THE WAY MAKES PRACTICAL....

Windows XP and Symmetric Multiprocessing

2009-07-05T14:45:00.000+06:00

Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) is a technology that allows a computer to use more than one processor. The most common configuration of an SMP computer is one that uses two processors. The two processors are used to complete your computing tasks faster than a single processor. (Two processors aren't necessarily twice as fast as a single processor, though.)

In order for a computer to take advantage of a multiprocessor setup, the software must be written for use with an SMP system. If a program isn't written for SMP, it won't take advantage of SMP. Not every program is written for SMP; SMP applications, such as image-editing programs, video-editing suites, and databases, tend to be processor intensive.

SMP in Windows XP

Operating systems also need to be written for SMP in order to use multiple processors. In the Windows XP family, only XP Professional supports SMP; XP Home does not. If you're a consumer with a dual-processor PC at home, you have to buy XP Professional. Windows XP Advanced Server also supports SMP.

In Microsoft's grand scheme, XP Professional is meant to replace Windows 2000, which supports SMP. In fact, XP Professional uses the same kernel as Windows 2000. XP Home is designed to replace Windows Me as the consumer OS, and Windows Me does not support SMP.

The difference between XP Professional and XP Home is more than just $100 and SMP support. XP Professional has plenty of other features not found in XP Home; some you'll use, others you won't care about. Get more information on the differences by reading this article.

Boot Defragment

2009-07-05T14:42:00.000+06:00

A very important new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This basically means that all boot files are placed next to each other on the disk drive to allow for faster booting. By default this option is enabled but some upgrade users have reported that it isn't on their setup.

1. Start Regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
3. Select Enable from the list on the right.
4. Right on it and select Modify.
5. Change the value to Y to enable and N to disable.
6. Reboot your computer.

For a Safer, faster XP Close Unwanted Services

2009-07-05T14:31:00.000+06:00

To disable unneeded startup services for a safer, faster XP, use the "Services" Admin Tool (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services). If you are a single user of a non-networked machine, you can disable the following items, with no ill effect.

Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Fast User Switching
Human Interface Access Devices
Indexing Service (Slows the hard drive down)
Messenger
Net Logon (unnecessary unless networked on a Domain)
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service (this is for the utterly pointless "Universal P'n'P", & leaves TCP Port 5000 wide open)
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telnet (disabled for extra security)
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (for wireless networks)
Workstation

Error: Installing XP on an Asus UDMA 100 Board.

2009-07-03T12:53:00.000+06:00

For those who are getting this error when you try to install WinXP on a motherboard that has UDMA 100 Promise Controllers you need to do the following in order to get XP to install correctly if your hard drives are connected to the UDMA 100 controller.

Now there are two ways to get XP installed, the first one I am going to mention is the easiest way and the second is a bit more complicated but will work never the less.

#1 - Easiest Way
I have an Asus A7V motherboard and I have run into this more than once. What you need to do (this is the easiest way to do it that I have found) is to move your hard drives cable off the UDMA 100 controller (normally color coded blue) over to the UDMA 66 master controller on the motherboard. Once you have done that make sure your PC still boots into your current OS correctly. If it does then start your XP install or upgrade. Everything should be fine.
Now, once XP is up right click My Computer and choose Manage. Look under Device manager and you will see an error with a yellow exclamation point on it. Right click on it and install the Promise Drivers.

Once you have the drivers installed re-boot the system and make sure the yellow exclamation points are gone and the promise drivers are listed under SCSI devices, if they are then turn off your system, move the HD's back to the UDMA 100 controller and boot it up. That should fix it.
Another option is to check the MS web site once you have XP installed and BEFORE you move your controller back to the UDMA 100 slot for XP compatible Promise drivers.
See this FAQ on how to do a manual search for the drivers when you are on the new XP Windows Update site.

