PriteshGupta.com » Tips

Facebook Shortcuts

Pritesh Gupta — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:39:13 +0000

Lately I was surfing facebook.com and found that facebook has some default keyboard shortcuts which work cross browser. Thus, I am sharing few of the shortcuts which I found.

Alt+1: This key combination takes you to your Facebook home page, No matter where you are in facebook.com
Alt+2: This combination takes you to your profile, Again from anywhere in the facebook.com
Alt+3: This combination opens up the pending friend requests dialog.
Alt+4: By pressing this one you can see your Inbox(i.e. Messages).
Alt+5: You can see your Notifications by pressing this combo.
Alt+6: Pressing this takes you to the “My Account” where you can change your name and other details.
Alt+7: Pressing this takes you to the “Privacy Settings” where you can update/change your privacy settings.
Alt+8: This one takes you to the facebook fan page.
Alt+9: Takes you to the Terms and Conditions page(Statement of Rights and Responsibilities) which is bigger than a constitution of a country.
Alt+0: Takes you to the “Help Center” page. Where you can browse your applications and see facebook features.

Also, Facebook added a new emoticon this must be in context to the number 42. Read its wiki for details and significance. You can get this in chat by typing :42:

Perfect way to Subscribe to RSS

Pritesh Gupta — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:54:17 +0000

Trying to catch up a Blog(Or Blogs) which don’t provide with an Email Subscription option OR provide a Weekly dispatch only. Well, I encountered the same problem with Ars Technica and some other tech blogs, Ars Technica is an awesome Blog but it just provides with a Weekly email dispatch only and coming to its site everyday just to read it is a big pain. For everyone out there who encounter the same problem in various other Blogs, Here is the solution. There’s a Web Site which converts the RSS or Atom feed into Email and mails you regularly and works as efficiently as the Email Subscription thing. The site is http://www.feedmyinbox.com. I use it to follow many sites which don’t provide with Email Subscription option.

PS: Don’t subscribe too much, It will just help in increasing your Unread Emails count

// Get these from http://developers.facebook.com
$api_key = ‘xxx’;
$secret = ‘xxx’;

// Names and links
$app_name = “Application name”;
$app_url = “app-url”; // Assumes application is at http://apps.facebook.com/app-url/
$invite_href = “invite.php”; // Rename this as needed

require_once ‘facebook.php’;

$facebook = new Facebook($api_key, $secret);
$facebook->require_frame();
$user = $facebook->require_login();

if(isset($_POST["ids"])) {
echo “

Thank you for inviting “.sizeof($_POST["ids"]).” of your friends on ”.$app_name.”.

\n”;
echo “

Click here to return to “.$app_name.”.

”;
} else {
// Retrieve array of friends who’ve already authorized the app.
$fql = ‘SELECT uid FROM user WHERE uid IN (SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1=’.$user.’) AND is_app_user = 1′;
$_friends = $facebook->api_client->fql_query($fql);

// Extract the user ID’s returned in the FQL request into a new array.
$friends = array();
if (is_array($_friends) && count($_friends)) {
foreach ($_friends as $friend) {
$friends[] = $friend['uid'];
}
}

// Convert the array of friends into a comma-delimeted string.
$friends = implode(‘,’, $friends);

// Prepare the invitation text that all invited users will receive.
$content =
“ has started using ”.$app_name.” and thought it’s so cool even you should try it out!\n”.
“get_add_url().”\” label=\”Put “.$app_name.” on your profile\”/>”;

action=””
method=”post”
type=””
content=””>

actiontext=”Here are your friends who don’t have yet. Invite whoever you want -it’s free!”
exclude_ids=”” />

}

Blogger.com vs WordPress.com

Pritesh Gupta — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:33:58 +0000

So you must be having a Blog(If NO, Go get one today). Where do you host it Blogger.com OR WordPress.com. Or if you have your own Hosting space with php and Mysql then for sure WordPress.org. This post will compare Blogger.com with WordPress.com. Also don’t get confused with WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.org is a CMS which you need to host and is the best Blog System currently. I will not be including features which are in both of them OR neither of them.

