Technotip.org - Part 11

My 25th Birthday and A Message!

I had no idea that I’ll be blogging about this to night, sitting on top of my home in this cool breeze. Actually, I dint want to blog about this quite intentionally and I had a reason for that, which I’ll explain shortly.

The Past
I had no idea of how to celebrate my birthday, in my childhood. For me it was special prayers and a visit to temple, for many years.

It was in my masters degree(MCA) that my friends started it and I continued it for my friends. I love them. I love them all. They are special to me.

We spent a lot on parties and sometimes it would take at least 1 or 2 days to come out of the hangover :p

It was fun and a sweet memory in all our hearts, to carry forward..especially the things we talked and did in the party and it’s not just about the ffOOd.

The Present
I finished my masters degree last year and continued with my usual works, not much changes in my life in terms of lifestyle, locality and work.

But it isn’t same for my friends. They had to move to other places get job or to get some special coaching. So the party hangover was all over!

The Intuition
All these years while we had party, I would tell everyone that we shall celebrate next time in any ashrams. We could donate the helpless and could make life more meaningful. Everyone was supportive and were ready to contribute.

But it never really happened 🙁

But Why?
Because we just talked. We just thought.
There is lot of difference between thinking and doing.

It was something like: As thinking is like half doing, I’ll be thinking twice :p

We never acted upon it.

Birthday
Today is my birthday again..and I dint want to live in the planning phase any more.
So made firm decision and took action.

The Influence
Now suddenly everyone is charged. Self motivated and ready to serve and make a difference.

Again, Why?
At least, why now and not until now?

I could find the answer to this question on this day of my 25th birthday!
It is because, people need to taste it at least once.

The Message
Today we could feel the difference between sitting in a cool comfortable place, talking random stuffs, passing time(as if we live forever) and to be in a place where we realize we can help too. We distributed food and fruits to hundreds( 180 to be precise ) of children with our own hands. We are blessed enough and we should do whatever we can do and beyond what we could do, if we did not have the goal to serve. yes its possible.

The Future
We have decided to continue with this activity, even more actively and to help more and more people in coming days.
It need not be birthdays. We never knew we are so blessed until we saw the world of physically disabled and mentally disordered: those are just worldly name to them, which many of them have proved wrong.

Rewind
When I decided to get out and contribute, I thought not to blog or Facebook about this as I’m doing it for my own satisfaction. But later on learnt that, there is a message. And I must communicate it to the world.

Golden Words

“There are people who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.”
– Khalil Gibran

“At the end of life, what really matters is
not what we bought, but what we built;
not what we got, but what we shared;
not our competence, but our character;
not our success, but our significance;
Live a life that matters. Live a life of Love..”

“It’s not what WE get. But who we become, what we contribute..that gives meaning to our lives.”
– Ton Robbins

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.”
—— Mother Teresa

Ask And You Shall Be Given.
Give And You Shall Deserve.
– Satish ( your’s truly 😉 )

“If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway.”
– Mother Teresa.

Do Good Anyway!

Get Free ReTweets: TwitFever!

We all know how important it is as a blogger or a business owner to connect with people in the right way on social networking sites these days. These social sites are easy tools to get out messages to your customers..and also to listen to their feedback.

The Problem:
To reach out to as many people, in as less time as possible.

Our Solution
To help you spread your message to a wider audience, we have built a tool called TwitFever, which lets you help each other(members).

How it works?
We accept people who have atleast 1000 followers.
If you get at the least 10 tweets, then there is a minimum chance of your message reaching to
10 x 1000 = 10, 000 people minimum.
The chances are almost endless.

Update: You must have atleast 199 followers to become eligible.
[ Changed this after a lot of requests. ]

Rules
1. Do not tweet about sales pages and affiliate links.
2. Make sure to submit those tweets which contain informative and interesting content.
3. DO NOT retweet the tweets which contains promotional stuffs, and affiliate links in it.
4. Please make sure to visit on a regular basis and be a active member.
5. You must have atleast 1000 followers. ( Can’t help it. It is in place to help you get maximum value out of the tool. )

YOU Are Special
TwitFever.com is still in its early beta, but I’m inviting YOU( Technotip.org blog readers ), as you are special and a priority.

Some Insider Story
I’m making use of Twitter API for this app, so the loading may take some time, if enough people start using it. But I’ll be upgrading the servers soon, so that will not be a problem.