#2 - Fresh Install

If you plan on installing XP to a freshly formatted hard drive the easiest way I have found to do this is to use the above method but for those with only one UDMA 66 controller on there motherboard you may need to do the following:

- First use the URL above and download the Promise drivers I have here on the site.
- Second you need to extract the drivers to a floppy making sure when you extracted the above file that you left the directories/folders as they were. This is VERY important!
If you used WinZip to extract the files I have made the directories for you. Simply unzip them to a floppy and out it aside. The key to this whole process is the Textsetup.oem file. Windows XP setup must see that in the root of the floppy.
<<<< It should look like this once your done. Reboot and start your install..
Now pay attention here - at the bottom of the very first blue setup screen you will see a prompt to hit F6 to install third party SCSI or RAID drivers. HIT F6 A FEW TIMES NOW!!! Now it might take a couple of seconds but you should be prompted to insert your drivers into your floppy drive. Do so and choose the Promise ATA100 controller for Windows 2000. Keep this disk handy as you will be prompted for it one more time during the install.
Once XP has the drivers and loads them successfully XP should install just fine, well at least as far as the controller goes.

20 things you didn't know about Windows XP

2009-07-03T12:45:00.000+06:00

You've read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it's time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP's secrets.

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type 'gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care -- some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

6. XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using 'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you've got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll'.

9. XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology -- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who's using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum's real IP address -- they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com -- and get them to make sure that they've got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run... from the start menu and type 'control userpasswords2', which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options... and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can't see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You'll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By... Show In Groups.

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks -- if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn't, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

20. The next release of Windows XP, codenamed Longhorn, is due out late next year or early 2003 and won't be much to write home about. The next big release is codenamed Blackcomb and will be out in 2003/2004.

Disable CD Autorun

2009-07-03T12:41:00.000+06:00

1) Click Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC

2) Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System.

3) Locate the entry for Turn autoplay off and modify it as you desire.

Create a Password Reset Disk

2009-07-03T12:40:00.000+06:00

If you’re running Windows XP Professional as a local user in a workgroup environment, you can create a password reset disk to log onto your computer when you forget your password. To create the disk:

1.Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click User Accounts.
2.Click your account name.
3.Under Related Tasks, click Prevent a forgotten password.
4.Follow the directions in the Forgotten Password Wizard to create a password reset disk.
5.Store the disk in a secure location, because anyone using it can access your local user account.

Copy Files and Folders to CD

2009-07-03T12:38:00.000+06:00

To copy files and folders to a CD

•Insert a blank, writable CD into the CD recorder.

•Open My Computer.

•Click the files or folders you want to copy to the CD. To select more than one file, hold down the CTRL key while you click the files you want. Then, under File and Folder Tasks, click Copy this file, Copy this folder, or Copy the selected items.

•If the files are located in My Pictures, under Picture Tasks, click Copy to CD or Copy all items to CD, and then skip to step 5.

•In the Copy Items dialog box, click the CD recording drive, and then click Copy.

•In My Computer, double–click the CD recording drive. Windows displays a temporary area where the files are held before they are copied to the CD. Verify that the files and folders that you intend to copy to the CD appear under Files Ready to be Written to the CD.

•Under CD Writing Tasks, click Write these files to CD. Windows displays the CD Writing Wizard. Follow the instructions in the wizard.

Notes:

•Do not copy more files to the CD than it will hold. Standard CDs hold up to 650 megabytes (MB). High–capacity CDs hold up to 850 MB.

•Be sure that you have enough disk space on your hard disk to store the temporary files that are created during the CD writing process. For a standard CD, Windows reserves up to 700 MB of the available free space. For a high–capacity CD, Windows reserves up to 1 gigabyte (GB) of the available free space.

•After you copy files or folders to the CD, it is useful to view the CD to confirm that the files are copied. For more information, click Related Topics.
To stop the CD recorder from automatically ejecting the CD

•Open My Computer.

•Right–click the CD recording drive, and then click Properties.

•On the Recording tab, clear the Automatically eject the CD after writing check box.

Fix your Slow XP and 98 Network

2009-07-03T12:30:00.000+06:00

You can run "wmiprvse.exe" as a process for quick shared network access to Win98/ME machines. Stick it in Startup or make it a service.

