Hobgit Web Hosting News

Every web publisher knows the “>importance of Google traffic and of avoiding the risks of being penalized. All too often, a sudden traffic drop may be the symptom of a hacking attack to your web site, and until you realize what has exactly happened and what to do to correct it, you may lose lots of traffic and its associated revenues. WordPress in particular, the most popular blogging platform today, is increasingly targeted by spammers and malicious attackers trying to exploit each and every code vulnerability.

Matteo Ionescu and Daniele Bazzano

Are you sure your web site is completely under your control? Spammers and hackers easily add fake web pages and malicious links to your web site without you even knowing it. Then they steal your content and redirect your visitors to bad web neighborhoods. When the Google bot find out all of this, you know your site will not be among the first set of search results anymore.

To better understand how to prevent your web site from suddenly losing its traffic or authority within the Google SERPs, I have asked in these two short videos Matteo Ionescu, Robin Good’s personal SEO advisor, to suggest some basic guidelines to follow to prevent such situations from happening and to protect your content from being used in ways that may damage the credibility and visibility of your web site.

Here the two videos with a full text transcription with all of Matteo’s advice:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

Sudden Google Traffic Loss: Possible Causes And Remedies

Duration: 4′ 41″

Full English Text Transcription

Intro

Daniele Bazzano: Hello everyone, this is Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and I’m here today with Matteo Ionescu, which is Robin Good’s personal SEO, search engine optimizer.

Hi Matteo, how are you doing?

Matteo Ionescu: Fine Daniele, thank you. How are you?

Daniele Bazzano: I’m doing great, thank you.

Google Traffic Failing Issues

Daniele Bazzano: Matteo, I just contacted you because I wanted to know… What can I do if I see that Google traffic is failing on my site?

Matteo Ionescu: If your Google traffic is going down, I’d suggest to look for all your recent changes in your web site, especially regarding outgoing links.

Maybe you’ve put some links to a bad neighborhood, or maybe there’s a link on your web site to a bad web site and you don’t even know anything about it.

Keep a Good Security Level on Your Web Site

Daniele Bazzano: So, there can be links to bad neighborhoods in my web site that I don’t know anything about? How this could be possible?

Matteo Ionescu: Unfortunately today hacking is very common.

Hackers use some tricks to put links to spam web sites, like using some comment forms or mailing forms, or also using some FTP magic in order to put some web pages that you don’t know anything about on your web site.

So, check your FTP and be careful about keeping a good security level on every aspect of your web site.

Check Your Web Site For Duplicated Or Stolen Content

Matteo Ionescu: Another thing I would suggest to look closely is the web site’s navigation.

If you’ve made some changes to navigation menus, I’d suggest to turn off Javascript and have a look around and check if all pages are still reachable also with Javascript disabled.

Besides this, duplicate content problems can also be critical. if you’ve introduced some new features on your web site, that allow to see content in a different way, be careful not to create too many useless pages or take care of this with a noindex tag.

Also, go on Google and search for your main keywords and your articles’ titles and see if some scraping has been done.

Maybe some other web sites are ranking with your keywords, using your stolen content. This can be a serious issue especially if your domain is not too strong.

Pretty much that’s it.

Scraping

Daniele Bazzano: Matteo, you mentioned scraping. What is that exactly? I’ve never heard about it.

Matteo Ionescu: Yeah, content scraping is an old technique which unfortunately is used by spammers which steal text, or content from web sites, and then put it on another domain, on another frame, and try to steal your traffic using your work.

Helpful Resources When Building A Web Site

Daniele Bazzano: I see. There are many things to care about when you build up a web site, but are there any tools that can help me out when building a web site and checking its integrity?

Matteo Ionescu: For sure, there are lots of them. Building a complete list is very hard, also because this is a fast-moving world.

But I’d personally start from Google Webmaster Tools, which can be an excellent tools for diagnosing some kind of problems early.

Regarding the duplicated or stolen content problem, I also suggest Copyscape.com, and to read the most popular SEO blogs, like Matt Cutts‘, which gives good advices on how to build web sites and how to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Daniele Bazzano: Thank you very much Matteo, these sure were great advices.

I think that’s pretty much it, so thank you very much, and talk to you later. Bye, ciao!

Matteo Ionescu: Ciao!

WordPress Site Hacked: What To Do And What To Check

Duration: 4′ 54″

Full English Text Transcription

Intro

Daniele Bazzano: Hello everyone, this is Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and today I’m here with Matteo Ionescu, which is Robin Good’s personal SEO.

Hi, Matteo, how are you?

Matteo Ionescu: Fine, thank you Daniele. How are you?

Daniele Bazzano: I’m doing great, thank you.

How to Prevent Hacker Attacks on WordPress Sites

Daniele Bazzano: Matteo I wanted to ask you today… If I have WordPress installed on my web site, how can I prevent any hacker attacks?

Matteo Ionescu: WordPress hacking has been quite a problem a lot of times, even on famous blogs, like on all open source software.

I suggest to keep your WordPress updated, always to the latest version. Be careful that upgrading WordPress is easy, but you should make sure first that all your plugins are compatible with the new version, or you might experience some problems in some functionalities of your blog.

Another big advice is to try to hide which WordPress version you are using. This is almost easily accomplished with a small plugin which is called WordPress Version Remover. Just install this plugin on the head section of the page. The version will not be shown anymore.

Be careful also to have a closer look to the source code of your blog pages.

See if the WordPress version is shown, even in the footer, because sometimes, some themes call the WordPress version tag in the footer. If this is the case on the footer.php file of your theme, clean the WordPress version part.

What If Your Site Has Already Been Hacked?

Daniele Bazzano: Ok, Matteo, thank you. But I was just thinking… these were advices to prevent hackers to attack my site, but what if hackers have already screwed up my site? What can I do after?

Matteo Ionescu: The best thing would be to replace a backup.

This is why I strongly encourage everybody to install automatic database backup. There are many plugins which can accomplish this task.

