Even though bloggers could originally do this via the Facebook Note importer, Facebook unfortunately limits users to only importing one single blog.

Since BlogPress supports multiple blogs (across multiple platforms including WordPress, Movable Type and Blogger), bloggers can easily share their recent posts upon their Facebook wall from more than one blog, without having to use “work arounds” like Friendfeed.

Despite increased competition from companies releasing their own official apps (like WordPress and Squarespace), BlogPress continues to innovate itself by heavily embracing social networks such as Flickr, Twitter, YouTube–and now Facebook.

Stop complaining about the lack of Flash because you’re off the mark. Don’t label the iPad as underwhelming without understanding the device, all while still being blinded by the pre-announcement Unicorn device hype.

Now the iPad has been unveiled we can accept its platform-changing role and look at how this device will change your routine. More than any smartphone before has.

There’s no way round it. Bite the bullet, shell out those $$$ and get your iPad. Here are more than seven reasons why you should get one.

The Perfect Second Screen, Dual Setup

Once you have tasted and gotten used to a dual screen setup you will not want to return to a single monitor setup anymore. No laptop, or software, is good enough to replace the luxury of having two screens. Neither Spaces nor virtual desktops can anywhere nearly emulate the experience of two screens side-by-side. Bill Gates has three monitors, Al Gore loves to show off his ridiculous three 30″ screen setup. Once you get used to multiple screens there’s no way back. The iPad makes this now possible AND portable.

The iPad is the Perfect Research Device

A main part of writing an entry is often the research you need to do. Who doesn’t remember having had 10-to-tons of tabs open, researching facts, looking for quotes and so much more. With the iPad you can now do all this on a second screen, but instead of this screen being static in your desk setup, it’s portable. More than the iPhone even you can research anywhere — on the couch, at the kitchen table, on the road — all while having a nicely sized screen. Done having to squint your eyes on the small screen of your smartphone where content is resized to 320px.

The addition of Exposé for Mobile Safari will only make your user experience and research more enjoyable. With copy and paste functionality it is easy to immediately transfer your quotes to Notes or even email them directly to your working computer. Alternatively you can use Pastebot for copy & paste functionality across your wireless network.

Your iPhone Apps Also Work on the iPad

The iPad will run almost all of the apps designed for the iPhone. You just download them from the App Store. Or, if you already have apps for your iPhone or iPod touch, you can sync them to iPad from your Mac or PC.

This means that you will NOT have to reinvest in applications you have already purchased for your iPhone or iPod Touch. If you already use WriteRoom or SimpleNote to sync your notes and drafts via the cloud, you can install these on your iPad. Just like any of the games you might have purchased to relax. Anyone fancy a game of Scrabble via the cloud?

iPad Removes Clutter and Helps You Focus

The main advantage of using an iPad as a second screen instead of a monitor is that the iPad brings simplicity. We all know that as soon as you plug in a second monitor this one will be clouded with multiple windows: chat, email, media player. Move it all to the second screen but let’s keep the noise and distractions coming!

With no multi-tasking available (other than Push notifications) the iPad will help you focus on doing just your research, reading and even writing. Less is more. KISS!

Writing on the iPad you will be able to write in a clutter-free environment, without buttons and UI distraction. Focus on the important. Write. Use the iPad as your Microsoft Office 2007 minus the ugly, distracting ruler and other UI clutter. The UI is where Apple excels, you’ll love it once used to.

Apps Will Only Get Better

Darnell does a great job covering the many mobile blogging apps for the iPhone and although he will complain complains that the iPad has NO camera, he will enjoy all the awesome apps we will see for the iPad.

Many apps will take a new form and be developed whether for the iPhone/iPod Touch, whether for the iPad (or in two different versions). The new screen real estate will bring an ‘old form of multi-tasking’ back to your daily habits: side-by-side windows. While you are writing your draft, with or without keyboard, you will have the option to use the browser API and have on one half of the screen a browser window. Pretty much like Mac OS X users can do already with Scrivener as shown in the screenshot, this is coming to your lap, only 1.5lbs heavy.

Expect your entry previews to be loaded in a nice lightbox overlay, similar to the email drop-down in the first image in this entry.

The iPad is the Ultimate Relaxation Device

Last but not least, when you work hard you also need your time to relax. Read RSS, read a book, watch a movie on the go or play a game. After today some executives at Amazon and Sony PSP are cursing because Apple just released the sexiest book reader and portable gaming console.

More Advantages: 3G/Wi-Fi 802.11n, VOIP and NO Camera

Of course you will opt for the $30 unlimited data monthly pre-paid option. Now you can blog from anywhere and it is cheaper than buying an iPhone with an AT&T contract. Blog without squinting your eyes, cursing the keyboard (ever tried posting 1400 words from your iPhone, I have). More than that, iPhone OS 3.2 supports VOIP so you’ll be able to enjoy both Skype and Google Voice.

