Daily Bits

WordPress for iPhone 2.3 Now Supports Geotagging for WordPress.com Blogs

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WordPress has just released version 2.3 of its mobile application for iPhone. Biggest new feature is geotagging support for WordPress.com hosted blogs via a very intuitive interface. This means that you can now add geographic location to each and every post that you are going to publish on your WordPress.com blog.

Unfortunately for self-hosted WordPress blog, the feature is not activated yet. But you can still geotag your posts and it will be saved, possibly for display later on when a plugin to provide geotagging display is enabled for self-hosted WordPress blogs.

In addition to geotagging feature, the new WordPress for iPhone app also comes with a couple of improvements on user interface.  The bug on “more” tag was fixed and it now allows you to load more posts and pages in excess of the default number  of posts allowed as specified in your blog settings.

Incidentally, the WordPress for iPhone folks are excited to report that in only months since they have released the app, it now has 250,000 download, up from the mere 20,000 downloads it got in November 2009. Quite an achievement indeed, although if only all of the WordPress.com bloggers have their iPhone and iPod Touch and will do mobile blogging, then that number would shoot up some more.

Anyway, the new WordPress for iPhone app version 2.3 was supposed to be available here. But I have no luck in finding it from both my country’s Apps Store nor at the U.S. App Store. Did you get it?

GoDaddy Will Stop Selling .CN Domains

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Looks like Google has gained an unexpected ally with its China boycott. Domain name registration and web hosting company GoDaddy.com has announced that it will  stop selling .CN domains.

According to the GoDaddy announcement, courtesy of the Search Engine Journal:

“We didn’t want to act as an agent of the Chinese government,” Jones said. “We can’t let them be strong and us be weak all the time. We just have to stop it, and then we’ll start offering .CN domain names again,” said Christine Jones, general counsel for Go Daddy.

This is in response to Chinese policies requiring every website owner to submit photographs, business information and individually signed forms including their physical address, email address and telephone numbers when registering a new .CN domain. These data will be forwarded to the China Internet Information Center (CNNIC), a quasi-governmental agency. GoDaddy does not usually require this information from its billions of domain registrants asking only name, address, telephone number and e-mail address before they register a domain.

According to Ms. Jones,   China was the first government to retroactively seek additional verification and documentation of registrants.  The Chinese government is implementing those policies to stop individual Chinese owned websites from getting attacked by spam.

Interestingly, Jones said that while Chinese domain name have been recently attacked most frequently, those sites however are mostly those “deemed not appropriate” for Beijing. Particularly sites containing information about  the Tiananmen Square uprising or human rights.

It would be interesting to see how this issue will unfold in the coming days. Will China feel the pressure from Google, GoDaddy and perhaps other Internet players and relax their internet policy a bit?

Facebook Tightens Policy on Photo Tagging, Feed Sharing

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In a possible move to contain the growing complaints of members who consistently receive unwanted photo tagging notices and news feeds that they are receiving, Facebook is updating its policies on these features.

First, the new policy on policy tagging states – “You can tag a photo only with the express consent of the user on whose behalf you are doing the tagging, and must only tag images when the tag accurately labels what is depicted in the image.”

In short, you can no longer tag your friends and other Facebook members on photo collages, avatars and other images which are being used for marketing purposes, just to get their attention and hope that they clicked on your campaign materials.

On news feed publishing, the new Facebook policy states – “You must not publish a Feed story unless a user has explicitly indicated an intention to share that content, by clicking a button or checking a box that clearly explains their content will be shared.”

This policy aims to put a stop on reports that some apps are forcing their Facebook members to extend permissions to publish news feeds on their walls. This will give other application developers a good chance at getting more followers and users the legit way – that is because they’ve gained the Facebook members’ trust.

And finally, you can no longer publish the same Feed story to more than one friend’s Wall at a time. This is to avoid spamming of Facebook members stream with feed stories that do not interest them.