And backup your FTP at least once a month. This is a very good practice.

But if you’ve been hacked, and you don’t have a backup, you can try to recover the situation upgrading to the latest version of WordPress, making sure that there are no more backdoors for the hackers like usernames that are not created by you.

If present, remove some malicious strips in folders that are not standard WordPress folders. You can download WordPress again and have a look at the structure of the folders and check that everything matches to your own website.

Then, obviously change the password after upgrading, edit your wp-config.php, and change or create the secret key definition.

Also a good practice on a new log might be to insert random code or random word in the secret key definition, to make life more difficult for hackers.

Pretty much that’s it.

WordPress Plugins

Daniele Bazzano: Thank you Matteo, so you mentioned that using plugins I can accomplish many things on my site.

Would you mind just naming a few that can be useful?

Matteo Ionescu: There are a lot of WordPress backup plugins.

I think there’s a good one which is called WP-DB-Backup. But if you Google for “wordpress database backup“, you’ll find lots of plugins which do this.

Besides that, you can also do it by hand, or using phpmyadmin, which is a very popular interface that you find on most hosting packages.

Daniele Bazzano: Thank you very much Matteo, this was surely useful. I thank you, and I’ll talk to you later. Bye, ciao!

Matteo Ionescu: Ciao!

Originally shot by Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia and first published on December 5th as “Traffic Drop? WordPress Site Hacked? What To Do And How To Protect Your Blog From Sudden Disaster“.

The Best Online Collaboration Tools 2008, Collaborative Map is a live editable map of over 150 of the best free and low-cost online collaboration tools available, picked and selected by passionate users like you and me.

Click the map to see the full, public, editable version

That’s right. This collaborative map has been created with the live help of over 100 individuals who have participated with me on November 17th in a unique event: This collaborative map has been created with the live help of over 100 individuals who have participated with me on November 17th in a unique event: Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations 2008. During my session at the conference, which took place fully online…. During my session at the conference, which took place fully online, I decided not to leverage my personal knowledge with collaboration tools to show the best and most useful ones, as I have done so many times in the last two years, but to actually involve the participants (over 150 at the time) into creating a visual map of what THEY thought were the best online collaboration tools out there.

And so I kind of played the visual moderator, by providing them first with a basic set of categories that they could attach tools too, and then by helping in moving tools to their best matching categories and removing technologies and services that were either inappropriate or not belonging to any of the listed groups.

Within a week the map has cleaned itself up while growing considerably. It now lists over 150 live online collaboration tools in 13 different categories. All the tools listed are either free or have affordable rates (included only those who have clearly published such prices on their site).

Now it is here ready for you to use.

Whenever you have a collaboration need you may glance at this map and remember in a second which tools are available which could service your specific need.

Note: A special thank you to Jay Cross, Tony Karrer and George Siemens who have trusted my explorative spirit and have gently allowed me to take a live group into a new real-time learning territory. Seeing a mind-map growing under your very eyes, node by node, thanks to the input of a multitude of many passionate individuals is a mind-opening experience.

What This Map Contains

This collaboration tools map has the objective of bringing together the most useful, free or low-cost technologies available today online. Originally the types of tools included by the participants in this experiment, ranged from real-time instant messaging and video conferencing tools to the main social bookmarking resources and microblogging tools as several participants felt that these too were relevant collaboration technologies.

To limit its breadth and provide more specific usefulness to those who are looking for real-time collaboration solutions, I have later decided to sacrifice microblogging and social bookmarking tools, as I would prefer to gather those together in a separate social media and collaborative publishing group.

The official focus is therefore on real-time or near real-time collaborative technologies in the groups that have been already defined.

The Key Categories

These the online collaboration categories covered in the map with over 150 technologies:

• VoIP - Instant Messaging Tools
• Video Conferencing
• Screen-Sharing, Remote-Control
• Web Conferencing
• Co-browsing
• Web Presenting
• Workgrouping
• File Sharing
• Document Sharing and Wikis
• Collaborative Document Reviewing
• Collaborative Event Scheduling
• Mind-Mapping
• Project Management

How You Can Contribute

You can personally contribute to this collaborative effort by accessing the “public” and open version of the map, and by adding new tools or specific information to the existing nodes. (To edit the map you will need to freely register at www.mindmeister.com, which will take only a few seconds.)

What You Can Add

The best thing you can do is to add relevant new tools to the map. The collaboration tools that fit this map are those that can match the following criteria:

• live collaboration and team-work oriented tools
• free or low-cost solutions only

If you are logged into MindMeister, you can add a URL, or some notes to any “node” appearing on the map. Simply select the node and then click on the relevant icon inside the right column dashboard to edit and add more info.

The Live Map Present Version and Future Updates

Click and drag inside the above map to move and see its different parts and / or use the zoom icons on the bottom left part of the map

This above is the live collaboration tools map as of November 25th 2008. You can still go up and update it and in the future I will be releasing new updates to it.

To be able to edit, add and contribute additional information, you need to freely register and login inside MindMeister.

The map integrates a full revisions history feature and therefore it is easy to spot and remove spammy additions or incorrect information just like you would do in Wikipedia.

Disclosure: I am in no way associated or affiliated to MindMeister.com. I have selected their tool and service among others because it is the one that I feel most comfortable with and the one I find easiest to use for novices.

Originally conceived by Robin Good for LearningTrends2008 and first created in real-time with the participation of over 100 hundred different participating individuals on November 17th 2008.

To check the compatibility of your site across different browsers, operating systems, or screen resolutions there are a handful of little known tools which professional webmasters keep secretly inside their toolkits. I have gone out to find out what these are.

Photo credit: BrowserCam edited by Daniele Bazzano

As you probably know, you cannot take for granted how your web site will be displayed when called up on a computer running a different operating system than yours. In fact, there are at least three main issues that affect the way your web pages are displayed on other people screens:

• The browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc) and the specific version your viewers use
• The operating system (Mac, Windows, Linux) your viewers run on their machines.
• The screen resolution your viewers have set on their monitors.

