Insert a link into a Myspace bulletin - How to

I'm thinking about introducing a new feature here on Web Tracker. My plan is to occasionally turn to my web logs and do my best to address any unfulfilled Myspace queries. We'll see how it goes.

Actual query: myspace how to insert a link into bulletins

This person is looking to insert a clickable link into their Myspace bulletin. Let's tackle this one.

How to get a TEXT link into a Myspace bulletin

1. Go to your Myspace POST BULLETIN page.
2. In the BODY of your Myspace bulletin, paste the following code:

<a href=""></a>

3. Between the quotes, type the web address (URL) where you intend to send your readers. For the sake of clarity, let's say that you want to post a bulletin link to my own site (Web Tracker); the URL would be http://web-tracker.blogspot.com.

Example:

<a href="http://web-tracker.blogspot.com"></a>

4. Now type your link text between the > and <. Again, for the sake of clarity, let's say your link text is Click here to go to a really cool site.

Your example would now look like this:

<a href="http://web-tracker.blogspot.com">Click here to go to a really cool site</a>

That's it really. Previewing your Myspace bulletin you'd see this:

Click here to go to a really cool site

...and you're done.

One variation of this is to have an image be the link rather than the text.

How to get an IMAGE link into a Myspace bulletin

1. Same as above
2. Same as above
3. Same as above
4. Now insert the following code between the > and <.

<img src="">

Your example would look like this:

<a href="http://web-tracker.blogspot.com"><img src=""></a>

5. Finally, insert your images web address (I'm assuming it's hosted online somewhere) between the quotes. Continuing with the Web Tracker theme above, we'll use the web address to my own logo: http://members.cox.net/web-tracker/TTlogo.gif

Your example would look like this:

<a href="http://web-tracker.blogspot.com"><img src="http://members.cox.net/web-tracker/TTlogo.gif"></a>

That's it really. Previewing your Myspace bulletin you'd see this:



...and you're done.

Hope that helps at least one person out there. :)

Related posts:
Code to hide the Myspace music player
Make my Myspace profile private - How to

Source: Tom Thomas

A slide show set to music for Myspace - iBloks

Here's a slide show (Myspace ready) with a slight twist; It allows you to add your own music track to it. This one's fun! :)

From the iBloks site:

"...With iBloks, you can mix your digital photos, music, videos, and games in 2D and 3D environments, share your personalized mix with friends, play iBloks from others, and remix content along the way..."

I'll add that the description doesn't begin to describe how cool this product really is. On my test run I was able to quickly create a slide show, add my own music track to it, and play it as if it were a movie. It really adds more depth and dimension to your slide shows and makes the other ones look dull and boring. To draw on an analogy, it's the difference between watching a movie with a great soundtrack vs one without.

With iBloks you can create your own Myspace slide show set to music

When you're ready, the slide show can be shared with your friends via IM (instant messenger), mobile phone (in the works), and pasted to your Myspace profile via a snippet of code. Crazy! I love it!

A few things to watch for (a.k.a. Things I had trouble with):

• You upload your images/pictures AND music via the same upload button
• To share your movie and get the actual code you HAVE to check the Allow public viewing box. It's a little hard to find. You can get to it on the Mix Movie page, directly under the Movies icon, by clicking on your particular movie.
• When you're ready to add your slide show to your Myspace profile, click on the RSS button (located on the Mix Movie page), then find your movie on your public movies page and click its link. The code it at the bottom of the page.
• Currently the only supported music uploads are MP3's and unprotected WMA files. (no iTunes for now)
  

Keep in mind that iBloks IS still in beta; hopefully they'll work these things out a bit later.

Definitely try this out.

Preview this Myspace add-on

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Myspace slide show generator - BubbleShare
Rockyou slideshows for your Myspace profile

Source: Tom Thomas

Myspace slide show generator - BubbleShare

Those of you who still haven't discovered Myspace slide shows may yet have another to choose from. Bubbleshare, a community based photo sharing site, has a pretty slick slide show that's perfect for your Myspace profile!

Bubbleshare's album editor allows you to rotate your photos, add bubble captions, add text captions, add audio captions and much more!

You can also create and name multiple slide show albums and share them via your Myspace profile. Using several available slide show versions (Note: Myspace users need to stick to the Bubbleshare flash style slide show players) you simply paste the corresponding slide show code right into your Myspace profile.

