Installing Adobe AIR on Ubuntu can be quite tricky if you’re not quite familiar with the commands and if you’re new to Linux/Ubuntu. So for the sake of those users, I’m sharing this short step-by-step tutorial on how to install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu.

Read full story on HowTo: Install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu

See all the themes on Free WordPress Themes for Christmas

Though we should maintain unique passwords for important services (like company servers, bank accounts and some important email accounts), it still is a pain to determine what password we should create and worst of all, having to remember passwords for every service we are using online. In most cases, it is possible that you find yourself reusing the same passwords, over and over again. Needless to say that, such practice is obviously not recommended. Regardless of how strong your password can be, once it is compromised, it is one big invitation for a hacker to gain access on other services you use.

Read full story on Create A Strong And Unique Password

Chris Brogan who is a mega successful social media expert is a guy I often turn to find idea’s and I figure why not emulate someone who has great success.  I noticed his blog used a Google Docs form for the contact me page and I really liked the idea, so decided to try it out.

I developed a full training video demonstration you can watch on how to create a form in Google Docs, set the form to send you email notifications, embed it in your wordpress page or post, and then test it and view it.

View video and read full story on Using Google Docs Form as your WordPress Contact Form

Work-a-holic is a free minimalistic two and three column WordPress theme that focuses mainly on showcasing portfolios for artists, web designers, photographers and illustrators. Work-a-holic separates your portfolio from your blog, enabling easy navigation for clients in a clean, intuitive fashion. It also has a separate sidebar for portfolio (shows recent projects) and a separate widgetized sidebar for the blog and pages.

Main Features:

• Separate Blog and Portfolio Section
• Blog lists posts as normal blog
• Portfolio pulls latest thumbnail of the post and lists each of them on three columns
• Multiple image gallery container (slider) on portfolio posts
• Basic Theme Options
• Twitter integrated – shows latest Tweet
• Separate sidebar on Portfolio and normal sidebar on Blog
• One Page template with separate sidebar
• Ability to have a separate desired Thumbnail if WP-Post-Thumbnail plugin is installed
• jQuery effects on Portfolio thumbnails
• Multi-level Drop Down Menu
• Support Nested Comments
• Three footer widgets
• Uses 960 css framework and jQuery javascript framework
• XHML: This theme has been tested on Firefox, Safari, IE 8, 7, 6.

Read full review on: WP Theme Review: Work-A-Holic

Being an avid WordPress user and advocate, I was happy when I found out that WordPress was recently awarded the 2009 Overall Best Open Source CMS Award by the Open Source CMS Awards. Matt Mullenweg himself was very excited about the award.

I was very excited last week to learn that WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. This is a landmark for us, as it is the first time we’ve won this award, and it marks a shift in the public perception of WordPress, from blog software to full-featured CMS. No small contest, the Open Source CMS Awards received over 12,000 nominations and more than 23,000 votes across five categories.

Read full story on: WordPress Wins 2009 Overall Best Open Source CMS Award

The new Google Dashboard allows you to view and control data associated with the different products you use with your Google Account. It literally shows you everything, from information about your web usage, email usage, chats stored, youtube usage and more, when you are logged into Google services such as Gmail, Google Docs, contacts, alerts, the whole shebang. I have to admit that this can be somewhat scary, but the fact that Google now provides you with more control over your private (?) data is something that they have to be commended with.

Read full story on: Internet Business Entrepreneur

Fuzzmail is an internet toy that harbors vast potential for addiction! Here’s an excerpt from Fuzzmail dot org:

WHAT IS FUZZMAIL? Fuzzmail records the act of writing and lets you send it as an email. Dynamic changes, typoes, pauses and writeovers are captured and communicated. We created fuzzmail because we wanted a more emotionally expressive alternative to email, so that an emailed love letter does not have to look the same as a business letter.

Read the entire post on: HappyMaking

Bloggers A-Buzz with Talk of FTC Guides

There’s been a lot of buzz, lately, over the FTC’s publication of “Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials.” I first learned of it on Jaypee Online. First, this is not a revision of existing law. There’s nothing particularly new, here, except that it clarifies the applicability of current law to new media and celebrity endorsements. Since the Guides haven’t been revised since 1980, it seems that in order to keep up with the Internet and the explosion of social media and “buzz marketing,” the FTC saw a need to clarify a few things. And I think, upon reflection, this is a good thing.

According to the revised FTC Guides, “the issue is whether the consumer-generated statement can be considered ‘sponsored.’ … Thus, a consumer who purchases a product with his or her own money and praises it on a personal blog or on an electronic message board will not be deemed to be providing an endorsement.”

I’m glad they spelled that out. It seems obvious that if I pay for a thing, and have no relationship with the manufacturer or sales rep other than that of “customer,” I should be free to gush about or to criticize that thing as I see fit. To say otherwise would infringe upon my First Amendment rights. Oddly, there’s a lot of discussion in the FTC Guides about comments claiming these new Guides will have a chilling effect on commercial speech. To that, I say “cry me a river.” I don’t think the First Amendment was designed to protect lies and hyperbole, and regulating commercial speech to ensure truthfulness is something I have absolutely no objections to.

“In contrast, postings by a blogger who is paid to speak about an advertiser’s product will be covered by the Guides, regardless of whether the blogger is paid directly by the marketer itself or by a third party on behalf of the marketer. [O]ther situations between these two ends of the spectrum will depend on the specific facts present…”

Feedly is a Firefox addon that creates a magazine-like startpage/homepage on Firefox. It creates a fast and stylish way to read and share the content of your favorite sites and services. It also provides seamless integration with Google Reader, Twitter, Frienfeed, Delicious and YouTube.

To install Feedly, first of all you need to have the Mozilla Firefox browser installed on your computer. If you already have it, then you can proceed with installing Feedly. You can get it from the official Firefox Add-ons repository. After you install it, you’ll have to restart Firefox.

Read full story on JaypeeOnline.net