Friday, August 04, 2006

Blog and web site tools

Following is a list of links to new tools or resources I have discovered recently.

Technorati roll out a major update
Their view - Dave Sifry writes"After months of work and weeks of testing, we just released an updated version of technorati.com. I hope after spending some time with the updated service, you’ll join me in celebrating its release. "
Darren Rowse's review

My first impressions were not that great but it’s growing on me. Their challenge is that they are now tracking a lot of information and a lot of blogs and to present it all in a useful and uncluttered way is always going to be difficult - particularly because I suspect that different Technorati users use it differently to each other (ie some use it to find stories, some to track blogs, some to observe trends etc).
Robin Good's review
The key new features include:
  • a completely revamped and easier to use interface

  • more comprehensive reference and authority data for each blog

  • a new Discover feature allowing individuals to find out what are the most interesting blogs to read for each major news category

  • more precision and accuracy in the link counting feature, allowing you to see more reliable and more frequently updated data about the authority of any site (including yours)

  • less geekiness, so that even non technical users can better understand the beauty and unique value that Technorati brings

  • a new Favorites section features which allows you to select and organize your favorite blog news sources

  • a new Popular feature, which algorithmically derives the most linked-to items in the last few days

  • significant improvements to blog profiles information - giving you access now to stats, tags used, posting frequency, traffic, and Technorati ranking for any blog that Technorati tracks

  • more speed. Now you should see the new engine reacting and responding like a true champion


    • From Unofficial Microsoft Office Stuff
    Animated GIFs For use on the Web or PowerPoint
    Harry the cat.com
    3,000+ Royalty Free Copyrighted Animated Gifs for non-commercial use
    Fg-a.com
    Free Gifs & Animations, also editors, guestbook's, etc.
    Gifs.net
    1,500 FREE Animated Gifs and many other items (gifs, jpgs, letters, buttons, backgrounds, etc.)
    Web Developer.com
    There are more than 300 of them from which to choose.

    Military Clipart - Thousands of items.
    All of these files are in the public domain unless otherwise indicated. However, we request you credit the photographer/videographer as indicated or simply "Department of Defense."


    From ProBlogger
    Controlling the Googlebot
    How to control what gets indexed by Google and when? That is the question. Most of the time, we want Google to snarf up as many pages as possible. In my own experience, I can think of a few times when indexing was not something I wanted and I had to go back to Google to actually have pages removed.
    Effective Blog Architecture
    A very good article loooking at how to maximise the architecture of your blog for the purposes for which it is intended and readers it attracts.

    Why This Blog Sells Tons of Ebooks (And How It Can Sell Even More)
    A long and in-depth article about monetising your blog with e-books.

    Integrating Digg Within Your Blog Gets Easier

    Reinvent Your Blog


    From J-Walk
    Wesite sidebar photos and PHP code to randomly select them. If anyone would like a copy of these photos, you can download them here. It's a 2.6 Mb zip file that contains 300 identically-sized (100x125) images, mostly snagged from the Web. I also included a text file that has the PHP code I used to display them.
    Open Source Web Design is a place to download free web designs and share yours with others. We help make the internet a prettier place.


    Posted by: Jethro | 9:22 AM |