photo credit: aloshbennett

As the year 2008 comes to a close, I’ve learnt a lot and keeping all that in mind, here’s what I wish to achieve with DailyApps in 2009.. I did write something similar outlining my goals for 2008, but to be honest I’ve failed myself..

Here’s what I had wished last year and didn’t quite achieve it this year.. I hope to achieve it this year atleast..

• Reach 7500 RSS subscribers (currently at 1300+)
  Didn’t manage to achieve that.. Currently at nearly 3000 subscribers

• Average 30,000 daily page views (currently at 10,000)
  Around 20,000 at the moment, so didn’t achieve this as well.
• Generate $2,000 in monthly revenues (currently at $0).
  Achieved it earlier in the year, but didn’t quite manage to keep it consistent
• Increase the posting frequency to 3-4 posts a day (currently at 1-2 posts a day)
  The mother of all problems, I simply haven’t been able to post much on DailyApps this year
• Enter the Alexa Top 20,000 (currently at 45,000+)
  Alexa changed their methods half way through the year, so this doesn’t count.
• Increase the average comments per post to 15 (currently at 5)
  Something that I’ve managed to achieve this year.. I am happy
• Enter the Technorati Top 1000 (Currently in Top 5K)
  Never made it, fell backwards instead
• To be a widely cited tech blog in the blogosphere
  Yes I did manage to achieve that, when I was blogging regularly..
• Get a professional blog design from Chris Pearson
  Chris doesn’t do blog designs anymore, so I might use his premium theme
  sometime..
• To develop a strong and vibrant community around dailyApps.
  I’m proud of the community around DailyApps.. You guys have been amazing..

DailyApps is over an year old now, and its been a journey of a lifetime for me.. As I have outlined in the last post I wrote, life has taken dramatic turns this year, and I simply haven’t been able keep up with all the pressure and work..

2008 will be the year, when things began on a high for me both professionally and personally.. Somehow midway through the year, life got worse.. Don’t ask me why? Things are falling back into place now, and I am sure 2009 will be the year when I turn things back around for the better.

So for the coming year 2009 there are no goals as such.. I just want to achieve all that I haven’t been able to in 2008.. There’s no point in writing a new set of goals when I haven’t much of previous goals.

So 2009 will be the year when I’ll achieve what I planned for 2008.. Wish me luck guys.. I promise regular posting will resume on Jan 1st 2009 and the blog will get new and useful content on a daily basis..

Thanks to all you guys for sticking around, and trusting me.. I’ve been through the worst this year, now its time to turn things over and make way for the best things to happen.. DailyApps becomes DailyApps in 2009, and I hope it stays that way forever..

If you guys have any ideas, or suggestions as to what you want me to write about in 2009, please let me know. Many thanks to Daniel Scocco for inspiring me to list out my goals for 2009.

Till then, Happy holidays to everyone, and a Happy New Year 2009 in advance

I normally use Snagit for all my needs of taking screenshots, but today thanks to Amit Agarwal I found a cool new plugin written by a Microsoft employee Joe Cheng that allows me to take screenshots more easily than ever.

Here’s how to get started with this tiny plugin that will surely make life easy for all bloggers alike. To give your Windows Live Writer the power of a  screen capture tool, download this file (22kb, ScreenCapture.dll) and copy it to the following location on your PC :

C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins

Now when you open Windows Live Writer you will see the option to take the screenshot. All you need to do now is click it and select the region you want to capture and you are done. Simple isn’t it?

This plugin is still in infant stages so taking screenshots of other windows isn’t all that easy at the moment. But I’d expect Joe to add new features in the coming days.

The plugin looks very promising, and is something I plan to use regularly. What do you guys use for taking screenshots? let us know in the comments.

Thanks Amit Agarwal | Download the Plugin

Matt believes that bloggers everywhere are on the edge of nervous breakdown, or a heart attack (points at Om Malik) or probably even death (referring to Russell Shaw). The claims made by Matt are sensational alright, but it does raise some important questions that we bloggers need to answer.

I can’t really speak for bloggers in niches other than Technology simply because I myself am an Tech Blogger. The Tech blogosphere at the moment is extremely competitive and just about everyone including me are hunting for the next big scoop. Things are rapidly changing in our world and even while we sleep there is a lot happening.

I personally know bloggers who sleep for less than 5 hours a day, which shouldn’t really be a shocker since there would be many more who are probably sleeping even less. I have so many things at hand and that includes my college studies, time with family and friends and blogging. I actually wake up early in the morning to quickly read through my RSS feeds, have the creative juices running through my head for my next while I travel, and I write once I get back home late in the night.

I hardly manage 6 hours of sleep, and I’m pretty much aware that this isn’t good for me in the long run, but this doesn’t stop me from blogging. This passion of having what you write by thousands of people world over, keeps the desire burning to write more and better.

