To circumvent a congress unlikely to pass the measure without public scrutiny President Obama signed an “executive agreement” which basically gives the President the ability to sign the treaty (by not calling it a treaty) while limiting the ability of the agreement to bind congress.

Currently circulating petitions in the meantime point out that executives agreements are only covered by things that fall solely under the President’s mandate, therefore an executive agreement that impacts the ability of Congress controlled items would be unconstitutional. Because intellectual property is protected under Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution along with Congresses responsibility to control such issue it would be an issue for Congress to discuss and pass or reject and not the President.

In the meantime the petition filed on the WhiteHouse.gov petition website has grown to more than 1000 people at this time while various other petitions have also circulated around the internet with thousands of signatures while asking that ACTA be stopped in the United States and in other countries where it has already or will soon be enacted. 

In case you’re not familiar with ACTA here are a few of the main points of the treaty (see if SOPA and PIPA shine through to you):

” * * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn’t infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* * That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)”

The White House has been slow to respond over criticism to the President’s handling of ACTA while protests have broken out in Polan as the country prepared to sign the bill at a meeting in Tokyo.

Do you think ACTA is just as bad as SOPA and PIPA?

One of the biggest rumors to surface is the fact that the device will likely see updated cameras, offering a better front facing camera for Face Time and a possible Sony created 8MP backside camera for crisp picture taking.

Apple is also expected to update their next generation of phone to feature a better antenna which will fix “death grip” problems that were experienced on the iPhone 4. Accessory maker Ideal Case actually posted a photo of the new antenna which they say will be used on the iPhone 4S/iPhone 5 based devices.

Digitimes has also revealed that the device will likely keep the same 3.5″ display size as it’s predecessors, however there is a chance that the phone may increase the display size to 3.7 inches.

Along with the chance for a bigger screen size is the possibility that the device may be slightly longer, wider and thinner, that information comes from various online vendors who began showcasing and even selling ‘iPhone 5 cases’ in early August leading to speculation that slight size changes were on the horizon.

UK carrier Vodafone has made it clear to their customers that one aspect will likely not change on iPhone 5 devices, the company listed the new iPhone 5 devices on their website with 16GB and 32GB variants, the same memory options currently available to iPhone 4 buyers. Another rumor says 512MB RAM will still be used on the newest device in the Apple series of Smartphones.

Aside from updated hardware the device is also expected to take on more carrier support, specifically in the United States where T-Mobile will receive a variant of the device that operates on their 1700MHz AWS 3G spectrum. A leaked memo from T-Mobile executives says the device unfortunately will not arrive at the carrier in 2011.

Also expected to receive the iPhone 5 is Sprint Wireless and the rumor which originated at Bloomberg predicts that customers will be able to buy an unlimited data plan for their iPhone 5.

With less than two weeks before the iPhone 5 debuts all we can do at this time is take the word of parts suppliers and carriers, in the meantime all will be revealed on Oct. 4 when Apple will officially announce the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S Smartphones.

Recipe Finder Logo

One look at the Recipe Finder home page, and one cannot deny that it has something that catches the eye.

Recipe Finder Home Page

For those who have been in the game for a while and may need a little more customization, Recipe Finder does not fail to disappoint. The Advanced Search option is brilliant, in that it offers parameters that will make your search more specific.

Recipe Finder Advanced Search

One thing I like is the option to change the view of your search results. The default is to view the results in text format. After all, you want to read the recipe so that you can determine if you want to make it or not. Then again, when looking for new things to try out, I also like seeing how the finished product will look (or at least, is supposed to look). That’s where the image view comes in really handy. Compare these two views for a search for “chocolate cake”, and tell me which is better.

Chocolate Cake Search - Text

Chocolate Cake Search - Images

Do your friends think you’re a little bit of an organizing freak? Then you’ll love the Menu and Calendar features of Recipe Finder, which allow you to plan what you’re going to cook days – even weeks – in advance. Our team at The Blog Herald covered the launch of Recipe Finder, where you can see more tips about these features.

