Have you ever come across a file that you didn't know how to open? There are thousands of file extensions in use today with the same amount of programs to open them. However, all of those programs are not loaded on your PC so when it comes time to open up an unknown file, how will you do it? If you're using Windows, the operating system will ask you if you would like to browse the Web through Microsoft's database to see if you can find a program to open up the unknown file extension. While you may find the information you need, Microsoft will not suggest free programs for you to use to open the file. This is where OpenWith.org comes into play.

OpenWith.org provides detailed information about most file extension and links to free programs that can open and create each type of file. Extensions are viewable on the site by their first letter, by search, or by category. If the extension doesn't exist, you can easily submit the extension with the details you know to the site where the administrators will take over.

The best thing OpenWith has to offer is the links to free programs which will open the extension in question. For example, I checked out the .HED extension which is for Hi-Eddi Images. I've never heard of these types of images but thankfully, OpenWith has. According to them, Hi-Eddi Images can be opened with a piece of software called XnView 1.91.6. I can either visit the official website for XnView or I can download the software straight from the OpenWith website. Plus one on the convenience factor.

OpenWith.org should certainly be added to your list of resourceful bookmarks. You'll never know when your friends will send you that awesome movie or picture in a format you've never heard of.

The other day, someone got in touch with me and told me I should do a post on how to conduct a good interview. The reason? This person has just been interviewed and the questions they received were so bad, they told the interviewer to redo them and try again. The questions were better the second time around but still lackluster.

I've already performed my fair share of interviews both by audio and text. I've found that written interviews are much easier to produce than audio. I believe it's because you don't need to be on top of your game in front of a live audience. I conduct my shows live and off the cuff which means I better have some sort of clue as to what I'm talking about or I'll look like an idiot.

This leads me to the short and sweet point that RESEARCH is your number one key to victory for producing a quality interview. The best interviews I have ever conducted have been with people or on topics which I know quite a bit about. There are a couple of reasons on why research is so valuable to an interview. For starters, it builds confidence. Secondly, it helps to generate natural conversation. Interviews sound so much better when they don't appear to be manufactured or based on a script. Being well researched enables you to ask questions that are somewhat related to the topic at hand without sticking to one talking point. Last but not least, the more research you do, the more interesting and informing your questions SHOULD be. All of the easy to answer questions which are just a Google search away should never be asked during an interview.

In fact, there are quite a few questions you need to stay away from when conducting an interview. Here are just a few.

• How much money do you make?
• Personal questions.
• Questions which require no thought.
• If the interviewee does not want to answer a specific question, let it go. Don't continue to harp on them until they answer.

These are general rules and observations I've made with all of the interviews I have conducted. Now of course, these don't apply across the board as some people exist to play hardball with others, asking the tough and not easy to answer questions. That's ok if the topic/person leans towards that type of interview.

So in the end, the best thing you can do when it comes to interviewing or being interviewed is research. Knowledge is power and if you have the knowledge, everything else becomes gravy!

Gawker Media, the blogging network which contains Lifehacker, Gizmodo and other popular weblogs has announced today that they have adopted the Attribution-NonCommercial license for all of their original content. While this does not open the flood gates to scrape content, it does enable more flexibility when republishing content from a Gawker Media site. Brian Lam who is part of Gizmodo had this to say regarding the announcement:

I’m happy to announce that we’re being published under a Creative Commons license now. Although it’s a non-commercial license, remixes and quotes are fine by blogs commercial or otherwise, with attribution/links. But splogs can—as always—go to hell. This has always been our policy, but it’s nice to have the license right there on the bottom.

Make sure to give the Gawker Media legal page a thorough read as it contains detailed information on how content can specifically be used. This is yet another feather in the cap of Creative Commons.

This weeks edition of Perfcast featured discussions on Digg.com and what it takes to get on the front page these days, fake Twitter premium accounts which leads to discussion how how Twitter may become profitable, five tips for easy to read posts and much more. Don't forget to listen to our picks of the week as well as the blogging job of the week.

