The traditional method of recruitment has been revolutionized by the emergence of the Internet. In the past few years, the Internet has dramatically changed the face of HR recruitment and the ways organizations think about the recruiting function in Pakistan, especially in private sector.

Using the power of Internet to achieve your HR goals not only increases your productivity but also saves you time and money. E-recruitment is the processes of recruiting personnel by using internet or other electronic sources. By using E Recruitment services employers get a better chance to address their needs to target audience in a better way.

These services gives time flexibility and more chances to attract passive job seekers as well resulting in better chance to get best match for hiring needs. In the coming years, digital recruiting and hiring are expected to continue their explosive growth. Presently, e-recruitment has been adopted in many organizations in Pakistan from large organizations to small size companies. Most organizations are already using e-recruitment to post jobs and accept resumes on the Internet, and correspond with the applicants by e-mail. However, moving forward it’s necessary to introduce strategies for increasing Literacy rate for basic IT education and increasing awareness of benefits revived from E Recruitment.

Concept of posting Job opening on internet was truly introduced by employees of IT industry. One of the pioneer mailing list was Pak-It-Jobs which came into existence as a result of personal efforts of an individual who started adding all IT people he knew at that time. This mailing list was later known to many IT companies of Pakistan and these companies used to post their job openings there. Later with realization many mailing lists and online informal groups came into existence including groups made by University graduates like, dcsiiui@yahoogroups.co, alumni@lists.niit.edu.pk etc, to serve recourse needs of companies of different industry.

In Aug2002, first formal and professional Online Job portal was introduced by two people with the name of Bright Spyre. Later many other E-Recruitment companies were established like Rozee.pk, Of Naseeb networks, finaljobs.pk etc
Almost all E-recruitment firms in Pakistan have systems wherein individuals can register free of cost to get access to job openings and can apply for any available job openings.

On the other side employers are offered different packages based on requirements of employers like job postings, access to CV database for any skill set, etc. Once the concept of E recruitment was introduced and was well accepted by corporate world of Pakistan, many small and big Job portals opened in Pakistan. They not only served hiring needs of companies but also tried to introduce different products and packages keeping in view current and upcoming hiring needs of companies in Pakistan.

Some of these packages are:

Job Postings:

This is on of the most common features offered by Recruitment firms in Pakistan. Variety of packages are offered for job posting like number of jobs posts in certain time period, unlimited job posts for certain time period etc.
Executive Search/Head hunting: By buying this package employers can get highly skilled and senior employees of their requirement.

Corporate Career Portal:

Many companies have their own Job portals. At back end, maintenance and working of these portals are most of the time out sourced to E recruitment firms.

University student portals:

As discussed earlier E recruitment business in Pakistan was started with Introduction of mailing lists. Many universities now have collaborated with E recruitment firms and have made Job portals where students subscribe and employers can get access to these student Job portals by buying packages offered by E recruitment Firms.

International social networking sites for professionals have also influenced Pakistani work force. In Pakistan LINKEDIN has been used in dual way for E recruitment. On one side employers use its packages for posting jobs or other wise viewing profiles of potential candidates and for contacting them, and on the other side many groups have been made and people tend to share either job openings or other wise promote their groups as Recruitment consultants to be approached by employers for hiring needs.
Most of the usages of E- recruitment services available in Pakistan are availed by the private sector and in that too mostly IT and Telecom companies are active participants.

A lot of multinational companies have also subscribed with E-recruitment companies and hire employees through them. In past few years a positive update in public sector is also witnessed in this regard. Selected semi-government and government organizations have started using their websites to announce job openings and receiving applications against it for further processing. In addition to that FPSC (Federal Public Service Commission) has also started taking online applications against various government jobs openings.

Other then the usual issues of a new business there are some very noticeable issues which can prove to be a big threat to E-recruitment business in Pakistan like IT literacy rate in Pakistan. Though with passage of time many people now are getting at least basic level IT knowledge, but its important that potential workforce of Pakistan should be IT literate to use E Recruitment systems. Another concern is awareness of benefits of using this system, no matter how good the system is, if target audience does not get the information it can’t work.

This can be done by making good marketing strategies. Most of these businesses focus to cater the hiring needs of Pakistani companies. Though few of them have started working on it and have are providing services as offshore labor providers, need is to extend it to the other categories of the employees too.

From service point of view, one of major issues faced today by employers is that certain times CVs are either over played or under played, so there should be some service offered which can enable employers to have initial virtual meetings with shortlisted candidates to further save the time and cost spend otherwise. In order to save time and other resources its also proposed that a fool proof system should be devised and implemented in its true spirit to interview candidates online.

The recruitment process has been completely changed and revolutionized by the Internet, and today the traditional and slower process of recruitment have been bypassed in favor of the new process that is known as ‘e-recruitment. Most organizations around the world now recognize that manpower is the key to success, and, by using e-recruitment, they are hiring better people, at a faster and cheaper rate than ever before. Pakistani employers are now able do recruitment in more efficient and cost effective manner in comparison to traditional way of recruitment.

Like all other business, E Recruitment will also have to pass through all stages of business cycle to finally assume the status of a mature business. So it obvious that there is room for improving this business and its necessary that all stakeholders should watch for risks and opportunities attached with it to ensure that one day this business reaches the highest level in Pakistan.

Yesterday, I have changed the layout of DailyNewsCompany.com that I was planning for long and finally after one year I have done. I have tried to keep things simple, bold, straight forward and easy to handle and especially in blue color combination or shade.

Although spiking with blog layout, the new design will respond lot better to tablets and mobile devices, an audience which is fast growing and will further spring in coming days. Responsive behavior of our new design will automatically govern your screen sizes like (iPads, iPhone, Tablets, Laptops, Desktop Computers, Android Devices etc…) to show you the content that best fits your screen widths.

