1. You need a Google Voice Invite, there are only two ways to get this, either you get someone who already has a Google Voice to invite you or apply for an invitation to Google Voice service here https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite
2. Hotspot shield, to access the google voice service you need use a US Proxy Address, otherwise you’ll see a message saying “Thanks for visiting Google Voice. We are not yet open for users outside the US.” so get http://www.hotspotshield.com/ or any other proxy service whose IP address belongs to the US.
3. A SIP Client, the workaround involves you getting a US number for which you need a SIP client. I suggest X-lite Download it from here http://www.counterpath.com/x-lite-download.html ( Note: download X-lite Beta 4 if you are using a Mac OSX since I had no luck configuring X-lite 3.0 on the Mac)

Getting A Free US Number

• Register for a free account at iptel.org http://serweb.iptel.org/user/reg/index.php
• Using the the info from iptel.org register an account at register for a free USA DID with Ipkall here http://phone.ipkall.com/ setting are given below.
  1. Choose your account type: SIP
  2. Choose Area Code for your IPKall Number: Choose Any Number
  3. SIP Phone number: Your iptel.org User ID
  4. SIP Proxy: sip.iptel.org
  5. Email Address: Your Email address
  6. Password: Enter a Password
  7. # of Seconds to ring before hanging up: 120
• You’ll get a email with a US Number note this down.

Setting For Your SIP Client ( x-lite ) Using iptel.org

After downloading X-lite 3.0 or 4.0 Beta you need to set it up with your iptel.org the setting are given below

1. Display Name: Whatever you want
2. User Name: Your iptel.org user ID example: clazh
3. Password: Your iptel.org Password
4. Authorization User Name: Your Iptel.org User ID@iptel.org example: clazh@iptel.org
5. Domain: iptel.org

If you have entered your SIP settings correctly then you should be able to see Ready/available on your X-lite Screen depending on which version you are using.

Xlite iptel.org Settings

Activating The Google Voice Service Outside The US

Make sure your X-lite client is running and SIP account is active before you try to activate your Google Voice Service

Run HotSpot Shield or whatever US proxy number you are using and log on to http://www.google.com/voice

1. The frist screen show you an option to choose any Google Voice US number of your choice. (You can’t change the number later so choose carefully)

Choose A Google Voice Number

2. You’ll be asked to choose a PIN to access your voice mail

Choose A Google Voice PIN

3. You need to enter the US Phone number that IPKALL provided for you.

Enter A Forwarding Number (IPKall Number)

4. The last step requires you to verify your IPKALL Number, make sure you have x-lite configured and running, now just click Call Me Now

Verify Google Voice

5. If you have configured your x-lite correctly it should now ring just enter the two digit number show into the dial pad.

Thats it you are done. You don’t need to use HotSpot Shield any more just log into Google Voice and dial any US number always make sure X-lite is running, since it acts as a proxy number, X-lite will ring just pick up the call and start talking.

You can find a full list of SIP Clients here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SIP_software

if you are using the iPhone or android you can use Nimbuzz

Credit http://www.how-to-hide-ip.info/ for the Google Voice activation images.

Related posts:

1. Facebook Hack : Switch Or Turn Off Facebook Lite To Default
2. Myspace Hack : Profile url And MySpace Email
3. 10 Free Web Design Icons For Download, Used On This Web Site
4. Goog and Live 411
5. Get 6 Paid Mac OS X Applications For Free

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Featured, Google, Tutorial Tags: Calls, Free

In Brief having a Public DNS has two advantages.

1. Faster Performance, Page loads
2. Better Security

Below are a few way a public DNS helps in more details courtesy Google

• Performance. Many DNS service providers are not sufficiently provisioned to be able to support high-volume input/output and caching, and adequately balance load among their servers. In addition to load-balancing user traffic to ensure shared caching, Google Public DNS implements “smart” caching to increase the speed of responses. Google Public DNS independently resolves domain names and keeps the resolutions in the cache until their time-to-live (TTL) expires, at which point they are automatically refreshed. The cycle of caching and refreshing is performed offline, asynchronously with user requests, so that responses are almost always available directly from cache. For more information, see the page on performance benefits.
• Security. DNS is vulnerable to various kinds of spoofing attacks that can “poison” a nameserver’s cache and route its users to malicious sites. The prevalence of DNS exploits means that providers have to frequently apply server updates and patches. In addition, open DNS resolvers are vulnerable to being used to launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on other systems. To defend against such attacks, Google has implemented several recommended solutions to help guarantee the authenticity of the responses it receives from other nameservers, and to ensure our servers are not used for launching DoS attacks. These include adding entropy to requests, rate-limiting client traffic, and more. For more information, see the page on security benefits.
• Correct results. Google Public DNS does its best to return the right answer to every query every time, in accordance with the DNS standards. Sometimes, in the case of a query for a mistyped or non-existent domain name, the right answer means no answer, or an error message stating the domain name could not be resolved. Google Public DNS never blocks, filters, or redirects users, unlike some open resolvers and ISPs.