To make this straight, a page rendered in Firefox 2 on a Windows machine probably won’t look the same when opened again in Firefox 3 on a Mac. This is why as an online publisher you have to go out of your way to make sure your site displays almost identically across different browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions.

But how can you test such a broad variety of possible combinations? Install all the available browsers and operating systems out there, and then test your web pages at each one of the different screen resolutions your monitor can handle?

If you want to maintain your sanity, don’t even attempt the above. The sheer number of possible combinations you need to test is pretty scary: 15 basic setups that need to be tested at least at three different resolutions makes for positive extended nightmare. Trust me.

In this guide, I have personally hand-picked the best browser compatibility testing tools out there to help you check rapidly your site across different browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions.

Cross-platform browser testing tools generally all work in the same way. You provide the URL of the web page you want to test, and then select the operating systems, browsers, and (when available) the specific screen resolutions you want to test your page on.

The browser compatibility testing service you choose will then proceed to take a screenshot of that very page according to the specifics you have chosen (operating system, browser model and version, etc.), so that you can immediately evaluate what are the key issues to be addressed inside your web page HTML code tags.

Here below is a comprehensive list of all the browser compatibility testing tools and services out there as well as a set of key basic criteria I have utilized to compare them:

• Price: Is the service free or does it require the payment of a fee to be used.
• Free Trial: Many services allow a free testing period. Find out who does.
• Browser: Which browsers (and browser versions) are supported by the service.
• OS: Indicates which operating systems are supported in the compatibiliy test.
• Screen resolution: Specifies whether you can test your web page across different screen resolutions.
• Unique characteristics: Discover the key feature that makes every service unique.

To make your analysis and selection task even most effective, here below I have also prepared a comparison table showcasing all of the available cross-platform browser compatibility testing tools, along with a full set of mini-reviews introducing each one.

Here all the details:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

Cross-Platform Browser Testing Tools Comparison Table

go to the table!

*Please refer to services sites for additional pricing solutions.

Check The Compatibility Of Your Site Across Different Browsers, Operating Systems, And Screen Resolutions

1. BrowserCam

   

   BrowserCam allows you to test your site across different browsers, and operating systems. The service works on any browser you can think of running on Windows, Mac, and Linux Fedora Core 9. Testing of different screen resolutions is also allowed. A unique feature of Browsercam is the possibility of testing how your pages are rendered on a Blackberry smart phone running Windows Mobile 5.0. BrowserCam is priced at $19,95 for one day of use, but there additional pricing solutions if you plan to use it for a longer time. Free to try for 24 hours and 200 screen captures.
   http://www.browsercam.com/

2. Browsershots

   

   Browsershots is perhaps the best free solution to test the compatibility of your site across different browsers, operating systems, and screen resolutions. Browsershots compares the layout of your site on almost any browser and OS in the market. You can also test your layout at different screen resolutions. Unique feature is the possibility of testing color depth, as well as Javascript, Flash and Java codes, to see how these parameters may affect the way your site is displayed.
   http://browsershots.org/

3. Litmus

   

   Litmus is a web-based service that lets you compare the rendering of your site in different browsers and operating systems. Using the Basic (free) version you can run tests on IE7 and Firefox 2. By purchasing one of the additional pricing solutions you can access a wider choice of browsers and operating systems. Litmus offers no trial period nor the possibility to test your site at different screen resolutions. As a unique feature the service allows you to test the layout of your newsletters (only for MS Office 2003 and GMail in the Basic version).
   http://litmusapp.com/

4. CrossBrowserTesting

   

   CrossBrowserTesting allows you to check the compatibility of your site on a large number of browsers including IE, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Camino, and some more. Operating systems available for testing are Microsft Windows, Mac OSX 10.5, and Ubuntu 7.10. Cross-BrowserTesting does not offer the option to switch between different screen resolutions, but Javascript and Ajax testing is available. Pricing solutions start from $1 for 5 minutes of testing with no limitations. You can test the service for a free trial period of 5 minutes.
   http://www.crossbrowsertesting.com/

5. Browser Photo

   

   Browser Photo is a web-based solution that takes screenshots of your web pages across different browsers and operating systems for layout-testing purposes. The service works with main browsers on the market (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera) running on Windows, Mac and Linux. Browser Photo allows you to test browsers at different screen resolutions as well. No trial period is available. Priced at $15 for a one-time use, Browser Photo offers additional pricing plans to suit your needs.
   http://www.netmechanic.com/products/browser-index.shtml

6. BrowsrCamp

   

   BrowsrCamp is a web-based service that allows you to check the compatibility of your site across different browsers but only on Mac machines. Working on almost all the browsers you can run on OSX, BrowsrCamp also allows you to test your site at different screen resolutions. Starting at $3 for two days of utilize, the service offers additional pricing solutions for longer testing periods. Free testing on Safari 3.12 only.
   http://www.browsrcamp.com/

7. IE NetRenderer

   

   IE NetRenderer is a free web-based service that lets you compare how a web site is rendered across different versions of Internet Explorer (from 5.5 to 8 Beta 2). Screen-resolution testing is not allowed. An useful and unique feature of IE NetRenderer allows you to compare at a first glance any difference in the way your page is displayed on the screen between IE6 and IE7 .
   http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/

8. Multi-Safari

   

   Multi-Safari is a free browser testing service that allows you to check the rendering of your site across different versions of the Safari. The service is designed to avoid different installations of OSX to test the your site on older releases of the Safari web browser. Multi-Safari does not allow any test on different screen resolutions.
   http://michelf.com/projects/multi-safari/

If you are aware of other browser compatibility testing tools you tried and you think are worth mentioning here, please feel free to use the comment area below.

