Looking for a magazine style, free theme for your WordPress powered blog? Just give a look at the Brightness Wordpress theme. It is a two column, magazine style theme and comes with some cool features like featured article, news section, advertising blocks etc. And the good thing is that it is available for free download. Get it today!

Some features of Brightness Wordpress theme:

• Two column magazine style WordPress theme.
• Shows one featured article on the front page.
• Section for latest articles.
• Post thumbnails with the help of custom fields.
• News section for displaying 5 latest posts from certain categories.
• Introductive paragraph in single posts.
• Title configuration from theme admin panel.
• Comes with two integrated advertising blocks (300×250 and 160×600).
• Beautiful color scheme.
• Completely free theme.

Demo | Release Page | Download Link

Earlier this week I wrote about my interest to write some free blog reviews on this blog. I am glad that many of you have contacted me. Please give me some time to write the review of your blogs. So, today I am starting my free blog reviews with Rumbling Lankan, a blog about blog improvement and money making tips. It mostly covers topics related to blogging, blog branding, free traffic and make money online. It is run by Nishadha Lakpriya Silva, who is from Sri Lanka.

What the blog author says?

I’ve being blogging for about an year now and was fascinated with SEO and making money online. So I got a domain name last December and started blogging about making money online. I haven’t gotten super rich but I am starting to make some money now, and hopefully more in the future.

The Content:

Blog Branding, Blog carnival, Blogging, Blogging Tips, Free Traffic, Make Money Online, Miscellaneous, Reviews, SLIIT, TechStuff and Uncategorized are the categories that you will find on Rumbling Lankan. Each of these categories contains a number of interesting articles. But, I found it strange that during first three months, the blogger wrote only three posts. Anyway the blog is now updated regularly and mostly covers blogging and SEO tips and traffic generation strategies. Under the ‘Blog Branding’ category I found some good posts like “Get traffic and backlinks through blog carnivals“.

Design and Monetization:

The blog design is simple and easy to navigate. But the header section looks somewhat flat to me. If I were the blog owner, I would love to use a logo image or a banner ad on that section. The blogger displays some ads for monetization. But, I feel that it is not properly monetized. Still there are space for proper integration of ads.

In the end, I would say that Rumbling Lankan has something for you, specially when you are new to blogging. Don’t believe me? Give it a visit and find out for yourself.

Note: This is a free blog review. Want me to write a blog review like this? Contact me today.

Identi.ca is a new microblogging service. You can use it to write short posts (140 characters) about yourself, where you are, and what you’re doing, and those notices will be sent to all your friends and fans. So, it provides same service like Twitter, Jaiku or other microblogging services do. Then where is the catch? How it is different? Identi.ca is different from other micro-blogging, because it uses Open Network Service.

Yes, it uses Open Network Service and supports OpenID. All the software used for Identi.ca is Free Software, and all the data is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, making it Open Data. Identi.ca also implements the OpenMicroBlogging protocol, that will allow your friends on other micro-blogging services to receive your updates. You can also post your messages to Identi.ca using a Jabber client on your computer, mobile phone, or other platforms like GTalk.

Identi.ca is a very simple tool and I found it very easy to use. But, it is too early to predict something. Well, SMS updates and notifications, Facebook integration, automatic URL-shortening, multilingual interface, multimedia notices, AJAX interface etc, are some of the features that are expected to be added to Identi.ca in near future. So, I am sure that it will work and people gonna love it!

If you really love microblogging and want to think beyond Twitter or other traditional microblogging platforms, then you can give Identi.ca a try.

Recently I tested a cool Firefox extension called ScribeFire. It enables me to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Internet into my blog posts and optimize my ad inventory. ScribeFire comprises of two different functionalities - ScribeFire Blog Editor and ScribeFire QuickAds. You can use the Blog Editor to enrich your blogging experience, while the QuickAds will help you to serve ads on your blog.

What is ScribeFire Blog Editor?

The Blog Editor is the core feature of ScribeFire. It is an easy way to update and manage your blogs right from the browser. It works with Firefox (2 and 3), Flock, and SeaMonkey. But, it does not work with Internet Explorer. It is very easy to install, even easier to manage! After installation, you will see an icon in the browser status bar. Click the icon to open ScribeFire and take help from the account wizard to connect your blogs. Once your blog is connected, you can start using it to write and manage posts. With ScribeFire Blog Editor, you can write, categorize and tag your blog posts. Even you can upload images, save posts as drafts and share your posts on social sites.