Before we Begin on how to configure Google Public DNS Service I have listed out a few more alternatives below

List Of Free Public DNS Servers

Google

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

OpenDNS

• 208.67.222.222
• 208.67.220.220

ScrubIt

• 67.138.54.100
• 207.225.209.66

dnsadvantage

• 156.154.70.1
• 156.154.71.1

vnsc-pri.sys.gtei.net

• 4.2.2.1
• 4.2.2.2
• 4.2.2.3
• 4.2.2.4
• 4.2.2.5
• 4.2.2.6

Configuring your network settings to use Google Public DNS

When you use Google Public DNS, you are changing your DNS “switchboard” operator from your ISP to Google Public DNS.

In most cases, the IP addresses used by your ISP’s domain name servers are automatically set by your ISP via the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). To use Google Public DNS, you need to explicitly change the DNS settings in your operating system or device to use the Google Public DNS IP addresses. The procedure for changing your DNS settings varies according to operating system and version (Windows, Mac or Linux) or the device (computer, phone, or router). We give general procedures here that might not apply for your OS or device; please consult your vendor documentation for authoritative information.

Note: We recommend that only users who are proficient with configuring operating system settings make these changes.

Important: Before you start

Before you change your DNS settings to use Google Public DNS, be sure to write down the current server addresses or settings on a piece of paper. It is very important that you keep these numbers for backup purposes, in case you need to revert to them at any time.

After changing your settings, if you encounter a problem and cannot connect to the Internet, call Google’s support numbers for troubleshooting instructions.

you can download this tutorial and print it, in the event that you encounter a problem and need to refer to these instructions.

Google Public DNS IP addresses

The Google Public DNS IP addresses are as follows:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

You can use either number as your primary or secondary DNS server. You can specify both numbers, but do not specify one number as both primary and secondary.

Changing your DNS servers settings

Many systems allow you to specify multiple DNS servers, to be contacted in a priority order. In the following instructions, we provide steps to specify only the Google Public DNS servers as the primary and secondary servers, to ensure that your setup will correctly use Google Public DNS in all cases.

Note: Depending on your network setup, you may need administrator/root privileges to change these settings.

Microsoft Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection.

Example: Changing DNS server settings on Microsoft Windows Vista

1. Go the Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, then Manage network connections.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and click Properties.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties.

   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

4. Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), and then click Properties.
5. Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.
6. Click OK.
7. Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
8. Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
9. Restart the connection you selected in step 3.
10. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
11. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Mac OS X

DNS settings are specified in the Network window.

Example: Changing DNS server settings on Mac OS 10.5

1. From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
2. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, select Airport, and click Advanced.
3. Select the DNS tab.
4. Click + to replace any listed addresses with, or add, the Google IP addresses at the top of the list: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
5. Click Apply and OK.
6. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
7. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Linux

In most modern Linux distributions, DNS settings are configured through Network Manager.

Example: Changing DNS server settings on Ubuntu

1. In the System menu, click Preferences, then click Network Connections.
2. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select the Wired tab, then select your network interface in the list. It is usually called eth0.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, select the Wireless tab, then select the appropriate wireless network.
3. Click Edit, and in the window that appears, select the IPv4 Settings tab.
4. If the selected method is Automatic (DHCP), open the dropdown and select Automatic (DHCP) addresses only instead. If the method is set to something else, do not change it.
5. In the DNS servers field, enter the Google Public DNS IP addresses, separated by a space: 8.8.8.8  8.8.4.4
6. Click Apply to save the change. If you are prompted for a password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
7. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.
8. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

If your distribution doesn’t use Network Manager, your DNS settings are specified in /etc/resolv.conf.

Example: Changing DNS server settings on a Debian server

1. Edit /etc/resolv.conf:

   sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf

2. If any nameserver lines appear, write down the IP addresses for future reference.
3. Replace the nameserver lines with, or add, the following lines:

   nameserver 8.8.8.8
   nameserver 8.8.4.4

4. Save and exit.
5. Restart any Internet clients you are using.
6. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.