Actually, DailyNewsCompany is a Pinterest-inspired WordPress theme that features the trademark grid layout with multiple post sizes and long list of posts. Capture the magic of Pinterest and maximize your page views with a layout users are familiar with, with the powerful functionality and optimizations. I have made efforts to show limited and optimized ads to mobile and tablet users. Similar care is taken for social sharing buttons.

1. Friendly Layout that new users will be familiar with, and capture the magic of Pinterest, with the trademark grid layout.
2. The responsive grid automatically adjusts and optimizes display on any device, so mobile, desktop and tablet users will all be happy.
3. Shortcodes easily add quotes, media, lists and other items of posts and DailyNewsCompany is hand-coded with the latest techniques in HTML5 and CSS3 to help maximize the functionality, speed and power of DailyNewsCompany blog.

Here, I would like to thank our valued visitors who make up this wonderful community that has always helped us grow. Thank you for keeping this website up and running…

Instagram is a cool photo sharing app that allows you to apply digital filters to your pictures. A lot of people use it to share their pictures with family and friends. More and more businesses have started using Instagram along with Pinterest to share their photos with their users. Recently, one of our users asked how to add their Instagram photos in WordPress? In WordPress 3.5, native oEmbed support for Instagram was added in the core. This means that you can just copy and paste the URL of an Instagram photo page, and it will automatically embed that image into your WordPress or page. But what if you want add an Instagram widget in your WordPress sidebar? In this article, we will show you how to display Instagram photos in your WordPress sidebar widget.

Setting up Simply Instagram

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Simply Instagram plugin. Upon activation, the plugin will show you a notification, asking you to authorize Simply Instagram plugin access to your Instagram account. Click on the authorize link.

On the next screen you will see a login button next to the Instagram logo. Click on login button, and it will take you to Instagram website where you can provide your username and password to give Simply Instagram access to your account.

After the authorization you will be redirected back to Simply Instagram settings page in your WordPress site.

Using Simply Instagram

Using Simply Instagram is fairly easy. The plugin comes with four built-in widgets which you can drag and drop to your WordPress sidebar or widget areas.

1: Recent Media Widget
2: User Info Widget
3: Latest Feed Widget
4: Currently Popular widget

Each widget comes equipped with configuration options of its own.

Simply Instagram also comes with shortcode support, so you can share your Instagram photos in WordPress posts or pages in a gallery style format. Go to Settings » Simply Instagram to find a shortcode generator.

Configuring Simply Instagram

Simply instagram also provides you option to configure the look and feel of Instagram photos on your site. On the settings page, you can set the shortcode configuration options. Remember that these options are just for photos displayed using shortcode. Instagram widgets have their own options which can be configured from the Widgets panel.

To display your Instagram photos, Simply Instagram comes packed with a jQuery light box plugin called prettyPhoto. It is used to display your Instagram photos in full screen slideshow view. You can adjust the prettyPhoto options from the settings page as well.

We hope that this article helped you add Instagram photos in your WordPress sidebar widget. Do you use Instagram for your business? Do you display your Instagram photos on your WordPress site? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

You thought of a grand idea for a WordPress plugin, had it developed, used it on your WP site, it works flawlessly, now you want to sell it. What are your options to sell this plugin?

There are lots of different ways you can market and sell your WordPress plugin. Each method has its own set of pros and cons. So you really want to explore all the options that are available to you and then choose the option that suits best for your situation.

How to Market a WordPress plugin

Let’s go through some scenarios for selling your WordPress plugin to the masses.

1) Add Your WP Plugin to an Existing Marketplace

To start with, for a lazy, or temporary, or complimentary solution, you can find an existing marketplace that will allow you to include your plugin.

I’m not referring to a general “digital download” marketplace like PayLoadz, but a site that already sells WordPress plugins, themes, etc. CodeCanyon.net comes to mind.

This is a great way to get started, but understand that you are giving a big cut away to the company. If you sell exclusively on their site they will take less. But the moment you start selling elsewhere (like on your own site), which I highly recommend you do, then you get less of a cut if you keep the product in the CodeCanyon market place.

Be sure to understand their terms completely before considering them for an avenue for selling your plugin.

2) Sell in a Blog Post Using Hosted E-Commerce Solution

Another way to sell the script is by selling within a blog post of a niche related site using a hosted E-Commerce solution. This is just one step away from lazy bones.

You see, with the CodeCanyon suggestion, you don’t have to worry about the technology used to securely deliver the content after purchase. When you start selling on your own, you do.

Fortunately, it’s not too hard.

While the interface is brutal, e-Junkie allows you to sell digital downloads from your site for a monthly recurring price. Another solution you can look at is FoxyCart.

You add your digital product and it keeps it secure for you and handles all the transactions. You can tie it to your PayPal account for payments, and e-Junkie provides a private, expiring link to the customer to download his or her goods.

E-junkie also has an affiliate program, but I don’t recommend you get married to such a thing. You’ll probably be moving along shortly.

3) Launch Your Own Portal/Site

Having your own dedicated web site to sell your stuff is a decent idea. I recommend WordPress for simplicity. Using the WordPress platform on your site and using a WordPress e-commerce plugin to handle the selling side of things is a really good way to approach this.

I’ve actually went back and forth a couple times between selling from a blog post, and selling from my own site.

The best method between the two is: selling from a dedicated site.

The caveat? There’s a little more work involved.

However, this option allow you to have a site that looks and functions just the way you want it. Also, this method helps you build your own brand over time.

