May | 2010 | Netty Gritty

Post update: There’s an even easier method than the one described in this post. Please read
How to add an “Email a friend” button in a wordpress.com blog in ONE click! for
the improved version.

"Email a friend for wordpress.com blogs"

This simple and efficient "Email a friend feature" can be added to your wordpress.com blog!

What you see above is an “Email a friend” form that can be provided for your wordpress.com blog post. As you may know already, there’s no built-in “Email a friend” feature for wordpress.com and we have to depend on a third-party service. I have previously covered all the third-party solutions and how to use them. But the solution that will be available to you below takes the cake. It’s easy, the interface is nice and clean and it even allows you to pick email addresses from your address book.

The Address Book integration bit is cool! I mean, how many email addresses do you have in your memory, anyway.

To be able to have this feature easily in your blog, just follow these simple steps.

1. Download the “Email a friend for wordpress.com” .zip file.

2. Extract the .zip folder.

3. Open the newly created folder and open the email-a-friend.html file in Firefox.

You will see a link that says “Email a friend”.
4. Drag the link in your browser’s “Bookmarks Toolbar”.

Now you will see “Email a friend” in your Bookmarks Toolbar.

You have to do the above four steps only once.

5. Write and publish a post.

6. Click the “Email a friend” link in your Bookmarks Toolbar.

And Bingo! A button is created under your post!

7. Now go to the HTML editor and sift through the button code. (In case you are a novice, don’t sweat. Take a deep breath instead and focus!)

8. Spot the bit share_save in the first line of code.

A little tweaking will add the "Email a Friend" super power to this button

9. Carefully select only share_save and nothing before or after it.

10. Delete it and write email in its place.

Tweak the code and write email

11. Update and view the post

12. Click the button and email yourself your newly published post.

After all, you do need to check if it worked out alright, no?

Note: This code is built upon the social bookmarking code for wordpress.com by Addtoany. While the Addtoany social bookmarking service does offer “Email a friend feature” it is not the first stoppage. For someone who regularly shares webpages in emails, the process is cumbersome. If “Email a friend” is a top priority for your blog post, then I recommend the solution given in this tutorial. Your visitor will (unknowingly) appreciate the ease.

If you want to have “email this button” AND other sharing options for your wordpress.com blog, then check out the post below!

Any Social Bookmarking for wordpress.com

Any Social Bookmarking option like share on delicious, twitter, facebook etc, yahoo buzz, google buzz, facebook like button for wordpress.com blog posts is now a reality! Not only that, Any Social Bookmarking also makes email post, print, save as pdf, reblog, read-text-only and translation options super-easy.

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Facebook is sleazy. While it makes you think they are doing you a favour by letting you get connected with your friends and that too for free, it actually sells your information so that it can earn some quick bucks. Read about Facebook privacy stuff.
And what’s with all those Farmvilles and Mafia Wars and other equally, if not more, obnoxious requests populating my news feed? Yeah, yeah, I do block these time to time, but more seems to spring up.

I could go on and on about the negativeness concerning Facebook, but I am not in the mood. Actually I wanted to say that of late, I became an avid Facebook user. As an artist, I figured it’s a cool way to put your work online and get feedback from your online friends. It’s also cool to discover new art and artists and comment and also join artist groups.

And frankly, if you are smart enough to use Facebook, but if you don’t know or don’t pay attention to the security issues, then it’s YOUR problem. Nothing in the world is free, don’t you know! You have to pay in one way or other!

But now what to do? The govt of Bangladesh has banned Facebook supposedly because some Bangladeshi user residing in Bangladesh uploaded materials they deemed improper. Ok, I do understand, if you have a headache, cutting your head off is the best solution. But the whole Facebook is not his playground, why couldn’t his account be dealt with?

I can’t even use Friendfeed because it’s acquired by Facebook (I forgot and tried to log in to Friendfeed) and now Facebook is banned. That’s a bummer. The web is intricate and before you know you begin to depend on things you have no control over.

The irony is the Govt won the heart of youth with the slogan “Digital Bangladesh”. C’mon Govt, don’t make me laugh, cos I’ll laugh so hard I’ll pee in my pants.

A plea to you
As you can guess, I can’t use Facebook for the time being. Thousands of users from Bangladesh can’t use Facebook for the time being. If you think Facebook should be made reachable to us, please help our voice get heard, especially in Facebook.
So, Please share this article in social networking sites.