Tracking cookies are small text files that can tell advertisers and Web analytics firms what you (or your computer or your IP address) are doing online, even though they usually don’t record your name or other identifiable information. They are used all over the Web, but in most cases, their presence is only disclosed deep inside privacy policies.

If the majority of the sites you vist are customers of the same one or two advertising companies, this would be useful in that you should only be served ads that have relevance to you. If you find this to be the case, then by all means keep the tracking cookies, if you wish. However, if you do want to know how to get rid of these tracking cookies, read on.

First of all, here are links to pages where you can opt out of the cookies set by double-click (probably the most common source of tracking cookies):

• http://www.doubleclick.com/us/about_doubleclick/privacy/
• http://www.omniture.com/privacy/2o7

I’d prefer a totally opt-in system, but obviously, it’s much more useful for the ad industry to require the opposite.

If you want to clean out all tracking cookies from all your Web sites, here are links where you can download three programs that can clean out tracking cookies:

• http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php
• http://www.spybot.info/en/download/index.html
• http://www.webroot.com/consumer/products/spysweeper/

You can also change the preferences or settings in your Web browser to control cookies. In some cases, you can choose to accept cookies from the primary site, but block them from third parties. In others, you can block cookies from specific sites or advertisers, or clear out all cookies.

Remember: Not all cookies are tracking cookies. For example, many Web sites place cookies on your computer to save information like your registration information or preferences for that site. They aren’t read by third parties (like advertisers) and can not tell the owning site about where you go online.

It does have the downside that files have to meet a particular Sky Drive criteria that they can not be larger than 50MB. To get around this, have a look at SDExplorer tool (windows XP and later), which integrates Microsoft SkyDrive into Windows.

The two biggest differences between the free version and the Pro version (apart from the price) are:
* the Pro version lets you open directly files from the SDExplorer drive
* the Pro version does away with the SKyDrive limitation of 50MB per file.

When Word Press introduced one click upgrade for pluggins, it was like Christmas in July. But this time maybe on the actual Christmas or perhaps slightly earlier with the release of Word Press 2.9, we will now be able to upgrade multiple pluggins with one click from our WordPress Admin Panel.

Optimize/Repair Database Functionality

WordPress has added a new feature to the core which allows you to repair and optimize your database. In order to activate this function, you will need to add this line in your wp-config.php

define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);

Once you have added it, you will now be able to run the script which is located at this URL:

http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php

WordPress Recycle Bin / Trash

One useful thing most desktop operating systems have is the trash bin or recycle bin. WordPress has now added similar functionality; instead of permanently deleting posts, pages, and the comments, you can now trash it and then later on empty the trash once you are completely done with what you were doing. By default WordPress will empty the trash every 30 days, but you can change the time limit by simply entering the following code in your wp-config.php:

define( ‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’, 10 );

Image Editor

The image editor is something that a lot of users were waiting for and it is included in this release. This editor will let you make simple changes such as cropping, rotating, scaling, etc.

Ability to add Post Thumbnails

You have probably seen many sites displaying posts on the homepage with a post thumbnail. Or many sites having the post thumbnail next to each post in their index. Before version 2.9, it was done through custom fields. In this release, you can simply add the thumbnail when writing the post and displaying it in the template is even easier.

In order for you to have this functionality available in the admin panel, you must have a theme that supports this function. However, a quick way to add it now is to visit your theme’s functions.php and add the following code:

add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );

Once you choose the thumbnail, you display it on the template using the following code:

<?php the_post_thumbnail( ‘thumbnail’ ); ?>

Extend User Contact Info

The WordPress user profile page is quite old and many new networks have gain popularity such as twitter and facebook. Prior to version 2.9, it was really hard to add a custom field in the contact area, but thanks to Joost De Valk for his contribution, now this feature is available.

Simply open your functions.php and add the following function:

<?php
function my_new_contactmethods( $contactmethods ) {
// Add Twitter
$contactmethods['twitter'] = ‘Twitter’;
//add Facebook
$contactmethods['facebook'] = ‘Facebook’;

return $contactmethods;
}
add_filter(‘user_contactmethods’,’my_new_contactmethods’,10,1);

?>

This will add extra fields in your user profile pages.

You can display these on author profile page by using the normal $curauth variable or the_author_meta variable.

New Excerpt Filter

Up till WordPress 2.8.6, if you added the_excerpt code in the loop, it would display content with a 55 word limit and once the word limit was reached, it would add [...]. With this new ability, You can now specify a function and control both excerpt word count, and the more text. Implement this by opening your theme’s function.php file and add the following code:

// Changing excerpt length

function new_excerpt_length($length) {
return 60;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_length’, ‘new_excerpt_length’);

// Changing excerpt more
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
return ‘…’;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_more’, ‘new_excerpt_more’);

All thanks goes to Ramiy for suggesting this feature.

oEmbed making Embedding Easier

Thanks to ViperBond007 that this feature was added to the core of WordPress 2.9. It is a specification that allows media providers like Flickr, YouTube and others to provide data for consumer applications like WordPress about media.

There are many many more features that are being included in this version. To see a full list check out version 2.9 page in the codex.

They have a large array of useful WordPress tips and tricks, including another recent one about 10 awesome .htaccess hacks for WordPress.

You can either limit your partner search to a selected set of Bollywood actors and actresses or you may even upload someone else’s photo and the “facial search” feature promises to help find other profiles in the matrimony database that match the face in the picture.

This could become a privacy nightmare… If it works as advertised, it would let people locate any random person (that was a member of the Website) that they have a picture of, and get personal details about them.

Blacklists are a flawed method of censorship; they are inaccurate and subjective. The subject matter (child pornorgrapohy) is transferred via other medium on the internet. The time and money being spent on this filter can be more usefully spent attacking those who are breaking the law with tools that work

And here’s a link for those of you who think you have nothing to hide.

The ACMA blacklist article on Wikileaks. Link to theie copy of the blacklist from there.