Clazh » Tips

5 Blogging Secrets For A Successful Blog

Arpit Jacob — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 02:50:52 +0000

Update: added, what are pillar posts.

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

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

3+1 Things Bloggers Should Never Ever Do.

Arpit Jacob — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:02:17 +0000

A number of unrelated news items made me come up with this unusual post. Blogger always blog about how, what etc to do with blogs. I haven’t seen any what not to do articles. On a unrelated not I wanted to write about each of the news items separately but I thought I would group them up into a single post.

Steal Other People’s Content.

We seen a lot of bloggers complain about sploggers, but what happens when you copy paste someone’s post your not only stealing someone else hard work but also losing your credibility.

Scott Carney is a journalist who writes for Wired.com I saw him when I went for BlogCamp Chennai 06. He writes excellent Offbeat news. I been reading his blog for more than a year. Today I read on his blog on how abcnews stole his story and pictures. The story was about a group of calligraphers in Chennai who are writing the last handwritten newspaper in the world. He took the trouble to research met and talk to the people involved. This is what he has to say. If you have a account on Digg Please Digg his Story here which was submitted by my friend Bentley.

Now for those of you not steeped in media politics, freelance writers like myself make our living by selling stories to media outlets and we get paid in return for our work. We are usually allowed to resell a story after a certain amount of time to make a little more money for our labor. Still, most freelance writers barely scrape together a living, but do it out of love for the job. So when I found out that one of the largest media conglomerates in the world had decided to publish my writing without seeking my permission first (or offering to buy it) I sent a note out to them to see what was going on.

Be Rude To Your Readers / be a Comment Police.

Always be polite and to the point when dealing with your readers. Don’t tell your reader to shut up like Gizmodo did recently (Google for “gizmodo readers shut up” I won’t be linking to them in the future). Not only are you being rude but you are pissing off your readers. I was one of the few people who were annoyed with the influx of iPhone news. The only reason they can afford to do that is because they are popular and losing a few readers doesn’t impact them in a big way. (Maybe thats one reason why Engadget is way more popular than gizmodo). On another note, recently I posted on a blog telling the author that I was unable to access his site from home, I posted it as a comment on a unrelated post, I got back a really rude reply telling me to keep the comments on topic. I was a bit baffled by this, I won’t be visiting or commenting on that blog again.

Steal other people’s Ideas without giving credit.

Ladies and Gentlemen I present you with the Worlds Largest legal Splog http://news.softpedia.com/. Every news from under the sun is posted here without a mention of who,where and what their sources are. Why do I say its legal, well I think they rewrite their content hence they can get away with it since they don’t copy paste content. How about Adobe stealing Colourlovers Ideas, it doesn’t always have to be content.

Post Invalid, Uncorrected, and Un-Researched Facts/News

Bloggers like to echo what other bloggers say. In fact I recently noticed quite a few popular tech blog out there seem to be re-posting news that’s already out there, all they do is rewrite the content and give a link back. While I am not against this, but do such people take the trouble to research and verify the facts. In fact a number of so called A-list Blogs are guilty of this example TechCrunch, GigaOM, Scoble (Lately I been getting a bit annoyed with his blog posts, it look more like a 10 year old kids blog) etc. here’s what Mike Arrington said a while back.

Is it in the best interests of blogs to say outrageous things to drive traffic? Mike Arrington: “You’re wrong” Gives analogy that he could get away with saying something wrong once (or maybe twice). The trade off of integrity is something he makes every day.

P.S I decided to contribute this post as part of the group writing project at dailyblogtips.

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Internet Tags: Blogging, Tips

How To Run Multiple Accounts GTalk, Yahoo Messenger And MSN Messenger

Arpit Jacob — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:11:25 +0000

If Your like me and have multiple Gmail, Yahoo, or MSN accounts and would like to log in to Multiple instances of their respective Messengers. Then read ahead as I teach you how to run Multiple instances of GTalk , Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger simultaneously.