Feature	Blogger.com	WordPress.com
Customization with themes	Yes, You can edit the HTML and CSS	No
Import	No, Only from another Blogspot Blog	Yes, From most of the Blog programs
Static Page	No	Yes, As much as you want
Analytics/Stats	No, But you may install a third party Analytics program	Yes, In built and is great
Image Storage	1 GB, Can be browsed through Picasa	3 GB, Can be upgraded
Classification	Through applying Labels	Through applying Categories and Tags
Contact Forms	No, But Third Party contact forms can be installed	Yes, Using [contact-form]
Comments	Simple, But you can install powerful comments system like Disqus	Nice comment system but you can’t install Disqus
Embed Object (Like: Flash)	Yes	No
RSS	Yes, And can be optimized with Feedburner	Yes, But No Feedburner optimization
Spam Fighting	No	Akismet
Change blog URL	Yes	No
Javascript	Yes, You can Add it here	No
Google Webmaster Tools	Yes, Verify using tag and Add blog/atom.	No

Please See:

If you wish to upgrade to WordPress.org soon then go for WordPress.com. As it supports Categories as well as Tags(Which is common in WordPress.com and WordPress.org).
If you don’t wish to upgrade to WordPress.org and don’t want to host things then go for Blogger.com
Most of people start from platforms like WordPress.com or Blogger.com and move to WordPress.org(It includes me).
Also if you are newbie in Blogging go for Blogger.
Blogger is also owned by Google which is a 800 pound gorilla in Internet.
There is also a http://draft.blogger.com where you can see features if blogger about to come.

My Suggestion: Go for Blogger.com. As it has the biggest advantage that is Flexibility.

Google Search Tips

Pritesh Gupta — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:35:04 +0000

Remember these:

Google default is to search for pages that include all of your search keywords .
Google excludes common words (a.k.a stop words) like “the” , “He” etc.
Google isn’t case sensitive, That is searching for wordpress is the same as WordPress.
But Search operators are case sensitive, That is searching for wordpress OR joomla uses OR as the Google search operator, while wordpress or joomla doesn’t.
Some operators may be combined, and some must be used alone.

Basic Operators

+

forces words to be included in search results. Useful with stop words that otherwise will be discarded

-

prevents a search term to show in results, for example searching for doughnut -cream can help you to avoid creamy doughnuts

OR

returns documents with one of the given terms, like doughnut OR donut. You can also use | instead of OR: doughnut | donut

” “

using quotes forces google to search for the exact phrase (including stop words), try “doughnut at midnight” and doughnut at midnight (actually, using quotes is similar, but not equals, to doughnut-at-midnight … it would be interesting to know what is the exact difference in SERP)

~

allow to search also for synonyms of the given word. searching for doughnut ~tips finds also pages with the word help or guide etc.

*

means every word. try “doughnuts with *”

..

Used to search in a range of numbers, “2..20 doughnuts” will find pages containing “I eat 3 doughnuts a day” and “I’ll never eat more than 15 doughnuts in a month”

This operators can be combined to create advanced queries, for example “I eat 1..100 doughnut OR doughnuts OR donut OR donuts each *”

Basic Search Operators

The basic Search operators which can be combine with your keywords easily are:

+

Forces words to be included in search results. Convenient with stop words that otherwise will be dumped

-

Prevents a search term to be included in the results, Like: searching for Automobile -cars won’t show the result for Cars in the Automobile search result page

OR

Returns with with one of the given terms, like Joomla OR Drupal. You might also use | instead of OR

” “

It is used to include all of the words given by you in search results, Remember to put the query within the “ ” . I use it to check copy and paste content.

~

Allows to search also for synonyms of the given keyword. like searching for wordpress ~tips finds also pages with the word help or guide etc.

*

Means every word to include(It’s a wildcard character) .

..

Used to search in a range of numbers

The above operators may be combined like, “Is WordPress better than Joomla OR Drupal”

Some more useful operators

define:

Used to return the definition of the given word like “define: guide”

filetype:

Restricts the results returned of a specific File Type. Like “Photoshop Guide filetype:pdf”

site:

Restricts the search results for a given web site only like “Google site:priteshgupta.com”

Returns page that are related to the given page

info:

Gives information about a given site

Google’s Calculator

I use Google as a calculator too, by using standard symbols (+ – * / % ^)

Like: “2+10-5%2″ = 11, Google calculates in the manner which is done in programming languages.

You can also make it a scientific calculator using the below terms

sqrt,nth root ofx, sin, cos, arctan, tan…, ln, log, !

Numbers can be entered in hexadecimal, octal and binary base.

PS: There are many more things which you can do it Google but I have included which are useful.

Also see: http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips/