IT Masala

Six Apart announced the beta release of Movable Type 4, a much anticipated upgrade to a blog platform that has two distinct user bases - consumer base and Enterprise. Movable Type Open Source, or MTOS, is the open source project that will consist of a GPL-licensed version of Movable Type 4.0, to be released in Q3 2007, and resources for the already large community of Movable Type developers.

Its already late but never too late..to stay in the competition of these blogging platforms, they had to open source it..anyway..better late than never …

The MTOS distribution will be available for download / checkout later this summer at www.movabletype.org

To learn more about the open source project, visit its website http://www.movabletype.org/opensource/.

Does watching a YouTube video on another site leave you hungering for more like it? Youtube has recently added another new feature for the embedded player with a scroll-through feature that shows related videos to your embeds.

It's fun to play with and lets you discover new, related videos without leaving your site. Just hover over the video after pressing "play" and watch the magic unfold…

You can see related videos at the bottom of the player and also a right,left clickable linked videos list on the left and right, so that you can goto the previous and next videos right on the site which you currently viewing.

Suppose if you dont want this new feature of related videos , then use this:

If for any reason you don't want this option turned on, you can modify the video URL by attaching a rel=0 parameter to the video. i.e. http://www.youtube.com/v/&rel=0 

Example :

I have been in this website thing since many years..and blogging since two years or so.. My blog PR was 5 , it got reduced to 4, i donna why .. anyway.. i am gonna try out what yugatech says ..below are his tips ! 

Steps to increase your site ranking to PR7 : 

1. Get links from old and highly trusted domains.
2. Get site-wide links from a huge site with 150,000+ pages (a large forum perhaps).
3. Get a few deep links from relevant articles or content.
4. No massive and low-level directory submissions.
5. Avoid link exchanges, esp. from new domains.

Its one of the very good link popularity checking sites ..

A tool to check at-a-glance the link popularity of any site based on its ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati etc.), social bookmarks (del.icio.us, etc), subscribers (Bloglines, etc) and more!

Remember that a domain with the "www." prefix will show different results than the same domain without it. You should try both.

[ popuri ] 

This online generator will create your own unique WordPress Theme. Without need for any HTML, JS, PHP, or CSS knowledge.

This has some nice instant previews, lots of layout, color and gradient settings, custom header graphics and download of individual files as well as a neatly packaged zip. For all the new bloggers, here is one very good site to get your own themes rather than fighting your way with the code ..etc..

Based on the WordPress 2.1 with Yahoo! UI (Grids,Tabs & Fonts) to support all A-Grade browsers. Theme supports Widgets.

Happy WPing !! 

[ WP Theme Generator ] 

Google Inc. has launched an AJAX API (application programming interface) designed to simplify the process of creating application mashups using JavaScript.

The new Google AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) Feed API eliminates the need for developers to write server-side proxies to access public data feeds using JavaScript, Google announced in an official blog posting.

With this API, feeds can accessed by writing "a few lines" of JavaScript. "The API automatically handles the proxying and offers a clean, straightforward interface for accessing syndicated data," a Google spokesman wrote via e-mail.

Sample tasks the API simplifies include displaying a dynamic blogroll on a Web page or photos from a feed from the Google Picasa photo management service on a site.

The new API supports the Atom and RSS syndicated feed formats.

Have a look at an Example of Google Ajax API here.(iTunes feed used )

[ Google AJAX Feed API ] 

Since the day i saw Nithin running his newsletter succesfully , I also wanted to run my own newsletter. But never got anything right to make my own newsletter which would look good,elegant and appropriate. Then i came across Letterpop. With Letterpop you can make extremely creative newsletters in minutes. And all this for FREE !

Now with Letterpop you could have your professional newsletter made in just minutes. There are over 70 beautiful templates currently listed on the web site and it literally takes about 20 minutes to create a perfect looking professional newsletter! The interface is completely based on Web 2.0 with drag and drop and automatic pop up windows to add text, etc.

