Widgets
BlogCatalog widget can be obtained directly from BlogCatalog’s website provided that you create an account with them. You can customize your own widget to whatever suits you by changing the color, number of rows, columns, and other elements. There are a few advantages of having this widget:
-By displaying the icons of people visiting a blog, a blogger can get some information about this reader base. This information will include gender and age among some of the details.
-It proves that a blog has visitors thus making a blog look more professional.
-Once you will see that somebody visited your blog you will be more inclined to visit someone else’s blog to return the favor.
-The widget looks very cool, and many bloggers will enjoy looking at pictures of people that visit their blog.
RSS and Email Subscriptions
What is most important for readers is to have easy access to information. There are many ways you can present information to readers, and the most obvious one in case of blogs is simply through your website. You work hard on your homepage and you like when people appreciate it. Unfortunately, this might not be enough for some readers, because they have to visit your blog on a daily basis to see if there is something new. That is why RSS and email subscriptions have been invented: they allow readers to know exactly when a new post is posted on your blog. The question is whether you should use RSS readers or Email subscriptions. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. That is because even thought RSS readers seem to be more convenient, many people are not familiar with them. Technology is changing so fast that many Internet surfers still do not know what RSS really is, and they are happy that they learned about email recently. That is why I recommend offering both RSS and email subscriptions. This way your visitors will be able to chose whatever they prefer. Setting up both subscription methods is not that hard, especially if you look at all of the benefits.
WordPress Errors
It seems like a good amount of bloggers are experiencing the WordPress “mm_handled” error, which triggers when you want to write a new post. What happens is that the custom fields section shows mm_handled over and over again. There are hundreds of mm_handled fields to fill out and for some people this prevents creating new posts completely. On the other hand, for others it extremely slows down posting. It is hard to say why this happens, but so far there are at least two things you can do:
• Use Firefox, as at least you can create posts, but unfortunately posting is slowed down. While this is not really a solution to the problem, it will allow you to publish a important post without taking more drastic steps.
• You can reinstall WordPress. This should fix the problem, as it worked for many people. On the down side, this will take you some time and don’t forget to backup your database or any template changes. I cannot offer any easier solution, but if you think that you have a better idea please let me know by commenting.
I know that those who experience this problem might be feeling really lazy when it comes to posting, and that is why this error should be fixed as soon as possible.
Reinstalling WordPress
If you are an active blogger, sooner or later you may need to reinstall WordPress. This is usually advisable when your installation is corrupted and cannot be fixed otherwise. It is important for any blogger who is serious about blogging to know how to reinstall WP. That is why you may want to learn how to do it, and now is a good chance. In this post, I would like to share with you an easy way to reinstall WP. While this may not make you an expert when it comes to WordPress, you will feel a lot more confident, and you will not be worried even if something goes wrong with your current installation.
The most important thing when it comes to reinstalling is to make a copy of all of your existing files, in case something goes wrong. You should also know your WP database details. The next step is to re-upload all of the WP files, and overwrite your existing files on the server. This way any damaged files will be replaced with properly working ones. To make sure that all of your posts, comments, and settings will appear on your blog, you should edit the 'config' file to include your existing database details. This will ensure that your new installation uses your existing set up. This way if everything goes well, you will have your whole blog intact. Like I said, there are a few reasons for reinstall; however, most people reinstall after their blogging platform no longer works properly.
Non-Copyrighted Images
Using non-copyrighted images has two main advantages. First of all, you do not need to pay for them, and secondly you do not risk copyright infringement. Besides that there are many high quality images that you can use. In my opinion, the best source of non-copyrighted images is Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons), so I am only going to discuss this website in my post. On the side note, take into account that many images found in Google images are indeed copyrighted. But let us get back to Flickr. The images that I recommend to use are using the creative commons license, especially the Attribution License. This means that you are free to use them for commercial and non-commercial use, and additionally you are allowed to modify the images. You are only required to credit the author of the image. Just follow those steps to get yourself started:
