Translation, please.

This poll asks how you feel about using codes that you recognize but may not understand: CSS, Html and Php.

Do you feel forced to know scripting and programming to properly support your blog? How much of a headache is it?

We’ve published several posts on using CSS for styling your blog. Likewise, you’ll find some articles about how Html can get you out of a tight spot:   Sweet ‘n Simple HTML or Codes for Comments.  However, there are times when you have no choice but to go under the hood to add or modify code.

Vote in our poll so we know where you stand.  Also leave us a comment about your experiences in coping with these strange and non-visual things.

How much should  blog owners know about Php, etc.?  Are there times you feel you are forced to learn more than you want about these coding languages? Let’s hear it.

Note: You may select more than one answer.

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Okay, what is an iframe? How will I know if it breaks? How can I fix it?
Only recently did I realize I should know more about iframes. Often your knowledge expands out of necessity — when a problem hits you square in the face! Read this article, and store it in your memory to be called up when you face a similar problem.

The Problem

I had finally selected a good service, ChatRoll.com, to support my client’s new Chat Room. But try as I might, I could not embed the virtual chat room within a page! WP seemed to gobble up the html code, leaving only the link for a pop-up version. Sort of reminded me of the post on helping Html to escape WP’s built-in editors.

Definition of IFrame:

An IFrame (Inline Frame) is an HTML document embedded inside another HTML document on a website. The IFrame HTML element is often used to insert (interactive) content from another source, such as an advertisement. … an IFrame behaves like an inline image …  – TechTarget

The Chat Room software provided code that contains an IFrame html tag to embed the interactive document (chat room). Such software often uses AJAX – Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. One of the prime examples is a Google Maps IFrame. If the IFrame software changes, site owners don’t have to upgrade anything in the post.

The Solution

As happens with Serendipity, while searching for an unrelated plugin, I discovered one that could solve my problem. It’s called “Insere Iframe” (Insert IFrame). Basically, it stops WP from stripping your code. Instead, you use a shortcode framed in square brackets to escape WP’s axe.

Here’s what I wanted my code to look like:

<iframe width=’750′ height=’600′ frameborder=’0′ scrolling=’no’ marginheight=’0′ marginwidth=’0′ allowtransparency=’true’ src=’http://chatroll.com/unitedswap-room/embed?fgcolor=4076b3&bgcolor=ffffff&textbgcolor=ffffff&textfgcolor=000000&sound=1&border=1&w=$0′></iframe>

Instead, WP removed all of the above! Without a word!

The Plugin version: (see differences highlighted in red)

[iframe: width='750' height='600' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' marginheight='0' marginwidth='0' allowtransparency='true' src='http://chatroll.com/unitedswap-room/embed?fgcolor=4076b3&bgcolor=ffffff&textbgcolor=ffffff&textfgcolor=000000&sound=1&border=1&w=$0']

Success

The Chat Room is now entirely within the post page:

Now you know all I know about IFrames and how to fix them, should something break or disappear! There’s a WP plugin for everything!

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The Dagon Sitemap Generator is a WP plugin that provides a visual site map for your visitors. I recently added this feature to a new client site. That site has a drop-down menu for static pages and a blog category menu on the blog section.

A site with many pages makes it easier for visitors to lose their place or miss an interesting sub-page! Site maps give visitors another reason to explore your blog, read more posts and lower the bounce rate.

The Dagon site map plugin installed so easily that I was confident enough to add the feature to BloggingWithSuccess. Mr. I, our official plugin/theme breaker, would be proud. Our new site map has the advantage of listing every post under its category. You can exclude pages and categories if you want.

What Is a Site Map?

There are two types of site maps. One is for your visitors (html/page version), and the other is for search engines (xml version). The xml version lays out all of your pages and all urls that might otherwise be missed by search engine spiders. This post discusses the site map for humans.

You can customize the Dagon Sitemap Generator from your WP admin panel. You have options to show multi-level pages (drop-down menu), multi-level categories and exclude pages or categories. The software creates a page list (prev/next) to avoid a gazillion links on one page. You can list posts by title or date within categories. The site map easily replaces the standard WP or theme archives. Actually, you can have both if you want, as you can see in the examples below.

Archives Before and Site Map After

Click image to enlarge	Click image to enlarge
Archives	Site Map

How to Create Your Site Map

1. Go to “Add a new plugin” and search for Dagon Design Sitemap Generator. Install and activate the plugin.
2. Go to Settings for “ddsitemapgen” and customize your map.
   Here are some of my options:
   - show posts and pages, with pages listed first
   - sort pages by title (you may want them by date)
   - show comment count for each post (you may want to add dates)
   - exclude 3 categories (uncategorized, misc, featured) and 7 pages
3. Create a new page called SiteMap. Add this shortcode in the html:
   <!– ddsitemapgen –>
4. Add the page to your menu or put a text link in a sidebar widget.

Quick Tip:How to find a page ID to exclude from site map or other widget

If you want to exclude pages from the site map, you must specify the numerical page ID, not the page name! WP hides the page ID — I’m not sure why.
To find the page ID, go to Pages->Edit and hover over the title of the page. The status bar of your browser will display a URL with a numeric ID at the end. This is the page ID.

