Archive for Translation
Do you want to automatically translate all of the pages of your web site into the most popular languages and facilitate foreign visitors get an insight into your content without hiring a pro translator? Here is MasterNewMedia guide to the best tools and services to automatically translate your web site in multiple languages.
Photo credit: Guy Erwood
More than 65% of people around the world don’t speak English, so having a web site that can be read in multiple languages is crucial if you don’t want to lose any possible extra traffic. Also, offering your visitors to read your web content is a great way to stand out from your typical competitors.
With the tools and services I have selected for you in this guide, you just need to pick your preferred web site translations solution, integrate their code into your web pages and the work is done. In most cases, your web pages will be translated on the fly when a reader will click on the language of his choice.
It is also very important to keep in mind that such translations are made automatically, so don’t expect them to be perfect. They should be intended to provide just a “guide” into your original content, and not certainly a formally correct translated version.
So, since there is a plethora of different services to translate your web site, you have to decide first which kind of features you need. Many languages? Advanced customization possibilities? Embeddable widget? Or maybe just using a free solution against a more professional alternative?
To help you make the best choice, I have identified some basic criteria you can use to evaluate and select the best automatic web site translation tool for your web site:
- Number of languages: How many languages your web site can be translated into.
- Languages supported: Which languages your web site can be translated into.
- Translated items: Which elements of your web pages are translated (just text, text and image captions, hidden texts…)
- Price: Price of the service, and premium accounts with extended features (if available).
- Widget implementation: Easiness of implementation of the widget inside the source code of your site / blog.
Here all the details:
Best Web Site Translation Tools
- Google Language Tools
Google Language Tools allows you to translate web pages or texts instantly. The service is completely free, and supports all the principal languages spoken across the World: Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, French, Italian, Spanish, and many more. You can add a gadget (Google’s for widget) to your site pasting just a line of code. Your visitors will then have a drop-down menu where they can choose their mother tongue, and have your content translated automatically (just plain text, no images or hidden texts). About the text translation option, Google Translation Tools has no special character feature, or offers to upload documents from your hard-disk for immediate translation.
http://translate.google.com/translate_tools?hl=en - Yahoo! Babel Fish
Yahoo! Babel Fish is a free online tool to translate web pages or blocks of text. Powered by the SYSTRAN translation engine, Yahoo! Babel Fish allows the translation of texts up to 150 words and web pages from and to a very large set of languages (Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and many more.) To take advantage of the translation capabilities of Yahoo! Babel Fish on your site, just choose between two simple one-line-code widgets, depending you need to translate your own web pages or offer your readers to translate third-party web sites or a text of their choice. Translation is performed on plain text only, not images or hidden text.
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/free_trans_service - ConveyThis
ConveyThis is a free translation tool that translates your web site to multiple languages. To let your visitors read your content in their own language, all you need to do is adding one of the themed ConveyThis buttons to the source code of your web site, or grab the free WordPress plugin. Very easy to implement, ConveyThis works with a plethora of languages (English, Japanese, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, and many more), but does not translate other elements in your web pages outside of plain text.
http://www.conveythis.com/ - SWeTE
SWeTE (acronym for Simple Website Translation Engine) is a free tool to translate web sites to multiple languages. You can add a small set of flags to the source code of your site / blog, and let users automatically get a version of your web pages in their desired idiom. The SWeTE code is very easy to implement and allows you to further customize the translations rendered on your web site, working also on links, images, or hidden texts. The service currently supports translations from / to English and some of the following languages: Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, and many others.
http://swete.weblite.ca/ - Applied Language
Applied Language Solutions offers a translation tool that allows your visitors to translate your web site at a click of a button. Just register to the ALS site, select the language pairs you want to use, and grab the free customizable bar to add to the source code of your web site. Easy implementation, but plain text is translated only. The free solution from Applied Language works with the most spoken languages worldwide. Some examples: English, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and many more.
http://www.appliedlanguage.com/trans/start_free_translation.aspx - ultimate website translator
ultimate website translator is a free widget you can embed on your web site to have your readers translate your web pages with no effort. Translations available in many languages (Chinese, Japanese, Dutch French, Italian, and Spanish among many others.) ultimate website translator takes advantage of the translation engines of Yahoo! Babelfish, Google Language Tools, GTS, and WorldLingo. The widget though looks very poor (no flags to recognize a language at a first glance), and translation is provided only for the content, no hidden text or images.
