Category — Internet

If you are interested in “embedding” a link in text on a webpage (such as a blog post or comment), you can use the proper html code to make it pretty.

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Del.icio.us (pronounced “delicious”) is one of my favorite social bookmarking sites. Basically, it’s a place for you to save, or “bookmark,” interesting sites that you’ve visited so you can return to them later. You also have the option of sharing your bookmarks with others.

When you bookmark a page, you can change the name and add a description and keywords, or “tags,” if you desire. These can really come in handy for searching when the number of sites you bookmark start adding up.

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I must admit that in preparing for this article, I visited Reddit.com for the first time. It’s functionality appears similar to Digg’s in the form or submitted links that are voted up or down on by users of the site. It looks like it could be fun, but there’s not enough time in my day to follow another one of these social bookmarking sites! I may check in on it occasionally, though.

The widget below is displaying the 5 hottest links on Reddit right now:

Here’s the Wikipedia article, if you’re curious. Enjoy.

Digg.com is one of my new favorite websites. Essentially Digg is a site where readers submit content (videos, pictures, blog posts, or websites) that they feel is interesting, important, or entertaining and other readers can choose to agree that the content is valuable (”Digg” the content), ignore it, or “Bury” it (mark it as uninteresting or false).

When you first visit Digg’s homepage, you’ll see the “front page” Digg stories that have been made popular by fellow users. In fact, you can see ten of those front page stories in the widget below:

If you like one of the stories, you can just click the Digg link. (You’ll need to create a free user account on Digg.)

All of the information on Digg is broken down into one of eight categories each with their own sub-categories. You are able to filter out stories from these categories.

When you visit a blog or other website, you my encounter an icon like the one below:

This is the most common icon that bloggers use to encourage their readers to submit a story to Digg, or “digg” it if it has already been submitted. If you have a site and would like to incorporate these tools, you can check out this link for resources.

If you’re curious for more information, here’s the link to Digg on Wikipedia.

I recently had a friend complain that my blog posts were too “Mac biased” and, therefore, useless to PC users. While I won’t apologize for being an adamant Mac fan, I’ll try to throw them a bone here with this little gem:

PicLens is a browser plugin that is, in my humble opinion, one of the coolest innovations for viewing images from the web. You really have to see it to fully understand what I’m talking about, but basically it allows the user to view a “feed” of images in a full-screen, interactive environment.

I know that it works with Flickr, Google Images, Picassa, Yahoo, and Facebook at this point, but, if there are not already others, I’m sure there will be soon!

It is available for Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. The newest feature, the 3D “Wall” of images, only works in Firefox and IE. I’ll take this opportunity to throw out my Firefox plug. My advice: quit using Internet Explorer. If you are a PC users and don’t have it, download Firefox here.

Head over to piclens.com to download the plugin that’s right for your browser. Once the plugin is installed, anytime you mouse over an image on a site that works with PicLens (Media RSS enabled), a small play button will fade in. Click that button to begin the experience. If you need more help, you can click the Tutorial link on the piclens.com site.

Questions? Leave a comment here, I’ll respond. Enjoy.

Slashdot is a science- and technology-related news website with articles submitted by users. User’s can comment on the articles that are posted. There is a rather confusing methodology to how posts, comments, and other content on Slashdot are compiled and moderated. If you’re curious, you can read the Wikipedia entry here, which goes into quite a bit of detail.

The URL for Slashdot is http://slashdot.org, and is quite difficult to pronounce. The content found there is pretty geeky (their tag line is “News for nerds. Stuff that matters.”) so I would say that it’s far from mainstream.

Clicking the icon that appears at the bottom of these posts will take you to a Slashdot page where you can save the post as a bookmark and, optionally, submit it to Slashdot for consideration as a story.

Stay tuned for more posts about social bookmarking.

