Who's following you on The Twitter

TwitterCounter has one simple purpose in life, to give you a counter to display the number of people that follow you, from Twitter, on your website.

Just enter your user name and TwitterCounter will display the number of people following you over a seven day period. To display the updating counter on your website simply copy the available code and paste it to your site for all to see.

If you're really into your Twitter stats, enter your email address to receive daily updates. Because we all know you're only a few followers short of that elusive number one spot!

Use Search Engine Synonyms to Your Advantage

Lately webmasters have noticed that some pages are appearing very high in Google SERP (Search Engine Ranking Pages) without even a single presence of the search term; albeit topically succinct. This is a significant departure from what is widely known that for a page to appear for the search term "Apple Computer", the term should be used in the page fairly frequently. In fact this has been the basis of a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tactic called Keyword Density.

This then means that when you do a search for "Apple Computers" you will tend to see pages that do not contain this particular term. But they will contain terms like Mac, Macintosh or G4. These are what are termed as SE (Search Engine) synonyms. Evidently Google seems to consider the terms "Mac" etc similar in meaning as "Apple Computers". This is comparable to the way you would use the words "car" and "vehicle" interchangeably. And consequently instead of serving back pages strictly with the terms Apple Computers it also includes pages without the term but include terms it considers similar like Mac and Macintosh.

These SE synonyms are an expression of Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) discussed here last week, peculiar so far only to Google search. But of more importance to a web business is that it impacts significantly on what you can rank for and how you optimize your web pages on this leading SE. Previously, to rank for all the keywords related to "Apple Computer" you would need to write separate pages for each term. But with this development, it seems the same page could appear for any of the search terms - even without those other terms present within the content.

If you particularly use SEs to drive your online business, LSI adds one more strategy into your bag of SEO tactic. The tactic is simply this; when writing content for your website, make a conscious effort to include SE synonyms in the page. So instead of only using the term "Apple Computers" interchange it with G4 and Macintosh. This will greatly improve the relevance of your page. Not only will Google notice your main keywords but also the use of synonyms. This makes the page super-relevant to the synonymic search terms in the eyes of the SE algorithm.

To determine SE synonyms use the toogle key before your search query. The toogle key is the key with the "~" sign. You will need to hold down the shift key. For example, if you type it before the term "Apple Computers" you will notice that in the resulting SERP include the words Mac, Macintosh and G4 in bold. The bolded words are what the SE also considers as synonyms to the search queries.

Press ReleasesEvernote: Now Open to Everyone

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Evernote Launches Public Beta of Popular Cloud and Desktop 'Memory-Capturing' Service; Offers Free and Premium Subscriptions

Sunnyvale, Calif., June 24, 2008 – Evernote, a web service with full-featured desktop and mobile clients designed to allow users to easily capture and find information, memories, and content in any environment, today announced its public availability and a new subscription model. Access to Evernote is now available to everyone, without the need for a prior invitation, on the Web, Mac, Windows, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and other mobile devices. Over 120,000 users have participated in Evernote's invitation-only closed beta in the past four months.

Evernote allows users to capture information in any environment using virtually any device or platform, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. The product's innovative recognition and synchronization technology allows users to capture their memories as text, snapshots, digital ink or audio and then easily find and share them. Printed and handwritten text within images is made fully searchable and all notes are automatically synchronized between the network and local devices.

In addition to opening up the service, Evernote also announced details of its new subscription pricing. Premium users will benefit from an expanded 500MB monthly upload allowance, priority access to image recognition servers, stronger security options, and premium support. Evernote will charge $5 per month, or $45 for a full year, for Premium service. Free users will get a 40MB monthly upload allowance and have access to all clients and tools. These limits apply only to information added in a given month, not to the total amount of data that a user can store.

The latest release also features a completely redesigned Evernote Web user interface and a new version of the company's Web Clipper bookmarklet. The new Web Clipper allows users to instantly save the contents and links of a webpage into their Evernote accounts, a feature popular among bloggers, researchers, and online shoppers.