Additionally, if you are using DHCP client software that overwrites the settings in /etc/resolv.conf, you will need to set up the client accordingly by editing the client’s configuration file.

Example: Configuring DHCP client sofware on a Debian server

1. Back up /etc/resolv.conf:

   sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf.auto

2. Edit /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf:

   sudo vi /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf

3. If there is a line containing domain-name-servers, write down the IP addresses for future reference.
4. Replace that line with, or add, the following line:

   prepend domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4;

5. Save and exit.
6. Restart any Internet clients you are using.
7. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.

Routers

Every router uses a different user interface for configuring DNS server settings; we provide only a generic procedure below. For more information, please consult your router documentation.

Note: Some ISPs hard-code their DNS servers into the equipment they provide; if you are using such a device, you will not be able to configure it to use Google Public DNS. Instead, you can configure each of the computers connected to the router, as described above.

To change your settings on a router:

1. In your browser, enter the IP address to access the router’s administration console.
2. When prompted, enter the password to access network settings.
3. Find the screen in which DNS server settings are specified.
4. If there are IP addresses specified in the fields for the primary and seconday DNS servers, write them down for future reference.
5. Replace those addresses with Google IP addresses: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
6. Save and exit.
7. Restart your browser.
8. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.

Mobile or other devices

DNS servers are typically specified under advanced wi-fi settings. However, as every mobile device uses a different user interface for configuring DNS server settings, we provide only a generic procedure below. For more information, please consult your mobile provider’s documentation.

To change your settings on a mobile device:

1. Go to the screen in which wi-fi settings are specified.
2. Find the screen in which DNS server settings are specified.
3. If there are IP addresses specified in the fields for the primary and seconday DNS servers, write them down for future reference.
4. Replace those addresses with Google IP addresses: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.
5. Save and exit.
6. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings below.

Testing your new settings

To test that the Google DNS resolver is working:

1. From your browser, type in a hostname, such as http://www.google.com. If it resolves correctly, bookmark the page, and try accessing the page from the bookmark. If both of these tests work, everything is working correctly. If not, go to step 2.
2. From your browser, type in a fixed IP address. You can use http://18.62.1.6/ (which points to the website http://eecs.mit.edu/) as the URL*. If this works correctly, bookmark the page, and try accessing the page from the bookmark. If these tests work (but step 1 fails), then there is a problem with your DNS configuration; check the steps above to make sure you have configured everything correctly. If these tests do not work, go to step 3.
3. Roll back the DNS changes you made and run the tests again. If the tests still do not work, then there is a problem with your network settings; contact your ISP or network administrator for assistance.

* Google thanks MIT for granting permission to use this URL for the purposes of testing web connectivity.

Switching back to your old DNS settings

If you had not previously configured any customized DNS servers, to switch back to your old settings, in the window in which you specified the Google IP addresses, select the option to enable obtaining DNS server addresses automatically, and/or delete the Google IP addresses. This will revert your settings to using your ISP’s default servers.

If you need to manually specify any addresses, use the procedures above to specify the old IP addresses.

If necessary, restart your system.

The Guide above has been provided by Google you can read the original tutorial at Google Code

Related posts:

1. Google Updater Service Uninstall, Disable Or Configure The Complete Guide
2. Uninstall Google Gears From Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
3. Unlimited Free International Calls & SMS After Activating Google Voice Outside US
4. Unblock Blocked Websites like Myspace, Bebo and Orkut
5. Facebook Chat, Google Gtalk Intergration Coming Soon

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Google, Technology, Tutorial Tags: Browser, DNS, Guide, How To, Performance, Tuneup

Fluid Apps

I installed google gears to enable offline browsing while using gmail, and google reader. After a while I decided to get rid of it since Little Snitch (a firewall application) told me that Google kept trying to connect every 30 minutes to the internet to check for an update, I found this extremely annoying and completely unnecessary. What was more annoying was that I couldn’t find a way to uninstall it. On a mac uninstalling is pretty straight forward just drag and drop the application on to the trash can. In google gears case it wasn’t installed as an application, and after hunting around I found that the only way to uninstall it is to run a command in terminal. below are the instructions.

1. First Quit any fluid application including Safari.
2. In Finder, open your Applications folder.
3. Open the folder named Utilities.
4. Open Terminal. alternative is to type Terminal directly in Spotlight
5. In Terminal, enter the following command (including the quotes): ‘/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Gears.plugin/Contents/Resources/uninstall.command’
6. Press Enter.
7. Enter your password when prompted.

For instructions on how to uninstall Google Gears for various other Operating systems.