Money obviously is the icing on the cake. I can’t exactly reveal how much I make every month, but I can tell you I do make much less than 30k a year in contrast to what Matt said most bloggers make 30k a year. Off late blogging seems to have been taken as a for money profession, which isn’t the right thing to do in my opinion.

I’m pretty sure you can easily count the number of Technology bloggers who make atleast 30k a year, simply because there aren’t many of them. And just about everyone is trying to get the eyeballs to their content, which directly implies more ad revenue. Speed matters here, news breakers are the guys who receive the maximum exposure and ad revenue. This is the precise reason why we see bloggers working extremely hard to get the next big scoop. And this is where Stress becomes a major factor.

I’m sure the health of many bloggers who are in this game to make money can be adversely affected. Bigger blogs have many bloggers working round the clock writing new stuff by the minute. I’m not exactly sure how a profession that demands churning out thousands of words of fresh useful content is sustainable.

Blogging in my opinion was never meant to be something that is used to make money online. It is and will always be a fun job, and you blog only because you love it and for the love of writing something that is read by people world over.

Bloggers looking to blog only for the sake of money. Stop doing that, shut that computer down. Go out enjoy the sunshine, get a real life. Don’t live in the dark walls of illusion. On a concluding note I’m not exactly sure how the big boys like Techcrunch, Mashable can survive. As the adage goes “Content is the King” and it is the quality that matters not the quantity.

Photo Credit : Brymo

With WordPress 2.5 to be scheduled to be released today (I’m not sure if it will make it today or not) the whole blogosphere is going to go crazy with reviews of the latest version of WordPress. Many users would invariably encounter problems while upgrading, so here’s a check list by Lorelle Van Fossen to make sure that the upgrading to WordPress 2.5 goes off smoothly.

Let me cut out all the stuff and just list out the points here for a quick scan. You can read the full list over here.

• Check Plugin and Theme Compatibilities
• Update Themes and Plugins
• Do a PreFlight Test
• Disable and/or Remove Old Plugins
• Backup your Database
• Relax and Read (The finer print is what matters)

Whether WordPress 2.5 will be released today or not is still unknown. According to the chatter on the mailing list it looks like it still isn’t ready yet. Matt apparently mentioned a beta2 but the latest SVN tag mentions beta1 so I’m not sure if we will see WordPress 2.5 today.

In my opinion Matt and co is better off by delaying the release than to ship a buggy one. I won’t be upgrading to WordPress 2.5 for atleast two weeks as the new UI just doesn’t cut if for me. I feel that the latest UI is a step backwards in Admin design, but anyways that’s just my opinion.

I’m also testing out Habari at the moment, and I will publish my thoughts on it soon, so stay tuned for that. What are your plans for WordPress 2.5? Do you plan to upgrade as soon as it comes out or play the waiting game and upgrade later?

dailyApps has grown at a rate in its first 5 months, that I could have only dreamt of. With the year 2007 coming to a close, I have decided to set some goals for myself and dailyApps for the coming year 2008. dailyApps started just a little under 5 months ago with just one aim, and that was to make softwares, and technology easier for the average user. I had some plans, and luckily they worked well for me. With the year coming to close, here are some of the goals I wish to achieve by the end of 2008.

• Reach 7500 RSS subscribers (currently at 1300+)
• Average 30,000 daily page views (currently at 10,000)
• Generate $2,000 in monthly revenues (currently at $0).
• Increase the posting frequency to 3-4 posts a day (currently at 1-2 posts a day) 
• Enter the Alexa Top 20,000 (currently at 45,000+)
• Increase the average comments per post to 15 (currently at 5)
• Enter the Technorati Top 1000 (Currently in Top 5K)
• To be a widely cited tech blog in the blogosphere
• Get a professional blog design from Chris Pearson
• To develop a strong and vibrant community around dailyApps.

Highlighting the goals for 2008, gives me extra motivation to work harder and help this blog grow. I hope to be able to realize the goals I’ve set for myself in the coming year. Finally, a big thank you for all the readers and supporters of this blog. I hope to see you guys around in 2008, and I am pretty sure that you will all achieve your goals in 2008 as well! All the best guys!

Well, thanks to Daniel from DailyBlogTips for inspiring me to list out my goals for 2008.

]]> http://dailyapps.net/2007/12/what-i-wish-to-achieve-with-dailyapps-in-2008/feed/ 19 http://dailyapps.net/2007/09/wordpress-adobe-air-airpress/ http://dailyapps.net/2007/09/wordpress-adobe-air-airpress/#comments Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:38:34 +0000 Karthik Kastury http://dailyapps.net/2007/09/wordpress-adobe-air-airpress/ Read The Rest →]]> If you are a regular WordPress user, then you must check out AirPress, the Slick Adobe AIR App that allows you to post from your desktop. With its super sexy design, you are sure to be sucked into it. AirPress is a minimalist blogging client in terms of features. But one of the coolest things that AIrPress offers is videoblogging directly from its interface.