Other features include public notebook Facebook and blog integration, PDF support, encryption, and automatic synchronization of notes, to-do lists, snapshots, and audio notes among all Evernote clients. In recent weeks, Evernote has also released major upgrades to its Windows and Mac versions.

"Our goal is to make Evernote an extension of human memory. Since memorable things can happen at any time, online or in the real world, we realized that we needed to go beyond traditional web 2.0 and develop native clients for the major computer and phone platforms, in addition to a powerful web service. The response has been amazing," said Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote. "Opening up the beta is a huge step for the company. We're excited to introduce the world to Evernote, and we hope it becomes the place to store everyone's memories for months, years, and decades to come."

To sign up, create your own Evernote notebooks, and watch an introductory demo video, please visit: http://www.evernote.com.

Hot new Sony Camera coming soon

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Sony HDR-CX12 Handycam Camcorder

This is new. The Sony HDR-CX12 Handycam ($900; Aug.) is an HD camcorder with Smile Shutter technology, which captures great photos while recording videos at the same time. It works like this — while recording, the camera detects smiles and automatically takes and saves a photo without you having to lift a finger, and without disrupting the video. The HDR-CX12 can record full 1920 x 1080 HD video and 10-megapixel photos on Sony Memory Stick PRO Duo media and any Memory Stick PRO Duo (Mark2) media cards (it ships with a 4GB card). It also features a 2.7-inch Clear Photo LCD Plus screen, Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound recording, and a built-in zoom microphone.

Seesmic's Twhirl finally getting Seesmic support

It's like Twitters that talk.

Seesmic founder and CEO Loic LeMeur is circulating an early release of Twitter client Twhirl with Seesmic support. Seesmic, if you have forgotten, is Twitter in video. Download the new release here.

The test client only plays Seesmic videos at the moment. It doesn't let you record them. Seesmic won't be updating the Twhirl client for everyone until recording is added. That's due in a few weeks. Following that, although it "will take a while," will be a version of Twhirl that lets users show their Twitter, FriendFeed, and Seesmic feeds in one window. That's the version I'm waiting for.

Twhirl was a brilliant acquisition for Seesmic. Not because it makes Seesmic better. Seesmic.com itself is already an attractive and useful site that doesn't really need a desktop client the way Twitter does. Rather, embedding Seesmic support in Twhirl gives the service exposure to all the Twitter users on Thwirl who would likely otherwise never pay attention to it. The real question for me is how any of these services are going to make money, and especially how those revenue plans will be reflected in aggregating clients like Twhirl.

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser

IBM updates free office suite, launches Lotus Symphony 1

IBM has put the finishing touches on Lotus Symphony, a free Microsoft
Office competitor based on OpenOffice.org. The company pushed out
version 1.0 of the office suite which has been available as a public
beta since last year.

Unlike OpenOffice.org, Lotus Symphony is not open source software.
While IBM is providing it for free, Lotus Symphony is based on
OpenOffice.org 1.1.4, which is the last version of OpenOffice.org that
had a license allowing developers to modify the code and keep the
changes private.

According to Linux.com, IBM hopes to target the enterprise market with
this software. The goal is to provide Lotus Symphony as a free
alternative to Microsoft Office, while charging $25,000 per year for
support. Of course, if you know how to use word processors,
spreadsheets, and presentation applications, you probably won't need
to spend the money. But you also might not find much in Lotus Symphony
that isn't already available in its open source cousin, OpenOffice.org.

So what's new in Lotus Symphony 1? Here are a few highlights:
• Critical crash and freezing issues have been fixed
• Improved performance when creating new documents, spell checking
presentations of spreadsheets, redrawing a presentation page, saving
PPT files, and performing other actions
• Improved interoperability with Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org,
and SmartSuite documents
• Added support for 4 more languages, bringing the total to 28

Lotus Symphony is available for Windows and Linux. While the only
supported Linux platforms are SUSE Enterprise Desktop 10 and Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5, you can install Lotus Symphony on other
distributions. You just might run into a few errors here and there.