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/ultimate-website-translator - SDL FreeTranslation.com
SDL FreeTranslation.com is a free online translation service that you can use to translate web pages or blocks of text. SDL can convert from English to French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Norwegian via a widget that you can add to your web site after registering to SDL services. The widget is very small and easy to install into your source code, but translates just the text on your web site (no images or hidden text). Speaking of texts, each block can be up to 4-5 pages or about 4,000 to 5,000 words, which is about 8 or 10 pages of a fairly dense document. Worth mentioning is the special character feature that lets you add characters which you don’t have on your keyboard without changing its layout.
http://www.sdl.com/en/services/localisation_services/website-translation.asp - WorldLingo
WorldLingo is an online language translation tool that allows you to translate texts, documents, web pages or even e-mails from and to a language of your choice. Web sites can be translated by adding a piece of (long) code to your web site which will display the flags of 15 countries. By clicking on a flag, your readers will automatically get a translated version of your page (links included). Different pricing options available, based on geographical packages. Regarding the text feature, just submit the text or files that you need to read in another language and let WorldLingo do the rest. Text translation feature is completely free to use, but the maximum length of the text you can convert is set to 150 words.
http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products/instant_website_translator.html - ArtistScope
ArtistScope is a web site translation service that helps your reader translate your web pages in their mother tongue via a handy drop-down menu placed at the top of your page. More than 25 languages available including: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Dutch, Turkish, and many others. Easy installation on web sites hosted on Windows servers, such as those using FrontPage extensions with ASP support. ArtistScope works also with Cold Fusion, .NET and PHP but you need to modify your source code accordingly. No hidden text or other elements translated outside of plain text. Free trial avaialable and prices starting from €250 for a limited license.
http://www.artistscope.com/artistscope_translate.asp
Other Web Site Translation Tools
- Google Toolbar
The Google Toolbar is another service from Google Language Tools that helps your readers get a translated version of your content in their mother tongue (along many other features). A good strategy to promote their content for software developers and online publishers, may be to provide a link to download the free Google Toolbar with their products or on their web sites, instead of adding a widget or a plugin to their source code. This is just another solution to provide different translated version of your web pages going the easy way. Google Toolbar translates from English into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
http://toolbar.google.com/ - ICanLocalize
ICanLocalize is a tool that provides human or machine-based translation for your web site. Available for WordPress, Drupal, and static HTML pages. Installation of ICanLocalize requires you to add additional plugins or play with the code to make the translation facility work properly on your site. The service translates from and to most spoken languages like English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, and many others. Full translation of your content available, but no embeddable widgets. Prices start from 0.7/c per word or $5 per page.
http://www.icanlocalize.com/website-translation.html
Originally prepared by Robin Good for MasterNewMedia, and first published on March 23, 2009 as “How To Automatically Translate A Full Web Site In Multiple Languages: Best Web Site Translation Tools – Mini-Guide“.
Free Online Language Translation: Best Services To Translate Your Documents – Mini-Guide
Posted by: | CommentsDo you need a quick translation while working online? It can be an e-mail from a colleague, the lyrics of a song, an e-mail, or even a web page. All you need to do is try one of the free language translation services I personally selected and reviewed in this mini-guide.
Photo credit: rosendo
Oftentimes you might need some information for a work you’re preparing, your thesis, or any other reason, but what if those info are not in your own language? Do you need to buy a dictionary and start translating? Sure, you can do that, but you can be way smarter!
