Stop Blogger offering to share your posts to Google+

This article describes Blogger's share-to-Google+ feature, and shows how to stop Blogger offering to share to your Google + circles every time you publish a new post, and what you cannot (yet) do with the feature.

Automatically updating Google + from your blog

If you have linked your blogger-account to your Google+ profile, then by default you are shown a pre-filled Google+ share box with details of your post in it, every time that you publish a post, including times when you edit a post that has already been published.

The share box has a snippet and thumbnail picture  based on your post, and section where you can add a comment, remove the description, choose the circle(s) to share it with, and say to also email people who are not in your circles.

You can change the picture associated with the shared post using the arrows (hover over the top left of the suggested picture - the arrows circle through the other available pictures. Or you can remove it using the cross button (hover over the top-right of the suggested picture).

The top right corner shows whether the post is being shared to your personal profile to the the Google+ Page that you previously linked with the blog.

This is one of the easiest ways of sharing your blog posts with any of the social networks: it lets you customise the content of the message and target it carefully, without having to leave Blogger to do so.

Don't bother me: stop Blogger offering to share to Google-plus

If you don't want to see the "share on Google+" option every time post, you can turn the feature off for individual blogs. To do this:

1   Go to the Google + tab.

2   Untick the "Prompt to share after posting" button, currently found underneath your list of Pages

(Unlike some tabs, changes on this tab are automatically saved.)

Why would you want to do this?   After all, if your accounts are linked, then surely you want to share your posts to Google+?

Actually there are a number of reasons why you might want to disable this feature.   Some that I can think of are:

• If you make frequent edits to existing posts it would probably annoy the people in your circles if you shared all of them - and it slows you down, because the share screen takes a few seconds to load every time you publish.

• If you use a private blog to prepare your posts before publishing them - obviously there's no need to share these posts with yourself! 

• You might just want to do the share, but at a later time than the initial post, to spread out the new-post impact.

Even if you've turned off the "offer to share" option, you can still Google+ share individual posts by selecting "share" from underneath the title in the Blogger Dashboard > Posts tab.

Troubleshooting the Google + share option:

You only see this option if when you publish a post, if:

• You have connected any of the blogs owned by your blogger account to Google+

• You have not previously turned it off for this particular blog

• Your blog is not private.
  If you try it on a blog with restricted readership, instead of an error message you are given the not-very-helpful option to share the Blogger sign in screen, like this:

Doing more with the Blogger / Google-Plus share feature

Currently there is no way to:

• Totally automate the share, so it happens without you pressing Ok in the "Share this on ..." box.

• Show the labels from your post in your shared item

• Schedule the share

• Automatically share posts published with mail2Post or which are scheduled to Publish in the future.

• Change whether the post is shared to a selected Google+ page or your personal circles
  This is controlled by a global setting that you can edit on the Blogger Dashbaord > Google + tab, but you cannot alter it on the fly.

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Related Articles:

Post-snippet and post-thumbnail: where do they come from

Linking your blog to the social networks

Prepare Posts in Private, so you can Publish when they're Perfect

How to edit posts that you have already published

Mail2Post: post to your blog without using Blogger

Using Labels to categorize blog-posts

Remove sidebar background in the Travel template

This quick-tip is about removing the coloured section that is in the background in Blogger's Travel template.

Recently, I've been using the Travel template a lot:  it just seems to line things up more sharply on the page.

Today I noticed that there is an option for setting the Sidebar background colour under the Template Designer > Customize > Advanced tool.  However it doesn't seem to work.

Investigating the template shows that as well as this sidebar background colour (which is correctly set by the option above), the template also specifies a background image (ie not a colour) to use in the sidebars.    This isn't removed when the overall background image for the template is removed, and cannot be controlled from the template designer.

But it's simple enough to get rid of it, by following these steps:

1   Edit the template in the usual way.

2   Tick the expand widgets checkbox.

3   Find this code:

background: $(widget.outer.background.color) $(widget.outer.background.gradient) repeat scroll top left;

4   And either replace it with this code, or delete the line entirely.

/*  background: $(widget.outer.background.color) $(widget.outer.background.gradient) repeat scroll top left;  */

The first option just comment its out, meaning you could re-instate it again by removing the /* and  */. But if you are certain that you never want it back, just delete the whole line instead.

Depending on the sidebar layout chosen, there may be one or more places where the background image is.   Make sure that you do all of them that you want the background removed from.

Also, if you later choose a different layout, you make need to remove the background image again even though you haven't actually changed templates.

Top 5 free Wi-Fi app for android to improve your Wifi Connection

For a smartphone owner, there’s nothing more frustrating than having run out your 3G or GPRS network, only leaving you with a hard time of making calls or sending text messages.  So here I have gathered a list of Wi-Fi apps for android, which allow you to find public Wi-Fi networks, turn your phone into a wifi hotspot and a bit more.

