Quick Online Tips

Free Download: Norton Antivirus 2013, Norton Internet Security 2013

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:18:57 +0000

Want free antivirus? Now you can download Norton Antivirus 2013 free as well as Norton Internet Security 2013 for free as Symantec has released the beta version of these security software for free trial for public use – to find bugs, get feature suggestions and to help improve the Norton Security software before paid release into the market.

Free Norton Antivirus 2013 Download

Download Norton 2013 beta software now – available for free download exclusively at the Symantec website. All the three versions of the security software – Norton Antivirus 2013, Norton Internet Security 2013 and Norton 360 can be downloaded right now for free use.

Norton Antivirus 2013 promises an exclusive four layer antivirus protection system against trojans, viruses, and malware. Norton Internet Security 2013 promises a two-way firewall and exclusive identity protection features. Norton 360 2013 version promises faster than ever automatic online backup and full PC tuneup to make your computer faster. An unique feature of the software is that it is compatible with Windows 8 consumer preview.

To make the deal more sweeter, Norton will offer 40% discount when the full software version is released. You will get this offer by e-mail if you’d decide to download the beta software now. I usually buy the five PC Norton Internet Security Pack, and maintain my Norton account online which helps me to download the software whenever I want, while it keeps track of my license numbers and the number of PCs I am using it on.

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Original Article: Free Download: Norton Antivirus 2013, Norton Internet Security 2013

The Best Way to Gift Amazon Kindle

QuickOnlineTips — Sun, 13 May 2012 06:01:36 +0000

Home > Gadgets > Tutorials » Kindle

What is the best way to Gift Amazon Kindle? Don’t just buy it and present it to your friend. Instead it is a great idea to ship directly from Amazon.com since there are several options which make the deal better that way.

The usual way is that you order an Amazon Kindle, get it delivered to your shipping address and then gift warp it to present it. However, note that Amazon customizes the Kindle with your Amazon login details and account.

Gift Kindle

There are many advantages if you choose to gift Amazon Kindle directly by shipping from Amazon.

1. Custom Kindle Account – This gives the user to register the Kindle with their own Amazon account, so they don’t get to see it registered with your own name when they first start it. Now that would not be a great gift would if it welcomes you instead of your friend whom you gifted the Kindle. This is a very important consideration when you gift Kindle.

2. Unmarked Packing – Remember when I bought my Kindle and showed you the Kindle unboxing pictures, Kindle ships in its own branded Kindle labelled box. So if you really want to keep it a surprise, it is not a good idea as your friend gets to see the Amazon Kindle branding the moment they see it and it’s not a surprise any more. The gift option will not display Kindle branding on the box and the surprise will last longer till they really open the box.

3. Remove Pricing – Shipping Kindle as a gift option allows you to remove the pricing from the order details. This is good if you do not want to reveal the Kindle price you paid and is definitely better gifting etiquette.

Kindle Gift Cards

If you don’t wish to directly ship Kindle from Amazon, you can also surprise with a whole range of Amazon Kindle Gift Cards, which can be redeemed by email, on Facebook etc. This can let them buy Kindle, or buy e-books, magazine subscriptions to top up their Amazon Kindle content.

You can also send Amazon Gift Cards with Kindle Product suggestions and the exact amount get filled in automatically, so they have to just redeem the coupon code to get the product shipped quickly. This gives the recipient an option to purchase something else if they already have a Kindle, or decide to club gift cards to buy something different.

Amazon Kindle is the bestselling E-reader which has broken sales records and is the best gift option for most people. It is clearly the best way to read ebooks without glare even in bright sunshine and a much cheaper option than tablets. Gift Kindle today and Amazon promises free one-day shipping. You can also pair it with some best reading lights.

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Original Article: The Best Way to Gift Amazon Kindle

Your Blog NEEDS an Awesome Logo

QuickOnlineTips — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:18:50 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts

Your blog’s logo is one thing that your readers will never forget if you have a great one (or a really bad one). If done right, a logo can become a symbol that is universally recognizable and represents your blog to the world. A blog can either just be a content source, or it can become a brand; a content source is boring, but a brand is exciting. Having an awesome logo is pivotal to building a brand, but how does one build an “awesome” logo? Follow a few simple guidelines and you’ll end up with a cool brand – not just another blog.