If you use software like Touchpad for iPhone the iPad will be the most enjoyable remote for your MacBook (Pro) and Mac Mini you’ll ever use, especially now with 802.11n.

As for the camera, let’s be honest. Do you want to be the moron recording video outside, holding a 10″ high tablet in your hands? I know I don’t.

The SEO Toolbar allows you to quickly tell how much link authority a site has. The more link authority, the more benefit you’ll get from their link.

To use this tool, you’ll first have to download the free Firefox browser since it’s a Firefox add-on. (Firefox should be your browser anyways. It’s more stable and secure than IE and it doesn’t have the privacy issue of Google’s Chrome.)

After you install the program, you’ll see the toolbar at the top of Firefox. Every time you surf to a new new page, you get SEO stats for the page and domain you’re visiting.

For example, here’s a screenshot of the toolbar when I visited the BloggingPro homepage.

There’s a lot of info and I don’t want to make this too complicated, so I’ll just hit the basics. If you want to learn more about the tool, feel free to leave a comment.

The main things to look at are the following:

1. PageRank

PageRank is one of Google’s metrics to determine their rankings. It used to be more important but Google gave it less weight by adding more factors to their algorithm. Still, the top sites typically have better PageRank than the average site.

2. Links to the domain (based on Yahoo)

Sites that have a lot of backlinks are usually great sites to get links from. You can click the stat to see the specific links on Yahoo.

2a. Links to the page (based on Yahoo)

You normally won’t need to look at this unless you think you can get a link on a specific page. This stat shows you how many links are pointing to the page. Again, you can click the stat to see the specific links.

Also, you can check this stat on your own posts to see if they’re getting links.

3. Links from unique domains (from Majestic SEO)

This stat is based on the number of unique domains linking to the site. I like this metric because some sites especially blogs have inflated link counts. They have a lot of links because they are on sitewide blogrolls. But Google gives more weight to sites with links from many different domains.

So for instance, two sites have 100 links. Site A’s links come from 50 domains whereas Site B’s links come from 5 domains. Site A will usually have more authority.

4. Age

Google loves links from old sites. The older, the better.

5. Traffic from popular keywords (from SEMRush)

SEMRush has a database of rankings for 40 million popular keywords. They use the database to estimate how much traffic a site is getting from Google. A high traffic number means that Google trusts the site, so it’s good to get a link from them.

Flash forward towards today and here I am now amazed that I am able to edit video (yes video!) at a fraction of the price I would have paid to place upon my laptop.

While the video editing apps are still in their infancy (at least upon the iPhone), here are seven of the best video apps that every video blogger blessed with the iDevice should own (plus a video of my ugly mug to help demonstrate their power).

ReelDirector

ReelDirector is an iPhone app created by Nexvio that allows you to mesh or render video’s, images and audio together.

This app costs around $8 and users can even insert their own music within the video (although make sure you own the copyright before uploading music lest you be sued by the RIAA).

SlowMo

SlowMo (which sells for $0.99) is another app created by Nexvio, which (as the name implies) allows you to slow down the video (up to -8 times if necessary).

You can also speed up the film (twice the normal speed) or have the audio play normally while the video performance is altered.

Hollywood FX Video Maker

Hollywood Fx Video Maker is an app by MacPhun that allows you to apply filters such as Black & White, Sepia, or even Twilight (if you dig that affect).

Priced at $2.99, this app is the best video affects app out there and should be considered a must have for video bloggers everywhere.

ColorStroke Video Maker

ColorStroke Video Maker is an app that takes one of Hollywood Fx filters (Black, White & Red) to the next level.

ColorStroke allows you to emphasize various colors (Green, Blue, Yellow, etc.) within a black & white (or Sepia) film.

The app (which costs $2.99) does have a few issues (i.e. some colors do not work well together or “cancel” each other out) but overall this is a very decent app.

Video Fx Bundle

Video FX Bundle (also priced at $2.99) boasts some impressive video effects, although some of the features (like the various color light filters) are quite buggy.

This app may be more for bloggers who want more exotic effects (as this app probably will appeal to a slim blogging niche).

Qik

Qik is one of two (or is it now three?) iPhone apps that allow bloggers to live stream straight from their phones and have it uploaded various social networks, including blogs.

Thus far this app is only beneficial to Tumblr, Twitter and Blogger/Blog*Spot users (as Qik uploads straight to their accounts), and while it does give a nod towards WordPress lovers, the WP crowd is pretty much left out in the cold.

