I am slowly getting the hang of Twitter – very slowly, but then I am not much of a social animal full stop. Whether it is instant messaging, Facebook or any of the social media sites, I find it very different to face to face socializing.

When people start talking about re-Tweet ranks and Twitter ranks and the like, they lose me. If I understand things now, Google is ranking your Tweets based on a number of factors. Caroline Melberg has a post – Do You Know Your TweetRank – that explains some of these factors. The web is becoming more complicated everyday.

Technology Review also has a post that not only discusses Tweet Rank, it also goes a little into real time search. This seems to be the talk of the net at present. What you write now could be showing in search results five minutes after you publish – if you’re lucky anyway.

While everyone is Twittering, the economy seems to be building – at least it’s improving thanks to construction. Infrastructure programs are starting to leave their mark on employment with fewer jobs now being lost. I have always wanted to get behind the controls of a crane or an excavator. I don’t know why those two in particular. ATS caught my eye with a post – Increased Public Works Spending To Increase Demand For Graders – further reading reveals that it’s not just graders that are affected, it is almost all aspects of heavy equipment.

The earthquake in Haiti has been devastating and rescue services are stretched beyond imagination. There is little in the way of heavy equipment to begin with – what heavy equipment they do have is hardly capable of doing the job. Fuel is another big problem as well. Even if they had the heavy equipment and fuel, having sufficiently trained personnel to do the job is also a problem. This news story covers some of the logistical nightmares being encountered in Haiti. Food is also a problem with fresh and/or frozen food supplies having been wiped out. Going to a restaurant is certainly out of the question right now. Talking of restaurants.

The restaurant industry is also growing with the trade starting to employ more staff as people start to return to eating out. It becomes a chain reaction with restaurants looking to then upgrade so as to attract more of the growing business. Before buying in new restaurant furniture, grab a quote. Suppliers are also trying to get back on their feet so many of them are offering good prices. Read this if you don’t know How To Get A Restaurant Furniture Quote.

There are a lot of WordPress plugins around these days and finding the best ones for your blog can be difficult. Here are four plugins that may add a little more to your blog.

.

TweetMeme Button

If you’re a Twitterer and Tweet your posts then this little plugin is a must. It adds the TweetMeme button to your posts so your readers can re-Tweet the post if they think it is worthwhile. The button is also included in RSS feeds.

There is very little setup required – just upload it to your plugins folder on your site and activate. photo credit: NevilleHobson

.

Cookies For Comments

This is an anti spam plugin that works by sending a cookie when a page is loaded. If the cookie is not present then the user is not able to leave a comment.

A cool little plugin if you are getting spam that is getting past Askismet. Bots tour around leaving comments, however, they don’t take on cookies and with no cookie, there is no comment. The downside, if your reader has cookies disabled, they will not be able to leave a comment either.

Upload and activate – couldn’t be easier. photo credit: Mrs Magic

.

Post Teaser

This has the potential to be a neat little plugin. It truncates your posts on the home page and leaves a teaser. You can set the number of words to the teaser (default 100 words). It places a read more option and provides post data such as word count, image count, and an estimated reading time.

There are a couple of issues to watch. If you have graphics within the teaser section, it will make a mess of your site (just look at mine here). If you set the teaser to 100 words, place any graphics outside that 100 words.

Another issue that is worth remembering is that many visitors want to see the complete post when visiting your home page. Hopefully this will convince them to click through and so reduce your bounce rate. It would have been nice to have an option to leave the first post in full and place teasers for all other posts.

Upload, activate and edit the length of the teaser – or just leave it at the default 100 words. photo credit: Andy Woo

.

WPtouch: WordPress on iPhone, iPod & Android

This is a neat not so little plugin that provides a slimmed down version of your site for iPhone, iPod and Andoid users. There are a few options you can tweak including the skin. If your site is a little heavy for mobile browsing, install this plugin.

Upload, activate and edit the settings. Great for sites that include content relevant to mobile searches.

.