Zemanta, a very useful utility and a wonderful tool which helps you write emails like news articles with ease. When used with WordPress, it also enhances your blog posts by adding useful links and images to your blog posts automatically. Currently works only with Y!Mail, Gmail and WordPress.
Zemanta finds and adds(only if you wish) interesting images, relevant links and related articles to your emails and/or blog posts very fast.

Here is how it works

1. Once installed, a small button is added to the top of your email and also in your WordPress editor.
2. Zemanta goes through what you have written and finds you related articles, relevant links and interesting images that can be used in your emails and posts.

Why you should use Zemanta with WordPress?

1. For various reasons, most of us add images to blog content. Zemanta finds relevant images from all the available Photo Sharing sites relevant to your blog content. You will avoid searching and uploading images to your site.
2. Zemanta automatically suggests the targeted tags you need for search engine optimization. Just click your selections and you’re done.
3. Adds other important links based on the content so that your readers have all the important links in one place.
4. Attract more readers to your post by linking to similar topics on other sites.
5. Copyright issues are taken care by Zemanta.
6. I’m sure you normally spend 20-30 min/post approx. to find related links, related stories, images and tags for your posts. Zemanta does the same in 2-3 seconds.

Why you should use Zemanta with Gmail or Yahoo Mail?

1. Your emails will have professional look with images and related content.
2. Receivers can find other related content easily.
3. You can easily add images from your Flickr account or from others. Easy way of sharing photographs along with your email.
4. Informative report-style interface with links to other points on Internet for further reading.
5. Persuasive professional introductions with easy addition of personal images and links to social networks.

Download Zemanta Firefox plugin
Download Zemanta IE Plugin. Installation Instructions here!
Download Zemanta WordPress Plugin
Download Zemanta plugins for Live Writer, Movable Type and Drupal here.

Want to see how it works before installing it? See the Demo.

Technorati Tags: Emails, Zemanta, Tools, Utilities, Blogging, Plugins

The latest version of WordPress 2.7 released today. It’s live on Read2Know.com. The ‘Coltrane‘ code named project is now available for the blogger community.

Features

1. Interface: All new look. The image below shows the Dashboard. The image colors on the left hand pane changes to a different color when pointed with the mouse cursor.
2. Dashboard: The new Dashboard has the same options that you have on the older one. Of course, it has some new add-ins like the QuickPress. You can post articles with few clicks using QuickPress.
3. All the options on the Dashboard can be configured and re-arranged. You can remove the ones that you do not like.
4. Every task that you need to perform takes fewer clicks than the older versions and they are fast as well.
5. Comments can now be threaded without any additional plugins or code changes.
6. Every screen can be customized.
7. The other important feature about the latest version is about the performance. It’s too early to comment on this. I haven’t checked the page load capabilities on my blog yet.
8. Automatic Upgrades: It’s a pain to upgrade to the next version of the WordPress. You will have to go through this pain only this time. Once you are in 2.7, you need not do the manual upgrades next time. It’ taken care in the latest version.

Download WordPress 2.7 now for a faster experience.

Technorati Tags: WordPress

Mobile users are certainly not interested in viewing the sidebars, designs and other navigation on the page. All that they would like to see is the content. There may be lot of people who are accessing your web pages over a mobile phone. Therefore, it’s important that we do not lose out on this. Hence, there is a need for designing a mobile friendly version of your blogs/sites.

There are several ways to achieve this. Through Google Reader, MoFuse, Mippin, WireNode, MobiSiteGalore, WinkSite are some of them.

Google

1. Google Reader – the easiest way
Google Reader gives the ability to generate the mobile version of your content using the RSS feed. Append the feed address of your site to the below URL and access the mobile version of your blog.

http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/<your feed address>
Example: http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/ReadToKnow

The output of this link will be your mobile version of the blog. Remembering this is not easy. If you already have a self hosted WordPress blog, I suggest you create a sub domain like m.<your domain name>.com and set the redirection to the above link in your site’s Control Panel. This is the widely used naming convention across the globe.

