Top Ten Free Online Blogging Platforms

A blog is a great way to express your thoughts, create a web presence for your company and provide content to Internet users. If you’re planning to create a blog, but don’t wish to get into the hassles of hosting, developing and deploying it yourself, consider creating a blog at any of the free blogging platforms mentioned below. Such services offer a plethora of features and generally come with both free as well as paid plans.
Let’s look at the top 10 most popular online blog-publishing services.

1. WordPress.com

WordPress.com is perhaps the most feature-rich blogging service out there. It uses the popular open source web software WordPress, and offers many features in its free version — traffic stats, anti-spam filters, SEO, gorgeous themes and more.

If you choose to use WordPress.com, you’ll be in good company, as many popular blogs — including CNN’s Political Ticker, People Magazine’s Style Watch and Flickr — are on this platform.
If you need more than what the free version offers, you can opt for their premium features that include custom domains, upgraded web hosting resources and more. Whether you’re an expert blogger or a beginner, this ultimate blogging platform is a safe bet.

2. Blog.com

Blog.com is another popular WordPress-powered blogging platform. Just like other services, it has its own share of pros and cons. For a start, it offers many beautiful premium themes in its free accounts, as well as advanced plugins that one can expect only on a self-hosted blog. However, on the downside, the free service displays more ads as compared to WordPress.com. (But you can opt for paid upgrades to remove the advertisements.) The free storage space offered on Blog.com is 2GB in the basic plan, which is less compared to 3GB that WordPress.com gives its users.

3. Blogger

Google Blogger is a well-known blogging service that offers many features to its users. For example, Blogger comes with a Template Designer user interface that lets you tweak your blog’s appearance as much as you want. (However, the templates provided are, in my opinion, no match compared to WordPress themes.)

When it comes to ease of use, most beginners prefer Blogger as it offers a no-nonsense interface for administering your blog and top-notch integration with their Google account. Another great thing about Blogger is that it offers certain great features for free that you normally need to pay for in other blog-publishing services,  most noteworthy being the ability to set up custom domains without paying a cent.

4. TypePad Micro

TypePad Micro is another free blog-publishing service. The interface is easy to use, and you can import/export content from many other blogging platforms. However, in terms of add-ons and themes offered, TypePad Micro won’t satisfy even the most basic blogger. The cheapest paid plan begins at $8.95 per month and comes with additional themes, custom domain mapping, as well as technical support.

In an age where almost all blogging services are offering numerous features in their free versions, TypePad Micro seems to be lagging behind.

5. Jux

Jux is an innovative service that lets you easily share content online. Conventionally speaking, it’s not a blogging service like the ones previously mentioned, however, it has a lot of the same functionalities. Rather, Jux lets you create your own microblogging site for sharing your content. By default, Jux templates don’t have the native sidebars and other widgets that are common to most blogs. Instead, Jux provides a clean (and beautiful) approach to blogging. Simply create an account, and then start sharing your content.

While Jux does seem amazing and has excellent support for mobile devices, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. For instance, if you’re planning to create a more conventional blog, opting for WordPress might be a better option. On the other hand, if you’re leaning more towards visual content, such as photos and artwork, Jux may just amaze you with its features.

6. Tumblr

Tumblr is a popular and feature-packed microblogging platform. It comes with many outstanding and interesting features such as audio blogging (for sharing your music, for example), free custom domains, hundreds of amazing blogging themes and more. Furthermore, you can sync your Tumblr account with Facebook and/or Twitter so that you can update your social media feeds in a single location. Yet another awesome feature is the ability to create community-powered group blogs. Tumblr also offers support for many third-party apps such as Google Analytics and Feedburner.

7. Posterous Spaces

Posterous Spaces is an excellent online blog-publishing service that is similar to Tumblr.
Posterous Spaces has excellent privacy and viewing features so that you can easily control who can see what on your Posterous Spaces site. It’s designed to allow its users to post content quickly and as hassle-free as possible, so it has loads of features included to facilitate this, such as free mobile apps for iOS and Android smartphones so you can update your blog on the go and a simple, well-designed user interface. Using Posterous Spaces means you’ll be in good company; popular tech startups like MailChimp, TweetDeck and Airbnb leverage Posterous as their company blog.

