarantee you’ve targeted the readers you intended to and given them the information they’re looking for.

WYSIWYG HTML editors are great. They let bloggers, or other webmasters, build sites or create posts without requiring them to take a look at any of the code that makes it up. Best of all, they are becoming increasingly powerful, able to do more and more while creating better and better code.

However, they are far from perfect. Whether they don’t align an image perfectly, can’t make a table just right or cause some other problem, at some point you’re going to need to delve into the HTML code itself to fix a problem. Furthermore, you never known when your editor might stop working or you have to write a post offline or at another computer, making those tools useless.

This can be intimidating for beginners as HTML, at first glance, looks strange and has an unusual syntax. However, there are a few simple HTML tasks that every blogger should know how to do and, best of all, they only take a few minutes to learn.

5. Add a Table

Tables are not as important as they once were. In the early days of the Web, tables were used for the layout of most pages in addition to their intended use of displaying information in an organized fashion.

However, tables are still useful in that they allow bloggers to lay out data in a structured way. They are still a very efficient way to present a large amount of information to a reader that is attractive and interesting. Unfortunately though, most visual editors struggle with tables, especially complex ones that require merging cells or other unusual layouts.

Understanding how a table works and building a few small ones from scratch will teach you how to pull apart larger ones, even if you use a table generator to help you get started. This knowledge comes in very handy in preventing the table from becoming an unintelligible mess, which is always a danger.

For Help Visit:W3Schools Table Page

4. Place an Image

Adding an image to a post or a template is one of the most common tasks anyone will do. Though WordPress and most blogging platforms make this easy, knowing how to do it yourself lets you customize the image in various ways. It also makes it easier to correct any issues that you might have with it.

If you don’t know how the IMG tag works and you place images in your posts, its worth taking a minute to understand the basics of it and even try to do a few yourself, without the aid of your editor. Not only will it help you improve on what your visual editors does, but it can save you should something go wrong, such as a broken image.

For Help Visit:W3Schools IMG Tag Page

3. Add a Link

Links of the currency of the Web and are a part of nearly every blog post post or page. Knowing how to code one is vital as it will be very difficult to write a post or article that doesn’t use at least one. Furthermore, knowing what goes into a link will also help you get more out of your visual editor by telling you what the elements are and let you further customize the link itself.

Furthermore, knowing how to code a link will also help you fix broken ones and put you in a better position to quickly correct any errors you see.

For Help Visit:W3Schools A Tag Page

2. Format Text

Whether you need to bold, italicize or otherwise modify text, its important to know the basics so you aren’t reliant on your editor for every highlight.

Specifically, it is important to know how to bold, italicize, enlarge text, use headings and make text subscript/superscript. All of these HTML tags are among the most basic, literally the easiest in the language. However, they are also some of the most common.

These are important tools to know for that very reason.

For Help Visit: W3School Text Formatting and Headings Page

1. Edit Styles

CSS isn’t technically HTMl code, it’s a different syntax and it serves a different purpose. However, a lot of the functions that, ten years ago, would be done (awkwardly) in HTML are now done in CSS. CSS can determine everything from the size of your text to the gap around your images to the layout of your site.

All of this is controlled within either one or a handful of stylesheets. Editing these stylesheets can have a drastic impact on your site, your posts and that is a double-edged sword. For one, they are simple way to fix problems that you have with your site or improve your look. On the other hand, they are a wonderful way to mess up your whole blog.

As such, you can not afford to not understand CSS, at least enough to fix any problems you see or make adjustments. You don’t have to know every attribute or every possible use, just a solid understanding of the syntax and some of the more common functions.

Knowing this will help you avoid “blowing up” your site and let you lean on CSS more, making it easier to manage and style your site.

For Help Visit: W3School CSS Site

Bottom Line

These are actually just some of the more important HTML tricks bloggers need to know. Every blogger, depending on their style, will likely have different needs. For example, my style requires me to be very familiar with making HTML lists while others might have more use for HTML forms.

Take a quick look at the HTML you’re using the most and, when you get a little free time learn how to do it by hand. Not only is it rewarding, but it frees you from the mercy of your visual editor and gives you the control to create the best code possible.

You don’t have to be a computer nerd to do some basic HTML, just someone who is willing to learn.