You can try it out here.

You can also see it in action in this Youtube clip.



Preview this Myspace add-on

Related posts:
Rockyou slideshows for your Myspace profile
Add speech balloons to Myspace images with Bubblesnaps flash widget

Source: Tom Thomas

Hiding unwanted but necessary images in Myspace

I often look through my web stats to see what sorts of things people are searching for. Yesterday, I saw one person looking for information on how to hide the Trakzor tracker image. I thought about it a bit, played around with an idea or two, and came up with a solution. How you choose to implement it is up to you.

Hiding things can be accomplished by using one DIV and confining whatever it is you want to hide to one section of your Myspace profile. One catch, you will have to sacrifice a Myspace profile category (Interests, Music, Movies, Television, Books, or Heroes) for this to work. This will serve as a container for the image(s) that you'd like to hide.

Briefly, what we're doing here is creating a box, sized and colored just right, that will cover whatever it is you're trying to hide.

Before picture of Myspace profile with sample image that we want to hide

Go to your Myspace EDIT PROFILE page and copy and paste the code below to the TOP (it must be the first thing listed) of your chosen category (delete anything that happens to be in there already). For this example, I chose the BOOKS category (see two below) .

<div style="position:absolute; background-color:#7CFC00; width:120px; height:60px;"></div>

This code should be pasted to the top of your chosen Myspace category

Find, copy, and paste the code of whatever you want to hide, below the code you just pasted (again, see below) .

Note the positioning of the code, top to bottom

Looking over the code that you pasted from the box above, there are three things that you'll be working with: the width value (green), height value (blue), and color code (red). Width and height will be used to stretch your box and the color code will be used to blend the boxes color to your existing Myspace profile color.

<div style="position:absolute; width:120px; height:60px; background-color:#7CFC00;"></div>
code showing the values you'll be changing

For now, save your changes and preview your Myspace profile. Mine looks like this (see below). As you can see, I'll still have to adjust the width and height values to stretch the box over the image.

Box is a little small and needs to be stretched

I've made those changes below; a perfect fit! Next I would adjust the color of that god awful lime green to a more suitable light blue. To do this you can try using either an online color picker, or your own graphic programs built-in color picker. Either way you'll need to determine which color to use. Copy the six digit (not the "#") alphanumeric color code and use it in place of the color code (red) you already pasted. Now save and preview your Myspace profile.

Box is sized correctly but the color needs to be changed

After making changes to the width, height, and color code, this is what I end up with. The original image IS there, but it's been covered by the blue box that I created. It's officially hidden.

Image completely hidden

Just remember to keep adjusting the three variables: width, height, and color. Eventually you'll get it just right.

Related posts:
Mixmap vs Trakzor: Two Myspace profile Trackers

Source: Tom Thomas

Code to move the Myspace music player - updated!

This past weekend all hell broke loose around here over some apparent changes that affected the code to hide the Myspace music player. Although I don't quite know what happened over at Myspace, be it intentional or not, I'm happy to say that a new code was in place within a couple of hours and the problem has now been resolved. Whew!

If you'd like to know what all the fuss was about, you can follow the link below and try out the new code yourself. If you're not all that keen on the standard Myspace music player and are lookin' for something meatier, try adding a free flash Myspace music player to your profile.

Stay tuned for any future Myspace music player coding debacles.

Related posts:
Code to hide the Myspace music player

Source: Tom Thomas

Funny Myspace bulletin - NOT! Beware of Phishing

A few days ago, I received my first scammy Myspace bulletin - A rather weak phishing attempt at getting me to enter my username and password on a bogus Myspace login page - Thanks, but I'll pass. Anyway, I thought I'd share my experience with you just in case you ever run into something similar or, in case you already have.

Phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an electronic communication (source: Wikipedia). In our case, we're talking usernames and passwords and the "trustworthy business" that they are masquerading as, is Myspace.

Here's a look into a few of my fun-filled moments this past Tuesday night:

I logged into my Myspace account like any other day. In my bulletin section I noticed that a good friend of mine had posted a new funny bulletin titled, "OMG! Check this out!"(see below).

