The Web Tools Blog - For Bloggers, Web Users and Webmasters

Get a Free Domain and Hosting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:23:00 +0000

You can easily get a free domain and hosting here.

I will no longer be posting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:27:00 +0000

I am sorry to inform you that The Web Tools Blog will no longer continue. For a number of reasons which I won't go into.

Thanks for reading,
Thomas

The Web Tools Blog Will be Back After this Short Break

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:39:00 +0000

I'm sorry to announce that I will not be posting for one week. After which I will start posting regularly.

I'm planning on making the move to wordpress, as well as some design changes.

I hope you join me when I start posting again.

Great Resource for Finding Web-based Apps

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:11:00 +0000

Apps Mania is a showcase for web applications. but it can be useful for finding great web apps.

Cousin to CSS Mania, Apps mania was started June 2007 and has been going strong since. It has about 400 subscribers as of this writing.

All the apps are nicely organized into categories such as social networking, blogging, mobile etc.

Check it out here.

Changes - Stick with me!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:53:00 +0000

As some of you might have noticed I'm making some changes to the design, title and subject of this blog. Sorry to throw you around.

Please hang with me as I make some updates over the next week or so. When I'm finished it will be worth it.

If you have any ideas on how to make The Web Tools Blog better let me know. I will write a post with all the suggestion you give me and would be glad to link to your blog.

Thanks,
Thomas

Make a "What I'm Reading" Blogroll with Google Reader

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:48:00 +0000

With a click of the mouse you can add an a blog post to your own "What I'm reading" blogroll, here's how.

For this you need to be using Google Reader. Just log in and click the "settings" button then hit the "tabs" link. You should see a "your shared items" tag that's set at public. Go over and click the "add clip to site" link.

Click images for larger versions.

Once you install the code on your blog you can share stuff you like by hitting the "share" button in Google Reader.and it will be added to your "blogroll."

Here's an example:

Squidoo's new Project: ever.com

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:37:00 +0000

If you like Squidoo, you'll love The Ever Project.

The Ever Project lets you easily build a Squidoo lens (what's that?) with you current Squidoo account. The only real differences are that you can choose you own unique ever.com sub-domain, and there is a little different look.

You simple pick a superlative, then a keyword and your set. Example: best.stuff.ever.com. You then simply set up a Squidoo lens to put on that sub-domain.

To see an example go to best.webtools.ever.com that I mentioned yesterday.

Vote for Your Favorite Web Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:02:00 +0000

Now there is a Squidoo lens where you can vote for your favorite social bookmarking site, blogging platform or just your overall favorite web tool. Made by me!

Check it out, vote, leave feedback or submit a tool to one of the lists. You can even subscribe to the RSS feed to keep track of updates.

An Introduction to Technorati

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 18:37:00 +0000

The best way to describe Technorati is a blog compiler. It collect information from blogs and compiles it to help you find things your interested in. Turns out, Technorati can also be a great tool for promoting your blog. Here are some ways you can use it to do that.

Getting started

First you need to create an account. If you already have one, good. You're set to go.

Watchlists

A watchlist is a simple way that you can track the buzz about anything on the web. They are very easy to setup and fun to use.

Claim your blog

This is a little more complicated, but it's worth it. Once you claim you blog you can tag it and give it a description. This helps other Technorati users find your blog.

How to setup a Crazy Egg Heatmap for Your Blog or Website

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:07:00 +0000

A heatmap is an image that lets you see where people clicked on your site/blog. They can be very useful in test design or ad placement. Today I'm going to show you how to set one up with a web tool called Crazy Egg.

This tool cost from free to $99-a-month. The free account lets you track up to 5,000 visitors, on up to 4 different pages. That's all you need for now.

To get a feel for how the interface looks you can hit the "Demo" button.

Setting up a snapshot

Once you have sign up, log into you account and click the "add new page" button.

It will take you to the setup page where you will need to fill in information such as name of page, URL, length of test and description.

You will then need to add a bit of code to you site/blog. Unfortunately this is a javascript so if readers have that blocked you won't see them.

After you add the code you simply head back to the dashboard to see results. You can login every so often and hit the "view results" button for one of you pages to see the overview, list of clicked links, heatmap or confetti.

Sick of the Plain Old Google Interface? Have Some Fun Searching With Tafiti

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:55:00 +0000

Sometimes I feel just sick of the plain white Google interface. Don't get me wrong, I love Google and the white user interface can be refreshing. But day after day all I get is white. Not fun.

But I've found the answer! Tafiti is a great new beta search engine powered by Microsoft Live and Microsoft Silverlight.

Okay, so Microsoft live search doesn't rock, but Tafiti is definaty cool! Don't believe me? See for yourself!

Click the images to see larger versions.

That's the basic layout. Here are some more cool features.

You can go back through previous searches:

Or drag search results to the sidebar for later:

It even has this funky thing called tree view:

Dare I say it, this is search 3.0 Check it out!

