That’s great. But what next?

Well, now it’s important to accurately assess the performance of your blog; as page load times, the presence of an RSS feed, and other vital data can all make a difference when it comes to getting Google to index your hard work. And in truth, that’s why we’re all blogging. It’s for the audience. If you’re a tech-savvy person, you could discover all this data manually. But why dedicate more time and effort to a task than it’s worth, especially when there’s a service out there that’ll perform this same job faster, and for free.

How to get checking

Is My Blog Working is the web service in question, designed to provide you with server stats, markup, security and performance data for any blog you throw at it. As an example, here’s the data provided when you search for TechCritic.co.uk:

Report generated by IMBW

As you can see from the screenshot above, the report created by IMBW is divided into sections. The first section, dubbed ‘important stuff’, is incredibly useful for assessing your blog’s position in the Google search index, as here you can check for the presence of a robots.txt file and an RSS feed. Fortunately, if you’re blogging with WordPress, then this should already be taken care for you – but it’s important to check nonetheless.

Below this, you’ll find the technical details. Important stats here include the homepage download size – where smaller is better, search engine wise – and also the content ratio, where you’ll want a larger percentage if possible. This section is also useful if you’re attempting to discover what theme a rival blog is running. However, this feature will only work if the blog in question has installed the theme as standard, without modification. Also, some older themes simply cannot be discovered in this way.

To the right, you can see features supported by your blog and web host, and also a trio of further web apps (HTML verification, feed validation and HTTP header checks) that’ll test other aspects of your blog for you. Be warned, though, although these further reports are easy to read, the actions required to fix any potential problems raised by them may be complex.

At the very top of the report, you will also find the description of your website and a collection of keywords that you have used. This is particularly useful to ensure that you’re capturing the right audience through a Google search, and also to make sure that changes you’ve made to your WordPress blog have been reflected online.

IMBW also provides a bookmarklet which will allow you to quickly access the service by dragging any website to it. This could certainly come in useful if you begin to use the service regularly.

How to go compare

For further statistics about your blog, you could also look towards the Binary Canary service, which will allow you to compare the speed and size of your blog against larger websites; such as Google, or Wikipedia. You can also submit your own choice of website as a comparison.

Report generated by Binary Canary

Signing up for an account with Binary Canary will grant you access to a dashboard full of performance monitoring options. Opt for a free account and you will be able to monitor five websites at a fifteen minute frequency – more than enough for the average blogger.

How to get an answer

Finally, if you’re having difficulty connecting to your blog, but are unable to determine the cause, then you could try Down For Everyone Or Just Me instead. The premise of this service is simple, it’ll check the domain of your choosing to see whether it’s available. This service doesn’t offer stats, granted, but it’s still a useful tool to add to your blogging toolkit.

Updates are pushed in real-time, users can ping messages back and forth through the use of mentions (or @ replies, as they’re known) and Twitter even accommodates sensitive communication, through the use of direct messages.

It could be argued that Twitter is overly saturated with conversational tools, but Bonfire.IM would disagree.

A multi-browser web plugin, Bonfire.IM cleverly adds an instant messaging element to the Twitter service, as an alternative to direct messages. The IM service operates in a very similar fashion, requiring both users to be following one another, but once that’s out the way, Bonfire.IM closely resembles the Facebook Chat that we’ve grown to love.

If a mutually following Twitter user is online, they’ll show a green light next to their name. Clicking on said name will then initiate a conversation tab on the bottom of the browser, akin to the Facebook style, with no need to navigate away from the Twitter web page.

There’s no hiding the fact that Bonfire.IM closely resembles Facebook Chat, but Bonfire.IM’s Founder Josh Russell happily embraces this fact, even describing the service as “Facebook chat for Twitter”.

The introduction of this service will certainly help to eliminate some of the ‘chat clutter’ that affects the social network, evident when two people you follow are having a long-winded public conversation together through the use of @ mentions. This would be reliant on both individuals adopting the service, though.