Originally prepared by Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia and first published on November 19th 2008 as “Browser Compatibility Testing: Cross-Platform Cross-Browser Multiple Resolutions Compatibility Testing Tools - Sharewood Guide“.

Looking for an open-source alternative to proprietary media center solutions from big brand names like Microsoft and Apple? Tired of buying into their own closed and proprietary business strategies? Here is a report showcasing you all of the alternative open-source media centers available out there.

Photo credit: ishook

A media center is a multimedia hardware/ software combo which gives you easy access to all of your media (whether it be audio, video, images, or text) from one location.

What for?

Managing all of your media is becoming increasingly more difficult as the formats and methods through which they audio, video and other multimedia content are delivered, keeps expanding.

Even today, the number of different media formats you interact with on a daily basis can be overwhelming. You have to have one program to handle your music and video streams from Last.fm or YouTube and Hulu. Then you need another program to store and playback your digital music and video files on your hard drive. You need yet more hardware and software to watch and record live television via the various IPTV providers. Even your newspaper has become digital, and so you need a program to read your latest news via RSS feeds. In addition to all this, you are increasingly unprepared to manage your growing stack of thousands of digital photographs as well as your collection of DVDs and CDs.

To help you re-gain control of your own exploding media assets, new hardware / software devices which take care of helping you organize, select and access all of your media have emerged in recent years under the name of “media centers“.

In this report, from the Telematics Freedom Foundation, the most interesting open-source media centers available on the market.

Each of the media centers reviewed moves beyond the limited, proprietary, closed platforms philosophy offered by iTunes, Windows Media Center, and others, offering a true alternative business model approach.

This report is “not aimed to ‘pick a winner’ [but rather] the goal here is simply to share knowledge about the current state of the art of FLOSS Media Center devices.”

Here, all the details:

Introduction

“Typical, complete media centers offer the following functions to the user:

A media center can be purpose-built, modified or created by individuals by adding media center software to a PC or some other computer, for example an Xbox.”
(Source: Wikipedia)

This paper presents a Comparison Chart reflecting the State of the Art for the most prominent Media Center (MC) projects in the FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) community at the time of this writing. This document is not aimed to “pick a winner”, nor to promote any of the compared MCs. It also shouldn’t be considered the “ultimate truth” about the Media Centers showcased here. Please do your own research before picking your choice.

The goal here is simply to share knowledge about the current State of the Art done by the community on FLOSS MC projects, and to provide project leaders and developers with enough feedback on which features to focus on next in opposition to other projects, in an effort to discover new synergies with other existing FLOSS projects. Before starting a public survey, we divided projects into two main categories:

1. FLOSS Media Center Projects (with or without PVR features)
2. FLOSS All-in-one solutions (custom GNU/Linux Media Center distributions)

We’ll be focusing and detailing the first category of Media Centers here.

Media Center Comparison

Click on the picture to see the media center full comparison chart.

• Boxee

  

  Boxee is a startup company. It is also a “Social Media Center” that enables users to view, rate and recommend content to their friends through many social networking features. Boxee’s CEO, Avner Ronen, announced the first alpha release on June 16, 2008. The alpha phase is invite-only but anyone can apply for an invitation on Boxee’s website. Boxee is a FLOSS Media Center based on XBMC and currently runs on Mac and Linux platforms. Alternatively, it can run on Apple TV with a patch.

• The CenterStage Project

  

  The CenterStage Project was founded in January 2005 by Neil Curry. In May 2008, Elan Fieldgold, who was working on the Mac OS X port of XBMC, left the XBMC project and started a new project called Plex. On July 13, 2008 Plex and CenterStage projects announced that they had teamed up, with Plex developers focusing on backend and the CenterStage developers working on the GUI. The new Media Center is still under development and currently only an alpha version of Plex is available.

• Elisa Media Center

  

  The first release of Elisa Media Center was issued in July 2006. The private company Fluendo decided to start developing a cross-platform solution, targeted at both Home Theater PC’s and set-top boxes. Elisa runs on top of the GStreamer multimedia framework. The core system is licensed under the GPL version 2. The GPL part of Elisa is also available under a commercial licensing agreement from Fluendo. Elisa core plug-ins are licensed under the MIT license.

• The Entertainer Project

  

  The Entertainer Project was started in October 2007 by Lauri Taimila, as his pet project to learn Python and build something like Windows Media Center for Linux. Entertainer is a very young project and is still in its early stages. It uses GStreamer’s multimedia framework for multimedia playback and the UI is implemented with the Clutter library, which allows OpenGL animated user interfaces.

• Freevo

  

  Freevo started up in 2002, and, as with the majority of other Media Centers, basic functions provided can be extended by plug-ins. Freevo is written in Python, which makes it easy for users to develop new plug-ins. This may also be the reason why many plug-ins are discontinued. Various plug-ins are bundled with Freevo, and they just need to be activated. Freevo offers so many plug-ins that it is almost impossible to know and use them all. Freevo runs on Linux, but there are reports of users using it on Mac and Windows too, though a certain degree of expertise is required to install it.

• MediaPortal

  

  MediaPortal is an XBMC fork started up in February 2004 by Erwin Beckers (also known as Frodo), who was actually one of the founders of XBMC in its early days. MediaPortal is built on the Microsoft .NET framework using C#, and supports a plug-in system and a skin engine allowing users to extend the base software. In 2006, MediaPortal released the “TV server.” For the first time users can now use multiple frontends for viewing and recording TV streamed from 1 or more TV servers.

• My Media System

  

  The project My Media System (mms) was started as “Mpeg Menu System” in the summer of 2002 by Anders Rune Jensen. After a half year of development, mms was rewritten in late 2002, and mmsv2 was released in January 2003. After four years, it was time for a new name, since mms had grown out of its mpeg-only output starting point and into a full media system. The new name, My Media System, was selected with overall consensus from the forum’s users. Versions prior to 1.1.0 do not support plug-ins.