VideoPix

Priced at $1.99, VideoPix (by SeeItWithUs) allows bloggers to freeze a frame within a video and save it as an image.

This is quite useful if one needs a thumbnail from a video scene (which may benefit political, sports and fashion bloggers).

Any others?

While there are many other apps out there for video bloggers, these 7 are the best ones out there–thus far.

There are many more video apps coming to Apple’s app store, although hopefully we will see some of these developers “share the joy” upon other platforms (so that my Google Android relatives and friends will stop being envious of my iPhone).

His argument is that Google has a history of innovating their algorithm to take account the most relevant link sources. And now it seems that Twitter has become the top place to share links instead of blogs and social news sites.

These days I get more links from Twitter than blogs. Bloggers don’t link out as much as they used to and social news sites have lost influence and popularity. On the other hand, Twitter has reached mainstream popularity – so much so, that it seems like if you don’t have a Twitter account, you’re not in the loop.

For example, the people in my niche are not very internet savvy. They are active on forums but they missed the blog and social news boom. There are only a few active blogs and virtually no activity on social news sites. However, they are active on Twitter and Facebook.

I haven’t updated my Twitter account in a while since Twitter doesn’t send that much traffic and its links are nofollowed. I’ve had better success with traditional link building. But I think I’ll be getting active on Twitter again to prepare for the future. Google can’t ignore tweets much longer. They will have to include them in their algorithm to stay up to date with the way information is shared and cited today.

Think about your own niche. I bet many people have active Twitter accounts including the most influential members.

By the way, Rand doesn’t talk about Facebook but his graphic of the history of link sources has Facebook as a big player too.

Over to You

How active are you on Twitter and Facebook?

Does your niche have an active community in either site?

Do you think the sites will make an impact on SEO?

You can access this new feature on your Google Webmaster Tools account, under Labs > Site Performance. In this section, you are shown a performance overview of your whole site. It displays the average page load time, which refers to the amount of time it takes the entire page to fully display on your browser, as well as a comparison of it against other sites.

Site Performance tool in action showing the speed of one of the sites I handle.

Aside from the performance statistics, there is also a section called Page Speed Suggestions where it gives you suggestions on how to optimize the pages on your site. This feature is powered by Google’s Page Speed tool, a powerful program that runs a number of diagnostic tests against a web page, and analyzes the page’s performance according to a number of general page performance “rules” that are known to speed up page load times.

Since the Page Speed Suggestions evaluates only a few example pages from your site, you have the option to download and install the Page Speed FireFox Add-on which let’s you evaluate any web page and immediately get the result. (Important note: You need to have the FireBug FireFox add-on installed first before installing Page Speed).

Page Speed FireBug add-on showing the performance summary of BloggingPro’s homepage

As you can see on the screenshot above, Page Speed lists down suggestions like caching, gzip compression, optimizing CSS, and many more. Thanks to this, we can now be able to know where we should focus our attention on when we want to make our blogs load faster.

To learn more about the Site Performance Tool, go here. To learn more about Google Page Speed, go here.

Related Articles from the SplashPress Blog Network

• Surfing the slow web – Blog Herald
• Upping your blog’s loading time – Blog-Tutorials
• CSS Optimization: Make Your Sites Load Faster – BloggingPro

Regardless of whether you are a web designer, journalist or “Joe the Plumber” (note: I say that in love), your tools can define whether you succeed or not on your job.

The same is true for blogging, as having the proper software can help determine the difference between success and failure–or at least separate the pro bloggers from the rest of the noisy crowd.

But when it comes to the iPhone, there are a few apps that I have found that every serious iBlogging pro should have, regardless of what blogging platform you have (at least for the most part).

So without further ado, here are 7 must have iPhone apps for bloggers on the go.

BlogPress (Price: $2.99 USD)

I know what you are thinking.  Why should I use BlogPress when I can use the free WordPress 2/Typepad/LiveJournal/BlogPress Lite app for my blog? (note: you Squarespace fans are off the hook on this one)

Answer: Because despite the awesomeness of the apps (whether official or anointed), none (with the exception of the LiveJournal App) support multiple image posting and positioning,  and none of them allow you to upload and post multiple videos.

While I would encourage users to also install the free versions as well, BlogPress is a must have app for iBloggers everywhere.

Photogene ($2.99 USD) & iRetouch ($1.99 USD)

There are plenty of great photo apps out there, and as someone who has (foolishly) spent money on many out there, I would recommend users only purchase Photogene and iRetouch as they will handle 99.99% of your photo editing needs.

Photogene I heavily use, mainly because of its intuitive features that make editing an image simple and fun. Users can easily crop, resize, add text, speech bubbles or convert images into black & white easily (among other affects).

