Naveen's Blog

Guide to web hosting by Kaushal Sheth

Naveen — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:23:41 +0000

If you are using Wordpress for your blog, you might have already come across the name “Kaushal Sheth” when searching for free Wordpress templates. Have you noticed the recent theme, Tick Tock Green, from him? I like it and looks very nice. You can also hire him if you need a custom theme.

I have com across a recent post by him on web hosting and seen that KS has rated Host Monster, Host Gator, and Yahoo Host as the best hosts. I have never used these web hosts. I have been using Dream Host for the last two-and-a-half years and I am happy with their service. I think one cannot expect 100% uptime from a shared hosting seller and I see 1-10 mins downtime with Dream Host once in a quarter or so. I see that lot of hosting companies guaranteeing 99.5% to 99.9% uptime and never 100%.

If you are using above hosts, just let me know how they are working for you and have you noticed any downtime with them. Already KS has given #1 rating to Host Monster.

My favorite Magazine-Style Wordpress Themes

Naveen — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:43:05 +0000

Today, I am going to share my favorite “bookmarked” Wordpress themes that look like CMS/Magazine. I wanted to make a post with all my favorite themes and came with this post.

My favorite theme maker is Justin. He has more number of magazine-style themes to his credit than any other theme maker and I often visit his blog to see if he has released any new. He is so kind and releases premium Wordpress themes for free.

If somebody asks me to select the top one from my list, I would select Mimbo by Darren. He also has a list of good tutorials to customize the Wordpress.

1. Mimbo by Darren Hoyt | Demo | Theme Info & Download

2. Options by Justin Tadlock | Demo | Theme Info & Download

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Boost your site’s pagerank - List of bookmarking sites with high pagerank

Naveen — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:17:02 +0000

Here is a list of bookmarking sites with high pagerank, which I got at DigitalPoint forums. Submitting your site link to these sites can give you boost in your pagerank in next Google’s pagerank update.

http://www.furl.net/ - Another PR 8 bookmarking site also free
http://www.backflip.com/dir_start.ihtml - PR 7 book marking site
http://www.blinklist.com/ - PR 5 book marking and its free
http://www.blogmemes.net/ - PR 5 and it’s free
http://jots.com/- PR 6 a directory like bookmarking service and it’s free
http://www.linkroll.com/ - PR 6
http://www.looklater.com/ - PR 5
http://ma.gnolia.com/ - PR 5
http://www.maple.nu/ - PR 4
http://www.markaboo.com/ - PR 3
http://www.rawsugar.com/search/ - PR 6
http://www.shadows.com/ - PR 7
http://simpy.com/ - PR 4
http://www.spurl.net/ - PR 6
http://wink.com/ - PR 6
http://www.stumbleupon.com/ - A PR 7 bookmarking service with good reputation
http://www.kaboodle.com/ - PR 7 nice bookmarking site
http://www.clipmarks.com/ - PR 4

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Smorty - Get paid to blog

Naveen — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:15:41 +0000

These days, I have been experimenting with making money from Internet and found success with few. So, I will let you know one by one. Already, I have posted one offer - Ziddu.

This post is about making money from your blog. Recently, I have tried Smorty, a new blog advertising service, which pays for reviewing the products/services/websites of advertisers. Smorty paid within a week after I wrote a review.

What are the requirements?
If you have an active three months or older blog and it is indexed in Google and Yahoo, you can sign-up with Smorty. Once you are approved, you can log into your account and accept the offers from a list of offers available. They will also mail you whenever new campaigns are added. Being a PR4 blog with an Alexa Rank of 15L, I have got offers up to $16.

How much I can make?
The minimum pay per review is $6 and if you have a good Smorty score, you can get offers up to $100 per post. Smorty score will be calculated based on numerous factors like Google PR, Alexa rank, number of completed reviews, and approval/decline ratio of completed tasks. Smorty pays only through PayPal at this time, so you will need to have one to get the payment.

Smorty is one of the best services to get paid for blogging. I highly recommend it.

Read the program FAQs and Rules before signing up.

Get paid to share files and photos

Naveen — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:09:31 +0000

Ziddu is a new and rapid growing file sharing site, which pays you to share upload and share files. With its decent interface and great features, soon it will become competitor for other file sharing sites. Some of the features that attracted me are:

No obtrusive ads
Clean and intuitive user interface
Parallel downloads with no waiting tickets
Ability to create photo albums, audio and video libraries
Decent speed. You can check it by downloading sample files: Regseeker (0.5 MB) | Wallpaper (1.6 MB)

Ziddu pays $1 for every 1000 downloads. In some forums, I have seen that files are downloaded more than 20k times due to its huge user base. So, they can easily earn $20 per file. Once you reach the minimum payout of $10, you will be paid through Paypal.

It is great to know that Ziddu has been developed by the Hyderabad-based Northgate Technologies.

So, today onwards share files only on Ziddu – Upload, share, and earn.