Keep It Simple:

Your logo doesn’t need to be an elaborate family crest-type image (unless your website is about your family of course). It’s easy to get over-excited in Photoshop and continually add effects, but don’t fall into this trap. TechCrunch is a great example of this. There logo is nothing more than two letters, and if seen completely out of context you would still know what it was – the power of simple.

Be Bold:

To make an impression on your readers’ eyes, your logo must pop. There a lot of ways to pull this off; bright colors, sharp edges, or strange shapes, but the end result will be a logo that really grabs attention. Think about the Blogger logo, odds are you remember it (even before you saw it on the screen). This is another example of a simple logo, but it’s also a strong one. Be bold, get remembered.

Get The Colors Right:

This is a matter of aesthetic life and death. Contrasting colors or a cool-looking scheme can really make your logo stand out from the crowd. WordPress does a great job with this one. Their blue and white color scheme really gives off a cool look. Have great colors – attract readers.

Make it Fun:

A blog isn’t a super staunch platform, so why should its logo be overly serious? Be a bit quirky, off-the-wall, or original. Sometimes it just takes a little extra touch of quirkiness to get remembered. The Kissmetrics blog is spot-on in this aspect; their logo is showing data bars (arguably the most boring thing on earth) and yet because of the lightheartedness of the logo (pun intended) the blog is fun.

Make it Yours:

Your blog is only as good as the effort you put into it, and the logo will reflect that. Don’t go and pay a designer to make a logo and then leave him to do what he wants. Be a part of the logo design and make sure that it reflects the blog’s personality and theme. This will make your design look clean and flow well instead of looking gaudy and cold.

But What If I’m not a Designer?

Not having the skills or tools to design your own logo can be a major setback (especially if you are just starting out and have no cash). Additionally, if you want to hit all the points of a good logo you probably have a specific design in mind and need someone to work through the logo-building process with you without charging an enormous fee.

The best and cheapest way to build a logo is to ask around among your connections – you’d be surprised at how talented some of them are. Everyone wants exposure, so odds are that a friend will be willing to help you build a logo in return for recognition on your blog. Also, since you are already in contact with that person you can work together to build the logo and end up with a result that’s awesome.

Redesign? Or Just Integrate A New Logo?

Has anyone told you they like your blogs design? Ask for honest feedback, if the overwhelming response is that you’ve got a good thing going don’t change your theme – build your logo to integrate into what you’ve got. If, on the other hand, people think your blog’s theme is boring then by all means rebuild your scheme.

You want your logo to fit in well with the colors on your blog, and if that requires you to change the design, then do it. If you are using a platform like WordPress or Joomla, there are lots of themes available for free. Find one that goes with your logo and build it out.

A Logo Will Give You An Edge:

One thing that sets a great blog apart from an average one is the ability to appear visually pleasing while still delivering awesome content. With the proliferation of blogging platforms like WordPress it’s easier than ever to create and fill up a blog. If you want to get a little extra visual edge on your competition, a snazzy logo is a must-have piece. If you have had success branding your blog with a great logo, share in the comments below!

This article is written by guest author Josh, the editor of Entrepreneur Stories and an entrepreneur. Josh is a student, writer, and involved in the L.A. startup scene.

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Original Article: Your Blog NEEDS an Awesome Logo

Reputation Management: SEO on Steroids

QuickOnlineTips — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:51:07 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts > SEO

Online reputation management (ORM) emerged as a natural evolution of search engine optimization—and to this day, reputation management makes heavy use of leading search engine optimization (SEO) principles. It’s almost enough to make the novice think ORM and SEO are just two sides of the same coin—but of course, that’s a major oversimplification.

Really, online reputation management can better be described as SEO on steroids. Yes, many of the tools and techniques used are the same. But ORM takes everything about standard SEO and pumps it up.

A Matter of Purpose

The best way to think of it is in terms of objectives. In SEO, the goal is usually to get certain keywords optimized. If you can get a particular page of online content to “rank” on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing, then your SEO campaign has been successful.