Windows XP or Vista

1. Click the Start menu on your computer taskbar.
2. Select Control Panel.
3. Double-click Add or Remove Programs (on XP) or Programs and Features (on Vista).
4. Select Google Gears in the list of programs.
5. Click the Remove button.

If you’ve installed Google Chrome, Gears is installed by default. To uninstall Gears for Google Chrome, you’ll need to uninstall Google Chrome.

Linux

1. Open Firefox.
2. Click the Tools menu.
3. Select Extensions (Firefox 1) or Add-ons (Firefox 2 or later).
4. Select Google Gears in the list of programs.
5. Click Uninstall.
6. Restart Firefox.

Mac OS X

1. Open Firefox.
2. Click the Tools menu.
3. Select Extensions (Firefox 1) or Add-ons (Firefox 2 or later).
4. Select Google Gears in the list of programs.
5. Click Uninstall.
6. Restart Firefox.

Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0

1. Select Settings.
2. If present, select the System tab.
3. Select Remove Programs.
4. Select Google Gears from the list.
5. Click Remove.
6. Restart your device.

Related posts:

1. Google Updater Service Uninstall, Disable Or Configure The Complete Guide
2. How to Hide or Remove A Installed Program from Add Remove
3. Google Announces "Gears" Offline Support For Web Applications
4. Free Public DNS Servers IP Addresses and How To Configure Google Public DNS
5. Recover Lost Forgotten Windows XP Administrator Password

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Google, Tutorial Tags: How To, Uninstall

Official way to Switch off Facebook Lite

On the top right hand corner before the search box you’ll see two small icons, the first on looks like a spanner click this, this will take you to the facebook lite settings page.

Facebook Lite Settings

Now click on default site

Facebook Lite Default Site

Select. When I go to Facebook.com, show me, Regular Facebook. and click save you should be done. You also have the option of checking Let me switch between regular Facebook and Facebook Lite If you select this option, a blue bar will appear at the top of Facebook that enables you to switch back and forth between the two versions i.e Facebook Lite and the default Facebook Interface.

Facebook Lite Change To Default Facebook

Use The Facebook Feeback Form

Scroll way down to the bottom of the facebook lite interface at the bottom you’ll see a small link called feedback click this., You’ll see a new page at the top it will say Looking to get back to the regular Facebook? Just click here. Just click the given link it should turn off the Facebook Lite interface and send you back to the regular Facebook interface.

Other Methods are listed below but not Guaranteed to work.

Change Facebook URL Link

You’ll notice that the Url has changed to http://lite.facebook.com/ just change this back to http://facebook.com/. This doesn’t work all the time you can try to use http://lite.facebook.com/home.php

Clear Your browser Cookies and Cache

Clear your browser cookies and cache and try logging into facebook again, the facebook lite interface should be gone now.
For Internet Explorer users go to your menu bar and click Tools –> Internet Options –> Delete Cookies and Delete Files
For Firefox Users go to your menu bar and click Tools –> Clear recent History –> Select all the options and click Clear all

Related posts:

1. Myspace Hack : Profile url And MySpace Email
2. Facebook Chat, Google Gtalk Intergration Coming Soon
3. Unlimited Free International Calls & SMS After Activating Google Voice Outside US
4. Microsoft and Facebook Announce Partnership
5. Uninstall Google Gears From Mac OS X, Windows, Linux

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: General, Internet, Tutorial Tags: FaceBook, Hacking, How To, Social-Networks, Tutorial

Updated: Got rid of the Custom Metadata, used the modified date and the created date of the post to check if its a new post or an old one. Now you don’t have to worry about updating your old posts.

Updated: To Make the title text more Twitter friendly.

I been trying to cut down on the number of Plugins used. Firstly to make maintained easier, secondly to simplify and reduce to the bare minimum without using Plugins, thirdly to hone up my WordPress skills. The latest plugin I got rid of was the WP to Twitter Plugin. Initially I started off trying to modify how I wanted it to work. Basically I wanted to cut off Bit.ly as a URL shortner and use my own blog as a URL shortner to send people directly to my site and keep the traffic on my site without the need for a middle man. I figured this out after I saw how Amit Aggarwal was tweeting his links to his site.

Short URLs in WordPress without Bit.ly or URL Shortners

We all know that WordPress generates long Permalinks for your site, it automatically converts your titles into those long URLs called permalinks that you see. Example http://www.clazh.com/this_is_some_random_post, If you switch off Permalinks in WordPress you’ll see that links to your posts will be of the form http://www.clazh.com/?p=401 if you look at it you’ll notice the last bit has a number attached to it, each post has a unique ID associated to it. The trick is to make use of this ID to and create a URL for our posts, so when people click on this shortned link they’ll be automatically taken to the Permalink associated with that post its as simple as that.

