So many times, on the pages of this blog, I mentioned the importance of quality, and relevant backlinks. These days when Google PageRank is updating, and some of us experience unpleasant results, we realize we need to take the link building in our hands and start working hard towards better traffic from top notch sites and improving our SERP’s, as well as ranking. From my experience, links exchange has a lot of value, but the downside of the process is that links exchange consumes a lot of time, seeking partners for links exchange with relevant websites can take weeks, and overall is not easy.

Today, I found a revolutionary tool — LinksManager Toolbar. Our sponsors from  linksmanager.com kindly provided me with an account so I had time to test it in real time and see all the advantages of this software.

What does it do? Basically it is a small toolbar, that saves you ALL the time and hassle, as you request link exchanges directly to your LinksManager Account from your browser window! No need to search miscellaneous forums for doubtful partners, let alone waste time seeking relevant websites. Since it’s “just” toolbar — it runs without slowing down your system (mine was not slowed down at all). Since everything s monitored, a special checker finds and flags dead links listed on your links pages and temporarily removes them until they become available again.

Search Engine Benefits: The best aspect of Editor Based LinksManager.com  is that the generated pages are static HTML and are W3C valid, with full CSS support. Fully conforms to the Robots Exclusion Standard (robots.txt) and, moreover, editor-based design makes it technically impossible to use LinksManager for spamming, email harvesting or auto-linking.

You can download a 30 days trial version of the toolbar and see for yourself how  incredibly useful LinksManager Link Exchange Toolbar is, no upfront payments or obligations required. If you decide to keep using it after the trial period is over, LinksManager will cost you $19.95 a month, or, alternatively — get one month free service for each user you refer. Managed to refer 12 users? You got one year free.

Platform Limitations: The Toolbar is currently only supported on Internet Explorer and FireFox, running Windows XP or 2000. Vista and Safari are not yet supported, so the minorities would have to wait a bit for now.
Bottom line, it’s a great innovation and I am sure soon will become a popular method for high quality links exchange. Anyone who is willing to invest minimum time in SEO and get maximum benefits and results should definitely consider  LinksManager Toolbar. You can even get help directly from your toolbar!

When it comes to getting a proper design, we — site owners — always look into 2 aspects: price and quality. Ideally, we would want to see high quality and low price, and as unbelievable as it sounds — there are still a few companies today, which are able to provide both of the above.

If you seek maximum value for your low budget, I’d like to introduce you to my friends at Dev3.ro Web Design Services, who do fantastic design at unbelievably low cost. For instance, corporate identity design or SE Optimization would cost you only 50 dollars. Where else would you find such a price? Dev3’s portfolio leaves no doubt about how talented the guys behind this web design service are.

Dev3.ro has already created many big projects and provided various clients around the world with top quality, unique and sleek Web 2.0 design; this includes logos, templates and e-commerce layouts. I strongly recommend their service not only because of their low service fees, but also because of the huge amount of creative ideas they so tastefully put in their design.

Today the guys behind WordPress.org (Matt, with a little help from Alex and Benjamin, to be precise) revealed two security-related releases, for users of both 2.2 and 2.0 branches. As Matt says in the official WordPress Blog, these releases only include security and minor bug fixes, therefore they should not cause any plug-in or theme compatibility issues, so, as he says, you have no excuse but to upgrade to the latest version.

On their Trac you can see the bugs closed for 2.2.2 and 2.0.11 to get more details about the problems fixed. With a little more Trac magic you can see all the changed files for 2.2.2 or 2.0.11.

Of course I’d still recommend to back up your database, and deactivate the plug-ins prior to the upgrade, none of us wants to see Matt being wrong about the compatibility part, right?

Several times I had an idea of starting an e-commerce website, where I could offer something or resell, but every time this idea got crashed, only because I had no proper ecommerce software. While I’d not mind paying for it, within reasonable limits, I’d want to have a god control over the sales and get access to comprehensive statistics, which most, so to speak “reasonably priced” e-commerce shopping carts do not provide. After a long search, the only software I really liked was the Australian AShop.

