While Surfing I just come to know that Google is having one more company at his plate. This time Picnik, Online Photo Editing Site. Few months back Google acquire reCAPTCHA.

For People who are not knowing what is Picnik

Picnik is a fast, fun, easy to use and powerful set of photo editing tools for editing, sharing and printing images using any internet browser on any computer platform. Picnik is integrated with a wide variety of websites like Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, Flickr, Yahoo! Mail and Photobucket. With Picnik, you can edit your photos wherever they are from wherever you are.

Why Google acquire Picnik ? (in their own word – from their blog)

We’re very impressed with the Picnik team and the product they’ve created, and we’re excited to welcome them to Google. We’re looking forward to collaborating closely with them to improve the online photo editing experience on the web. In the meantime, we encourage you to head to Picnik, import some of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Flickr or Facebook and try your hand at photo editing in the cloud!

Check official announcement at Googles Blog and Picnik blog

This is guest post by TOM

For years, Wordpress has been known for its weak security. The security issues Wordpress has had is a laundry list of hacks and exploits that malicious users can use to access personal information, post unauthorized content or simply wreck your site, none of which you want to suffer.

Simple things like changing your default password and changing your mySQL table prefixes are the preventative measures that most webmasters can do, but you shouldn’t stop there. Hackers can intercept data exchanges between your server and your computer and user’s computers to get passwords and other information. Your themes and plugins could be compromised, sending sensitive information to outside computers or even allowing hackers access to your server. Spam attacks, iFrame injections, mySQL injections, and a host of other security risks associated with Wordpress can leave your blog open to disaster. Fortunately, a number of plugins are available that will automate these security tasks and make your blog less vulnerable to attack. Below, you will find 10 plugins that you can use to lockdown your Wordpress blog. You can click the link to go to each plugin’s Web site to get more information about how the plugin works and how to install the plugin into your Wordpress site.

1. Angsuman’s WordPress Guard Plugin This plugin protects your Wordpress blog from brute force password attacks. Brute force is where a hacker will attempt possible password combinations until it finds one that works on your site. It also exploits that attack outdated plugins and software that can give hackers access to your blog.

2. Bot Block This plugin prevents automated registrations on your site. It blocks multiple users from signing up from the same IP address and also looks up user IP addresses on a blacklist. Any blacklisted IP addresses are not allowed to register.

3. AskApache Password Protect This plugin adds additional filesystem level password protection via .htaccess files, making it easy to set and change the password for Wordpress directories on your server itself to prevent unauthorized attacks that can occur outside Wordpress.

4. WP Blogsecurify WP Blogsecurify works in several ways to harden Wordpress. First, it forces logins to occur via SSL, reducing the chance that passwords and user names can be intercepted. Second, it prevents the leakage of session identifiers so that they can’t suffer from hijack exploits. Finally, it conceals database error information, so that information can’t be used in an attack.

5. WP Security Scan This multipurpose plugin will hide your Wordpress version so it doesn’t advertise what specific vulnerabilities apply to your installation. It also checks for permission and password issues that leave your blog at risk.

6. Login LockDown Login LockDown logs all unsuccessful attempts to log in to your blog and records the IP address and time of each attempt. It will lockout IP ranges associated with failed logins to discourage malicious attempts to access your site.

7. WP-SpamFree This plugin works in a similar manner to Akismet to identify comments that are spam so they are not displayed on your blog. Spam comments can include links to malicious Web sites, or malicious code that can execute on your blog. This is an effective tool that helps deal with the Wordpress comment spam problem.

8. Admin-SSL Admin-SSL funnels all your administrative activity through SSL, locking it down so no information can be intercepted between your computer and your blog. This works for both dedicated SSL and shared SSL configurations.

9. Anonymous Wordpress Plugin Updates Since Wordpress transmits information useful to hackers as it looks for plugin updates, Anonymous Wordpress Plugin Updates can be used to remove identifying information such as your Wordpress version and the URL of your blog. By keeping your plugin updates anonymous, you can make it harder for people to attack your site using data from plugin Web sites.