A Simple WordPress To Twitter Function.

First we’ll write a really simple function that uses CURL to post to the Twitter API. Just copy paste it into your functions.php file in your WordPress theme directory. In case you don’t see the file in yours themes folder just create one and paste the code inside it. To check if CURL is enabled on your server you can paste this function into a blank PHP file and call the function like this twitterUpdate("some random post", "http://clazh.com", true); with some random inputs. Make sure you uncomment the last few lines where it says to uncomment to test for CURL support.

Note: In the rare case your host does not support CURL you can always make use of fsockopen for PHP 4 or the much easier stream_context_creat for PHP5

function twitterUpdate($postTitle, $postLink, $isNew)
{
	// Enter Your Twitter ID Here
	$username = 'Twitter_ID';
	// Enter Your Twitter Password Here
	$password = 'Password';

        # text into a twitter friendly text
	$code_entities_match = array('--','"','!','@','#','$','%','^','&','*','(',')','_','+','{','}','|',':','"','<','>','?','[',']','\\',';',"'",',','.','/','*','+','~','`','=');
	$code_entities_replace = array('-','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','','');
	$postTitle = str_replace($code_entities_match, $code_entities_replace, $postTitle);

	// Check if New or Updated Post
	if($isNew)
		$postTitle = 'New Post: ' . $postTitle;
	else
		$postTitle = 'Updated Post: ' . $postTitle;

	// Calculate Twitter Msg and keep it under 140 Chars
        if(strlen ($postTitle) > (140 - strlen ($postLink)))
		$postTitle 		= substr_replace($postTitle, '...', (140 - 3 - strlen ($postLink)));

	$message = $postTitle . $postLink;

	// The twitter API address
	$url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml';
	$curl_handle = curl_init();
	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");
	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=$message");
	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");
	$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
	curl_close($curl_handle);

	// Uncomment the lines below to check if
	// CURL is enabled on your Web Server
	// check for success or failure
	/*
	if (empty($buffer))
		echo 'message';
	else
		echo 'success';
	*/
}

WordPress Function that Triggers Post To Twitter

Next we’ll write a simple wordpress function that triggers whenever you update or publish a post, we will also added a custom metadata to the post check if its a new or old post. Copy paste this code below the twitterUpdate function in your functions.php themes file.

function postToTwitter($post_ID)
{
	// Create your Short URL replace with your blog url
	$postLink = ' http://clazh.com/?p=' . $post_ID;
	// encode the URL to fix Post to Twitter issues
        $postLink = urlencode  ( $postLink ) ;
	// Get the Post Object
	$get_post_info 	= get_post( $post_ID );
	// Get the Post Title
	$postTitle = $get_post_info->post_title;
        // Get the Post date
	$postDate 		= date('U', strtotime($get_post_info->post_date));
	// Get the post Modified date
	$postModified 	= date('U', strtotime($get_post_info->post_modified));

	// Check if the post is new or modified
	if($postModified == $postDate)
	{
		twitterUpdate($postTitle, $postLink, true);
	}
	/*  If You want to fire everytime You update
	      a post remove these comments around the else.
	else
	{
		twitterUpdate($postTitle, $postLink, false);
	}
	*/
}

// Post to twitter when you publish or update a post
add_action('publish_post', 'postToTwitter');

So thats about it, just paste these two blocks of code into your functions.php and change the required parameter, you can play around with the code and modify it to change the message being posted to twitter.

Related posts:

1. Guest Bloggers Required, SandBox Wordpress Theme Suggestions
2. Wordpress Plugin Better Comments Manager Update
3. Wordpress Security Alert Adsense Deluxe Plugin Vulnerable
4. Who Sees Ads 1.0 Wordpress Plugin Released
5. FeedSmith The Official FeedBurner Wordpress Plugin

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Featured, Tutorial, Web-Design, Wordpress Tags:

1. Avast or AVG (Get the Free Versions)
2. AdAware (Get the free Version)
3. CCleaner
4. AutoRuns
5. ProcessExplorer
6. FireFox

Update Window

The first step is to make sure your windows is updated with the latest security patches and fixes. If you are running Windows XP make sure you have installed Service Pack 2. Once you are done installing service pack 2 you should run Windows update and get the latest patches. Another alternative is to use AutoPatcher this is a utility which will download all the required patches and security fixes from Microsoft and store it in a folder on your system which you can later reuse to apply to other computers that you need to update.

