Indeed there are many people who have not made the switch from Blogspot to Self Hosted WordPress since many of them fear to touch the code. Well, I think it is good enough for a newbie blogger who does not know much about web hosting, domain names, installing WordPress. customizing and editing it etc,to stay with Blogger.com till they do not learn all this things. But if they are ready then they should take the leap.

Never the less, if you still have not decided to move to Self hosted Wordress then Blogger.com is good enough for you.After all now they are providing you even more features.

This New Feature Blogger Template Editor Will Help you to design and edit your Blogger template by using it’s special WYSIWYG editor yourself.

Features of Blogger Template Designer

1) Templates:

You can choose one of the default template so that you can start customizing

2) Background

After you choose the default theme, you can now start doing the editing, You can change the background theme combination by going to this tab.

3) Layout

This section allows you to customize your blog’s layout. You can make it 2-column, 3 columned, etc according to your liking. Also you can change the footer layout, you can add up to 3 spaces for widgets in the footer. You can also adjust the width of the blog and the sidebar.

4) Advanced

The advanced Feature allows you to Customize the text and background color of each and every part of the theme which includes Page Text, Backgrounds, Links and more. You can choose the fonts as well as the colors you want to use. You can also add custom CSS.

You can check out the Blogger Template Designer at your very own Blogger.com Dashboard

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Recently Automattic (WordPress.com Parent Company) added a new feature to WordPress.com called Post By Voice. Post by Voice is a way to publish audio posts to your blog from your phone.

In order to enable Post By Voice you (WordPress.com users)  will need to Visit your Dashboard then Go to My Blogs and then Locate the Blogs that you wish to post and then click Enable.

A secret code will be then generated for your blog. That code is unique to your blog and must be kept secret because if it is compromised by others then anybody can post in you blog.

All you need to do to post is call the number listed in the My Blogs, enter your secret code when prompted, and follow the instructions. After you’re done, the audio file from your phone call will be posted to your blog for all to listen to and enjoy.

Currently this feature is free and allows recording lengths up to sixty minutes but the recording length may go down in future.   Also it is worthwhile mentioning that while calling if there is 10 seconds of silence, the recording will end.

The Post By Voice feature is powered by the Twilio API. Normal calling rates will apply for the phone call.

It seems this feature is quite similar to the “Voice Post” feature that LiveJournal, one of WordPress.com’s competitor already offers from a long way before.

P.S: Once again I repeat, This feature works only for WordPress.com users and not self hosted WordPress.

Read more about Post By Voice here

Youtube Got Hacked By 4Chan

Yesterday members of the 4Chan along with many other computer whizzies launched an attack on Youtube an targeted a small bug in Youtube’s comment system. The bug allowed users to inject HTML  that could be executed on the site, whereas HTML within comments is supposed to be restricted.

Image Credits: Mashable.com

While the attack was done on many videos but music videos of the teen pop idol Justin Beiber were mostly targeted.

The attackers did everything from forcing popup messages to appear over the videos to redirecting Bieber videos to pornographic sites and malware.

As soon as Google came to know about the attack (i.e. in about 1 hour) they disabled the comments and then corrected the bug within 2 hours.

iTunes Store Accounts Hacked

Be cautious when using your credit card in the iTune Store. As reports are coming in from many places including Mashable, Twitter, AppStore Review and MacForums that an unknown number of Apple IDs have been hacked this week and been used deliberately to buy hundreds of dollars worth of applications in the iTunes Store.

Image Credits: Mashable.com

According to Mashable “Twitter complaints and a MacRumors forum thread spotted by The Next Web show that a number of iTunes users have had their accounts compromised and used to buy hundreds of dollars of apps. In particular, reviewers of the Vietnamese book apps claim in the app’s reviews section that they never downloaded the apps, and instead had their accounts compromised.”

The problem seems to lie in the Vietnamese Books Applications which are suspiciously doing well in the US top 200 paid books list. Initially this issue was first raised when Alex Brie highlighted the fact that 40 of the top 50 iPhone apps in the Books category were created by Vietnamese developer “Thuat Nguyen” and a hack by that single developer was suspected.

Wikipedia Down for 1 hour

All of WikiMedia’s  sites including WikiPedia went down for almost 1 hour yesterday due to a power outage in their Florida Data Center. The last outage they had was in May when its European DataCenter had Overheated.

The issues has been currently resolved.

So all in all it was a bad day for the Internet Yesterday.

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The Kin was formerly known as Project “Pink” and was first revealed in April and then launched with Verizon network in May. The Kin’s development team will be now be amalgamated with the Windows Phone 7 development team. This step seems to have been taken by Microsoft after the dismal sales. It is also to be noted that Microsoft had slashed the price of Kin to Half after the dismal sales.