• MythTV

  

  The MythTV project was started up in April 2002 by Isaac Richards. In early 2007 a book called “Practical MythTV” about MythTV and its installation was published. During this time, MythTV grew considerably, and is still growing today, supported by a very active community. There are several other projects which include a Linux distribution bundled with MythTV (“all-in-one” solutions) to make the installation, configuration and maintenance easier and faster. MythTV has a modular structure, so that what can’t be found in default modules is probably available using unofficial plug-ins.

• Neuros OSD

  

  The result of a spin-off from Digital Innovations in December of 2003, Neuros Technology is a private company selling Neuros OSD, a set-top box running an Open Source firmware based on Linux. The next generation (Neuros OSD2.0) is part of the “Neuros Open Internet Television Platform”, a system aimed to bring the freedom of the internet to the people’s living rooms. It is almost ready for shipping, and will support HD.

• XMBC

  

  XBMC initiated in 2002 under the name “Xbox Media Player” (XBMP); it was renamed XBMC a year later, since it was growing out of its “player” name and into a “center” for media playback. It runs on Linux, Mac, Windows, Xbox console and Apple TV. The Xbox version of XBMC has the ability to launch console games. XBMC is not produced, endorsed, or supported by Microsoft or any other vendor. As a result, XBMC for the Xbox console requires a modchip or softmod exploit to run. Apple TV also needs a patch in order to run XBMC. XBMC is a very mature Media Center project, and Boxee, Plex and MediaPortal are all forks from the XBMC project.

A Word About “All-in-one” Solutions

Although not the focus of this paper, we thought it might be important to say a few words about the other Media Center projects providing a full application environment to enjoy video, music, photos and much more…

• LinuxMCE

  

  LinuxMCE is also a Media Center. The best definition would be it is a Smart Home Entertainment Center. LinuxMCE started in mid 2006, initially as a fork of the PlutoHome system from Pluto Inc. to Ubuntu. It bundles MythTV with Kubuntu as the GNU/Linux distribution. It can perform light and climate control, manage home security systems with alarms and stream video to a mobile phone. It blends media center, home automation, telecom control and home security into a single unified user experience. Users can (optionally) control the user interface with a Gyro remote and 3 command buttons. Any peripheral connected replicates across to the entire house, and any media is also available house-wide. Presence detection is also available, and can be implemented with either Bluetooth or RFID technologies, to implement “Follow Me” functionality, so that media, lights, climate, and telecom follow the user throughout the house.

Note: Although the majority of the software is under the GPL license, some key pieces of LinuxMCE (the DCERouter, Orbiter, etc.), are under the PPL license which is not GPL compatible. The PPL is almost exactly like the GPL, except that when LinuxMCE is sold as a bundle of hardware and software, a license must be paid to Pluto on a per-unit basis.

• MythBuntu

  

  Based on Ubuntu and MythTV, MythBuntu is designed to simplify the installation of MythTV on a Home Theater PC. It can be used to install a standalone frontend, backend, or combination of the two. All unnecessary standard Ubuntu applications such as OpenOffice, Evolution, and a full Gnome desktop are not installed for MythBuntu. Users who wish to do so can add a full desktop onto their installation after using the control panel. The development cycle of MythBuntu closely follows that of Ubuntu, with releases occurring every six months, approximately two weeks after Ubuntu releases.

• KnoppMyth

  

  KnoppMyth has been around since August 2003. It is a blend of Knoppix and MythTV. It is a Debian-based operating system using Knoppix configuration scripts and Knoppmyth-specific scripting that installs and configures the MythTV PVR software and a number of add-ons. Similar to MythBuntu and MythDora, the goal is to make the often complex installation and configuration of a MythTV-based Linux Home Theater PC system relatively easy and pain-free. KnoppMyth can also run directly from a LiveCD (i.e. without installation), providing there is a network connection to a PC with a ‘complete installation’ (a MythTV backend server).

• MythDora

  

  MythDora is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Fedora and MythTV. Like KnoppMyth and MythBuntu, MythDora is designed to simplify the installation of MythTV on a Home Theater PC. Unlike KnoppMyth, however, it does not run as a LiveCD yet. The work on a LiveCD is in progress at the time of this writing. Currently, the distribution must be installed on the computer in order to run. The project started in early 2004 as a pet project, with no real intention of going public.

• iMedia MythTV Linux

  

  iMedia Linux is a GNU/Linux distribution used in streaming encoders/servers and Mini-Box embedded systems by iTuner Networks. iMedia Linux distribution aims for a small footprint installation, stability and usability on small disk space and memory restrictions. iMedia MythTV Linux distribution is created as a showcase for the larger commercial iMedia embedded Linux distribution. It is based on MythTV and a freedesktop.org X.org kernel with several modifications and specific drivers. Target hardware are small embedded mini-ITX systems with VIA EPIA mini-ITX mainboards and Hauppauge PVR capture cards. With this hardware configuration, iMedia MythTV distribution will run out-of-the-box after its installation has been performed. Different hardware configurations should use iMedia’s commercial version.

• MiniMyth

  

  The MiniMyth project was initiated in 2003. It is a small GNU/Linux distribution that turns a diskless computer into a MythTV frontend. Originally, MiniMyth was developed to download and boot the root file system over the network, and run on VIA EPIA motherboards. It now supports local boot, runs in several new chipsets, and supports more MythTV plug-ins. MiniMyth was developed to run on a diskless computer. As a result, MiniMyth runs with its entire compressed file system resident in memory, thus requiring more memory than a typical MythTV frontend.

• GeeXboX

  
  
  With a tiny 8 megabyte ISO, GeeXboX can boot from a CD, USB stick, or the network and run totally in RAM. It comes with a utility called ‘generator,’ which allows for the customization of GeeXboX discs, including the possibility of adding custom media files, non-free codecs, extra themes and configuring a wide range of custom settings. GeeXboX can run on diskless computers, and there is an alpha version for the Nintendo Wii console. The project was started in 2002; by 2006 the GeeXboX and Freevo projects decided to work together, redefining a multimedia framework that could be used either as a standalone application on any GNU/Linux distribution or natively built-in with the GeeXboX project.