Facebook will enforce punishments and suspensions of account on a case to case basis if anybody is proven guilty of violating these policies.

So there, hope these new policies help reduce the noise level in your Facebook content streams.

Skype Mobile for Verizon Goes Out on Thursday

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If you’re a Verizon Wireless customer using a smartphone under any Verizon data plan, you’d be glad to know that come Thursday, Skype Mobile will be available for download to your Verizon phones.  Of course, if you’ve been using Skype since ages ago, you’d know that this mobile app will allow you to get in touch with friends, family and colleagues all over the world.

Skype Mobile will let you make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to practically anyone else who are also using Skype.  It will also let you send and receive unlimited instant messages with other Skype users, and call international phone numbers at cheap rates.

So, if you’ve got any of the following Verizon smartphones:

  • BlackBerry Storm 9530,
  • Storm2 9550,
  • Curve 8330, Curve 8530,
  • 8830 World Edition
  • Tour 9630 smartphones,
  • DROID by Motorola
  • DROID ERIS by HTC
  • Motorola DEVOUR

then prepare your smartphones now to download Skype Mobile on Thursday.

Skype Mobile works on Verizon Wireless’ voice network for wireless connection during Skype-to-Skype calls.  When making international calls, Skype Credits are required. But for domestic Skype-to-Skype calls are free of charge and will not affect your monthly minute allowance and data plan.

To get the download link for the app, text SKYPE to 2255 on Thursday.

Digg Unloads Widget, Buttons Generator and Soon an iPhone App

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As if telling us that they are still up and running, the folks at Digg has been sending out noisemakers one after another.  Digg has just released the buttons and widget generators while a native iPhone app is in the pipeline.

The New Digg iPhone Application

The new Digg native iPhone app is not yet announced but Mashable was able to obtain some insider info as well as screenshots to prove that the Digg iPhone app is indeed in the works.  The app would support browsing of popular, upcoming and recent stories across all topics in Digg.com. It will also let you Digg and bury stories right within the app. Plus an option to navigate through comments and related stories. The Digg iPhone app is slated for release anytime now in the Apps Store.

Digg Buttons and Widget Generators

The new Digg buttons and widget generators on the other are now both available. What these online tools allow you to do is to create and customize Digg buttons that you can incorporate to your blogs/sites seamlessly.  Digg is releasing these online tools in preparation for the launch of the redesigned Digg.

But aside from letting you create Digg buttons easily, the buttons that you will create and incorporate in your websites now boasts of  new features such as dynamic display of live Digg count, faster load time, customizable look and feel and more.

The Digg widgets also gets some other new features including more customization options, tabs and columns, thumbnails, fallback content and more.

You can try creating your Digg buttons here, or the Digg Widgets here.

Dropbox App Coming Soon to Android Phones

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Among the cloud storage services I’ve tried, I stuck with Dropbox for its superb storage solution. I used Dropbox to synchronize my files from my online, desktop and iPhone applications and pretty soon I might get another interface – for my Android-powered Google Nexus One phone.

Yes, you read it right. If you have a Dropbox account, you will soon be able to access your files from your Android phone as Dropbox is about to launch its new Android app pretty soon. And will the upcoming Dropbox app for Android offer us Android phone owners?

The new Dropbox iPhone app will let you:

Access your Dropbox on the go – view all the contents of your Dropbox account, including music and movie streaming right on your Android phone.

Make edits to your files and sync them back to Dropbox – Changes you make to your files using the Android app will be automatically synced to your Dropbox account/

Download files for offline viewing – Have all your files accessible anytime, anywhere by adding them to your “Favorites.’

Upload files and sync them to your Dropbox – Use your Android phone’s powerful camera to take snapshots, shoot video and then upload them from your Android phones to your Dropbox account to make them accessible. You can also send an email containing the links to your files to your friends quickly and easily.

Share links to files in your Dropbox –  That practically include any  files in your computer.

No words yet on the exact date that this Android app will be available, although the Dropbox blog mentioned something like in the next few months.