Market Your Blog Posts with su.pr

I've written before about the use of URL shortening websites with Twitter and while I had been partial to using tr.im, I've made the switch over to su.pr and here's why:

su.pr allows you to not only shorten a URL for one of your blog posts, but you can also post to your Twitter and Facebook accounts as well as bookmark your blog post to StumbleUpon

If you are interested in effectively marketing your blog posts or any of your other items, then you need to consider all the different ways you can publicize their posts. And it becomes tedious to try and update or post to each site individually - this is how combination sites like su.pr can help. You will need to set up a StumbleUpon account and then link your Twitter and Facebook accounts in order to reap the time-saving rewards of su.pr.

Su.pr via Lifehacker

copyright 2009, Thomas MacEntee

Manage Your GenealogyWise Email Settings

If you have hopped on the GenealogyWise band wagon like me, then you might find yourself bombarded with many e-mail messages. Don't forget to manage your e-mail settings - you can select whether or not you receive an alert each time someone posts an item to a group, etc. This is much the way Facebook works and unless you tell GenealogyWise, your account is activated with the default e-mail settings once you sign up.

To change your e-mail notification settings in GenealogyWise:

1. Sign in at GenealogyWise

2. Click Settings in the right-hand sidebar

3. Click E-Mail

4. Select your settings and then click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Google Voice

I finally received my invitation to join Google Voice! The email arrived this afternoon and I have been jonesing for several weeks now. I am so psyched to be able to loop in my other phone lines and have my voicemails available to me online!

Stayed tuned for more information as I work with Google Voice and I'll weigh in on how it may help genealogists and family historians!

Google Chrome OS - On Target for Netbooks

Today Google announced that it is launching its own operating system - called Google Chrome OS - based upon the popular Google Chrome web browser. I am already a big fan of Chrome and have used it almost exclusively as my web browser of choice since it debuted in September 2008.

What does Google's announcement mean for genealogists? Well you've already heard me rave about my new Asus netbook and I have written a review of five different netbook brands in the upcoming issue of Digital Genealogist. And if that were'nt enough, it turns out the Consumer Reports did a "first look" at the Asus 1000 HE that I purchased and they seemed to have the same feelings about it as I did.

A netbook is a travelling genealogists best friend in my opinion and now I can't imagine ever ponying up the big bucks for a laptop. Sure you need to make adjustments in how you work but I think that in five years time, I will also dump my Dell desktop and simply be working with my netbook, a large external hard drive and computing in the cloud.

Right now most netbook models are shipped with Windows XP Home Edition (since Windows Vista cannot run on netbooks) or for the brave techies with Ubuntu (Linux based operating system). Google seems to be positioning itself for the holiday consumer electronics season since the new OS will be available in the second half of 2010.

Not many details yet, but expect to hear more in the next few weeks. But you can probably count on these changes in the netbook landscape:

• Speed: Google Chrome is lightning fast compared to Internet Explorer and even Firefox.
  
  
• Cost: when bundled with a netbook expect to see the base price of a netbook decrease - some are saying as much as 10%
  
  
• Less Fuss: well, that's what I call it - less messing around configuring apps to work within the wacky world of Windows
  
  
• Portability: as I've written before, a netbook is intended for portability and it makes sense that Google would jump into the OS field with netbooks first. Google Docs, Gmail and other Google apps were designed for portability and offline use.
  
  
• Open Source: Google is an app developer's best friend and you can look forward to some neat and probably free applications intended to work in the netbook environment.

And if I can get my hands on an early copy, I will see if I can yank out Windows XP Home Edition on my netbook and replace it since I already have my Asus pimped out with Google Docs, Google Chrome, Gmail and more!

The Graying of Facebook

As reported by iStrategy Labs via Mashable, it appears that the demographic of Facebook is definitely changing.

In the last six months alone there has been a growth rate of 514% in the number of users age 55 and above! While this sub-group still only represents about 8% of overall Facebook users, the growth rate does seem to indicate that Facebook is catching on especially with retirees.

GFI Backup - Another Free Backup Tool

There is a new (and free) data backup tool available called GFI Backup. What sets this product apart is the use of "wizards" to configure the data to be backed up.

In case you are unfamiliar with what a "wizard" is, it is a series of prompts that ask you where something is located, what actions should be taken and under what conditions. Most of us use wizards when we install software for the first time: we are asked where it will be installed, whether we want it to load on startup etc. Many installation and deployment packages are basically wizards.

GFI Backup lets you do incremental backups and even works with removable memory storage such as USB flash drives and external hard drives. GFI Backup will store the backed up data on your selected site and is not to be confused with an online backup service.

Is Your Blog Mobile Ready?

These days many readers are accessing blogs through mobile devices especially with the debut of the iPhone almost two years ago.

Have you ever thought of what your readers encounter when they try to access your site on a mobile device? Would you even know where to start in terms of making your blog "mobile compliant?"

A new site called Mobify ensures that visitors to your blog from mobile devices have a great experience in accessing your site. Mobify lets you create a free mobile view that eliminates long load times, incompatible content and difficult navigation on websites. According to Mobify's site, users see a 50% increase in mobile traffic with visitors wanting to return once a site is made easier to access on a mobile device.

How does it work? Here is the step-by-step process from Mobify's website (using the site http/www.justcreativedesign.com as an example):

1. Mobile user pulls out his iPhone (Nokia, BlackBerry, etc) and clicks a link to justcreativedesign.com/article that he just saw on Twitter.

2. justcreativedesign.com is a WordPress blog with a Mobify plugin installed. It detects the mobile device and redirects the user to the mobile view located at m.justcreativedesign.com/article (plugins for Drupal & Expression Engine and a generic JavaScript snippet are also available)

3. As m.justcreativedesign.com is a DNS CNAME pointer to jcd.mobify.me, MOBIFY receives the request and loads the original webpage at justcreativedesign.com/article on user's behalf.

4. MOBIFY applies content selection and styling tweaks set by the site owner and resizes the images to fit the mobile screen, reducing page size by orders of magnitude and making it look just right. Image resizing and other transcoding takes place in an optimized cloud computing environment so even the most media-rich sites are adapted in an instant, without overloading the source site.

5. The page is loaded in seconds and the mobile user is pleasantly surprised without knowing anything about MOBIFY.

There are three pricing levels available: free, plus and premium. With the free version, users will see the "powered by Mobify" footer and you won't have access to analytics or preferred support.

If you want to expand your blog traffic you may want to consider checking out Mobify!