How to Add Some Cool Web Tools to Your Blog or Site

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:03:00 +0000

Ever wanted to add a Page Rank checker or domain search to your blog, so your readers can use them? Now you can.

Today I stumbled onto a website called iWebTool. They have a large amount of simple web tools that you can use there on the site, or you can put the tools directly on your own blog or site.

They offer search engine ranking tools, HTML tools, domain tools and a bunch of Misc. tools.

If your looking for a great way to add some "pop" to your site or blog. Check iWebTool out!

Why You should Use More Than One Statistic Tools for Your Site

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:40:00 +0000

I use Google Analytics, MyBlogLog and SiteMeter. Sound crazy? Here's why you should to.

Today I was looking over and email report from Sitemeter. When I noticed that on the 26 of this month 80+ unique visitors had come to my site. I hadn't seen this on Google Analytics, so feeling a little puzzled I decided to look into it here's what I discovered:

I had submitted one of my posts to StumbleUpon, that's where the traffic came from, but I got different reports on all three statistical tools.

From Google Analytics I saw this:

It didn't even show StumbleUpon as a refferer.

From MyBlogLog I got this:

And From SiteMeter I got this:

Why did this happen?
Most SU users have Javascript blocked. Google Analytics uses javascript, but I pretty sure MyBlogLog and SiteMeter use it to. Do you guys know why? Let me know!

Anyway this just goes to show that it's not good to rely on just one site statistic tools. I'm not saying you need to use three, but it doesn't hurt.

StumbleUpon 101

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:00:00 +0000

StumbleUpon is a great social bookmarking tool, but are you using it as best you can? Here are some posts on other blogs that give tips and tricks on using SU.

Why StumbleUpon Sends More Traffic Than Digg - A great post on why SU drive so much traffic. - Problogger.net

How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog - Another Problogger post on SU.

Using StumbleUpon To Connect With People In Your Niche - A good post about connecting with like-minded people on SU. - Caroline Middlebrook

Building Your Blog With StumbleUpon - Another post on Problogger.net, but this one isn't by Darren, instead it's by Skellie @ skelliewag.org

Here are some more posts:
StumbleUpon Traffic Tip#1 - The Super Stumble

Easily Increase Site Traffic Using StumbleUpon.com

My take on StumbleUpon as a social bookmarking and research tool

Stumble Upon: A Cool Ethical Approach

Get Visitors to StumbleUpon Your Website

There are a lot of other great posts out there about SU, just run a Google Blog search for StumbleUpon and see!

Why not StumbleUpon this post, or check out my SU profile!

Google Page Rank

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:16:00 +0000

There's been a lot going on lately with the whole page rank thing. I made this animation to show you guys:

Keep your Social Bookmarking Easy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:08:00 +0000

Do you have a StumbleUpon account, a Digg account, del.icio.us, Reddit etc.? If you use more than one of those, admit it, it can be hard to keep organized.

and There is a way that you can do two or more social bookmarking sites easily. I currently do SUDigg and del.icio.us. How do I stay sane?

With the AddThis browser button. To be honest with you, this isn't a web tool, but it's still cool.

All you have to do is setup and account, then install the browser plugin (IE and FF) or the bookmarklet.

Then on any page you want to bookmark, you simple hit the button and it takes you to a page with a list of social bookmarking sites. Just Click the one you want to bookmark it on.

This is really nice because you won't have a million toolbars piling up in you browser.

Enjoy! -Thomas

Google Trends for Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:20:00 +0000

Google Trends may seem like a simple useless tool, but I think it's a great tool for bloggers.

Google Trends is a tool that lets you see what the top searches are. You can also put in any search terms any it shows you the popularity of that search as far back as 2004.

Those aren't the real gems of Google Trends though. The real cool part is that you can compare two or more search terms by separating them with commas.

For example I put in iPod, iPhone and here's what I got:
iPod iPhone

As you can see iPod has gotten a lot more searches that iPhone.

So how does this help bloggers? Well I tell you. Say you are writing a blog post about this cool iPod mod you found, but you weren't sure if you should title the post "Cool iPod Mod" or "Cool iPod Hack"

Just jump into Trends and put them both in. You would find that the keywords "iPod Hack" gets a lot more searches than "iPod Mod".

Enjoy!
-Thomas Flight

Need to create a Contact From or two? Wufoo!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:42:00 +0000

Wufoo is a great tool that allows you to build any kind of contact form you want! A free account will get you three forms with pretty good customization. The interface is clean and fast. Overall a great tool.

Here's a example:
&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://thomasflight.wufoo.com/forms/contact/" title="HTML form"&amp;amp;gt;Fill out my Wufoo form!&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;
Powered by Wufoo

Survey Monkey: Make your own Survey in Minutes!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:30:00 +0000

I kept hearing about a great tool called Survey Monkey, so I decided to check it out.

I found a free, easy to use, web tool that allows you to make a survey in very little time. You can have rating boxes, text boxes, drop-down menus and more. Want to make a long survey? Survey Monkey allows you to easily divide you survey into pages. You can also (slightly) customize the look.

