Blogger Comments Powered By Google+

I don't know if you've notice, but this blog's comments look different. That's because I've switched to the new Google+ Comments feature for Blogger.

The upgraded commenting system preserves the existing comments, but the future comments require a Google+ account. That means, visitors can no longer post comments anonymously, using an OpenID account or using a Google account that hasn't been upgraded to Google+. When posting a comment, visitors can also share it on Google+. The new commenting system doesn't just show the comments posted on Blogger, it also shows all the Google+ messages that link to the post and their comments.



Just like Disqus, Google+ Comments shows by default the best comments and there's an option to show the most recent comments. It's not clear how Google determines the top comments, but the number of +1s could be one of the signals. You can also restrict the comments to the people from your Google+ circles.



Bloggers will notice some other changes: the comment management feature from Blogger is no longer available and you can only manage comments for each post. That's a significant downside, especially if you receive a lot of comments. When one of your posts receive new comments, you'll see a notification in the Google bar and you'll get an email notification. I haven't found a way to disable these notifications, not even from the Google+ settings page.



How to enable Google+ Comments if you have a Blogger blog? "Google+ Comments is available for Blogger users who have created a Google+ profile and connected it with their blog. If you haven't upgraded your Blogger profile to a Google+ profile and would like to, you can start the process by clicking the Google+ tab on the Blogger dashboard. Once your blogs are linked to a Google+ profile, a new 'Use Google+ Comments' setting will be displayed on the Google+ tab of your blog," explains Google. If your blog has a heavily modified template, you may need to reset widgets or use the code from this page.



There are additional limitations: Google+ Comments is not available for private blogs and for blogs with adult content. This means that the old commenting system will continue to be available as long as Blogger supports these kinds of blogs. You can always disable Google+ Comments and go back to the legacy Blogger commenting system.



It's important to point out that Google+ Comments are embedded as an iframe (the URL starts with https://plusone.google.com/_/widget/render/comments) and the comments are no longer included inside the Blogger page. Google manages to index content from iframes, but the change could affect your Google rankings.



Another interesting thing: it's the first time when the official Google Blog has comments.



Some early thoughts:



* Blogger is now more relevant, it's less likely that it will be discontinued in the next few years



* Blogger finally has a modern commenting system



* Google+ Comments will be available for other blogging platforms



* "sign in with Google+" will make Google+ even more popular as an identity service.

Why Use 5 Different Websites? TripWhat Includes Everything You Need To Plan Your Next Trip

Last summer, I went on a 3-months-long trip across Canada. Such trips are a once in a lifetime experience, no matter where you take them, and no matter what you end up doing while travelling. That said, one of the greatest challenges of any trip is finding the most interesting attractions, the best places to eat, and fun local events. When you find yourself in a different city every day or every week, the process of scouting several different apps in search of the best places to go to becomes a bit tedious.

TripWhat is a Web and iPhone app made by the same people behind the excellent Sortable, the money-saving Geekaphone, and the effective CPUBoss. After helping us choose everything from smartphones, tablets and cameras, to CPUs and cars, it’s time to find the best things to do, eat, and see in almost every city in North America.

TripWhat aggregates information and reviews from multiple websites such as Facebook, Google Maps, Last.fm, SeatGeek, UrbanSpoon, Wikipedia, WikiVoyage, and Yelp, making it super easy to explore any city, find the things you want to do, and get on with the fun.

Start Exploring

Starting with TripWhat is as easy as entering the name of the city you want to explore. If you’re not even sure about that, you’ll find some popular choices in the top toolbar, as well as in the “More” dropdown menu on the far right.

With information currently available only for North America, TripWhat can help you explore almost any city in the United States or Canada, and find places, activities, entertainment, restaurants, and even trip ideas. Once you choose a city, TripWhat will present a map of that city, with pins representing all kinds of interest points. As you zoom in on a specific area, you’ll discover three types of pins: blue for sights, green for restaurants, and red for events and entertainment.

Alongside this map, you’ll find a visual list of the same attractions you see on the map. Each attraction comes with one image or more, a link to the place’s official website and social networks, an address, and for restaurants, a star rating from Urbanspoon. As soon as you place your mouse cursor over one of these tiles, the corresponding pin on the map will start jumping and waving, making it easy to match tile to pin.

Clicking on a tile reveals more info about the place, depending on the type of place you’re looking at. This can include a quick summary, additional photos, opening hours, contact information, etc. If you need more information, finding your way to the official website is easy.

Finding Specific Places

TripWhat’s interface is nice enough, but it does tend to get a little bit confusing at times, as there are several ways to reach each section, and it’s not always clear which section you’re looking at. In general, you can focus your search on sights, restaurants, events, and trip ideas. Some sections also include several subsections, and this is where it gets a little confusing, especially when you filter the results and then want to go back to their unfiltered form.

To keep it simple, I suggest using the icons on the right to navigate through a city’s attractions. The restaurants tab offers the best eats in town, complete with all the information you’re going to need. Click on the star rating to view more Urbanspoon reviews about the place.

In the events tab, you can filter the results according to time of event, making it easy to find an event for tonight, for tomorrow, for the upcoming weekend, etc. Here too, you can find all the necessary information in every tile, with quick links to Wikipedia pages and Facebook pages, venue addresses, and more.

