This is a guest post by Sarah Rexman. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Are you plugged in? Do you know about all the latest gadgets? Are you wearing the latest fashions before they start showing up in stores? Have you already downloaded the second album for a new artist that everyone else is just discovering? If you answered “no” like most of us, the you likely don’t already know what all the latest trending topics are. Sure, you might be familiar with Hipster Kitty, and maybe you’ve even LOL’d at some of the Texts from Hillary, but you still couldn’t tell a friend what all the latest trends are.

Tapping into these trends can help you to grow your blog readership and rank higher in search results by hosting discussions that people want to be a part of now. So how do you find out what the trends are? Here are a few ways that you can find the latest trending topics for your blog:

Twitter

Twitter plays up trending topics better than a lot of other sites, often playing like a news ticker for the latest stories and other items of interest. Hash tags identify conversations about the latest trends, making it easy to become part of the larger conversation. To check out a handy list of the latest trending topics, just click on the “Discover” tab in the top portion of your profile page. The trends will appear in the column on the left side of the page.

You can use this list of trending topics to better understand the discussion that is happening around those topics so that you can approach them from a fresh angle. Find a way to talk about the latest news in a way that others aren’t. People will find your blog when they look for the latest news about that subject, but they’ll stick around because they’ll know that you have unique, quality content to offer them.

Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends)

When people want information, they turn to Google. Find out what they’re looking for by using this handy tool. Browse the list of the top search terms for the day in your country, or check on the popularity of a topic by entering a term in the search box. You can get related search terms that are trending, or you can check on performance within a certain time frame.

Google Trends also updates frequently — at least every hour or more. You can often get breaking news this way because you’ll see when everyone starts searching for something all of a sudden. Bloggers who do their best to post frequently and to offer a steady stream of quality content can get a lot of ideas from Google Trends, as the top searches are constantly changing.

Google Insights (http://www.google.com/insights/search/)

Google provides multiple tools for marketers, and this is another that helps you identify trending topics. Enter a search term, a time range, and a location to get information about keyword performance and related search terms. Find out if a topic is going up or down in popularity, as well as related terms.

Google Insights is great for finding out not only what is currently trending, but what topics are expected to be trending in the near future, or by season. For example, allergies would be a trending topic in the spring. However, you can find much more detailed and nuanced lists here.

You can also look for patterns in search topics to get insights into related categories and to broaden your coverage of a topic, helping to set you apart from a competitor. There is also information about geographical searches, helping you to optimize your local search results, which Google is now emphasizing.

Forums

What better way to find out what people are talking about than to go to the places where they are talking. Popular forums and information-sharing sites like Reddit, Digg, and Stumble Upon can help you quickly identify the most popular conversations, thereby determining trending topics. You can even get information about whether a topic has gone up or down in popularity.

Take special care to look at forums within your niche, as well. While it’s a good idea to find out what’s popularity with general audiences by looking at sites like Reddit or Digg, you also need to find out what’s hot with your target audience right now.

News Sites

Trends and popular topics are what make the news. Scan the latest headlines to get a sense for what’s on people’s minds. You can get ideas for larger social conversations or even just topics about lifestyle, health, or popular culture. For example, a scan of today’s headlines might show you that people are talking about environmental issues and the upcoming election, as well as a hot new workout that mimics circus training.

The key to following the news for trending topics is to make sure you are ahead of the story. You don’t want to be the person talking about Charlie Sheen’s meltdown a week after everyone else is already tweeting #winning. Follow news sites for trending topics so you can help break news and contextualize it, offering your readers more value and setting your blog apart.

Other Blogs

Watch your competition and other blogs in your niche to make sure you’re always ahead of the news most important to your audience. Look at what other writers in your niche are talking about, and find ways to add to the conversation. Make sure you bring a unique voice to the discussion, tackling the topic from a new angle or offering a distinctive opinion. Your readers will come to know your blog for content that is both current and distinct from other sites.

Staying ahead of trending topics is key to keeping your blog content fresh and relevant to readers. It is also a great way to rank our site better, as you will have content that people are searching for right now, making your site seem more in demand for search engines.