Originally written by Giovani Spagnolo for the Telematics Freedom Foundation and first published on October 15th 2008. The original PDF can be downloaded from their website. Get the latest version of this file at: www.telematicsfreedom.org/en/flossmediacenter. For information on latest updates: www.telematicsfreedom.org/en/blog. This continues to be a work in progress. Send feedback, notes or corrections to Giovani Spagnolo at: info (at) telematicsfreedom (dot) org

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. All RAW data collected through survey forms and the most important research links are also available to anyone willing to extend, complement, correct or create a derivative work.

About the author

The Telematics Freedom Foundation was set up to bring in the age of telematics, Internet, mobile phones and the web, all those freedoms and rights that the Free Software Movement has already brought to PC users worldwide. To learn more about the Telematics Freedom Foudation check out www.telematicsfreedom.org.

Photo credits:
Boxee - Avner Ronen
CenterStage - Enrique Osuna
Elisa - Fluendo.com
Entertainer - Laterix on Flickr
Freevo - ComNetSlash.com
MediaPortal - Team MediaPortal
My Media System - MyMediaSystem.org
Myth TV - Team MythTV
Neuros OSD - Mike Kurdziel
XBMC - Team XBMC

Have you ever felt frustrated, when trying to open a web page that takes forever to load? Those sites with tons of videos, images, and fancy graphics are definitely cool, but if my Internet service provider bandwidth can’t keep up with it, frustration sets in and I rapidly move on to something else.

Photo credit: mipan

As an online publisher, the time it takes for your readers to fully load a web page on your site is absolutely of critical importance. Beyond a five seconds wait impatience sets in, and after ten seconds or more many of your readers will start to leave.

In the following report, the home pages of the most popular Technorati 100 blogs have been tested for file size and download speed. How long does it take to for a typical reader to load the home page of any of this highly popular blog sites?

Pingdom, a web service that specializes in monitoring the availability and response time of websites, has armed itself with precision analysis tools and loads of time to find out more closely the effective page load time for these popular sites.

Here all the details:

Intro by Daniele Bazzano

Load Size Analysis of The Top 100 Blogs

Introduction

This report presents an analysis of 100 top blogs, picked from the Technorati top 100 list. For each of these blogs, the front page (homepage) has been analyzed to see how large its download size is and what contributes the most to this size.

We have chosen to not present the blogs individually in this report, but have instead focused on them as a group to get more general data.

Total Blog Front Page Size

The size difference between the different blog front pages was very large. One front page was close to 6 MB in size, though it is an extreme case and should not be considered representative. Most blog front pages, 93%, were below 2 MB in size.

• The average total size of the front page was 934 KB.
• 35% had a front page larger than 1 MB.
• 26% had a front page smaller than 500 KB.
• 39% (the largest segment) had a front page between 500 KB and 1 MB.

Images and Scripts The Largest Contributors to Size

When averaging all the 100 blogs included in the survey, it was clear that the single largest contributor to the size of the front page was images, which in itself should not come as a surprise considering that today’s blogs often are very visual and contain many images.

• Images: 61.3%
• Scripts: 17.2%
• HTML: 15.3%
• CSS: 5.9%

Number of Images Per Page

On average, there were 63 images included on the front page, though the number varied greatly. Some had less than 10 images, while others had more than 100. You can see the distribution in the diagram below.

In addition to images in the posts themselves, images are also common in the design of the layout of the blog, which can explain the large number found in some blogs. Both images included in the HTML and the CSS are included in this count.

Number of Scripts Per Page

On average, there were 9 script files included on the front page, and here too the number was very varied between the different blogs. The page with the most scripts had as many as 35 script files included.

Scripts are often included from external sources, for example visitor statistics scripts such as Google Analytics and Sitemeter. Other examples are Wordpress plugins, which often add their own Javascript files to the blog.

Blog Readers Without Broadband Left Stranded

As this survey has shown, three out of four blogs have front pages larger than 500 KB, and more than one third have a front page larger than 1 MB.

With an ideal, perfect connection, this is how long it takes to download 1 MB (1048576 byte) of data:

• 56 kbit/s modem: 2 minutes and 30 seconds
• 256 kbit/s (minimum limit for broadband): 33 seconds
• 384 kbit/s (3G “low speed”): 22 seconds
• 1 mbit/s (low-end broadband): 8.4 seconds
• 10 mbit/s: 0.84 seconds

Note, however, that this assumes that the bandwidth is utilized to 100%, which normally won’t happen. The above numbers just show you the theoretical upper limit.

In short, blog readers with slower connections will have problems loading the front page of many of today’s blogs, at least with images enabled.

Size and Speed Optimization of Blogs

Since images constitute almost two thirds of the size of the entire page on average, it would seem logical to start the optimization there. This can be done in two ways (which are not mutually exclusive):

1. Optimize the size of the images. Depending on its content, an image size can be optimized by choosing an appropriate format, compression level, color depth, and other relevant settings.
2. Use fewer images (many blogs have a large number of small image elements). This will also have the positive side effect of fewer requests being made to the web server which is also beneficial for performance. One way of having fewer images is the use of so-called sprites, where several images are stored in one.

Since scripts came in second, size wise, here are a few tips that apply to reducing the impact of scripts on the load time:

• It can be a good idea to see if it is possible to reduce the number of scripts used on a blog. Are all of them really necessary? Are there for example scripts present from Wordpress plugins that you are not using anymore?
• Since reducing the number of requests to the web server is a good way to enhance performance, it is often a good idea to merge all your scripts (or at least most of them) into one file, making it one single download.
• Another factor to consider is that by including external scripts, a blog’s load time can be affected by loading issues with that external script (which is outside the blog owner’s control).

