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

First of all lets see how Google updater gets install, this will help in preventing you from getting the update service running in the background. If you are using any of the Google prodcuts, like Google Desktop, Google gears, Google Talk, Google Pack and Google Earth the updater gets installed and starts running in the background silently.

Scroll down if you are looking for the Mac OS X Guide

Google Updater Service on Windows 7, Vista & XP

For people using windows you can hit the CNTRL + ALT + DEL keys to bring up the task manager to see if the Google Update program is running in the background or not.

Now there are a couple of things you might want to do, completely get rid of the Google update which can cause so programs to malfunction or Configure google updater to check the internet at a specified time.

Completly Get rid Of Google Updater Service.

There are a couple of different way you can remove the Google Updater. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Uninstall from the Start Menu

1. Go to the Start menu > Programs > Google Updater > Uninstall Google Updater.
2. Restart your computer after you uninstall.

Uninstall from the Control Panel

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 Updater in the list of programs.
5. Click Remove.
6. Restart your computer after you uninstall.

Uninstall from the command line (advanced)

1. Click the Start menu on your computer taskbar.
2. Select Run.
3. Enter cmd to open a command prompt.
4. Type cd C:\Program Files\Google\Google Updater to change directories.
5. Type GoogleUpdater.exe -uninstall to uninstall.
6. Restart your computer after you uninstall.

If the Above Methods don’t work you can try the following options.
Disabling the Google Updater from startup List

1. Click on Start Button then in the Run box, type in msconfig in the Open field and click OK or press the Enter key.
2. The System Configuration Utility will open up. On the top you’ll a couple of tabs, select the Startup tab. Go down to the GoogleUpdate startup item and deselect it.
3. Restart the computer.

Disabling the Google Updater service

1. Click on Start Button then in the Run box, type in services.msc in the Open field and click OK or press the Enter key.
2. You will see a huge list of Services, scroll down to find the GoogleUpdate Service. Double click on it to open the Properties box (or right click and select Properties). The Startup Type drop-down will list three options, select Disabled.
3. Click on Apply and OK.

Customizing the Updater: Software update preferences

The Google Updater lets you choose if and how you’re notified about updates for software you’ve installed through Google Pack. To set your preferences for Pack software updates, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Start menu > Programs > Google Updater > Google Updater.
2. Click the Preferences tab.
3. Click Advanced options.
4. In the ‘Updates’ section, select one of the following options:
   • ‘Automatically update software’: The Updater will silently keep your software up-to-date without any prompts or notifications. Occasionally, an issue may need your attention, in which case you’ll be notified.
   • ‘Let me check for updates myself’: The Updater won’t send you any update notifcations and your software won’t be updated automatically. To see a list of available updates, click the Updates tab at any time.
5. Once you’ve made your selection, click Save Preferences.

Configure Google Update using Registry.

If your operating doesn’t include a policy editor (Windows XP Home, Windows Vista Home), edit the Registry directly. Just create the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update

and add two DWORD values:

AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes – auto-update check interval (for example: 1440 to check for updates once a day)

DisableAutoUpdateChecksCheckboxValue – 1, if you want to disable the auto-updater; 0, if you want to enable it.

Configure Google Update using the Group Policy.

Change the default update check period to once per week or disable it.
Step 1. Download the Administrative Template provided by Google Google Updater Group Policy Template

Step 2. Launch Group Policy Editor

• Navigate to Start > Run: gpedit.msc

Step 3. Importing Google Update ADM template.

• Navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates
• Right-click Administrative Templates, and select Add/Remove Templates
  Google Updater Configure Group Policy
• Add the GoogleUpdate.adm template via the dialog.
• Once complete, a Google folder will appear under ‘Administrative Templates’ if it’s not there already.

Step 4. Set the update check period.

• Navigate to Administrative Templates > Google > Google Update > Preferences.
  Google Updater Configure Group Policy
• Modify the Auto-update check period override property as shown or mark is a Disabled.
  Google Updater Configure Group Policy

If you want Disable Individual Google products. The Example below uses Google Chrome auto-updates as an Example.