Why not take my survey to help me make The Web Tools Blog better! Click here to take the survey.

The Web Tools Blog FAQ

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:11:00 +0000

This is a list of Frequently Asked Questions. So you can get an idea of what I'm trying to do on and with this blog.

Q. What is this blog about?
A. This blog is about web tools. It's here to help you find web tools, and show you how to better use them. I will have reviews on different web tools, tips and tricks and maybe so hacks.

Q. What is a "web tool"?
A. You may know them better as wed-based apps or web services. Pretty much a web tool is a tool that's on the Internet. In other words you don't have to download or install it.

A web tool can be any thing from Digg to Wordpress to Bloglines to Google.

Q. When do you post?
A. I post on every week day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Q. Can I copy you posts?
A. No you can't copy entire posts without permission. You can copy small portions ( a paragraph or to), but please give credit to me. My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Q. Can I use your blog's theme?
A. No. Although if you contact me we may be able to work something out.

Q. Can you link to my blog?
A. If you would like to trade links, let me know. I might be interested.

Q. What is Geek-More.com?
Geek-More is a website/Blog network that I'm currently developing. For more info please contact me.

If this hasn't answered you questions, please contact me, or comment below.

10 Reasons I use Gmail and Love it!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:05:00 +0000

Here are the ten biggest reasons Gmail is great.

1. It's free! free is good. Sometimes free stuff tends to stink, but this is not the case with Gmail.

2. Lot's of space! 2GB and counting is no small potato's. Especially when you compare that to the measly 10MB that some paid services give.

3. Awesome search capabilities. This is great for finding that one message your really need.

4. Built in chatting features. You can chat with anyone else of has Gmail. Cool!

5. Great filter features, lets you organize messages nicely.

6. It automatically organizes your messages by conversations.

7. No ads in messages! There are some in the sidebar, but messages are ad free.

8. POP accounts. Don't like the web interface? Just setup a POP account and use Gmail in your favorite email program.

9. Fast and easy user interface (I hate slow and clunky).

10. Spam filter, I haven't got a spam yet. :)

I'd love to hear why you love Gmail in the comment section.

Del.icio.us Inside Out, Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:55:00 +0000

OK this post is going to wrap up my del.icio.us series. Today I'm going to talk about the del.icio.us user interface (UI). It is a little tricky to get the hang of so hope this post is of some help to you.

Now first of when you come to the del.icio.us home page, you see a couple of things.

Hotlist
Tags To watch
Navigation

The hotlist is really just that, it's a list of the popular bookmarks right now. This list changes from day to day even hour to hour.

The tags to watch area is just a place with popular tags.

Finally the navigation along the top:

your bookmarks | your network | subscriptions | Links for you | post

These will take you to various area of your del.icio.us account.

One last thing I would like to mention. For some reason a lot of great feature where stuck in the "settings" area of the navigation. The features that are "hidden" here include; network badges, daily blog posts, tag lists, link list, Facebook integration and more!

I'd love to hear all your tips on how you use del.icio.us in the comment section!

More Web 2.0 Tools -Linked In Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:05:00 +0000

Yazzie just posted a great list of links to web 2.0 tools. This is should be helpful for any webmaster or blogger.

This list is huge! The list contains tools for Images/graphics, CSS, Forms, fun and humor, RSS, site maps, meta tags, passwords, flash, favicons and a lot more!

Another Post to look at would be this one, a post much like the one above. Only It has screenshots of the tools.

P.S. I'm very busy right now, but I'll get back on the del.icio.us series soon! Thanks!

Del.icio.us Inside Out, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:47:00 +0000

Now if you would like to start using del.icio.us you will need an account. It's just three easy steps, and it doesn't take much time.

If you are using FireFox you can install the del.icio.us buttons. I would recommend doing this. There are also options if you are using Internet Explorer, Safari or Opera.
And your done! Tomorrow I'll do a post on how to use and move around in and with del.icio.us.

Del.icio.us Inside Out, part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:40:00 +0000

This is the first part of my series on del.icio.us.

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking network. Here is a quick list of what you can do with it:

Bookmark blogs/websites etc.
Bookmark stuff for other del.icio.us users.
See what others are bookmarking.
Keep private bookmarks that only you can see.
Delete, bundle and rename tags.
Subscribe to tags to see what others are bookmarking.
Network with other del.icio.us users.
Make a blogroll of you bookmarks. (My post on how to do this)
make tag lists/clouds for your blog or website.
Put a Creative Commons licence on your bookmarks.
Facebook integration.
Import/upload bookmarks

del.icio.us relies heavily on "tags" so you should know what a "tag" is. On the del.icio.us homepage it says:

A tag is simply a word you use to describe a bookmark. Unlike folders, you make up tags when you need them and you can use as many as you like. The result is a better way to organize your bookmarks and a great way to discover interesting things on the Web.