Here is Microsoft’s official statement on the Kin:

“Microsoft has made the decision to focus on the Windows Phone 7 launch and will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.”

Even though this does not that Kin is out completely but it clearly indicates that Microsoft is shifting it resources elsewhere and that the Kin has not met Microsoft’s Expectation

via: Mashable

The following is a text from the document

1. Keep all of the positioning statements in the BN handy – your tone when delivering this information is important.

a. The iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. Our testing shows that iPhone 4’s overall antenna performance is better than iPhone 3GS.

b. Gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. This is true of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, and many other phones we have tested. It is a fact of life in the wireless world.

c. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 3GS, avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand.

d. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 4, avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band.

e. The use of a case or Bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance by keeping your hand from directly covering these areas.

2. Do not perform warranty service. Use the positioning above for any customer questions or concerns.

3. Don’t forget YOU STILL NEED to probe and troubleshoot. If a customer calls about their reception while the phone is sitting on a table (not being held) it is not the metal band.

4. ONLY escalate if the issue exists when the phone is not held AND you cannot resolve it.

5. We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON’T promise a free bumper to customers.

It appears that Apple are taking a stand that there is nothing wrong with the antenna. Probably that is not surprising since no company will accept it when their mainline product has an unrecoverable bra.

Update:

As news comes in, it seems that Apple had posted three job listings in search of 3 Antenna Engineers the same day (June 23rd) the reception issues came into light. The listings was unearthed by Engadget. Here is a small snippet from the job description.

“Define and implement antenna system architecture to optimize the radiation performance for wireless portable devices [...] The The candidate should be able to design antennas suitable for wireless handheld devices with excellent radiation performance [...] Work closely with other RF and antenna design engineers, mechanical and industrial designers, and EMC engineers to integrate the antenna design in our products.”

The Do-It-Yourself Fix for iPhone 4 Antenna Flaw

The people down at LifeHacker have come up with a cheap and Do-It-Yourself Fix for the antenna Flaw. All you have got to do is buy yourself a silicon like charity bracelets. You can get them from vending machines or just keep an eye out during your daily travels where they are readily available at checkout counters in support of various charities. You can also try out with some similar bracelets that you can get in your local stores.

Even though this seems to work for many but I really do not think many would agree to spoil the grandeur of the iPhone by putting a band around it.

The Microsoft Windows 8 Prototype Machine

The slide-show also features a slide about the Windows 8 Prototype machine. Don’t get me wrong but does not it seems quite similar to the Mac?

Few Expected Features of Windows 8

1) Facial Recognition

Probably until 2010, each and every laptop will come with an inbuilt webcam. Window’s 8 facial recognition system will work in such a way that all you will have to do is  sit down, have your webcam get a look at you and then log you in based on facial recognition. Windows accounts could be connected to the cloud which would allow for roaming settings/preferences between PCs and devices and PCs to log on to websites on the user’s behalf. Going from Machine-Centric to User-Centric

2) Microsoft Kinect Like Body Sensing Technology

Basically using this Technology, the following things would happen:

• Users can be detected,
• computer will resume upon detection,
• fast user switching will leverage face detection
• once the PC detects the user leaving, the PC will sleep

The interesting feature of this system is that if someone else shows up in front of the camera, it switches between user accounts based on who it sees.

3) Windows 8:  Fast Startup

A newly-planned feature  combines Logoff + Hibernate to result in a new off state which  will apparently give the look and feel of boot/shutdown but will be much faster.

4) Windows Help And Support

It is planned that Windows 8 will contains a perfect help and support system such that users will be able to find what steps are to be taken when an issue arises

5) Windows 8 Push Button Reset

This is one of those features that I am really looking forward to. Microsoft is planning to include a feature in Windows 8 using which you will be able to reinstall (or may I say reset) the whole Windows OS in one click while maintaining all of your personal files, applications, settings, etc. without the need for the user to back all of that stuff up.

6) Introducing Windows Store

Even though Microsoft had already tried this idea with the “Windows Marketplace”, Windows 8 will contains Windows Store where you can purchase applications for Windows as well as Windows mobile.

Besides the above mentioned features Windows 8 will contain Internet Explorer 9, support for Bluetooth 3.0 and USB 3.0, will be available in different form (laptops, netbooks, slates, etc.) etc.

As we can see that a lot has been planned for the next Windows OS, Windows 8  by Microsoft. Are you happy with these expected and planned features or would you want to see any other features included. Do comment!

People all around the world flocked in crowds to their nearest retailers in order to try and purchase the new iPhone 4 as soon as possible. There has been reports that people in hundreds were standing in queue in front of the stores in cities like New York, London, Paris, Boston, Tokyo. Many of these people had been waiting in line for days to be the first to get their hands on this device.