If you find any errors, bugs, please take a screenshot and post about it on our official forum at Technotip.com under TwitFever Section. Your suggestions and queries are highly appreciated. Our forum is open and waiting for you!

I’m passionate about building these kind of web applications that help solve problems. Along with that I also need to consider the reality that I will have to pay the bills, of server, domain, coding cost, my time. ( My Mom will be really angry if I don’t take care of all these bills / expenses myself. )

As a matter of fact, I can get a lot of businesses which could be interested in sponsorship. But honestly, I want to concentrate only on coding and other stuffs that I absolutely love. Finding sponsors, negotiating, getting paid and recursively doing this month after month..will take considerable amount of time and energy.

So I’ve decided to have 1 adsense ad inside the app, which I hope could compensate a bit. And a big thanks to you all for understanding.

Features:
1. You can retweet others tweets.
2. Submit your own tweets.
3. See the number of retweets.
4. See who retweeted the tweets.
5. See a separate list of tweets submitted by you so far and its retweet count and the people who retweeted it.
..lot more features coming soon, stay tuned, stay active and participate regularly.

Recommendation
Spend some time ReTweeting others tweets, use the pagination to browse through more tweets.

I would love to see people take maximum advantage of this smart marketing tool, which will save you a lot of time.

Being Smart in your marketing approach, is always better.
Invest your time more on the things you really love and on things that matters the most.

Using SEO to Build Authority and Traffic

This is a guest post by Jeff Gross. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.

If you are putting content on your blog to build traffic and authority, SEO needs to be calculated into your effort. It does not matter if you put out 150 word blurbs on social media sites, full websites, or blog posting. SEO is the primary way the usefulness of information posted is interpreted. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that anyone wanting to be found would want to enable search engines to make that interpretation easy.

The Finer Points of Blog Content SEO
Many of the tactics from building SEO friendly websites hold true on a blog. Appropriate use of keywords will provide the markers that spiders need to accurately interpret the work. A blog post that is overly long will actually be more of a hindrance than a help. There ends up being too much other text that ends up getting into the mix that the spiders can interpret as relevant even if it is not. Other points to consider are…

400-500 words is a good target length. Readers are not interested in encyclopedic blog posts. If the subject is bigger than that, simply turn it into a multi-part series.

Appropriate density of any keyword falls between 2% and 3%. Try to avoid saturating the text with buzzwords or industry-speak to broaden your appeal and keep the text readable.

Your title needs to command attention while being descriptive. It should also include keywords relevant to the text. The first sentence is important in that regard. It should also contain any keywords important to the text.

Blogging software packages will often allow you to add relevant tags to a piece of work. This is useful for using additional terms without saturating the work. For example, how would a blogger who doesn’t know anything about SEO locate this post? They may search up a phrase like “how do I get a bigger audience for my blog?” Even though terms like “bigger audience” aren’t used in the text, you can still aim towards that individual through appropriate tags.

The Quest for Greater Authority
The most useful goal you can pursue for your blog is establishing your authority. Prove your blog is giving good information and it will take hold and spread from there. Easier said then done though, right? Any good approach is going to take time. However we can hasten that process by keeping a few things in mind.

If you post junk posts, that’s how your blog will be viewed. Your blog should be used to demonstrate your unique perspective on the relevant interest. A writer that does not have the time to sit down and proof-read their work, spell-check, and make sure it’s readable will not be getting their work read. If you do not have that kind of time, take advantage of a ghost-writing company to generate solid work for you.

Depart from how the rest of the world is portraying a topic. Sometimes, it’s impossible to do. However, when you can, you want to take advantage of your unique experience, perspective, and knowledge to make your work stand out from the crowd. No one is going to take the time to read the piece if it is just a rehash of 50 other posts. Huge blocks of text are an instant turn off to readers. They will close the window.

A blog is one of the greatest marketing tools that is available at the moment. It is a great way to create a personal, memorable experience between your business and a customer that is often lacking on the internet. Be sure to keep SEO in mind while you flesh out your strategy to build traffic and authority to your blog.

Author’s Bio
Jeff is a professional internet marketing and blogging consultant. He writes mostly about blogging, internet marketing, Pay Per Click Strategies and Search Engine Optimization techniques and best practices. Jeff is also a consultant and content contributor for NY condominiums community.

Mobile Web Design – Avoiding Universal Errors

This is a guest post by Spinx Web Design. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.