Lucky for you there are plenty of online services to help you translate texts, documents, web pages, or e-mails. All without spending a dime. I’m sure you’re already familiar with the Google Language Tools, but there are a few alternatives I suggest you check out.
These translation tools all work pretty much the same way. You just copy and paste the text you need to translate, and then select the language you are translating from / to. Et voilá, you’re done! It’s as simple as that, even if it may take a while if you are translating an entire web page or a very long document.
Curious? Do you want to know more about these free online translation services?
Here below the set of key basic characteristics that I have utilized to compare the tools I hand-picked and reviewed, so that you can easily find the best language translation service for your needs:
- Translation sources: Some of these services not only translate a single word or a text, but even a web page or an e-mail.
- Word Limit: Usually you can translate for free up to 150 words, but the very best services in these guide have a higher word limit, or even none at all.
- Special features: What if you have to translate from a language which is not your own? You may not have some special characters in your keyboard (say the ñ in Spanish). But the best tools in this guide have this feature built right in, so you don’t have to worry about that.
- File uploading: It can be quite a hassle to copy and paste text from a long document, but services like SYSTRANet let you upload files right from your desktop.
Here all the details:
Free Online Language Translation
- SDL FreeTranslation.com
SDL FreeTranslation.com is a free online translation service that you can use to translate blocks of text, or even web pages. Each text can be up to 4-5 pages or about 4,000 to 5,000 words, which is about 8 or 10 pages of a fairly dense document. Worth mentioning is the special character feature that lets you add characters which you don’t have on your keyboard without changing its layout.
http://www.freetranslation.com/ - WorldLingo
WorldLingo is an online language translation service that allows you to translate texts, documents, web pages or even e-mails from and to a language of your choice. Just submit the text or files that you need to read in another language and let WorldLingo do the rest. WorldLingo is completely free to use, but the maximum length of the text you can convert is set to 150 words.
http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html - Yahoo! Babel Fish
Yahoo! Babel Fish is a free online service to translate a block of text or web pages. Powered by the SYSTRAN translation engine, Yahoo! Babel Fish is the most popular of these services and allows the translation of texts up to 150 words from and to a large set of languages. Just paste your text or URL inside the translator window and let Yahoo! Babel Fish work for you.
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ - PROMT Translator
PROMT Translator is a free online language translation service that works either with texts and web pages. Unlike other similar services, not many languages are available, but you have advanced features like transliteration or displaying variants for your translated text. You can also check the spelling of your text before submitting a translation, and there’s no limit to the words you can translate.
http://www.online-translator.com/text_Translation.aspx - Reverso
Reverso is an online service that provides you with a free translation of a given text. Not many pairs of languages are available, but Reverso comes with the useful special character feature so you can use all those chars which are not available in your country language and keyboard layout. No word limit for your translations.
http://www.reverso.net/text_translation.asp?lang=EN - Google Language Tools
Google Language Tools allows you to translate a text or a web page in another language instantly. The service is completely free, web-based, and supports all the principal languages spoken across the World. Despite being no word limit for the text you can translate, unlike other similar tools, Google Translation Tools has no special character feature, or offers to upload documents from your hard-disk for immediate translation.
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en - SYSTRANet
SYSTRANet is a free online translation service that allows you to type a text, or even access files directly from your desktop, preserving customization and format. You can then select the language pair, the custom topic dictionary that best fit your content, and an option to introduce some custom terms that you may want to utilize in your translated documents. No limit to the length of the text and the possibility to use special characters make up for a powerful software.
http://www.systranet.com/ - WordReference
WordReference is a free online translator and dictionary that helps you translate single words or find their meaning. Just type the words you need to translate and select the source and target language. You can also embed a mini version of the translator in your web page or use the iPhone / iPod Touch app.
http://www.wordreference.com/index.htm - Babylon
Babylon is a free online service to make a language translation. With a clean and easy-to-use interface Babylon allows you to translate from and to more than 800 paired languages, with no limit to the text you can submit. The service is also available for a free download on your desktop, both for PCs and Macs.