With your own site, you’ll want to have the following:

1. An online and bundled manual. The bundled manual can be text and PDF. The online version of course would be HTML with screenshots and screencasts.
2. Detailed pages or posts with a description for the product.
3. Online demos on separate pages.
4. Screen shots should be also included.

Consider what the plugin sales pages have on CodeCanyon and Tips & Tricks HQ, and aim for the best, of what you discover, putting yourself in the buyers shoes.

Plugin Selling Checklist

Put together Plugin Description, Manual, Demos and Screenshots

Regardless of where and how you sell the plugin, you will need four key items.

1) Description – come up with an “elevator” description for your product. Basically think of a quick quick description that sums up what your product does.

Now come up with a benefits list. Sprinkle in some features and round it out for a nice description. Get good at describing it very succinctly, semi-thoroughly, and thoroughly, as you will be using descriptions for all of your marketing.

Come up with a features checklist as well.

2) Manual – You should have a quick text version manual written up with the steps needed to install and use your plugin.

Also, create a rich document with screen shots to enhance the step by step textual instructions. Convert it to PDF and HTML.

And, for all major steps, do screencasts. Show the installation and basic usage in separate videos (if applicable).

Try Screencast-o-matic, which is one of the coolest tools I have discovered so far this year. It’s cheap and feature rich. It’s worth much more than they charge. Don’t tell them that though

3) Demos – you probably just need one quick demo for usage. This is best done in HTML, but a video could help there too. Essentially, try to explain what the plugin does as best you can.

4) Screenshots – I know that we’ve put together some screenshots for tutorials, but this is more for how the bad boy looks. If you have settings panels for use, screenshot them. Any screen that is viewed that is unique to your plugin during standard setup and use should be screenshotted.

Screen Capture (by Google) is a really good tool to capture screenshots from your Chrome browser. It’s free, and extends Chrome browser, and has some cool features. I like it. It makes PNGs by default.

What Else Would You Need?

You’ll probably want:

1) A system to deliver the content securely (many digital auto-delivery eCommerce plugins exist for WordPress). There are few wordpress e-commerce plugins out there to help you with this. Pick one with good support so you don’t get stuck down the path.

I’ve used the S2Member plugin for this. You can either force the person to become a member to gain access, or give them temp access to a hidden download page with their purchase. The latter is probably better in most cases, in terms of less steps for the user, and less that can go wrong.

WP eStore was written for digital content delivery. It has stepped up beyond that but that’s where its origin is and it handles that aspect flawlessly.

2) A system to capture emails to be used in an autoresponder or mailing list.

Both s2Member and WP eStore include the capability for customers to sign up to a list during checkout. There are APIs that “talk to” MailChimp, AWeber, etc.

3) A support system. Maybe a ticketing system or integrated forum. You could use the bbPress forum plugin.

4) A blog with posts dedicated to each and every feature, demos, usage examples, news, and so on. This part would need ongoing content.

5) Affiliate system. WordPress Affiliate Platform works seamlessly with WP eStore as it was written by the same developer.

6) Miscellaneous – Perhaps include an updates page, a page detailing the compatibilities and known issues, a page to reach out to translators for Internationalization, different licensing options, testimonials, FAQ page, example sites etc.

With all that said, I will say that it does require some work to put everything together just the way you want it. If you have the passion and resources, self-hosted I think, is the way to go.

Bonus Suggestions for Plugin Sellers

A couple other suggestions that I have for the would-be WordPress plugin seller.

1) I suggest having two other products/versions created.

I tell you this from experience that this is a good idea. And if you’re thinking it will cost 3x as much, it really shouldn’t, not if your developer is honest.

I actually created the earliest versions of my plugins myself. And I made the two extra versions and it took maybe an hour. Your developer shouldn’t charge a lot (depending on the complexity).

a) Make a free version. For this you want to create a version of the plugin that has some cool functionality. Allow your visitors to use the free version.

b) Make a PHP version if you can. A WordPress plugin is written in PHP. In most cases, it doesn’t take much to include a PHP version of the plugin within the script. I bundle my PHP and WP versions together at no extra charge. And really, only one extra file needed to be added.

But of course, that meant extra manuals, etc. but it was still a simple, valuable feature-add.

2) Consider, in the future, making the plugin available for Drupal and Joomla! folks perhaps.

In Conclusion

If you don’t have a plugin but have a good idea for one, hire a developer if you have the money. Just make sure there is a demand. In most cases, if the product would satisfy your needs, others will want it as well. But, there is a way to quickly estimate a wider need.

You want to know your competition before starting anyway so see what is out there that is similar. What freebies are available in the WP plugin repository or on the web? Are there lots of searches looking for these plugins?  Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool can help you with the research.

Nonce – what is it and why is it important when it comes to WordPress and security?

What Does Nonce Mean?

The word “nonce” is an abbreviation for the term number used once and is a string generated by WordPress which acts as a special token and is used to identify the person doing a specific operation such as the submission of a form, deletion of a post etc.

Why Use Nonce?

The nonce’s main purpose is to protect against malicious hacking attacks such as a technique known as Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) which involves tricking people into clicking a link which will cause harm to your site.

Another way to describe a nonce is that it is sort of like a temporary secret key or fingerprint which is unique only to you and can only ever be used by you for a specific operation and it is extremely difficult to be guessed by somebody else.

How Does It Work?

The nonce value is valid for 24 hours after which it expires and a new one will be generated.

This ensures that someone cannot copy an old nonce and re-inject it into the URL of an operation or HTTP request.

Nonces are widely used in the core functionality of WordPress but you may not have been specifically aware of them. For example, let’s say you are an administrator of a WordPress blog and you want to delete a specific user account.