10. Theme Authenticity Checker This plugin checks to see if a theme you’ve uploaded contains malicious code. Since so many free themes are out there, you never know if someone has embedded back door access that they can use to manipulate your site.

Tom is a designer and writer who works for a UK based specialist offering HP Deskjet cartridges, toner, paper and other print accessories. You can read more of his posts on their blog.

Everyone who starts blog or connect to be online media they start thinking about how they can make money online and they started their journey like Treasure Hunting. Making money from online media is not a easy job but of course you can make good amount of money if you work in right direction.

Now you might be feeling that how to find right direction and you must having so many question in your mind about Blogging and Make Money online. You must be thinking that if you could have some guide or guru sort of stuff you can make it very fast.

You need to go long for finding Guide just read Make Money Blogging by Daniel Scocco, a famous blogger and founder of Daily Blog Tips.

This is book is really good in sense it guide you from choosing blog platform like Blogger, Wordpress or Self hosted blog till the entire journey in blogging. Daniel is blogging since 2006 and this book shares all the hurdles he might face or might be going to face. He had covered very small thing even. As a active Blogger I can understand that this book is really helpful to starters.

You can download this book from http://www.dailyblogtips.com/make-money-blogging/ but for that you need to signup for his news letter which gives you constant learning experience.

So what are you waiting for  ? Just share you experience with me too as comments.

Hope you all now using Google Buzz. There are lot of Buzz on Blogosphere about Google Buzz. You can read official post at Google Blog about Google Buzz.

My first hand experience with Google Buzz was pretty Good.  The way they introduce it’s nice, very seamless connectivity with Gmail (my all-time favourite mailing services ).  I hope you also loves Google, Gmail and other services.

You might be feeling that I am going out of the tract and you can’t hold your temptation for knowing that How you can add Google Buzz to your Wordpress. I know you are looking plugin for Google Buzz. Then Don’t worry you are at right place.

www.clickonf5.org is coming up with Google Buzz Plugin for Wordpress. Sanjeev Mishra and Tejaswini are people behind this site and these guys are doing wonderful job. They all ready gave Plugins called Smooth Slider, Instant Weekly Roundup, Cute Profiles.

Just check what is Google Buzz button for Wordpress (Plugin) according to developer of this Plugin.

Google Buzz is launched and many publishers, webmaster and web addicts has already started using that. If you are having a Wordpress site then you can add “Google Buzz Button” thru a simple wordpress plugin to let other people share your posts on their Buzz. Google didn’t release any official button yet but we have released a Wordpress plugin to add a button on a post/page. Once your visitor will click on this button, they will be taken to a page where they can add some note on your post’s link and title and share that on their Buzz. This way your post/page’s reach will increase by huge amount.

Download this Plugin from Clickonf5

Disclaimer : I haven’t tested / tried this plugin yet. But Planning to use it soon. I had used their plugin Smooth  Slider and It was Good.

Hey Friends !

I hope you like my previous Management Stories which I posted earlier and I got many comments on Management Story : Always have Presence of mind ! and I am very much sure you will also love this. This is wonderful story and also keep you update what you should do when you are in deep shit ?

A little bird was flying south for the Winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.

While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cowdung, he began to realize how warm he was.

The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Morals of the story:

1. Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
2. Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3. And when you’re in deep shit, it’s best to keep your mouth shut!

Google is threatening to close its operations in China after what it said were a series of cyberattacks aimed at the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

The company said last night that it had detected a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China”. Further investigation showed that “a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists”. Google said that at least 20 other large companies from a range of businesses had been similarly targeted.

Google did not accuse the Chinese Government directly. However, the company added that it was “no longer willing to continue censoring our results” on its Chinese search engine, as the Government requires. Google said the decision could force it to close its Chinese site and offices in the country.

The internet giant believes that the attack was mostly blocked and that only minor information, such as creation dates and subject lines, were stolen from two accounts. It said that the investigation showed that accounts of dozens of China human rights activists using Gmail in Europe, China or the US had been “routinely accessed” using malware (malicious software).