MoFuse

2. MoFuse – The Best Way
Creating a mobile site using MoFuse is the best way. Just input your existing site’s URL along with few registration items and your mobile site/blog is ready. Your mobile site/blog would get an address with <your site>.mofuse.mobi. Something like this http://read2know.mofuse.mobi/. They also offer various other features like Uploading a logo for the mobile blog, monetizing using AdMob & Google AdSense, redirecting to a custom domain, etc. The earnings are shared on a 50-50 % between you and MoFuse. It also gives a plugin which can installed on your blog so that anybody visiting your actual site on a mobile phone is re-directed to the mobile version. For a live action of MoFuse mobile version visit this blog at http://m.read2know.com.

Mippin View

3. Mippin

What I like most about using Mippin is the view that is presented on the mobile phone. It has List and Gallery views which are very pleasing to the eyes. You have an option to monetize the pages using AdMob. No Google AdSense. You would also get 100% of your earnings. Mipping also provides a plugin for automatic re-direction to your mobile blog. I did not find an option of a custom domain which, according to me, is a drawback. To check Read2Know on Mippin, visit http://mippin.com/read2know.

4. Wirenode

Creating a mobile page of your site/blog using Wirenode is similar to MoFuse. But, I did not find an option for monetizing the pages nor the option of using my own custom domain. Hence, I do not prefer this. Visit http://read2know.wirenode.mobi for a feel of this blog in Wirenode.

5. MobiSiteGalore

For those who want to have a separate content on their mobile sites/blogs and who want to build a mobile site from the scratch, I did not find a better option than MobiSiteGalore. You have every feature that you need including the option for custom domain, monetizing the content with Google AdSense or AdMob, etc.

WinkSite

6. Winksite

This seems more like a Social Networking site on the GO. You create a profile and the mobile sites are the sub sites of your profile. The unique thing about this site is the option they provide for creating  a Forum. They also offer the ability to create your own site with the ability to add entries from their website. Monetizing with AdMob and Google AdSense is the add-on. The combination of Social Network and Mobile Web Sites make WinkSite an interesting combination. A great way to build a mobile community around your blog.

7. WordPress Plugin

This is a WordPress plugin created by the famous WordPress plugin creator Alex King. I haven’t tried this as I did not find the need. If anyone else have been using this plugin, feel free to share your comments. More information can be found at the Plugin’s home page.

8. Are you on Mobile?

What to do in case the site you are trying to access do not provide a separate mobile version of the page?

Just visit Google Conversion Form and enter the URL of the address you want to visit. Google will convert the page into a mobile friendly version.

From what I can tell Google will also reformat content for mobile phones when you search through Google using your mobile phone.

Important: No matter which option you chose to create your mobile site and whether or not you have chosen to opt for a sub domain for your mobile site, do ensure to test your page either on .mobi emulator or on Opera Mini Simulator. This way you can make sure that your Mobile Site is ready for the Go Live!!!

Technorati Tags: Mobile, Mobile Web Pages, MoFuse, Mippin

SAP

ABAP Read2Know has been launched with the intention of helping the budding programmers in ABAP and HR ABAP. This blog would cover various technical topics on SAP. Here are some of them

1. Technical topics
2. Real time issues and how to over come them
3. How to upgrade your skills to Advanced Topics
4. Comparisons with related ERP software
5. Frequently Asked Questions
6. Getting ready for the interviews
7. Preparation of a good Resume
8. Various Job Openings in this area

This blog also uses the WordPress platform with the AquaBlock theme from Lyndi’s Nice2All. The reason why I chose this theme because of it’s simple looks with great features. It’s fast loading too. This is the kind of theme which best suits for my requirement! Thanks Lyndi!!!

Unlike Read2Know, ABAP Read2Know is solely dedicated for the SAP community. I do not expect any direct hits for the site on a daily basis nor I expect any comments or regular readers for this blog. The only traffic I’m expecting for this site is through Search Engines. Hence, I need to ensure a better PR by Google and other Search Engines. Any suggestions on how I can improve this would be of great help.

If any of you have an idea on how to increase the PR for this kind of a blog, please do let me know!