http://translation.babylon.com/ - LOGOS
LOGOS is a free online service for language translation. LOGOS allows you to translate single words from and into several languages or even use its powerful, built-in dictionary to look up for a definition of the words you want to translate. It is not possible to translate web pages.
http://www.logos.net/ - Ajeeb Translation
The Tarim tool by Ajeeb Translation Site provides a free facility for translating between Arabic and English, and back. The service is either a text and a web page translator. A number of useful options are also offered to enhance the translation quality like: better accuracy, less layout, progressive translation, and transliteration.
http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/sakhr/MainView.aspx?lang=1
Originally prepared by Robin Good for MasterNewMedia, and first published on March 2, 2009 as “Free Online Language Translation: Best Services To Translate Your Documents – Mini-Guide“.
Net Neutrality: Is The Open Web For Anybody Or Just For Some?
Posted by: | CommentsThe celebrated openness of the Internet in which internet providers are not supposed to give preferential access or treatment to any Internet traffic keeps quietly losing powerful defenders.
Photo credit: Norma Cornes
Internet providers are still free to sell higher-speed traffic and better overall service levels, but letting big companies like Google get an unfair advantage in distributing their content online just because they can afford to pay more, represents a big threat to the democratic and egalitarian approach independent web publishers have been vouching for.
Net neutrality boils down to one basic concept: Don’t make audiences pay for artificially-created scarcity.
That means that Internet providers of all kinds can be still free to sell “bigger pipes” and better overall service levels at higher prices. What should instead not be allowed anymore is for artificial cartels of content and Internet bandwidth providers to gang together and create preferential access routes to their own content by virtue of reserving faster and broader chunks of their bandwidth to their commercial gang partners.
Here is John Blossom reporting on this story:
Net Neutrality Spin: WSJ’s Take on Google’s Caching Plans Draws Fire
by John Blossom
WSJ vs. Google on Net Neutrality
Talk about a bad hair day for WSJ tech journalists.
When The Wall Street Journal ran an article on a Google plan to add “edge caching” servers at key internet service provider facilities, this fairly common practice to accelerate content delivery to audiences via the Web was mangled into a political imbroglio. To wit, their lead:
“The celebrated openness of the Internet – network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic – is quietly losing powerful defenders.
Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.“
Google was quick to correct the WSJ’s outlook, as noted on their public policy blog and in a subsequent AFP story. Their point:
“Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday’s Journal story, I want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open.“
Intellectual property guru and net neutrality proponent Lawrence Lessig noted that his take on Google and the political ramifications of this move were a bit off-key in the WSJ article as well:
“The article is an indirect effort to gin up a drama about an alleged shift in Obama’s policies about network neutrality.
What’s the evidence for the shift? That Google allegedly is negotiating for faster service on some network pipes. And that “prominent Internet scholars, some of whom have advised President-elect Barack Obama on technology issues, have softened their views on the subject.”
Who are these “Internet scholars”? Me… I’ve not seen anything during the Obama campaign or from the transition to indicate it has shifted its view about network neutrality at all.“
Is the Open Web a Possible Future Scenario?
With more moving pieces than a Swiss watch in Washington right now, the current political environment surrounding net neutrality and other Web access issues during a transition in Washington’s power brokers is bound to be subject to as much jockeying and bullying as possible.
Today the U.S. Federal Communications Commission canceled a vote on making radio frequencies available that would provide free Internet access as a public utility, bowing to pressures from both industry advocates and politicians.
There’s a big push for open Web access, but plenty of pressure from all points of view keeping things comfortably in neutral for now.
Net Neutrality and related issues such as public Web wireless frequencies seem to boil down to one basic concept: Don’t make audiences pay for artificial scarcity.
Carriers are still free to sell “bigger pipes” and better overall service levels, but artificial cartels based on reserving audience-facing Internet bandwidth for private use will only create more challenges for publishers in the long run.
