Claiming Your Blog in Technorati

According to Technorati data there are over 175,000 new blogs every day. Technorati is the leader in tracking the activity of blogs on the “World Live Web”. Currently they are tracking 60 million blogs. There is roughly 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second.
So why should you claim your blog at Technorati? Because, it could mean more traffic to your blog. As a member of Technorati your blog will be indexed and updated automatically making it easy for readers to find you. Technorati also makes it easy for you to search, discover and organize other blogs.

Claiming your blog establishes that you are its owner, and allows you to use Technorati Service to help increase your blog’s visibility.

Claiming your blog is very simple. Click on the claim your blog button on the homepage. This will direct you to sign up for an account. After you have signed up you will be directed on how to claim your blog. They give you three different ways to can claim your blog.

Quick Claim

It’s quick! Just enter the username and password for your blog. This information will only be used to verify that you own the blog, and it won’t be shared or stored.

Post Claim

Just write a new post in your blog that includes a special link to your Technorati Profile to get the ball rolling. You can always delete the post later. In addition to claiming your blog, you’ll be able to customize a widget for your blog to feature a “search this blog” box, a “blogs that link here” link, or profile information.

Embedded Claim

To use Embedded Claim you will need to be able to edit your blog homepage HTML or template.

After you choose one of these three ways to claim your blog you will be directed to configuration page. This is where you will include your blog description, tags and copy the javascript to be embedded in your blogs template. That’s it. It’s easy, it free and it could mean more traffic to your blog.

Quick Tricks for Google Reader Power Users

I already told you many times I switched to Google Reader. There was not much convincing required and I can vouch easily that I read three times more feeds now in one third the time since I use Google Reader. So I thought I would tell you how I use Google Reader productively.

Here is the smart way I use to read feeds, primarily by using keyboard shortcuts. Probably you do it anyway. But it should be useful for new Google readers…

1. Increase vertical screen reading area - Press F11 and the browser goes full screen to remove unnecessary toolbars and menus. Lots of space is increased on top and bottom of the browser to increase vertical reading area.

2. Increase horizontal reading area - Remove the Google Reader sidebar to gather even more reading space. Press U and behold as articles now fill the screen. Now lesser scrolling and a higher chance you can read the whole article in one go. Of course you could combine that with a high resolution screen, larger monitor to fit in even longer articles.

3. Switch to Read All Items - This the classical River of news approach. Press GA. I do not need to click each feed and check out their articles. Instead I see all of them one after the other as fast as I can. I keep the default setting “Sort by newest” so I can quickly keep going from latest to older articles I want to read. In settings, set your starting page to All Items, you can get started right away.

4. Switch to Expanded View - I like to quickly glance through all the articles text. Press 1. If you need to see the headlines only for even quicker overview - Press 2.

5. Start Browsing fast - Now I want to quickly skip from one article to another till I reach an article I like to read further into. There are 3 ways to do this. In expanded view - You can skip from article to article - Press J to go forward, press K to go back. Alternatively you might want to skip from one screen view to another instead of one article to another - Press Space key to go forward, Shift+Space to go back. In listed view - Use N to go forward and P to go back.

In the settings I have opted to mark items as read when I scroll past them in expanded view. very useful. I have also selected to “only list updated” subscriptions in the sidebar, which removes clutter in the sidebar as blogs are read. This is another great feature that works automatically. I feel limited by the pause every 20 posts…I hope Google can fix this.

6. Star it, Share it, Tag it, Read it - After I reach an article I would like to refer later, there are 5 things I can do (In listed view I need to expand it first - press O). Now I can either star it for future reference - Press S (much like gmail, later you can see all starred items together). Or I can share it with others on a link blog - Press Shift+S, like the Robert Scoble link blog (which I recommended earlier). Or I can tag it - press T, add tags to organize your selections for further review. Or I can open it a new Firefox tab and read the full article - Press V (if it is a partial feed, or I just like the blog view, or I intend to comment). Or mark as unread - Press M (may need it sometimes).

7. Refresh - After you have pressed J enough times, you might just find that there are no more new items to read. So Press R and refresh the new items. Google Reader might have caught up more new items by now.

8. Check your Starred Items - Press GS to visit your starred items list. Your entire effort of the reading session is now consolidated in your starred items. Maybe you want to read these articles in details, or blog about them. As you skip through them, Press S to unstar them, or Shift+S to unshare them.

15 Best Toolbars for Your Web Browser

A toolbar sits on your web browser and enables quick access to many useful functions making online surfing easier. Here is a list of popular toolbars for your web browser.

Most Popular toolbars

* Google Toolbar- Search with Google from any web page, block annoying pop-ups and automatically fill out forms are just few of the popular features. Check spellings, Autolink and see the pagerank. Quick access to all major Google services.
* Yahoo Toolbar - allows searching the web with pop-up blocker. Anti-Spy Window Spyware protection. Quick access to Yahoo services and add fresh content to My Yahoo! easily to name a few features. And now with tabbed browsing in IE.
* Windows Live Toolbar - tabbed browsing in IE, form filler, pop up blocker, mutiple search options, self updating and feed detector.
* MSN Toolbar - Browse smarter with tabs and switch between Web sites within the same Internet Explorer window . Search the Web and easily locate documents, e-mail messages etc. Fill out online forms and one click Access to MSN services.
* Alexa Toolbar - a free search and navigation companion that accompanies you as you surf, providing useful information about the sites you visit including traffic information and contact info. Find related links for each page and share opinions.
* Stumble Upon - Lets you browse, review and share great webpages while meeting new people. Vote sites you like and read reviews about them. Firefox requires an extension instead of the .exe file in IE.