In trip suggestions, you can sometimes find themed mini travel guides such as “top sights to see”, “best pizza in town”, “best family-friendly sights”, etc. These are just collections of places, already marked on the map, which you can use for inspiration when planning your trip.

Theoretically, TripWhat makes it possible to share your finds using the “Link” button on the top right corner of the map. Unfortunately, this link is often dead, so I wouldn’t send it along without checking it first.

There’s More

For this review, I was only looking at TripWhat’s Web app. The service also comes as an iPhone app, which includes the option to save your favorite activities and places to your trips, thus creating your very own mini travel guide which you can always refer back to. The app could be even more useful while on the road. Don’t worry, Android users, TripWhat will soon be available for you as well.

TripWhat doesn’t offer any information you won’t find on other websites, but if you’re trying to make plans and don’t know where to start, it’s going to be a huge help. Just enter the name of the city, and you’re good to go. The hardest part of the process is going to be choosing which fun thing to do!

Planning a road trip? You’re going to want to plan more than what you do on your stops. Check out these informative websites for planning a road trip, and other tools to help you prepare for the journey. Have fun!

How do you find the best things to do on your trips? Share in the comments.

The post Why Use 5 Different Websites? TripWhat Includes Everything You Need To Plan Your Next Trip appeared first on MakeUseOf.

CrunchBang: A Lightweight OS Perfect For Old And New Computers Alike

Bloated operating systems bogging your system down? Is waiting for software to load on an older computer ruining your entire freaking life? Try something lightweight. Crunchbang is a minimalist OS built on Debian Linux, but don’t worry if you don’t know what any of those words mean – it’s also easy to use and runs well even on older computers.

The Crunchbang OS has been around for a long time, and it’s always stuck to its mission: offering a lightweight operating system based on Openbox. If you’re a fan of widgets, docks and shiny things you might want to look elsewhere – by default this OS is more striaght-forward than that. If you want an operating system that thinks you know what you’re doing, and doesn’t waste resources, I recommend Crunchbang (sometimes written as “#!”).

Previously based on Ubuntu, these days the Crunchbang OS is based on Debian (which Ubuntu itself is also based on). Again, don’t worry if that confuses you: the system itself is straight-forward to use and fun to explore.

Simplicity and Speed

Start up CrunchBang and you’ll basically see a blank canvas. There’s no start menu – we’ll get to that. There’s a taskbar at the top of the screen, complete with clock and icons. And there’s also a list of keyboard shortcuts, courtesy of Conky.

(The Super key, if you didn’t know, is Linux-speak for the Windows key on most keyboards).

Use these shortcuts to quickly load a web browser, media player or the Terminal. Or, if you’d rather start exploring, right-click anywhere on the desktop (or press Super + Space) to bring up the main menu:

You’ll find a variety of programs here for getting work done – more on that later. You’ll also find quick links for installing software not included with CrunchBang, like Chrome and LibreOffice. Again, more on that later.

The browser included is called IceWeasel, but don’t panic: it’s basically Firefox. Debian doesn’t included Firefox by default, because Firefox itself includes some things (mostly the name and the logo) that are not technically open source. It’s a long story.

So you’ll be able to browse the web as you like.

Don’t like the way the menu is arranged, or how the various keyboard shortcuts work? For me, this is where things get fun. Linux distros used to reward exploration, and part of the fun was exploring and seeing what was possible. Go through the settings and you’ll find tools for changing all of these things, and if you don’t you can always explore the Crunchbang Forums.

List of Software Included With CrunchBang OS

Explore the menu and you’ll find programs for everything from word processing to microblogging – all of which are lightweight and run well on older computers. Here are the highlights in one list:

• Catfish File Search


• Archive Manager


• Geany Text Editor


• Terminator Terminal


• Thunar File Manager


• GIMP image editor


• Viewnior Image Viewer


• Screenshot tools


• VLC media player


• Volume control


• Xfburn CD/DVD Burning Tool


• Iceweasel Browser (Firefox without the branding, for legal reasons)


• gFTP Client


• Transmission BitTorrent Client


• XChat IRC Client


• Heybuddy Microblogging Client


• AbiWord Word Processor


• Gnumeric Spreadsheet


• Evince PDF viewer


• Calculator


• GParted partition editor

These are only the default apps: you’ll find links for installing software like Google Chrome, Libre Office or Dropbox in the menus, and you can also browse or search the entire Debian repositories thanks to Synaptic. Or, if you prefer the command line, you can install anything you like using apt-get:

Download Crunchbang

Ready to get started with Crunchbang? You can head to Crunchbang.org and download an ISO file, which you can burn to a CD or boot from a USB disk using software like LiveUSB or uNetBootin. There are two versions offered: a year-old stable version, and an unstable version based on the current version of Debian. Both worked quite well for me in testing – which makes sense because, as of this writing, Debian’s unstable branch is quite far along.

Of course, Crunchbang isn’t the only Lightweight linux distribution out there: there are many. But if you’re looking for some polish, but also very lightweight, it’s one of the best.

But I want to know what you think: is CrunchBang a good lightweight distro for your personal use? If not, what will you be using? Let me know below, okay?

The post CrunchBang: A Lightweight OS Perfect For Old And New Computers Alike appeared first on MakeUseOf.