There has also been much speculation about the value this service could provide for social networking accounts maintained by businesses, who could offer customer service support directly through Twitter; privately, and in real-time.

“We’re building Bonfire to service as many people as possible, and we have that in mind when considering every feature,” said Josh Russell.

The launch of Bonfire.IM comes at a time when Twitter are in the midst of rolling out their new ‘Activity Feed’ – a real-time update service that allows you to follow the actions of your fellow users, including a list of people that they’ve recently followed and any tweets that they’ve added to their favourite lists.

Again, this feature appears to be very similar (at first glance) to Facebook’s news feed. As such, Twitter, through corporate development and third-party plug-ins, looks set to tackle the social networking giant head on, in the war of functionality and features. As for how successful they’ll be, only time will tell.

Faerber and Oberdorster – the pair behind 4S is 4Steve

Apple fan or not, there’s no denying that Steve Jobs was an innovator when it came to technology. Described by many as a ‘visionary’, Jobs was largely responsible for the success of the Apple brand and the development of the multimedia tools that we take for granted today; the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPad and, of course, the iPhone.

In memory of the man, his vision, and to help promote the discovery of a cure for the pancreatic cancer that ultimately led to his death, a tribute website has been setup cleverly titled 4S is 4Steve.

Selling t-shirts embroidered with the ‘4S is 4Steve’ slogan, in a variety of colours, all proceeds are split between two relevant charities; firstly for the ongoing research, patient support and advocacy for a Cure for Pancreatic Cancer, and secondly to promote children’s education through exploration and discovery in the soon to be opened Golisano Children’s Museum of Naples, Florida.

Since its launch on the 14^th October, a day before the global release of the iPhone 4S, 4S is 4Steve has received much attention. And following demand, there are currently four t-shirt variations available for purchase, each also sporting a different quote from Jobs. Orders placed within the US cost $22 and international orders ring in at $30.

Amicably, 100% of the proceeds gained through the sale of t-shirts will be donated to charity, making 4S is 4Steve an entirely not-for-profit venture. And with “paying tribute and giving back” as the website motto, it’s easy to see why.

The pair behind the creation of the website, Shayne Faerber and George Oberdorster, are both iOS app developers. Faerber launched “Mall Maps” developed by MEDL Mobile back in 2009, whereas Oberdorster is the founder and CEO of UnstoppableApps.com and hopes to release his first app concept onto the store early next year. The issue of pancreatic cancer is also particularly relevant for Oberdorster, as his father was diagnosed with the same disease only five months ago.

The initial aim of the pair is to raise enough money to purchase eight iPad 2’s for the children’s museum, set to open in February 2012. After this, any further funds can be donated to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

In the world of technology arriving late doesn’t always matter, anyway. The important thing is that you get there in the end. However, for those of you yet to embrace Pokki with open arms, the clock is ticking.

You see, Pokki is essentially a Windows alternative to the proposed Mac OS AppStore, allowing you to install a bundle of useful applications (known as ‘Pokkies’) straight to your desktop, where they will reside next to the start icon. It’s essentially a bridge between a desktop application and a web app, and although this concept isn’t ‘fresh’ enough to fill you to bursting point with uncontrollable excitement, it’ll only take you a few hours of using Pokki before you begin to understand quite how it’ll re-jig your definition of productivity for the better.

The AppStore is small at the minute, granted, but there are already enough applications to provide access to your Twitter, Facebook, Email and RSS feeds, directly from the desktop. Although the majority of tech-savvy individuals will already have desktop variations for these essential social tools, having them all in one place, akin to Pokki, is far more appealing than running multiple applications in the background. Pokki also supports push notifications as default, which will help you to stay in the loop 24/7.

It’s not just the functionality provided by this application suite that’s appealing, though. There’s also something to be said for the remarkable ease of use. Applications can be installed or removed with a single click, and finding new apps to play with is never a problem, thanks to the in-built catalogue, with new applications added all the time. Pokki is rather intelligent, too, and your chosen desktop clients will automatically update themselves – presenting a push notification with the update details upon completion.

