WordPress is a powerful blogging tool, that can also be used as a traditional content management system. Yes, it is not only a blog but an entire website that you can run with WordPress. That’s why WordPress webhosting has become popular lately, and many people are using it. There are many WordPress web hosting companies with different offers. Some offers special added features, while some guarantees lowest possible price. So, which one is best suited for you? You need to find out. Isn’t it?

Want to find and compare the top WordPress hosting providers? Want to know more about their hosting packages? Want to know what others think about those providers? Just visit Web Hosting Rating dot com and check the WordPress Web Hosting section. Web Hosting Rating publishes web hosting reviews and ratings. It is not only WordPress, they publishes reviews of all kinds of web hosts. Reseller hosting, Dedicated server hosting, Colocation hosting, VPS hosting, Windows hosting etc. You name it, they’ve got it! Right now there are 119 listed hosts with 118 different hosting plans. So, you can also call it a web hosting directory or something like that. Buying a hosting package is easy but you could be lost and that’s when sites like this one comes in handy.

Let’s return to our topic. If you are looking for a hosting company to run a WordPress-based blog or website, check out the list of best WordPress hosting providers on Web Hosting Rating. The list is self explanatory. The further up in the tier list the more popular those hosts are in the market. Read more about the companies, browse through the user reviews and do a comparison by yourself. Then zero in to some hosts that meets all your needs. Still you may have some doubts or questions. So, take the final decision after talking to a customer support representative.

In my view web hosting directories and hosting review sites are useful when you want to find a good web host. But my advice is that you use them as reference, not as a bible! Take the decision after carefully reviewing all the available options. All the best.

Want to secure your WordPress blog comment form? Want to an anti-spam measure to your other online forms (registration form, login form etc.)? If yes, going for a good CAPTCHA plugin is probably the simplest solution. There are many good CAPTCHA WordPress plugins and one of them is SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam. This easy to use plugin can prevent spam from automated bots. It works great with Akismet and is also compatible with WPMU and BuddyPress.

Like other CAPTCHA plugins, SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam displays randomly generated image codes that users must type correctly in order to submit a form. SI CAPTCHA also supports Section 508 and WAI accessibility validation. It generates audible CAPTCHA files in WAV format so that people with disabilities can easily enter the correct code. For changing the image code, a refresh button is also provided.

SI CAPTCHA comes with an options page where you can easily modify and update various options. You can specify where exactly your CAPTCHA should appear. You can add it to login form, register form and comment form. You can also set it to hide the CAPTCHA from logged in users and or blog admins. SI CAPTCHA supports i18n language translation. It means international users may use a translated version of their choice. Right now translations are available in 23 different languages.

Download link for SI CAPTCHA WordPress Plugin:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/

WordPress is no more a blog-only platform. It has grown up and now works much like a full-fledged Content Management System (CMS). You can build virtually any kind of site you want with it. All you need is a good theme and some plugins. Looking for a business theme for WordPress? Want to create your portfolio site with WordPress? If yes, try CubeLight, a brand new business / portfolio theme from Theme Junkie.

CubeLight WordPress theme is perfect for any business site. It comes with 8 different color schemes, pre-built Blog & Contact page, built-in Google Map support and an advanced theme control panel. Customization is not a problem and can be easily done with by adjusting the homepage content, taglines and the contents on widgetized sidebars and footer area. CubeLight is fully compatible with WordPress 3.0+ and works fine on all major web browsers.

CubeLight WordPress theme features:

• Business / portfolio theme.
• Easy-to-use theme options.
• 8 beautiful color schemes.
• Customizable Homepage.
• Customizable site Taglines.
• Built-in Google Map Support.
• Pre-built Blog & Contact Page.
• Pagination without any plugin.
• Widgetized Sidebars and Footer.
• Compatible with WordPress 3.0+.
• Free upgrade and support.

Theme Price:

Standard Package: $29.95
Special Promotion: Get complete theme package (10 themes) at $99.95

Demo and Download Link:

CubeLight Demo | CubeLight Download

When it comes to choosing a web host one should make an intelligent decision by taking help from resource sites such as forums and web hosting directories. Forums may help in clearing web hosting related doubts. On the other hand, a good web hosting directory contains information on different web hosts. They often publishes real customer reviews and ratings too. So, a web hosting directory is a good place to start looking for web hosts of your choice.

How a web hosting directory can help you? A web hosting directory lists web hosting providers and publishes independent user reviews and ratings. There you can find information about different hosts,  hosting packages, special offers etc. So, it becomes easier to compare different web hosts. In fact some directories comes with handy comparison tools. Then there are web hosting reviews. Go through the reviews, both positive and negative, and soon you will have a rough idea about the service quality. This idea will help you in confirming your choice.

So, a good hosting directory can be your one-stop resource site for all your web hosting needs. But there are many web hosting directories and hosting review sites out there. Which one is good for beginner? Well, I can’t say that this one is good and that one is bad. But I do know a site which I believe is good in this field. The site is called Web Hosting Geeks and it has been online since 2004. Web Hosting Geeks not only lists different hosting companies but also publishes lists of best web hosts for different hosting needs.