Technorati Tags: SAP, ABAP, HR ABAP

Introduction
It’s a well known fact that IE 6 does not render all the kinds of web pages correctly. Also, one cannot ignore the fact that IE stands tall in the web browser market share. It’s the leader in the web browser market.

IE 7 has lot of improvements over it’s predecessor IE 6. But IE 6 is still widely used all over than the IE 7. Most of the corporate networks in the world still use IE 6 and not IE 7. Attribute this to the Windows operating system, which has a wider reach in the OS segment. Among the Windows OS’s, XP is the OS which runs on most of the desktops. The browser which comes along with these OS’s is IE 6. This is where the problem lies.

So, how do you reach out to your readers who still use IE 6?
Is there a solution for it?

I believe the only solution is User Education. This could be achieved through the IE Warning plugin.

Features
Once the plugin is activated, the plugin shows the blog visitors a splash message on the screen indicating a message that IE does not render web pages correctly and they may want to download Opera and Mozilla Firefox browsers. Of course, for the users who like IE 7, they may include a message to upgrade their browsers to IE 7.

You may customize the message and you can also set the least version of IE for which the message should not occur. That means, if the reader’s IE version is lesser than the specified version, the message is displayed. Otherwise, not.

Functionality
Download and Install the plugin as usual into your WordPress directory. Activate it. Go to the settings and customize it. You are done.

Pros

• The chances of your readers switching to Mozilla or Opera are higher.
• The readership of your blog will certainly increase when the pages are rendered correctly.
• By encouraging your viewers to browsers like Mozilla Firefox, you would be increasing the reach of the Open Source software. You are indirectly a contributor to the Open Source community.

Cons
The message is displayed as a splash screen which may violate some of the Ad Network’s policies. But the author of the plugin is planning to change this. Rather than having a splash message, he may include a small window attached to the page on top of the browser just below the toolbar. So, that’s something we have to wait for until the next release.

Thanks to Bobrik, who is the author of the plugin. Visit the plugin home page here.

Download IE Warning WordPress Plugin

I only expressed my views as an IE 6 user and this need not be a generalized view. Let me know your thoughts and comments about the plugin and this article in particular.

Technorati Tags: IE, Internet Explorer, WordPress Plugins

You can WIN

There are many ways one can win. Win what? Well, there are many things that can be won. You can win Wealth, you can win Trust, you can win Goodwill, you can win Lotteries and you can win Hearts!

You can also win PRIZES and above all, you can WIN READERS!!! Yes, there is an easy way of winning a Prize.

All you need to do is to comment on this article, or, for that matter any other article on this site and you stand a chance to win.

Benefits:

1. You stand a chance to win a Prize.
2. If you are a WordPress blogger and you use a CommentLuv plug-in, you also increase your reader base.
3. Get to know about other bloggers.

Why this Site?

1. This site is a registered member of CommentLuv.com and is also a part of the contest.
2. All the users who comment on this site, stand a chance to win, provided, they fulfill the eligibility criteria. So, ensure that YOU comment here.
3. This site also uses CommentLuv plug-in. If you also have the same plug-in, your last post will be displayed here. Thereby, you increase your site visits.

Are you eligible?

1. Make sure you register at CommentLuv.com to be eligible for winning the prize.
2. You need to enter few words about yourself. In other words, give a description in the profile while registering.
3. Please do not spam. You may be banned.

Do you also own a blog?

If you own a blog, you can also participate in this contest and ask your users to comment so that they can win. Here are the requirements for you to be eligible.

1. You need to have your site URL registered and verified at CommentLuv.com
2. Give a description for your profile.
3. You need to have an active CommentLuv plug-in with the latest version 2.5.4.
4. Your CommentLuv settings must have click tracking and heart info box enabled. Of course, you do not have to bother if you have the latest version installed. It will take care of this.
5. Enter your CommentLuv member ID in the Settings page of your blog. You will find this ID when you register at CommentLuv.com.
6. You should make a post on your site informing your users about this contest. Just like I did.
7. Inform your users that they should not SPAM.

All set? Follow the links below as your first step towards winning the prize.

Register here

More Details