If you’re reading Blogging Tips then odds are good you read at least one blog and more than likely you read way more than just one blog.  I read a ton of blogs and I have been looking for the perfect way to bookmark and save all the websites and blog posts I want to review when “time permits.”  I’ve tried a ton of approaches and right now I’m loving the pure simplicity of Pinboard.

Pinboard is a basic bookmark manager.  When I say basic, I mean basic.  There are no bells, no whistles, no cool Web 2.0 features – all Pinboard does is help you manage your bookmarks.  That’s it – plain and simple.  While there is a way to see recent bookmarks entered into Pinboard, that’s optional and there is no ranking or voting on the bookmarks.  In this regard, Pinboard has been labeled that “anti-social” bookmarking tool.

Like everybody I’ve tried del.icio.us, or delicious.com as it is now known, but it’s all about sharing.  Frequently I’m bookmarking so I can come back later and check it out – not so I can share an unknown site/article with the world.  I was using the Firefox add-on Read It Later and that was my favorite till Pinboard.

You’ll have to splurge for $2.84 USD but I think it’s been worth it.  No ads.  No socialization – I just get to save my bookmarks and find them when I need them for any of my computers – at home or at work.  I look at Pinboard as the Craigslist of bookmark management.  While wildly successful, Craigslist is an example of how substance wins out over style.  Craigslist has no Web 2.0 features and no whiz-bang functions – but the simplicity has attracted millions.  Check out the home page below:

Pinboard takes the same approach as Craigslist.  Though approach might be to strong a word as Pinboard is no startup.  It’s not a dream in search of funding – it’s nothing more than a side project by a developer, Maciej Ceglowski. Ceglowski’s claim to fame is that he was a former Yahoo Brickhouse engineer and he designed and built an internal data warehouse for Twitter.  I think Ceglowski could put a bit more effort into the Pinboard Blog – there’s plain and then there is plain!  Perhaps we can get him to start reading Blogging Tips!

If you want easy bookmarking and tagging – give Pinboard a try.

Stifling summer heat has contributed to an abundant growth in the blogging world.  It has been reported that many bloggers have succumbed to the intense heat and taken their endeavors indoors.  Summertime, long known for its ventures in outdoor sports and activities, has now taken a backseat with bloggers staying planted in front of their computers and writing massive amounts of blog posts. Servers have crashed all over the globe due to the massive amount of bandwidth use the summer heat is causing in parts of the world.    The internet may very well collapse due to this overload.

If the above statements were true, and to the best of my knowledge they are not, it would have made a good lead-in story.  I could have written:

“It’s hot and muggy outside.  This has forced many bloggers indoors to the comforts of air conditioning.  This has resulted in overuse of bandwidth on many servers.”

This lead would not have grabbed as much attention.  It’s a bit boring and monotone.  Many of us fail at creating a good lead and fully capturing the readers’ attention.  We seem to be in a hurry to get the material written and forget the days of old when a great lead almost made the whole story.

Creating a great lead is as important as creating a great title.  It’s recommended that you spend as much time writing the lead and title as you have the body of the material itself.  In fact, it’s one area of writing that many of us forget to practice.  If we spent more time coming up with headlines and leads, it would greatly improve our readership.

This is another area that taking a journalistic approach will improve your writing.  You can read my post, “Using Basic Journalism Structure To Write Great Articles” and Jonathan Bailey’s, “5 Things Bloggers Can Learn From Journalism School” for more information about a journalistic writing style.

We create a good lead to hook the reader, give the reader information and to organize the material.  Some writers begin with their lead and write the body of the material from it.  Others write the material and then concoct their lead out of the body of the material.  Still others, like me, use both ways depending on the subject matter and a spur of the moment idea. Either way is acceptable, it’s more a matter of your own personal writing style.

Writing the lead first can be used as an outline and keep you on track with keeping the material organized.  You can quickly move from Point A to Point B if you’ve summarized the material in the lead paragraph.  But if writing the lead is an area you have trouble with, you may want to write it last pulling highlights from the body of your writing.

The lead should be brief and only contain enough information to hook the reader, and highlight what will be explained in the material.

Never give your opinion in the lead; simply state facts.

The lead should be a map.  The body of the material should follow the same pattern as the lead.  In my example, I would not start the body with the possibility of the Internet crashing unless that was the first statement in the lead.  In the case of my fake lead, I would begin the body of the material telling about how the temperature has forced bloggers back indoors, followed by how this overload has affected servers and the conclusion would then be about how this could lead to total Internet collapse.  It would follow a timeline of sorts like the lead.