In ORM, however, the goal is usually to get certain listings off of the first page of search engine results. It’s not about advancing certain content to the top of Google, strictly speaking, but rather it’s about suppressing listings that you don’t wish to be seen.

To put it another way: Claiming the top spot on a Google search results page would be, for the SEO professional, a major win. For the ORM professional to consider it a win, however, he or she would need to take control of the first ten spots on Google—that is, the entire first page. That’s what is necessary to successfully suppress an unwanted listing and bump it off the search engine’s first page.

ORM: Pumped Up SEO

Obviously, online reputation management is a much farther-reaching, more expansive undertaking. So while the techniques used in ORM are sometimes similar to those used in SEO, the big picture is very different. Here, in a nutshell, is how a typical ORM campaign operates:

Each ORM campaign is tailored to meet the specific reputation management needs of the client, which means each campaign begins with a thorough assessment. The reputation management professional will assess the negative listings that are out there; which search keywords are used to find these listings; and how authoritative these listings are (which is to say, how tough they’ll be to suppress).
From there, a customized action plan is formed. A ORM team will involve SEO strategists, for sure—but also content writers, social media specialists, news syndicates, and more.
Next comes the execution of that plan—a huge undertaking by any standard. Remember that the goal of the reputation management campaign is, at the very minimum, to assume control of the first ten listings on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This involves the creation of a huge volume of unique and compelling content, which is used to flood the search engines and push those negative listings out of the way. It also involves a newswire blitz, an aggressive social media campaign, and more—all in the service of propelling the new, positive content to the top of the search results page, and pushing the negative listings out of the way.

ORM: Not Just SEO

So is online reputation management just another spin on SEO? Hardly. The similarities are unmistakable, yet everything about ORM—from its purpose to its scope—is on a whole other level. If anything, it’s SEO that’s been beefed up and made battle-ready, which is ultimately why it’s so powerful in influencing public opinion and managing online listings.

This article is written by Rich Gorman, a veteran of the direct response marketing industry and an expert in reputation management and direct response marketing for companies large and small. Rich also operates the official blog for the Direct Response industry, Direct Response, where he shares his thoughts on Direct Response Marketing.

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Original Article: Reputation Management: SEO on Steroids

Got Klout! Get Free Entry to Cathay Pacific First Class Airport Lounge

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:53:24 +0000

Home > Social Media

Do you have Klout? It can get you free entry into Cathay Pacific first-class airport lounges! It’s one of the social perks of being an engaged social media icon. Now many bloggers and site owners can get free entry into this first-class airport lounge for free simply because they have Klout.

Power of Klout

Klout is a social media tool which measures your influence in social media circles by studying your social media profile like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, Flickr, and so on. Klout has announced a partnership with Cathay Pacific which allows people with a Klout score of greater than 40 to get free entry into their first class and business class airport lounges at San Francisco for free.

This is one of the Klout perks which you get for being an influential person in social media circles. We have been active on Klout for the last few months now, and even we are eligible for this Klout perk, and next time I travel to San Francisco, I can get free entry to the Cathay Pacific first-class airport Lounge in San Francisco. Catch us on Klout.

Of course this is a limited time deal, and if you are a social media influencer passing through the San Francisco airport and plan to catch a flight to another city, do remember to flash your Klout and get free entry into this airport lounge.

This video shows you how amazing is the Cathay Pacific airport lounge.

This is the start and a perfect example of how your social media profile will affect your real-world profile in the future and give you exclusive benefits like never before.

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Original Article: Got Klout! Get Free Entry to Cathay Pacific First Class Airport Lounge

How to Embed Angry Birds Game on Websites, Facebook Timeline

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:56:10 +0000

Home > Facebook > Gaming » Angry Birds

Now you can embed Angry Birds game onto any website, blog or even Facebook Timeline easily and allow site visitors to play Angry Birds game online on any web page you wish. Actually I went looking for the embed code, and it is not visible right away if you visit any Angry Birds game site. Either ways this is less fun than playing live Angry Birds on any website.

See how we have embedded Angry Birds game below and it can play right now on this very web page.