Before I totally forget, Recipe Finder also has its own blog, where users can find even more ideas on what to prepare – whether for special occasions or a simple everyday meal. The blog also features cool food holidays and trivia which any foodie will enjoy.

Our own Jonathan Bailey, author of BloggingPro’s Blogging Pitfalls column, founder of Plagiarism Today and CEO of Copybyte, explains how we generally deal with plagiarism and content theft at Splashpress Media in a new entry on Jack of All Blogs.

The surprise for many is probably that in most cases we do not react at all, instead we have found a new way to turn MFA and content scraping sites into free advertising. Check Jonathan’s entry out over at JOAB.

You can view the complete infographic, with an analysis of the most popular newcomers in 2010, here at Daily Bits: The Visual Bible to Daily Deals Sites, What They Are and How They Work.

For a long time the search function of WordPress has been the achilles heel of the publication platform and numerous plugins extending the WordPress search have been created and uploaded to WordPress Extend.

The team of IOIX Ukraine have developed a new WordPress plugin, SearchPlugins in collaboration with Splashpress Media, owner of this blog, to power the search function of your site, WordPress blog. After months of hard work we now are taking applications to our (closed) Beta program and will slowly roll out the new plugin, while we add more features to the functionality.

We are now taking applications to join the closed beta program and will on a regular basis add new Beta testers to the platform

To view results of the plugin just use the search functionality here at BloggingPro or check out the results for a search for blogging success here at BP.

How Does It Work?

Search Plugin by IOIX Ukraine can replace the WordPress standard search functionality with only one click. After activation of the plugin, you must enter your API key, which grants you access to the use of the proprietary search engine, and can then configure the plugin to replace the WordPress search functionality without having to make any design changes.

Once configured the search engine crawler will crawl the content of the sites you wish to include to your search results: you can add sites with use of the plugin or you can add sites you like to add related niche results. Best results are obtained if you install the plugin on all sites you wish to include in your search results.

Why Opt for Search Plugin by IOIX Ukraine?

Contrarily to most plugins, this search plugin is powered by an external, new search engine, with own algorithm, all while offering easy and seamless integration with your WordPress design. All you need to do is install the plugin, activate it and enter your API key.
In the plugin settings you can then replace the standard WordPress search with Search Plugin by IOIX Ukraine. You can even configure the plugin to automatically update whenever a new version is released.

Another main feature is that you can easily add several, owned or not owned, sites to the plugin’s search functionality, similarly to Google’s Custom Search Engine. Additionally you have the option to design the complete results page within the plugins settings and add your own (Adsense) ads or other content to the search results. Enjoy complete theming freedom

Complete Control of Search Results Display

While the search results will fall back on the main CSS rules of your theme you can also easily insert new CSS rules for the display of the search results and even control what elements are displayed. As can be seen in the screenshot from our example search for blogging success, you can opt to display the originating site, publication date and article author in the results and you can style everything easily thanks to the freedom and power of CSS.

Some Background Information

Upon installation of the plugin, a new page with links to all your published entries is created just for the ASM search engine crawlers. This allows us to restrict the search on every site you have installed the plugin to only the entries published and in a future version we can add several new elements to the plugin which could influence the way results are displayed/sorted. If the plugin is not installed on a site listed in your member area, the crawlers will index these sites the traditional way and follow every link they find.

Who is the Plugin Aimed At?

Although the plugin can be installed on every WordPress site, the plugin is mainly aimed at owners of several sites or publications, networks. With the plugin it becomes very simple to display results from several sites as you can see here in the search results on BloggingPro: a search for blogging books returns results from BloggingPro, The Blog Herald, Performancing and BusinessLogs.

Future Plans, Features

While we have only entered the closed Beta program and are aware that we still have to sort out several minor issues and make some tweaks, we would love to hear from you what features you would love to see from a search plugin for WordPress based sites.