Download streaming videos with Real Player 11

Naveen — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:31:15 +0000

This week I have updated my Real Player to the latest Real Player v.11 and I am very impressed with it’s glossy look and amazing features. One of the interesting features is downloading the streaming videos on the web with one click.

In my previous posts, I explained about various tricks to download videos from YouTube, LiveLeak etc using Greasemonkey scripts. You might have also seen that there are lot of sites that help you to download the streaming videos into your system.

Now forget about all these tricks and sites, and install Real Player Version 11, which is available on the Real Player’s website here (Free Version). Get it, install it, and restart your system. Now, whenever you mouse over on a streaming content, you will see a link to download it with Real Player download manager. Without installing any script or software, now you can download videos from MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, YouTube, Google Video, and almost all video streaming websites.

It has inbuilt download manager that shows you the progress of downloading and also lets you pause and resume the downloads.

BT Home IT Support – Support just a call away

Naveen — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:10:23 +0000

Computers have become part of our daily lives and now you can see a computer in almost all households. Not everyone is expert to handle the computer problems on their own and once it starts giving problems, we become mad. Someone calls his IT friend and some one rushes through newspaper classifieds to see if any computer service at home is available.

Here comes BT Home IT Support, expert IT support for common problems like software and hardware installation, transferring data, monitor and printer problems, installing game consoles, and more. They even help you on sharing your photos with your relatives, creating emails, and know about the Internet lingo like what blogs and podcasts are. They also have home visit service where their engineers come to your home for computer repair and setting the things up and working.

Support is available over the phone at a cost of £9.99 a month and if you are ordering a 12-month subscription, it will cost £8.99 a month. Home visits cost starts from £60 per visit. You can find the various services and costs here.

Find more about BT Home IT Support here: http://www.bt.com/homeitsupport. There you can see a list of common issues and also watch the video of their team in action and assess the quality.

Play almost all audio and video files with one player

Naveen — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:40:12 +0000

I was recently searching for the codec to play a movie that is in Matroska (.mkv) format. I found one that makes it possible to view the .mkv file. I installed it, but it did not work for me. I might have installed it wrong or it does not support the latest Windows Media Player. Suddenly, VLC Player came into my mind and within few clicks, I landed onto the features list and thank god, VLC plays the .mkv files.

What is VLC?
VLC Player is an open source cross-platform media player, which supports “n” number of audio and video formats. No need to download any codec. Just install it and it starts playing almost all except .rm (Real Media) files. Website states that VLC will support Real Media files in the next version, 0.9.0.

Another good thing about VLC is support for skins. With the use of skins, you can make VLC look like your Media Player 11 or old light blue Media Player just by adding respective skins to the skins’ folder in VLC’s installation folder. Browse the skins repository for a good number of interesting and nice skins.

It is an open source application and you are free to download, use and redistribute. It is currently available for Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, SUSE, Red Hat, Slackware, and many more.

VLC’s Homepage | VLC Skins | Supported video and audio list

Domain registration and web hosting - Australia

Naveen — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:04:43 +0000

PayLessDomains is a fully accredited domain registrar for Australian domain names. Along with popular TLDs like .com, .net, .org, and .info, you can also register .us, .ca, .co.uk, and .co.nz and many more. Just put the name you want in search field and select the extensions, and it will come up with the available extensions along with suggested available domains. If you are registering more than 10 domains, you can avail the discounted bulk pricing.

I can say from my experience with different domain registrars that PayLessDomains’ easy-to-use interface is the best and easy one after NameCheap. Domain registration charges are starting from $11.95 per year (AUD), which is really good. It also offers cheap web hosting starting from AU$ 6.66/month, which gives you 1 GB storage and 3 GB/per month data transfer.

With every domain, you will get free goodies like email hosting, URL forwarding, and Domain parking. Round-the-clock customer support helps you solve your queries and problems with domain management at anytime.

HCU – URL shortening made easy

Naveen — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:56:12 +0000

Can’t remember those long URLs? Are they breaking when posting in forums, blogs, or emails? Here is a tiny tool – HCU.in. HCU – Hide and Cut the Url, makes the long URLs short and easily rememberable with the use of “Tags.” It also helps to hide the affiliate and referral links. Tiny URLs made with HCU will not expire, so no need to worry about the life of the short URLs.

Some useful tricks you can play with the help of HCU:
¤ If you want to send an image link that is hosted on ImageShack or Flickr and at the same time you want it easily rememberable, use HCU and in place of tag, write your friend’s name.

Example: I just wanted to show a nice image on Flickr to my friend, Sreeram. URL of that image was: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/58/183689226_4e71fc9f7d.jpg
So, I made a link at HCU using the tag “sreeram”: hcu.in/sreeram How nice it is. Isn’t it?

¤If you are visiting a long URL regularly, use HCU and in place of “Tag,” put some easily rememberable tag, so that just typing hcu.in/tag will take you to that long URL.

Example: Regularly I use AMA (American Medical Association)’s website to search for doctors. After few clicks from the homepage, you will reach the doctors’ search page located at : http://webapps.ama-assn.org/doctorfinder/html/patient.html
So, I went to HCU and used the tag “ama” to create an easy to type and remember link: hcu.in/ama

I think now you got the idea, so go on and create your own short URLs.

Screengrab – Screen grabbing extension for Firefox

Naveen — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:40:24 +0000

A new extension is added to my favorite Firefox extensions, Screengrab. Screengrab lets you save anything that is visible in the browser window as an image. You can either save the page or save the selection to clipboard, so that you can paste it into documents or emails. You can also save the entire scrollable webpage as an image. Try it!

Screegrab Homepage: http://www.screengrab.org/

Below is the image I have screengrabbed with this extension:

Add Yahoo emoticons in Orkut scraps

Naveen — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 03:24:40 +0000

Few days after writing the post “Write Orkut scraps in Indian languages” using Greasemonkey script, Google has introduced that feature and now it is inbuilt in Orkut. Now, I will show you the way to embed Yahoo emoticons into your Orkut scraps. A little emoticon can express your feeling much better than words.

For this, we need, as usual, Firefox, GreaseMonkey extension for Firefox, and Yahoo Emoticons User Script.

Read my previous post about installing GreaseMonkey in Firefox. Now, go to the Yahoo Emoticons User Script on Userscripts.org and click on the black button “Install this script.” GreaseMonkey instantly recognizes it and comes up with a window asking for confirmation. Click “Install” and you are done. Now go to your scrapbook and you will see Yahoo emoticons appearing below the scrap box. Whenever you need an emoticon to be attached to the scrap, just click on the appropriate icon and a link will be inserted into your scrap that turns into an emoticon when it is posted. Enjoy!!!

Three Tools

Naveen — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:22:14 +0000

Today, I have added three tools to my blog:

YouTube Video Downloader: You can download the YouTube videos into your system in FLV format. Later, your can convert it into AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, or WMV. Check it to know how?
Google PR/Alexa Trank/Backlinks Checker: This one checks PR, Alexa Rank, and Backlinks for a given domain in Ajaxy way.
English to Telugu Convertor: Just type the Telugu words in English and it will convert them into Telugu on the fly.

Telugu rendering and writing in Windows XP

Naveen — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:12:49 +0000

Have you ever looked at the web pages in Telugu? e.g.: Wikipedia in Telugu. Cluttered Telugu rendering makes you leave the pages immediately. Until I have known about enabling the Telugu Indic script in Windows XP, my situation was also same. Now, I enjoy reading TeWiki (Telugu Wikipedia) and also BhashaIndia’s Telugu version run by Microsoft. See below images before and after enabling the complex script in XP.

TeWiki before enabling the complex script support

After enabling:

BhashaIndia Before:

After:

So, we will see how to enable the Indic script support in Windows XP. Open the “Control Panel” in Windows XP and select the “Switch to Classic View” on the left side. Select the “Regional and Languages Options” Then go to the second tab “Languages” and select the check box “Install Files for Complex Script and Right-to-Left Languages (Including Thai).” Make sure that you have the XP installation dump in your system or installation CD with you. It requires the fonts to be installed into the system from the CD. Once you have done, restart the system, and now you can see the Telugu websites in a readable form.

Refer to my Orkut scrapping in Indian languages post and using that you can scrap in Telugu also. Use Lekhini or English to Telugu Converter hosted on my blog to type in Telugu, then copy and paste it into your blog or on any webpage. You can paste that into messengers to talk in Telugu.

In Telugu Wikipedia, there are lot of articles are pending for translation into Telugu. If you want to enjoy and learn while translating, then go to this page.

Happy Telugu Writing! — ఇక తెలుగులో వ్రాయండి!

Tiny browser (Browzar) now with tabbed browsing

Naveen — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:07:59 +0000

Browzar is a tiny browser that is only 220K in size and a standalone application. Just click and run, no installation needed. It is mainly aimed at browsing the net with privacy. It dose not store any cookies, cache, or browsing history, so you don’t need to worry about the traces that browsers normally leave. It is too small and you can carry it on a USB stick to browse the net safely at net cafés.

When I wrote about the Browzar for first time in December of 2006 on my WaveNine blog, I pointed out the downside to change the default homepage, which was set to Ask. Now, the new version 1.4.0.0 does allow the user to change homepage and the interesting thing is that it supports tabbed browsing.

Browzar is becoming thin as it is growing. It was 273K when it was introduced and now it is only 220K with more number of features. It is currently available only for Windows with two themes, black and silver. Mac OS X and Linux versions are on the way.

Browzar’s home page: http://www.browzar.com/
Read all the features here: http://www.browzar.com/keyfeatures/index.html
Download it here: http://www.browzar.com/download/index.html