Hello people!
Just wanted you guys to know that my photoblog Perzpective is now up and running alongside this blog.
I just used the Grain photoblog theme for a second installation of WordPress and the Yet Another Photoblog plugin to go along with it.

You can go and check it out here. I’ll post a photo update soon.
Do leave me some comments!

Cheers,
Akash.

I was just having a look at SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards winners. And I noticed something called “Yahoo! Pipes” in 1st place for the Web Development category. Out of my curiosity, I headed over to Yahoo! Pipes. After a little bit of exploring, what I realized was that Yahoo! Pipes deserved the 1st place under the Web Development category!

So what exactly are Yahoo! Pipes?, you’d ask me.

Well, Pipes are tools which can allow you to gather various content from all over the web, filter it, transform it, modify it and do what not, and then present it again! That too, in a format you like! Still confused?

Okay, imagine, that you have been visiting a lot of blogs about a particular topic. You’re subscribed to a zillion feeds. At times, you would still want to look out for specific content and track it separately amongst those feeds. Now reading about something in particular across multiple feeds or sources is surely a big pain! You suddenly start to think if you could somehow combine multiple feeds so that you get exactly what you wanted. Forget feeds, imagine if you could combine content from feeds and multiple websites. Imagine if you to extract particular portions from multiple websites and generate a unified feed for them! Sounds a bit far-fetched? Enter - Yahoo! Pipes.

With Yahoo! Pipes, all that is mentioned above is possible. Well, I guess you’ve heard about pipes in Unix. Yahoo! Pipes is the web version. Pipes provides you with multiple modules, which range from simple ones like getting user input, formatting strings, and stuff to the more typical ones like applying regex expressions to content. And if you’re wondering where to get the content from, then let me tell you, you have a whole lot of like 11 modules (as of now) to get content from various sources, may it be an RSS feed, or a web page, or a CSV file on the web, or just about anything. It even as a module that searches for images from Flickr!

Using pipes is fairly simple. You just need to drag the modules and they will appear as boxes with configurable parameters on a canvas. You need to make sure that the final output you desire is connected to Pipe Output. I’ve setup a simple pipe that allows you to search the RSS feeds for AkashBhavsar.com. You can check the pipe output here and if you need to see the structure, you can do that as well here.

One incredibly good thing about the Pipes that you make is that the content output from the Pipes will be indexed by search engines. There have been some really creative ideas that have come up, like searching for an apartment on maps, searching for geo-tagged photos and so on. You can go over and browse some Pipes and get a feel for yourself. And just head over to Yahoo! Pipes and get a hands on experience in creating one yourself!

With such a powerful nifty little tool that Yahoo! has provided us with, rewiring the web doesn’t seem that tough a task!

Until next time,
Akash.

Well, so you’ve just started your WordPress blog and are up and running with your first post. Precisely at this point, you wonder what could you do to make WordPress do just a little more. Here’s what!!

1. Get some WordPress plugins!
   Plugins are a great way to extend WordPress. They could provide you with zillions of customizations or added functionalities for your blog. While not all may be utmost important, but I’ve listed some of the must have plugins below:
   • Akismet - Stops comment spam.
   • SEO Title Tag - Optimizes your blog’s titles for individual post pages so that your pages rank better in search engines.
   • WordPress Related Posts - Shows posts related to every post. Readers tend to read more of your blog’s content as a result.
   • Google XML Sitemaps - This one is a must must have! Just get it ASAP. It will automatically generate sitemaps for your blog, which will enable search engines to index your blog content easily.
   • WordPress.com Stats - Quite a useful plugin. It will basically generate reports of visitors and page views of your blog. You’ll need to have an account at WordPress.com to use it though.
2. Generate and submit your sitemap!
   Sitemaps are XML files that contain information about all the possible pages in your site. Typically, a sitemap provides a list of URLs of the pages that are a part of your site, along with other information like when was the page last updated, what is the frequency of the updates and how important the page is. So why a sitemap?
   A sitemap is a very easy and efficient way to tell search engines about the structure of yur site. The first thing you would want to do, even if you have a single page website is generate a sitemap and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. It will take some time before your sitemap is verified by Google, but once it is, you will see your pages being indexed by Google really fast! If anyone of you has faced a problem in getting your blog listed in Google (or other search engines), this is probably the first thing you gotta try. In case of WordPress users, you would want to get the Google XML Sitemaps plugin which automates the entire process of generating the sitemap every time you update your blog. It also automatically notifies Google, MSN and Yahoo! about the update.
   For more information on sitemaps, you can head over to Sitemaps.org. With your sitemap updated at its place, your blog content will be indexed by search engines really fast. Which means more readers coming your way through search!
3. Enable Permalinks!
   Permalinks? Well, yes. Ever came across a link on the internet that goes like
   http://www.something.com/index.php?page=1
   Permalinks a.k.a. permanent links are restructured links that look just more sensible and are easy to track by search engines. A permalink corresponding to the above link maybe something like
   http://www.something.com/page/1
   As you can see, permalinks restructure the GET parameters of a request, making them seem to be links to static pages, thus the name permalinks. Search engines like static links, rather than ones with a hundred parameters. Enabling permalinks will make sure that search engines index most of the content on your site or your blog. Not only that, it will make your links easier to read, remember and understand.
   WordPress already has an inbuilt feature to enable permalinks for all your pages. You can find it under “Settings » Permalinks” in your dashboard. Change the link structure here from “Default” to something you like. I would recommend changing it to “Month and name”.
4. Promote your blog URL!
   Well, this is one of the basics. Don’t expect someone to come and read your blog if they don’t just know about it! Make sure you tell your friends about your blog.
   Put your blog URL under your email signature. Set it as “Homepage URL” on any networking sites or online communitites that you use. Visit other blogs, make comments and leave your blog URL there. The more incoming links to your blog, the better!
   You could also try submitting your blog URL to search engines using one of the free online services. Just do a Google with keywords like “free search engine submit” and you’ll come up with loads of results.
5. Post Frequency vs. Post Content
   No, blogs with more posts don’t get famous! Instead, blogs that have better content in their posts do. It is better to write a great post once a week, rather than writing one everyday just for the sake of doing it. Make your readers come back for more, by making them wait for quality content.

Doing these 5 basic things with your brand new blog will boost your initial readership and make sure that search engines lead more visitors to your blog. Just what a new enthusiastic blogger would want!

Comments and suggestions are welcome!
Akash.