Embed Angry Birds Game

How to find Angry Birds embed code to use on your website? First you need to play Angry Birds level that you want to embed on your website. Visit apps.facebook.com/angrybirds to get started. For example I played this Angry Birds level 5, so now I can embed this level on this very webpage.

After you succeed (or fail) in clearing any Angry Birds level, at the end you will find an alert which allows you to share Angry Birds experience with Facebook friends or embed the level into your blog or website.

Clicking on embed will give you an embed code as well as an embed URL. Simply paste the embed code to post the iframe in your blog post, or use the URL if you want to embed the game in your Facebook timeline.

Limitations: Firstly note that you cannot play embedded game with Angry Birds Power ups like King slings, power quakes etc. Secondly you can only embed a single level at one time, and once your site visitor plays that level he is prompted to visit the Facebook site for playing the full game.

Moreover, the embed code allows you to install an iframe code with width 398px and height 270px. It provides an option to play in full screen, which if clicked will lead the visitor away from your site to the Facebook Angry Birds application. If you manually tried to increase the size of this embedded frame, it simply enlarges the border around the game window, which still stays small enough for the visitor to be interested in visiting the full-screen Facebook website.

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Original Article: How to Embed Angry Birds Game on Websites, Facebook Timeline

Successful Blogging Needs More Than Just Willpower

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:36:46 +0000

Home > Blogging > Guest Posts

To be a successful blogger, it’s not just the quality that is important. The quantity (or, at least, frequent enough regularity) is at least as critical. After all, regularly writing interesting articles is the core of this business, so you need to be persistent at doing it.

However we all know bloggers who had a very good start, but after some time they do not publish anything anymore. Chances are good that it happened to you in the past. It happened to me for sure, and this is so frustrating! Doing all these efforts and not being persistent enough to reap the rewards…

What happened? Were these bloggers less talented, less skilled or less motivated than others? No. Not at all. They simply fell into one of the biggest trap when it comes to do something over a long period of time (like a diet, learning a language or blogging): They thought that willpower will help them to succeed.

Willpower is overrated

The truth is that most bloggers rely on willpower alone in order to continue to write their blog articles. As you are going to discover in the below lines, this is a big mistake, a mistake that will cost them their dream of making money while blogging. The objective here is to ensure that you won’t fall into that trap!

Willpower alone is not going to help you to become a successful blogger. Why? Because willpower is not designed to do that. Willpower is an emergency system, like a spare tire: it is not meant to be used for a long period of time. It is helpful to press on for few miles, but using it is very demanding for the mind and the body: Using willpower alone can and will exhaust you, and your motivation will not help either…

Your motivation will fail

Motivation is cyclical: like the tides, it goes up, then down, then up again, and so on.

At the beginning of your project, you are excited and fired up about what you are doing, and your motivation is very high. Then, in the following few weeks, your motivation is going down little by little, and in order to continue to write articles based on the schedule you defined, you rely more and more on willpower. It may work like this for few more weeks, even for few months for some highly motivated people, but no one can sustain this for a very long time.

Sooner or later (usually sooner than later) there will come a time when your motivation will be down and there will be no more willpower to tap into. At that moment, if you don’t have the right environment and the right habits in place to take over (see below), the dream is over: you are not creating new articles; you do not think about your blog anymore, other things are taking the priority in your life. You don’t really give up (at least you don’t admit it), you simply put the priority on other things…

Given all the efforts, all the time, the energy and the money you’ve invested in your blogging activity, this is something that you definitely want to avoid.

The Solution? Understand what persistence really is!

Persistence is not willpower.

Persistence is a process, a skill that you develop and that you can use to produce regular efforts in a sustainable way. Please note the words used in that last sentence:

Skill: contrary to what is commonly accepted, persistence is not a talent, something that you are either born with, or not. People who claim that persistence is a talent are using this as an excuse to hide behind. No, persistence is not a talent, it is a skill, and as such it can be learned, trained and improved.
Sustainable: when we talk about persistence or about blogging, we are talking about long term: the desired result is not going to show up in few weeks only. So all the systems that you will put in place to help you to persist have to be sustainable, otherwise the system will fail and you will give up at one point.