For bloggers, writing a good lead is a necessity and second only to a great title.  You want to grab the readers’ attention so they’ll stay on your site longer and return to read your updates.  You don’t want to annoy the reader by using a lead that’s poorly written or irrelevant to the blog post itself.  Rob Starr recently covered, “Why Headlines Are Important”.

Writing great headlines and an attention grabbing lead can be attributed to an art form.  Some writers seem to have the magic button, for others it can be a bit intimidating.  It only takes a little more time to work on a great headline and a great lead, and will be well worth the effort.  It’s also something that can be practiced while you’re watching TV, reading the paper, standing in a checkout line—note the headlines on the magazine covers.  Headlines are everywhere.  Pay attention to them and come up with new ones that you think would have been better; make a game out of it and spend some extra time each day writing great headlines and leads.

All this technical comisseration and mentoring in the art of the blog… it’s a beautiful thing.  Especially for writers like me, who come to blogging from a different place than, say, budding online entrepreneurs and creatively inspired geeks (and I say that with respect and much love, and now that I am one, pride).

It reminds me of a group of tennis players who get together to discuss string tension and debate the merits of yellow versus white balls in Grand Slam events.  Or a bunch of musicians chatting up each other about their Elvis collection.  Or doctors waxing philosphic about IRAs and tee times.

It’s all good.  And necessary.  But what ever happened to content?

One of my observations as someone who holds a green card in the land of blogging is that it’s more digital dexterity and promotion than it is the delivery of poignant value to readers.  Too often its more diary than dissertation. 

I submit to you that the basis of the blogging business model is — or should be – more about content than traffic-building strategies. 

Because unless there’s been a media coup, content is still king.

Are you contributing or are you selling something?

The first question you should youself as a blogger is this: am I a writer first and foremost, or am I an entrepreneur or diarist who writes?

There’s no right or wrong answer, they both have a place and a fiscal future.  But they also both imply things that might need to be tweaked for optimal online effectiveness.

The first thing I’d tell an entreprenuer who wants to build a business through great content delivery is to speak to the reader’s passion and need, rather than sell them what you believe they should buy.  Which is your passion and need. 

It’s a critical difference, one that writers understand and entrepreneurs who aren’t writers too easily miss.  Turn the context of the blog inside out — it’s not about you, it’s about them.  It’s not about your solution, it’s about their situational need.

The idea is to build credibility within a given arena.  When you do, it’ll carry over to the side of your page that’s actually selling something.

Friends buy quicker from trusted peers and friends than from salesmen. The highest purpose of your blog is to befriend the reader by coming from the same place.  Which makes you a peer.

Know your place in the reader’s world

A second strategy is to match the strength and tone of your pitch to the level of your credentials.  Let’s say you’re selling an ebook on how to make money online, just like ten million other folks are doing.  If you can’t demonstrate your chops in this arena within your blog, then you need to sell from a here’s-what-I’ve-learned-and-would-like-to-share perspective, instead of a false sense of expertise. 

Readers love a good tip more than they love a good pitch.  Especially when it comes from a peer.

The magic pill of blogging content

And finally, you need to understand that what you’re really writing about — and selling — is hope.  A sub-text of hope will make your blogged thoughts and your offered solutions more immediate than simple features and benefits ever could.

Then again, if you’re truly an expert in your field, play that card boldly. 

Because nothing says hope like someone who really knows.

TwitVid, the service that allows you to upload videos directly from your iPhone to the web for the purpose of sharing them on Twitter, has revealed its updated mobile application for the iPhone 3GS. With the updated mobile application, users can take advantage of the newly incorporated video upload options finally made available to iPhone users. While previous iPhone models supported video, Apple’s developer options did not support web uploads for third parties until now.

The result has been a slew of video-related services, many of which have been created specifically for Twitter. As peripheral media truly adds context to your Twitter updates, the ability to incorporate video to your tweets while on the go is a meaningful update that shouldn’t be overlooked.

As we’ve seen with the increase in Twitter activity over political dire in Iran, and the death of Michael Jackson, users are anxious to share and discuss the news in real time. Video has become a major part of the ongoing Twitter discussions, so the faster a video can be shared through the microblogging platform, the better. This is all supported by an improvement for mobile cameras as well as the mobile application industry, which requires cooperation from mobile providers, device manufacturers and the actual web-based services such as Twitter.