Follow steps 1 and 2 in the first example if you haven’t imported the GoogleUpdate.adm template. Change the update policy override for Google Chrome:

• Navigate to Administrative Templates > Google > Google Update > Applications > Google Chrome.
  Disable Google Chrome
• Modify the Update policy override property as shown.
  Disable Google Chrome

Mac OS X GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent and GoogleSoftwareUpdateDaemon

Remove GoogleSoftwareUpdateDaemon from the Mac OS X

1. Uninstall any Google programs you currently have installed on your computer.
   Failing to uninstall your Google applications may cause these applications to work improperly and, in many cases, Google Software Update will be reinstalled after a few hours.
2. Open a Terminal window by going to Applications > Utilities in Finder.
3. Google Software Update can be uninstalled for a specific user or for your whole system. Paste one of the following commands in Terminal:
   • Uninstall for a specific user:Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py –uninstall
   • Uninstall for the whole system: (needs root access)sudo /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py –uninstall
4. After pasting the command, press Enter on your keyboard.

Google Software Update should now be uninstalled

Configure Google Updater for the Mac OS X

Update Frequency
To change how frequently Google Software Update checks for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

where is the elapsed time in seconds between update checks.

To disable Google Software Update from checking for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

Manual Updates
Google Software Update also provides a way to manually update all Google software on a user’s Mac. Here’s how:

1. In Finder, select Go > Go to Folder.
2. In the window that appears, enter one of the following locations. It’s expected that one of these folders won’t be found:
   • /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/
   • ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/
3. In the folder that opens, double click the file named ‘CheckForUpdatesNow.command’.

Terminal will open to run the file. When you see the message ‘[Process completed]‘ you can close Terminal. Once this is done, your Google programs will be up to date.

Related posts:

1. Uninstall Google Gears From Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
2. Free Public DNS Servers IP Addresses and How To Configure Google Public DNS
3. How to Hide or Remove A Installed Program from Add Remove
4. How To Remove SpyWare, AdWare Clean and Fix Windows
5. How To Upgrade and Update WordPress A Simple Guide

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Google, Software, Technology Tags: Guide, How To, Update

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. Uninstall Google Gears From Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
4. Microsoft and Facebook Announce Partnership
5. Unlimited Free International Calls & SMS After Activating Google Voice Outside US

© 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

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.

Related posts:

1. Free Online Virus Scan Using Multiple Anti-Virus Tools
2. How to Hide or Remove A Installed Program from Add Remove
3. Windows 7 Activation Key Crack By Hackers, Chew WGA & RemoveWGA
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 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/

Related posts:

1. Shared Hosting Sucks Moved To Dedicated Virtual
2. Moved To BlueHost Media Temple Grid Server Overrated
3. I Am Back Online, DCAMP, DNS Issues, MediaTemple and BlueHost
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.

Related posts:

1. Three WordPress Security Tips
2. Top Ten Popular and Useful Wordpress Plugins
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.

Related posts:

1. 10 Free Web Design Icons For Download, Used On This Web Site
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

Here are a few tips that I have learnt over the past few months that I been blogging. I think these steps are important for maintaining and keeping the momentum going new blogs.

1. Drafts.

Make drafts of your future posts, collect data and information related to the post and keep working on them. One of the reasons most blogs fail or lose an audience is that they fail to to post consistently. Having a bunch drafts helps you when you run out of ideas and keeps you organized.

2. Become A Feed Ninja.

Read more post less. While you might not be Scoble and have the ability to read 600+ RSS feeds in a few hours, try to keep track of news around your niche and interests, blogs catch up on news faster than news sites. Reading will also help to give you more ideas for your next post. Practice makes you perfect.

3. Engage Users And Build Relationships

I have subscribed to every reader who has left a meaningful comment on my blog this helps me get to know my readers better and what they expect from my blog. Use Services like cocomments etc to keep track of comments.