8. Blogetery

Blogetery is a WordPress-powered online blogging service that offers a modest set of features. Free accounts get nearly 140 themes, custom domain mapping and roughly 40 plugins to choose from.
On Blogetery, ads are displayed on all free blogs, but if you wish to upgrade, you can opt for the paid plan that will cost you $3.50 per month and will give you additional themes, plugins, email support, 5GB of additional storage space, the ability to remove ads, etc.

9. Weebly

Weebly offers more than just blogging — it’s a fully featured website builder! Weebly’s blog manager features a drag-and-drop interface, support for image galleries, slideshows, video/audio, maps, etc. Additionally, you can opt for their Designer Platform that lets you build websites for your client, thereby effectively using Weebly as a content management system.

10. LiveJournal

LiveJournal (often abbreviated as LJ) offers blogging with a touch of social networking to it. You can participate in polls, create networks and interact with other LJ users alongside your blog.
With that said, the features, compared to other similar blogging services, are nothing to brag about. Their collection of template is decent, and plugins/extensions are pretty basic in nature.

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How To Creating a professional blog with WordPress

 

I am with the notion that every professional person should have a blog where they can share their professional knowledge with the world and earn some extra bucks too. Not only professionals actually, these days everyone is starting a blog. From school students to leading business men, everyone is building their online identity with blogging to share their skills and meet other people having the same interests.

However, doing anything consumes time and it gets even more difficult when you need to do it from scratch, without any prior knowledge.
Here in this article you will learn how you can build a professional looking WordPress blog without having any technical knowledge.


“Blogging with WordPress is as easy as writing a diary.”
Well, you can start a WordPress blog without buying a Top Level Domain like for example “www.Yourdomain.com” instead you can get a free sub-domain from WordPress like “www.YOURDOMAIN.wordpress.com”. But, here we are talking about creating a professional blog and having a blog with on a sub-domain doesn’t look professional.

How to buy a Domain Name?

Buying a domain is the trickiest part as you need to be simple and technical at the same time.
You can get a domain name for less than 20 USD, but if you do enough research on Google then you can get a domain for as low as 3 USD.

Step 1 : Picking a Domain Name
Suppose you are a singer and your name is “Harry Potter”.
You should get a domain like “singerharry.com” or “harrythesinger.com” and if you wish to be more name specific then go with “harrypotter.com” simply.
Well, domain name doesn’t really matter much after your blog gets established. Just avoid choosing a domain that is lengthy, misspelled or is difficult to remember. Also, don’t use hyphens while choosing a domain.

I prefer having a “.com” domain and if not that then “.net” is nowhere less. If you run a free organisation or a trust, choose .org domai.

Note: Buying a domain name which refers to another company’s name can lead to legal issues. Also, check whether your Company Name is available in all Social Networks (Vanity URL)

Step 2: Set up WordPress on your Domain
In order to set up WordPress on your domain you have two options.
1. Buy Hosting at your favorite hosting service provider. I recommend you to go for Hostgator or BlueHost.
2. Use WordPress.com

Buying Hosting

Buying hosting for blogging as a total newbie is not smart. Most probably you’ll not get a good hosting experience with free or cheap hosting providers because;
1. Your WordPress Blog will work slower on their low quality.
2. Your WordPress Blog won’t get into Google and other search engines.
3. Hosting Provider will ban your WordPress Blog if your posts fetch a lot of traffic.
Using WordPress.com for Hosting your Blog. You can register an account on WordPress.com for free and use it to set-up a WordPress blog on your domain.

Step 3: Get a Professional looking Theme for your WordPress Blog
Having a professional looking theme installed on your WordPress Blog is must. A good looking website always convinces the visitor to stay on the website.

However, getting a good looking WordPress theme is not that easy. You need to use a theme that doesn’t slow down your blog and is SEO friendly and above all is eye-catching. You get more than 210 themes to use on your WordPress.com blog but you won’t be able to upload custom themes which are a great drawback. Uploading and editing themes is only supported on self-hosted WordPress blogs.

Step 4: Start Posting
Now when you have your blog ready for blogging you can start updating it with relevant information.
You can also join various social networking sites to get maximum exposure and find more people with common interests.