If you want to have proof that this is so, just take a look at the balkanized state of mobile service carriers that lassoed content providers for many years into deals for distribution on their private networks. What publishers now confront are scattered and overpriced deals for growing but underperforming mobile markets, even as the carriers now reach for ad revenue shares to sweeten their take.
Net Neutrality and Its Implications for Online Publishers
Proprietary mobile breakthroughs such as the iPhone and the Amazon’s Kindle are great for publishers in many ways, but they represent a relatively small share of the potential marketplace for mobile content and ultimately just continue the myth that artificial network scarcity can benefit the publishing industry as a whole.
All these devices do is lock publishers in to proprietary networks that are bound to make it harder to reach their audiences cost-effectively.
The truth is that the fastest-evolving, most cost-effective technology changes are best for publishers, making it imperative to enable an environment in which mobile and Web technology providers are not resting on proprietary laurels that hinder the development of Web and mobile markets for publishers. Without these breakthroughs, the audience reach that content producers need to make mobile networks a highly profitable distribution medium is not likely to materialize.
Let’s keep the future of publishing out of the hands of companies that still can’t tell us whether to dial “1“, an area code or nothing extra to make a phone call to the next town.
Net Neutrality will ensure that there is a cost-effective, rapidly evolving electronic distribution infrastructure that serves publishers best.
Originally written by John Blossom for Shore and first published on December 15, 2008 as “Net Neutrality Spin: WSJ’s Take on Google’s Caching Plans Draws Fire“.
About the author
John Blossom’s career spans more than twenty years of marketing, research, product management and development in advanced information and media venues, including major financial publishers and financial services companies, as well as earlier experience in broadcast media. Mr. Blossom founded Shore Communications Inc. in 1997, specializing in research and advisory services and strategic marketing consulting for publishers and consumers of content services.
Photo credits:
WSJ vs. Google on Net Neutrality – Olga Demchishina
Is the Open Web a Possible Future Scenario? – Alfredo Angeles
Net Neutrality and Its Implications for Online Publishers – Wikimedia Commons
30 Cool WordPress Plugins For Web Publishers
Posted by: | CommentsIn this article you’ll find more than 30 cool WordPress plugins to customize and tweak the performances of your blog site. Do you want more SEO control, embed videos, or track your RSS feed subscribers? Here’s some good stuff for you.
Photo credit: egal
There are many blogging platform out there and they all do pretty much the same: get you started to publish your own content. But WordPress is by far the favorite one by bloggers. Why? WordPress has an awesome list of plugins to help you personalize your blog and add extra features.
So I decided to start from the list by Ruchir Chawdhry on TechVivo, and extend it with some kind suggestions from Robin Good and MasterNewMedia SEO expert, Matteo Ionescu. The result is a collection of more than 30 plugins for professional web publishing with WordPress, organized in specific categories:
a) Content sharing
b) Spam Fighting
c) SEO
d) Navigation Enhancement
e) Stats
f) WordPress Admin Enhancement
g) Content Embedding
h) Miscellanous
Enjoy!
30 Cool WordPress Plugins For Web Publishers
Content Sharing
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FeedBurner FeedSmith
The FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin detects all ways to access your feed (e.g. yoursite.com/feed/ or yoursite.com/wp-rss2.php etc) and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. It will forward for your main posts feed, and optionally, your comments feed as well.
http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=78483&topic=13252
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Sociable
Sociable automatically adds links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages, and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
Spam Fighting
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Akismet
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not, and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s comments admin screen. With the ever increasing amount of spam on the web, you’d be dumb not to get this plugin.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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WP-Spam Free
Fed up of all that comment spam?http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Simple Trackback Validation
The Simple Trackback Validation plugin helps to eliminate trackback spam by performing a simple a simple but effective test on all incoming trackbacks.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-trackback-validation/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
SEO
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All-in-One SEO Pack
The All-in-One SEO Pack is the ultimate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugin out there. It automatically optimizes your blog for search engines, and has several options for the more advanced users.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Google XML Sitemaps Generator
The Google XML Sitemaps Generator plugin generates an XML sitemap of your WordPress blog. Ask, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN support this format. Having an XML sitemap and submitting it to the search engines that support it can really increase your blog’s search engine visibility, especially when it’s new.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Redirection
Redirection is a solution to manage 301 redirects. Very useful if you ever need to change the URL of a post / page, Redirection becomes essential when migrating from another platform.