When you click on the “delete” link, WordPress will generate a nonce and it will add it in the URL as follows:

http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/users.php?action=delete&user=5&_wpnonce=94f3a1e666
The above nonce will be valid for 24 hours and it can only be used by you and only for this specific operation – which in this case is the deletion of the user with the id value of “5”.

Now let’s say that moments after successfully deleting the user you also wanted to delete a post. When you click on the “trash” link for that post, WordPress will once again generate a new nonce value specifically for this operation:

http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1&action=trash&_wpnonce=3a6dc727ba
Note how the value of this nonce is different to the first one and again the same rule applies here in that it will only be valid for 24 hours and can only be used for the deletion (trash action) of the post with id value of 1.

Thus when a user clicks a link in the admin panel such as the delete or trash links in the examples above, WordPress will do some checks behind the scenes to verify that the “_wpnonce” parameter is valid and if and only if it is valid, it will proceed with the completion of the request.

If the value for “_wpnonce” was found to be invalid then WordPress will not allow the operation and the user would be greeted with a screen that tells them the error.

Plugin Developers

If you are a WordPress plugin developer or have aspirations to become one, then you should learn and embrace the concept of nonces and apply them to your code where applicable.

WordPress has several useful functions available to you which you can use for all matters related to nonces.

Creating nonces

There are functions to create and add nonces to your URLs and forms in WordPress.

Adding a nonce to a URL

For example, WordPress has the following function which will create a nonce which you can manually add to your URL:

wp_create_nonce($action)

This function will create a nonce value and as you can see it takes a single argument, which is a string defining the action you are performing.

The string can be anything you wish and it is advisable that you choose something unique to your plugin which will be hard to guess.

The function will return a string in the form of the nonce token value.

Example 1:

For example let’s assume you have written a plugin which has a page with a list of items with a delete link next to each item. To further enhance security you want to add a nonce to the delete link.

The following is one way you could do it using the function above:

1) First you would create the nonce:

$my_nonce = wp_create_nonce('delete_my_rec');

2) Next you would add this nonce to your URL:

<a href='admin.php?page=mypluginpage&action=delete&recid=1&_wpnonce=<?php echo $my_nonce ?>'>Delete Me</a>

An alternative way to add a nonce to a URL is to use the following function:

wp_nonce_url($actionurl, $action)

This function takes two parameters.

1. The first is the URL you wish to add the nonce to
2. The second is the action name you wish to assign to the nonce.

If you look inside the WordPress core code you will see that wp_nonce_url function actually calls the wp_create_nonce function to create the nonce which it then adds to the URL string.

Example 2:

Therefore, we can use the wp_nonce_url function to achieve the same outcome as in the first example by simply doing the following:

1) Create the URL with a nonce added to it:

$nonced_url = wp_nonce_url('admin.php?page=mypluginpage&action=delete&recid=1', 'delete_my_rec');

2) Now add the URL containing the nonce to our page:

echo '<a href="'.$nonced_url.'">Delete Me</a>';

This second example will achieve the same outcome as the first example.

Adding a nonce to a form

To add a nonce to a form you can use the following function:

wp_nonce_field($action, $name, $referer, $echo)

This function takes 4 parameters all of which are optional:

• $action = (optional) this is a string which represents the action name
• $name = (optional) this is a string which represents the name of the nonce. If you leave this field blank WordPress will default to “_wpnonce”
• $referer = (optional) this is a Boolean. It determines whether the referrer “hidden form field” should be created. This is basically the “REQUEST_URI” value of the referring page which is stored in the PHP superglobal $_SERVER. If not included it defaults to true.
• $echo =  (optional) this is a Boolean. It determines whether WordPress should echo the nonce hidden field or return its value. If not included it defaults to true (which means it will echo the field)

This function will return a URL string which will contain the nonce action.

Example 3:

A typical usage for this function is shown in example below:

<form action="" method="post">
<?php wp_nonce_field('my_delete_action'); ?>
<input type="hidden" name="id" value=" <?php echo $id; ?> " />
<input type="text" name="rec_name" value=" <?php echo $name; ?> " />
<input type="submit" value="Delete" />
</form>

Note how we’ve inserted our hidden nonce field inside the form by using the wp_nonce_field function and we’ve included a single parameter “my_delete_action” which represents action name of our nonce.

Verifying nonces

Creating and inserting nonces in our code is only half of the work that needs to be done.

We need to also verify the nonces when the user tries to submit a form or performs an action via a URL.

To verify a nonce we can simply use the following WP function:

wp_verify_nonce($nonce, $action)

This function takes 2 parameters:

• $nonce = (required) this is the particular nonce you want to verify
• $action = (optional) this is the action you specified for the nonce when you created it.

The above function will return a Boolean “false” if the nonce was invalid; otherwise it will return an integer based on when the nonce was generated, ie,

It will return “1” if nonce was generated 12hours or less

It will return “2” if nonce was generated greater than 12 hours and less than 24 hours ago.

Example 4:
Therefore using our nonce we created in example 1 we can now expand our code to include the following check:

$retrieved_nonce = $_REQUEST['_wpnonce'];
if (!wp_verify_nonce($retrieved_nonce, 'delete_my_rec' ) ) die( 'Failed security check' );


An alternative way to verify nonces

You can also use the following function to verify your nonce:

check_admin_referer($action, $query_arg)

Where:

• $action = (optional) is the action name. It is highly recommended to include this field when calling this function.
• $query_arg = (optional) denotes the nonce name which WordPress will look for in the $_REQUEST variable. (defaults to _wpnonce if left blank)

If the nonce is valid the function lets your plugin’s execution proceed otherwise it will “die” and take the user to the “are you sure” error page if it determines that a nonce is invalid.

