Defensio has been down since yesterday.

My spam aren’t being filtered, I can’t access my Defensio quarantine page and users are unable to post new comments.

Their hosting provider Amazon (EC2) push some software which caused Defensio’s services to go down. The team’s currently working on the issue and updated can be tracked through their blog and twitter.

Google joins the Social Network boom by introducing it’s latest work, Google Friend Connect. The basic idea behind the new service is to socialize any website looking to be socialized.

Google Friend Connect provides a platform for website owners to interact with their users through current social networks like Facebook, GTalk, hi5, orkut, Plaxo and the many other social networks available today.

OpenID,  OAuth,  OpenSocial,  Yahoo,  Myspace,  Google,  Facebook  data access  APIs and many others. There are so many social standards today and Google’s target to to simplify access to them through Google Friend Connect.

So what’s in it for you?

1. Chances are your social network friends will  be driving new traffic your way.
2. Connect to more people. Something like what MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog do.
3. Low learning curve. You get features in the past companies were willing to pay millions for free and best of you don’t need to be super computer savvy to enjoy the features.

The service is currently in preview release. If you are interested in taking Google Friend Connect for a spin, sign up for a preview here.

Source: Google

Nuffnang recently launched it’s smart poll feature which enabled polls to be shown together with your campaign ads. Since it’s launch I’ve only seen one poll across all blogs and sites running Nuffnang ads.

It’s a cool idea to run polls but till the poll questions increase I’d rather have the polls feature turned off since it’s taking up too much real estate.

If you’re in the same boat with then the screen shots below might help. A simple walk through to turn off the polls feature.

1. On the main main click the green “More” link.

2. Now click on the green “Blog Manager” link.

3. Select “No” from the POLLS drop down menu.

Hi, writer’s block is something very common amongst busy bloggers nowadays. Most often this is the case with part time bloggers who have to juggle between their full time jobs and their love for blogging . I’ve been stuck with work lately and it’s draining all my creative juices. Ideas don’t seem to flow in easily anymore.

I need your help, there’s a new tool in town. Skribit, I’ve added the widget. Skribit’s basically a Web 2.0 suggestion engine for blogs. Readers get to submit ideas for posts they would want to read and I the blog owner get’s to overcome my writer’s block syndrome.

Give it a spin. Remember to do drop me an idea or 2 on topics you would like me to post about.

Wait no longer, WordPress 2.5 is out!!

The shiny new WordPress has gone through a major overhaul with tones of new features where mostly all new features were requested by the WordPress community.

New dashboard, enhanced tag support, updated WYSIWYG editor, better search better encryption for passwords and cookies, built in galleries, one-click plugin upgrades and support for multiple uploads. Full feature list

I’ve been playing the RC for the past week and I’m loving it. It’s going to be sometime before my plugins are fully supported but ya, this is one WordPress release you should not miss.

Download WordPress 2.5 here.

Source: WordPress Dev Blog