Regarding push notifications, Pokki also utilises a number system, so that you can easily tell, at a glance, how many emails, tweets or feeds you have yet to read and respond to. And again, as all of these tools are available in one single location, next to your start menu, Pokki provides considerable ease of use when compared to running a separate desktop client for Twitter, Email and Facebook.

The interface is incredibly responsive, and rather attractive, with all applications built using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. Maximising and minimising applications is a quick, easy affair and there’s minimal delay, even of the oldest of computer hardware. Evidently, the use of Pokki requires a persistent internet connection, not only to download new applications from the internet, but also to receive push notifications for incoming messages, which could certainly be seen as the only, albeit rather small, flaw.

With Twitter, Facebook and Email tied to your desktop, in a slick and efficient manner, there’s no doubt that you’ll increase in productivity where managing these websites is concerned. The majority of tasks can be performed within the mini web-apps themselves, but should you encounter a situation that requires access to the full-blown website, such as viewing a Facebook group, then Pokki will automatically launch the required page in your default browser. Simples.

Amongst communication tools, Pokki also provides access to shopping portals such as Living Social, music services through GrooveShark and even small games to help you relax during your downtime, in the shape of Infinite Mario.

At present, Pokki looks well on the way to becoming a fully fledged essential desktop service. And with a constant stream of new applications launching frequently, it won’t be long until Pokki improves upon the already extensive list of tools to help improve productivity and communication tenfold.

Thankfully, there’s an abundance of data recovery software floating about the internet, with Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery falling gracefully into this category. Unlike its competitors, this software suite doesn’t offer a comprehensive recovery package – instead it focuses, rather heavily, as the name suggests, on the recovery of photos, with limited support for music and video files, too.

Fortunately, considering this limited design, Stellar Phoenix performs its primary function very well. This application performs a very deep scan, capable of dredging up a wide range of lost photos spanning back years, and is even capable of recovering files after partitioning, or wiping the drive by traditional means. It’s not clever enough to avoid all those windows sound files, Facebook profile images and other tid-bits of useless information that clutter an aging hard drive though, resulting in lengthy scans that produce largely unnecessary results.

The scanning functionality is deep, granted, but it’s flawed in that you’re presented with very few options to hasten the process, and the few options that are available are highly confusing. In this respect, Stellar Phoenix is very much set it and forget it software, as the average user will be unable to customise the scan to a degree that will substantially reduce the long scan length. Evidently your mileage will vary, but I experienced a two-hour scan time to pick-up 500MB of data from a barely used drive partition – far from ideal.

Although you cannot customise the scan itself very easily, you can “pause” the process at any time, saving the current progress to a data-file so that you may return to the scan at a later date. It’s a nice touch, but it almost seems like an admission of defeat: as if the development team recognised that the scanning process took too long, but instead of attempting to fix it, they created a semi-useful workaround instead.

That said, Stellar Phoenix is powerful enough to avoid recovery pitfalls that similar programs fall into. A common complaint amongst users of such data recovery software is that the software only recovers part of the data. Although I didn’t extensively test this application for this purpose, it was able to recover the test file in its entirety, each and every time: a big plus. Sadly, the file name isn’t preserved, it’s replaced by a sector number instead, but this is an acceptable and somewhat common flaw.

Visually, Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is largely in keeping with the Windows user interface and, although simply constructed, it’s quite intuitive to use. Images are crisp, navigation is straight-forward and the actual process of data recovery is clearly labelled. There’s a relatively unsightly shopping cart icon that sits in the top right of the window, though, which links to the program’s purchase page, and unfortunately remains visible even after activating the program – a niggling annoyance.

However, much more could have been offered visually with this application. Despite looking initially rather appealing, Stella Phoenix is bland in comparison to its Mac-based alternative (screenshot right) made available by the same company. This Mac alternative is evidently Stellar Phoenix’s signature software, where the majority of their time and effort is invested.