These are just a few advice regarding these specific areas. Website optimization is a huge subject and going into detail here would be outside the scope of this report.

Conclusion

There will of course be some size variations depending on the current content presented on the blogs, but the overall, average data is not bound to change much and is highly relevant, especially considering the large sample base.

Since many blogs try to attract a large number of readers, they may be doing themselves a disservice if they let their blog size get too big, which will result in a slow-loading blog. Browser-side caching will help things a bit for frequent readers, but any new or casual visitor will have to load the page in its entirety and some may give up before it is finished or at least get frustrated. (And no one wants frustrated readers.)

Even broadband users would benefit from smaller page sizes with fewer objects on them. This would speed up the responsiveness of the website for them as well. Ultimately it would also be beneficial for the blog owner since it would put less stress on his server(s) and demand less bandwidth.

We suspect that not all blog owners are really aware of how large their blog pages actually get, so we hope that this report will prove helpful in raising discussion around this subject. Some blogs are bound to be large, especially if the content relies heavily on images, but many others could most likely significantly reduce their download size (and download speed) with the few simple measures we mentioned above.

N.B.: The data was collected with the Full Page Test in Pingdom Tools, which is a Web-based tool provided freely by Pingdom. It will load and analyze all elements of a web page and present the data in a way that can be examined and filtered with a simple interface. The tests that provided the basis for this report were performed on October 30, 2008.

Originally written by Pingdom for Royal Pingdom and first published on November 5th 2008 as “Load size analysis of the top 100 blogs“.

About the author

Pingdom is an uptime monitoring service, monitoring the availability and response time of websites, servers and services on the Internet. Pingdom was created by Sam Nurmi, founder and previous CEO of Sweden’s biggest web hosting company, Loopia.

Photo credits:
Total Blog Front Page Size - Pingdom
Images and Scripts The Largest Contributors to Size - Pingdom
Number of Images Per Page - Pingdom
Number of Scripts Per Page - Pingdom
Blog Readers Without Broadband Left Stranded - Gino Santa Maria
Size and Speed Optimization of Blogs - Lisa F. Young

Screen capture and screen recording tools allow anyone to record faithfully any visual activity taking place on your computer screen, generally for the purpose of creating a video tutorial, demo or showcase to be published online. Once a screen recording gets published online it is normally referred to as a “screencast” (a broadcast of a screen recording).

Photo credit: Mipan, Anatoly Tiplyashin

Screencasting and screen recording tools give you the possibility to capture videos of either the full area of your computer screen or alternatively of a specific area of your monitor. You can use all of your computer normal functions while screen recording and even record your own audio as you comment and highlight the tasks being carried out.

Screen recordings can be generally saved in one more standard video file formats for easy upload and republishing on any web site. Typically free, such screencasting applications are also really easy to use: to record a video, just decide whether to record a specific area or the full screen, hit the record button or key combination, and start doing your demo as if you were actually showing your computer screen to someone. Once you are done hit the Stop button and the recording gets saved for you automatically on your hard disk, ready to be exported / converted in any one of the major video file formats.

Here below a small set of screen capture features I have identified as critical when comparing these tools. Use it yourself to more easily find the screencasting tool that best suits your needs.

• Platform: Specifies which operating system is required to run the application
• Software - Web-Based: Determines whether the tool is a downloadable software or a web-based application
• Capture Region: Possibility of recording the entire screen or specific regions of your screen
• Record Audio: Allows to record the audio from a microphone along with the video
• Record Webcam: Allows to record and embed your webcam video inside your screencast
• Shortcut Key for Stop: Enables you to stop the recording by pressing a key combination
• Output Formats: Indicates the available output file formats in which you can save your screencast

Here all the details:

Screencasting Tools Comparison Table

go to the table!

Record Videos Of Your Screen

1. Camtasia
   
   Camtasia is probably the most known screencasting solution that lets you record video from your screen easily. You can record any fixed or hand-drawn region of your screen, with the possibility of embedding your webcam or any other video source into your screencast. When finished recording, you can edit your video with a professional suite of video editing tools: cut parts, apply effect and transitions, add captions and audio. Then export your file in multiple formats to share it on the web. $299 to buy.
   http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp
2. CamStudio
   
   CamStudio is a screen recording software that allows you to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create AVI video files to convert into Streaming Flash videos (SWF). CamStudio interface is really easy to use: just set the video and audio quality, and press the big red button to start recording. When done, you’ll be able to save the file locally on your machine. Free to download and use.
   http://camstudio.org/

3. uTipu
   
   uTipu is a new screen recording software which allows you to record anything that is shown on your screen, in order to create software demos, tutorials or clip recording. uTipu can capture your full screen or any selected region you may want to define, letting you zoom and record your mouse movements. When finished, the video can be uploaded online directly to your account. Fully free, it works on Windows XP and Vista only.
   http://www.utipu.com/app/

4. I Show You
   
   I Show You is a free software for Windows platforms that enables people to easily record a sequence of operations that are going on on their screen. After the recording session has ended, the recorder presentation can be edited by drawing on it, adding notes, and recording a voice over narration. When done, you can send it to your friends via email, messenger or any other application. You can download ISU by clicking here.
   http://www.vapisoft.com/ISU.htm

5. oRipa Screen Recorder
   
   oRipa Screen Recorder is a free software solution that records screen activities and saves them as video files. oRipa Screen Recorder can help you record presentation, web pages, tutorials, or anything that is happening on your screen. You can save your output video in multiple formats and codecs, and add a real time audio narration. oRipa is free to download and use.
   http://www.ejoystudio.com/oripa-screen-recorder/index.htm

6. Jing
   
   Jing is a downloadable application for taking screenshots and screencasts of your monitor (or any region of it). You can invoke Jing via keyboard shortcut, then select the area you want to capture, tell Jing whether you want a video or an image, and then let it do its work. Currently it is free to download for both Windows and Mac platforms.
   http://www.jingproject.com/

