There is a plethora of such social bookmarking buttons available online that you can use for free, and here’s a list of some of the most beautiful social bookmarking buttons that you should consider putting up on your blog.

I Love Social Bookmarking

A very simple yet nice plugin that uses minimal of your system resources. It reveals a drop-down list when cursor is moved over the button.

OnlyWire

Requires you to register an account with them before the button becomes functional. While the free account displays advertisement inside of the button, a paid account can turn it off.

AddtoThis

Automatically adds the bookmarking options after your post content. It allows your readers to submit your post to the 4 major social bookmark sites ie Digg, del.icio.us, Technorati and StumbleUpon.

Badged

Simply select your preferred social bookmarking sites and copy and paste the html code into where you want the ‘badges’ to appear.

Sociable

One of the favorites of many bloggers, allows you to select up to 99 social bookmarking sites. When you hover over a particular icon, it turns from blur to vivid colours.

Slashdigglicious

Automatically adds a line of beautiful icons to the end of each of your blog posts.

AddThis

User-submission links display when you hover over the button. Do sign up a free account with AddThis.com to keep track of valuable statistics about how your readers are bookmarking and sharing your post content.

BookmarkButton

Only one step to add the button – copy and paste the code, that’s it!

SocialBookmark

3 different simple yet professional designs to choose from.
Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Socialist

A social bookmarking plugin that can only be used with a WordPress blog.

LetsGetSocial

There are 4 remarkably beautiful designs to choose from.
Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

Social Dropdown

It displays a dropdown with user-submission links, you can opt to turn off the dropdown too.

17Fav

One of the social bookmarking button widgets that displays social bookmarking links in Chinese characters.

Free Tell a Friend

You can choose to use your own image to design a unique social bookmarking button for your blog.

AddtoAny

Clean and user-friendly, the one I’m using in this blog.

ShareThis

The one that most bloggers are using. Clean and easy to use.

Social Bookmark Links

Another social bookmarking button that can be used in WordPress blogs only. You can either select the ‘List’ or ‘Drop Down Menu’ style.

Bookmark Me

Displays a line of social bookmarking sites in icons. It also supports other International non-english social bookmarking sites.

Social Bookmarks

By clicking on the button, it will magically reveal lines of social bookmarking icons of your choice.

SocioFluid

When you hover over the icons, they grow!

SociBook

It’s one of my favorites, as it’s the only one that automatically adds the social bookmarking icons to the post info of your blog posts.

Bookmarkify

Two standard formats to choose from.

iBegin Share

A dropdown menu with large social bookmarking icons is displayed when you hover over the button.

Tell-a-Friend

A new social bookmarking widget that provides several nasty yet professional looking buttons. JohnChow is using it on his blog.

Old permalinks:
http://www.yourdomain.com/2009/01/10/your-post-title/ (too long, irrelevant)
New permalinks:
http://www.yourdomain.com/category/your-post-title/ (short, highly relevant)

However, changing your link structure is going to affect your site traffic as the old links are already indexed by search engines and bookmarked or linked by your readers. You can’t afford to bear the loss as the links were built up over times. The only solution to the problem is redirect them permanently to new links, which is known as 301 Redirect or Permanent Redirect. There are many ways to perform the redirection, however, Deanlee creates a wordpress plugin that makes permalinks redirection a breeze.

It is said that by performing the permalinks redirection, search engines will update their indexes quickly and your pagerank will be passed on to the new links too.

How to do it:

1. Download the Permalinks Migration Plugin
2. Upload it to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory
3. Activate the plugin from your admin dashboard
4. Go to Settings > PermalinksMigration. Update your old link structure in the field
5. Go to Settings > Permalinks > Common Settings > Custom Structure. Update your new link structure (for eg. /%category%/%postname%/ or /%postname%/ )
6. Go to any of your old posts and test if the redirection works correctly. Or simply go to Google, and enter site:yourdomain.com, select one of your posts with old permalinks and you should be redirected to the exact same post with NEW working permalinks.
7. DONE!

Little drawback:

The plugin works perfectly redirecting the old post permalinks to the new ones, however, it doesn’t redirect comment permalinks, for eg:

Comment permalinks:

http://www.yourdomain.com/2009/01/10/your-post-title/comment-page-1/

I’m looking forward to Deanlee to come up with a fix to this, and if you can live with this little imperfection, go ahead and use the plugin, it’s by far the best wordpress permalinks redirection plugin.