Here are the three key components of a winning persistence process:

1. Motivation. Being clear about what you want to achieve, and why you want to achieve it. This clarity of objective and purpose will provide a huge amount of motivation, and there are many tools and techniques that you can use to ensure that your motivation stays high for a long time, and low for a very short time. Here are three things you can apply right now to boost your motivation:

Put a big sign on your desk with the number of visits per day you are aiming for. This will be a reminder of your objective and a good source of motivation.
Set a clear deadline for your objectives (or milestones). There is some magic in setting up a deadline: it triggers something inside you that will help you achieve your goal.
Chart yourself: if you want to post every day (or anything that you want to do daily), create a simple chart, and tick it each day that you did what you were supposed to do. Seeing the chart being filled day after day will motivate you to continue. Plus, you will want to avoid having a day with no tick, so it will provide extra motivation when you don’t feel like posting on a particular day. Simple & effective.

2. Environment. All the things that constitute your environment have an influence on you. They can either push you towards the completion of your goal, or they pull you back. The same for the people around you. Your whole environment is critical in your ability to succeed, so you need to consciously design the best environment to support your blogging activity. Here are three things you can apply right now to create a more supportive environment:

Don’t speak about your blogging activities to your friends and family members that know nothing about this topic. Not only they may provide bad advice, but they may also push you to abandon your dreams and come back to the “real” world. They don’t mean any harm, they probably have your best interest at heart, but they know nothing about that field, so their opinion, though interesting, is irrelevant and can be harmful for your motivation.
Share your commitments with other bloggers. Tell them what your plan is. If you want to post at least 3 times per week, tell them. They will hold you accountable, and it will create an external pressure: you don’t want to be embarrassed, so you will keep your commitment. Use your guilt, competitiveness or arrogance at your advantage.
Join a community of like-minded people. These people understand what you are going through, they understand your challenges, they understand your life. This can provide valuable information, support and inspiration. If you are not part of a community yet, quickly find one!

3. Routines. All the routines and habits you create to put your activity on “auto-pilot”, so that you effortlessly move forward without having to think about it. Here are three routines you can use starting today and that will help you tremendously:

At the end of each day, you create a list of 6 tasks that you want to achieve the next day, and you rank them in order of importance. Then the next day, first thing in the morning you start working on the first task until it is completed. The more focused and uninterrupted your work will be, the better. Then you move to task number 2 and you complete it. If you are interrupted, you handle the interruption, then you come back immediately to your list of six item, until all six are completed. This routine alone can greatly boost your productivity.
Never complain, blame or justify. By taking full responsibility and focusing on finding a solution rather than someone to blame, you will be happier, more productive and way more successful than if you play the role of a victim. Catch yourself when you blame, complain or justify, and put $1 in a jar to celebrate the fact that you are moving in the right direction.
Create a checklist that you will systematically go through before posting anything. On that checklist, you can add things like “Is there anything else I can add on that topic?”, “Is it how I would explain it to my grand-mother?”, “Are all my sources quoted?”, “Is my title attractive?” or “Did I check the spelling mistakes?”

There is a lot more that you can do, but if you just start with the above, you can already go a long way.

Do you have what it takes?

When you have a strong motivation, a supportive environment and powerful routines to rely on, everything is pushing you towards the completion of your objective. Success becomes the normal consequence, the expected outcome, whereas failure becomes more and more unlikely with each passing day.

Persistence is an important skill to develop if you want to be successful at blogging, a skill that you will be ill-guided to overlook.

You may become a successful blogger even if your writing style is not that great, or if the design of your blog is not appealing. But you cannot achieve success in this field if you are not persistent.

Check your motivation, your environment and your routines; See how you can improve all these, and start building today your success of tomorrow!

Guest author Laurent Vigneron is writing about having A Life Worth Living, realizing your dreams and making your life more meaningful. Visit the website and get his latest product for free while the offer is still on. Picture: © Helder Almeida – Fotolia.com

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Original Article: Successful Blogging Needs More Than Just Willpower

Google Penguin Update: How to Create Natural Looking Backlink Profiles

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:51:38 +0000

Home > Blogging > Google > Guest Posts > SEO

How to create a natural looking back link profile after the Google Penguin update? Google has changed the game again in the SEO industry. The penguin update was intended to fight web spammers who use shady techniques to rank websites.