Run A Full Scan Using AntiVirus and AntiSpyware Softwares.

There are a number of free AntiVirus software I have for now listed two of them. Virus can do all sorts of weird things to your computer. For example on my laptop the virus disabled the “View Hidden Files” option, even though I checked the option it would reset it back, it also set a number of scheduled tasks in my Task Scheduler to call a number of different copies of the Virus. Run a full scan of the system. Next run a Anti-SpyWare software I highly recommend AdAware.

A Virus Infected Tasks list

AVG Virus Scan With Detected Viruses

Clean Up Your Start Up Items.

Most SpyWare and Virus configure your start up items to run the Virus when you boot up or log into your system. Use the MsConfig tool in windows to check which items are being loaded at start up. If you see any suspicious looking entries uncheck them also identify which file is being called and manually delete it. Sometime this might not work like in my case I had to log into widows using safe mode (When Windows is booting up press F8 you will see an option to load windows under safe mode) and delete the offending file. Use the process explorer tool to see if the processing running on your system are all legitimate. Also use AutoRuns to delete any entries that look suspicious especially DLL that are unsigned and have random looking names.

Clean Up And Optimise Your System.

There are a number of tools that can clean your system of unwanted and unused temporary files and registry entries. One of the best tools that I have found so far is CCleaner which provides a number of advanced options to clean up your system. Try to keep the number of items that start up when you boot the system to a minimum.

Prevention Is Better Than Cure.

Better safe than sorry. Ditch IE period and get FireFox. Run an Anti-Virus software and do a full scan periodically. Also do a full Anti-SpyWare scan periodically. Also scan external drives like thumb drives and external hard disk when you connect it to the computer.

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4. Clean Wordpress Theme Updated To Version 0.6
5. How to Hack or Crack a Windows XP Administrator Password

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2008. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Featured, Technology, Tutorial Tags: Anti-Virus, How To, Repair, SpyWare

There are two ways you can access content on Experts Exchange without the need to register and and pay for membership to view the content. The first two methods are the the easiest way.

Just Scroll Down.

You might be wondering how scrolling down can help. Experts Exchange were smart enough to figure out that internet surfers have very short attention spans and rarely scroll down beyond a given point. They in fact convince the users they need to register to view the content by showing a large number of dummy comments with text that says

All comments and solutions are available to Premium Service Members only. Sign-up to view the solution to this question.

So the user assumes that the content is only viewable if he/she registers when in fact all the comments and solutions are viewable if you scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Use Google Cache.

This is a no brainer. When you search on Google if you see a link to Experts Exchange instead of clicking on the link directly click on the link below where it says Cache.

User Agent Switcher FireFox Extension.

If you constantly land up on experts exchange or you are tired of scrolling down so much. Use the User Agent Switcher FireFox Extension to spoof your User Agent and make Experts Exchange believe that you are a Google Search Bot. Download a list of User Agents from here and import it using the user agent switcher extension.

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1. Better Comments Manager Wordpress Plugin
2. The Best Free Blogging Tools for Power Bloggers
3. Unblock Blocked Websites like Myspace, Bebo and Orkut

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Featured, Tutorial Tags: FireFox, Free, Unblock

There are three Major factors you need to look at when you are about to buy Web Hosting. We’ll explore each point one by one and various tools to asses and collect data.

1. Uptime
2. Response Time
3. Tech Support
4. Ease of Use

Uptime

100% uptime is a myth when it comes to shared hosting no shared web host can guarantee you 100% uptime. Why because, servers need maintenance to keep them running in top notch condition maintenance means downtime and In the case of Shared hosting this is very much true. In a month calculate the total time that your site goes down and if it is more than 5-6 hours then your Web host in very unreliable (DreamHost). Its is common for a shared hosting site to go down a few minutes(not more than 5 minutes) once a week.

I used tools like PingDom, mon.itor.us and Site24X7 to monitor my site uptime. Out of the three tools I highly recommend Pingdom (they have a 30 day trial which should be enough for you to do your research) since they have more servers around the world and you can configure it to check your site every minute.

Response Time

Response time is the time that your web site takes to respond to a HTTP request(When a Web Page is loaded a number of HTTP Calls are made depending on how many pictures, CSS and JavaScript files are being loaded). The Ideal response time for a site should not cross 1 sec. Most Shared Hosts cram a lot of websites on to the same server this can cause the web sites to become slow. In case there are a lot of high traffic blogs/Web Sites on the same servers as the one you are hosted on your site is likely to be slow. Use this tool http://www.myipneighbors.com/ to check how many other sites are hosted along with you. It is common for web hosts to put 150-200 low traffic sites on the same server, if you notice more than 2-3 High traffic sites on the same server then your site is likely to be slow.