Google first agreed to censor search results in China in 2006 when it created a version of its search engine bearing China’s web suffix, “.cn.” Previously, Chinese-language results had been available through the company’s main Google.com site.

To obtain its Chinese licence, Google agreed to omit web content that the Government found objectionable. At the time Google executives said they struggled to reconcile this concession with the company’s motto of “don’t be evil”.

By then Yahoo! had come under fire for giving the Chinese Government account information of a journalist who was later convicted for violating state secrecy laws.

David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said: “These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered — combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web — have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese Government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.”

The 20 other large companies attacked include finance, internet, media, technology, and chemical businesses, according to Google.

“We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant US authorities,” Mr Drummond said.

Mr Drummond said Google accepted that defying the Government’s demands about filtering internet search engine results may mean having to shut down its operations.

With an estimated 360 million internet users, China has a bigger online population than any other country. But the ruling Communist Party worries the internet could become a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.

If Google were to pull out it would be a severe reversal for the internet search company which has endured sustained criticism for its policy in China.

Google set up in China in January 2006 and agreed to comply with the Government’s “Great Firewall”. This meant that whenever people in China searched for banned Chinese keywords, a warning came up that “In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown.”

The company argued that it was better to be in China to make most information available rather than not have its service available at all and that it could play a role more useful to the cause of free speech by participating in China’s IT industry.

Source : timesonline.co.uk

Internal Links is not a new word for them who keep in touch with SEO or Internet Marketing. Still who are new to this field should know following definition.

An internal link is a hyperlink that is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document or to another document that may be on or part of the same website or domain of the internet.

Internal Linking

Links are considered either “external” or “internal” depending on perspective. Generally, a link to a page outside the same domain is considered external, whereas one in the same domain is considered internal.

However, these definitions become clouded when the same organization operates multiple domains functioning as a single web experience, e.g. when a secure commerce website is used for purchasing things displayed on a non-secure website.

Similarly, a blogging website might have thousands of different blogs, in which

context one might view a link as “internal” only if it linked within the same blog, not to other blogs within the same domain.

Source – Wikipedia

Improve Blog :

Keep in mind that Internal Links will help you and your reader to keep updates about some old and related article / post / information from your blog. This will help visitor to discover some more information about your blog. This will help you to improve your page views, reduce bounce rate and make user friendly navigation system.

Focus on you target keywords:

Many times we are not understanding value of internal links. Try to be focus on Anchor Text too. I am sharing an example for it.

Option 1 : Did you check my article about Canonical URL ? No Just click here to know more ..

Option 2 : Hey ! Why don’t you check my article about Canonical URL

What’s the different between Option one and Option two ? virtually nothing. I want to focus you attention for my article about Canonical URL but what is the best practice to do ? the second option as I am using that as Anchor Text and I am killing two birds with one stone. Getting Internal Link and tell search engine that this links is about Canonical URL.

Use Breadcrumb :

Breadcrumb will help visitor to navigate easily and also help you for internal navigations. It makes your blog internal link reach blog.

Use SEO Smart Link Plugin :

Feel bored that need to find each keyword from article and link with relavant links. No worries You can go for SEO Smart Link Wordpress plugin. You just need to feed your required keywords with their links. When you wrote post and make it online this plugin will do the needful.

Keep linking with your internal blog will help you to gain more PR, More authorities and more internal links means win – win situation.

Wordpress is undoubtedly number one Blogging Platform for bloggers. But now It’s not limited to blogging people are stretching Wordpress for some unique and off beat use also. Even you will Clone Wordpress theme for some famous sites like Digg, Google etc.

I used to search a lot for Wordpress and Internet Marketing things as I love this both things. I had a encounter with several Versatile thing about Wordpress themes and offbeat wordpress usages. So I feel let collaborate all and share with friends.

Well many of themes are free but some Premium theme can burn your pocket. So just keep checking Theme Info link this will give you more idea about particular theme. The list is as follows.

Wordpress Clone Themes

We like many site for their look and feel as well as their features. Some geeks are too creative to make clone of their look and that also in some fantastic manner. I am amazed some time to see that. Let’s explore some this kind of Wordpress Clone themes.

