I want to

How to mute words in Twitter

Twitter has finally got around to providing people with a way of muting words that they don't want to see. This allows you to filter out potentially disturbing content that you don't wish to see. You can mute specific words, phrases, usernames emojis or hashtags. When you do this, you won't see any new notifications for tweets that contain them. It's an easy process.

Go to your Twitter account, and choose notifications. 

Then choose settings

This will open up the following dialogue box:

Then click on 'Mute specific words from your notifications' and type in the words that you want to mute.

And there you have it. You'll never get bothered again.

One quick way to improve blog headlines

If that headline caught your attention, it did its job. There's a nice little tool available from CoSchedule that you can use to check the headline that you intend on using. So for the one that I used here it was rated 72 (I presume out of 100) and was given an A+. It contains a good balance of word types, from common to emotional and power. It also informed me:

Your headline is the right length.Headlines 55 characters long tend to earn the highest number of click-throughs.

Your headline is the right length.Headlines with approx 6 words tend to earn the highest number of click-throughs.

I could also see how it would work in an email, what the keywords are, the sentiment, and what it would look like in a Google search result. 

Nice and simple to use, and it was quite fun as well, trying out different sorts of words and phrases. If you're a blogger, this is a tool that is certainly worth using. 

 

Forget that page - delete stuff from your history

We've all visited pages that we'd rather forget - it might be a stupid page, maybe a page linking to a present for a loved one, might be something else - whatever, you want it gone. Now, you can go back through your history and delete it, but are you sure that it's gone? This is where 'Forget that page', a Chrome extension, comes into play. They say of themselves:

"Delete history, local and session storage for the current webpage, just with one click ! Available in 30+ different languages. We all at some point ended up on a webpage that we don't want to appear on our browsing history. Either it's for a gift, or a dumb page... With "Forget That Page", you can delete from your history, local and session storage for the webpage you're on, just in one click !"

Quick, simple and easy. 

ViewedIt, screen capture software

I've just taken a look at ViewedIt, which is a nice screen capture/video program. It's a Chrome extension, and it allows you to record your browser tab or screen. You can also include webcam as well, if you want to be viewed chatting. It's very simple to use, but it does have a few drawbacks at the moment, principle among them the fact that you can't save the video to put onto something like YouTube. However, you can share it across social media, and it's really good USP is that you can include a link into a Gmail. It creates a nice thumbnail, and someone can view it there and then AND you'll know that they have viewed it, and how much they've seen. You're limited to an hour video, but you can have as many as you want, stored for free, with no deletion. It's still in early stages yet, so there are things that you might expect to do which you can't - you can't delete for example, you have to get them to do it for you, but even with those restrictions, it's an interesting tool.

I'm tracked by HOW many?

As you're no doubt aware, when you visit websites you get tracked, usually by advertisers. That's why when you do a search on Amazon for a widget, then go to Facebook, you'll find that there's an advert for the self same widget there, and on every other site that you go to. However, have you ever wanted to know just how many trackers there are on websites? There's a very useful little tool called Ghostery which will tell you. It's a browser extension which works with all the major browsers, and you can install it with a single click. When you want to see how you're being tracked, simply click on the little blue ghost on the browser toolbar and you'll get a nice little dialogue box popping up which looks like this:

This is the result for a search on the Daily Mail rag; 21 different trackers. In comparison, there are 11 on the CILIP site, 2 on the BBC, 14 on the Guardian site and a whopping 44 on the Sun newspaper site. Ghostery then allows you to track them, or to block them. It's a useful little tool and worth the 2 seconds it takes to install it. It really is an eyeopener. 

Connect communities with local history

History Pin is a great tool, allowing you to add photographs to a map, in order to share the history of the place that you're interested in. You can also add images to other collections. Simply look for a location that you want on the map, and see if there are any photographs which have been uploaded. If not, add your own, comment and share. Its a great tool to create a local history project for school. 

Create People Plots

Create a family tree type resource - only it's not limited to genealogy. It could be a plot of people in a band, movie or a book for example. Nice and simple to use. 

It says of itself:

• Complete control over the layout

  Unlike most family tree software, PeoplePlotr lets you
  design your own unique layout for your tree.

• Easy drag and drop interface

  Your people plots will be up and running in minutes

• Works in your browser

  There is nothing to download. Just sign up for our free
  account and get started making your plot

• Add rich media to plots

  PeoplePlotr integrates with Flickr for images
  and YouTube and Vimeo for videos

• Share your creations

  Each people plot has its own unique url
  that you can share with family, friends or colleagues

• Colours and categories

  PeoplePlotr allows you to create different categories
  for people and colour code them

Tiki-Toki timelines

If you want to create an attractive 3D timeline, then take a look at Tiki-Toki. It says of itself:

• Nothing to download

  Tiki-Toki works in your browser. Sign up for our free
  account and you can start creating a timeline now

• Stunning 3d timelines

  No other online timeline maker
  allows you to view your timelines in 3d

• Include images and videos

  Tiki-Toki provides integration with
  YouTube and Vimeo for videos

• Share timelines with anyone

  Each timeline you create has its own unique url
  that you can send to friends or colleagues

• Colours and categories

  Tiki-Toki allows you to create different categories
  for stories (events) and colour code them