1. Visit Flickr creative commons page.
2. Browse the photos in the Attribution License section.
3. Use search option to find some images with the theme you are looking for.
4. Click on 'View Most Interesting' instead of 'Most Relevant' as this will show you some really high quality images.
5. Click on 'Show Thumbnails' to have many images displayed and this way save a lot of your time.
6. You are done! Simply upload the photo to your blog/website and credit the author by linking to his Flickr profile underneath the image. You may want to do it like I did it below:
Photo by Author’s Name
Advantages of Choosing a Paid Hosting Service for Businesses
If you decided to start a website for your company, then at some point you will have to choose between paid hosting and free hosting. While there are advantages of both types of services, generally speaking, it is a better choice for businesses to choose a paid hosting service. Here are some reasons why it is not such a good idea to decide on using a free hosting service:
-You will probably end up with a long domain name if you choose a free hosting service. That is because your website will most certainly be hosted on a subdomain. If you decide to start a blog, then you will send up with website.blogspot.com or website.wordpress.com, instead of website.com. There are many disadvantages of long domain names and one of them is that it will be a lot harder for your visitors to actually remember your sites URL.
-Your website might look less professional. Many free hosting services will force you to display ads on your website. Sometimes these ads will be in the form of pop-ups, which not only does not look professional, but might be quite annoying for a typical visitors.
-Free hosting services usually are not able to guarantee ~100% uptime. This means that your site might be offline longer that it would be if you have chosen to do business with a reliable paid hosting company.
-In case you need any help, you will not be able to contact anyone to assist you. Free hosting services do not have enough capital to afford reliable customer service.
Registry
The registry of an operating system is where a lot of important data is stored. This data pertains to the operating system and to the software that a computer has installed. If the registry contains any errors than it may make a computer encounter various problems. In some cases it may been unexpected crashing, in other cases it may mean many errors being displayed. There are some users that thing about ways to remove registry cleaner. It is important to remember that the registry is very complicated and it is better not to edit it unless a person knows what he is doing.
Setting Up a Business Website
If you are a business owner and you are thinking about setting up your own website, then I believe you are making the right decision. More and more businesses have their own websites and it might be hard for you to compete with others if you are not going to take advantage out of modern technology. Having your own website will benefit your business in many ways. Here are some of the advantages of having a website:
-Your business will have more ways to acquire customers. This is especially important if your services are aimed at people that use Internet on a regular basis. For example, if you offer computer repair services, then there is a big chance that your customers also connect to the Internet. On the other hand, if you offer services aimed at the elderly, then you should take into account that there might not be many elderly people that will visit your website.
-You will have a way to acquire contact details. If you have a business website, then you may want to offer a newsletter. Whoever sings up for your newsletter is going to give you his email address and you will have chance to send to him special offers or any other information.
-Establishing a website will prove that you are a modern company that is not afraid of embracing technology. This will make your company look more professional, especially compared to some of your competitors.
-The cost of having a website is quite low, so you have very little to lose.
Websites
I am a webmaster myself and I enjoy creating websites. Whenever I create a website, I want it to look professional, be easy to navigate, and be loading fast. I do not want my site to run out of bandwidth or suddenly disappear for some technical reason, as that would be unacceptable. Some people say that checking a web hosting hub review might help webmasters find the right hosting company. Whatever you do, make sure that you look around a bit and compare various hosting plans. Make sure that your readers will have access to your site whenever they want and that can be achieved by avoiding any technical difficulties resulting from a low quality host.
Which Firewall to Choose
Having a reliable firewall is necessary if you plan to spend a lot of time on the Internet. There are basically two types of firewalls: hardware firewalls and software firewalls. Router often works as a hardware firewall, and its role is to block potential attacks on your PC. However, most people associate the term firewall with a software firewall. Good examples of reliable software firewalls are Zone Alarm and Comodo Firewall. They are a very effective protection that will hide all the open ports you might have. Open ports are a vulnerability, and they open a door for potential attacks. A typical Internet user might not even know what an open port is, and that is why it is important that each Internet user has a firewall installed on his PC. You can easily install most firewalls from an USB drive. If you really want to have the best possible firewall protection, I recommend that you use both a hardware and software firewall at the same time. A hacker will have a very hard time trying to bypass such security, and he will most likely not succeed. We need to realize that we are not helpless when it comes to dealing with hackers, and there are effective ways to protect our computers. The first step is to use reliable firewalls.