As you know, choice of hosting depends on your requirement and all web hosts are not perfect for hosting all sort of websites. A top blog hosting company may not be the best budget host. Similarly a budget host may not be the perfect option for hosting an e-commerce site. So, Web Hosting Geeks you can help you find different web hosts that are best in their class. For example, best budget hosting, best reseller hosting, best blog hosting, best forum hosting etc. Another feature of this site is web hosting reviews by real customer. Read them and get some help in taking your decision. If you are completely blank on this website hosting thing or if you want to learn more, you may read their blog articles. Their web hosting  articles are well-written and meant for beginners. So, if you read you may learn one thing or two!

Recently Twitter got it’s official Tweet Button, a small widget which allows users to easily share content on Twitter without leaving the page currently they are on. In other words Tweet Button makes sharing simple. When someone clicks a Tweet Button on your website, a Tweet box will appear with a shortened link pointing to URL of the webpage. Before posting users can easily customize the tweet with their own text. Tweet Button also lets you promote Twitter accounts by suggesting up to two Twitter accounts for users to follow after they share your content. This feature is unique and this is what makes Tweet Button different from other similar widgets.

How to get the official Tweet Button? Go to ‘Goodies‘ section in Twitter and select ‘Tweet Button‘. There you will be provided with the button code along with some customization options. You can choose from three different button styles: Vertical Count, Horizontal Count and No Count. You can also specify a custom text to be included with the Tweet people share from your website. Default is the title of the page the button is on.

Tweet Button also lets you suggest a default tweet for your users. Default is the URL for the page the button is on. Want to display the Tweet dialog in a different language? Now you can choose from five different languages to be rendered in the Tweet button on your website. The available language options are English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese.

Recommend people to follow is an optional feature that lets you promote Twitter accounts with this sharing widget. You can recommend up to two Twitter accounts for users to follow after they tweets your post. With this feature you can easily promote your own Twitter accounts or that of your buddies or partners.

For advanced users and developers, Twitter have some good instructions on how to build custom Tweet Button using the Sharing API. If you are interested, just go through the documentation and build your own sharing widget with the same Tweet Button sharing functionality.

When it comes to blogging, WordPress is my top favorite. But it doesn’t mean that I hate Blogger. I like Blogger because of it’s simplicity. And the good news is that Blogger blogging platform is gradually evolving. With some recently added features Blogger platform is now better than ever. This week Blogger got two new improvements: comment spam filtering and Comments Inbox. While the new spam filtering will help you eliminate spam comments from your blog, the Comments “Inbox” feature will let you view all comments on your blog in one place.

Comment spam is a serious problem in Blogging. Until now you had only a few options in hand to fight comment spam in Blogger. Either send all the comments to moderation or make word verification or login a must to comment. Reviewing all comments before publishing is a tedious job, specially when you receive a lot of comments daily. On the other hand word verification or login never ensure that only genuine comments get published. To solve these problems Google’s spam filtering technologies were integrated to new Blogger Comment System.

Now in the Comments tab, there is a Spam sub-tab that shows all the comments that are likely spam. These comments never appear in your blog. You have two options either delete or recover. You can permanently delete spam comments by selecting them and choosing Delete. And if you think that a comment in Spam sub-tab is not actually a spam (false-positive), you can recover it by marking it as Not Spam. Comments that you choose as “Not Spam” will be moved out of the spam list and will be immediately published on your blog.

Want to see all your past blog comments in one place? The new Blogger Comments “Inbox” will let you do so! Go to Published sub-tab under Comments tab and you will see all the comments that have been published on your blog. Here you can perform three tasks. You can mark already published comments as Spam. Such comments will be immediately deleted from your blog. You can also mark comments to Delete for editorial reasons or just Remove Content to leave a record of the comment. Comments waiting moderation can be accessed from the Comments tab where you can mark comments as Spam.

What you think about these new Blogger features? Did you find them useful? Feel free to express your opinion in the comments section.

Using Google AdSense to monetize your web pages? Want to test a new AdSense ad unit on your web pages? Try  Leaderboard (728×90), Medium Rectangle (300×250) and Large Rectangle (336×280)! Because, Google AdSense team has updated the design of these three content ad units. No, there is no change in dimension. Only the layout of the text has been changed in the ad units. The redesigned ad units now looks more space-efficient and visually pleasing. It is hoped that they will perform well on publishers web pages.

In case of the AdSense Leaderboard (728×90) ad unit, the ad title, description, and URL(s) are now displayed in rows instead of columns. I think now the leaderboard ad units will perform well in text-rich web pages. Minor adjustments were made to the font size. Now font size for the leaderboard with four ads is much more readable. On the other hand, Medium Rectangle (300×250) and Large Rectangle (336×280) will now have the URLs in the same line as the ad title. Take a look at the screenshot above. Looks good to me. What about you?

Note: The changes will roll out over the next few weeks. So, if you haven’t seen any changes yet, you will soon!