Example 5:

Therefore we could use the line of code below to replace the code of example 4 to achieve a similar result:

check_admin_referrer('delete_my_rec');


We’ve briefly touched the subject of nonces in this article which should give you enough info to start using them in your code (where applicable). Feel free to post a comment if you have any question on this subject.

T-Mobile customers interested in the BlackBerry Q10 can sign-up for notifications of the device’s availability starting on April 29.

Mashable Tech Editor Pete Pachal called the Q10 “the best keyboard phone you can buy today” and it features not only the iconic BlackBerry keyboard, but also the latest version of the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

While Canadian carriers can expect to see the Q10 on May 1, it will likely be a few weeks behind in June.

T-Mobile didn’t announce pricing details, only saying it would be available at a later date.

T-Mobile business customers who want to sign-up for BlackBerry Q10 details can do so at http://business.t-mobile.com/blackberry-q10.

VIA

Nokia today unveiled the latest device in its Asha family, designed to offer consumers more social experiences at an affordable price. The Nokia Asha 210, available in Single-or Easy Swap Dual-SIM variants, features a Nokia design and smart imaging that sets it apart from the crowd.

It supports Wi-Fi to help people enjoy more of the Internet for less and is the world’s first phone to have a dedicated WhatsApp button.

The Nokia Asha 210 has a QWERTY keyboard and a dedicated WhatsApp button for fast access to instant messaging. To celebrate the Nokia and WhatsApp partnership, WhatsApp is offering their service for free on all Nokia Asha 210 devices with the WhatsApp button for their lifespan. Combined with Facebook, Twitter and support for popular email accounts such as Gmail, the Nokia Asha 210 is designed to ensure that people are never more than a few clicks away from their friends and family.

The Nokia Asha 210 comes with a 2MP camera that can be accessed through a dedicated hardkey even when the keypad is locked. The smart camera also offers a choice of image capture, editing and sharing options

People can also share photos and other content quickly by using Nokia’s innovative Slam feature, which comes built-into the Nokia Asha 210. It works by enabling the transfer of content such as images or videos to another Bluetooth-enabled phone without the need to pair devices.

• Social phonebook integration with the ability to launch WhatsApp direct from contact cards in the Phonebook
• Preloaded YouTube launcher for direct video streaming
• Chat screen notifications that keep users up-to-date on new conversations
• Single-SIM and Dual-SIM models featuring Nokia’s exclusive Easy Swap technology that enables consumers to change SIM cards without having to turn off the device
• WiFi On/Off control button
• Nokia’s renowned long battery life: up to 46 days with Single-SIM and up to 24 days with Dual-SIM

The Nokia Asha 210 is available in yellow, cyan, black, magenta, and white. The estimated retail price for the Nokia Asha 210 is around 72 USD and it is expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2013.

CLICK HERE AND READ FULL SPECS AND PRICE…

Floating elements that sticks to your screen as you scroll tend to have a higher click through and conversion rate than static objects. This is why many websites make use of floating elements through out their website. We have seen elements like header bar, footer bar, sidebar widget with newsletter optin, etc. In the past we showed you how to create a sticky floating footer bar in WordPress like we are using on Jago Dunya. In this article, we will show you how to create a sticky floating sidebar widget in WordPress, so you can make your email newsletter stand out even more.

Note: This works for all type of sidebar widgets, not just your email optins. You can use it for product promotions, popular posts, flickr photos, google calendar, and basically anything else that you like.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Q2W3 Fixed Widget (Sticky Widget) plugin. After activating the plugin, go to Appearance » Widgets and click on the widget that you want to make sticky. The plugin adds a Fixed Widget option in all of your widgets. Check the Fixed widget box and save changes. Go to your live site and scroll down. Your fixed widget will now be a sticky floating widget.

Sticky Widget plugin comes with options to configure the positioning of the fixed widgets. Go to Appearance » Fixed Widget Options to configure the plugin. On this page you can set the margins, add your own HTML IDs and even disable the fixed widgets on phone and tablets.

Sticky floating sidebar widgets can be used to boost sign ups, showcase content, and increase overall user loyalty. You can have multiple fixed widgets in a sidebar. However, these could easily get annoying and can have an adverse affect too. Keep a balance in your design, so you don’t frustrate your users.

We hope that this article helped you implement a sticky floating sidebar widget in your WordPress website. You can put a sticky footer bar, a sticky top navigation, and a sidebar widget. Which one would you rather use on your website? Let us know in your comments below.

Skype has become a go-to communication tool in many small businesses. we use Skype to communicate with team members as well as clients. Larger companies show their toll-free phone number that their users can use to call them. Others show live chat options for support. What if you are just starting out and want to provide your users with an ability to call or chat with you directly from your website? Well, Skype can be a perfect tool for that. In this article, we will show you how to show your Skype contact and Skype status in WordPress, so your users can contact you directly via Skype.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Neat Skype Status plugin. Upon activation, go to the settings page (Settings » Neat Skype Status) where you will need to provide your Skype ID and save settings.

Now open the Skype application in your computer and sign in with your ID. In the Skype menu bar, click on Tools » Options. In the options dialog box click on the Privacy tab and check the box next to the line “Allow my online status to be shown on the web“. You may also want to check Allow IMs from anyone if you don’t want to approve each user you want to talk with (personal preference).

Once you are done updating the privacy settings, come back to your website’s admin area and go to Appearance » Widgets. Drag and drop Neat Skype Status v1 widget to your sidebar and save it. You will also notice that there is another Neat Skype Status v2 widget, but that is actually a demo of the plugin’s premium version, so don’t use that. Once you have saved the widget, you can now preview it on your website.