For more advanced functions like cloning, smudging or “Photoshop like effects,” iRetouch can satisfy most (if not all) your blogging needs.

PicBrowser ($1.99 USD)

While editing images is great, finding one that can match your blog post can be a little difficult.

PicBrowser helps you resolve that problem by providing an easy to use image search across Google Images, Flickr, Ask.com, NASA JSC (which is great for space geeks like me!), Google Books and free iPhone wall papers.

You can also link to where the image was discovered (which is a great as it can help you avoid using copyrighted images).

ReelDirector ($7.99 USD)

If you have an iPhone 3GS, ReelDirector is a must have app, which allows video bloggers to “stitch together” videos filmed separately on your iPhone, with transition affects in between.

ReelDirector also allows you to insert credits before and after the entire film, allowing bloggers to insert copyright notices of their videos, as well as acknowledge the creators of the flick (just in case it is stolen and uploaded to YouTube).

Oceanus Web Browser ($0.99 USD)

(Image via App Shopper)

Let me be clear–the native Safari browser on the iPhone is  a JOKE!!!

That being said, there are a few browsers out there that are worth downloading, although I would highly recommend Oceanus Web Browser because it has the best user interface for tabs (making it easy for those of us with basketball fingers).

Oceanus also supports an array of other features (like bookmarks, image downloading, “incognito” mode, in page search, themes, etc.), as well as the ability to easily change your default search engine (as not everyone loves Google).

Facebook (Free!!!)

Okay, this is definitely a must have app since practically everyone ranging from your niece to your grandma is on this social network.

Facebook is also a great way to connect with readers and fellow bloggers, and despite its low price is probably one of the most valuable apps out there in the app store.

Total Price: $19 USD (minus a few pennies)

While there are other apps out there that can enhance your geek/blog life (especially for Twitter), these 7 above are probably “must have” apps for any serious blogger, as they can not only help save you time, but enhance your blogging as well.

Whenever I think of open sourced CMS (Content Management System), I often think of Drupal and Joomla which are used by web masters to make powerful websites without breaking the bank.

So you can imagine my surprise when WordPress–software created primarily for blogging–defeated Joomla and Drupal as the Overall Best Open Source CMS for 2009.

Update: Corrections made to article. See below for details.

(PacketPub.com We are pleased to announce that WordPress has won the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. WordPress has won this Award for the first time in the past four years, earning itself a place in the Hall of Fame category for the Award next year.

While WordPress occupied the top spot in the Overall Award, the other two extremely popular finalists MODx and SilverStripe tied for the first runner up position.

Although I am still puzzled as why web masters skilled in the “art of geek” would choose WordPress over its rivals (ease of use perhaps?) this marks a great victory for those belonging to the faith of WordPress.

While only time will tell whether WordPress will defeat it’s rivals in 2010, its victory here could mark the beginning when WordPress is seen more as a CMS, instead of yet another “web journal software” to use.

Update: Corrected CMS mistake (published Customer Management Software instead of Content Management System).

Also a commentors pointed out that WordPress won because Drupal & Joomla won previously.

Here are two situations wherein Blogger may be a possible CMS for you:

1. When you’re pressed for time – You can purchase a domain name and use it on a Blogger blog very quickly. Themes for Blogger is also available and easy to implement.
2. When user management is not crucial – The thing with Blogger is that, as of now, there are only two levels of users: Authors and Administrators. If you’re the one who will be managing the content, then Blogger is OK.

Undoubtedly, making Blogger as a CMS is a challenge. Unlike WordPress, there is no “Page” content type, only generic blog posts. Also, the URL’s of Blogger posts are automatically generated. This feature makes it hard to create pages with specific titles reflect on the URL.

To make Blogger into your CMS, a few simple steps are needed:

1. Remove all gadgets, expecially the archive and label
2. Download a Blogger template with a navigation menu and removes the post date.
3. To manually remove the date header in the post, go to “Edit HTML” in the Layout editing section. Make sure that “Expand Template Widgets” is checked and look for “<data:post.dateHeader/>” and remove it
4. After writing the site’s content, take note of the URL. Edit the template’s navigation bar to direct to the post’s URL.

Blogger may not be the most elegant of CMS solutions, but there are select situations that it might work.

After purchasing an iPhone 3GS about a week ago, I was excited to see what new video blogging apps have emerged since the iPhone 3GS’s launch this summer.

While it seems like every twitter app from Twittelator Pro to Tweetie 2 is including video and/or audio (via third party hacks), a quick scan through the app store revealed a scarcity of video blogging apps–all of them by third party companies.

Thus far CellSpin and BlogPress are the only major video blogging apps out there, with the latter allowing you to post multiple video’s per post.

So my question is where are all of the video blogging apps? Can anyone explain?