1. WiFi Manager

This app allows you find, connect, and manage WiFi networks. It can also improve connection quality with a graphical channel radar. Of course the app supports discover open networks around you. Personally, the app it’s my favorite.

The app also includes home screen widgets: one displays detailed connection info, another lets you switch among your favorite networks with a single tap, and yet another toggles WiFi Access Point.

2. Free Zone WiFi

Want cut your 3G some slack? Or save some money by stop use your 3g mobile networking? Then you must download this app.

Free Zone is the easiest way to find and connect to free Wi-Fi networks. As soon as you get into range of a free Wi-Fi network, you're connected automatically to the Internet. Very Easy to use.

3. WiFinder

This app can act as a nice and functional WiFi scanner, and allows you to connect all wifi networks: Open, WEP, WPA, and WPA2. Simple but useful.
Features:

• List of network contains channel, graphic level, encryption.
• Save/remove networks supported - Forget option.
• Auto Scan function.

4. WiFi Booster Easy Connect
You can connect to the best available WiFi access points in 2 taps with this amazing app! Having been to a place, like a mall or coffee place wondering if there are any open WiFi around you and not wanna go through all the menus just to check it out? Let this app do it for you!

Features:

• One of the easiest most convenient WiFi Apps you'll find
• Includes a wifi network speed booster
• Includes 1 press search for best remembered wifi networks
• Includes 1 press search for best open wifi networks
• Very lightweight WiFi Connectivity Manager with Easy Connect and booster

5. WiFi Overview 360
Finding the best and fastest Wi-Fi connection available is an easy task if you use WiFi Overview 360. You can use this app to manage and optimize your WiFi connections through its channel checker and channel radar. It will show you a detailed description of the wireless networks available, including the name, signal strength, channel number, and encryption ,open or not.

To optimize your connection, you can use the app to find a channel or frequency range where there are fewer or no wireless networks using it other than your network. To help you evaluate the wireless networks around you, the app gives you a graphical representation of all the wireless networks within its operating range. From there, the app helps you determine the best channel of choice. So if you want to optimize your network connection, try WiFi Overview 360 for free.

Just try these apps that have showed you in this article if you are on the way to find some app to boost your Wi-Fi connection.

Samsung Confirms Tizen Phones for 2013, so do we really need another smartphone OS?

People may have been used to Samsung smartphone runs on Google’s Android Operating System or the latest windows phone 8, so would you even consider buying a smartphone running on Tizen backed by Intel Corp as its operating system? Yes, according to the news from businessweek, Samsung is going to sell Tizen-Based Handsets this year to reduce its reliance on Google Inc.’s Android operating system after the tech company acquired Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in May.

“We plan to release new, competitive Tizen devices within this year and will keep expanding the lineup depending on market conditions,” Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung said in an e- mailed statement today. The company didn’t elaborate on model specifications, prices or timeframe for their debut.

Tizen is a Linux-based operating system that arose out of the demise of Nokia's MeeGo platform. Intel and Samsung have taken over the development of Tizen, and the Linux Foundation is overseeing the project. Samsung hope to make Tizen a stronger competitor to Android, which has been viewed by open-source advocates as too closed off for their liking. The goal behind Tizen seems to be an even more open-source, flexible OS designed to be user-friendly and carrier-friendly.

So if that really happened in the future, will you update your phone to those devices? For most of you, the answer may be is: No.

1. Android and iOS dominate the smartphone market.
Smartphone dividedly runs on Android and iOS have dominate the smartphone market, and most important with no signs of slowing down. According to the news from androidcommunity, Android’s market share grew to 53.7% by the end of November 2012, while iOS have a market share of 34.3%, 0.7% percentage down. BlackBerry and Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform follow up afterwards, but both of them are in difficulty.

Now both of android and iOS have extremely well-developed ecosystems that make sharing information across services and even across individual handsets a fairly simple, unified process. App development is strong, and OS updates are regular enough to give phone owners new party tricks to show off. Samsung need a long time to build this.

So now it seems it’s the hard time to welcome newbies.

2. Review from the history
Now let’s back to the year of 2009. At that time, there are six major mobile operating systems available for users: BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS, iPhone, and Android. But a year later, Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS and Palm's WebOS crumpled, and development of RIM's BlackBerry OS stuttered. Nokia still supports Symbian, but put all the intention on Microsoft's Windows Phone.