Step 5: Installing Plug-ins
The best thing about WordPress is that it allows you to customize the blog in many ways one of which is using plug-ins. Having necessary plug-ins installed on your WordPress Blog is essential in order to keep your Blog healthy.

Step 6: Social Sharing
There are several social sharing plug-ins available. For example there is a plug-in called “Digg Digg”. It is a Plug-in that adds a social sharing bar on your blog. It makes the sharing of your blog easy and it can gain you good traffic from social networking sites. There are several other social Plug-ins available out there, you just need to get them. I at (ExceptNothing) use TF Social Share.

Step 7: SEO Plug-ins

Keeping your Blog Search Engine Optimized is as essential as filling your vehicle with fuel.
There are several Plug-ins available for free and are very simple to use. I prefer using Yoast Plug-in as it is easy and provides all mandatory features required. You can create an XML sitemap of your site; customize categories, pages, posts etc. according to your needs. For On-Page SEO Plug-ins, you can go for EasyWPSEO or SEOPressor. Both are great choice 

Step 8: Cache Plug-ins

Cache plug-ins can make your website faster. They create static HTML files from you dynamic blog. When the HTML file is created the web server will serve that file to visitors instead of those PHP scripts that are comparatively heavier. I prefer using WP Super Cache. It’s simple and dynamic and is simple to use at the same time.

Step 9: Logo
A blog or company’s logo is very important. It determines the Brand Identity. So, if you are good at Designing Logos, you can proceed designing it, or hire a good graphic designer and create a logo for your site. Stuck with creating a logo? Read this: Creating a Logo that will last.

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Install Ginger to Avoid Spelling Mistake For Chrome Users

Hi friends. I’m going to share a great free spelling and grammar checking extension for Chrome users. It’s from Ginger.

When there is a grammar topic you don’t fully master, you might repeat the same mistakes over and over, both in writing and speaking. Ginger is the only grammar tool that helps you learn from your own mistakes. If you’re a native English speaker you may not make grammar mistakes. But typographical errors are unavoidable. So for Chrome users I am sharing a great extension. Ginger is providing one of the world’s best spelling and grammar checker for Chrome users.

 

Install the extension from the below link for free and forget about spelling and grammar mistakes. Now you are only one step away from avoiding grammar and spelling mistakes while typing. Ginger shows a green dotted line below texts with errors. You can right click on the text underlined to correct spelling or grammar mistakes. Ginger shows suggestions so brilliantly.

I find this Chrome extension from Ginger, the world’s #1 contextual grammar and spell checker, very useful. It helps users to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes within Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Google+, blogging platforms (such as WordPress, Blogspot, LiveJournal) and any other applications using Rich Text Input.

Link : Ginger Spell and Grammar Checker for Chrome

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How to Create Animated Gif Using Camtasia Studio

Have you ever seen moving pictures online and wondered how they are made? Heres how to make a basic GIF picture with Camtasia Studio.

 

What is Camtasia Studio?

Camtasia Studio is an advanced screen video recorder from TechSmith® which has edit, produce, and many more options to enhance your video, all in one program. One of the producing options in this program is GIF for a recorded video, which we will be learning about.

 

How to start

Well first of all, download Camtasia Studio 7.0. There is a 30-day trial version that you can use but also i give out the full version registration code, so download one of these programs and install it on your PC. After you open Camtasia Studio, getting to know your interface would be helpful in the long road, but it’s not necessary.

 

Recording your video

Notice when you first open the program, a window pops up showing 4 options, one being “Record the Screen.” I have illustrated it here:

Or you can click on “Record the Screen” in the task list of the interface.

 

The next step is self-explanatory, you choose the area you want to record or you choose the whole screen, depends on what you want, then start recording after the 3-second countdown. Stop by pushing F10 or the “Stop” button

Producing it into a GIF animation

After you finish recording your video, a preview appears and in the corner there are 3 options:
Save and Edit, Delete, and Produce.

Click on Produce, save your video, and choose “Custom Production Settings” from the drop-down list and click “Next”.

Then comes the Output format screen, which has lots of formats, GIF being one of them, choose it:

Then click Next on all the following screens, as they are not necessary. You may edit some forms for modified animations but I won’t go there. (On the last form is the name of the video so you should change that.) After clicking Finish on the last screen, it will start converting.