ScribeFire supports the following services: WordPress.com, LiveJournal, Xanga, Windows Live Spaces, Performancing, Jeeran, Tumblr, MySpace, b2Evolution and Splinder. And the popular blogging platforms that are supported by ScribeFire includes WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, Textpattern, Roller, Blogger and any software that uses MetaWeblog API.

What is ScribeFire QuickAds?

ScribeFire QuickAds is the first service to enable publishers to serve fully optimized banners ads on their sites with point and click functionality. It means that you can insert a fully optimized banner ad to your blog without adding a single line of code. Just click the “$” tab on your ScribeFire blog editor, choose an ad size and position the ad in the desired location on your site. That’s it. It takes only a few seconds to set up ads. You can also set up ads from within your account at www.scribefire.com.

QuickAds serve three different ad formats: 728×90 Leaderboard, 300×250 Medium Rectangle, 120×600 Skyscraper. Based on historical and real-time data, their special technology selects the optimum and highest paying network for the ad space on your site. So, it increases the chances of earning more from your ad space.

With QuickAds, you can take advantage of over 100 ad networks to maximum revenue from every impression your blog serves. It offers comprehensive reporting and you can track all your earnings from a single, all-inclusive dashboard. The payments are made on 7th of every month and there is no minimum for PayPal payouts. For payments by checks, $25.00 is the minimum amount you should earn.

ScribeFire QuickAds is currently in close beta and invites users on a first come first serve basis. So, you can give them your email ID, in order to get an invitation.

In my view, ScribeFire is a cool and handy tool for bloggers. It supports over 15 different blog hosting services and blogging software. Besides enriching your blogging experience, it also gives you an opportunity to maximize your ad revenue. Try it today.

So, you earn money from your blogs? Nice! Want to maximize your online income by accepting more advertisers on your blog? Then, think about Matched.co.uk, an interesting ad network that will pay you £3 per ad per web page with a maximum of 5 pages per site. No sitewide ads, just simple ads on selected pages. The sign up process is very simple and you can add up to 5 sites per publisher account.

How the system works?

First you register yourself as a publisher by providing information about your website and the pages you want to display ads. Then they will review your site to find a matching advertiser. Once a relevant advertiser is found, they will inform you along with the ad code. Paste the code into your particular web page and get paid after one month.

How much you can earn?

For each ad you publish on your site, you’ll receive £3 per month. They allows you to run 1 ad per page up to a maximum of 5 pages per site. And you can add up to 5 websites under your account. So, calculate yourself how much you can earn! I think it is not so bad, if you are lucky enough to get all the spots filled by their ads.

Affiliate Program

Matched.co.uk have an affiliate program that you can use to earn more money. They will pay you £5 for each publisher you refer to their service. Well, you will be paid only after the publisher runs an ad on their web page for 1 month.

What about payments?

Once an advertisement runs on your site for a month, they will pay you on the 15th of the following month. Payments are made either by bank transfer or by PayPal.

In my view, Matched.co.uk is a nice service that bloggers can use to make some money. And the good thing is that you don’t have to run any sitewide ad. The affiliate program is also a good way to make some money. So, join Matched.co.uk today, get some matching advertisers for your sites and start earning some real money without any hard work.

A new month starts. I am sure that all of you have different plans for this month. Some of you may have plans about improving the quality of your content, while some of you may go for improving backlinks and traffic. Different people, different ideas, different goals. This July, I am going to work on some other projects related to my business. So, this is going to be a busy month for me. In the mean time, I am thinking about showing my love to my readers and fellow bloggers. So, my friends get ready for this month’s Entrecard Credit (EC) Giveaway and Free Blog Review offer from Earnblogger.com.

Entrecard Credit Giveaway:

First, the giveaway. I will give your 50EC for each relevant comment you leave on this blog. Yes, 50EC per comment, for the month of July. All you have to do is post your comments on my blog. You are free to leave your comments on any of my blog posts. But, your comment must be relevant and not “Good post” or “Enjoyed your post” type. By leaving your comments, you can get free backlinks from this blog, as I have the “Top Commentators” section in the blog footer. So, start commenting and grab your free Entrecard credits.

Free Blog Reviews:

Then, the Free Blog Review offer. Do you have a blog related to ‘Blogging’, ‘Make Money Online‘ or ‘Social Media’? Do you feel that your blog have some valuable contents and bloggers must read them? If yes, I am ready to review your blog for free! If your blog is at least three months old, just tell me about your blog by using the Contact Form. If I like your blog, I will write a free review with some links. Contact me today for a free review.

Note: These two offers are for genuine comments and good blogs. Don’t try to spam me with irrelevant comments and free review requests for spam blogs. I am sure that my readers are good bloggers and they know how to help a fellow blogger. Happy Blogging.