4. Be Available And Accessible.

One of the key things of building relationships is to be easily accessible. I have added most of my regular reader on Gtalk and chat with some of the frequently (you can add me ajacob[at]clazh.com). I’ve helped some of them out when they ask me for help or advice.

5. Break News, Write Pillar Posts.

If you follow point 1 and 2 you’ll realize there are two types of post you can do. Break news or write Pillar post. Breaking news is hard you’ll need to watch your Rss feeds like a hawk, it has a few advantages, if its important news it will get picked up easily by other blogger. Writing Pillar post will make your article sticky, most of the traffic that I get are from my pillar posts.

What Are Pillar Posts? Source DailyBlogTips

Characteristics of pillar articles:

• they are longer posts
• usually above 750 words
• they offer a clear value to the reader
• their content is timeless
• their content is original and unique
• they outline the expertise of the writer around a specific topic
• they attract links from other bloggers

Related posts:

1. The Best Free Blogging Tools for Power Bloggers
2. How To Get Instant Traffic For Your Blog Or Website
3. 7 Reasons Why Your Blog Sucks And Digger Hate You
4. 3+1 Things Bloggers Should Never Ever Do.
5. 4+1 Things the iPhone Can Teach Us about Blogging

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Featured, Internet, Tutorial Tags: How To, Tips

Reasons to move from Blogger.

1. Cutting edge and the very best blogging Software. Comparing Blogger and WordPress, Wordpress beats Blogger hands down.
2. Huge Community Which means Thousands of free cool Themes and Templates and Plugins.
3. Easier blogging, better commenting system, spam fighting etc etc.

Draw Backs of Moving from Blogger to Wordpress.

1. Importing from Blogger to Wordpress doesn’t import your blogger hosted pictures, they’ll still remain on Blogger, they’ll be visible for sometime but since Blogger doesn’t allow hot-linking you won’t seen them after sometime (Read about it here from the official Google FAQ), so you’ll need to move them maually to your webhost or to some photo hosting service. Luckily for most people this is not a big problem since most bloggers host their images on Flickr or Photobucket. For the more Geeky you can check out this Plugin or this shell command to move your pictures to your own domain.

I thought I would write a step-by-step tutorial since a lot of other people/bloggers will find this extremely useful. I am using kiruba.com as an example.

I am assuming a few things here.

1. You know how to run and install Wordpress. (Here are some Step-by-Step Guides to install Wordpress on your Local computer Or To Install it on your Webhost Look at the Installation Section)
2. You are using Blogger Beta (I guess by now everyone has been forced to migrate to the new blogger Beta by Google)
3. You are hosted on your own domain like kiruba.com (for people trying to move from http://yourblog.blogspot.com I have posted extra steps you need to follow at the end)

How To move from Blogger To Wordpress and Maintain your URL/Permalinks/post-slugs and Traffic

1. Install a Temporary Wordpress Installation.

The first step is to Install a temporary Wordpress installation either on your local Computer on in a temporary directory on your web host. The reason why we are installing WordPress on a temporary location is that, since we need to get all the posts from kiruba.com to WordPress then, delete the blogger installation, then Install a fresh Wordpress Installation on kiruba.com and then put back all the Posts. We will use this temporary Wordpress installation to import all your blog posts and comments and to test and see if all your blog posts and original Permalinks or URL’s are being maintained. After Installing WordPress Go To Manage Posts and Pages and Delete the dummy Hello world Post and the About us page these get created automatically when you first install WordPress. Learning how to install and enableing Permalinks is the only difficult part here, the rest is extremely easy.

Important Note: If you are installing Wordpress on your local machine make sure you can use Permalinks. The step-by-step tutorial to install WordPress that I provided above shows you how to enable Permalinks it is given at the very last under the notes section.