Errors or Mistakes usually happen because of deviation from the standard. When it is about mobile web design, the perception of the designer is usually considered to be the main cause for the mistakes. The mistakes can be minor, small or even big depending upon the effort and money required to resolve it as well as the extent to which the losses occur because of that mistake. Some of the most common errors made by the designers when designing mobile websites are as follows.

1. Necessary Content: The mobile web design should have only the content that is necessary and can be displayed on the mobile screen. It should not be a copy of the content of the website that is designed for the desktop computers.

2. Load: If the mobile website is heavily loaded it may take a longer time to download and this could prove to be an irritant for the visitor.

3. Ignoring HTML5 and CSS3: Coding the mobile website with HTML5 and CSS3 can optimize the speed of downloading. The need of images can be reduced when the coding is done with the help of HTML5. CSS3 coding can offer rounded corners and gradients.

4. Width of the mobile device: When the mobile web designer does not take into consideration the width of the device it is possible that the elements may turn out to be not legible. This may happen because the elements have not been formatted to adjust to the width of the mobile device. This issue can be resolved with a simple HTML coding.

5. Downloading String: If the downloading string is not displayed on the screen of the mobile device the visitor may not know whether the action is being executed or not. The dilemma may compel or tempt the visitor to move to another mobile website.

6. Responsive web design: The mobile web designer should design a responsive website that is not only user friendly but also gets adjusted to the screen size and technicalities of the mobile device.

7. Home Screen: The home screen should be set in such a way that the screen does not look cluttered and illegible.

8. Excess of imports: When the designer uses AJAX framework like MooTools and jQuery, the import of data from the server becomes necessary and this can increase the duration of downloading time.

9. Images: The mobile website should have only the images that are required. Unnecessary images can add weight to the website and this could adversely affect the downloading time.

10. Size of the Finger: The touch screen is now becoming a regular feature of the mobile phones and this means that the mobile web design should be such that it can be navigated through with the help of the finger tips. The icon size should not be very small.

11. Form filling: The mobile web design should have short forms to be filled. If the visitor has to form long forms then it can irritate him/her. On the other hand the forms have to be designed keeping into consideration the facilities offered through the keyboard.

Author Bio: Spinx Web Design is a USA based web design and web development company and organization likes to write content on WordPress and designing,Web2.0, Mobile tips and
tricks, Social Media, Web Design, Web Development etc.

Amazon’s Junglee.com Live In India

Maybe due to FDI rules in India, Amazon has smartly taken a different approach in India. They are not selling the products directly; Right now they are just listing the products from different sellers in India and directing the users to purchase the products directly from the sellers via their website or local store.

Want to put your product online for selling ? Goto Amazon Services page.

Advantage is, users get to see the price and all the required info about the product. It’s like de-cluttered smart price listing tool.

Nevertheless, entry of Amazon into Indian market would surly alert FlipKart and other such online businesses.

There is no checkout/shopping cart, as you can’t buy directly from Junglee. You can however signin via the same amazon.com credentials: To see your reviews and votes for different products listed on Junglee.com

I hope Amazon would soon start selling directly and start providing competitive rates to its customers. Amazon having its reach worldwide can provide products at much lesser price…..if at all our government do not put their big dirty mouth in between Amazon and us(customers). [ I’m not talking about the regular TAX. Everyone must pay it. Talking about other things deeply would make this post out of focus! ]

Anyway, I wish Amazon a great success and welcome to India wholeheartedly.

5 Facebook Tips and Tricks You Don’t Know Yet

This is a guest post by Tom george. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.

A lot of business owners use facebook as a way to reach targeted customers and to keep in touch with their current customers. If you use Facebook regularly, then you might be familiar with the basic things like creating an album, removing an album, creating a post, or linking a post, etc. But did you know that you can make more from your Facebook using these tips?

Here are some of the common facebook tips and tricks, that you, as a hardcore, or even casual facebook user should know, so you can save time and do less on repetitive Facebook tasks.

1. Access your Facebook chat without going to Facebook- If you need to talk with your Facebook friends and not have a look at what is new with them, you can do so by downloading a desktop client that will allow you to login to Facebook and use it only to chat.Popular Facebook chat desktop clients are Adium, ChitChat, and Social.IM.

2. Hide your online status from selected friends
If you don’t want to be seen by almost every Facebook friends you have you can selectively hide your status to them by doing the following:
1. Go to your facebook Chat, click on friend list.
2. Create a new list and name it BlockList or whatever creative name you have for the people you don’t want to see your status.
3. Add those friends that you want to appear offline most of the time.
4. When you sign in, hover your mouse to the green icon next to the list then click Go offline.