There are a number of options that you can configure for the plugin. For example you can choose from a number of button styles and icons. You can increase or decrease the refresh interval. Lastly, instead of a widget you can add a floating Skype button that scrolls down when your users scroll down the page.

We hope that this article helped you add your Skype contact and Skype status in WordPress. You can definitely use this to connect with people through your WordPress website and Skype. This status button will give your website users the confidence that there are real people behind the website. We have seen numerous folks use Skype or Google Talk on their website. What are your thoughts on using a service like this to connect with your readers? Let us know in the comments below.

Facebook announced what it calls “the next evolution of Facebook Platform for mobile” at the company’s Mobile Dev Con in New York City Thursday.

Just as Facebook transitioned from HTML5 to more native strategies with its iOS and Android apps, the company is making a similar transition with the Facebook Platform for Mobile.

Facebook already has a massive reach on mobile. The company says more than 81% of the top 100 grossing iOS apps and more than 70% of the top 100 grossing Android apps integrate with Facebook. But the company wants to do more and push even better apps to hundreds of millions of mobile users.

To do that, Facebook is introducing some new tools and features to make it easier for developers to integrate into the Facebook Platform for Mobile in a way that is better for engagement, user experience and discoverability.

Facebook’s director of product for platform, Doug Purdy, outlined these changes at the conference and in a blog post on Facebook’s developer blog.

Open Graph Goes Mobile

The first big addition is that Facebook is bringing its Open Graph to mobile. This was possible in the past, but it wasn’t easy for the app developers to really integrate with Open Graph without jumping through a lot of hoops.

The big breakthrough is that Facebook has created a new Object API that will let developers directly create Open Graph objects without having to host a webpage with Open Graph tags. This is huge because it means that mobile-first developers can integrate content without having to maintain a separate page and web server.

The new Object API will work on mobile and with web apps and the company is also rolling out an Object Browser, which is a visual interface to show developers what object data they are publishing.

You can learn more about the Object API on Facebook’s documentation pages.

The potential here — especially for mobile apps without a standard Facebook web app.

Native Share Dialog and Better Mobile Logins

Facebook is also releasing a new native Share Dialog to improve the way user’s share experiences from native mobile apps. This means that users will now have the ability to share activities from apps without having to login to Facebook first.

So if I’m listening to a new song in a music app that doesn’t already have deep Facebook integration, I can share that song from the app and the dialog looks and feels native. Or if I’m in a news app and I want to share an article to my timeline, I can do that without a lot of hassle.

The implementation is similar to the way developers add a Like button — just a line of code. The native Share Dialog is available in limited beta for iOS apps today and it will be coming to Android soon.

Facebook is also rolling out improved mobile login dialogs to make those loads faster and more attractive. All mobile and non-game web apps will be migrated to the new dialogs with no code changes needed.

Facebook SDK 3.5 for iOS

Facebook is also releasing a big update to the Facebook SDK for iOS. This adds support for the new Object API, native Share Dialogs and native Login Dialogs. The iOS Dev Center is now updated to help developers get the most up-to-date resources for integrating Facebook into their apps.

Facebook’s SDK for iOS is available for iOS 5.0 and up.

Facebook will be brining this to Android soon. In addition to iOS and Android, Facebook is also working with partners to create SDKs, plugins and tools for other platforms. The list of partners includes:

• C# SDK for Windows 8 by Microsoft
• Corona SDK by Corona Labs
• Kinvey
• Node.js by Thuzi
• Parse SDK by Parse
• PhoneGap by Adobe
• Sencha Touch by Sencha
• StackMob SDK by StackMob
• Trigger.io SDK by Trigger.io
• Unity Social Networking Plugin by Prime31
• WinJS by Thuzi

Node.js and PhoneGap will now have some Facebook Platform-specific SDKs and plug-ins. It also means that it will be easier for all mobile devs to integrate their existing apps and codebases with Facebook, regardless of underlying codebase or platform.

I’m at Facebook’s Mobile Dev Con and will be updating with more news as the day continues.

Mobile devs, what do you think of Facebook’s new tools? Let us know in the comments.

When Intel lifted the veil from its stealthy media division in February, many outsiders scratched their heads. Why was the chip manufacturer, which has tried and failed to sell consumer products before, trying to launch a TV service, one of the trickiest consumer markets of all?

Computer companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft have wrestled for years with how to become Internet TV providers.

They see a massive “pay TV” market ripe for Silicon Valley-style disruption. Today’s TV interfaces are exceedingly complicated, and content packages are bloated with channels that most subscribers don’t watch. Furthermore, there are new business opportunities in the progressively more social and mobile nature of TV-watching that tech companies are well-positioned to exploit.

Intel’s ambitions make sense given that the company needs a new growth business and has cash to spend. PC sales are slumping—research firm IDC recently reported the worst quarter globally since it began tracking data in 1994—as mobile devices become more powerful PC replacements. Intel’s first quarter earnings report this week reflected this decline, with revenues dropping 6% in the PC division that accounts for $8 billion of its $12.6 billion in quarter revenue. The company’s mobile chip business, meanwhile, is only in its infancy.

Intel does have an impressive 300-plus person TV team, led by former BBC executive Erik Huggers. And it has some interesting technology, too—including a front-facing camera that allows for viewing suggestions based on who is watching and a cloud-based DVR that lets viewers scroll back in time and watch shows they missed without actually having to record.

But many in the industry are skeptical that a U.S.-only TV service will be the multi-billion-dollar growth market that Intel needs to lift its bottom line, partly because of the challenges of negotiating groundbreaking live content licensing deals. “This is an expensive undertaking with very little chance of success,” says Bernard Gershon, a former Walt Disney senior executive who developed the company’s digital business strategy for TV content and is now a consultant.