Screen one of Myspace Phishing attempt

First word of caution. These bulletins CAN come from your very good friends; often your friends simply aren't aware that they are using an account that has been compromised.

Back to Tuesday night...

Clicking on the link I'm taken to the next screen where I get a brief, albeit vague, blurb about something that I apparently "have to see!". Of course, not a whole lot is going on this particular Tuesday night, so I bite! *click*.

Screen two of Myspace Phishing attempt

The screen below shows where I was taken after clicking on the link. Hmmm...I'm being prompted to login to my Myspace account again. I wonder what happened? Oh well I'll just put my username and pass in the cute little boxes and get on to my "must see" bulletin link - NOT!

Screen three of Myspace Phishing attempt - note the fake URL

Look closely at the image above. What looks like a normal Myspace login page is in actuality, a cleverly crafted copy of a Myspace login page. Look at the URL highlighted in yellow. That's not the normal Myspace URL is it? The Phishers have simply appended "myspace.com" to the end of a bogus URL hoping to fool the unsuspecting; I'm guessing quite a few people fall for it. The URL, in fact, has nothing to do with Myspace at all. It's just a catch-all page that collects username and passwords from people that don't know any better. That's its sole purpose. The "have to see" bulletin that I was chasing...well...doesn't exist.

If this has happened to you GO CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD now!

Things to think about while reading bulletins:

1. If you are prompted to enter your username and password after clicking a bulletin link, IT'S A SCAM! Do not give out your personal information. If you really think you've been logged out, close your browser, re-open it, TYPE http://www.myspace.com in the address bar and go there directly to login. If the bulletin still prompts you for your details, fugetaboutit!

2. This is more a personal choice but it will save you some IE (internet explorer) vulnerability headaches; Go download, and use the Firefox browser instead.

Source: Tom Thomas

Myspace avatar maker - create your own!

ShrinkPictures.com, apart from having a pretty cool image resizing tool, has an equally cool avatar maker - prefect for your Myspace profile!

Sample picture used to create a Myspace avatar

It's all pretty easy. Using the BROWSE button on their site, you locate a picture/image on your computer; presumably the one you'd like to use to make your Myspace avatar. You then type the your desired avatar size (it's in pixels). The picture will be reduced accordingly and squared. You'll get a series of three avatars to choose from, each cropped slightly different. Underneath each avatar you'll see a corresponding link. Just copy the one you want and you're ready to go.

Shrinkpicture after avatar for Myspace has been created

Two things that you can do from here:

1. Take that URL (the one you copied), insert it into the code below and then paste the whole thing to your Myspace profile (anywhere you'd like it).

<img src="YOUR_CODE_GOES_HERE">

Note: You are only replacing the RED text with your copied avatar URL.

2. You can choose to SAVE the avatar image directly to your computer instead then do as you please. Simply position your mouse over the avatar image that you'd like then right click and select either SAVE IMAGE AS or SAVE PICTURE AS (depending on your browser). Done!

Related posts:
Meez: customized avatars for your Myspace profile

Source: Tom Thomas

Resize a picture for a Myspace profile or comment - ResizR

If you've ever tried uploading a picture to Myspace using the Add/Edit photos link, you've more than likely met this little guy:

Myspace has a 600k picture size limit - You'll need to resize it.

If you're comfortable hosting your own picture, you might find this site useful.

ResizR, an online picture resizer, has by far the simplest, easiest to use interface that I've come across. Try it out here. Select a picture from your computer (BROWSE button) or from the web (FROM WEB tab). Then, using the slider, decide what pixel width you'd like your picture to be. The picture can be optionally rotated as well. Click the RESIZR button when you're finished. In a few seconds you'll get a preview of your resized picture. If you're not happy with the size, simply adjust the slider and again click the ResizR button.

Once complete, you will need to host the picture using the provided URL ("http" thingy). ResizR will delete all traces of your picture within 60 minutes, so hotlinking from your Myspace profile will unfortunately not work here.

All pretty simple and very handy if you want to resize a picture for your profile, blog, or to insert in your friends comment section.

Have fun with it.

Source: Tom Thomas

Add webcam video to your Myspace profile - Flixn.

Do you have a webcam? Do you want to add a flash based webcam video player to your Myspace profile? It doesn't get any easier than this. Flixn, in four simple mouse clicks, will provide you with the Myspace code needed to do just that.