- (WP widget support)

Similarly, for category ID’s, go to Administration > Posts > Categories. Hover over the category name to see the ID at the bottom of the browser window.

Benefits of a Site Map/Archive

• As the blog owner, you can refer to the list when you add internal links to new posts. The shortcut is already formatted.
• Visitors who don’t find what they want with the search box can scan down the site map as an alternate search tool.
• You see what posts inhabit each category and determine if some posts have too many categories. You may need to realign a few posts.
• Readers may spot useful content that would otherwise remain buried within your blog.

Do you have a site map or archive that lists all posts? If so, take a look and let us know what treasures you found, but don’t remember writing! Leave a comment with your thoughts about using this feature.

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There are times when you need to blackout your entire blog, allowing access to administrators only. This article discusses some of the reasons and predicaments that make the Maintenance Mode plugin so useful. I’ll give you information to create your own custom page for a ‘coming soon’ or launch type announcement. You can use these instructions to personalize the default  ‘back in 6o minutes’ page that comes with the plugin.

Why Would I Want To Hide Blog Content?

As blog owners or consultants, ‘dig we must’ —  to maintain the underpinnings of our blogs. We routinely upgrade themes, WordPress and plugins. But sometimes ‘maintenance’ is anything but ‘routine.’  There are three basic scenarios that may warrant a message to all visitors when the site is having a very ‘bad hair day.’

1. An upgrade or plugin installs ’successfully’, but when you view the blog, you see extraneous text (html, php code) and/or error messages you never heard of. Nothing less pleasant than that. Don’t panic! Switch to maintenance mode and tell readers to come back in an hour.
2. You use a framework-type design theme like Thesis or Frugal. No doubt you get a knot in your stomach whenever there is an upgrade announcement. You’ve make dozens of customizations and fear the site will be garbled in the process of upgrading. Don’t panic — activate your maintenance mode and start scrambling for that custom code.
3. You have a new hosting account and plan to move an existing blog or create a brand new one for your client.  You don’t want anyone who knows or stumbles on the domain name to be able to see an incomplete site. Talk about a bad first impression. You want them to know the site is under renovation or soon to be launched. Don’t panic, create a custom launch page and activate the maintenance mode plugin. If you client or someone you trust needs to see the site  during development, just give them administrator access.

Maintenance Mode Plugin – the Basics

Activating/Deactivating

When you install and activate the WP plugin for Maintenance Mode,  you can easily turn blocked access on and off. Use the Settings section on your WP Dashboard to quickly adjust the mode.

Settings to Block Access

On the same page, you can modify the basic message to include your blog’s name, url and how long the blackout will last. For this basic message, only Html is allowed — no PHP. Here’s a sample of the basic default:

The default splash screen

You’ll see a warning at the top of the dashboard reminding you to turn off the block when all is well again.

Granting Access

By default, only administrators have access when maintenance mode is on. But you can grant access to others such as a Contributor or Editor, by using the Role Manager plugin. Those with access don’t see the splash page and therefore have access to all capabilities defined for that role. The plugins accomplish this by allowing the new capability ‘access_on_maintenance’ to be turned on for different roles.

Beyond the Basics – Use the 503.php page

The way the plugin controls access is by using a standard host message type:

503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Similar to the 404Page Not Found error, blog owners and template developers can customize the 503 page for service interruptions.  The Maintenance Mode plugin has an option to use your theme’s 503.php instead of the basic message described above.

use custom maintenance page

So this is your opportunity to modify the page as you please. Except you can’t use WP theme functions like ‘get_sidebar().’

How to customize the 5o3.php

1. To compose your custom message, create a new temporary page or post . Remember it will be on a plain screen, no sidebars or footer.  Here’s one I composed:

custom splash page

2. When you’re satisfied with the page, view and copy the Html which you’ll need for the next step.

3. To open the theme’s 503.php, press Editor under Appearance on the Dashboard. Paste your custom message  (step 2) after the < body > and before the < /body > tags. Save the file. Delete the temporary page or post you used.

Find your theme's 503.php

You’re now ready to activate maintenance mode. Test it by logging out of WP or opening a different type of browser to see the splash screen!

Have you used this handy plugin?  If not, how do you handle situations when your blog has unexpected appearance or functional problems after an innocent modification?

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Many of our visitors use Google’s Blogger platform, so in this series I’ll focus on Blogspot Widgets and Hacks. A sidebar widget such as “recent posts” can be created through Blogger’s “add gadget” feature. A hack is tutorial code that the owner must carefully introduce into her template to make a feature such as the tabbed widget work. This post gives some tips on popular features you can add to your Blogspot blog with little effort: post summaries (ReadMore), recent comments, and recent posts.

The Blogger team has been furiously adding features that work seamlessly with your blog. Blogger is giving authors a decent alternative to heavy template editing. Having several third parties involved in your code carries risks, not the least of which is the complexity of finding the right spot for the hack or the heartache of having JavaScripts stop working. And what about those annoying credit links below each widget? Hopefully, soon a thing of the past.

