Custom Robots Tags

Settings For "Custom Robots Tags" Inside Post Editor

Blogger just added Custom robots header tags to post editor. One of the features of search preferences was robots.txt and Robots tags which could be set only for homepage, archives, posts and pages. But now you can edit these settings even for individual posts and pages right from BlogSpot post editor. Unlike Meta Description, Custom Robots Header tags are not visible and are not shown if you try to check  it by viewing the browser source file for your blog. You will only see Meta Description if you have added the dynamic code. We will learn today where are robots tags added in your templates and how can you view them. Lets first find and locate these Robots header tags.

Why Can't You See Robots Tags?

If you have applied custom robots flags by following the tutorial for Search Preferences, then you would have observed that you don't see any flag appearing when you view the source file of your blog. This is because that these flags can be seen only in the HTTP header fields. Google now accepts robots tags which are directly added to the Headers of the HTML Page.

Settings For Custom Robots Tags Headers

To see header tags in post header you must first activate the custom headers. If you have not yet activated then follow these steps. Go to Settings | Search Preferences, click Edit next to "Custom robots header tags," and select Yes. Activated Successfully!
Now you must learn when should you use them. Using them correctly can help you rank better and using them at wrong scenarios can surely play the opposite.

Tag	Meaning
all	There are no restrictions for indexing or serving. This is default for all pages
noindex	Do not show this page in search results and do not show a "Cached" link in search results.
nofollow	Do not follow the links on this page
none	Equivalent to noindex, nofollow
noarchive	Do not show a "Cached" link in search results.
nosnippet	Do not show a snippet in the search results for this page
noodp	Do not use metadata from the Open Directory project (DMOZ) for titles or snippets shown for this page.
notranslate	Do not offer translation of this page in other languages in search results.
noimageindex	Do not index images on this page.
unavailable_after: [RFC-850 date/time]	Do not show this page in search results after the specified date/time. The date/time must be specified in the RFC 850 format. Example: 17 May 2012 15:00:00 PST

The only tags which you should focus on are noimageindex, noindex and nofollow. Rest are just not required for a small scale blog. All of these tags are useful when you have a corporate blog or website with thousands of pages or even millions of pages. They help to control how search engines may crawl your content.
When to use noimageindex ?
If you are sharing personal or family pictures on any of your posts or page then may be you would prefer not to make those pictures public and keep them limited to readers reach only. In such case you may check this option and robots will be directed not to index the pics or images used inside the post.
When to use noindex?
Any page or post that you want to hide from robots and visitors can be tagged as noindex. Visitors wont be able to discover that page via search engines or may be even with the Google Custom Search Engine.
You can even noindex post or pages that you think will effect your search ranking. Google Panda Effects all those blogs which publishes low quality content. If you feel any of your post is just for entertainment purpose and does not relate to your niche then you can simply choose the noindex option from Header Tags.
When to use nofollow?
If you are creating a useful directory of 100 or more links that all point to some external websites and you don't want to pass your PageRank juice to them then you can choose the nofollow header tag.
If you are looking for when to nofollow links then read this tutorial:

 

DNS Changer Malware Could Lock Unwary Users Out of the Internet on July 9

NEWS ANALYSIS: While the chances of any of your computers having an active DNS Changer malware infection are remote, you should still check to make sure your system is clean and confirm that somewhere along the line your DNS settings didn’t get changed.

DNS Changer Malware Could Lock Unwary Users Out of the Internet on July 9

The DNS Changer malware has been all over the news during the last couple of days, and with good reason. If you haven’t checked that your computers are malware-free and fixed an apparent DNS Changer infection, you won’t be able to use the Internet very easily come Monday, July 9.
Monday is the day that the FBI pulls the plug on the Domain Name System (DNS) servers that have been kept running as a safety net for people who were infected by the malware, and as a result were being directed to bogus DNS servers.
When the servers are taken offline July 9, the only way you’ll be able to access the Internet if you’re affected is to type in the actual IP address because your computer won’t be able to resolve addresses. Fortunately, it’s easy to tell if you’re affected, and the problem is easy to fix. Here’s what you need to do.
First, visit the Website of the DNS Changer Working Group where you’ll see a description of the DNS Changer and what it does. You’ll also see a green button that is labeled “Detect.” On that page, you’ll see a chart listing sites around the world that will tell you whether your computer is resolving DNS addresses properly. The site for the United States is www.dns-ok.us and it has a simple interface that presents a green square if your computer is resolving IP addresses properly.
You should note that when I tried the U.S. site only two of the four browsers on the test computer would actually load it. Firefox and Internet Explorer worked fine, Google Chrome and Apple Safari did not. Neither would load the address at all. Note that this test was done on a machine running a 64-bit version of Windows 7. Other computers have delivered results with various browsers.
If for some reason you’re not able to get the site to load, try the European site at http://dns-changer.eu, which I found works more reliably. Note that the European site will record the operating system and browser that you’re using.
If you get the all-clear, you’re probably done. While it’s possible that your ISP is redirecting the bogus DNS requests for you, you’ll still get to the Internet. If you want to be totally certain, either check your computer’s DNS settings manually or have your IT department check them. Note that in addition to the sites listed by the DCWG, other sites including Google and Facebook will alert you if you appear to be having DNS problems related to malware.