Through its Interface you will be able to post :

• Text
• Pictures
• Sound (mp3)
• Video (flv)
• Webcam streaming (directly from AirPress!!)
• Webcam snapshot
• Flash animation (alpha version)

Here are some screenshots of AirPress in action :

So if you are impressed by AirPress and are a blogging freak, then I suggest you try out AirPress. On a sidenote I posted this post straight from AirPress. Though it took me more time, than Live Writer would normally take, but all in all I was awed by this wonderful App.

Try Out AirPress today. Note : You Need the Adobe Runtime Environment to be installed before you can use AirPress. 

     

Mars Edit is one of the most popular desktop blogging applications out there and here is a rundown into its features :

• Intuitive Interface

MarsEdit’s no-nonsense interface works just like email. Edit your drafts in a convenient text editor, spell-check, and publish.

• Wildly Compatible

Works with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal, and Vox. And that’s just to name a few.

• Perfect Previews

Build a template to match your blog, then let MarsEdit’s live preview show you how your posts will look before you publish them.

• Powerful Markup Macros

Tired of typing the same things again and again? Set up macros with MarsEdit to easily insert commonly used snippets.

• Use Your Favorite Editor

Combine the power of MarsEdit with your favorite editor. Integrates cleanly with BBEdit, SubEthaEdit, TextMate, or TextWrangler.

• Flickr Powered

Quickly scan your entire Flickr library, then insert an image into your blog post with the click of a button.

• Easy Uploads

Upload images and files directly to your weblog. When you want to reuse an item, just select it from the media catalog.

• Re-Blog It!

Add a “Blog This” bookmarklet to your browser, and start new MarsEdit posts with the click of a button.

• Offline Freedom

Write when you want to, without an internet connection. Fine-tune your masterpiece on the plane, and publish when you get home.

• Custom Features

Extensive AppleScript support makes it possible to add features we haven’t even thought of. The sky is the limit!

So go ahead and try out MarsEdit Today.

• Get Rid of the Clutter

As I mentioned before there are far too many items in the compose screen that I normally don’t use. There is stuff like Password Protection, Excerpt, Custom Fields, Discussion Options, Bookmarklets, Author controls etc.. which I am sure majority of WordPress Users don’t really use. So if you are one of them go ahead and add Clutter Free to your ever growing list of wordpress plugins.

Once you have activated Clutter Free you need to go the Users Sections and deselect all the options that you don’t need at the writing screen. Save the settings and Boom! as Steve Jobs would say your Compose screen now loads a tad faster.

• Disable the Rich Text Editor

When it comes to the Rich Text Editor things are definitely easy for the average to publish a new post. But in case you are a power user like me then you would want to Disable the Rich Text Editor Screen that has some stupid bugs. You can’t easily the embed codes which sites like Youtube etc… provide. It also happens to be slow while loading so you could be losing a lot of time waiting for things to load. After all Time is Money.

I would put my money on the Simple Text Editor that is extremely powerful in terms of what it can do. To disable the Rich Text Editor follow these steps. Go to the Users Section in your admin. Scroll to the bottom and uncheck the option that Says “Use the visual rich editor when writing”. The only Downside is that you will have to learn some basic HTML before you can use the Rich Text Editor.

• Make QuickTags Smarter

If you are long time WordPress user you will know how useful Quicktags really are. Just about anything is possible with Quicktags. The default WordPress install comes with a few quick tags like <strong>, <li>, <ul> etc.. But you might want to add a few more tags to this list so that you don’t have to repeatedly add those tags again while you are creating your post. I have some more tags in my Write screen like <span> which i regularly use.

If all the talk above sounded a little too geekish for you. Here is the simplified version of what you have to do. Just download the WP-AddQuickTag plugin and install it. Select Add Quicktags under the options menu and add the all the tags that you wish to include. And ofcourse you need to have the Rich Text Editor disabled to make Quicktags work for you.

• Install Greasemonkey

If you are a Firefox User you definately should install Greasemonkey and also install the following Userscripts that can improve your Workflow.

Akismet Auntie Spam

Reskins the Akismet spambox page for WordPress admins. Download all spam at once, compress spam to make it more scanable and completely compresses obvious spam. Turns checking spam into a 10 minute per week activity.

Inline MP3 Player

Adds an inline WordPress mp3 with Play and Pause controls to every link to an mp3 file.