http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/Review by Matteo Ionescu
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HeadSpace2
HeadSpace is meta-tag management on steroids. A great alternative to the popular All In One SEO Pack supporting an incredible number of features.
http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/Review by Matteo Ionescu
Navigation Enhancement
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Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) inserts a list of related posts below each post on your blog, and in your blog’s RSS feed. It’s extremely configurable, and a must-have.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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TweetBacks
TweetBacks allows you to search the popular microblogging service Twitter for tweets that link to your blog posts. These tweets are then displayed under the entries on your blog site so that you and your readers know how many people shared your thoughts.
http://danzarrella.com/wp-tweetbacks-plugin.html
Review by Daniele Bazzano
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SRG Clean Archives
The SRG Clean Archives plugin displays your archive listings in a clean and uniform fashion, that’s search engine and user-friendly, on a dedicated page or in your sidebar. If you’re still manually updating your archives page, stop doing it!
http://www.idunzo.com/projects/clean-archives
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Contact Form 7
Even though there are tens of contact form plugins out there, I’ve always liked Contact Form 7. The problem with most contact form plugins is that either they are too simple or way too complex. Contact Form 7, on the other hand, is extensible yet easy-to-use. It supports Ajax-powered submitting, multiple forms, CAPTCHAS, and Akismet spam filtering.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Democracy
Democracy is a simple but effective way to add polls to your WordPress website and enhance user interaction.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/democracy/
Review by Matteo Ionescu
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Wp PostRatings
With Wp PostRatings you con allow your readers to rate your posts. Written in Ajax, is very light and unobtrusive.
http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/
Review by Daniele Bazzano
Statistics
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WordPress.com Stats
WordPress.com Stats is a traffic statistics plugin that shows only the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track – such as page views, referrers, top posts & pages, search engine terms, and clicks – and provides them in a clear and concise interface.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Google Analytics for WordPress
The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin lets you insert the Google Analytics code automatically throughout your blog. It discounts your own visits, automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links, and downloads. It even allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, and track image search queries.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
WordPress Admin Enhancement
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One Click
The One-Click plugin allows you to upload themes and plugins straight to your WordPress blog from the browser. Just upload the zip file, and it’ll automatically unzip the contents and install the plugin for you. Now you never have to use FTP again!
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/one-click-plugin-updater/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Dashboard Widget Manager
Ever felt your dashboard was too cluttered? Then download Dashboard Widget Manager. It allows you to remove unnecessary widgets from your dashboard so it’ll look clean and load faster.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/dashboard-widget-manager/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Lighter Menus
Lighter Menus creates drop down menus instead of the regular admin menus for WordPress, so you can browse items in one click. It’s fast to load, adaptable to color schemes, and comes with some sleek icons.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lighter-admin-drop-menus/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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PageMash
Customize the order of your pages, manage their parent structure, and hide them, all using PageMash. It features an Ajax drag-and-drop administrative interface, and is a great tool to re-arrange the order of your pages quickly.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pagemash/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Manageable
Manageable allows inline editing of the date, title, categories, tags, status, and more of both posts and pages without ever having to leave the “Manageable” admin section. No need to load each post or page individually. Simply double-click anywhere in the post or page row and when you’re done, press enter.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/manageable/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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Role Manager
Role Manager is a solution to handle user levels and allow deep customization of individual permissions. Very useful if you manage a multi-user blog!
http://redalt.com/Resources/Plugins/Role+Manager
Review by Matteo Ionescu
Content Embedding Utilities
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Embedit
Embedit is a very light plugin (ionly 10 lines of code) which lets you easily embed any HTML code into a WordPress page / post. Works seamlessly across different versions of WordPress.