I thought everything was screwed up and I might need to install the whole thing all over again. Installation is easy, but uploading files is going to eat up a hell lot of time. I googled and I tried all suggestions to no avail. It wasn’t a pleasant moment googling for the fixes and trying them all like a chump, until I came across bookchiq’s fix. This is the only fix that seems to work, so those of you who are facing the same login issue, look nowhere, use the fix below:

The Fix

1. Login to your web hosting account, or simply use your FTP program, and go to your ‘/wp-content/plugins‘ directory.
2. Rename the ‘plugins‘ folder to a different name, for eg. plugins-old
3. Clear your browser cookies and login to your blog again as usual
4. You will be prompted to upgrade your WordPress database, go ahead and upgrade it
5. Rename the ‘plugins-old‘ folder back to ‘plugins‘
6. Login to your blog again

That’s it, you are now able to login to your blog again.

What’s the cause?

So, why did the login problem occur? What happened was, when I was performing the upgrade, some of the plugins were not deactivated properly. It interrupted the upgrade process and did not prompt to upgrade my WordPress database. By renaming the ‘plugins’ folder, it helps to disable all the plugins and that’s when you can upgrade the WordPress database with success and sort out the login issue.

Before showing you the steps, there are two things that you will need to do prior to creating the blog:

1. Purchase a domain. First of all, you will need to purchase a domain before getting a web host. I know most web hosts offer free domain if you purchase their web host package, but it’s always advisable to purchase your own domain from a domain registrar, and then only host it with your preferred web host. Why? Because, you need to plan for the future. If you get the free domain given by any web hosts, the web host company will be the registrant of the domain, not YOU. If your domain becomes hot and popular one day, your web host can simply sell off your domain and make billions, you won’t get a single cent from it, because they are the legal registrant of the domain. Or, maybe one day, if Google is interested in acquiring your blog or website, you are not gonna get the million or billion dollars from Google, because you’re not the registered owner. Therefore, it is imperative to make sure that you are the legal registrant of your domain name, and the only way to do it is to buy it from a domain registrar. There are many established domain registrars on the market, but personally I prefer NameCheap. Not because they are selling cheap domains, but their service is satisfactory, and the user interface is brilliant. NameCheap offers a yearly rate of $8.88 for a .com or .net domain, I’m having more than 8 domains with them. So, go to a domain registrar of your choice, or simply go to NameCheap to purchase your preferred domain name, I’m not going into details about how to purchase a domain, as I believe you will be able to figure it out by following the instructions on the domain registrar’s web page, it’s pretty straightforward.

2. Subscribe a web hosting plan. Next, after purchasing the domain, you need a web host for your domain. Again, there are hundreds of web hosts out there offering different web hosting packages at different prices. Established web hosts like BlueHost, HostGator, Lunarpages, DreamHost, Globat, StartLogic and IXWebHosting are highly recommended. I’ve been using BlueHost, and they are offering a standard one-year web host package at $7.95/month (about $95.40 a year). The server’s uptime is 100% so far, I am certainly a happy BlueHost‘s customer. Frankly speaking, BlueHost is one of the best web hosts on the market and I will definitely recommend it to everyone. Of course, you can choose other web hosts too as long as they support WordPress or Blogger blogging platform. Besides, make sure you are getting a Linux server if you are planning to use WordPress, and Blogger can ride on both Windows and Linux server. Finding a web host is like finding your new house, you will need to choose carefully, don’t simply grab a web host, always buy from a well-known web host, you can Host Unlimited Domains on 1 BlueHost Account $6.95 Per Month. If you can’t afford that, then I will suggest you get one from IXWebHosting, the Top Rated Web Hosting – $3.95/mo.

By now, I believe you should have gotten yourself a domain and a web host. Now, let me show you how to create your blog using WordPress and Blogger on your own domain.

For WordPress users:

How to create a WordPress blog on your own domain with paid hosting

Step One – Point your domain to your web host
After purchasing the web hosting service, you will need to point your domain to the web host. For BlueHost and NameCheap user,
1. Login to your NameCheap account, select Manage domains and click on your domain
2. From the navigation bar on the left, select Transfer DNS to Webhost
3. Enter ns1.bluehost.com into the first field and ns2.bluehost.com into the 2nd field, and click Save Changes. *Note* (For non-BlueHost users, you can use your preferred web host’s ns1 & ns2 addresses, please check with your web host to get the correct ns1 & ns2 addresses)

Now your domain is pointed to your BlueHost web hosting account. It may take up to 24 hours for the domain to be hooked up to your BlueHost hosting, but normally the changes take effect within minutes. The longest that I experienced was only for 15 minutes.