Try it right now.

1. Click RECORD button (you may have to allow flash here) to record webcam video.
2. Click STOP button to end recording of webcam video.
3. Click KEEP button to save webcam video.
4. Click MYSPACE text link to get webcam video code.

You'll get a Flixn pop-up entitled, MYSPACE CODE. Copy the contents in the pop-up box and paste it wherever you'd like: your Myspace profile page, blog, in a friends comments, etc...

Screenshot of Flixn webcam video record page

Great design and very easy to use!

Related posts:
How to embed Youtube video in your Myspace profile - PT 1
Odeo Myspace double shot: Podcasting & Webcam'ing

Source: Tom Thomas

Interactive Myspace layout profile editor - Customyzer!

Join me for a peek into the future; the future of Myspace layout editors.

Customyzer, has developed a nice flash based Myspace profile editor; very nice in fact! Users start with a default Myspace profile template, and through a series of clickable hotspots users are able to manipulate, modify, and customize their own virtual Myspace layout. Flash based drop down menus facilitate the process and changes are made on the fly; no page reloads and no wasted time.

Screenshot of Myspace layout profile editor

But that's not all folks! Even more interesting, Customyzer has also incorporated an editor add-ons section. Using the same flash based interface, users can add a slideshow, add a customized comment box using a comment box generator, and use a text formatter (think of it as a word processor). Audio and video add-ons are also in the works.

I would like to see a WYSIWYG feature added to the text formatter - it's screaming for WYSIWYG functionality!

Overall, very well done! Layout add-ons are the future - just watch.

Source: Tom Thomas

Mixmap vs Trakzor: Two Myspace profile Trackers

Today we're going to look at and compare two popular Myspace profile trackers; Mixmap and Trakzor.

About the profile tracker comparison:
For the purposes of this comparison I have decided to exclude web statistic type trackers; most of which have been banned. Instead, I have chosen to focus specifically on Myspace style profile trackers. Typically these types of trackers require users to become part of an online community. Those users that do, then become trackable via their Myspace profile. Those that do not are simply listed as anonymous and only their city, state, and time of visit are viewable.

My intent here, having previously written about Mixmap, was to find another tracker with similar features. After listening to my own readers gripes and wants, a little searching led me to discover Trakzor. Both trackers, according to Alexa, rank higher in traffic than any other Myspace profile tracker and, while each does have its own unique set of features, they also have notable similarities – A map style tracking interface for one. Let’s get started!

Myspace profile Tracker 1: Mixmap: "Mixmap: Profile Page Tracking and Mapping"
Myspace profile Tracker 2: Trakzor: "Community driven MySpace Tracker"

Tracking method:
Mixmap, as you might have guessed, tracks its users via an embeddable Myspace profile map. Once registered, Mixmap users are given a snippet of code that can be inserted into their Myspace profile page.

Trakzor instead, uses a prominently displayed Trakzor “You’ve been tracked” image to accomplish the same.

Example of the Trakzor tracking image that would be visible on your Myspace profile

Viewing tracked vistors:
Mixmap, in addition to the Myspace profile map, also allows you to view your tracked visitors via a Google style map; accessible once you login to the Mixmap website. Myspace visitors show up as markers and can also be viewed/sorted via list format by age, sex, location, distance, etc...

Trakzor also provides both a list format, although not quite as full-featured as Mixmap’s, and a Google map with markers. Clicking each marker reveals the identity of that person as well as a link back to their Myspace profile should they too be registered Trakzor users.

Screenshot of Trakzor website

Privacy and user deniability:
Mixmap users are afforded a great amount of flexibility when selecting their tracker. They can choose to use the map style Myspace tracker, a customizable image tracker, and more importantly, they can opt for an invisible Myspace profile tracker. Something that Trakzor has yet to implement.

Trakzor does things a little differently. Their users have only one option; the “You’ve been tracked”, Trakzor image. This means that anyone viewing your Myspace profile will clearly know that they are being tracked. However, Trakzor has provided a Block feature that keeps YOU from being tracked while visiting another Trakzor’d Myspace profiles. You have the option of selecting a BLOCK ALL feature that keeps all your Myspace visits anonymous or, you can put together a set of targeted permissions using a BLOCK LIST. Not quite as nice as Mixmap, but at least they’re trying.