We’ve already discussed the benefits of adding video to your tweets, as the surplus media gives a better picture of what your tweets are all about. So while Twitter doesn’t directly support video uploads, third party applications such as TwitVid have filled in the void.

For you as a blogger, the extra context makes your tweets more intriguing and valuable to your followers. Giving as complete of a picture as possible for the things you tweet about makes you a more reliable source–a source that other Twitter users will seek out as opposed to stumbling across.

To make TwitVid as easy as possible to use, the service has incorporated auto-update functions, making video uploads an afterthought instead of an aspect of media inclusion that cuts into your time. This is a key component for bloggers leveraging mobile video uploads, as more automated features make it that much easier to blog with out restrictions, making you more efficient and less frustrated with the process overall.

You want to increase traffic to your blog right? One of the easiest ways to get more people to view your blog is to become friends with other blogging sites. By doing this, you can have more viewers and enjoy the benefits of inbound and outbound links.

Outbound links are links that start at your blog and direct users to a different blog, while inbound links, or backlinks, bring people to your site from other sites. Both types of linking are beneficial to you because you can link to blogs that relate to your site or that have the same vibe as your site. If you become blogging buddies with sites you enjoy, then they can make inbound links to your site and you can do the same for them.

None of this information is new to avid bloggers, but it’s an important tool that many of us forget when we’re in our own little world of ideas. A way to become blogging buddies is to contact a site that you really enjoy or admire, and tell them about your site. Give them information that’s relevant to why they should post a backlink to your site. Let them know that you’ll be doing the same for them because you think their site is ___adjective___, ___adjective___, and ___adjective___ (you can use “amazing”, “thought provoking”, “very creative”, or even just “flipping neat!”).

If I had a blog about my life, I would talk about things that happen everyday, substitute teaching, writing, reading, and creative art projects. I would want links to the things that I think really matter, so I wouldn’t make a link to an educational site because this subject doesn’t interest me as much as others. I would try to make contact with other writers who have blogs that I wish I were smart enough to create, people who have interesting takes on what’s the hottest new books, and people who are creative or can draw like da Vinci where as I can only draw a pathetic stick figure.

You have to remember that if you want other sites to create inbound links to your site, then there has to be a reason other than that you want more page hits. Does the blog you want to link with have anything to do with what you talk about? Is there motivation for them to want to promote you while you promote them?

Get out there and make friends with other bloggers who can help you gain more presence on the web, while giving them the advantage of the same thing.

Although there are a small percentage of people who think otherwise,  article marketing has become a real pillar and one of the ways that the savvy Internet business owners get the traffic they need. And they are effective in part because they are different from the other methods of advertising that have been used before the Internet became an economic force.

Consumers Looking for Useful Information

You need to remember that the consumer on the web is more apt to want information they can use. They don’t want the old school sales techniques that everyone used back in the day; rather they want to be informed and to leave the articles that you write feeling that they’ve got some valuable information they can take with them.

So, the articles that do the best today need to follow a certain formula that will entice the reader to want to learn more about what you’ve got to sell.

Start With A Great Hook

You need to catch the interest of the reader right away. In journalism terms this is called coming up with a good lead—some tidbit or anecdote that will make them want to read on. For example, if your writing about proofing your blogs you might want to start out with a funny story about what happened to a colleague who didn’t think that proofing was necessary.

Don’t Overload Your Readers

What ever it is that you’re writing bout, you will more than likely know more than your readers. So the temptation is to give them all the information that you’ve got. Unfortunately, overloading the readers will only turn them off. It’s good enough to give them an overview of the information. Highlight one or two important areas. Remember to try and focus on the big points as no article should ever be long enough to give the full picture.

Break The Article Up

You need to make sure that the text is easy on the eye as well and that general means that you’ll want to avoid long paragraphs that intimidate the reader when they first see them. Remember that many people on the Internet skim articles rather than reading them and that means that using numbered lists as well as bullet points and shorter paragraphs is the way to go to keep the reader interested. Subheads and bolded type are useful tools to draw the eyes to a specific place as well.

Google has now updated the image search to allow you to search for images that are free to use on your blog. The images search results can now show images that have been tagged with the Creative Commons license and it is also capable of returning content under other licenses such as the GNU Free document license.