Step Two – Install WordPress on your domain
While waiting for the changes to take effect, you can take your sweet time to install WordPress on your domain, follow the steps below:
1. Log into your BlueHost control panel
2. Select Fantastico De Luxe from Software / Services section
3. Select WordPress under Blogs — a WordPress info screen will load
4. Place your mouse over the bold text New Installation and click the link
5. Follow the prompts given by Fantastico, then complete the installation

Fantastico will populate the default files and databases for a brand new installation of WordPress in whatever location on any domain attached to your account which you specify. You can choose to install wordpress on http://yourblogname.com or http://www.yourblogname.com or http://www.yourblogname.com/blog etc whichever you like. But I will advise you to install it right on http://www.yourblogname.com , you will know why in my future posts.

You are done! Go to your blog at your domain http://www.yourblogname.com, and you can see your blog is up and running on WordPress platform. Now you can start your blogging career by logging into your WordPress account at http://www.yourblogname.com/wp-admin. Enjoy WordPress’ing.

For Blogger users:

How to create a Blogger blog on your own domain for as little as $8.88 a year

For those who have limited funds or simply not willing to fork out a hundred bucks for web hosting service, you may choose to use Blogger on your own domain. As promised in my previous post, I’m going to show you how you can create a Blogger blog on your domain that you just purchased for $8.88 without paying additional charges for the web hosting.

Step One (The only step) – Point your domain to Blogger
Yes, instead of pointing your domain to a web host, you can point your domain to Blogger and Blogger will host your domain for FREE. For NameCheap user,
1. Login to your NameCheap account
2. Select Manage domains and click on your domain
3. From the navigation bar on the left, select All Host Records under Host Management
4. Enter ghs.google.com into the “www” field and change your “Record Type” to CNAME (Alias). This step is to point your blog url (with www) to your Blogger blog.
5. Enter http://yourblogname.com/ into the “@” field and change the “Record Type” to URL Redirect. This step is to redirect your blog url (without www) to http://www.yourblogname.com when people key in http://yourblogname.com.
6. Click Save Changes. It may take up to 24 hours for the domain to be hooked up to your Blogger blog, but normally the changes take effect within minutes. The longest that I experienced was only for 10 minutes.

*Note* For those who purchased domain from other domain registrars, you may refer to this self-explanatory instructions by Blogger.

Congratulations, you’re done! From now on, you can continue logging into your Blogger account via Blogger website as usual, but all your posts will be published to your domain, meaning that, your blog is now live on your own domain hosted by Blogger for FREE. You only pay $8.88 for the domain, and Blogger host it for you at no additional cost to you. Now go to your blog at http://www.yourblogname.com and check out the wonder.

Create a free blog using Blogger

1. Go to Blogger.com and click on “Create Your Blog Now”.

2. Create a Google account by entering the information required. For those who already have a Google account, for example, a Gmail account, you can sign in first and you will be using your existing Google account to access your new Blogger account after the registration.

3. Give your new blog a title as well as a blog subdomain address as you wish, subject to availability.

4. Choose a template for your new blog. Blogger comes with 12 default templates that you can choose from. Always choose a template that suits your blog topic.

Done, you blog has been created and you can now start posting by writing the content and giving it a title. Try making a test post and when you click “Publish”, your post immediately goes live and you can always go to your blog address (http://yourblogname.blogspot.com) to see how it looks like. Do also go around and explore your Blogger dashboard and familiarize yourself with the features, functions and commands.

Create a free blog using WordPress

1. Go to WordPress.com and click on “Start Your WordPress Blog”.

2. Create a username of your choice, enter your email address, read and check the Terms of Service and choose “Gimme a Blog!”.

3. You may choose to change the default blog domain to a more suitable domain address, name your blog title, choose your primary language and and check the privacy box if you would like your blog to be picked up by search engines.

4. An email will be sent to your account to confirm your registration. Activate your account by clicking on the link in the email. Once that is done, login using the provided password and update your profile.

5. I will suggest you to change your password immediately to a password that you can remember. Go to Dashboard -> Update your profile or password -> Update Your Password and key in your new password, click “Update Profile”.

Your new blog is now created, and your blog address is something like this http://yourblogname.wordpress.com. You can now start posting by going to “Write”, title and write your blog post, and publish. Your post will immediately go live and you can always go to your blog address to see how it looks like. Make sure you go around and explore your WordPress dashboard and familiarize yourself with the features, functions and commands.

*TIPS* The next time you want to login to your WordPress blog account, just go straight to http://yourblogname.wordpress.com/wp-admin

In next post, I’m going to show “How to Create a Self-Hosted Blog“.