Overall feel:
This is where you’ll see the biggest difference between Mixmap and Trakzor. The Mixmap site has more of a “community” feel. Upon registering your user information is used to create a personal profile page (name, address, location, birthday, occupation, favorite website, uploading of pics, etc…). This information, although it can optionally be set to hidden, becomes part of the Mixmap user community where it can be searched by distance, city, gender, etc…

The Trakzor experience is quite different. The order of business there is simply to track your visitors and that’s it. You login, check what you have to check and you leave. That is the idea isn’t it; Tracking Myspace vistors?

Tracker Reliablity:
As of late, Mixmap has been intermittently on/offline with no real explanation. Users simply encounter a generic browser “unable to connect” page. When Mixmap does happen to be online, quick visits to their announcements page do little to nothing to point out any problems or possible scheduled maintenance. Instead, users are left in the dark. Update October 13, 2006: Things have been running pretty smoothly over at Mixmap since the date of this post. I exchanged a few emails with Matt, the Mixmap founder, and he explained the reason for their downtime. He's also been working hard and communicating his efforts with his users via the Mixmap announcement page. The only complaints I had have now been resolved and I think Mixmap has earned a second look.

Trakzor, well, has no problems that I’ve encountered.

Reachability:
On a more personal note, I’ll add that contacting someone at Mixmap, at least for me, was near impossible. The few emails that I sent, hoping to get more detailed information regarding the outages, went unanswered. Hey, I tried! This is no longer the case.

Questions to Trakzor, on the other hand were answered the same day, by the Trakzor creator nonetheless; kudos to him for being reachable.

Tracker Popularity:
According to Alexa traffic statistics, Trakzor appears to be more popular than Mixmap. Practically from its inception, Trakzor soared far past Mixmap in reach, rank, and pageviews. In the past few weeks they appear to have gained additional ground (a flock of disgruntled Mixmap users perhaps?). Whether or not this translates to a larger user base than Mixmap’s approximate 96,000 registered users is of particular interest. Seeing as how both services require users to become part of an online community, more users means a greater likelihood that the person visiting your profile will be “trackable”.

Have a look at the following Alexa traffic rank figures for both Mixmap and Trakzor.

Mixmap vs Trakzor Conclusion:
I think both Mixmap and Trakzor have something good to offer. Unfortunatley, with recent unexplained Mixmap outages I personally would lean towards Trakzor. If Trakzor focuses on implementing a few new features, they could very well take a large portion of the Mixmap user base. Particularly, I’d like to see them work on a Mixmap style invisible tracker, a Mixmap style Myspace profile tracker map, and perhaps a simpler web interface. Mixmap, of course, already has those things.

If you're hesitant to give up one or the other, you can of course run both trackers at the same time and see which you prefer.

Related posts:
Geolocate your Myspace visitors with MixMap
Hiding unwanted but necessary images in Myspace

Source: Tom Thomas

Code to hide the Myspace music player

Update: May 6, 2007. The code to hide Myspace music player is working again! See below.

---

To hide Myspace music player, copy the code below and paste it to either the very start or end of your Myspace profiles "About me" section.

Note: This code will affect ALL embedded items and stack/move them on top of one another. This includes the Myspace music player, Youtube video players, and anything else that uses the embed tags.

Tweaking the Myspace music player code:

The TOP & LEFT values are coordinates (+/- integers) used to position the Myspace music player. Top moves the Myspace music player up/down and LEFT moves the player left/right. WIDTH & HEIGHT are used to make the Myspace music player size larger/smaller.

Hide/Hiding the Myspace music player:

So how do you hide Myspace music player? Setting the TOP to -100 and leaving the LEFT set to zero will position the Myspace music player slightly off screen (see screenshot below).

<style>embed, object {width:0px; height:0px;} table table table embed, table table table object {width:320px; height:240px;} </style><a href="http://web-tracker.blogspot.com/2006/09/code-to-hide-myspace-music-player.html" title="View hidden Myspace comments"><span style="font-size:78%;">Hide Myspace music player</span><br/></a><a href="http://www.joombly.com/plugins2/tutorials/firefox/view-hidden-myspace-comments.htm" title="View hidden MySpace comments"><span style="font-size:78%;">View hidden MySpace profiles </span><br/></a>

Hide Myspace music player: Copy the above code to the About Me section of your Myspace profile

Play with the settings, view your Myspace profile, and keep tweaking until you get your desired results.