AD COPY: This episode of Perfcast is brought to you by, the Performancing Copyright Management Service. Our copyright experts will track down websites, blogs, forums and other sites that infringe on your rights as a publisher. We will then give you a comprehensive report with suggested courses of action. Prices start at $300 and for more information please visit services.performancing.com/blog

STORIES DISCUSSED:
50 Websites That Control The Front Page Of Digg
Should You Use Your Real Name On Twitter?
5 Tips For Easy To Read Posts
What The Heck Happened To ContestBlogger.com?
April Fools Not Here Yet But People Already Being Fooled
Alltop Launches MyAllTop

LAST WEEKS POLL QUESTION: Have You Ever Attended A Conference/Trade Show For Your Niche?

Out of a total of 24 votes 15 of you voted Yes. 6 of you voted No and 3 of you voted that you can Never Afford It

THIS WEEKS POLL QUESTION IS: Is Social Media An Overused Buzzword?

Results will be read in next weeks episode

PICKS OF THE WEEK
Jeff - OpenWith.org - Have a file you don't know how to open? Think you need an expensive piece of software to open it? Chances are there is a great free program that's just as good as the expensive one, and you'll find it at openwith.org. OpenWith.org provides detailed information about most file extension and links to free programs that can open and create each type of file.

David - WickedFire.com - a forum of internet marketers, web developers, and people that just make money online.

JOB OF THE WEEK Write for CEOWorld Magazine

LENGTH OF EPISODE - 1 Hour 7 Minutes

NEXT EPISODE - March 26th, 2009 at 7 P.M. EST

ITUNES - Click here to subscribe to the show via iTunes

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode28.mp3

LISTEN TO EPISODE 28 OF PERFCAST:

I've recently had a very exciting Twitter-related epiphany. I used to stay in this walled-in garden that is my home page, where I banter about with my followed people, and those who send me direct replies. These days, I'm more actively seeking out relevant discussions elsewhere, through Twitter's search functionality. More particularly, I've rediscovered Twitter through TweetDeck, as I find the multi-column display really useful--I can display different search results from my various areas of interest, be they social media (quite an active topic), literature, WordPress, premium themes and the like.

Through this, I get to get relevant updates from folks I don't necessarily know. And I'm able to make new connections with those I share interests with. While I would consider myself a shy person--not particularly reaching out to people I don't really know--I think getting introduced to people this way makes for a great way to expand my network and perhaps build up authority. And it's part of my job, too, which makes it all the more great.

Somehow I feel silly I'm doing this only now.

Do you use Twitter the same way?

When I found this story late last night, I had the sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't be surprised by the sites found on this list to be controlling the Digg front page. I and many others who have commented on these findings are indeed, not surprised by the results. Soshable.com is reporting that 46.6% of the Digg front page is controlled by 50 websites according to data taken from di66.net

I remember a time when I was a Digg fanatic. The site used to be filled with all sorts of content that was hard to find without someone recommending it. Now a days, all I see on Digg.com is political stories, Apple fanaticism, and Microsoft bashing. Those three categories can be used to describe the Digg front page at any time. But every now and then, a stupid picture of a cat with illegible language text written on it makes the front page to offer up diversity.

But you know, even though it's somewhat the fault of Digg and their spam algorithms as described by Soshable for not allowing diverse content to appear on the front page, much of what makes it to the front page is still user driven. Human beings voting for certain stories to make the front page. So with that in mind, the majority of blame should be shifted to those who actually use and participate on the site. When a website can be described as a bunch of political, Microsoft bashing, Apple fanboys controlling the site, you know that there is no diversity thanks in large part to a majority of people on the site having something to do with one or more of those three topics.

