There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality. With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you’re protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products.

What sets this service apart from the others?

• Because it is hosted by Google, you can be sure of nearly 100% uptime.
• Because it is hosted by Google, you can be sure of blazing speed.
• And because it is hosted by Google, you're protected from phishing, spam and malware.

If stats tracking is your thing, by signing in to your Google Account you will have access to a complete real-time analytics package.

Check it out at Goo.gl.

What is a dummy post pack? Let me put it this way. You're running one or more instances of WordPress locally and just came across a new theme you want to try out. You install it in one of your dev blogs then check out what it looks like. It looks fine but something is missing - content. Enter the dummy post pack.

Essentially, a dummy post pack is a WordPress compatible XML file which when imported into your blog will automatically create content containing posts, pages, categories, tags and various HTML elements to name a few.

While the dummy post pack I mentioned in that blog post works fine I came across a few more. Choice is good, yes?

Speckyboy, one of my favourite sites, is famous for its huge listings of various tools and resources. They have put together an awesome list of content fillers not only for WordPress but for Joomla and Drupal as well.

PunyPNG is an online service that allows you to upload your image where it is optimized and can then be downloaded with no loss of quality. How does it work?

Depending on the file, punypng will automatically convert your GIF into a PNG format and then further compress that. For JPEGs, sometimes it's better to make it a PNG, and other times it's better to keep it as JPEG and use jpeg-tran to optimize it. punypng makes all those decisions for you and ensures the best possible results.

In order to use the service you must have Flash installed. You can upload multiple images one at a time. After each is optimized, which takes mere seconds, it is offered as a download. A rather neat feature is the ability to download multiple optimized images packaged together in a ZIP file rather than individually.

So, how well does it work? I tested the service by uploading seven images. As you can see in the screen shot below the savings are quite substantial. (click image to enlarge)

If you have images in need of optimization give PunyPNG a whirl. You may be amazed at the results.

The dummy post pack is simply an XML file that can be imported into your WordPress dev blog. Once done, it will not only fill the site with content by creating 30 posts but will create pages, categories, sub-pages, sub-categories, tags and thumbnails via custom fields. Additionally, among the posts it creates is one that test various HTML elements such as <blockquote> among others.

Whether you are a casual user or a professional developer the dummy post pack is sure to be a huge time saver. Get it here.

The first method involves placing an empty index.HTML file in EACH folder you want to protect. If you prefer you can include a brief message in that file rather than using a blank one. Two important things to remember when using this method:

1. You'll have to place the file in EACH folder you want to protect. It will not shield subfolders.
2. Be sure NOT to use a blank PHP file in the plugin directory - it will bork the dashboard. That is why I suggest using a blank HTML file. And if you're going to use a HTML file in the plugin directory you may as well use them everywhere else.

The next two methods involve the use of a .htaccess file.

Method a: This is the easiest method of all. Add the following line to the .htaccess file that lives at root...

Options -Indexes

This will automagically turn off indexing for ALL folders/subfolders sitewide. If you add that line to a .htaccess file in wp-contents it will disable indexing not only for that folder but for the folders below it and so forth.

Method b: Add the following line to the .htaccess file that lives at root...

IndexIgnore *

The * matches all files in the directory. What is the difference between the two? Method b allows you to restrict only a subset of files from being viewed. For example, let's say for some reason you want the directory content to be viewable but block image files. You would do this...

IndexIgnore *.gif *.png *.jpg

For more .htaccess goodness check out Stupid htaccess Tricks by Perishable Press.

Validifier is an online tool that easily generates standards-compliant flash embed code. Simply paste your embed code in the form box and click "Validify It!" and let the tool do the rest. The generated output given you will be XHTML valid. It can't get any easier than that.

Thanks Nick!