3. Schedule Your Facebook Message to Be Sent Later
Sendible is a great tool to send email in social media at a certain time. This is perfect for social media marketing. There are also other tools, which might help a social media business grow.

4. Bring out the pirate in you or turn your world upside down
If you want some wacky stuffs out of Facebook you can change the way messages are displayed by clicking the link next to the Facebook copyright. By default English(US) is displayed. There you’ll see some wacky English language like English(Pirate) and English(Upside Down).

5. Search in Facebook Like A Boss

Not everybody knows about the advanced searching option that most web search engine has. With these search function, you can sort out and filter what you actually need to see.
user: or users: or people: or name:
List the person’s name of your actual query
ex. user: Kelly Rowland
application: or applications:
List the specific application you desire.
ex. application: Farmville
group: or groups:
Lists a specific group you searched for.
ex. group: 9Gag
event: or events:
Displays only the events you searched for.
ex. event: party at LA
fbpage: or fbpages:
Displays only the Facebook page you need to see.
ex. fbpage: World of Warcraft
the pipe (|)
Use this along with the functions above, particularly when you want to search more than one term to further refine the result.
ex. users: Jhon Doe | Jane Doe
Means: Give me results for Jhon Doe and Jane Doe too.

Conclusion
Using such tricks will help you make more out of Facebook. You can also use these tricks either to impress anyone with your Facebook skills or further aid your social media marketing aim.

About author:- This article was written by Tom george, who is working as a .NET consultant. Tom helps people to choose the best web hosting companies for their business site.

How-To Update android OS On Sony Ericsson Xperia

I’m using Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc to illustrate android os updating procedure.

Goto phone settings -> About Phone -> Software update -> Update; It informs you to install update via your computer!

Now goto your computer install software(pc suites) and try it; once again it shows some connection error messages and other frustrating error messages 🙁

So does your Sony Xperia doesn’t support os updation? It certainly does.

Install some fashing software; follow some procedure; after that you can directly update your phone OS at settings -> About Phone -> Software update -> Update; via wi-fi or 3G.

PART 2: Once you are done with PART 1. Goto your phone settings -> About Phone -> Software update.
Now hit update. It may show error connecting to the network for some time.
In such situation, switch off and switch on your Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.
Repeat the process, and hit “Update” button.
Once the update starts, relax and sit back. It will take some 15min to download. After that it will show a message that your mobile can not be used(even to make emergency calls) while its installing the updates.
Click Ok. and relax again. It will take some 20 to 30 min to install the updates.
Phone will be switched off and switched on. You need not interfear until its completely installed.
Once the installation is complete: Again goto settings -> About Phone -> Software update. and click on “Update”.
It will search for updates and in my case it installed some more new updates once again. So check it.

Technotip proudly introduces a tech forum and to the glory of it’s launch, we have written Updating android OS: Sony Ericsson Xperia post on the forum.

Feel free to participate and share your expertise on the forum.

How Do I Preview My Site Before Updating DNS?

Keith,

Q: How Do I access my files on the new server ?
I’ve recently purchased hosting from HostGator and have transferred all my files to new servers. I want to preview it and make changes before letting it live to my audience. Is it possible? If yes, how can I do that ?

Yes, it’s absolutely possible to preview and make changes to it before making it live to general public.

Here are the simple steps:
Usually computers look at the IP in the local host file before looking into the actual DNS( Domain Name System ).
So make changes to this simple file on your computer and trick the computer!

If you are using Windows XP or Windows 7 Operating System, then goto this location, to locate the ‘host’ file: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
(Ofcourse if you have installed your OS on a different drive, then the path differs accordingly.)

Open the host file in a simple text editor.

The content looks something like this:

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

Now get the new Dedicated IP Address of your server/host from your new hosting provider.
Usually it will be present inside the cpanel.

Assume that new dedicated IP is 165.100.98.10 for www.yourdomain.com

Now: add this line of code to your host file.

165.100.98.10 yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com

Now your host file looks something like this:

now restart the browser. If it doesn’t work, then it’s due to the cache.

To clear the cache use these dos commands:
Goto your command prompt.
type “ipconfig /flushdns” (without quote).

Now restart your browser and visit your site.

Finally:
Once you make changes and change your original DSN to point it to your new server, then make sure to delete the line of code you added to your local ‘host‘ file.