• Install WP-Admin Tiger 3.0

The default layout of the WordPress Admin can be confusing at times. It shows all signs of being extremely cluttered. You have to click through a maze of buttons to do something, and the most important thing surely is that it is not really good to look at. Incase you are one of those who have got bored of the default layout for WordPress Admin then its time for you to download WP-Admin Tiger 3 that completely changes the look and feel of the WordPress admin.

Collecting Content

• Session Manager

Great for doing research and rounding up a few sources. Save the session of tabs so you can come back to them later.

• StumbleUpon Toolbar

This is one must have toolbar. StumbleUpon allows you to discover some great new sites to blog about. StumbleUpon is my biggest source of content for this blog.

• Speak It

Have articles read out to you so you can do the dishes while researching. Not to be used while at the computer – speed reading = productivity. This extension uses the Microsoft TTS Engine.

• Google Notebook

Highlight the content you want to save, Note it with this extension. You can organize different ‘notebooks’ with their own sections. Each note will have a link back to the original website.

• DocuFarm

This is a cool extension that previews word, PDFs etc within Firefox. It comes with a search, which you can also use to search PDFs!

• coComment

Keep tracks of comments you’ve left on other websites. This is particularly useful if the comment section is providing more resources than the actual post content.

Writing Content

• Split Browser

This extension makes it easy to split any tab any which way. Put your editor in a ’sidebar’ and continue surfing the other tabs in the other pane.

• Scribefire

Scribefire is a very popular split-browser blog editor. Multiple blog management, categories and simple source editing.

• Spellbound & Google Toolbar

Inline spell-check, ala Microsoft Word. Use the extension or Google Toolbar’s built-in spell-checker. Both work great. Superseded by Firefox 2’s built in spell check.

• Tabinta

turns the Tab Button to a text editor spacing tab rather than cycling through the web forms. Only interacts with the text area, otherwise does the regular Firefox tabbing.

Miscellaneous Addons

• Firebug + YSlow

This applies to all those bloggers who want to be Dugg. When you get dugg you’ll have huge burst of traffic and to make sure your blog does not go down fighting this mob you need to optimize your blog for minimal load times and server load. For this use Firebug and YSlow.

• Snagit

To use with the SnagIt image capture application, this extension just makes it easy to start grabbing screenshots while still in Firefox.

So this is it. These addons have made my very own blogging experience very easy and comfortable. Hope these addons are useful to you. In case you have an addon that you would like to suggest drop in a comment about how a particular addon has made your blogging experience a lot more fun and easy.

• Firefox Browser

Yes Firefox is the browser that I would suggest to all the blogger’s out there because of the presence of various addons and extensions to it and yes it is also Standards Compliant unlike IE.

• Del.icio.us Account

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking tool that helps you share links in a easy and effective manner. But there is much more to it. You Can use del.icio.us to discover new content for your blog and also keep track of everything you’ve discovered in the past so that you can retrieve it later easily.

• OpenDNS

Yes OpenDNS is a very useful tool that not only helps you browse faster but also make it a lot more easier. For example you can create shortcuts to your most visited sites, and easily access them using OpenDNS. for eg. I use da to access this blog, gr to access google reader etc..

• An Offline Blog Editor

Yes I would recommend either Windows Live Writer or the scribefire addon for firefox. Offline Blog Editors make blogging much more easier and also allow to manage multiple blogs at the same time.

• A Feed Reader

A Feed reader is the bloggers best friend. A Feed reader allows you to keep track of your favorite blogs. Recommended feed readers are Google Reader or Bloglines.

• StumbleUpon Toolbar

This is one must have toolbar. StumbleUpon allows you to discover some great new sites to blog about. StumbleUpon is my biggest source of content for this blog.

• Digg Account

Digg is the posterboy of Web2.0. Aimed at providing the best Tech News, you can also use Digg to discover great content for your blog before everyone else blogs about it. Hat Tip use Digg Spy to discover stories that are worth a mention on your blog.

• Google Calendar & Google Notebook

A Calendar is a must have tool for any blogger out there who wants to make it big. You should have a schedule set so that you don’t waste time on unnecessary things and at the same priortise the things you need to do. Also a notebook tool where you can jot down important notes is also very important so that you don’t forget the next Killer idea. I Would reccomend Google Calendar and Notebook for this.

• Firebug + YSlow

This applies to all those bloggers who want to be Dugg. When you get dugg you’ll have huge burst of traffic and to make sure your blog does not go down fighting this mob you need to optimize your blog for minimal load times and server load. For this use Firebug and YSlow.

and last but not the least you definately need a blog to be a blogger right? Just Kidding. Hope this post will help you make yourself a much better and a productive blogger.

P.S This post is a part of Problogger’s 31Days to Building a Better Blog Project