“Ahh! This post is going to gain some attention ’cause it is such an informative post.”

The above sentence might be something you think of when you come up with a great idea or subject that you want to write about on your blog. The post might be very informative but at times how you present it matters a lot when it comes to persuading others to believe in the information you are providing.

There are six steps I find very important to make a post effective and to support your subject or idea while writing,

To give you a detailed example on how we can use these six steps I am going to write about TNX which I have found pretty useful when it comes to earning money online. Let’s start, [Read more →]

Tags: Blogging, Reviews by Ritu - 10 Comments »

It’s pretty exciting as this marks the 100th post on Work n Play since it started in August 2007. This blog has grown in terms of traffic, hopefully quality and been through many changes and I myself think I am growing as a blogger. I thought of sending out a thank you that is long overdue and what better way to utilize the 100th post. I look at this as a milestone for a new blog and would like to thank one person who has helped me tremendously. [Read more →]

Tags: Blogging, Links, Ramblings, Reviews by Ritu - 14 Comments »

If it doesn’t exist on the first page of google it’s not there, right? Wrong! There are plenty of websites that are fun and productive that most of us don’t know about. In this post I have tried to collect some of them that might prove to be useful or plain fun for you to explore.

10. Uncyclopedia
This is the contender of Encyclopedia but the only thing that is different is the content itself. All the content and information you will find here are nonsense that are put forward with a straight face. If you are looking for facts and figures this certainly isn’t an option but if you are in need of hours of fun go ahead and check it out.

9. EXPN
No, it’s not ESPN. The ‘S’ is replaced by ‘X’ as it stands for Extreme. This site covers the dangerous aspects of sports, such as skating, surfing, motorcross and X Games. You can also find photos and videos of death defying stunts along with the sports column.

8. Bargainist
Who doesn’t love a good bargain? This site is updated several times daily which searches the web for daily deals, coupons and bargains to get you those goodies for cheap. Also you can find links to over 50 retailers and online stores where you can get a bargain.
[Read more →]

Tags: Productivity, Reviews, Websites by Ritu - 8 Comments »

As we all know, mobile browsing is growing in popularity by the minute. With phones like iPhone and Palm and other smart phones, browsing web through a mobile gadget has become a must for people on the go.

Most people or businesses do not seem to realize how important it is to get their mobile site ready. It probably was quite a work before, not anymore. Mofuse, a service that lets you turn your site into a mobile ready site is one of the most simple service I have used.
The process is simple, you log into your account and just follow the instructions like, add your URL and Page title and RSS feed ( if your site supports RSS feeds , if not you can skip this and still be able to creat one ). You can also add header images and choose different colors for your mobile site.

Now the part that might make you a little hesitant, when you get your site ready for the mobile devices, your URL won’t be the same as you would use on your browser. You have to pick an ‘id’ which integrates with mofuse’s Url and that now becomes the URL for your mobile site. For example:- the URL to this blog is http://www.worknplay.net/ and the URL for the mobile site created using Mofuse is http://m.mofuse.com/worknplay.

Besides that I think this service is very helpful for people who want to get their blogs or websites mobile ready. It’s a free service so using their URL for your site wouldn’t hurt much, as long as your site is not something people use excessively through their mobile phones and other mobile gadgets.

Why do you need this? Try opening your site on a mobile device and see how long it takes and how hard it is to navigate. Now create a mobile site using this service and see the difference. Share your comments here and lemme know what you think. Also this site is still in private Beta and I had an opportunity to get an invite. If you guys would like to try it out please leave your email address on the comment and I will send you an invite.

Last Post Top Commenter: Mitch

Tags: Reviews, Tools, Websites by Ritu - 4 Comments »

ProductWiki resembles Wikipedia in the sense it offers exact same service but for product reviews. On this site, each user can review products and add their own reviews or edit reviews submitted by other users.

So, in a nutshell this site allows you to look at products that are reviewed by consumers, like us so you can get unbiased opinion and facts from other users. Also the reviews are divided into categories which makes it much easier to find a particular review on. Each product has a brief description which is followed by user edited pros and cons.

I found this site to be very informative as reviews come out from general users and not through sponsored results, which most of the time are biased. Think about it, if somebody wants to put an ad on my blog, I would be somewhat biased towards their products as they are paying for their ad to run on my blog. I loved this site and will be visiting regularly to see what people have to say about products that I am interested in, what about you?

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Tags: Reviews, Services, Websites by Ritu - 12 Comments »

Sometimes while browsing the internet you find things that you just can’t go without trying. Animoto is a web service that lets you create your own trailer ( just like a movie ) or video using images from your computer and a tune.

The main objective of this site is to allow you to create a video or a trailer using your images which animates or moves along with the tune of the music you provide. You can also select tunes from their library which currently has Indie Rock, HipHop and Electronica.

Sample Video I made using my Images ( I tried embedding the video here but for some reason it didnt work, so please click the link to watch the video )

The site is simple to use, just upload your pictures, choose a music and hit create video. The only drawback that I found on this site was when the video was rendering, it almost took five minutes to create a video using ten images that I had uploaded, but after the video was created I felt every second was worth the wait.

Another great feature of this site, Animoto boasts that no two videos are ever similar. You can remix your videos and add different music to them and see what it comes up with. Also you can embed the videos on your blog or website or add it to MySpace, FaceBook and other popular social networking sites from animoto itself. Just be careful as this site can be very addictive, I played with this site for almost two and half hours last night just trying to see what it comes up with.

Creating a membership is free and you can create a thirty second video for free but anything longer than that will cost $3.00 per video or you can pay a $30.00 yearly fee and get all access.

Tags: Reviews, Videos, Websites by Ritu - 3 Comments »