Stellar Phoenix also offers disappointment through its written instructions, which are delivered in far-from-perfect English. This poses a significant problem when considering the help file, as it’s exceedingly difficult to try to understand, and quite often doesn’t make any sense at all. As already suggested, the program is rather straight-forward to use, and so this isn’t a particularly pressing issue, however users who encounter problems with the software will be forced to search online for the remedy, as the fairly confusing help file offers little in the way of support.

All dodgy translations and bland presentation aside though, Stellar Phoenix is on par with, if not better than, the competition, when it comes to the mechanical process of data recovery. The delivery is a little hit-and-miss, you’ll have to be a little patient, as the lengthy scanning procedure leaves much to be desired, and it’s not as visually appealing as it could be, yet the end result is still notably impressive, considering the relatively cheap purchase cost (£24.20, at the current USD-to-GBP conversion rate).

Score – 6.5/10

Those who follow MEDL Mobile developments may recognise an application called Problem Halved, which featured in the Coventry Telegraph last year, as a direct result of Rob’s substantial success marketing it. The story was also aided by the considerable human interest element: Rob’s progression to a full-time, paid role, with MEDL Mobile, allowing him to leave his bin-man days behind him.

Following the initial interview with the Coventry Telegraph, the original story, over a year ago, was picked up by national news, and before long soon spread overseas. And given the considerable buzz surrounding the experiment already; it’s quite likely that Rob will experience the same press coverage for a second time round.

Again, this harps back to something that I mentioned previously, regarding the importance of marketing, and a unique concept, when attempting anything new. Rob is certainly not the first person to have camped outside the Apple Store prior to the launch of an iPhone, and he most definitely won’t be the last, but I’m willing to bet that he’ll be the most memorable.

His experiment is really beginning to pick up pace, too. I spoke to him briefly, and he informed me that he has now secured live bands to come and perform, more food than he could possibly eat, and also a handful of t-shirts to wear during his stay.

His new website is due to launch by the end of the week, which will provide an increasingly important public-facing aspect to his experiment. It’ll also include full details of how people can get involved. Given the rate at which this PR experiment is morphing into a PR extravaganza, it’s likely that Rob will need a couple of dedicated volunteers to help him out – an ideal role for students, and one that’ll pad out that CV.

As for the man himself, accommodation is sorted in the form a tent; he’s clothed, fed and watered too, now Rob just needs a little help to keep him online during his stay. When I spoke to him, he informed me that he’s focusing his efforts on sourcing pre-paid data cards, so that he can access the 3G network, and also some form of solar charging system, to keep him and his gadgets powered-up for the duration of his London visit.

Rob is hoping to generate a considerable buzz whilst in London through popular social networking portals, Facebook and Twitter, and he also intends to live stream the event through UStream. As a result, a constant supply of electricity is vastly important.

The iPhone 5 marketing experiment is now so large, and so very widely known, that companies are contacting Rob (not the other way around!) offering their support. And given the substantial interest in his activities, and the remarkable pull of Apple’s products, I reckon that it won’t be too long before Rob has everything that he needs.

Of course, the real beneficiaries of today’s press coverage are the companies that have donated to the cause. Each company is mentioned on Rob’s blog, which, thanks to the power of the internet, is certain to be viewed by thousands after today – providing priceless exposure and advertising. And, of course, this is only the beginning.

Rob’s not even in London yet, and with the launch of the iPhone 5 predicted for September, one cannot even begin to imagine how large this experiment will be by then.

I’m sure most of you are aware of Rob’s iPhone 5 experiment by now, but for those who aren’t: Rob is planning to travel down to London and camp outside the Covent Garden Apple Store, prior to the launch of the iPhone 5. In doing so, part of the challenge is that he cannot spend a single penny, meaning that he is reliant on donations from various companies to provide him with food, warmth and shelter.