ReadMore

If your blog publishes several long articles on the home page, don’t make the readers scroll forever. With the readmore feature you can specify a summary for the homepage articles, followed by a “continue reading” link to the full post. Many refer to this as a “magazine style” design. Readers can scan down, read your tantalizing summaries and decide which post to read.

There are plenty of template hacks for this style, but most of them are too complicated for the non-techie to install. I recommend Blogger’s Integrated ReadMore feature. Blogger refers to it as “After the Jump summaries.”

How to Install Blogger’s ReadMore:

1. For each post that appears on the home page, you need to decide where the summary text ends and insert the “jump” marker. Use Blogspot’s new Editor toolbar to make this task even easier.Edit the post in Compose mode, place the cursor at the end of the summary and click the “jump to” icon – looks like a torn page.
   

   The separator appears across the page of your draft post, reminding you where the summary ends. This is where the “read more” link will appear after publishing.

   If you don’t use the new Editor you can put the correct code in the HTML view of your draft post. It’s just an html comment tag, a place holder for Blogger to separate the summary:
   <!— more –>

2. Just publish the post and you’re done. Unless – the “read more” is not there. Then your template is heavily modified and you have to dig in even further! This can happen with customized third-party templates. Google’s help article for creating these ‘”jump” summaries tells you what to do (read the bottom of the article). Drop a comment if you need further clues.
   

TIP 1: Use Blogger’s post template feature to remind you about the jump indicator. Blogger automatically seeds each new post with the text your specify. Go to Blogger Settings, Formatting and scroll to the “Post Template” section. For the ReadMore you might specify:
Summary Here
Place readmore here (icon or html tag)
Remainder Here
In fact, you can have any preformatted text here, e.g. your signature or reminders to subscribe. Links and image references must be in html.

Recent Comments

Many visitors are interested in community dialog. The recent comments widget gives you another way to direct readers to popular discussions. Until a few months ago the only way to add such widgets was via an HTML/JavaScript gadget. BloggerBuster provided the most reliable script. However, Amanda created a widget that is now featured (integrated) in Blogger’s bag of gadgets. Installing the Blogger gadget is as easy as pie.

The older one has more functionality, but you can’t argue with reliability — Blogger’s new gadget is the clear winner. Today I could not get the original BloggerBuster script to work. That situation is caused by third party hosting being unavailable. Sometimes scripts stop working in certain browsers. So I’ll give you both methods and you can see the tradeofff and decide for yourself.

This picture shows the differences: (the JavaScript is on the left)

The new one eliminates the offsite credit link, but does not show the post title and did not interpret special characters like apostrophes (&#39; on first comment).

How to Install JavaScript Recent Comments Widget:

1. Go to Layout on the dashboard. Click “Add Gadget” and select the Html/Javascript gadget.
2. Copy and paste this code, but be sure to change the blog url to your own!

   <span style="align:left;">
   <script style="text/javascript" src="http://kunoichi.info/blogger_buster/comments.js"></script><script style="text/javascript">var a_rc=5;var m_rc=false;var n_rc=true;var o_rc=60;</script><script src="http://bpwebnews.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentcomments"></script></span>

3. Save and move to the sidebar. Hope it works every day. This is the one I use, and it has been pretty reliable.

How to Install Blogger’s Recent Comments Widget:

1. Go to Layout on the dashboard. Click “Add Gadget.” Instead of Basic gadgets, click “Most Popular” in the left sidebar.
2. You’ll see this image:
   Click and follow the steps that let you define the height (e.g. 200px), number of comments to display (e.g. 10) and comments summary length (e.g. 150 characters).
3. Save and move to the sidebar.

Recent Posts

The directory of integrated Blogger widgets just keeps growing. Take a look and keep your Blogger gadgets current. Recent Posts are yet another way to attract new visitors to go more deeply into your blog. They will surely find great content.

For displaying recent posts, I use the BloggerWidgets version, shown on the left of this image. The other is from BloggerBuster.

BloggerWidgets (left) and BloggerBuster

Obviously, the BloggerWidgets version shows the post thumbnails.You can also display the posts from any blogger blog by supplying the url. Other options include

How to Install Advanced Recent Posts Widget:

1. Go to Layout on the dashboard. Click “Add Gadget.” Search for “recent posts.”
2. You’ll see this image:
   
   Click and follow the steps that let you define the options you want.
   By Blogger Widgets
3. Save and move to the sidebar.

How to Install Standard Recent Posts Widget:

1. Go to Layout on the dashboard. Click “Add Gadget.” Search for “recent posts.”
2. You’ll see this image:
   
   Click and follow the steps that let you define the options you want.
   By Blogger Buster
3. Save and move to the sidebar.

TIP 2: If you use the ReadMore feature, then it makes sense to list your Recent Posts in the sidebar for single pages only. To do that, you need to use a template hack that sets a conditional display of the Recent Posts widget.
Go to this post for a simple tutorial on hiding Blogger widgets. You can use the technique for any widget.

Conclusion of Blogger Series Part 1

Blogger has indeed come a long way in modernizing its publishing interface. It all started in August as part of their 10th Anniversary Celebration. Join us for future segments in this series. Be sure to sign up for our RSS feed.