The problem so far with all tech companies’ dreams about changing how we watch TV is that new entrants need the go-ahead from one major part of the established industry: companies like Disney, MTV and Time Warner, which own many shows and channels. TV programmers’ biggest fear is the idea of a cheaper, more customizable service that ends their ability to package together popular and unpopular channels for one price. But without breaking up these “bundles,” any new TV subscription service ends up looking very similar to what’s already offered by Comcast or AT&T.

The economics of the TV business could be especially hard for Intel. It doesn’t own the underlying broadband delivery infrastructure, so it can’t attract customers by bundling Internet and TV service as Google has done with its experimental gigabit fiber network in Kansas City. And if it does succeed in negotiating innovative content deals, other companies like Apple—which, unlike Intel, already have set-top box TV hardware in people’s homes and billing and customer service relationships with consumers—may swoop in from behind and sign similar agreements.

For Intel to succeed, its aggressive push into the living room must be timed perfectly. TV programmers are starting to experiment with new Web and mobile delivery formats, and they want to attract a new audience of young people who still like to watch TV but may not want to do so on their couch every Tuesday at 8 p.m.

When DirectTV launched its satellite service a decade ago, it took off because it spent billions to land exclusive rights to many NFL games. Though no content deals have been announced, Intel’s service is already being tested internally and with some limited partners, and is expected to launch this year. It may just need its version of the NFL.

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You may have heard of, or have fell victim to, the recents attacks on WordPress driven sites across the Web. Since about a week ago, a botnet consisting of a cluster of “tens of thousands” of computers was used to attempt to gain access to WordPress sites. And some say, it was just “practice.”

The attack was specific: Use the default “admin” username and attempt to discover the password.

Now would be a perfect time to evaluate the security of your WordPress site and make sure your site is secure. In this article I have covered some tips to secure your site against brute force login attacks.

Don’t Use ADMIN as your WP Username

So, tip #1: Change your username on all your WordPress accounts pronto – actually, you didn’t leave it as admin during installation anyways right? You’ve been able to customize it since version 3 came out.

Do the following steps to change your “admin” username:

1) Login to your WP-driven web site

2) Click Users >> Add New from the left menu

3) Create a new user (not similar to your blogging nickname), and use a strong password, and specify an “Admin” role.

RoboForm is a good tool that not only generates strong passwords, but also stores the login info (including the login URL), and offers 1-click logins. It’s worth getting. There’s even a cloud version.

Now it’s time to assign all admin posts to the new user. The best way is to login as the new user, delete the previous “admin” account, and “Attribute all posts and links to” the new user (don’t worry you will be prompted.)

But if for some reason that I can’t think of, you want to keep the “admin” account, you can follow the steps below to re-assign the posts to the new user. But for sure you will want to demote the Admin role to the most basic user. But you should also reconsider your decision not to delete the admin account.

4) Go to Posts >> All Posts

5) In the list of posts, click on any of the “admin” links under Author.

Note: you will be working with 20 posts at a time by default. You can change that number to a higher one by clicking on Screen Options (top right) and upping the number of posts to display in one screen. After changing the number, click Apply.

6) Click on the checkbox next to Title near the top left. This lets you select all posts on the page for bulk editing.

7) In the Bulk Actions drop down, choose Edit. Click Apply.

8) Change the Author value to the newly created author, and click Update.

I know that it seems like a lot of work, but it’s actually fast. But next time, edit the “admin” name during install instead, and you won’t be victim of a future brute force password attack.

Patch your WP Install in Real Time

CloudFlare, a service that lets you funnel your web site traffic through them (with a simple DNS change), has issued a patch for the latest threat that will block the bot before even reaching your WP site.

CloudFlare, as many know as a CDN (Content Delivery Network), which keeps static content closer to your web site visitors for faster delivery, is more than that as I became aware today.

With your web traffic funneling through them first they will:

a) block most of the threats before reaching you
b) save your bandwidth
c) speed things up

This is for more than just WordPress sites. It will work for all platforms and apparently only takes 5 minutes to setup for most people. There’s a free plan and some premium plans. I personally don’t feel 100% comfortable funneling my traffic through a third party, but I also get nervous when they refer to my sites as “naked.”

Maybe such a service is worth considering?

Updating WordPress to the Latest Version

Gone are the days where people edit the core files of WordPress right?

I’m still guilty of editing my themes directly out of laziness. I know I can create a child theme or create some plugins, use custom styles and functions, but I don’t.

So, I lose the ability to one-click update my themes. That’s unfortunate (sometimes), but I don’t mess with the WP core, and when an update is avalable I go to all my sites and perform an update immediately.

People, good and bad, have access to the core WP code. The bad guys attack any exploits found. The good guys report and/or fix the exploits, and an update is posted. Without the update, your WP site is vulnerable (unless it’s just a feature upgrade).

Updating is easy. Go to Dashboard > Updates and you’ll see how in there. And if you are with a fully managed WP service like WPEngine, or you used your hosts “quick install” app, you are most likely getting the updates without any intervention.

But update you should. Always. Without fail. Same for plugins, and themes. D’oh!

Delete unused themes and plugins too. And make sure you are using plugins from reputable developers.

Updating the Password to Something Stronger

As mentioned, RoboForm generates strong passwords, but you don’t need a paid tool for that. There are lots of free web based apps that generate strong passwords out there.

People need to stop using kids and pets names, and dictionary words as passwords if they want any type of security.