How To Run Multiple GTalk Messengers Simultaneously

Right-click Your Gtalk Messenger shortcut on your desktop
Click Properties
Select The Shortcut Tab
You will see A Target TextBos with: “c:\program files\google\google talk\googletalk.exe” /startmenu
Change the Text to “c:\program files\google\google talk\googletalk.exe” /nomutex
Click Apply and OK. to close the window.
Now you can copy the shortcut file and paste Multiple versions on your desktop rename the shortcut to associate them with the appropriate Gtalk Account.

How To Run Multiple Yahoo Messengers Simultaneously

You can easily run multiple instance of Yahoo Messenger without any Hacking or Technical Knowledge. All you are required to do is to download Y! Multi Messenger this is a software that will allow you to run multiple versions of yahoo with just a click.

Just run the install and then start using the Y!Multi Messenger icon that will appear on your desktop instead of the regular Yahoo! Messenger icon.

How To Run Multiple MSN Messengers Simultaneously

To run Multiple instances of MSN messengers you will need MSN Messenger Polygamy

Copy Polygamy to messenger folder, usually @ C:Program FilesMessengermsmsgs.exe
Then Close The Messenger Program.
Then run Polygamy and Press Apply patch.

Open Multiple Copies of Windows Live Messengers

Download and install Messenger Plus! Live
Launch Preference settings
Choose Messenger tab, on Main checked on Allow me to connect to several accounts simultaneously.
Done, double click again to launch another copy

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Software, Tutorial Tags: Tips, Tutorial

How to Hide or Remove A Installed Program from Add Remove

Arpit Jacob — Tue, 29 May 2007 02:17:59 +0000

Sometimes a certain program that you installed might not have uninstalled properly and remains in the Add and remove Control Panel, Or you might not want anyone to see certain programs that have been installed on the system.

The Currently installed programs list in the Add or Remove Programs tool lists all of the Windows-compatible programs that have an uninstall program or feature. Occasionally, a program may not be removed completely, and the registry key that is used to display the program in the Currently installed programs list remains. In this situation, you may need to manually remove the program from the Currently installed programs list in Add or Remove Programs. To do this, follow these steps.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedt32, and then click OK.
3. In Registry Editor, locate the following registry key:

KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

. In the left pane, click the Uninstall registry key, and then click Export on the File menu.
5. In the Export Registry File dialog box that appears, click Desktop in the Save in list, type uninstall in the File name box, and then click Save.
6. Each key listed under Uninstall in the left pane of Registry Editor represents a program that is displayed in the Currently installed programs list of the Add or Remove Programs tool. To determine which program that each key represents, click the key, and then view the following values in the details pane on the right:
DisplayName: The value data for the DisplayName key is the name that is listed in Add or Remove Programs.

-and-

UninstallString: The value data for the UninstallString key is the program that is used to uninstall the program.

7. After you identify the registry key that represents the program that you removed but which is still displayed in the Currently installed programs list of Add or Remove Programs, right-click the key in the left pane of the Registry Editor window, and then click Delete.

Click Yes in response to the “Are you sure you want to delete this key and all of its subkeys?” message.
8. On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.
9. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
In the Currently installed programs list, verify that the program whose registry key you deleted is no longer listed.
10. Do one of the following:

If the program list is not correct in Add or Remove Programs, double-click the Uninstall.reg file that you saved to your desktop in step 5 to restore the original list of programs in the registry.
-or-
If the program list is correct in Add or Remove Programs, right-click the Uninstall.reg file on your desktop, and then click Delete.

You could also use the following free tool HideAddRemoveItems.exe Just remember that you’l need admin rights to do any of this.

source http://support.microsoft.com

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Microsoft, Tutorial Tags: Hacking, How To, Tips, Windows

Branding Your Blog for Success

Arpit Jacob — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:23:28 +0000

Lifehack has an excellent article on Branding Your Blog for Success The article explores the following questions.

