PROBLEM -  Making a neat horizontal bar with all the social-sharing buttons inline.

Well, I am not a coding expert. But, somehow I wrote a code which is simple and easy. So, I thought I would share the code here on my blog.

I scratched my head for a lot of time over this problem. But, later I came to know that I was not really looking at the problem. Okay, now first let me give you the code.

<div> 

<!-- tweet button -->  
<div style="float:left;">
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" data-count="horizontal">Tweet</a>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"> </script>
</div>
 <!-- tweet button --> 

<!-- facebook like button-->
<div style="float:left;">
<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href&amp;send=false&amp; layout=button_count&amp;width=450&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp; colorscheme=light&amp;font&amp;height=21" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:60px; height:21px;" allowTransparency="true"></iframe>
</div>
<!-- facebook like button--> 

<!-- Google +1 button -->  
<div style="float:left;">
<!-- Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render -->  
<g:plusone size="medium" annotation="inline" width="60"></g:plusone> 

<!-- Place this render call where appropriate -->  
<script type="text/javascript">   (function() {     var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true;     po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js';     var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);   })();  </script>
</div>
<!-- Google +1 button -->
</div>

One another thing-  This is the code I wrote. It is very simple and easy. But, still this code didn’t work in the beginning. Notice the highlighted part of the code above. By default, the Plus one button width will be450px or something, which makes it not possible to keep them inline. That’s why it didn’t work. But, after sometime I found the problem and fixed it. I am just giving a heads up so that you don’t do the same problem.

Also, the code I wrote is only for three buttons, but you can extend it. Just add the code of the button in between the following tags.

<div style="float:left;">
Paste the code for the button here
</div>

That’s all. You can see my code in action at the beginning of this post. Please don’t hesitate to comment if you have any problems or suggestions.

Today in this blog post, I will introduce a tool that will help you to create extension for your blog, which in turn will help your content to be easily discovered. Extension Factory is a tool that helps you to easily create extension of your blog, or rather any blog you want – all you need to do is enter the required blog URL.

It is easy to create an extension of your blog. Go to Extension Factory page. Enter the URL of the blog and click “Create your Extension”. Then, you get a code, copy and add it in your website. Or, if you want to test the extension first, you can also do it by click on “Test Extension” button. If you are a wordpress user, then there is a plugin that does the same job. You might have noticed that on my blog.

The tool basically takes the RSS feed URL of a blog and creates an extension using that feed. The tool supports Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE. It creates a simple dialog box interface containing feeds of your blog posts. Whenever a new post is updated on your blog, the extension shows a notification (See picture below).

The extension has an option to bookmark posts too. Also, if a blog has more than one feed, you can select only the feeds you want, from the “Options” tab.

If you want anymore information about this tool, visit their FAQ here.

Don’t you think getting feeds of your favorite blog right on your browser would be great? So, IMHO this a simple yet good tool. What do you think about this tool? Would you use it for your blog? Or how would you use it? Drop in your comments below.

However, if you look back a few years, then you would see a thick division between the online computing and the local computing. But, with the popularity of social networking sites increasing everyday and also the Cloud Computing technology evolving day by day, the line that divided the online computing world from the local computing world is diminishing very quickly.

But, that doesn’t mean that we would stop using our local storage. We still use our local storage as backup always. So, if you are a person, who stores a lot of data online on different social networks and other file sharing sites, then Social Folders is an excellent tool to use.

Be Social. Stay Local – is the aim/motto of the creator of Social Folders. This tool acts like a bridge between the Online world and the local world of computing that I talked above.

If you upload your photos to Facebook, or videos to Youtube or your documents to Google Docs very frequently, then this tool is a boon for you. Even after uploading your files online, you still keep them offline, i.e. on your local computer. So, why not do both the things at the same time? Social Folder lets you do exactly that!

In simple words, this tool lets you upload files to different sites from windows explorer. This tool is currently in private beta. So, you need to ask for an invite by giving you email id on their website. I got an invite in a very short time. So, I think even you will get one, if you are early enough to grab it. After you have got the invitation, you will be directed to a page where it asks you to download Social Folders setup file on your desktop. Download it. A 5MB file.

Now, install the Social Folders on your desktop through the setup. That’s it. The installation process is done. Now, you will be directed to your account online. Here, you need to add different websites that you want to sync locally. Click on “Connect to new Website” and select a website. It currently supports most of the major websites like Flickr, Google Docs, Instagram, Photobucket, Picasa and Youtube.

Connect to the websites and now you can start uploading or downloading files.

You can download files from your account onto the desktop (in a folder called Social Folders, automatically created) from your online account. Also, uploading files is a piece of cake! Just paste the files into the Social Folders folder and refresh. It will automatically upload it to your account online. Simple, isn’t it?

And also, by the way, just out of curiosity, I tried to upload some unsupported files into Facebook, and refreshed. It didn’t get uploaded. Nice.

Also, if you edit a file and refresh, it will upload the edited file again.

You can also transfer files across different sites, by just copying and pasting the files into the respective folders. For example, if you want to upload the images, from Picasa to Facebook then just copy and paste those photos from Picasa folder into the Facebook folder.

Maybe, I have left out some of the features, but you will know about it as you use it. Alright, concluding this with my opinion, I would say this tool will go a long way. I have liked every feature and also the idea behind this tool and the whole concept Be Social. Stay Local – is awesome. Hats off to the creator!

101 Free Tech Books is a website which, as the name itself suggests gives away free books related to computer and technology every month. It’s a 100% free giveaway as they take care of even the shipping charges. So, you just should have enough luck to win a free tech book, and you will get a book, for free effortlessly. You can increase the odds of you, winning this book by referring the site to your friends through different media (like I am doing right now). Please check out other details about this site here.