Of course, leave a comment about your experience with these blogger widgets and let me know what you’d like to see next.

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Be More Efficient

So, you are a blogger? Are you blogging in your leisure time or doing it to earn some serious income?

In any case, you will not succeed! Nothing can help you succeed — no costly courses, no e-books, no Gurus, nothing!

Why?

Because you blog! That’s what millions of other people around the globe are doing. Every blogger out there is your competitor! You spend one hour daily on your blog? There are many who spend more! You update your blog daily? There are many who update more frequently!

Then how can you succeed?

Simple! You have to blog with more efficiency.

What Is Efficiency?

The ratio of the output to the input of any system is called efficiency.

When you blog, you are the system. Your time is the input. And output? It can be anything! Money, appreciation, recognition, you name it!

To get maximum output, you have to be more efficient. In this post, I will discuss how you can get maximum output for all your efforts.

The First Step: Focus

Let me begin with an old Indian tale.

Once upon a time, five princes were receiving education in a gurukul (school). One day, their guru (teacher) decided to test their archery skills. Guru placed a toy bird on a tree and called the princes. He told them about the test and called the first prince.

He asked, “You have to shoot the bird’s eye. But before you shoot, tell me. What do you see?” The prince replied, “I see a tree, a toy bird and the sky.” Guru asked him to wait.

Then, the second prince was called. Guru asked the same question. The prince replied, “I see a green toy bird and a tree.” He was also asked to wait.

The third and fourth princes replied similarly. Guru did not ask any of them to shoot.

Now, the last prince was called. Guru asked the same question. The prince replied, “I see only the bird’s eye.” Guru asked him to shoot and guess what, the shot was perfect!

You should be focused like the prince. Do not pay attention to anything else. Just keep focused on your target, and your work will be half done.

Finding a Target

Before starting, you have to decide what you want to achieve. You may want $1,000 per month, leave your day job or buy a new house! Just decide on your target and stay focused. Think of the happiness you and your family will get when you achieve your goals. (But avoid day dreaming! That will be a waste of time.)

Staying Focused

Staying focused is a difficult thing. When blogging, you need focus the most when you are writing. Here are some tips you can use to stay focused when writing:

1. Go Full Screen. Even a small notification can distract. So, why not go full screen? All the browsers have a full screen mode. If you prefer an online editor, go to it and press the F11 key to switch to full screen mode.
2. Disconnect. It may be better to switch off your internet connection. You can use a capable offline editor like Windows Live Writer or BlogDesk for writing and editing. Barebone editors like Q10 and Dark Room can also prove to be useful.
3. Forget. Forget about the real world for a while. Just think about the article. You can try to write at night when no one is around. Listening to music is another good technique that I prefer.

The Second Step: Execution

Execution is next in line. You know the target and are fully focused on it. However, you have to execute your plans well.

For this, I recommend using To Do lists. In the beginning, it may be hard to stick to a schedule, but once it becomes a habit, it’s not that hard.

To make sure you follow that schedule, you have to make good and effective to do lists.

Try to make lists in advance. This helps you form the habit of following a schedule. Second, spend time on these lists. Never make such a list in a hurry. (You’ll seldom follow it, believe me.) At the end of your work day, take 10 to 20 minutes to make a list for the next day.

Select a good service to help with your lists. Some free services that offer to do lists are:

1. Remember The Milk: With Remember the Milk, you can manage your lists not only online but also offline. You can also get iPhone and Android apps to access it when on the move.
2. To Do List: Another capable service. However, it is only web based. It offers a bookmarklet that lets you access your tasks from any site.
3. Ta Da List: Ta Da List has a very simple and effective interface. Like Remember the Milk, it can be accessed from an iPhone.

The second thing is to make Mind Maps. I covered Mind Maps in a previous post, How To Organize Ideas And Save Time. Since then, I have discovered a new software called Xmind that has more features and is very easy to use (and of course, good looking).

Next, you should also take notes when researching for posts. Yahoo Searchpad and Google Notebook are two great services for taking notes. However, if you need to access the notes offline, it is better to use a simple text file or Opera (which has a notes feature).

Final Step: Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

You will be very disappointed if you follow all these steps for a week or two and forget after that. That will not help much. Remember, repeat and self analyze to improve your efficiency even more.

What tools do you use to be more efficient? Do share in comments.

If you liked this post, consider giving it a “Thumbs Up” on StumbleUpon or bookmarking it on Delicious.

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All the best to you and your family at this time of year. Enjoy!

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Reviewing SU Subscriptions

StumbleUpon’s recent upgrade dramatically changes the online sharing game. Some Stumblrs are looking to jump ship, sniffing out other social media like FaceBook for the first time.

Version 3 friends are now “subscriptions” in Version 4. The transition started in early October. Like many of you, I assumed my friends were safely labeled for the upgrade. As the launch date moved nearer, I read the instructions clarifying Friends and Subscriptions in the new SU.  You can no longer interact with all of your V3 friends in the same way. You may need to take action to save the old friendship perks. It’s time to figure out how/if SU still helps your blogging.