While Digg can still provide webmasters a huge influx of traffic if you're lucky enough to make the front page, I as an end user no longer use Digg as my source for finding great information online. That has been replaced by those I follow on Twitter. The only time I ever come across a Digg article is if it is linked to by one of my online friends.

My only hope is that in the future, Digg is not looked at as an example to prove the 'Wisdom of crowds' theory because if you take a look at the comments or some of the stories that make the front page, you might think that is the last place on the web where wisdom actually exists.

In my opinion, no mobile phone / smartphone will ever be a substitute for a decent desktop, notebook or even netbook PC for the nitty-gritty of blogging, and yet that hasn't stopped plenty of applications being released for mobile phones designed to allow access to blogging platforms.

The current incarnation of the iPhone makes anything but micro-blogging a fairly painful experience. Even dedicated blogging clients still suffer from basic architecture deficiencies such as the lack of cut and paste and difficulty interfacing between native and third-party applications.

Yet, with yesterday's announcement of the third version of iPhone software, there may be some hope for doing a bit more blogging on the go using Apple's revered handset.

Here's why.

When it comes to the creation of content, cut, copy and paste is finally available. Though it's taken Apple a long time to sort it out, the implementation is pretty slick.

With it, you can copy and paste from any application (including third-party ones) such as the Safari web browser, and then paste into any other. You can also do the same with images, including the ability to copy multiple photos in one go from the built-in Photos application.

This means that bloggers who rely heavily on the quotations of others, to which additional commentary may be added, can now much more easily clip the relevant passages from web pages or RSS feeds and paste into a blogging application. It will still take longer than doing it on a computer with a mouse, keyboard shortcuts and much more screen real estate, but it's a start.

There's also auto-fill for Safari, meaning that filling out some form fields will now be done automatically. That's great if you comment a lot on other blogs.

As for staying in touch with people — also important for many bloggers — there's the introduction of a native version of Meebo which can manage all your instant messaging clients from one application.

Added to which, Apple has finally sorted out its push notifications system, which means that you can be alerted whenever new messages arrive, without having to keep the application running in the foreground.

Perhaps you're a blogger who does podcasting or audio interviews? There are some pretty decent third-party applications for audio recording already in the App Store, but Apple will now bundle its own memo recorder, with built in editing and mailing functions.

Notes can be synchronised between the iPhone and a PC or Mac using iTunes. This may not be essential for bloggers but it means that, if you take down notes — ideas for future blog posts, perhaps — you can have access to them on your computer too.

If you use public Wi-Fi networks a lot, Apple has made it easier to sign in and out automatically, too.

Apple has promised greater support for accessories, which means that it may be possible to add an external keyboard either via Bluetooth or the 30-pin connector. We don't yet know what restrictions Apple will place on developers, but if it's possible to add extra hardware it could make text entry a lot easier.

Finally, the landscape keyboard should be available in every application, not just a select few, making typing a lot easier than trying to use the portrait version for everything.

The iPhone is unlikely ever to be an ideal workhorse for blogging, but the iPhone 3.0 OS could make it a lot more pleasant to use when you just have to blog something on the go. It'll be available to download from the summer.

What do you think?

I'm a big fan of guest posting high-quality content on high-quality blogs. Guest articles are one of those win-win transactions that take place all the time on the Internet without the transaction of money. The writer of the article gets the benefit of exposure and branding (assuming the article is good). The blog owner gets the benefit of a unique perspective and interesting content that wouldn't otherwise be seen by his or her readers.

I'm offering to do 10 free guest posts over the next month for high-quality blogs (as determined by me). Every guest post that gets done will be custom written by me and I will strive for professional quality. Here are some samples of my guest posts from the past:

• The Four Dimensions of A Link Portfolio
• The Stoic Approach to Successful Online Publishing
• The Psychology of Linkbait

If you are interested, please contact me at the following email address [email protected] so that I can look over your blog.

