From the monthly archives:

November 2008

The Truth About Trackbacks

by Mahesh Kukreja on November 29, 2008

Hii.. Today I’ll tell about Trackbacks and their importance!

If you’re a blogger, chances are you’ve heard of trackbacks. Most likely, you probably don’t know what these are and what they have to do with your blog. That’s alright, as most people
don’t quite understand how trackbacks work and why they are useful for a blog. In this newsletter, we’re going to go over trackbacks–what they are, how they work, why they are important to blog traffic, and how to get more trackbacks. After you’ve read this, you’ll know practically everything there is to know about trackbacks.

What are trackbacks?

The concept of trackbacks is a bit hard to explain. So we’ll use an example to explain it in the best way possible.

OK, say you see a great blog post on another person’s blog and want to link to it on your blog. You could do this the old-fashioned way by manually putting a link on your site to
that blog. However, if you do it this way, the person whose blog post you are linking to won’t know that you are linking to them unless you tell them.

This is where trackbacks come in. A trackback is a program which will notify the owner of a blog when one of their posts has been linked to at another blog.

How do they work?

A blog that has a trackback system set up will have a link at the bottom of every blog post. This link will say something like “Blog This!” Anyone who clicks the link can then put a link to that blog post on their site. The person who posted the original blog will then be notified via email that their blog posting has been linked to. Additionally, the link that was clicked (“Blog This!”) will change to “Trackbacks”. From that point forward, the “Trackbacks” link will keep track of how many people have chosen to blog about that particular post. So after the first trackback, it will say “Trackbacks: 1″. The number of trackbacks recorded will be updated as they occur.

Why are trackbacks important to blog traffic?

The easy answer is that trackbacks are important because they increase awareness of your blog. Trackbacks also make a blog seem more credible. After all, people have to think your posts are good enough to be trackbacked.

Anytime a person makes a trackback on your blog, they make a post on their own blog about your blog. This, in turn, lets their readers know about your blog. Chances are, their readers will want to visit your blog to see what the big deal is. If they see something on your blog that they like, they’ll keep coming back for more, which means you’ll have a whole new
fanbase of readers. That means more traffic for your blog.

Can you imagine what would happen if 5 different bloggers trackbacked a post on your blog? Depending on how popular their blog is, that’s potentially as much as hundreds of new readers for your blog! Pretty incredible, right?

Also, every trackback made, assuming it is a legitimate one (and some trackbacks are spam, especially if they are there only to link to another site) adds credibility to your blog. Blogs with high amounts of trackbacks look credible because lots of people like the posts enough to trackback them.

How can I increase the number of trackbacks I get?

The easiest and best way to increase trackbacks is to frequently post. If you post frequently (2-3 times a week), people will have quite a few posts that they can trackback. However, it is important to make sure that your posts are of a good quality. Quality blog posts are those that people can relate to and are easy to read. If you post a long boring rant, people probably won’t want to trackback that. But if you post a decent sized rant that is entertaining (and that people are likely to agree with), you’ll get trackbacked.

The number of trackbacks you get is totally dependent on the number of visitors your blog receives and how frequently you are able to make quality posts. If you’ve got a good amount of visitors and write good blog posts, you’ll get trackbacks.

P.S. Trackbacks are a wonderful thing for every blog. You are able to know when your blog posting has been posted about at another blog, plus you potentially gain more visitors. It’s a win-win situation for you!

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Opera Mini And Visual Voicemail on T-Mobile G1

by Mahesh Kukreja on November 27, 2008

The Google phone is now becoming a stronger contender to the iPhone, thank to two new applications launched for the T-Mobile G1 yesterday. Opera Mini and Fusion Voicemail Plus are now available on the Android Market (iPhone’s App Store equivalent), and best of all, for free.

Not many high profile applications have been launched for Google’s Android mobile OS lately, but the latest offering isn’t one to overlook easily. While other major developers wait for Google to introduce the option of selling paid-for apps on the Android Market, Opera and PhoneFusion are giving away their new apps.

The first Web browser alternative on Android, Opera Mini 4.2 features all familiar features from the Mini family, such as page zooming, bookmarking, searching for in-line text and saving. Along side skins (or themes) for Mini 4.2, the new mobile browser for Android also supports video playback.

Again as a first, Fusion Voicemail Plus from PhoneFusion brings visual voicemail to T-Mobile G1 users. The app can centralize several voicemail boxes and displays a visual list of all the messages in one place. The service also displays caller ID, regardless of contact details stored on one’s phonebook.

However, both Opera Mini and Visual Voicemail plus are not Android exclusives. While Opera Mini is available for many phones that support Java applications, Visual Voicemail can also run on Blackberry handsets and Windows Mobile 5 and 6 smartphones.

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Red Hat Fedora 10 is Out

by Mahesh Kukreja on November 27, 2008

For all open source Lovers,

Red Hat Fedora 10 Linux is out with major improvements!

The Red Hat-sponsored Fedora Project on Tuesday released Fedora 10, the latest version of the free Linux-based operating system, with a wide range of improvements in areas such as virtualization management, networking, boot time and security.

The release also bundles in OpenOffice 3.0, the most recent edition of the open-source productivity suite.

The new virtualization features include the ability to manage virtual hosts and storage remotely, which should appeal to network administrators with fragmented teams. “These features combine to make administration of remote hosts much easier, even in cases where direct physical access is limited or non-existent,” the Fedora Team said in a recent blog post on Red Hat’s Web site.

Users can now also share their Internet connection with others, and Fedora 10 can also start up faster, thanks to a new graphical boot system dubbed Plymouth.

Security improvements include the addition of SecTool, an auditing and detection kit.

Red Hat has also enhanced PackageKit, a software installation and updating system that debuted in Fedora 9.

“In Fedora 10, PackageKit now detects when the user opens an audio or video media file, and offers to search for codecs used to play that file,” the Fedora Team said in a blog post. “With the user’s authorization, it searches all the software repositories configured on the Fedora 10 system, installs what is needed, and the media begins to play.” Down the road, this capability will be extended to areas like fonts and applications.

In addition, Fedora 10 has a revamped audio system that uses less power; support for “a vast array” of Webcams; improved printing capabilities; and “support for more hardware than any other operating system.”

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UK Bans Apple iPhone 3G Advertisement

by Mahesh Kukreja on November 27, 2008

The U.K.’s advertising regulator banned a video advertisement for Apple’s 3G iPhone, saying Wednesday that the ad exaggerates the phone’s speed and is misleading.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 17 complaints about the advertisement, which shows a person whizzing through tasks such as opening a news page in a browser, using Google Maps and downloading a file.

All of the tasks “had waiting times of only a fraction of a second,” the ASA said in a statement. A voice over says no less than five times that the 3G iPhone is “really fast.”

In response, Apple told the ASA that the claim is a comparison between the 3G and 2G iPhone models, and that users would understand that performance could vary. The ad did include a text disclaimer that read “Network performance will vary by location.”

However, the ASA found that the snappy visuals combined with the repetition of “really fast” would “lead viewers to conclude that the device actually operated at or near to the speeds shown in the ad.”

Also, not all mobile phone users may be aware of the differences between 2G and 3G technology, ASA said.

Apple did not have an immediate comment on the ruling.

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