How to hide Myspace music player

Related posts:
Add a free flash Myspace music player to your profile - Tunefeed

Image generators for your Myspace profile - via the Generator Blog

The Generator blog scours the internet for interesting, sometimes unusual, generators; most of which can be added to your Myspace profile or layout. The Collage Generator, tarot card image generator, official seal generator, and fortune cookie message generator are just a few of the latest finds. Myspace implementation varies across the many different sites so covering all of them would be a little difficult. In some cases you'll be given the code to insert into your profile, and in other cases you may simply be shown the final image which, by way of HTML or upload form, can then be inserted into your Myspace profile.

Overall it's a great resource and a must bookmark for fans of image generators. You also have the option of subscribing to the Generator blog RSS feed.

Source: Tom Thomas

Add speech balloons to Myspace images with Bubblesnaps flash widget

The good people over at Bubblesnaps have released an exciting new flash widget that can be added directly to your Myspace profile. By way of the Bubblesnaps website, you can take your ordinary Myspace images and add speech bubbles to them. The content of each speech balloon is of course entirely up to you and you can make them as funny, humorous, or twisted as you'd like.

The Bubblesnaps three step process works like this. You simply upload an image from your computer to the Bubblesnaps online storage facility. If you have any kind of photo imaging software, Bubblesnaps suggests that you work with images that are around 640x480. You're then reunited with your image on the next screen and through a nicely designed interface, you can add/delete speak and thought bubbles, type in your personalized text, and position each in its desired location. To finish, Bubblesnaps gives you even more options, the most important of which to us is the ability to post your completed image to your Myspace profile; simply click on the "Blog this Bubble" link and Bubblesnaps gives you the necessary Myspace code (Note: you can also change the size of your final Bubblesnapped image on this page - look for it). Your Bubblesnapped image can always be deleted via the Bubblesnaps website and currently they offer storage of up to 18 images.

That's it really. I'm especially excited about the Bubblesnaps site and think they have something great to offer the Myspace community. Good luck guys!

Above: Bubblesnaps sample image

Related posts:
Rockyou slideshows for your Myspace profile

Source: Tom Thomas

Add a free flash Myspace music player to your profile - Tunefeed

Faces.com, a social networking site, has launched a new flash-based music player that can be added to your Myspace profile. The service, called Tunefeed, allows you upload your MP3 files to a music locker of sorts. Music that you have uploaded can then be dragged and dropped into your "Tunefeed" which can hold an almost unlimited number of songs.

Screenshot of Tunefeed drag and drop music locker

A flash based music player can then be used to broadcast your MP3 's to your Myspace profile via some link code. The player itself allows your listeners to rate and comment on your songs. Even better, your listeners can subscribe to your player via an RSS feed; think of it as running your own radio station.

The site offers two services; a free service that allows you a 100 MB monthly upload limit, and a paid service ($24.90 per year) that allows unlimited usage. I think it's worth having a look at.

You can register for free by either following the green buttons starting on the Tunefeed site, or, if you find it all a little confusing as I did, you can go directly to the Faces site to do the same.

Here is the code for their SAMPLE player. You can paste it to your Myspace profile (anywhere) to see how it works, then, if you like what you see, go sign up to get your own player.

<embed src="http://www.faces.com/Common/Flash/mp3_001.swf" wmode="transparent" quality="high" flashvars="&viewerID=-1&ownerID=4890108&ownerName=webtracker&startPos=open&tunefeedID=721558&autoPlay=1&pMode=3&allowSelection=1" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="150" height="400" name="tunesWidget" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed><div align="center"><a href="http://webtracker.faces.com/TuneFeeds/721558/dd/"><span style="font-size: 7pt;font-family:Tahoma;color:red;font-weight:normal">Click Here to Share Your Music</span></a></div>

Code for sample Tunefeed music player

Source: Tom Thomas

Tom Thomas' Web Tracker Tunefeed/Faces profile is here - feel free to add me to your friends list if you are a member.