Gaining a High Volume Readership
Bookmarking vs. RSS
How You Can Use Branding to Increase Your Blog Traffic and Make More Money

BLOG BRANDING QUESTIONS:

Why Brand Your Blog?
Who are You?
What is Your Blog About?
Why Does Your Blog Exist?
How Does Your Blog Work?
Who Is Your Audience?
What Makes Your Blog Unique?
Why Should I Subscribe to Your Blog?

Also here’s are Five Beginner’s Blogging Tips From John Chow

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging Tags: Blogging, Tips, Tutorial

Recover Lost Forgotten Windows XP Administrator Password

Arpit Jacob — Sat, 19 May 2007 16:51:11 +0000

It common for most windows users to forget their Administrator Password since during the install process only once the user is asked to give a password and a different user account is created. After a period of time the user might want to login as a administrator to troubleshoot windows and since he/she has not used the administrator account for a long time its easy to forget the password especially if the password was something complicated and difficult to remember. Below I have outlined a few methods that I found helpful in recovering lost passwords for the administrative accounts.

The First method makes use of DreampackPL

DreamPackPL give access to system without reset/overwrite old passwords, therefore EFS encrypted file(s) will be still readable. It can help if You forgot the password or user name.
With this tool You can do:
- execute any program at the logon desktop with system privileges,
- load Explorer shell into new desktop and work as impersonate user with system privelges,
- display local accounts list (user names) in logon desktop,
- turn off/on logon password check (full access to every local account).

All You must do is: boot from CD, copy one file into system32 directory (in Recovery Console) and restart computer. Boot CD You can simply create in other 2000/XP system. You put Windows installation CD (2000 or XP) into CD-ROM drive and DreamPack will create ISO CD image, that You can then burn with any program.

This tool was tested up to now only on Windows in polish version.
Link: http://www.d–b.webpark.pl

The next technique makes use of a loophole in the Windows XP repair process you’ll need a bootable XP CD

Place your Windows XP CD in your CD-ROM and start your computer (You need your XP CD is bootable as it should be – and that you have your bios set to boot from CD)
Keep your eye on the screen messages for booting to your cd Typically, it will be Press any key to boot from cd
Once you get in, the first screen will indicate that Setup is inspecting your system and loading files.
When you get to the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to Setup Windows now
The Licensing Agreement comes next – Press F8 to accept it.
The next screen is the Setup screen which gives you the option to do a Repair.
It should read something like If one of the following Windows XP installations is damaged, Setup can try to repair it
Use the up and down arrow keys to select your XP installation (if you only have one, it should already be selected) and press R to begin the Repair process.
Let the Repair run. Setup will now check your disks and then start copying files which can take several minutes.
Shortly after the Copying Files stage, you will be required to reboot. (this will happen automatically you will see a progress bar stating Your computer will reboot in 15 seconds
During the reboot, do not make the mistake of pressing any key to boot from the CD again! Setup will resume automatically with the standard billboard screens and you will notice Installing Windows is highlighted.
Keep your eye on the lower left hand side of the screen and when you see the Installing Devices progress bar, press SHIFT + F10. This is the security hole! A command console will now open up giving you the potential for wide access to your system.
At the prompt, type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter. Voila! You have just gained graphical access to your User Accounts in the Control Panel.
Now simply pick the account you need to change and remove or change your password as you prefer. If you want to log on without having to enter your new password, you can type control userpasswords2 at the prompt and choose to log on without being asked for password. After you ve made your changes close the windows, exit the command box and continue on with the Repair (have your Product key handy).
Once the Repair is done, you will be able to log on with your new password (or without a password if you chose not to use one or if you chose not to be asked for a password). Your programs and personalized settings should remain intact.
I tested the above on Windows XP Pro with and without SP1 and also used this method in a real situation where someone could not remember their password and it worked like a charm to fix the problem.
And in case you are wondering, NO, you cannot cancel install after making the changes and expect to logon with your new password. Cancelling will just result in Setup resuming at bootup and your changes will be lost.

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Microsoft, Software, Tutorial Tags: Hacking, Tips, Windows