Note: If you only recently became a Stumblr, you may want to read ‘how Stumble Upon works‘ or  an overview of the SU toolbar.

Definition of Friends in the New StumbleUpon

• Subscriptions – by subscribing to specific Stumblrs, you set their favorites to populate your “Recent Activity” page. This gives a nice cross-section of interesting articles to read or share with others.
  

  Want to see their favorites.

• Mutual Subscribers – means you subscribed to that person’s stumbles and she subscribed to yours.
• Mutual Subscribers who can “Direct Share” - Notice the dual share icon (bi-directional arrows) next to Stumblrs’ pictures in your Stumblr list.
  

  Sharing

  This means that you can share pages from your browser toolbar, rather than sending  emails from the dashboard. Toolbar shares are “in your face,” appearing instantly as a flaming mail icon on your friend’s toolbar.

First Step: Find holes in your network and mend them fast.

Sort subscriptions without the direct share icon.

Not Sharing?

Log into your upgraded SU account. Press “Stumblr,” then “Subscriptions.” Look for old friends who don’t have the “direct share” arrows. I visited Zacariasyan’s profile, where it was clear I had not checked the box to “accept shares to my toolbar.”

Should I accept shares?

So I took a look at his stumbles and found we liked the same two pages. One was an article I discovered that he gave a thumbs up. Not much to pin a relationship on. I decided to unsubscribe to his stumble activity.

In the future I’ll resist subscribing simply because someone liked my discovery (or visited my profile – how shallow). The old days of collecting friends that way are history.

Repeat!

Similar Likes?

Repeat for others who are not direct shares. In some cases you’ll find you have lots in common, but they did not subscribe to you. If you’re a complete fan, then you want to keep up with their favorites.

In my case, SuperMomInNY and I have very similar interests. The share icon is missing because she had not returned my V3 friend request. To make matters worse, she does not accept messages from non-friends! But I left her on my list. For people who accept messages, you can send them information to decide if they want to socialize:

Hi – if you’re interested in my stumbles, we need to subscribe to each other in SU Version 4. See http://www.stumbleupon.com/help/Friends_and_Subscriptions_in_the_new_SU/
“In order to direct-share in V4 with another Stumbler, you must both be subscribed to each other and both opt in to accept shares to your toolbar.” Here’s my page: http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/SBANow/. Hope you want to subscribe and/or share. Thanks for taking a look!

Second Step: Thin the subscriptions herd – strengthen your network.

Scrutinize subscriptions with the direct share icon.

This is a good time to look at the folks who send you shares that don’t fit what you like. You can visit their profiles, review things you have in common, especially tags. Then decide if you want to unsubscribe and/or turn off the share feature.

I unsubscribed to a few popular/ pro Bloggers that I read on RSS already – often our only common favorites were their blog pages!   Their non-blog stumbles may be about hobbies or tags you’re not interested in seeing on SU. Others who don’t allow messages were also nixed. One of the primary reasons for V4 is to “socialize” through shares or messages.

Third Step: Expand your network of quality stumbles.

Rescue Friends whose stumbles and shares you may lose.

Time to Subscribe!

Scroll down on the same Subscriptions page to see “Friends who are not Subscriptions.” This is where you find out who you’ve innocently slighted. Imagine my surprise to find Mr. I and Sebastyne! What’s more surprising is we currently share stumbles via the toolbar. So I can only guess that they are using V3. Heaven knows what happens when they’re forced to use V4. So I need to save them!

I had never subscribed to Ishan’s stumbles, although we are V3 “friends.” Likewise, he is subscribed to only one Stumblr (TimeThief). (I’m a bit jealous, but let’s move on!) I subscribed, then put him on notice to reciprocate. (Dare he not?)

As for Sebastyne, I like her graphic design tags, so I did subscribe. Under the new system she does not receive a heads-up notice of new subscribers. We haven’t exchanged many toolbar shares. I doubt if she’s interested in my stumbles on her dashboard, so I didn’t send her a note. Let her surprise me with a subscription. (She’s not reading this, is she?)

Repeat!

Reviewing the others to whom you have not subscribed is similar to thinning the herd above. Do you really want a flaming SU arrow from them on your toolbar? I subscribed to a few without sending a message, leaving the rest in limbo. They can make the first move when they realize my SU is off-limits for shares! If I hadn’t thumbed up many of their shares, they just might cull me out of their network. Then I wouldn’t have to be the bad guy. This is so much like the teenage years!

Summary

On October 28, 2009, StumbleUpon dashboards defaulted to V4. However, SU gave us an out by allowing a switch-back to V3 during the “transition” — big mistake. People love to procrastinate and resist change. Some are in for a shock when the switch option goes away in “early December 2009.” They may not realize we must define how we share pages and whose stumbles appear on our dashboard. Likewise, we need to know if our stumbles will show up on a  friend’s recent activity list!

If you’re oblivious to the changeover, follow the steps above. Make sure valued friends are intact. You’ll be glad you made the adjustments, since SU continues to be a valuable resource for finding blogs and other pages that increase your knowledge and exposure.