Many places in the U.S have reported that people were queuing from around 7pm the night before the release of this device outside stores to get their hands on it. Many people also had brought sleeping bags along with them to keep themselves warm.

Few months back the iPad was released by Apple. During the iPad release too we had  seen millions of people thronging the stores to get their hands on the device first and it has been no different with the iPhone 4.

But the part II of the story is that the availability of the White version of the iPhone 4 will be delayed till the end of July as stated by Apple. Most probably this is not that bad of a news since most of the people do not buy the White iPhone.

We Indians, will be really looking forward for the iPhone 4 release in India. Hope so it happens soon  The iPhone is priced in the U.S as $199 for the 16GB and $299 for the 32GB, both with two year data plan contracts with AT&T.

Source

Are you excited with the iPhone 4 release. Speak up your mind in the comments. Meanwhile do not forget to signup for our feed to keep updated about the latest new about the iPhone 4

The Droid is one of those Android phone which has been able to prove that non-Apple smart phones can also be successful.

Features of the Droid  X:

• Runs Android 2.1 with a version of Motoblur and packs a 1GHz ARMv7 processor.
• 4.3-inch handset that will capture 720p video
• ight megapixel camera, 16:9 display, HDMI playback
• Support for  Flash 10
• WiFI hotspot for up to five devices
• Up to 40GB memory (8 GB on the phone and 16 GB on a card, to start)
• It wont have a physical keyboard but a virtual keyboard which will feature Swype and it will be multitouch too.
• The Device is Green: PVC-free, bromine-free, mercury-free and arsenic-free, and its packaging is 65% recycled materials.

The Droid X will start shipping July 15 and will be available for $199.99. Users will pay $29.99 for smartphone service and $20 additional for mobile hotspot. Upgrades will be available immediately on launch. The device will be available from retail outlets such as Best Buy as well as Verizon stores.

But the bad part is that this device will be available only for US Verizon Customers.

Do you think Droid X will be able to give enough competition to the iPhone 4. Please share your thoughts with us in the comment

This merger brings together top names in Internet Marketing who will assume the following roles in the company: Chris Winfield, Chief Marketing Officer, Dave Snyder, SVP of Search, Brent Csutoras, SVP of Viral Marketing, Jordan Kasteler, SVP of Content, Loren Baker, SVP of Online PR, Tony Wang, CTO, and Danielle Winfield, VP of Operations.

BlueGlass will have offices in four cities and 40 employees working on accounts with billings estimated at $10 million. . Clients of BlueGlass include many of the world’s largest  companies such as Viacom, Thomson Reuters, NBC Universal, Intuit, Yahoo!, Comcast, New York University and the NFL.

BlueGlass offers services in Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Online PR, Online Reputation Management, Pay Per Click Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization, Content Development and Application Development. In every campaign, clients receive expert consulting and the benefit of BlueGlass’ proprietary technologies, which efficiently execute full-scale tactics and provide unprecedented reporting capabilities.

Besides the merger, BlueGlass will soon also be hosting a Huge digital marketing Conference featuring renowned industry speakers on Search Marketing, Social Media, and Entrepreneurship on July 19, 2010 and July 20, 2010 at Marina del Rey Marriott Hotel in LA. Deemed as BlueGlass LA ,this is certainly one of the Internet Marketing conferences to look out for in the coming days.

This merger has certainly brought about a new Big Player in the Internet Marketing Business. BlueGlass Interactive will certainly be a entity to look out for in the future. I am sure we will certainly be seeing a lot of new technologies related to Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization coming up from this new Internet Powerhouse.

Method 1:

Steps

1. Make Sure you have installed the latest iTunes 9.2 on your PC
2. Connect your iPhone or iPod Touch to the PC (or Mac). If iTunes does not start automatically, start it manually.
3. Select your Device from the Sidebar of iTunes. You will see aummary page with an option for update but dont click it yet
4. Before Updating Back Up your Device. This step is essential to restore your phone to previous firmware if anything goes haywire. Right click on the device icon in the sidebar of iTunes and back it up.
5. Repeat the step 3 and click on “Check for Update”. iTunes will tell you that update is available and it will guide you through the firmware update process.

Method 2 (Manual):

Download the update file according to your iPhone or iPod Model from below:

• Download iOS 4 for iPhone 3GS (378 MB)
• Download iOS 4 for iPhone 3G (292 MB)
• Download iOS 4 for iPod Touch 3G (366 MB)
• Download iOS 4 for iPod Touch 2G (315 MB)

Follow the above Step 1 to 4 given in Method 1.

Next click the Update button while holding the Shift key (in Windows) and Option key (on Mac). Browse to the iOS 4 firmware location and chose the Open option to proceed. Let the device get updated.

Check this post to read about the new features in iPhone OS 4:

Apple’s iPhone OS 4 Released