Songbird now has 10K song and growing

The latest update, version 0.6 for Windows, Power PC Macs, Intel Macs, and Linux, includes the ability to handle turkey-size music collections greater than 10,000 songs, improved memory management, a metadata editor, improved portable player syncing, support for SHOUTcast, and more.

The code improvements have allowed for smoother scrolling, faster filtering, and just overall better management of music collections of any size. Songbird is well on its way to being a serious jukebox. Other fixes include the previously nonfunctional edit menu joining the land of the living and the introduction of in-page text searching.

Some of the improvements are no-brainers, but it's good to know that they've been addressed.

With all the hoopla over Opera and the upcoming Firefox 3 final release, there's a good chance that Songbird's baby beta steps will get ignored, but this has been one of the most promising programs being developed, and v0.6 will only whet your appetite.

I personally use songbird and it is growing on me. Give it a look

Send me your info Please

Getting ready for mobileme. Please send me updated vCards to docrock@mac.com add photo if you wish. I want a pretty addresscloud. Everyone!

The YouTube Holy Grail!

In November, YouTube announced plans for HD. They’re now testing it in some of their videos. Add &fmt=18 to the end of a YouTube video page URL to see if an HD version is available. Ergo this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0

…becomes this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0&fmt=18

If an HD version isn’t available yet, the regular version will play.

To get an HD embed, add &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 to each of the two instances of the video URL in the code. Ergo this:



Will become this:

Twitter Expects Hammering For WWDC, Here come the BOOM!

Twitter is as unstable as it is irresistible. It’s shaky two year history (give it a few weeks to bring home its second anniversary) has been marked by plenty of highs, but just as quickly, infuriating lows.

This time, though…this time it’s going to be different. It’s going to greet its users Monday morning, and as Apple’s global fan club descends on Moscone West in San Francisco, physically and/or virtually, Twitter’s going to take its users through it all. From the grand-opening to the Steve Jobs sermon to the wink-wink-you-know- what’s-coming launch party, Twitter’s got it covered. Probably. Maybe. No guarantees. They’re expecting a ten-fold increase over their normal daily traffic count, so wager as you please.

Given the company’s history, they of course know this micro-blogging thing of theirs isn’t fault-proof. 100% is certainly not in-house Twitter terminology. But if Biz Stone’s portrayal today of what’s to come from the Rails-based platform is anything accurate, Twitter may well make it through Monday’s madness as one whole fully-operable bunch of code. As Stone describes it:

“We’ve moved much of the load off our database by utilizing more memcache, employing more read-slave servers, and by fixing some bugs for improved efficiency. This work is in intended to help handle the load and keep Twitter up and running while Steve Jobs talks about all the new products and services Apple has planned. Of course these improvements will continue to serve Twitter beyond the WWDC as well.”

Otherwise, communication breakdown, folks. Which won’t please anyone. Enter, Plan B:

“In the event that our estimates and preparations fail, we have designed a way to keep Twitter updates moving quickly through the system to their respective recipients. We have isolated and created on/off switches for many Twitter features. Should it become necessary to shed incoming load quickly, we can turn off features such as stats, pagination, and several others to preserve the reliability and timeliness of your Twitter timeline.”

Stone also rips a line out of Jobs’s book of commandments, saying there’s “one more thing.” It seems that they’ve put together something to convenience Apple fans eager to quickly learn about announcements 140 characters at a time. Stone reveals little else, though he advises readers to expect an update on the matter soon.

Holy SpeedBloggin Batman it Ping.fm

People go check this shizzle out. Especially crack-addicts that have more than 1 blog, microblog, or social networking thingie (yeah that is precisely me, I know i'm a addict). http://ping.fm use the betacode: landofping when asked. Go get it fast cause these codes run out so fast... this shit rocks.. Don't miss out.

Flock, the "Social Web Browser"

Flock, the "Social Web Browser"

built on the same Mozilla engine as Firefox, has launched the latest stable version, 1.2. The beta has been available for a while now.

In this version, Digg, Pownce, and AOL Mail integration. Digg and Pownce makes sense, but the AOL mail one didn't really excite us all that much.