 

Now this will take some time depending on the length of the video (40 seconds is more than enough). Lagging occurs when the video exceeds 35-40 seconds.And you are done! Your video is now gonna play in picture format, so you can send it to your cell-phone, upload it to your website in the format of a picture!

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Windows Live Programs

Windows Live is the best online service for email and messenger. This is software you need to download and install. You shall get a lot of services from windows live. It is a free service created by Microsoft. But there are many features that you will need to pay for like the Windows Live Call, which is something like Skype.

Windows Live Mail is the most important application. We can compare it to Outlook Express. It features email, contacts and calendar services. I really like this program. It is better than any other mail client, with a nice user interface. We can use Gmail, Hotmail and any other email services which supports POP and IMAP like the Yahoo mail.


Windows Live Hotmail is the email service that can be used with any Windows Live Service. You only need to create one Hotmail account and use it anywhere on Microsoft website.

Windows Live Messenger is the messenger which has a lot of features. But it lacks the chat room service like that in Yahoo Messenger. But I really am against chat rooms. You won't find one nice person there. Always there will be more than one person typing and doing crazy things.
Windows Live Call works as a part of Make PC-to-PC voice / video calls to your Messenger contacts.

Windows Live Movie Maker is an application to easily create your own movies by using pictures, music, and videos you have. The software is erally good.

There are a lot of other services too, which are being developed as a part. Windows Live Photo Gallery helps you share pictures. Skydrive offers free file sharing up to 5 GB and the size is being increased.

Windows Live Onecare is an anti virus. But it is not free. I have been using a version of this antivirus from Microsoft and have never been in trouble with a virus. The main feature of this antivirus is that it won’t report that a file is a virus un-necessarily. Almost all other anti viruses (excluding McAfee) finds many viruses that are actually not viruses. Live OneCare Family safety is a feature that can be installed to create custom settings for different users on your computer so that they can be protected against illegal and unnecessary content from the internet, including websites and people in the internet.

For Windows Live Register here or download here

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Google AuthorRank into its Search Ranking Algorithm

Google dominates the search engine market, so whatever it does has an influence on which websites are more visible to potential visitors. PageRank was a system based on variables that ranked a site based on keywords and key-phrases, which and how many other sites link or refer a given website, how many links a website has, and many other factors. Overall, web pages are ranked by hundreds if not thousands of variables. In an attempt to further improve search engine results, Google introduced a system that takes into account any web content author(s).

High-quality authors and content creators can boost the profile of their work and their site with a boost of recognition from new Google's search engine site-ranking system. Content authors are graded on their reputation, credibility and quality of their work. AuthorRank is the name of this new ranking factor, and it's gotten a lot of attention in the media lately.

Features

AuthorRank has several interesting features, such as time-on-site and a system of variables relating to an author's content that basically adds up to a positive-mention count. Time-on-site tracks how long a user stays on a website that appears in Google search results. There is a cutoff time, unspecified at this point, beyond which a site raises its profile on Google's ranking system. The rationale is that if visitors stay on the site longer, they are more likely to be interested and engaged with the site's content. This implies a higher-quality website deserving of better placement in search results.

Another important feature of Google's search ranking system is measures of positive mention, reference by other content and reach of a given author's content. This is a measure of popularity, important to a site's overall ranking. Lastly, AuthorRank-influenced results may look distinct, depending on other information an author provides to Google. Search results influenced by AuthorRank may include author's name and picture in a small tab next to the website link.

Using AuthorRank

If content does not have a reputable author, it may pay to ask a reputable author create some content for your site. Their credibility will likely boost your site reputation. Search engine rank is also driven by social signals such as Facebook "likes," tweets, shares and other indication of popularity, credibility, quality or approval.

Additionally, it is a good idea to generate website content and features to entice a visitor to stay on the site. The longer they stay and browse your site, the better your bounce rate and page views. The logic of this ranking is to get a rough measure of visitors' interest. Two sites may have an equal number of visiting clicks, but if one site has visitors leaving after an average of 15 seconds and the other one has them staying for over 5 minutes, the second site will be seen as more favorable to Google.