http://www.matteoionescu.com/wordpress/embed-html/Review by Daniele Bazzano
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Samsarin PHP Widget
Very simple but effective way to add custom widgets into sidebars with your PHP / HTML code. Samsarin PHP Widget functionality should be really implemented in WordPress itself!
http://www.samsarin.com/blog/2007/03/10/samsarin-php-widget/
Review by Matteo Ionescu
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Exec-PHP
Exec-PHP lets you execute PHP code in posts, pages, and in the text widgets of your sidebar.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exec-php/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
Miscellaneous
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WP Super Cache
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Digg Effect and the Slashdot Effect. They can cause a server meltdown, and if you’re on shared hosting, get your ass kicked out. To Digg-proof your blog, get WP Super Cache. It reduces the load on your server by generating static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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WordPress Database Backup
You should always backup your WordPress database regularly. However, doing it manually every time can be difficult and time consuming. The WordPress Database Backup plugin lets you easily backup your WordPress database tables. You can even schedule a backup, and it’ll email the file to you every day!
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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OIO Publisher
OIO Publisher is the ultimate ad management plugin. It’s great for those who want to sell ads on their blog by themselves. The great thing about OIO is that it removes all the hassle one gets from self-selling ad space: you only have to approve purchases. OIO Publisher handles everything else. Using OIO, you can sell reviews, links, ads, and even your own products! Heck, it even allows you to create your own affiliate program, so other people can sell your ads and products for you.
Review by Ruchir Chawdhry
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qTranslate
Multilingual support is one of the biggest missing features of WordPress, but with qTransalate you can easily accomplish the task of managing different languages for your blog site.
http://www.qianqin.de/qtranslate/
Review by Daniele Bazzano
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WP Lytebox
WP Lytebox lets you easily add a lightbox effect when clicking a thumbnail to display the fullsize image.
http://grupenet.com/2007/08/03/wp-lytebox/
Review by Matteo Ionescu
Original list by Ruchir Chawdhry on TechVivo, extended with the contributions of Robin Good and Matteo Ionescu. First published for MasterNewMedia on December 11, 2008 as “30 Cool WordPress Plugins For Web Publishers“.
Photo credits:
Content Sharing – benseguenia khaled
Spam Fighting – Andrea Danti
SEO – Marco Rullkoetter
Navigation Enhancement – Phecsone
Stats – Janaka Dharmasena
WordPress Admin Enhancement – WordPress
Content Embedding – norebbo
Miscellanous – Vitaliy Tumanyan
Text To Speech Tools: A Mini-Guide
Posted by: | CommentsDo you need a software solution that reads in spoken words the text of your emails or your just finished new contract? Would you like to have your computer read out loud any text document you open on your screen (including web pages, emails and documents)? Then you might find what you are looking for in this text-to-speech tools mini-guide. Photo credit: tlegend Many text-to-speech tools are available today (Today you can choose among several tools) that allow you have any text-based file read out loud by software which automatically converts your text-based content into audible bits. You can use text-to-speech software to "listen" to documents, email, pdf files and web pages: text is read by synthetic voices and in …
Robin Good’s MasterNewMedia Adds New International Edition: Portuguese
Posted by: | CommentsWith no financial support, no ad-venture capitalists behind and no injection of new cash, the Robin Good\’s micro network of information web sites launches yet another international edition of its flagship daily new media online magazine all devoted to readers of Brazil and Portugal, and to all those others who around the world speak one of the most melodic languages around: Portuguese. Photo credit: Johnny Lye MasterNewMedia Portuguese edition is already live and fully accessible at www.masternewmedia.org/pt and the site contains all of the new content I publish here on Robin Good\’s Englis edition, interpreted, translated and adapted to our Portuguese speaking friends around the world. Turnaround time for originally English written content is a maximum of 24-48 hrs with …