It seems like Flock is stockpiling partners and features though and are putting together a very nice user experience "out of the box" that other browsers can't offer.

Firefox is perfect for the ubergeek that wants to install his or her own extensions, but for someone like our mothers or aunts who just want to try out this new fangled web thing, Flock is the answer.

Plus, the browser's blog editor is still the killerest app out there for any browser.

The knock on Flock has been stability which we haven't seen issues with on Windows or Mac, but the loadtime for first startup is a known issue that they're working on.

They recently won a

Webby award for "Best in Social Networking"

which is actually quite impressive considering that they were up against Facebook.

Go give Flock a shot

and let us know what me think.

Doc's Tomato Basil Garlic Bisque

3 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 lg. onion
1 1/2 tbsp. garlic
1 1/2 tbsp. dried basil or if fresh is used, add more
4 c. chicken broth
1 c. flour
2 c. Italian plum tomatoes or 1 (2 lb.) can whole peeled or fresh tomatoes
2 tbsp. tomato paste
Pinch to 1/2 tsp. thyme leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute until onions are wilted but not brown in olive oil and butter. Add garlic and saute until tender. Do not brown or burn garlic or butter. Add seasonings and all tomatoes and most of chicken broth saving about 1/2 cup to make a roux with the flour to be added near end of cooking. Simmer for 20 minutes.
Make a roux with reserved chicken broth, add to thicken. Then puree in blender. Cook 15 minutes longer. Serve with French bread or as topping for stuffed cabbage or bell peppers.

The Worst Infomercial Ever

So I’m watching Comedy Central and soon after those irritating GGW (girls gone wild) Spring Break commercials I saw this little gem. This PC helper software and service is supposed to help you; over the phone, get rid of spyware and virii. As you know most of these things are total crap and can be obtained as free to low-cost utilities from www.versiontracker.com. The best part of the fiasco is the Macintosh computers in the advertisement with windows BSODs (blue screens of death). They are not even Intel Macs but they are shown running Outlook and kicking out windows errors. The clincher is the hero shot of a Mac keyboard during the final hardsell screens. Look and laugh but please don’t buy any of this crap as you will surley be had.

These outfits should be run out of business not given airtime for lousy commercials hocking purely useless software.

Just a thought

Powerset is off the Web 2.0 Hook

Powerset is excited to announce the launch of our first product, which reinvents the search and discovery experience for Wikipedia articles.

Instead of being limited to keywords, Powerset allows you to enter keywords, phrases, or questions. Instead of just showing you a list of blue links, Powerset gives you more accurate search results, often answering questions directly, and aggregates information from across multiple articles. Finally, instead of leaving you at the search page, Powerset's technology follows you into enhanced Wikipedia articles, giving you a better way to digest and navigate content quickly. This post serves as a jumping-off point for all of the key information about the launch.

If you're all about immediate satisfaction, go straight to Powerset.com and start searching. If you aren't sure where to start, use our query examples at the bottom of our homepage. Powerset is packing a lot of features into this release.

Twitter reportedly closes $15 million funding round

Microblogging service Twitter has reportedly closed a $15 million Series B funding round, according to Om Malik of GigaOM.

Malik estimates that it will bring the company's valuation to about $80 million and that the round is led by a new investor rather than existing investor Union Square Ventures (though the latter is participating). CNET News.com originally reported late in April that Twitter had signed a term sheet for either $15 or $20 million.

Rumors peg the new lead investor as Boston-based Spark Capital. An independent source hinted to CNET News.com that this is likely indeed the case.

But even as Twitter's valuation reportedly escalates, and it slowly breaks into the mainstream from Silicon Valley (Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody recently discovered it), problems remain: Only its Japanese edition displays advertisements, and executives still haven't unveiled any alternate revenue stream. And despite a recent employee shuffle on the engineering side, the service is still plagued by outages that, while certainly not any kind of global catastrophe, can be quite a bit annoying for active users.