That is to say, in order to build a successful system, you need much money, some extremely competitive hardware, and a truly new feature or approach. Samsung have enough money, and powerful hardware, but lacks of amazing software technology for Samsung to make a successful software OS. In 2009, Samsung released its Bada platform, which is mainly used in lower-end smartphones sold in Europe and emerging markets, but didn’t make a success in the smartphone market.

It was also said that Ubuntu, Firefox line up to take on iOS, Android in 2013.Full of competition.

Anyway, whether there have a chance for a new OS to take center stage the way that iOS and Android did or not, maybe we can see soon. Let’s look forward to this new OS smartphone.What is your opinion about this new system? Can Tizen smartphones steal Android's thunder? Welcome to leave your comments.

5 best Free Android calendar apps you should download in 2013

The calendar plays a very important role in our daily life, whether keeps track of the meetings you have or remind us about the work, and so much more. So download a calendar app on your android device is really necessary and helpful. Android has a ton of really, really great calendar apps,  here is the 5 best Free Android calendar apps I have picked that you should download in 2013.

Source from: Top 6 Best Calendar Apps for Android Mobile Phones on Google Play

Top1: MyCalendar

With MyCalendar app, you will never forget your friends' birthdays again! This app takes note of your friends' birthdays and sets up notification so you can easily message your friends and wish them "Happy Birthday”.

To start with, add friends’ birthday from your Facebook and your contacts' list. Then Customizable reminder settings and others.

Key Features:

• Import birthdays from Facebook
• Add birthdays of all contacts from your phone and add custom birthdays
• Customizable reminder settings: delivers notifications straight to your iPhone)
• Easily message your friends and wish them "Happy Birthday " along with custom message with just one click!

Top2: Jorte Calendar

With over 13 million downloads, Jorte is one of the most popular calendar/organizer applications, which can show your tasks list under your calendar, and show your day's agenda under the month view when you click on it.

Features:

• Jorte Cloud: Original Cloud feature for multi-device use and backup.
• Various widget settings are available.
• Monthly and Weekly views are available.
• Important appointments are shown in red.
• See completed appointments at a glance.
• It can synchronize with Google Calendar.
• Adjust the starting day of the week on each view; it doesn't always have to be Sunday!
• Import the Holidays of your choice from Google Calendar.
• Import and Export the contexts to CSV format.
• It can be controlled using Google Voice Search and Google Maps.

Top3: Smooth Calendar

This app is really simple to use, and have a clean, good looking calendar widget. It displays multiple upcoming events and automatically synchronizes calendars with the built-in Google calendar. The key customizations offered with this application are the choice of display, number of events to be displayed and number of days the user would like to check an event for. Further, the ability to change the size and color of the widget is also offered.

Features:

• Many different options and features, can Displays anything from one to six upcoming events. Smooth Calendar has one of the highest satisfaction rates currently off all android widgets, currently a 4.5 rating on the android market.
• Can schedule events up to one year into the future!
• Ability to sync up with your Google calendar on your desktop computer is painless and easy.

Top4: Business Calendar Free

Business Calendar is a complete calendar application that is synchronizing with your Google calendars! It comes with a great and smooth interface where you just pinch to zoom in and out. Instead of having views for "week", "4-day", "month", and so on, you start with a month view and can tap and drag on a certain set of days to shrink the view to those days.

Features:

• smooth scroll- and zoomable multi-day view (1-14 days)
• graphical and textual presentation
• month, agenda, day and event view
• quickly fade in/out calendars using the favorite bar
• search function
• configurable widgets in different sizes for month, week, agenda and day view (3 design themes for each widget type)
• easy switching between timeline bars and event titles in month view
• intuitive new handling option: just move your finger over some days of interest in month view to open them in the multi-day view
• quick day overview when adding a new event
• many options for recurrent events (e.g. to add a recurrent event that takes place every other week on Tuesday and Thursday)

Top5: aCalendar - Android Calendar

aCalendar is a great free application that shines with its great and unique weekly view of events. Flipping right and left takes you in monthly and daily views, but what we love the most is the huge tiles for the weekly view, and the widget is also great. What we don’t like that much is the lack of integration with Google Maps.

Features:

• intuitive navigation with smooth transitions
• day, week & month calendar
• 48 colors per calendar, per-event color if supported by the calendar (Android Jelly Bean with Google Calendar only)
• custom event font size
• Fullscreen widgets
• flexible recurrences (e.g., every 3 weeks)
• birthdays & anniversaries with photos from your addressbook and editing
• Duplicate events
• uses Android's native calendar backend and synchronization
• no battery drain
• moon phases and zodiac signs for birthdays
• QR barcode sharing of events
• NFC sharing (if supported by the device) NEW
• 12/24h clock honoring system settings
• optimized text display and improved line-break
• free
• no ads

Here Wish all of you have a better life with these apps.