What you need to do is just select the theme you want , add images and text. Letterpop has integrated Flickr , you can now easily add images from Flickr into your newsletter. You just need to authorize letterpop to access your flickr account and your are done !

There are many added features when upgraded.For personal use this might not be necessary. Free is sufficient. 

Checkout some users newsletters:

You can use Letterpop to make nice newsletters for your family photos,Announcements for birthdays, weddings, small business,updates for your club,latest news for your mom's group and lot more..

Now i will also have my own newsletter..Nithin i am coming ! ..

[ Letterpop ] [ SignUp ] 

Wow.. Google adsense page is looking damn good after the change they made . Ihad logged in the morning , it was still the same. Just now i logged in and they have this new refreshing look.

awesome .. The new page has a tabbed feature below which explains about getting paid , Customizing AdSense,Where do the ads come from,Show only appropriate ads,how to get started, publishers words……

Recently we have also seen google ads style being changed giving them a new look too..

I checked just again and the new look is gone ..maybe they are testing the new look !! 

So Take a walk into Google Adsense new refreshing look !

[ Google Adsense ] 

This type of shortening the url is a cool option to avoid long url's while sending a mail or putting a url link on the forums,blogs,websites etc or to some friend or something. I usually use tinyurl which is my favorite. 

I tried some real big url's and it worked out fine. Still its the same thing , i mean the way it reduces the pain of those long url's , the style of shortening is similar to tinyurl. DwarfUrl provides a unique id for everybody (obviously) for every long url .

For example : Long Url : Move cursor here to see the long url.

This loong url is made short like this .:http://dwarfurl.com/281dd

They even have their own Firefox Extension(plugin).

Note : At present their extension doesn't automatically add itself to your toolbar.You must goto View->Toolbars->Customize to add it to one of your toolbars. Go get the dwarfURL Firefox plugin here.

Happy shortening !

[ dwarfURL ] 

With a tiny 6.76% of the search market, compared with Google’s 60%+ search share dominance, Microsoft has decided it’s time to leverage their massive base of global Windows users with juicy wads of cash to switch search providers!

So Whats the deal ? 

Microsoft’s new program is called “Microsoft Service Credits for Web Search” and has been unveiled by John Batelle’s ‘SearchBlog’. The money on offer is significant, especially when multiplied across thousands of PCs. The deal means that companies can earn between US $2 and US $10 per computer on an annual basis, plus a US $25,000 “enrollment credit” which is a nice big wad of cash that will likely need a large-ish, strong and sturdy brown paper bag to hold securely while being passed under the table.  

For companies that have thousands of computers, this could translate into anywhere from US $100,000 to $200,000 per year, which is money that could be put to good use in the IT department or elsewhere in the company.

Bad part of the campaign :

Microsoft will use a ‘Browser Helper Object’ installed into IE7 to track search queries and send information on search back to Microsoft, so they can use the information to improve the results that Windows Live Search delivers. Because of this, IE7 must be used – it doesn’t work with Firefox, Opera or older versions of IE browsers.

Really this is heights !! Is Microsoft so very irked by open source successes ?? anyway..read on.. 

Robert Scoble comments - "Microsoft sucks": 

“What Windows Live lacks, specifically, is an identity. No one can describe it, no one from Microsoft has even tried.”

Former Microsoft employee and blogger Robert Scoble who served as the online face of Microsoft during his three years at the company is not impressed with Microsoft’s moves in deciding to offer companies money to use search.

PS: Each search at click4thecause.live.com results in a financial donation from Microsoft to provide help with education programs to the refugee kids around the globe.

We all know that Google doesn’t need to pay anyone to use its search services – people use them voluntarily because of the quality of the results.

So, is Microsoft really that spooked by Google's dominating success in search, and why is Robert Scoble so unimpressed with the deal? - The answer is quality !

It will be a loooong time until Micro$oft Live search reaches the level of Google searches..Till then keep trying..Good luck, Microsoft, you’re going to need it!

via [ itwire ]