Of course, no sensible company director would provide goods or services for free without benefitting themselves, and thus Rob has a deal breaker. He’s spent a great deal of time promoting the event, to the stage where it has received modest press coverage and broad recognition across the internet. Now Rob has something very valuable to offer – exposure.

Companies who contribute to Rob’s cause feature on his blog (which is soon to be redesigned, thanks to the donation of a brand new website!) and will receive constant promotion throughout the event. And with the substantial buzz that’s surrounding this venture, it’s almost certain that the national press will pick up on it once Rob makes it to London – he’s just waiting on the launch date.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Rob has already received a plethora of donations, varying from food and drink to be delivered to his tent, to a Chevrolet Captiva 4×4 to transport him from Coventry to London. Rather than stopping there, though, Rob has continued to expand the experiment, and has introduced his second competitive edge: Gnomes.

As bizarre as it sounds, it’s actually quite a good idea. Rob has been able to source a dozen garden gnomes from The Glow Company, each of which he has assigned a style, internet presence and a clever moniker.

The first of these is ‘Mr Boink Gnome’, which is modelled on an existing MEDL Mobile application, Boink. With the aid of some clever marketing, Rob plans for these Gnomes to travel the country on request, in the hope that those who borrow them will take photographs with the gnomes, and promote them online by uploading the photos to Facebook.

It’s a stunning clever concept, and if it works – which it inevitably will, due to Rob’s sheer determination if nothing else – it will generate a great deal of publicity for both his cause, and also his company.

In the world of digital marketing, the emphasis really is on separating yourself from the heavily saturated, over-crowded field of competition. Rob’s efforts just go to show that, with a little clever advertising and a unique concept, even the seemingly impossible is achievable.

The database search system that Daniel Grzelak introduced

With the spate of recent hacking attempts making the news, it’s difficult to know whether your accounts have been compromised.

Thankfully, many organised hacking groups, such as LulzSec or Anonymous, release their ill-gotten account information online. This is a legal grey area, though, and as such it’s best not to download it yourself – especially as there’s another way.

An Australian info security technologist, Daniel Grzelak, has collated the leaked account information and uploaded it to a server, combining it with a database search function. Users who navigate to his website – http://www.shouldichangemypassword.com/ – will be able to input their email address, and quickly check it against the list of compromised accounts that have been made available.

More than 800,000 records feature on the website, providing a pretty accurate reading. However, as expected, the website is only able to check your details against those accounts publicly compromised, and thus more recent hacking attempts (that LulzSec have denied: such as Travelodge) are not included.

“I wanted to give them [friends and family] A, an easy way to check if they were affected and B, some simple advice on what to do if they were.” said Grzelak, but he was also keen to point out that the system wasn’t 100% accurate. A green ‘safe’ reading from the database doesn’t guarantee a clean bill of health, and users should, ideally, return to check their accounts after each new security breach.

Grzelak intends to update his site as and when more databases are leaked. He’s also announced that he is working on a simple mechanism to check whether company e-mail accounts have been affected, and an alert-system to warn potential victims as soon as their accounts are compromised.

But it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. Of course, theft is a big issue, and $500,000 is a lot of money, but Bitcoins are not your traditional form of legal tender.

The peer-to-peer currency operates without the use of banks, meaning transactions move between users without a middle-man. This has numerous benefits, such as low transaction fees and the fact that you’ll always be in charge of your wealth, as there’s no centralised bank – just an ‘accounts’ file on your PC.

Yet herein lies the first issue. At present, your BitCoin account file (dubbed ‘wallet.dat’) isn’t encrypted. You could go to the effort of encrypting it yourself, but many won’t bother, or know how to do so.

It’s for this reason that Bitcoins graced the news this week, because the unfortunate user who lost $500,000 worth of the currency was hacked by a knowledgeable individual, and one who targeted this file specifically. With little in the way of encryption, and evidently no user attempt to protect the crucial data file, you could argue that this theft was inevitable.

Investing in Bitcoins - Any different to burning your money?