Possible Flaws

What is an objective measure of credibility and productivity? For example, how does one rank:

• a physics professor who wrote a few singularly creative but practically useless articles about possible causes of galactic Dark Flow
• a financial planner who publishes a few practical articles about investing in unconventional assets
• a popular and respected plumber who frequently posts about people's propensity to ignore leaks as well as interesting stuff he's found in drain pipes

Basically, AuthorRank digitizes a problem that has plagued the academic world for a long time: the relationship between popularity and quality.

There are other potential pitfalls and possibility for unfairness with implementing AuthorRank. Google may give special prominence to already-established authors at the expense of creating a higher barrier to entry for newer, less experienced authors to gain popularity and site visits.

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Handwrite math in over 600+ applications & websites

MathType 6.8 takes full advantage of Windows Math Input Panel (available in Windows 7 and later,) which provides support for handwritten math recognition. With MathType and the Math Input Panel you can easily write out your equations and insert them into over 600+ applications and websites.

 

Mouse, tablet, or pen
Although you can handwrite equations using only a mouse, for best results we recommend using a tablet or a pen device.

 

Opens within Microsoft Word
MathType 6.8 adds a button to Microsoft Word's ribbon, and a menu command to MathType. Each brings up the Math Input Panel ready for handwriting equations.

 

Build large equations from small handwritten expressions
While entering math by hand using the Math Input Panel is easy for simple expressions, MathType's editing comes in handy for combining simple expressions to make larger ones or when correcting mistakes. Math Input Panel together with MathType gives you the best of both worlds.

 

We're listening
You can download a 30-day full version of MathType and try MathType's handwritten math and the other new features for free. When you do, we would love to hear what you think. Send us an email or talk with us on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube!

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Audio and Multimedia Software

jetAudio

jetAudio supports all major digital audio/video file formats, and CD/DVD*/VideoCD. New Media Center window provides various features including new Media Manager, Explorer window, and Device Manager. You can manage all of your digital media files in Media Manager. Media Manager provides CD Library, Media Library, Automatic Browsing, Playlist and Automatic Playlist.

Ulead VideoStudio

Ulead® VideoStudio 11 is an easy to use software for video editing to easily produce videos with professional appearence, slideshows, and DVDs. Share your movies all over, on iPods, YouTube, or the new HD home theater systems, with full support for discs as AVCHD, Blu-ray and HD DVD.

DVD MovieFactory for TOSHIBA

DVD MovieFactory for Toshiba is an application software already included in our Toshiba portable device. It is also possible to buy on-line, being version no. 6 the latest one. We can use it for managing all our multimedia files in many different ways. We can create, crop,copy, burn, edit, encode, transfer, import, export, audio an video files.

Sound Forge


Sound Forge™ Audio Studio helps yoy to edit and master professional-quality audio on your home computer. Record live instruments and vocals, sweeten and restore audio, apply studio-quality effects, and convert files with lightning speed. You can even create your own karaoke tracks with the Vocal Eraser tool. With a few simple steps, you can produce broadcast-quality audio on your PC.

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Geogebra - Dynamic Mathematics for Everyone

GeoGebra is an interactive geometry, algebra, and calculus application, intended for teachers and students. Most parts of GeoGebra are free software. GeoGebra is written in Java and thus available for multiple platforms.

Its creator, Markus Hohenwarter, started the project in 2001 at the University of Salzburg, continuing it at Florida Atlantic University (2006–2008), Florida State University (2008–2009), and now at the University of Linz together with the help of open-source developers and translators all over the world. Currently, the lead developer of GeoGebra is Michael Borcherds, a secondary maths teacher.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, GeoGebra plans to expand their offerings to include an iPad and Android version.

GeoGebra is dynamic geometry software. Constructions can be made with points, vectors, segments, lines, polygons, conic sections, inequalities, implicit polynomials and functions. All of them can be changed dynamically afterwards. Elements can be entered and modified directly on screen, or through the Input Bar. GeoGebra has the ability to use variables for numbers, vectors and points, find derivatives and integrals of functions and has a full complement of commands like Root or Extremum. Teachers and students can use GeoGebra to make conjectures and prove geometric theorems.

Most parts of the GeoGebra program are licensed under GPL and CC-BY-SA, making them free software. However some parts, including the Windows and Mac installers, have a license which forbids commercial use and are therefore not free software.

Download Free Software geogebra here.  And GeoGebraTube is the official repository of GeoGebra constructions and GeoGebra related resources.

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