First of all, they offer a free trial for 10 days, secondly they are relatively (very) cheap and thirdly — they offer more features then you could ever hope for. This includes Google Checkout integration and CVC (Security Code) support, so basically this piece of software does all the work for you. As a part of their promotion, if you purchase their shopping chat software, they will provide you with absolutely free (customized) design for your newly opened eCommerce site. Of all the sites I checked, no one offered this much for such a low price, so I should think you get a great value for every dollar you invest in it.

This review contains sponsored links.

It never ceases to amaze me, how competitive the hosting niche is. The hosting company offer more and more in order to attract new customers, but I think the best deal I have seen so far was offered by Easy CGI hosting. They offer free web hosting for 1 year! Yes, absolutely free, as a part of their promotion, which means if you follow the URL above and sign up, you get 12 months of advanced shared hosting. The Good thing is, we are talking about high quality hosting service, as they provide support around the click and 99.9% Guaranteed Uptime.

Easy CGI is one of the leading providers of hosting service today, and offers everything you might need for your website, including One-Step-Script-Installation tool, (for installing some of the popular applications such as blog, forum, etc) as well as detailed Web Traffic Reports. So, the one year of free web hosting, which you receive through this special promotion does not mean you get less features. You will be provided with:

• Windows 2003 Hosting
• 350 GB of Disk Space
• 3500 GB of monthly Bandwidth
• Community Server Script Installation
• Site Builder
• 24/7 Phone and Email Support

You can easily set up an OSCommerce website, open your online shop, web community, blog or whatever comes to your mind — absolutely at no cost, as with such massive amount of bandwidth monthly, you are unlike to ever go offline. You can choose between 3 plans — Advanced, Advanced x2 or Advanced x4 (which normally costs 26$ a month), or alternatively park your domain for free. Remember, this is a domain hosting, i.e. you cannot get a sub-domain, so you need to either transfer your existing domain to Easy CGI, or register a new one for 10$ a year. As far as I understood this promotion is only valid for August, so hurry before it’s over!

This post contains sponsored links.

A while a ago, I remember someone asked me to make a shot of my desk, and I never got time to do it, or rather never had time to clean a spot that will be visible in the camera’s view. Today, for the first time in my life, I got a Tiger-Heliotrope Phalaenopsis Orchid… Couldn’t believe my eyes when it was presented to me! It has always been the most beautiful flower in my opinion and now that I have it, I decided to finally take a few shots of my desk.

Yes, by the way, I think I might have an admirer

Ok, now I am back to work in my tropical Eden on Earth, but before that, a little close up on my bragging:

Finally, after 40% of internet users switched to Firefox, Alexa took the time to develop toolbar for Firefox. Download and install the toolbar HERE.

When we take a small break for all the web development related issues, we often surf through online lifestyles magazines that introduce us to everything that happens us in showbiz and around us, while we spend our time by the computer. If you live in L.A., all you need is to have la2day.com bookmarked. This website will tell you about everything that happens in the town, what not to miss, what to see, where to dine, what movie to watch..

They provide a great review for every new film, and I am sure you are going to like their overview of Mighty Heart Movie. Moreover, the dining section of la2day.com will introduce you to all the best restaurants in town, with photos, overviews of the menu and even pricing. I have friends living in L.A., and I have heard quite a few times from them that living in such a huge megalopolis (especially if you are new there) is not easy, and choosing the right place to go to, even harder. This is why getting introduced online to all the news and info can change your life, and your lifestyle, making it better, more interesting, and help you to avoid wasting time on low level movies, restaurants and clubs..

For me, even though I don’t live in L.A., the site was truly appealing as I got to see some movies reviews I was interested in reading and music section, in my opinion, would interest anyone regardless his or her location on Earth.