Again PingDom is a great tool to monitor site response time, they have more than 15 different servers located around the world that tell you response time around various parts of the world. Or you could use this completely free tool to check your site response time from 5 different locations around the world. http://internetsupervision.com/scripts/urlcheck/check.aspx

Tech Support

You might face hiccups along the way when hosting a site. How fast do they reply to your emails. In my case BlueHost provides Instant live chat support. Most Web Hosts have some kind of ticketing system based on priority and complexity of the problem and you would be required to for 2-3 hours before you receive any reply. After being with BlueHost for a while I fail to understand why other Web Hosts also cannot provide live chat support, my previous experience with Media Temple was horrible with replies taking more than 24 hours. On DreamHost when I posted a support ticket I could mark the ticket as HIGH, Medium, Low etc and depending on the priority I found the response varied but on Media Temple they don’t have any such priority marking system which I think sucks big time like in my case my site was down for more than 3 days.

Ease of Use

How easy and intuitive is the Web Hosting Control panel. I have used DreamHost, Media Temple and BlueHost. And I found Media Temple User Interface a pleasure to use and understand. But both DreamHost and Media Temple Control Panels are rather slow in loading. BlueHost has a blazing fast Control Panel they use CPanel with their own enhancements and Addons.

While There are other factors that can slow down your site like having lots of images, widget, scripts. etc which can effect your site. I think I’ll cover them in another post since I myself am guilty of making some of these mistakes. Hopefully when I have finished redesigning my site I can tackle this topic.

If you want to learn more about on site optimisation here are a bunch of links that you find useful.

Tools and Extensions

http://www.pingdom.com/tools/fpt/
http://internetsupervision.com/scripts/urlcheck/check.aspx
http://www.webwait.com/
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1433
FireBug 

Articles

http://www.glazkov.com/blog/client-side-performance-tip/
http://www.vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/designing-pages-to-load-quickly/
http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/07/25/how-to-optimize-your-site-with-image-sprites/
http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/dev/enhance-your-page-performance
http://learningtheworld.eu/2007/performance/
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20070621/load-time-the-ux-factor-facts-and-measures/
http://immike.net/blog/2007/07/24/css-redundancy-checker/

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4. Google Updater Service Uninstall, Disable Or Configure The Complete Guide
5. How To Upgrade and Update WordPress A Simple Guide

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Technology, Tutorial Tags: How To, Web-Hosting

A list of Plugins that you can use to upgrade automatically.

1. The InstantUpgrade
2. WordPress Automatic Update

Here’s the simplest and safest manual route.

Backup your Database

The First rule, backup your WordPress Database even if you are using Automatic Update Plugins I recommend you to make a backup. If you find backing up the databases using phpMyAdmin too complicated a simpler solution is to install the excellent WordPress Database Plugin, not only can you download a copy of you database with a click you can also schedule it to send you a copy of the database by mail depending on the time frame you specify i.e. daily, weekly or monthly.

Download WordPress from WordPress.org

Always download the latest WordPress from the WordPress.org site. After you’ve download the zip file extract it to a folder (by default it extracts to a folder called WordPress). Login to your website using FTP and upload this folder to the root directory of your Website where your blog is installed (I assume that there is no other folder with the same name). Create a new folder called backup.

Important Note: Before we begin there are some files and folders you shouldn’t touch these are the wp-content folder and wp-config.php and .htaccess files in your root directory. Additionally you may have some non-WordPress related files like robots.txt, Sitemap.xml etc.

If you followed my instructions carefully You’ll see the following directory structure given in the screenshot below.

Move the folders called wp-admin and wp-includes from the root folder to the backup folder. Don’t do anything to the wp-content folder since this contains your themes and plugins and uploaded files. Also move all the WordPress related files from the root directory except wp-config.php and .htaccess (don’t move Non-WordPress related files that you may have example robots.txt, Sitemap.xml etc) Now the directory structure looks like this.

Next move all the folders wp-admin and wp-includes and files except the wp-content folder from your WordPress to the root folder.

Now go to your browser and type in www.your-blog-url.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php thats it your done.

Check if everything is running fine. You can delete the WordPress and backup folder if all is well.