Twitter: Tweet without a keyboard

TwitterFone is free service that lets you update your Twitter feed using your voice from any mobile or cell phone. You call it, speak your tweet, and hang up. A short while later, your tweet will be posted on Twitter. Magic! TwitterFone is great for when you're on the go - in the car, on a train, or running between meetings - and don't have WiFi or time to log on to the internet.

How does it work?

TwitterFone transcribes what you've said from voice to text, and posts it to your Twitter feed for you.
The service is free and just uses regular minutes from your regular phone plan. There are TwitterFone numbers in many countries, so you should always have a TwitterFone number near you. When TwitterFone answers, just speak your tweet, and then hangup. TwitterFone will then transcibe your tweet and post it to Twitter. A short time after you call - typically 5-10 minutes - it'll be there.

What doesn't it do?

TwitterFone only works with Twitter -- it is NOT a general all-purpose "voice lifestreaming" service. It also currently doesn't do fancy Twitter features like @username and d username.

What do I need to use TwitterFone?

In order to use TwitterFone you need to have a Twitter account and a mobile phone. To get set up with TwitterFone, you need to have an invitation , which comes with a one-time only invitation number. Once you have your invitation, you can register with the TwitterFone service. During registration, you'll be asked for your email address, your Twitter credentials, and your mobile phone number. As a security measure, we'll validate your mobile phone during the registration process by sending you a text message with a code in it, and asking you to enter that code on the website. Once you're done that - you're done! You can start using TwitterFone immediately by dialing the local number we give you when you're registered.

Totus Copy: HOT! Resumable File Copy

This was just released from the developers site today and it solves one of the greatest problems in backing up, copying, or recovering data.  As you know when OS X hits a snag in copying your data or worse yet a file permissions type error this lettle gem will comtinue on like a brave little soldier.  No mor ehand picking the files need from a huge folder of aunties cat pics to save momoeirs of ole' Tabatha.  Totus Copy is my hottie of the month pick.
 
Totus Copy 1.0

Totus Copy is a utility for transferring data off of a failing hard drive. OS X has a number of safety features built into it's copy functions, if it detects an I/O error or a stalled read the transfer will fail. OS X also gets file information for all files before it even copies the first one. While these are great functions to prevent further damage to a hard drive it makes it very difficult to transfer data.

Totus Copy will scan a failing hard drive and recover the files from it onto a separate functional hard drive. It does this by using a very gentle non-intrusive scanning method. Unlike other transfer utilities there is no timeout for file copies. If the data is readable Totus Copy will transfer it. Although this will cause more damage to your hard drive it has a high success rate of retrieving data.

WARNING:

Totus Copy can cause further damage to a failing hard drive. Anytime data is accessed on a failing hard drive that drive can become more damaged. Please make sure to read all disclaimers associated with this software before using it.

Totus Copy Manual 


Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!


Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Features:

• Ignore invisible files and applications, which increases the chance of recovering your important data.
• Target files of a specific kind, such as music, pictures, or documents.
• Error correcting transfer protocols with no timeout limit.
• Transfer partial files, if 99% of a important document is damage other utilities will fail while Totus Copy will copy that 99%.
• Handles files one by one instead of in large batches that are more likely to fail.
• Target a specific directory to recovery only files that you need.
• Scans directories as needed to minimize failures.
• Recreates bundles and directories as opposed to trying to transfer them.

System Requirements:
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
A failing hard disk that still mounts (Can be used in conjunction with Alsoft's Disk Warriors preview feature)

See the Hidden Infobar in iTunes

Ok so by now everybody knows that iTunes can show you how much music, video, photos and preverbal other you have on your iPod. It is displayed in a bar graph under the summary tab of your device's information screens. Did you know that if you click on the aforementioned bar graph that it will sneakily display even more information. So the next time you plug in your second brain; other wise know as you iPod, give that little bar graph a click. You will see the count switch from size info you always see to and item inventory count. Click that sucker again and you will see how many days you can trip the lights fantastic to your Rick Astley collection of One Hit Wonders, or practice you bad voiceover skills to the hottest episode of Naruto. Give this tid-bit a spin and tell me what you think. Untill I have a chance to release another hot topic, love peace and chicken grease! -doc