April was a big month in terms of algorithmic updates for Google. First, they adjusted their algorithm again in early April, targeting sites with excessive onpage optimization (high keyword density, keyword stuffing, etc). Just a few days later, a new algorithm tweak went live targeting offsite factors (backlinks, social indicators, etc.) which meant a lot of sites were either deindex or penalized.

This new tweak, code-named Penguin has generated a huge buzz among SEOs and bloggers because a lot of legit websites were affected. Even quality sites were punished by Google Penguin update, and a lot of webmasters have complained about the inconsistency of the latest algorithmic adjustment. If you were affected, and you feel you shouldn’t have, Google has opened a web form where you can request a manual check of your website.

Create a natural looking backlink profile

Create quality content. If you start building links but your content can’t back up your strategy, you’re likely going blind in terms of SEO. Think of your websites as a long term business and deliver good and useful content for your visitors. If your content provides value, you’ll gain natural links from other sites and no algorithm can beat that. It takes time and effort, but it’s well worth.
Use varied anchor text in your links. A natural link profile contains backlinks from other persons who think your content is share worthy. Many of those persons are not webmasters, so probably they don’t even know what an anchor text is. People tend to link other websites using the URL itself. Try to build links with anchors like mysite.com, www.mysite.com, MY SITE.com, visit my site. com, HTTP SITE.COM, etc.
Use long-tails as anchor text. A natural looking links profile have variations of the main keyword. For instance, if your site is about dogs use more specific anchors, for example: dog news, dog pics online, great dog training website, dog friendly blog. Remember: people will link to your site because of your content and that’s why you’ll have to use long-tails as anchor text.
Not all links are text links. You can use an image as a link too, and any SEOs overlook this. If you want to increase the relevancy of your image links, use a keyword rich alt tag. For example: title="my keyword">alt="my keyword" width="100" height="100" />

Mix dofollow and nofollow links. I’ve read countless times how people disregard link building opportunities just because those links are nofollow and thus (according to their theories), that link is not worth buying. PageRank is not all you need. Relevancy, authority and quality are things I look for and PageRank is not that important for me. I’d rather get a Wikipedia link, which is no follow, and not a dofollow crap profile from an untrusted website.

Be part of the winners

We can go on trying to find patterns in natural looking backlink profiles but Google’s algorithm is too complex; instead, try to emulate what the winners are doing in your niche. Use tools like Majestic SEO or ahrefs and analyze the anchor distribution of the top sites. Analyze how many links they are building, what anchors are they using, etc.

I hope you can get some ideas from this post; build a natural backlinks profile, and remember this: nothing can beat the experience. If you really want to learn what works and what doesn’t, test and make your own conclusions.

This is a guest post by Alan Medina, the owner of BitsEverywhere.com, a tech blog where he writes about tech news, SEO, blogging and Windows Tips. He has been a blogger for 7 years and this is his passion. Follow him on @bitseverywhere.

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Original Article: Google Penguin Update: How to Create Natural Looking Backlink Profiles

Get Best WordPress.com Features in Self Hosted WordPress Blogs

QuickOnlineTips — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:51:13 +0000

Home > Blogging > WordPress

Did you know that you could get the best WordPress.com features in your self hosted WordPress blog just by adding a WordPress plug-in. WordPress.com has some amazing features which are missing in WordPress.org installations, and the Jetpack WordPress plugin is the best way to incorporate all these amazing features in your WordPress blog.

Firstly I was apprehensive to install this WordPress plugin, since it was a collection of multiple WordPress plug-ins in one large plugin and I was concerned about the server load and how it would affect my site speed. I was using the WordPress stats plug-in for several years, and a large banner on top of my WordPress installation kept nagging me to upgrade to the new version which is available only in the JetPack.

JetPack WordPress Plugin

I have been a fan of several useful WordPress.com features lplugindPress stats, contact form, WordPress short links, subscriptions etc. so I decided to install Jet Pack and try out the new plug-in features. And to my surprise it was a collection of very powerful and useful features.