Oops! We could not locate your form.

Join The Beta Program

You can read more about the Beta announcement at the Search Plugin blog.

Visit the Search Plugin by IOIX Ukraine website to sign up and join the Beta program.

Here at The Blog Herald we wondered How did Twitter grow that much? and Where do those Tweets come from?

The results are rather surprising and we learned that the top three tweeting cities in the US (Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco) averagely tweet less in one minute than when basketball fans and football/soccer fans go crazy and start updating the world in 140 characters maximum.

To see the complete infographic, you’ll have to head over to The Blog Herald: The Meteoric Rise of Twitter. Here’s a teaser already.

Apparently the US government thinks bloggers are becoming a public hazard, and like a few other industries (i.e. airplanes, banks and nuclear power plants) need to be regulated by the government (in this case the Federal Election Commission).

The Obama administration has announced plans to regulate the Internet through the Federal Communications Commission, extending its authority over broadband providers to police web traffic, enforcing “net neutrality.”

Zuckerberg claims that by the end of today, users will serve over 1 billion likes across the world wide web, making the Facebook like button a “must have” social button for serious bloggers.

To my surprise Facebook chose to launch this new feature upon Typepad, all the while ignoring one of the world’s most popular blogging platform, WordPress.

Of course it didn’t take long before the WordPress.org community it’s Facebook Like button received in the form of a plugin by Noah Fleming.

In our continuing effort to offer more to our readers, I am happy to announce the addition of the BloggingPro Job Board to the site.

Free Blogger Job Listings

Jobs can be added in three different categories: blogger jobs, blog designers needed and developers needed.

Free as in Beer

Jobs can be added in three different ways:

1. Free Listing: Your job will be listed for 15 days after approval. Free
2. 30 Days Listing: For those who want their job listed longer, without needing to refresh their listing. $10
3. Featured Listing: The posted job is highlighted for 30 days and will additionally be listed in a weekly ‘Featured Blogger Jobs’ entry on the BloggingPro blog, with more than 20,000 subscribers. The four most recent featured job listings will also be shown on the BloggingPro homepage. $25 only

Stay Updated

All listings are manually approved by our team and will after approval be announced via the BloggingPro Twitter account.

Beta

What would a new feature be without compulsory Beta tag? That’s right, although entirely functional already, there still are some minor issues in the submission process. When previewing the job you want to submit, the job title and ‘How to Apply’ text are not shown. But we are on the job.

What’s a Beta without errors?

If you’re looking for a blogging job or need a blogger, coder or designer visit the BloggingPro Job Board.

Photo Credit: Pucki loves Sushi.

The app was built by Mobelux, the same company who created the official Tumblr iPhone app (which was previously known as Tumblrette).

Just like its iSibling, the Blackberry Tumblr app can upload images, text and audio, as well as video too (which might explain why Tumblr increased the video size for Tumblr fans everywhere).

Tumblr has yet to be listed upon Blackberry App World (as a quick search reveals), although “BB fans” can download the app over here.

While it’s great to see Tumblr embracing both the iPhone and Blackberry platforms, hopefully they will consider launching an Android app soon (as the only decent app available is Tumblroid, which will leave one $1.55 poorer).

Android lovers rejoice! It looks as if WordPress is finally launching an app for Google’s Android OS, after creating apps for both the iPhone and Blackberry (the latter which has video support! iJealous!).

WordPress has created a special blog at the subdomain Android.wordpress.org (note: they have done something similar with the iPhone and Blackberry), which may hint at a future app coming upon Google’s mobile platform.

While the company has yet to unveil what features the new Android app will contain feature wise, I assume its release is being timed with Google’s launch of Nexus One (which is rumored to be launching on January 5th).

Whether it will be worthy to compare against its iRival and Blackberry buddy, only time tell. However, its entrance upon the Android OS may help inspire Six Apart and *cough* Blogger *cough* to finally enter the world of green robots.