To get this feature when you are searching go to the Advanced Image Search page then  under the usage rights section you will see a drop down with different types of license that you can search for.

When I tested it out I chose to search for images that were labeled for commercial reuse. Once I had typed in my search terms it then showed me a page with a label at the top:

Then under that was the normal image results, but now you know that the images are fine to use on your blog. However Google does state:

“You’ll still have to verify that the licensing information is accurate We can help you take the first step towards finding these images, but we can’t guarantee that the content we linked to is actually in the public domain, or available under the license”

Better safe than sorry

While this is going to be very useful, you will need to be careful when using this feature. Just make sure you double check that the image does have such a license (just in case).

You won’t be able to blame Google for using an image you shouldn’t have on your blog.

Go try it out for yourself

Don’t for forget those not on broadband

While we are on the topic of images, I wanted to point out that, for many accessing the web is simply turning on your computer and selecting your browser, but that is not the case for everyone. Some countries are still behind on Internet access and I am not just talking 3rd world countries, for example New Zealand is not quite up to the same speeds as other countries. They do have broadband but it is not as wide spread as it is in America or the UK.

Think about this when you are putting up images on your blog or website, I quite often come across some very nice images that are huge in file size and even on broadband they take a few seconds to download, imagine being on dial-up and waiting for the page to download let alone the massive image. We also have to think about users visiting your site from a mobile phone as again they don’t want to be waiting around. If they are not on a large or unlimited plan for their data they download then they don’t want your site to eat up all their data allowance.

There are tons of ways to share images on Twitter but how many ways are there to search through all of them? TwiPho is a very new and convenient Image search engine for Twitter with a very pleasant UI. Whenever you conduct a search, TwiPho searches through the entire Twitter site to find images that have been shared by others. Just like most other search engines, you simply type what you’re looking for in the search box to begin.

As you can see above, TwiPho has a creative way of displaying your search results. You will see the users profile picture along with a speach bubble showcasing the image and the actual tweet that goes along with it. In addition to that, you can see how old the image is and the source of the image (TwitPic, TweetDeck, Tweetie, etc).

I really like how the options are displayed when you scroll over one of the image results. You are presented with a small list of actions that allow you to: retweet the image, view the original tweet, view the image in full size, or email the image to a friend.

Another excellent feature are the trending keywords that appear under the search box, just like on Twitter Search. So now you can also see what category of images people are sharing the most. For example, as of right now Twitter image trends include Michael Jackson, Follow Friday, Bruno and Matt Kemp just to name a few.

Unfortunately, when you click on the search options button nothing is there right now besides a friendly “We will be rolling out options very very soon” message. So for now, you can just search for images and view trends but I’m curious and kind of anxious to see what they are planning to add in the future.

If you’re looking for other Twitter image search engines you may want to check out Twicsy, PicFrog, or Twitcaps. Which one do you prefer?

I’m not sure how many of you have heard of or use Secondbrain; they’ve been around for awhile now but have recently upgraded their interface. If you tried Secondbrain when it first came out, I’m sure you will agree that the new update is a huge improvement. It’s much simpler and easier to use.

With Secondbrain it’s easy to keep track of all your favorite websites, blog posts, images, videos, etc. You can add bookmarks and collections, which are used to sort your bookmarks like folders. You can also subscribe to others in order to discover great new content. Adding your own content to the site is fairly easy.

There are a few ways to do this: adding it directly on the website, using the bookmarklet, or by importing your browser bookmarks. When importing your bookmarks you have the option of adding them all to one collection or letting them take on the organiation of your current folders.

Once you enter the URL of the bookmark you want to add you will be able to enter a title, description, tags,  choose a thumbnail and select a collection to add it to. You can save, share and view details to any bookmark on Secondbrain. In addition, you can add comments to your own bookmarks.

Viewing more details for a bookmark lets you see the user(s) that have bookmarked it, the date that it was bookmarked by that user, the collection that it belongs to for the user and how many subscribers that user has.

On the homepage you can also view popular collections and people. So as you can see, Secondbrain is another great way to keep up with your favorite topics as well as an easy way to see what your friends are bookmarking.

Lastly, adding collections is as easy as adding bookmarks; there are a few options for these as well. First, you can make a collection public, restricted (only those with the URL can view it) or totally private. Second, you can choose whether to have collaborators or not. With collaborators, anyone with access to that collection will be able to add content to it — which may come in handy for some.