Don’t forget to share this with your friends! Go to 101 Free Tech Books

comScore: Graph analyses the traffic

The statistics from ComScore show that there has been a little increase in traffic than the normal traffic that the social networking site was getting usually. In January this year, Twitter got 21.79 million unique visitors which was pretty much higher than that of 21.25 million visitors (calculated on July 2009). There was a 3.1 percent increase in the traffic, in December when compared with the traffic in the previous month. So, the real time search which was introduced on December 7 has caused a great impact on Twitter’s traffic.

Experian Hitwise collects some data on this aspect. The graph above shows the increase in the traffic that is driven to Twitter through Google. There has been a 9% increase in the traffic that Twitter got from Google in the time period of December 5th to February 13th.

[Image Source]

Also Read: 5 Tools That Help You To Tweet From Gtalk

Filetac.com is a online tool which helps  you to convert any uploaded file into .zip file. With this online tool in hand, there is no need of downloading any other converter to convert your files. The user-interface is also pretty simple to use. All you have to do is,

1. Add the files you want it to convert into .zip format.
2. After you upload them, click on “Compress”.
3. Download the .zip file that is obtained.

That sounds simple, isn’t it? However, this tool has a small disadvantage. You can add only files. A complete folder cannot be added due to the size restrictions.[Max upload: 10MB]

Overall, this tool is pretty handy while you are at your office work, or literally anywhere.

Recommended reading: Send Files Online Using PipeBytes

Via [Sites To Use]

Before proceeding to the procedure of how to combine/merge two or more RSS feeds let me explain where and how can this be helpful.

• As I said in the above paragraph, this trick might be helpful in categorizing interesting feeds and non-interesting feeds, or rather less interesting feeds.
• Suppose you have a few really informative sites that you never want to miss. In such a case, you can merge multiple feeds under the name like “My Favorite Feeds”.
• Categorizing the feeds based on different subjects. Suppose you have feeds related to different fields. In that case, you can combine multiple feeds based on the subjects the feed contains.

I hope you got an idea of how this trick can be helpful to you.

Procedure

To be frank, I found this trick while I was working with Yahoo! Pipes. People who don’t know about Yahoo! Pipes can refer to the Wikipedia article linked. (Hover the mouse over Yahoo! Pipes)

1. After signing in, you get a dashboard type screen where you can work on your project.
2. Click on “Sources” in the top-left corner.
3. Drag and drop the module “Fetch Site Feed”. The number of modules depends of number of site feeds that you want to merge into a single feed. I am explaining with three sites here.
4. After adding the modules, enter the site addresses of all the sites. [Note: You need to enter the site address and not the feed address]
5. Now, you need to use an operator to combine all the feeds. This is the “Union” operator. To use this, go to the operator tab and drag “Union” module to the dashboard.
6. Now, pipe all the “Fetch Site Feed” modules with the “Union” button. [Refer the pic below]

   

7. After you do this, you need to create the RSS feed. So you have to add “Create RSS feed” module. To add this, again go to the “Operators” tab and drag “Create RSS Feed” module.
8. Select the suitable preferences and connect the lower end of this module with result. The upper terminal should be connected to the “Union” operator.

   

9. That’s it. Now save the pipe and run it!
10. You can even subscribe to that feed in your reader. You need to add the resulting pipe URL in your RSS feed reader.

Any doubts regarding the tutorial can be discussed below in the comments. Do leave feedback through comments. They are valuable to me!

I hope you loved this tutorial. For more tutorials, tips and tricks subscribe to my RSS feed here!

SEO I Did To This Post

SEO Title: Combine Feeds | FeedBurner Combine Multiple RSS Feeds | Using Yahoo Pipes

I used Google Insights for search that I had discussed about in my previous post here. Found that keywords like “FeedBurner” had more popularity, so just used it in the title.

SEO Excerpt: Here is a simple trick to combine different RSS feeds into a single RSS feed. Merging multiple RSS feeds helps you in many ways.

If you observe a little deeper, I have used to keywords. “Merging” and “Combining”. So, both types should get attracted.

SEO Tags: feedburner combine multiple rss feeds, combine multiple rss feeds, multiple rss feeds combination

Getafixx is a gtalk/gmail bot that helps you to find experts in any field. It connects you to experts in various fields, so that you could clarify your doubts with them. To connect with them, this is what you have to do.

Add this bot to your Gtalk contact list.

getafixx@voicetap.in

After adding this bot, just ping once and it will guide you through the remaining process. A recent post at Tech Bangalore has written a detailed conversation between the bot and the user. Check that here. The interesting feature here is that the creators of this bot have made even the registration of your account through pings!

In this post, I would like to deal about some of the technical aspects about this bot. After your registration is successful, it asks you to enter the topic you would like to contact the experts for. You have to enter the desired subject preceded by “Search”.

After doing so, the bot will search for experts online and give a unique ID for you to ping the expert. First, you need to connect to the expert by using this syntax, connect @Unique ID. Now, you will be connected to the expert. You can discuss about your doubts with the experts and end the chat.

You too can become an expert!

Yes, if you want to help other people and show off your expertise in any field, you can even become an expert. To do this, you need to use this syntax, Expert <Your expertised categories>. That’s it.

Here are some commands that could help you while using this bot.

- To search, type search [your query] (Example: search IIT)
- To speak directly with the expert (if you know his unique ID) type connect @[unique id] (Example: connect @5)
- If you want to allow / disallow any details from going to the expert, please type details followed by Y / N
- To change your expert categories at any time, please type expert.
- To view experts currently online, please type online.