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3. How To Restore And Recover Your Firefox Bookmarks
4. Move From Blogger To Wordpress and Maintain Permalinks And Traffic
5. Copy Feed Wordpress Plugin Translated To English

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Tutorial, Wordpress Tags: How To

Part 1: Choosing Your Colors

A good choice of colors can make-or-break your design. That is why the first step is to pick your colors, and pick them wisely.

The first part of picking colors is to decide between light or dark. While you’re subject matter could way in on your decision (like choosing light colors for a site about flowers), it should also be about what you are looking to accomplish with your. If your site is a blog with tons of text (like Clazh), light colors for your layout, with dark text, is a good idea because it improves the readability of your site. If your site is all about showing off your graphical expertise, than dipping into the darker end of the spectrum may help to accentuate the graphical aspects of your design.

Light Color Scheme

Dark Color Scheme

Do you have your scheme chosen? Good. Now moving on to the actual color selection. I am just going to assume that you are older than 10, and can tell what colors go together, and what colors do not. For example, Pink and Light Blue go together, while Bright Green and Bright Yellow could potentially make your eyes bleed. So now, it’s really up to you to choose your colors, based on what you think visitors will find attractive. I would recommend choosing about 5 colors, even if they are only variations of each other. If you just can’t seem to pinpoint a color set, than use Adobe Kuler to help you choose an attractive set.
Part 2: Finding Inspiration

Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” As a designer, you are obviously an artist. Being such, you should definitely take his advice, but not in a literal sense. You don’t want to peruse the web, find a shnazzy looking website, and then just rip-off their design. But what you do want to do is to take inspiration from the work (in this case the designs of websites) of others. There isn’t really much to elaborate on, except for the fact that you should just look at the layout of the site, the navigation, the way ads are handled, and the way the content is handled. But don’t think that you’ll be doing everything the same as the sites you use as base material. That would be stealing. ;)

For some sites you can visit to see galleries of other sites to then take inspiration from (what a confusing sentence), you can try these links:

• FaveUp
• Screenalicious
• CSS Drive
• CSS Website
• Unmatched Style
• CSS Remix
• CSS Vault
• Stylegala
• CSS Beauty

Part 3: Deciding on Your Own Layout

Leah Culver’s Stupid Blog

Notice the way that all of the site content has the same background color, and is aligned in the middle of the page, taking up the same width.

Glenn Wolsey

In this example, you can see how all of the content is spread across the width of the screen, with the header being the dominant element.

Ordered List

Here you can see (vaguely in the screen shot) that each category of content is given it’s own “space, where nothing is attached.

One last thing to think about when dreaming up the basic layout is the number of columns you will need. For a blog, you may need 2 or three, where as with a portfolio site, you could get away with one.

Part 4: Making a Mockup

You’re almost there! Just stick with me and you’ll be ready to whip out your HTML editor of choice and start hammering away. But before you do that, you should have a full idea of what the site should look like when the (X)HTML and CSS is complete.

For this step, you will need to have a graphical editor. Now, you COULD skip this step entirely, but it helps tenfold to be able to see what you’re trying to achieve. It’s also much easier to make tweaks this way.

If you do not have a graphical editor (like Photoshop), than you have some expensive, and free options. The two I would recommend would be Adobe Photoshop, or the GIMP. The GIMP being a little less user-friendly but free.

Note: Save repeatedly. I prefer to save every 5-10 minutes or so. Laugh now, but if something ever goes wrong, I never have too much to make up.

1. Alrighty. The first step in making your mockup is to make a basic layout of content. In other words, you make a bunch of squares based on where you want your content to go. No color, no nothing. Just rectangles with black outlines. Don’t forget to label them, for future reference.
2. The next thing you should do is start to add colors, rounded corners, and the basics of the design. The boxes are no longer necessary, although you may want to still have labels of what area is for what content.
3. Next, you add basic text, like menus, the header/logo, the footer, and maybe some Lorem Ipsum for your post areas if you’re designing a blog.
4. Finally, you should now add the small graphics, and as much detail as you can. When you are finished with this step, what you should have on your screen should be exactly what you want the site to look like when you are done with your markup. If not, now would be a great time to tweak everything until it’s perfect. Another good idea would be to save the layout as an image, and send it to a few friends to get their take on it.

Now that you know exactly how everything should look and function, it will be much easier to code the design. If you can’t do that, than that’s your problem.

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2. Part3 Top Best Beautiful Wordpress Themes and Templates
3. My Web Design Got Ripped
4. Best Customizable Multiple Color Styles Wordpress Themes
5. A little About Me And The SandPress Theme

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Design, Tutorial Tags: How To, Photoshop, Tutorial, Web-Development