DNS Changer Malware Could Lock Unwary Users Out of the Internet on July 9 - Clusters of Infected Machines Indicate a Systemic Problem

But suppose you didn’t get the green light saying that your computer is OK. If that happens, the DCWG offers a list of places where you can access malware removers that will clean the malware out of your system. Most security vendors, including Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky and Microsoft, have free software that will clean your system.
Note that the same page also provides a list of resources for making sure your computer is really free of malware and stays that way. Resources for PC and Macintosh computers are included in these lists.
Once you’ve finished the initial tests and fixed the malware infection or its after-effects, it’s time to review your security posture. While an infected computer or two inside a large organization may not indicate a systemic problem, seeing more than a few will. Likewise, seeing malware infections in clusters within an office will indicate a problem. It may be that a specific remote office isn’t being as careful as it should, for example, or it may mean that the anti-malware application in that location is compromised.
If you find that your security systems are compromised, then the answer is clear, call the person in your company who is in charge of data security and ask for help.
Now, suppose it’s Monday morning and you just found out that one or more of your computers suddenly can’t find the Internet when everyone else can. If you haven’t already downloaded one or more of the free malware removal tools provided by DCWG, you should do so now, even if you have to use a computer outside the office. Save the malware removal tool on a flash drive, take it to the affected computers and before doing anything else, check the DNS settings.
You may be able to clear up the problem just by fixing the DNS settings. If those settings don’t stay fixed, then run the malware-removal tool doing the full-system scan. This will take a while. When it’s finished, the malware will be gone, and you’ll have a list of what was done.
None of this is rocket science, but some of it is tedious. Don’t try to take shortcuts. Instead, do the full removal job. But while you’re waiting, you can start thinking about what you need to accomplish to make your systems as secure as they should be from now on.

 

Free Web Scripts

Free Web Scripts Open Source

One of the unwritten rules of the script industry is that every week, new scripts are released, while others are simply abandoned and no longer maintained. Some of these newly developed scripts will at times be proclaimed as the best, with their marketing pitch reading along the lines of “Install me!” “Try me!” “Worship Me!”
We know that these sales pitches are simply buzz, or rather, noise. And here at Hot Scripts, one of our missions is to separate that noise from what’s useful and to highlight the hottest scripts to web developers. For this month’s issue of our newsletter, we wanted to take our mandate further and showcase a list of emerging scripts that are gaining popularity among web developers.
Here is our list, in no particular order, of 25 Emerging Free Scripts to Watch. This list comprises scripts coded in different languages and in a broad range of categories, from e-commerce to social networking and frameworks.

Open Atrium

Open Atrium is an intranet that combines six modules – a blog, a wiki, a calendar, a to-do list, a shoutbox and a dashboard to manage it all. Companies can use it as a collaboration tool whereby which different teams can start conversations or share files. It proves to be very useful for individual as a project management tool. The best thing about Open Atrium is that it is based on Drupal, which makes it extremely customizable.

Pixie

Pixie is a free, open source web application that will help you quickly create your own website. Many people refer to this type of software as a “content management system (cms)”, but the developers prefer to call it a small, simple, website maker. It has an elegant interface and takes seconds to install and has a great list of built-in features including WYSIWYG editor, automated database backups, SEO friendly URLs and multilingual support.

Croogo

Croogo is a free open source content management system based on the CakePHP framework. You can create different content types including blog, node and page and categorize your content using taxonomy. Pages can comment-enabled with built-in moderation features. Croogoo also includes a menu manager, file manager and user permission manager.

Monoql

Monoql is an AJAX based MySQL admin and query tool. It has a bunch of features you’ll find in phpMyAdmin including database and table design, browsing of records, in-line editing as well as advanced querying. Compared to other similar solutions, Monoql is faster and stable.

TeamLab

TeamLab is an open-source platform for business collaboration and project management. It is based on ASP.Net, C# and supports both MySQL and SQLite. It has several features like project management, reports, instant messenger, polls, task management and milestone tracking.