For anyone who may find themselves needing or wanting to make an occasional international phone call or two, I would recommend Skype. Calls from one Skype-equipped computer to another (text chat, voice, or full video chat) are always free, no matter where the computers are located. But for me, I pay the $3 per month for unlimited calls from my computer to any phone in the US or Canada (as long as I’m in the US or Canada when originating the call). Those who know me understand that I have a very valid reason to call Canada all the time so this plan saves me quite a bit…especially when you compare it to the $0.60 /minute or so that Alltel would like to charge me to call Canada. Not that it’s any harder for them to get a call up there…anyway…I digress.

The $3 per month “SkypePro” account also gives me free Skype Voicemail, a discount on a “SkypeIn” number (an actual phone number you could give out that would ring to your Skype account) if I wanted one, the ability to transfer any incoming Skype calls that I miss to my cell phone (for free…less any cell phone minutes I might use), and…very cool…”Skype To Go.” Skype To Go allows me to call internationally from any landline that I designate at very low rates. So even when I’m away from my computer, I can call Canada for $0.02 per minute (I added the Skype To Go number to my “My Circle” numbers on Alltel, so…no minutes used there). Not too shabby…talk 30X as long for the same price!

But, again, I digress. The point of this post was simply to tell you that version 2.7 of Skype has been released. At a quick glance, I can see that it has immediately added all of my Address Book contacts as possible numbers to call, and there are a few other minor interface changes. If you already have Skype, choose “Check for Update” from the menu to update, or download it from here.

If you are the owner of a website, it means you’ve probably got something to say to people or show people. Increasing viewership of your website is a goal that almost all of us share.

So, you’ve told your friends, family, and your colleagues…heck, maybe you even tell people you pass on the street how cool your new website is…but, let’s face it, that’s only going to get you so far. With so many people out there on the Internet, there’s bound to be some people out there who are interested in what you have to say or show.

One of the main ways information is shared now on the internet is through social bookmarking sites. Many of you may already be a part of this phenomenon and not realize it. For example, the popular social networking site Facebook has, among other things, a feature that allows you to share interesting sites and content.

You may have noticed this graphic: at the bottom of most of my posts. It contains links to allow you to share the content you read in my blog posts on some of the most popular social bookmarking sites. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be discussing each of them in detail. Check back often, and, if you find the content interesting, subscribe to my blog either through the RSS feed or email notification.

To all you Firefox users, be sure and run your updater (located in the Help menu) to download and install the newest release of Mozilla’s Firefox: 2.0.0.12. This latest release includes 10 patches over the previous release, including three for critical vulnerabilities. More information about these specific issues can be found on this blog entry.

If you’re not already using Firefox (why not?) you can download it here. A link is also conveniently located in the right-hand sidebar of all my pages to show my support to the quality product that Mozilla has helped to produce.

I plan on putting up some posts shortly on choosing a web browser, adding extensions to your web browser, and the importance of updating software. Stay tuned.

Today marks the premier of my “Scott Rouse Digital” Facebook Page.

Almost everyone today is familiar, at least to some point, with the existence and popularity of Facebook. According to their own “about” page, “Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.” Founded in 2004, Facebook was initially available only to college students. Today, according to their own figures:

• There are 61 million active users (users who have returned to the site in the last 30 days)
• More than 50 percent of Facebook users return to the site each day
• More than half of Facebook users are outside of college and their fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older

Because of these facts, anyone wishing to increase their visibility on the web simply cannot ignore the value of marketing on Facebook. Facebook offers “flyers” and other paid advertisements, but anyone can start out with free techniques such as building a Facebook Page.

A Facebook “profile” is intended for an individual (read: actual human) whereas a “page” is designed to represent a brand, company, or organization. Just like in a profile, page admins can post pictures, videos, wall posts, events, and more. Instead of having “friends,” a page has “fans.” You are able to send “updates,” or messages, to fans of your page.

Administrators of a page are provided access to basic traffic information (or “insights”) related to their page. This can help a bit in tracking the popularity of your page.

More to come in the future about the importance of social bookmarking and sharing, but, for now, why not become a fan of my Facebook Page?