Friedbeef’s Tech

Blogperfume has recently released an excellent tool for analyzing your feedburner statistics.  Taking basic feedburner stats, it churns out excellent reports which help you understand your blog and its subscribers better.

How is your subscriber growth progressing?

This metric helps to determine how you are progressing in gaining subscribers.  This is one useful way to look at your past content to perhaps see what works - and what doesn’t for your subscribers and adjust your blog accordingly.   

Also, once it sizes up your incremental readers, it can quantify expected growth after certain a timeframe.

How involved are your readers?

Just because someone subscribes to your feed, it doesn’t mean they are reading.  Here, you can track a whole slew of other metrics like views, hits, and clicks so you know what your subscribers are actually doing.

Which days do subscribers visit your blog?

This is important simply because you want your best content to be on the blog on the busiest day of the week - hence benefiting the most people. 

Bonus tip: You can analyze someone else’s feed as well!  Makes an excellent complement to the Netvibes widget we previously discussed which could easily track other people’s feeds.

Check out: Blogperfume’s cool new tool

What feedburner tips do you have?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] stats, rss [/tags]

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This ain’t the only blog in town. 

I’ve decided that I should make it a point to highlight useful posts other people have done, which are in line with this blog’s objective of solving everyday problems with simple technology.  This week’s theme: Useful Firefox tips - Enjoy!

Best Ways to Read RSS Feeds in Firefox

Feed Sidebar - The Feed Sidebar is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser that displays the new items from your Live Bookmarks in the sidebar. It works well - as long as you don’t have many feeds to get through.

Like this tip?  Read the full list at: RSS Bootcamp with Sargeant Firefox via Firefox Facts

How to make your Firefox browser looks bigger without breaking the bank on a new monitor

FullerScreen is a Firefox plugin than enhances full screen mode by hiding the toolbars and statusbars. All the toolbars will be in auto-hide mode and you can make it appear again by moving your mouse to the edge of the screen.

Like this tip?  Read the full list at: 4 Simple Tips for Bigger Mozilla Firefox Screen via TechMalaya

How to download videos from YouTube with Firefox

DownloadHelper is a Firefox extension offers and easy and alternative way to download your favourite videos from sites like MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, YouTube etc. It also extracts audio and picture galleries.

Like this tip?  Read the full review at Firefox extension - DownloadHelper via Kabotology

What other interesting Firefox tips do you have?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] firefox, monitor, youtube, rss [/tags]

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April Gilford asked me an interesting question recently:

“…I need a high-security password management program, preferably free.  What can you suggest?  My log-ins and passwords are getting out of hand as my online presence increases.  I need something to keep them organized but secure…”

If you’re in the same boat - here are 4 different ways you can go about it:

1. Use master passwords

Instead of using different passwords for different sites, try simplifying the process.  Try using…

• One password only for sites which need maximum security (e.g. email).  Keep the number of sites on this password to a bare minimum so you can change passwords easily.
• One password for sites I think can trust (e.g. Digg.com)
• One password for sites I don’t really know much about

…When in doubt - use the less secure one.  This layered system helps ensure that if any password leaks occur - it should be properly contained. 

2. Lock up your passwords with KeePass

KeePass is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database.

What I like about it is that it’s lightweight, portable (can be put on a thumbdrive), and extensible (look for the plugins on the KeePass homepage to get more features).

3. Generate and store hashed passwords with Firefox Password Hasher

Password Hasher is a Firefox security extension for generating site-specific strong passwords from a master key and a site specific keyword. 

Here’s the concept:

Let’s say for example your master password is “readfriedbeef”, and the site in hand is digg.com

With those two parameters - Password Hasher will generate a complex hashed password e.g. “dmZ3)nkU” , which you can use (and store on your PC).  Given the same master password and site, Hashapass will always give you the same result. That’s so you don’t have to store your generated passwords anywhere.

The advantage is that it’s incredibly secure, but the drawback is that it works best only if you use a machine with the Password Hasher extension installed or you will probably never be able to remember your complex hashed password.

You can however attempt a workaround by carrying a portable version of Firefox with you with the Password Hasher extension installed or use the online version.

Firefox browsers only of course - Internet Explorer users, please feel free to upgrade :)

4. Export your Saved Firefox Passwords for Easy Reference

Password Exporter is a Firefox extension allows you to export and import your saved passwords and rejected sites between computers. Your passwords will be exported to an XML or CSV file and can be encrypted if you want.

You can then use this as a reference guide stored on your computer. 

Bonus tip: These passwords were listed by PC Magazine in May 2007 as the most commonly used passwords around:

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)

Don’t use them :) 

What password tips do you have?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] security, tips [/tags]

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