It was announced in an email on Monday sent out by Guy Kawasaki that the popular site Alltop.com would be launching version 3.0. This new version contains a slick new feature called MyAlltop that basically enables users to create their own personal collection of Alltop feeds. Each MyAlltop page that is created is public meaning all of them are shared. Each Alltop page you visit, the RSS feeds will have a plus sign in the top right corner. Clicking on this plus sign will add that particular feed to your personal Alltop page.

I can see how Alltop could be used as a simplified aggregation page for anyone who doesn't want to deal with say Netvibes or iGoogle. I'm interested in knowing if you'll be using MyAlltop or, if you use Alltop at all to keep tabs on specific topics?

Furl.net which is a bookmarking service announced today that they have been absorbed by Diigo.com. Diigo is a research and collaboration tool that essentially takes what Furl did and takes it to the next level. With Diigo, users can not only save bookmarks, but highlight things on webpages, add sticky notes, and all sorts of other cool things. Here is a quote from the official announcement:

The Furl team is very pleased to announce that Furl has become part of Diigo.com. We worked hard to find Furl a home where loyal users like you could continue to benefit from best-of-breed social bookmarking and annotation tools. Hands down, Diigo.com was the winner due to its innovative approach to online research tools and knowledge sharing.

The Diigo team is dedicated to making sure you continue to get top notch features and service. They’ve got a crack team of technologists who love making research and knowledge sharing as easy and efficient as possible.

If you are a Furl user, make sure you visit this page to begin the process of exporting your data to Diigo.

I wouldn't be surprised to see more announcements like this during the year due to the economy and most Web 2.0 startups that launched in 2007 figuring out that it takes more to succeed than just a bright idea.

Premium Themes Club has launched, in partnership between Splashpress Media and R.Bhavesh of CSSAce.com.

Premium Themes Club exemplifies an exciting new idea in sharing premium WordPress themes with the community. You don't have to spend money each time you want to try out a new theme. But rather, by being part of the Club, you get access to a wide array of expertly-crafted WordPress themes for your blog. You can download and re-download to your heart's content. There's no limit to what you can do with Club themes, as these are lightweight but powerful designs that can be adapted to any need, whether it's a blog, online magazine, or even a corporate website.

As part of the launch, PTC is offering Performancing readers the chance to get free Club memberships (worth $150 per year). Simply answer this question on your own blog:

What Makes a Good WordPress Theme? Why?

It's up to you what you want to answer. Is it browser compatibility? Is it being lightweight? Is it stand-out graphics? Is it the sidebar layout? Typeface? It's up to you. Just be sure to answer why, as that would help the folks at the Club develop better themes.

We'll then give the first 10 good answers free Club memberships. By "good" I mean something with substance, and at least an explanation why that particular aspect of a WordPress theme is the most important one.

The only catch is that you'll need to post your answer on your own blog (do remember to link to premiumthemesclub.com), and then leave a comment on this particular post. It's up to you how you want to write your answer, and what title to use, of course.

The Club already has about 30+ premium themes available for download (these are also available for individual purchase). Aside from Club membership, the Club also offers an opportunity to earn, through the affiliate program. Do check out updates at premiumthemesclub.com or follow @premiumclub on Twitter.

Folks connected with Splashpress and CSSAce are, of course, ineligible. As are Hive members already given free access.

Happy Cog which is one of the leading design firms online released an update on March 11th regarding their work on redesigning the Mozilla.org website. The update contains three seperate concept designs with the goal of each one to encapsulate what the Mozilla universe is all about. Each concept contains an explanation behind the design. The redesign is still very early in development but Happy Cog is asking that you take a look at each concept and then drop them a line in their comments section to provide feedback on what you think.

Personally, out of the three concepts presented, I don't like any of them. But if I had to choose just one, it would be concept number one. The other two appear too graphically heavy and I don't like the content alignment on concept number two. While concept one is simplistic looking, it is the one which was easiest on my eyes.

