Most if not all of my readers are familiar with and use Twitter. The great thing about Twitter is not so much Twitter itself, but all the really neat apps built around Twitter.

One app I use myself is www.twitterfeed.com. With Twitter feed configured, anytime I make a new post to my blog, a status update is posted to my Twitter account that notifies all of my followers of the newest post and links to it.

So head on over to Twitterfeed.com and get started.

Getting started

Here’s how to get your blog (or any other RSS or Atom feed) twittering:

1. Create a new twitter user at twitter.com (or use your existing one)

   this twitter user is going to be the one posting your blog entries - twitterfeed needs to know your chosen twitter username and password so it can post your blog updates to your twitter account

2. Login to twitterfeed using your OpenID

   OpenID is a standard for providing single sign on between web sites
   You can register your own OpenID for free, or may even be able to use your existing blog ID [more]

3. Provide us with the URL for your blog’s RSS feed, and how often we should post to twitter

   Our server will check your blog’s feed at the specified interval and post any new items to your twitter account. You just sit back and relax!

[ Both RSS and Atom feeds are supported. Posts need to contain publish dates in order for our server to know what's new. Feeds requiring authentication will fail. ]

Now I know, I know, I work for a domain name registrar. In fact I have worked for one in particular for a very long time. But believe me when I tell you that registering your domain name for as many years as you can will benefit you with your SEO in the long run.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo are known to provide a higher value on domains that have been registered for extended periods of time. The reason is simple, this shows a user commitment to the domain name and website. It also is an indicator that this website is not a temporary spam site. With the price of a 1 year registration next to nothing these days, spammers are notorious for snatching up domain names for 1 year at a time and then discarding shortly after.

So how long can you register your domain name for? You can register on most extensions for terms anywhere from 1 to 10 years. If you have the dough, max it out from the get go. If not, try registering for a minimum of 2 years, 3 years would be even better.

This is a very useful piece of code for a functionality I find people asking me about. How to specify a link to open in a new window with a specific Width and Height is done as follows:

<a href=”#” onclick=”window.open(’ENTERYOURURLHERE’,'mywindow’,'width=800,height=600,

toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,

copyhistory=yes,resizable=yes’)”> Click here</a>

The result looks like this: Click here

How often do you come across a Wordpress theme that really stands out from the crowd? That really brings something new to the table? While reading through some of my Tweets I stumbled upon a template that looks great visually and as far as I am concerned brings a new element to the Wordpress template arena. Rather than trying to explain it, I recommend you take a look at: http://wordpress.bustatheme.com/coda/

This is both an example of the template and where you can download the latest incarnation. In order to download from the site you do need to register. If you want to avoid doing this you can download the theme from me. However I will not neccessarily have the most up to date template.

Download WP CODA

Earlier this week I added a new section to DropTheMike.com. I thought I should also make a formal announcement via the blog. One spot has already been spoken up for, so 3 are available.

Advertise on DropTheMike.com

DropTheMike.com is targeted to Web Designers, Internet entrepreneurs, investors, tech heads, gears heads and interested consumers.

Ad buys are sold on 30 day periods using PayPal subscription service. Ads will auto renew every 30 days unless you cancel the subscription.

125×125 Button Sponsorship

The 125×125 button appear on every page, under the heading “Sponsors”. Pricing is $10 per month per button. Only 4 spots are available. The button can not be bigger than 15K in size. Animation allowed but no Flash.

If you’re interested in securing a 125×125 button sponsorship, Email your ad to mike@dropthemike.com.

Key Stats (taken September 26, 2008):

Source: www.websitegrader.com

1. Traffic Rank: Top 2.82 %

Alexa is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings.

DropTheMike.com has an Alexa rank of 866,507 which is in the top 2.82 % of all websites.

2. Blog Ranking: Top 1.23 %

Technorati is a popular blog directory service. It measures the popularity of a given blog as compared to all other sites that have been submitted to its system.

This blog currently has a Technorati rank of 863,799, which puts it in the top 1.23% of blogs tracked by Technorati.

3. Google PageRank: 3

“Google PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important.” - From Google