You can see how well the profiles flow here, and feel free to subscribe to me if you’re already a member! As you can see from my initial review of the site back in June 2008, I was not impressed at all. Now, I can definitely see myself using the site on a regular basis. How about you?

I thought I would share with you all 3 cheap and cheerful items that I purchased this week that will help me with my blogging and help me become a better blogger.

Imak Ergo Beads Mouse Cushion

I sprained my wrist badly playing basketball when I was about 14 or 15. When I was 19 it flared up again and my wrist gave way lifting weights at the gym. Years later, I hurt it again trying to punch through 2 boards at TaeKwonDo.

I’ve got a good wrist support for my wrist which I use when the problem flares up but the best solution is prevention. Lately I’ve felt my wrist becoming sore after working at the computer for so long. I have a standard computer style desk with a pull out drawer for a keyboard and a good leather swivel chair. If I sit upright the keyboard is at a good level for my wrist. However, I have a very bad habit of leaning back when just browsing the web or reading an article and when I use the mouse in this way it puts strain on wrist.

Regular mouse pads with a cushion would obviously help this but I was looking for something a little better. And I found the perfect product from a company called IMAK. Their Wrist Cushion for Mouse was apparently designed by an Orthopedic Surgeon and contains ‘massaging ergoBeads’. If you have ever squeezed a beanie baby then you know what this cushion feels like.

It might seem like an irrelevant item with regards to blogging but it is allowed me to work longer without hurting my wrist. I got it for £13.99 through ebay though they seem to be selling for $14.99 in the USA. If you ever suffer from a sore wrist from typing too much (a common repetitive strain injury), I recommend checking it out.

Imak Ergo Beads Mouse Cushion

The Little Red Writing Book

As I mentioned a few days ago in my reply to Patti Staffords post ‘Possessive or Just Possessed?‘, I am actively trying to improve my writing abilities, particularly grammar. Not that I think my grammar is not good enough for blogging per say however I have long forgot the rules and reasons why certain things are used.

The book which I bought to help my writing style is called ‘The Little Red Writing Book: 20 Powerful Principles of Structure, Style and Readability’. At 160 pages long, this book is hardly the complete reference on writing though it manages to pack a punch by listing 20 basis principles of great writing. Each chapter is quite short which allows you to absorb the information very easily over time.

I find that I tend to forget quite a lot of the major points of this kind of book when reading it all in the one go therefore I plan on reading a principle every day for the next 2-3 weeks.

It’s a cracking little book and only cost me around £6 from Amazon. You can preview ‘The Little Red Writing Book’ at Google Books. I recommend checking it out if you are looking for a concise easy to read book to help you become a better writer.

The Oxford A-Z of Grammar & Punctuation

My last item may prove to be the most useful book I have purchased in years. When looking at grammar and punctuation reference books I was swithering between the 168 page long ‘Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation’ and ‘The Oxford English Grammar’; which at 672 pages long, appears to be the definitive guide to grammar.

I dediced on the more portable ‘Oxford A-Z of Grammar & Punctuation’ for a number of reasons. Firstly because it cost £4.99 instead of £22.75. Secondly, the smaller book is more practical to take with me when travelling somewhere and finally, because I don’t think I need such a large reference to help me improve my grammar (I think the larger book is more for teachers etc to refer to).

I’m actually a little curious as to what the larger book has in it because the ‘Oxford A-Z of Grammar & Punctuation’ appears to be the most complete guide on grammar I have ever seen. It truly is a fantastic little book. Every punctuation and grammar rule you can think of is in here.

I strongly encourage all of you to look into buying this book. I would go as far as saying that bloggers should consider purchasing this before any other blogging specific book. Native English speakers will find this useful however I have no doubt that this will greatly improve the quality of posts from non-native English speakers.

This is not a book you are going to read every day but it is something you will reference time and time again. I’m going to keep it next to my laptop at all times for ease of use and will probably throw it in my bag when going on holiday so that I can reference it when on the move.

Unfortunately Google doesn’t offer a preview of this book however Amazon does so I recommend checking it out

I hope you have enjoyed this little summary. Have you purchased a new book or item to help you with blogging? If so, please share it with everyone in the comments section

Thanks for reading,
Kevin

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