To display last N updated blogs in Wordpress MU main page, just add code below to the sidebar.php of your theme:

<?php
$blogs = get_last_updated();
$blog_limit=10;
if( is_array( $blogs ) ) {
?>
<ul>
<?php
foreach( $blogs as $details ) {
$blog_limit = $blog_limit-1;
if ($blog_limit < 0 ) continue;
?><li><div class=”blogslinks”><a target=”_BLANK” href=”http://<?php echo $details[ 'domain' ] . $details[ 'path' ] ?>”><?php echo get_blog_option( $details[ 'blog_id' ], ‘blogname’ ) ?></a></div></li><?php
}
?>
</ul>
<?php
}
?>

You can set $blog_limit to 10 or whatever you want.

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Duplicate content or content that is accessible through multiple URLs has been haunting webmasters for a long period. After long discussions no definitive solution was found, in order to introduce canonical tag in search engines.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft decided to unite in order to reduce duplicate content on the internet. This kind of tag allows you to specify your preferred version of a URL. This can confuse people. Here is an example that shows how duplicate content, especially on dynamic sites, may occur because a site might allow various sort orders for a page:

1. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5
2. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5&daysprune=-1&order=asc&sort=title
3. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5&daysprune=-1&order=desc&sort=lastpost

From this example we can see that the same link can be accessed through multiple links. This can affect the site and each page may not work properly.
In order to avoid it, you can add the tag from the following example:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5″ />

Google will understand that duplicates all are pointing to the canonical URL.
This tag will operate in a similar way to a 301 redirect for all URLs that display the page with this tag.

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Let’s talk a little about an editorial that explains why we can’t make money online blogging, made by Daniel Lyons, known for two years as “Fake Steve Jobs”.

Big traffic, no money

When his identity was revealed in New York Times, more than half-million people visited his site in a single day. For that traffic he got about a hundred dollars with AdSense and entire month he made more than $1.000. Not enough for what he expected and after some time he gave up. So the following quote from Newsweek it’s eloquent for our work in blogging:

I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn’t one of them.
Fake Steve Jobs

The expert weighs in

Another interesting article was made by Paul Verna, an analyst with eMarketer. He is adopting the following issue: “the lack of a clear business model that can generate substantial revenues.”
If our business model is “ I want to make money on the Internet” you won’t go very far with it. But of course there are few fortunate situations when people made some good money from successful blogs.
So to sum up, like Fake Steve Jobs said, if you don’t have a good business model you won’t make any money.

Blogs are not television

In television, if you want to watch a movie, than you have to watch also his ads. When someone visits your site, if the ad isn’t something that he is looking for he won’t click on it, he won’t even look at it. So if you have huge traffic this doesn’t mean that you will earn huge money.

If you want to make money in the real world, solve real problems

The following quote explains the best what ideas you should have on your blog:
If you don’t offer customers something they dearly want, whether it’s to gain some great pleasure or escape some great pain, you’re not going to make any money.
We, bloggers, we must be as creative as musicians to make something special, else no one will take a look at it.

It’s time for online business to grow up

We all thought that if we made a site, than we will be rich. This kind of “business” worked for a while, but now it doesn’t. Now we must focus on what works, what always worked. Valuable content, solving problems, fix what’s bugging people.

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