It's not that often where icons by themselves can be looked at as a work of art. Henry Jones over at WebDesignLedger has compiled a list of twenty-two different icon sets but these are no ordinary icon sets. These particular icons specialize in being extremely detailed. One of my favorites from the list is the NES Icons Pack created by DeviantART member Ahuri.

The compiled list does not contain information regarding how these particular icons can be used so be sure to read that information on the icon sets respective home page.

On Twitter, I use my usual username/nickname @jangelo, but at one point, I decided to change the "real name" assigned to the account as "Zorpox the Conqueror." I really thought hard before deciding on this move, but my main reason was privacy.

Sure, "jangelo" is obviously me, or at least to those who know I use the handle. It's not unique, but apparently, I'm the most searchable "jangelo" around--I get emails addressed to different folks whose names start with "J" and whose surnames are Angelo, after all.

On my blogs and other blogs and forums I contribute to, I don't mind disclosing my full name. But I feel that a microblogging service like Twitter is something more personal. Or at least to me, that is. It's more accessible, and it's easier to just post haphazardly, without a second's hesitation, and without the need to edit (unlike my blog posts, in which I spend quite some time editing and editing before hitting publish). So basically, this move is to protect myself from my own stupidity or carelessness.

I could, perhaps, just protect my updates, so that just my approved followers can read them, but in my opinion, that limits the reach of my Twitter account severely. So perhaps my method is an in-between solution.

Or am I just lulling myself with a false sense of privacy? And am I just defeating the purpose of making my profile publicly accessible after all?

Do you use your real name on Twitter? Or do you at least use an identifiable brand or nickname?

So you bought your $80 condenser mic, found a quiet room to record (or maybe built a makeshift sound box using egg cartons for walls) and you've got Garage Band or Audacity running in the background. You're ready to podcast.

Now what? Those who've tried podcasting before may have realized how different it is from writing blog entries -- and it should be, because podcasting, unlike blogging is a performance art. If you're a bit lost in the art of intonation and enunciation, my suggestion is to go with baby steps.

1. Browse through your blog for one of your more interesting commentaries. Read it out loud. Read it out loud again. Repeat. Your podcast can be a weekly read of your column.

2. Doing this regularly -- let's look at once a week -- instills a sense of confidence allowing you to venture into extemporaneous speaking later on.

3. If you stutter, clench your first. It helps.

The art of podcasting adds new dimension to your blog. But only if done well. Famous NYT columnist David Pogue reads his columns out loud for his shows so there's nothing to be ashamed of. The trick is to do it regularly, just like like blogging, but never to appear gung-ho at the start by recording daily. It might turn off readers who still prefer your usual daily dose of posts.

Skribit, the service which enables visitors to your blog to send you ideas on what to write about (I reviewed the service back in July of 2008) has received a face lift. Not only has there been a redesign of the site, but a slew of new features added as well.

The basic idea behind the service is to place the Skribit Widget onto your blog with a list of future post ideas. Each idea has a vote button next to it allowing your audience to decide what it is they would like to see you write about. Suggestions that are not on the widget can be added if you're a member of the service.

Since July, I noticed things were going rather slowly over at Skribit.com but thanks to some funding from the Georgia Tech Edison Fund, Paul Stamatiou who is the founder of the service has become a full time employee in January and since then, progress on the site as really ramped up. By the way, Paul just happens to be a member of the Performancing Hive forums.

Other than the new design, the site has recently launched Skribit Pro Accounts. There are two different plans. Pro accounts which costs $5.00 per month or Enterprise accounts which you need to contact Skribit to figure out pricing. The pro account enables you to use the service on an unlimited amount of blogs as opposed to one, Suggestion Moderation, and Full Widget Customization. These are all features that I wish the service had back when I wrote my review but I'm glad to see them implemented, even if you have to pay for them.