What other sources do you use to find trending topics to write about on your blog? Tell us your ideas in the comments!

According to Russian antivirus company Dr. Web, there are about 600,000 Macs around the world that are infected by different variations of the Flashback trojan and are now part of a fast-growing Mac botnet. Of the 600,000 infected Macs the majority are located in North America – 57% from the US and 20% in Canada.

If you own a Mac and would like to check whether its infected or not, you can follow these step-by-step instruction provided by the folks from F-Secure.

NOTE: This procedure is risky and could be a bit tricky so it is recommended only for advanced users. If you think you’re not capable of doing it yourself, you can request a friend or a professional technician to assist you.

1. Open up Terminal (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
2. Key in and run the following command in Terminal:

defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment

3. Take note of the value, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
4. Proceed to step 8 if you got the following error message:

"The domain/default pair of (/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info, LSEnvironment) does not exist"

5. Otherwise, run the following command in Terminal:

grep -a -o '__ldpath__[ -~]*' %path_obta</blockquote>ined_in_step2%

6. Take note of the value after “__ldpath__”
7. Run the following commands in Terminal (first make sure there is only one entry, from step 2):

sudo defaults delete /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment 

sudo chmod 644 /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info.plist

8. Delete the files obtained in steps 2 and 5
9. Run the following command in Terminal:

defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

10. Take note of the result. Your system is already clean of this variant if you got an error message similar to the following:

"The domain/default pair of (/Users/joe/.MacOSX/environment, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES) does not exist"

11. Otherwise, run the following command in Terminal:

grep -a -o '__ldpath__[ -~]*' %path_obtained_in_step9%

12. Take note of the value after “__ldpath__”
13. Run the following commands in Terminal:

defaults delete ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES 

launchctl unsetenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

14. Finally, delete the files obtained in steps 9 and 11.

If you get both “does not exist” errors on Step 4 and 10, it basically means that your Mac is not infected by the latest Flashback trojan variation. However, other Flashback trojan variations include additional components which require additional removal steps. Please refer to this link for further information and removal instructions.

I performed the procedure on my Mac and fortunately for me, it isn’t one of the 600,000 infected machines. I strongly recommend that you do the same thing and check to make sure whether your Mac is infected or not. It won’t hurt if you do and its always better to be safe than sorry.

Anyone here who got infected by the latest Flashback trojan or a different variant? What did you do to fix/disinfect your machine?

The Leapster Explorer was working fine a few days back so I asked my son if he dropped it recently. He said he didn’t so I assumed that it was most likely a problem with the speaker, volume buttons or something with the hardware. I was able to fix it and restore the sound by opening up the device and manually adjusting the volume. If your child’s Leapster Explorer is experiencing the same issue, don’t worry because today I’ll be sharing with you the step-by-step process on how to fix it.

1. Turn off the Leapster Explorer and take out any game cartridges.

2. Take out the battery pack.

3. Remove all the screws on the back of the device. Make sure you keep the screws together in a secure place so you won’t lose them.

4. Pull out the back cover.

5. Locate the volume switches and take out the button.

6. Take the battery pack and hold it down to the board.

7. Turn the device on by pressing the power button.

8. Get a small pointed device like a screwdriver and use it to press on the volume increase contact point.

9. Increase the volume/sound to desired level.

10. Turn off the device and put everything back in place – volume button, back cover, screws, battery pack.

I’m not sure what caused the issue and why the volume increase button stopped working. This procedure is a simple hack and doesn’t really fix the issue with the volume buttons but it does do the job of restoring the Leapster Explorer’s volume/sound. Also, this procedure only works if the problem is with the volume switch. It won’t work if the speakers. wires or circuit board are broken. Hope this short and simple tutorial helps if you come across the same problem.

This is a guest post by Ada Ivanova of WinkPress. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

There are many annoyances on the Web and popups frequently top the chart. Of course, if you know how to use them, popups don’t have to be an annoyance but thanks to their blatant use, or more precisely misuse and outright abuse, they do have a bad name. This is somehow unfair because popups can do a great job but if you violate some obvious rules about their proper use, it is not a surprise that your users will get mad.