Need a premium quality WordPress theme? Check the UBD Moneymaker WordPress theme from Unique Blog Designs. This free theme comes with some special functionalities that you will find only in premium WordPress themes. For example, easy integration of Feedburner email subscription form, MyBlogLog recent readers widget and in-post 468×60 banner ads, without touching your source code. The UBD Moneymaker theme also comes with built-in UBD Block Ad Plugin that will enable you to install and manage rotating 125×125 banner ads on your blog’s sidebar.

Some features of the UBD Moneymaker WordPress theme:

• Free premium quality two column WordPress theme.
• Theme Options panel for easy integration of Feedburner and MyBlogLog recent readers codes.
• Built-in UBD Block Ad Plugin, perfect for managing rotating 125×125 banner ads.
• Additional ad management feature for in-post 468×60 banner ads.
• Built-in social bookmarking functionality.
• Fully Widgetized sidebar. Just drag an drop your preferred sidebar elements.
• Four column footer section, that you can use to display comments, archives, tags, links etc.
• Search Engine Optimized and cross-browser compatible.
• Wordpress 2.5.1 compatible.

Demo | Release Page | Download Link

Have some doubts about the security of your WordPress installation? Use WP Security Scan, a plugin that scans your WordPress installation for various security vulnerabilities and recommends corrective actions for the detected vulnerabilities. WP Security Scan checks passwords, file permissions, directory permissions and database security. Out of corrective measures, it offers version hiding, WordPress admin protection/security and removes WP Generator META tag from core code.

The present version of this plugin is 2.3 and it requires WordPress 2.3 or higher. In future releases some more features will be added, such as:

• One-click change file/folder permissions.
• Test for XSS vulnerabilities.
• Intrusion detection/prevention.
• Lock out/log incorrect login attempts.
• User enumeration protection.
• doc links.
• .htaccess verification.

Note: The WP Security Scan plugin needs to be left activated once you have installed. Version hiding, turning off DB errors, removing WP ID META tag from HTML output, and other functionality of WordPress will cease if you deactivate the plugin.

Plugin Page | Download

Recently I came to know about AideRSS, a free online tool that monitors RSS feeds of blogs and news sources. AideRSS uses PostRank™, an unique scoring system for posts, in order to filter out the best posts from a RSS feed. You can use it to filter any blog or RSS feed and customize them before subscribing to match your interests. I found it useful for filtering, tracking and reading the good posts of my favorite blogs.

What actually AideRSS do? It checks a RSS feed, gathers information about the performance of it’s posts and provides you some options to filter, subscribe and share your favorite posts. You can also use AideRSS to evaluate a RSS feed that you are thinking about subscribing to. Just enter the URL of that feed or blog and hit the analyze button. Then, AideRSS will check the web to collect more information about the feed, its statistics and people’s reaction and will assign PostRank™ to all posts in that feed.

What’s next? The result page is very interesting and provides some useful information about a blog or feed. It shows a BlogTrends line, that depicts the performance of the feed over time. You will also have different filtering options like all posts, good posts, great posts, best posts and top 20 posts. What you can do with the filtered feed? You can subscribe it in your favorite feed reader, save it to your AideRSS account or share it on your site with the help of their widgets.

In my view, AideRSS is a nice tool to analyze both your favorite and new RSS feeds. You can use the widgets to show your own best contents or the contents of your favorite blogs or news sources. It is a free service. Try it today!

Want to add some interactive features to your website or blog? Give a look at AddOurSearch, a free service that will enable your visitors to search your website or blog directly from their web browsers. It does so by creating a custom search engine for your site and prompting your visitors to install your search engine to their browsers. AddOurSearch.com supports all the major blogging platforms and any website that has a search feature. So, adding it to your site is not a problem at all. From your visitors side, they must have Firefox 2+, Flock, or Internet Explorer 7+ to use this service.

How it works?

In order to use this free service, you need to add a simple widget to your site. So, first create your widget by following their instructions. There are a few widget badge styles that you can choose from. Get the widget code and paste it on your website code. For better visibility, you can paste the code right after the search box on your site. Now your widget is ready to serve your visitors. When your visitors clicks on the widget badge, they will be presented with an easy installation page. After installation, your visitors will be able to search your site directly from the built in search feature on their browsers. That’s it! In case, your visitor don’t have Firefox 2+, Flock, or Internet Explorer 7+ browser, this application will prompt them to install one.

In my view, AddOurSearch.com is a cool way to brand and promote your website or blog. And if you have valuable content on your site, then your visitors would definitely like to search your site anytime, right from their browser. Give it a try. It is free!