7. Debut
   
   Debut is a free screen capturing software for Windows that anyone can use to capture video or still images from any device. The setup comes in just 400kb and, after you install it, you can capture any part of your screen, or even capture from a video device like a webcam. You can export the video in any format and save the screenshots in JPG format. Debut is completely free to download and use.
   http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html

8. FreeScreencast
   
   FreeScreencast is a free screencasting software that allows you to create high quality Flash encoded screencasts easily. Just register to the service, download the software and you will be ready to start recording your screen. When you finish your video, you can save the output flash file to your computer. Or if you prefer to share it, simply use the automatic upload service that will store your file online and will let you embed it in your website or blog. Free to use, registration needed.
   http://freescreencast.com/
9. Screencast-O-Matic
   
   Screencast-O-Matic is a Java-based application that anyone can use to create screencasts of their screen with no additional software to download. Without even registering to the site, you can record anything that happens on your screen just by setting the capture size, choose if you want audio included, and click go. When done, you can publish the screencast online or download it in .mov format. Free to use.
   http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/
10. AviScreen
    
    AviScreen is an application for capturing screen activity in AVI video format, or sequential images, but with no audio. You can specify any area of the screen to define what you want to capture, and also use the “follow the cursor” feature: using this mode you can produce a video or image of relatively small dimensions while covering all mouse activity over the whole screen area. When you are finished with your work, it will be automatically exported and saved in AVI format or sequence of BMP images. Free to download, available for Windows only.
    http://www.bobyte.com/AviScreen/index.asp
11. ScreenToaster
    
    ScreenToaster is a web-based screencasting software that lets you record screen activities without downloading any software. Working on any Windows, Mac, and Linux machine, it allows you to record your screen by pressing a key combination, which will also stop the recording and create a new video file that will be immediately saved into your account, so that you can whether share its link or embed it everywhere. Free.
    http://www.screentoaster.com/

Please help me refine, edit, correct and extend this guide by suggesting other screen capture tools and screencasting web services that I have not included in the above list, by using the comments section here below.

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi for MasterNewMedia and first published on October 27th 2008 as “Screen Capture, Screen Recording, Screencasting: The Best Tools To Record Videos Of Your Screen - Sharewood Guide“

Video conferencing? Need to share very large files with your team? Want to organize your team project while keeping in touch with all of your team members? This online collaboration tools Sharewood Guide has the tools you are looking for.

Photo credit: Rudkouskiy Yahor

Here the full set of online collaboration tools I have chosen for you this week:

1. Qnext: Connect with different instant messaging networks through text-chat, video conferencing and file sharing
2. Netcipia: Create your free wiki pages with no limitations in terms of users, pages and file storage
3. Tatango: Send instant messages to every member of your groups directly from your mobile phone or PC
4. WhaleMail: Send files up to 10 people with no size limit
5. Scrumy: Organize your team easily with this visual project manager
6. ReFrame It: Post comments on any web page, and let other people read or add their own comments
7. Yahoo! Messenger Pinbox: Chat privately with your website visitors directly from your Yahoo! Messenger account
8. GBridge: Extend Google Talk’s features including screen sharing and remote control facilities

Here all the details:

1. Qnext
   
   Qnext is a downloadable application for Windows, Mac and Linux that combines instant messaging, audio / video conferencing, and file transfer. You can send messages to all of your contacts on IM services like Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and ICQ, or simply interact with Qnext users by text messaging, using video chat, or sharing files of any size. Free to download and use.
   https://www.qnext.com/
2. Netcipia
   
   Netcipia is an online wiki solution which allows users to create free wikis for their team. You can create your own private or public wiki by signing up to the service for free, and by giving the wiki a name: it’ll have no limitations in terms of users that can join, pages that can be created, or storage space for your files. Netcipia is free to use.
   http://www.netcipia.com/
3. Tatango
   
   Tatango is a collaboration platform that lets you keep in touch with your team members. You can send one message directly from your computer or mobile phone to all of your group members, keeping them connected at anytime. The service is completely free to use after a simple registration.
   http://www.tatango.com/
4. WhaleMail
   
   WhaleMail is another way to send large files to multiple recipients (up to 10). With no limitation on the file size, you can upload all of your files to the service, type email addresses of the people that you want to send the file to, and wait for the upload process to complete. Recipients will then receive a confirmation email containing the link to download the file, which will stay online for 14 days. Free.
   http://www.whalemail.com/
5. Scrumy
   
   Scrumy is a project management solution that anyone can use to organize his team’s tasks. You can create your team page without any registration, and start adding tasks, which you can drag&drop into four different categories: “To Do“, “In Progress“, “Verify” and “Done“. Any task can be assigned to anyone by typing his email into the box. Free to use.
   http://scrumy.com/
6. ReFrame It
   
   ReFrame is a browser extension available for both Firefox and Internet explorer that lets you post comments on any web page. To leave a comment install the extension, highlight any part of the text, and type in your comment in the right side column that appears. People will then be able to see your comment as they scroll the page using ReFrame It, and to leave their own. Free to download and use.
   http://scrumy.com/
7. Yahoo! Messenger Pinbox
   
   Yahoo! Messenger Pinbox is a web service that enables you to chat privately with visitors on your social network profiles, blog, or website through Yahoo! Messenger. You can easily create your widget and embed it anywhere you want: people can then chat with you privately, and you can reply to them using only your Yahoo! Messenger. Conversations between you and visitors are private, even if there many people on your site. Free.
   http://messenger.yahoo.com/pingbox
8. GBridge
   
   GBridge is a free software that lets you extends Google Talk’s features by connecting your computers and your close friends’ computers directly and securely: you can chat, share files with others with no upload process, and VNC with the other PC to offer or receive assistance using screen sharing and remote control features. The service is free to download and use on Windows platforms only.
   http://www.gbridge.com/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi for Master New Media and first published on October 19th 2008 as “Online Collaboration Tools - New Technologies And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Oct 19 08“