Here are some ways to drive your users mad by popups. Needless to say, these aren’t tips to follow. On the contrary, these are tips to stay away from as far as possible.

1. Show Popups All the Time

A popup every now and then is fine but when you overstep the line and start displaying popups without measure, this will drive even the calmest user mad. Put a popup on every single page, or even better – display them all the time while the user is on the page and this guarantees user madness. You might be wondering who will do something so lame but believe me, there are webmasters who are doing it.

In fact, quite recently I was subject exactly to this treatment – I close the popup without closing the page itself and in a split second, the same popup reappears. I close it again and switch to another tab and when I get back … can you guess what I see? The same old popup. When I loaded a different page, the same popup appeared shortly. Boy, this isn’t the way to use popups for sure!

2. Hide the Close Button

In the previous example the Close button was there but in fact it was absolutely useless. However, if you care about your users, you do need to put a Close button that closes the popup once and forever. I guess in some cases the Close button should be called the Get Rid Of button but no matter how you call it, it needs to be there. What is more, it needs to be large enough and in a visible place. If your users don’t want to see the popup, obstructing their way to closing it won’t make them love it more.

3. Put Sound and Video and Provide No Way to Stop Them

There are really powerful WordPress popup plugins that allow to make your popups rich by placing sound and video inside. In itself, this is great but only when you don’t abuse the feature. If you do – i.e. if you put sound/video in the popup and decide that the user doesn’t need a way to stop them because you want him or her to watch it at any cost, this is really a reason for a user with a brain to leave your site in a millisecond.

4. Make the Popup As Irrelevant As Possible

If the creative approaches to popup abuse listed so far didn’t complete the mission to make your users mad, don’t give up – there are some more to try. For instance, why not make the popup as irrelevant as possible? Let’s say you have a family-oriented site. Wouldn’t it be great to run some gambling ads on it? If this doesn’t fill your inbox with complaints, you could give alcohol and tobacco ads a try. I’m joking, of course, but unfortunately I see such outrageous examples of popup abuse so frequently that it isn’t funny at all.

5. Keep Your Users Waiting

Users hate fast Internet and sites that load fast drive them mad. Well, you might feel nostalgic about the good ol’ times in the early 1990s when you were on a dialup connection and sites took ages to load but in 2012 it is totally unacceptable to have to wait for ages for a site to load simply because the popup you have placed is so fat that it loads forever, blocking all the other content on the page in the meantime.

When I give tips, I am usually happy when users follow them. Well, this is an exception – I will be much happier if nobody shows popups all the time, or hides the Close button, or applies any of the other popup annoyances I listed here. Still, I am not overly optimistic that these lame practices will die quickly but if their number is decreased, this is enough for me to be happy.

If you already have the W3 Total Cache plugin and would like to enable this feature, just follow these simple steps:

1. Make sure you have the latest version of W3 Total Cache installed.
2. Get the Page Speed API Key from the Google APIs Console (Google account required).
3. Click on the Services tab.



4. Activate the Page Speed Online API.



5. Accept the Terms of Service.
6. Click on the API Access tab.



7. Copy the API key in the Simple API Access section.



8. On the W3 Total Cache plugin settings, go to General Settings > Miscellaneous.
9. Put a check on the “Enable Google Page Speed dashboard widget” option.
10. Enter the API key on the space provided and click on Save all settings.
    

11. Go to the WordPress dashboard and see your site results on the W3 Total Cache: Google Page Speed Report widget.

Hope this short and simple tutorial on how to enable the W3 Total Cache Google Page Speed Report WordPress dashboard widget helped you. Feel free to bookmark and share this post.

NOTE: This tutorial is meant for W3 Total Cache plugin users who want to enable the Google Page Speed Report on their WordPress dashboard. Although W3 Total Cache is a very useful plugin, it is a bit complicated to use and configure so it would not be practical to install it just for the sake of enabling the Google Page Speed Report.