As you complete the steps, you have a few questions to ask yourself and some key decisions to make:

• Are you still interested in their favorites and reviews?  If not, unsubscribe now.
• How many stumbles and tags do you have in common? If not enough, unsubscribe now.
• How important is it to share pages directly with them? If that’s your primary goal, then “unrequited love is a bore.” Make sure that they are on notice to subscribe to you and select the toolbar share option.
• Do you love their stumbles but hate the constant sharing? If so, subscribe, but turn off the direct share feature. Turn a cold heart to any requests to share! (You remember what it was like to be a mean teenager?)

Leave a comment about your tactics for handling this social issue! We won’t judge you.

Edited by Cheryl

Download Your Free Report: 1 Follower Per Minute.

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Note: This is a live post. I will be keeping an eye for any recommendations that you suggest and will add it to the list along with a backlink to your blog. Check out the tools suggested by readers.

Twitter has grown like a wild fire lately, and everyone is there.

There are lot of tools available for Twitter, free as well as paid. Some are just for fun while some are meant for serious business use. In this post, I have listed (and categorized) 50 awesome Twitter tools.

There’s also a free report at the end that will help you get one follower per minute!

Now, here’s what you should do in the next 10 minutes:

• Read and enjoy the post.
• Tell us which tools you use and also tell us about the tools you recommend via comments.
• Download the free report and increase your followers.
• Try out the tool(s) you find interesting.
• Stand up and scream out loud, “The post and report were great! BWS Rocks.”

The last one is not necessary!

Business Tools

Business tools let you manage multiple accounts, schedule tweets and do much more.

1. twAiter: twAiter is a free tool that lets you easily schedule tweets and also repeat them.
2. SocialOomph: SocialOomph lets you schedule tweets, set up alerts for keywords on Twitter and auto DMs (Direct Messages) to new followers. You can also choose to follow all people who follow you automatically. The paid version adds more features, like keyword-based following.
3. SpliTweet: SpliTweet lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts right from your browser.
4. Twuffer: Twuffer allows the Twitter user to compose a list of future tweets and schedule their release.

Desktop Clients

Web interface of Twitter is, well, quite basic. Why not use an app that lets you Tweet right from your desktop?

1. Tweetdeck: Tweetdeck is one of the best clients available out there. It lets you shorten links with multiple services, update Facebook status, and create groups easily. It supports multiple accounts.
2. Twitter Opera Widget: Twitter Opera widget has everything you will need in a client (no link shortening). It is very light and a delight for Opera users.
3. Twhirl: Twhirl is a small and functional client that supports multiple accounts and services.
4. Twitterrific: Twitterrific is a small footprint client for Mac OS X, available in free and paid variants. The free version is supported by ads.
5. Twitter Gadget: Twitter Gadget by Google works with Google Desktop 5 and above.
6. Apa: A minimalistic Twitter client. That’s it !

Follower Management

The following tools will let you manage followers:

1. Twitter Karma: Lets you bulk follow and unfollow your followers.
2. TwitBlock: Lets you scan your followers and unfollow spam/bot accounts. You can also analyze individual accounts for spamminess.
3. Twitterless: Twitterless tells you who stops following you and graphs your follower history over time, making this info available in a variety of useful views.
4. Mutuality: Lets you unfollow all people who do not follow you. Use it with caution, as a wrong click can unfollow a lot of people you might have wanted to follow.
5. UnTweeps: Unfollow people who have not tweeted recently. Also lets you see a list of people you are blocking.
6. Friend Or Follow: Lets you see the people you follow, friends (people who follow you and you also follow them back) and fans (people who follow you).
7. Twerp Scan: Lets you manage your followers and unfollow one by one or in bulk.
8. Qwitter: Mails you the username and recent tweet when someone stops following you.

Jobs

I could find only one app that helps you find jobs via Twitter:

1. Twitter Job Search: Twitter Job Search lets you search for jobs on Twitter. Enter the keywords and you will get related tweets.

Monetizing

Interested in making money with Twitter? Here are services to help you:

Make Money With Twitter

1. Sponsored Tweets: Sponsored Tweets is just like Pay per Post. You tweet an advertiser’s message and earn for it.
2. RevTwt: RevTwt pays you for tweeting either pay-per-click or pay per thousand (followers). You get paid when you reach $20 (PayPal).
3. Twivert: Twivert lets you earn money by tweeting Pay Per Click ads. Payment limit is $30 via PayPal.
4. BeTweeted: BeTweeted is a Pay Per Click ad network. All the tweets are manually triggered. You can choose the links you want to tweet and get paid per click.

Link Shortening

All of us occasionally tweet links and need to shorten them. Here are some link shorteners you can use.