2. Modify the Blogger Importer.

Don’t worry there is nothing much to do just download this file [download#4#nohits] and replace it with the original file located at wordpress/wp-admin/import/blogger.php

For the more technically inclined here are the changes that I made to the Blogger.php File thanks to David Pascoe

Open the file WordPress/wp-admin/import/blogger.php and look for the line containing the string wp_insert_post – at around line 520. Insert these 2 lines after the call to wp_insert_post; Note: The second and third line need to be in one single Line I had to break into two lines to fit it in.

preg_match("/([^/]+).html$/", $entry->old_permalink ,$matches);
$wpdb->query("UPDATE $wpdb->posts SET post_name =
'" . $matches[1] . "' WHERE ID = '$post_id'");

3. Import All the Post and Comments From Blogger to Wordpress Using the Importer.

Go to Mange > Import > Blogger

You’ll be presented with a option to Authorize the Importing process Click Authorize

You’ll be asked to Enter your Google User Name and Password.

After which you need to Click the Grant Access Button.

You’ll be shown a list of all the blogs you own on blogger and the number of posts and comments. Click the blog that you want to import.

Once you click the import button you’ll see a progress Bar as the comments and Posts get imported. Once its Done the Text in the Button gets changed to Set Authors Click this.

You will See your blogger username (if you have multiple authors you see them too) select Admin(This is the default Wordpress user) from the drop down list and click save changes.

That’s it your done your done with importing your blog Posts. yay

4. Changing Your URL (Permalinks or Post slugs) to Maintain Your Google Juice and Page Rank

Ok here’s the part you’ve been waiting for its pretty easy go to Options > Permalinks

Change the selection from Default to Custom

Enter the Following text in the Custom Structure Textbox to

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

Note: If you’ve installed Wordpress on your local system computer using Xampp like I mentioned above you’ll need to enable Permalinks. The step-by-step tutorial to install WordPress that I provided above shows you how to enable Permalinks under Xampp it is given at the very last under the notes section. After you’ve enabled it you’ll need enter

/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

instead of the text I have provided above.

Your done.

5. Checking Your URLs and Permalinks

Once your done just check your URLs to see if they are the same. The parts Highlighted in Bold are the ones you need to check

Original URL:

http://clazh.blogspot.com/2006/10/microsoft-and-apple-together.html

URL after Importing:

http://localhost/kirbs/index.php/2006/10/microsoft-and-apple-together.html

Move Everything To Fresh WordPress Installation

Once you are satisfied with everything, go to your temporary WordPress Installation Manage > Export Click the Download Export File. Download and save the XML file.

Delete your Blogger Installation and files Except your Image Directory i.e. if you have one.

Install a Fresh Copy Of Wordpress in your Original Blog Location Example if your Blog was at kiruba.com then you need to install WordPress in the root if it was at kiruba/blog then you need to install WordPress in a directory called blog.

Import The XML file which you saved before Mange > Import > WordPress Browse and upload the file.

Select Admin from the Drop Down Box and press submit.

Repeat Step 4 to Switch on Permalinks that’s it your done do a Google search for any of your posts if your posts turns up that means you migrated to WordPress successfully while maintaining your Permalinks or URLs.

Extra Steps for Redirecting Your Traffic For Bloggers Moving From A BlogSpot Subdomain.

There are two ways to go about this. One is the quick and dirty way which is also a bit difficult the other is the long way which is the easiest.

The slow and easy way to move from a blogspot Subdomain.

I would recommend you to follow this rather than the quick and dirty way.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Buy your own domain.
2. Use that Custom Domain Option. See this Step-by-Step Guide on configuring Custom Domains.
3. Your original Blog*Spot address will automatically forward to your new domain. That way, any existing links or bookmarks and search traffic to your site will still work.
4. Wait for 5-6 months for all search engines to update their data and links to your new site.
5. Follow the Steps I have outlined above.

The Quick and Dirty way to move from a blogspot Subdomain.

I do not recommend this. Do this only if you are really eager and want to move quickly. See this guide here

Related posts:

1. Get A ReadyMade Wordpress Zipped File With our Favourite plugins
2. Wordpress 2.2 Has Been Released
3. How To Upgrade and Update WordPress A Simple Guide
4. How To Get Instant Traffic For Your Blog Or Website
5. Best Plugins From The Wordpress Plugin Competition

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Google, Internet, Tutorial, Wordpress Tags: How To, Wordpress