Subscriptions – it enables your site visitors to subscribe to your posts and comments and get updates via e-mail. It proved a quick replacement to my earlier amazing subscribe to comments plug-in.
WordPress.com stats – I have been using this WordPress plug-in for several years and it provides a quick snapshot of your site statistics. Jet pack includes the latest version of this plug-in, and all future versions of the stats plug-in will now only be available through the Jet Pack. Of course now the data provided by the plug-in is much more detailed than before.
Spelling and grammar – helps to improve your writing by contextual spell checking, advanced style checking and intelligent grammar checking of your articles. It is powered by After the Deadline open source technology.
Social sharing – powered by ShareDaddy, this plug-in provides an array of custom social sharing buttons which are then placed beneath your articles and improve the social engagement of your visitors.
VaultPress – this is a useful WordPress backup plug-in which we have been using for several years and is a useful tool in case your WordPress database crashes or you need to restore your site. Read our VaultPress review about this real-time backup and security scanning plug-in. It is highly recommended.
Contact form – is a useful plug-in to insert a contact form on any page or post you like, and is a good replacement for any contact form WordPress plug-in you might be using.
Gravatar Hovercards – if you support Gravatar profiles in your comments, then this plug-in will show pop-up business cards of these users from their gravatar profiles.
WP.me short links – creates a short link for all your pages and posts which can be easily shared on social media sites like Twitter.
Short code embeds – allows you to use short codes to embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, slide share etc.
Beautiful math – allows you to use specialised markup language to post complex maths equations.
Sidebar widgets – some new widgets appear in your WordPress blog which allow you to add images, Twitter updates and RSS feed links in your sidebar.
Enhanced distribution- allows better sharing of your post articles and comments in real-time by distributing them quickly to search engines. A good pinging tool.

At first I had difficulty in deciding which plug-ins I should use. I also found it difficult to deactivate a few plug-ins since they were all activated by default and I did not need all these features. I learnt that you need to click on “Learn more” button, to make the “Deactivate” button appear! Then I could choose which plug-ins I actually needed to use.

Right now I am using the Subscriptions, WordPress.com stats, spelling, Vaultpress, Contact form and Enhanced distribution. The main advantage is that this is created by Automattic, the official WordPress team, so it promises to be tightly integrated in your WordPress.org installation easily.

So if like me, you decide to use some of the amazing WordPress.com features on your WordPress.org blog, then try the JetPack plug-in and you will find it useful.

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Original Article: Get Best WordPress.com Features in Self Hosted WordPress Blogs

How to Make Your Site Search as Default Google Chrome Search Engine

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:33:36 +0000

Home > Computers > Google > Tutorials

Did you know that you can make your own site search as the default Google Chrome search engine? Usually the default search engine in the Chrome browser is Google. But the Google Chrome settings allow you to change the default search engine in the browser URL bar.

So we decided to replace Google with our own site search, such that all searches in the Google Chrome URL bar would now search our site for the search terms typed there. It was more easier than you would think possible.

Change Default Google Chrome Search Engine

Go to Wrench menu > Settings > Basics > Search > Manage search engines. There you will find a variety of search engines and you can add your own search engine in the form at the extreme bottom below.

There are three fields you can fill here

1. Add a new search engine – Type the name of your website or domain name here (we type “Quick Online Tips”)

2. Keyword – type your domain name here (we type “quickonlinetips.com”)

3. URL – type the query URL of your site search and replace the query term with %s (we type http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/search?q=%s)

Now you will find your search engine is added to the Chrome search engines list. You can still click any field to edit it.

Now hover the mouse over the name of your search engine and click “Make default”, and now your site search engine will become the default search engine for Google Chrome. Now wasn’t that simple.

Now whenever people type search terms in the Google bar, it will search your site and present your site search results rather than Google. It’s easy to switch back to Google by editing the search engines whenever you want.

Evil tip: Replace the default Google search engine with your own site search in your cybercafe or any other public computer with Google Chrome browser. Most people will not know how the default search engine changed, and few would know how to switch it back. And of course you get all the extra search traffic to your site as people continue to type search terms in the Google Chrome browser! [Tip by HBB]

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Original Article: How to Make Your Site Search as Default Google Chrome Search Engine