1. bit.ly: Do I need to say anything about it? bit.ly is the default URL shortener for Twitter. You can track the number of clicks and Tweet right from the homepage. The bookmarklets are really handy. Try out the bit.ly sidebar bookmarklet to shorten and tweet links anywhere, anytime!
2. su.pr: su.pr is not just a link shortening service; it also lets you schedule tweets and keep track of stumbles on your links. (The service is owned by Stumble Upon.) Although the statistics are not as comprehensive as bit.ly, other features make up for it. su.pr also suggests the best time to tweet according to the number of clicks. And then there’s a WordPress plugin that lets you create short URLs right on your own domain! If you use Opera, then su.pr bookmarklet can be very annoying. It just refuses to work sometimes.
3. Cligs: Cligs offers deep and real-time analytics for your shortened links. You get the geographical location of visitors, social media monitoring and referral statistics. The bookmarklet is not as cool as su.pr and bit.ly (which let you tweet right from the sidebar), but it gets the job done.
4. Tr.im: tr.im offers analytics and lets you control the name. (You can create cli.gs?your-name if it is available.) Again, the bookmarklet is not as good as su.pr or bit.ly.
5. Tweetburner: Tweetburner lets you shorten the links quickly. This is a straightforward shortener without any fancy features.

Statistics and Analytics

The following tools will present all kinds of statistics related to your Twitter account:

1. TwitterCounter: Plots a graph of the number of followers and also tweets the number of followers. You can also use their widget to show the number of followers, like FeedBurner counter.
2. TwitterHolic: Lets you see your rank among all Twitter users and by place.
3. TwetStats: Shows a lot of data using graphs. Data includes tweets per day (I tweet 8.5 times a day!), clients used, and total daily/monthly tweets.
4. Tweetwasters: Calculates how much time you spend on Twitter.
5. Tweeting To Hard: A Digg style site for submitting interesting Tweets. Here’s a popular tweet from the site: ”Just read a comment online that I found incredibly interesting. I then realized it’s something I wrote a couple years ago.”
6. Twinfluence: twInfluence lets you calculate the indirect influence you and your followers have on Twitter.
7. Follower Friend Ratio: Lets you find your follower-friend ratio. The higher the number, the more popular you are!

Productivity

Here are tools that will help you be more productive with Twitter.

1. 21Tweets: 21Tweets lets you form new habits in 21 days/tweets. You can track your progress simply by sending replies to @21tweets.
2. Twittercal: Twittercal integrates your Twitter account with Google calendar and lets you easily set up events in Google calendar.
3. TwitterMail: Lets you tweet via email. You will get a unique mail address, and anything sent to it will be posted to your Twitter account automatically.
4. StrawPoll: Lets you create tiny polls and record number of votes.
5. Twitpic: Lets you upload pictures for sharing on Twitter.
6. Twonvert: Lets you convert your tweets to SMS language. Lets you say more in less.
7. GTalk To Twitter: Tweets your GTalk status.
8. Message Cleaner: Tired of cleaning direct messages manually? DM cleaner will help you a lot by cleaning all the DMs automatically.

WordPress Plugins

How can I miss WordPress, the favorite blogging platform of many people?

WordPress + Twitter

1. Twitter Tools: Completely integrates your Twitter account and WordPress blog. It lets you tweet from the sidebar, automatically send new posts to Twitter using different URL shorteners and also post Twitter updates as WordPress posts.
2. Su.pr Plugin: Lets you create short links using your own domain.
3. Simple Twitter Link: Creates short URL for each post and lets you place a link to Retweet the post. Works only via PHP tag, with no front end interface.
4. TweetMeme Button: Places a TweetMeme button on all posts and optionally on pages and RSS feeds.
5. Twitter Avatar: Allows commentators to use their Twitter avatar instead of default Gravatar.
6. Twitterlink Comments: Adds an extra field – “Twitter Username” – to your comment form. A link to a  commentator’s profile is shown after the comment.
7. TweetBacks: Imports tweets about your posts as comments.

Reader Recommendations

Here are some great tools recommended by our readers. If you want to see your favorite tool here, just comment on this post.

1. TweetBeep: TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for twitter. Here’s what Creative Junkie said in recommendation: TweetBeep will show me a tweet that doesn’t even appear on TweetDeck (or on Twitter for that matter) and I can’t figure out how it does it.
2. YOURLS: An awesome tool recommended by Andy that lets you create your own link shortener. It also comes as a WordPress plugin.  The best part is that it also has detailed stats for people who click the links! Wait, the best part is the price tag, $0!
3. Buzzom: Recommended by Ricky, this tool lets you find people who are most likely to follow you back and also unfollow people not following you.
4. Ad.ly: Ad.ly lets you make money via twitter. It was recommended by Narayanan Hariharan.

Free Report: One Follower Per Minute

Twitter is all about numbers. The more followers you have, the more money/traffic you have. In this report, I have discussed a completely free method that will help you get one follower for every minute you spend using this method.

If you liked this post, consider Subscribing via RSS or email:

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Tired of boring text links? Need to save space in your sidebar? Then consider an attractive image with more than one hyperlink spot. You’ve seen corporate sites with maps where you pick a city or state for local information. Another example is a painting of prominent 18th century figures seated around a table. Click each face to see that person’s wiki-page pop up.

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to map hot spots onto images for Wordpress.org or Blogger blogs. Doing this can spice up your design and beef up your blog’s navigation. Remember, “a picture is often worth a thousand words”!