The requirements for a secure password are:

• upper and lowercase letters
• at least eight characters long
• and including “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

I personally try to keep mine at 15 characters, and with RoboForm I can ensure a certain amount of numbers and special characters make it in there. When are they going to allow Tab, Shift, and CrLf in passwords? Is that possible? If so, get on with it password gods.

Password Protecting the wp-login.php File

Another line of defense is to password protect the wp-login.php file, which is the code that is executed to display the WP admin/user login form.

1) Create a password file – Open up a text editor, and create a file (use “save as,” and change to “all file types” because this won’t be a standard .txt extension) called .wpadmin and add the username and encrypted password using the steps below. Note the dot (.) at the beginning, and there is no actual filename, just an extension. If you are familiar with .htaccess you know what I’m talking about already.

The password to be used in the file should be hashed using the MD5 algorithm, making it useful for both Windows and Linux machines.

Here’s the format:

username:encryptedpassword

To create an encrypted password:

a) Visit http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator/.

b) Enter a username and desired password in the appropriate boxes and click Create .htpasswd file.

c) Copy the generated text to your .wpadmin file and save it.

2) Upload the password file – Upload the file to a non-browsable folder.

Place it in: /home/username/ if using CPanel (‘username’ is not literal, it is your CPanel username), or /var/www/vhosts/domain for Plesk for example.

3) Update the .htaccess file – All domains under the “home” directory will utilize this password file. Therefore, if you have several add-on domains in your account using WP, they will all access the same password file.

Create a .htaccess file in a similar way that you created the .wpadmin file. Also, it will ultimately be uploaded to the same place.

The content for the file: (be sure to change the AuthUserFile path to the appropriate location – in most cases that means: replace ‘username’ with your cPanel username):

ErrorDocument 401 "Unauthorized Access"
ErrorDocument 403 "Forbidden"
<FilesMatch "wp-login.php">
AuthName "Authorized Only"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/username/.wpadmin
require valid-user
</FilesMatch>

Things to consider before employing the wp-login.php file protection. Do your sites cater to many users? They will all need to know the login info. Plus, if there is already a .htaccess file in the /home/username/ folder, you may need to merge the contents.

Ok, once it is in place and you visit the wp-login.php page of a WP install you will be prompted with a pop-up login screen that says:

Authentication Required
The server http://www.domain.com:80 requires a username and password. The server says: Authorized Only.


Two Step WordPress Authentication

To really remove yourself from the “potential victim” list, you can employ another layer of authentication security, by implementing Two Step Authentication.

This is highly similar, and just as effective as the Google 2-step verification system.

It uses a random code sent to you by text as the “second” layer of authentication. Brilliant! Providing you have a smart phone, and it’s with you.

A similar system has been employed for WordPress.com users, and it seems Authy is the standard solution for self-hosted WordPress blog, at this time, based on my searches.

CloudFlare, mentioned above is apparently a company “Secured by Authy,” according to the web site.

With that said, more my style, is using a plugin created by the WordPress team. According to a post by Nandita B. on SEOHour, the 2-step auth feature used on WordPress.com, will become available at some time in the future with WordPress’s JetPack plugin.

IP Limiting Plugin

As Matt Mullenweg points out, using an IP Limiting plugin would not be useful to ward of this recent attack.

“Most other advice isn’t great — supposedly this botnet has over 90,000 IP addresses, so an IP limiting or login throttling plugin isn’t going to be great (they could try from a different IP a second for 24 hours).”

- said Mullenweg

Just performing one of the suggestions from above will put you ahead of the game. Doing them all will certainly have stronger affects. I personally have skipped the use of Authy, and plan to wait for the JetPack update. I just subscribed to its feed in Feedly so I’ll be informed as soon as they blog about it. Also, for now at least, I’m not going to setup the CloudFlare option. Are you?

I already had the rest in place on all of my installs except for the password protected wp-login.php file which took all of 3 minutes to implement. I already had strong usernames and passwords, and up-to-date WP files.

Keeping Your PC from Participating in the Bot Attacks

It’s great that we’re contributing to helping people beef up their WordPress security in light of recent attacks, but what about the other side of the coin?

Some hackers will install “hidden” software on user’s machines without them being aware of it and use the machine to do some damage on the web.

Having a strong Firewall (that is fully patched) can keep people out. Of course, Anti-Virus software helps as well. And locking down a home’s WiFi can keep the computers on your home or office network safe from outside attack (or out of reach from bandwidth thief).

One of the more controversial decisions in Windows 8 was how the OS forced users to boot into the new Start menu metro interface. You could get into the desktop from that, but then you would be without the iconic Start button. There are unofficial workarounds, but nothing official just yet.

That all may be changing if reports from WinBeta over the weekend are to be believed as people are finding an option in the leaked version of Windows Blue that adds a boot to desktop option. ZDNet spoke to a source who said this was the plan while saying that Microsoft will be bringing back the sorely missed Start button as well.

Unfortunately, none of this is set in stone. ZDNet’s source says “Until it ships, anything can change.” Windows Blue, or Windows 8.1 as some are now calling it, will reportedly ship to manufacturers in August. That means we have a few months time in which Microsoft could go back on its currently rumored plans.

Of course, doing so would benefit nobody. IDC recently reported that PC shipments are at an all-time low and much of the blame was placed upon Windows 8. Why are consumers avoiding Windows 8? The report specifically called out “radical changes to the UI” and “removal of the familiar Start button.” If these two issues are affecting Windows 8 adoption then Microsoft needs to address them.

Besides the rumored return of the Start button, Windows Blue will also reportedly feature a number of enhancements to the Metro interface. Users will now be able to resize Live Tiles so more important apps are afforded screen real estate. Multitasking has also been improved with two apps being able to share the equal width on the screen.