Pulse CMS

PulseCMS is a simple CMS designed for small websites. It enables you to take an existing site and add content management in five minutes. Define the “blocks” on your website you wish to be editable and Pulse provides an easy to use backend to make edits right from your browser. It doesn’t require any database.

HummingBird

Hummingbird takes a different approach to web analytics by proving real time web traffic visualization – it allows you to see how visitors are interacting with your website in real time. It refreshes 20 times per seconds Hummingbird is built on the top of Node.js, a JavaScript web toolkit and uses the MongoDB database system.

Plupload

Plupload is an upload handler that allows you to upload files using HTML5 Gears, Silverlight, Flash, BrowserPlus or normal forms, providing some unique features such as upload progress, image resizing and chunked uploads.  It has a powerful API that will allow you to further customize it.

Gestalt

Gestalt is a way to write Ruby, Python & XAML code in your (X)HTML pages. It enables you to build richer and more powerful web applications by marrying the benefits of expressive languages, modern compilers, AJAX & RIAs with the write /  save / refresh development model of the web.

Php.JS

php.js is an open source project that brings high-level PHP functions to low-level JavaScript platforms such as web browsers, browser extensions ( Mozilla/Firefox, Chrome ) and Abobe Air.  It support a wide range of PHP functions like  arrays, mathematics, strings, date and time, regular expressions and filesystem.

Grafico

Grafico is a JavaScript charting library built with Raphaël and Prototype.js. The library provides a wide array of graphs that effectively communicate their information. Each graph type has numerous API options to customize it’s look and behavior.

Phraseanet

Phraseanet is an open solution for digital asset management. Digital assets can be virtually anything from photos, videos, audio files to documents. It has quickly evolved as a powerful solution with a usable interface for managing your assets online. This script is based on PHP and MySQL.

Chevereto

Chevereto is a free script, written in PHP, that lets you set up your own image hosting on your web server. It supports image upload either from your local computer or from a remote URL. Images uploaded can be set to automatically resize and you can set it to shorten the image URL using TinyURL web service.

Meteora

Meteora is a set of cross-browser Javascript Widgets that provides web developers with ready-to-use user interface controls to create Rich Internet Applications. It is based on the MooTools framework and offers great widgets like calendar picker, file browser, data grids, and other interface related controls and effects.

Analogue

Analogue is a PHP based chat application that allows you to start a linear dialogue with others in a chat room. Only people with a valid URL can come in and join the conversation. The design is simple, sleek and usable. This script makes use of a bunch of other frameworks like lithium, douchdb and jQuery.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is a free open-source PHP and MySQL based e-commerse software. It was built to take advantage of essential Web 2.0 innovations such as dynamic AJAX-powered features and next-generation ergonomy. PrestaShop guides users through your product catalog intelligently and effortlessly, turning intrigued visitors into paying customers.

UKi

Uki is a fast and simple JavaScript user interface toolkit for desktop-like web applications.  It comes with a rich view-component library ranging from Slider to List and SplitPane.  You really need to check out their Mac Mail.app web clone demo powered by UKi.

HighCharts

Highcharts is a charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering an easy way of adding interactive charts to your web site or web application. Highcharts currently supports line, spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie and scatter chart types. It works in all modern browsers including the iPhone/iPad and Internet Explorer from version 6.

Argentum

Argentum is a free open-source invoicing and online project management system. It is ideal for developers and designers who works with clients’ projects. You will be able to manage your client’s projects, their contact information as well as time track how much time you spent with each projects.  You can create, email and track invoices for your clients and it has the ability to generate invoices in PDF format.

Ofuz

Ofuz is an open source invoice, project and customer relation solution created solely for teams, freelancers and service providers. It supports an elegant and streamlined interface combining powerful tools like contact management, time tracking, invoice generation, lead capture and tracking. Most of its features have been designed with online collaboration in mind.

cFTP

cFTP is a PHP and MySQL based file management system aimed at managing client-specific files and giving them access to either upload or view the files. It has a really simple and attractive design with user roles permission system. You can brand the interface by uploading your logo.

storytlr

Storytlr is an open source lifestreaming and micro blogging platform. It allows you to aggregate your social and online life content from over 18 popular sources like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and FlickR. It will also let you post anything you find any interesting and share it with others.

pyroCMS

PyroCMS is a modular open-source CMS built on the CodeIgniter PHP framework. It is lightweight, themeable and secure and is meant to be a CMS that can be used by anyone. It has great web integration features like automatic posting of your articles to your Twitter account, integration with Google Analytics, etc.

painbrush JS

PaintbrushJS is a lightweight, browser-based image processing library that can apply various visual filters to images within a web page. You use it by applying a class to an element on the page and setting a few parameters with some extra HTML attributes It support filters like blur, noise, edges, emboss, grayscale and mosaic.