Roll your mouse over the admittedly action-packed graphic below to see the clickable regions. Imagine someone arriving on BWS to learn how to do something with 125 x 125 ads, display a new grab button or manipulate an image. The clickable graphic lets them find the question they want answered or spot the scroll box they’re looking to create. The alternative is doing a search and reading several posts in the results list, hunting in the Archives or just leaving empty-handed.

(before hot spots)

A Sample for the Tutorial

The sample on the right is a bit more manageable for most uses. It would grab your reader’s attention and allow them to click on one of three links. The browser then opens the page with the appropriate article or categories list.

Step 1: Design the Graphic

There are many packages that let you create photo/text images like the sample above. Of course, you can use PhotoShop (quite expensive) or the free software at Gimp.org. GIMP is a “feature-rich” open source program that lets you compose and manipulate images.

I used the software that came with my MS FrontPage years ago. It still works. You can download it free at MS Image Composer.

1. Determine the width and height of your image. This ensures that it will fit in your sidebar without resizing. Once the hotspots are created, you cannot resize the graphic. Hot spots work off coordinates within the image.
2. I used the shapes button (6th on the bottom ) to create two circles of the same size. Set the color using the first color swatch button, then create one circle in turquoise. Set the color to black for the second circle.
3. Overlap the two circles with the black, creating a shadow effect. Use the “Arrange” button on the menu to move the turquoise circle to the top.
   
4. Create text using the 5th button from the bottom of the tool bar. The color swatch in the pop-up window lets you change the text color to blue, red or black for this example. To make the blue text resemble a wave, press Tools, Effects and scroll over to Wave. Click the “details” tab to change the wave frequency, amplitude (I used 50%) and axis (used Y only).
5. Position the three text images within the overlapping circles and save on your computer as a jpg image.

Step 2: Add Hot Spots to Graphic

For this step you need advanced software to define the position of the links and create the html needed within your blog. You can use:

• MS FrontPage
• DreamWeaver
• Photoshop (see this article for details )
• GIMP (has a plugin for image maps)

If necessary, call in a favor from one of your friends who may have the software. Actually, it takes very little time to do what’s needed and copy the html code. I used FrontPage. Before you start, be sure to have the urls for the three links handy. (Open them in windows so you can copy the links as needed.)

1. Open a new page. Use toolbar to Insert, Picture from file (the graphic you saved on your computer from Step 1).
2. Right click the image to select the “pictures toolbar” – these are the buttons to draw hot spots: The rectangle, circle and polygonal (free form).
3. Select the image, press the third button for the polygonal tool. A pencil lets you draw sloping lines around the words “Create Your Blog.” Release the drawing, and a window pops up to let you insert the hyperlink. Copy and paste the correct blog page’s url . In our case, it’s the contents category.
   
   Do the same for “Grow Your Blog and “Customize It”. Use the first button, rectangle to map the hot spots and paste hyperling addresses.
4. Click “show code” at the bottom of the FrontPage window. Copy all the html that defines the paragraph with the coordinates map. In our example it looks like this:

   <p><map name="FPMap0">
   <area href="http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/category/promotion-traffic-branding" shape="rect" coords="47, 73, 170, 93">
   <area href="http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/category/design" shape="rect" coords="26, 97, 122, 114">
   <area href="http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/category/content" shape="polygon" coords="8, 40, 62, 47, 136, 25, 169, 45, 165, 64, 8, 64">
   </map>
   <img border="0" src="../Desktop/Clickable%20regions/sample-circle.jpg" width="179" height="134" usemap="#FPMap0"></p> 

Step 3: Add the Image/Code to Your Blog

The last step is the easiest. You just create a widget with the code for the image map and the actual graphic.

1. Go to Wp.org or Blogger dashboard. Add a html widget. Paste the code you saved in Step 2.
2. Upload the jpg image from Step 1 to an online service like Photobucket, or directly to your media files or a temporary Blogger post. Save the image location address.
3. Change the last statement in the Step 2 code to show the actual url of your image. In our case, it’s
   “http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sample-circle.jpg“
4. Preview and save. Verify that all the hot spots bring up the pages you expect. This is our sample with links activated:
   
   

   Hot Spots Activated

Notes: Additions and Alternatives

Provide alt text for people using text only browsers

You can also edit the image map html to add “alt” tags on each clickable region. Doing so helps anyone who doesn’t see the image, by providing text hints. Place the tag at the end of the the hot link addresses, leaving a space. For example,

…category/content” alt=”create your blog”

Online services which provide image mapping only

I did find a couple of free online image mapping sites for getting most of what you need in Step 2. This may be a good alternative for getting the specific map coordinates. Then use the format from FrontPage to add your links and name your image map.  The online service may require more effort but, hey it’s free.

• Image Maps -Seems easy to use. They gave coordinates of 51, 68, 168, 90 for ‘grow your blog’, which was very close to what I drew in FrontPage:     47, 73, 170, 93
• Image Map Editor – adds credit line to the code.

Be creative and don’t forget to come back to leave a comment about your experience with this technique. Add any other ideas for using image maps.

Download Your Free Report: 1 Follower Per Minute.

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