The second issue associated with Bitcoins is that it’s a fiat currency – it only possesses a value because people, worldwide, believe Bitcoins to have purchasing power.

While the pound coin or the five-pound note have recognised worth, and precious metals such as gold or silver equally hold their weight, how can a virtual currency – particularly one that’s not controlled by a central organisation – hold a value?

It would be foolish not to recognise that Sterling, alongside most major worldwide currencies, must have begun as a fiat currency, yet due to the centralised value held in banks, it’s not quite the same as the humble BitCoin. Furthermore, most major currencies are material, whereas Bitcoins are entirely virtual. You won’t be able shop using a 20-bitcoin note, because no such physical form of the currency is ever likely to exist.

This appropriately leads us to the third potential flaw: although the 25,000 Bitcoins that were stolen may have a technical retail value of $500,000, who’s going to pay such a vast sum of money for a figure on a screen, particularly when there’s a very large risk of theft, highlighted by the news coverage this week.

The decentralised nature of the BitCoin concept is also partly responsible for these three large flaws. Without a middle-man through which to process transfers, transactions that utilise Bitcoins are truly anonymous; i.e. there’s next to no chance of catching the guy who did steal the $500,000. Of course, this is part of the design concept, and so Bitcoins are not entirely to blame. The system operates as intended. However, you can’t help but feel that this is a hefty design flaw in a system where the potential for theft is rife.

A decentralised currency is also likely to be a hotbed for illegal transactions, assuming the fiat currency becomes large enough, and respected enough, to warrant sizable financial investment. This may happen eventually, then, by design, as it’s only until 2040 that you can farm Bitcoins for free in a similar style to folding@home. And so, presumably, once the ability to literally ‘grow your own money’ dissipates, the virtual currency will begin to hold more value.

Assuming the currency is still in use by this point, it may become a globally recognised alternative. Unfortunately, the pitfalls are likely to remain.

Even for technophiles – not unused to looking behind the headline hype – the results of Ofcom’s latest mobile broadband speed tests earlier this week were a lesson in pinch-of-salt-taking.

At first glance the findings, from 4.2 million mobile broadband tests across the UK, were depressing, if not particularly surprising.

On second glance, they were a bit worse.

In Ofcom’s largest-scale study to date, O2 posted the highest average speed, between 2.5 and 3Mb, confirming anecdotal evidence (i.e. they’re the mobile operator that we hear least complaints about from our site users) that the provider is top dog when it comes to mobile data.

But that headline figure – still slow considering most providers advertise ‘up to’ speeds of 3.6 or 7.2Mb – is from research specifically conducted in areas with decent 3G signal across all five providers.

In the portion of the communications regulator’s research which measured actual speeds experienced by users, the average speed was 1.5Mb or about 8.5 seconds to download a page. And Ofcom’s test used basic webpages (html with no pictures) so we can safely assume that doing anything more taxing would result in considerably slower experienced speeds. Unfortunately, unlike the large-scale fibre infrastructure plans promised by successive Governments, there seems to be no clear plan for upgrading our spectrum capacity.

At a conference in London a few months ago, the head of the 3 network – not usually ones to play down the importance of 3G – remarked that in five years he expected minimum speeds to be as low as 2Mb and the top speeds in urban areas to be more like 10Mb. Given the fuss mobile broadband operators made about their ability to deliver 7.2Mb speeds just a few years ago, it’s hard not to feel that the industry is slowly lowering expectations.

And if you like technology as, since you’re reading this, seems like a safe bet, lowered expectations are a problem. Just 7% of households use mobile broadband as their sole way of getting online but home connections aren’t really the point. Chances are you own, or have owned at some point, a smartphone or 3G-enabled laptop, netbook or tablet – products which can all be improved immeasurably, transformed even, with decent mobile broadband.

The explosion in apps in the past twelve months is also a good example. Many, made for on-the-go use, are already useless without decent 3G and, if the UK falls behind on this in the next few years, that problem is only going to get worse. Sorry.