Last but not least, a new feature rolled out last month called the Suggestions Tab has been designed to be more engaging while at the same time, take up less website space. The suggestions tab loads in a lightbox style window when clicked and allows users to submit suggestions and view other popular suggestions for your site.

As I mentioned in my previous review, if you're having issues with writers block, this service may definitely help. The only issue is, getting your audience involved in the suggestion making process. Also, if you're audience actively sends you topic suggestions, you'll know that if you publish an article related to that topic that at least someone will be interested in reading it. It may not serve as a barometer for what the majority of your audience wants to read but it should certainly help. With the redesign and the added features which I requested back in July being added to the service, I'm really considering adding the suggestions widget to my WPTavern blog.

What do you think of the new Skribit redesign? Are you using it on your site?

This Week, David is feeling a bit under the weather while I am suffering from sleep deprivation. Put us together and you have the unique combination of sick and tired! This week, we cover some of the stories that peeked our interests. We also start a new segment of the show this week in that David and I each provide a pick of the week. This could be a website, a service, a program or just about anything we PICK that we believe is worthy of sharing with the audience.

AD COPY: This episode of Perfcast is brought to you by, the Performancing Copyright Management Service. Our copyright experts will track down websites, blogs, forums and other sites that infringe on your rights as a publisher. We will then give you a comprehensive report with suggested courses of action. Prices start at $300 and for more information please visit services.performancing.com/blog

STORIES DISCUSSED:
Will StumbleUpons Share This Feature Get Abused?
Thoughts From Darren Rowse On Blogging Versus Twitter
A Fresh Ning.com
The Problem With Selling Blogs
The Guardian Opens Up
More Conversation Fragmentation

WEEKLY LISTENER POLL: Has The Economy Affected The Way You Blog?

Out of a total of 34 votes, 14 of you said YES, 16 of you said NO and 4 of you said you stopped blogging because of the economy.

NEXT WEEKS POLL QUESTION IS: Have You Ever Attended A Conference/Trade Show For Your Niche?

Results will be read in next weeks episode

PICKS OF THE WEEK
Jeff - VirtualNES.com is the largest website on the Internet that allows you to play your favorite classic Nintendo Entertainment System games online for free. VirtualNES.com is the official home of, and is powered by the vNES emulator by Jamie Sanders. If they don't have the games in their possession, they can't have them online. This protects them from threats of litigation, and protects the users from (wrongly) being hunted down for violating copyrights. If you can, please consider donating money, games, or server space to the VirtualNES.com team. - http://www.virtualnes.com

David - iPod Touch joins the Jailbreak Family - http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/85449850/ipod-touch-2g-hi-welcome-to-the-jailbreak-family

JOB OF THE WEEK Direct Marketing Blogger (Ghost Writer) - http://jobs.problogger.net/view/2097

LENGTH OF EPISODE - 1 Hour 4 Minutes

NEXT EPISODE - March 19th, 2009 at 7 P.M. EST

ITUNES - Click here to subscribe to the show via iTunes

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW: PerfcastEpisode27.mp3

LISTEN TO EPISODE 27 OF PERFCAST:

If you have not visited the StumbleUpon home page in awhile or your user page, chances are you had no idea of the site redesign but also the enhanced functionality of the ShareThis feature. Now when you hover over a story, a little ShareThis icon appears. When you click the ShareThis button, a list of your StumbleUpon friends loads in the sidebar.

Optionally, you can send your friends a personal message including with the share. As Chris Garret mentions on the BlogHerald, could this feature come back to haunt StumbleUpon by way of abuse? The last thing I want to see when I open my browser is tens of links that have been shared to me on StumbleUpon, most of which are articles those people created themselves looking for more traffic. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I think I'll go back to the way things were before I learned about gaining traffic and that is, Stumbling things that I think are cool and worthy of sharing with others instead of Stumbling just because someone asked me to and it's a friendly thing to do.

So what do you think of the new ShareThis functionality? Do you plan on using it as part of your traffic strategy?