Digg Like themes – Clone of Digg

Live Demo – Theme Info

Google Like theme – Woogle

Live Demo – Theme Info

Facebook Clone theme – Facebook Lover

Like me, many people are Facebook Fan so We have some more theme which are develop as clone of Facebook for Wordpress. Bye the way are you become my Fan at Facebook ? Not Yet ? Just check sidebar and be my fan at Facebook.

Live Demo – Theme Info

Facebook Clone theme – Facebook Wordpress theme

Live Demo – Theme Info

Facebook Clone – Cry Book

Live Demo – Theme Info

Twitter Clone Theme – Fresh Tweet

Live Demo – Theme Info

I am also planning to add more theme not only Wordpress Clone themes but also Wordpress alternate use themes like an Article Directory. I will publish Wordpress The Versatile Part 2 some time during next Week. I will appreciate if you can post a comment about any missing wordpress clone theme or any unique / offbeat theme for Wordpress. This will help me to enhance this list. So wait for Wordpress the Versatile Part 2.

Hey Friends and Readers,

Wish you Happy Diwali and Prosper New Year. (What is Diwali ? )

May This Diwali be as bright as ever.
May this Diwali bring joy, health and wealth to you.
May the festival of lights brighten up you and your near and dear ones lives.
May this Diwali bring in you the most brightest and choicest happiness and love you have ever Wished for.
May this Diwali bring you the utmost in peace and prosperity.
May lights triumph over darkness.
May peace transcend the earth.
May the spirit of light illuminate the world.
May the light that we celebrate at Diwali show us the way and lead us together on the path of peace and social harmony

“WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY DIWALI”

This Diwali give me lot of shocks. When I was reading / watching news then I come to know that USA President Obama celebrates Diwali, British prime minister Gordon Brown celebrates Diwali and even Matt Cutt wish all readers Diwali Greetings. Isn’t it wonderful ? I feel that now world has start feeling intelligence / Impotence  of India and Indians. Just check following links. I feel India Shining.

• Obama Celebrates Diwali
• Diwali Wishes From President Obama – With Video (From White House Official Site)
• REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT AAPI INITIATIVE EXECUTIVE ORDER SIGNING AND DIWALI EVENT (From White House Official Site)
• Obama seeks light and knowledge from Diwali
• Diwali celebrated at Downing Street (From The official site of the UK Prime Minister’s Office)
• Gordon Brown’s message for Diwali (From The official site of the UK Prime Minister’s Office)
• Matt Cutt wish us Diwali

New relationship with telecom giant AIRTEL and Micro blogging king Twitter will be rock many Indian. Twitter  announced partnership with Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel. I can proudly say that I am Airtel Customer and now I can express my self by Twitting too.

Now subscribers of Airtel by just texting can send their tweets at standard message rates without internet connections. Give Twitter a try with your Airtel phone by sending START to 53000.

You can check more FAQ at Aitel Official announcement

Twitter is sharing It’s experience about India on their blog

Twitter is not about technology, it’s about people. We worked quickly to establish full SMS service in India with the largest operator because organic growth in the region has been unusually strong and there is huge potential for positive impact. India already shines brightly with Twitter advocates like film stars Priyanka Chopra @priyankachopra Gul Panag @gulpanag, and Mallika

Sherawat @mallikala, director Karan Johar @kjohar25, Minister of State Shashi Tharoor @shashitharoor, upper house member Pritish Nandy @pritishnandy, news anchors Barkha Dutt @bdutt and Vir Sanghvi @virsanghvi, plus media outlets MTV India @MTVindia and NDTV @ndtv just to name a few.

Despite growing global awareness, Twitter has under 80 employees altogether but our little mobile team packs a punch. Kevin Thau with help from Tim Huske have built a mobile team of six people within Twitter and they’ve made considerable strides bringing full SMS service to the US, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and now India. As long as you keep asking for Twitter, we’ll keep working to activate full service in your region with no extra charges. Don’t forget to activate your mobile—visit the Devices page or text START to Twitter.

You can check original Post at Twiiter Blog