"On the PC running XP, log in as you normally would, go to users, manage network passwords.
Here is where the problem lies. In this dialog box remove any win98 passwords or computer-assigned names for the win98 PCs. In my case , I had two computer-assigned win98 pc names in this box (example G4k8e6). I deleted these names (you may have passwords instead). Then go to My Network Places and -- there you go! -- no more delay!

Now, after I did this and went to My Network Places to browse the first Win98 PC, I was presented with a password/logon box that looked like this: logon: G4k8e6/guest (lightly grayed out) and a place to enter a password. I entered the password that I had previously used to share drives on the Win98 PCs long before I installed XP. I have the guest account enabled in XP.

This solves the problem for Win98 & XP machines on a LAN; I can't guarantee it will work for Win2K/ME machines as well, but the whole secret lies in the passwords. If this doesn't solve your slow WinXP>Win98 access problems, then you probably have other things wrong. Don't forget to uncheck 'simple file sharing,' turn off your ICS firewall, enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP and install proper protocols, services & permissions."

Force users to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to Logon

2009-07-03T12:29:00.000+06:00

(XPPro only)

Go to start/run,

and type control userpasswords2

Hide 'User Accounts' from users

2009-07-03T12:28:00.000+06:00

Go to Start/Run, and type:

GPEDIT.MSC

Open the path

User Config > Admin Templates > Control Panel

doubleclick "Hide specified Control Panel applets"

put a dot in 'enabled', then click 'Show"

click Add button,

type "nusrmgt.cpl" into the add box

How do I enable advanced security settings like found in Windows 2000

2009-07-03T12:26:00.000+06:00

Open windows explorer then click on Tools->Folder Options

Click on the View Tab.

Scroll to the bottom and deselect (uncheck) the option that reads 'use simple file sharing'

This will allow you to see the security tab when viewing the properties of a file/folder.

Mustek 600 CP scanner or other software unable to install on XP

2009-07-03T12:24:00.000+06:00

If you have a piece of software that refuses to install because it says that you are not running Windows 2000 (such as the Win2K drivers for a Mustek scanner!!) you can simply edit

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/ProductName

to say Microsoft Windows 2000 instead of XP and it will install. You may also have to edit the version number or build number, depending on how hard the program tries to verify that you are installing on the correct OS. I had to do this for my Mustek 600 CP scanner (compatibility mode didn't help!!!) and it worked great, so I now have my scanner working with XP (and a tech at Mustek can now eat his words). BTW, don't forget to restore any changes you make after you get your software installed

AVI File Fix in Windows XP

2009-07-03T12:23:00.000+06:00

If you have any AVI files that you saved in Windows 9x, which have interference when opened in Windows XP, there is an easy fix to get rid of the interference: Open Windows Movie Maker. Click View and then click Options. Click in the box to remove the check mark beside Automatically create clips. Now, import the movie file that has interference and drag it onto the timeline. Then save the movie, and during the re-rendering, the interference will be removed.

How to Convert FAT to NTFS file system

2009-07-03T12:22:00.000+06:00

To convert a FAT partition to NTFS, perform the following steps.

Click Start, click Programs, and then click Command Prompt.

In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type cmd and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS.

Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS.

NOTE: Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion from FAT to NTFS is minimal, it is best to perform a full backup of the data on the drive that it is to be converted prior to executing the convert command. It is also recommended to verify the integrity of the backup before proceeding, as well as to run RDISK and update the emergency repair disk (ERD).

How to remove the Default Picture and Fax Preview Action

2009-07-03T12:21:00.000+06:00

Go To Start > Run and type `Regedit` and press `ok`

Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Classes/CLSID/{e84fda7c-1d6a-45f6-b725-cb260c236066}/shellex

Deleted the MayChangeDefaultMenu key

Install/Enable NetBEUI Under WinXP

2009-07-03T12:20:00.000+06:00

If for some reason you need to install NetBEUI then follow these instructions.

**Note - You will need the WinXP CD in order to to this!

Support for the NetBIOS Extended User Interface protocols (also called NetBEUI or NBF) in Windows XP has been discontinued. If your configuration requires temporary use of NetBEUI for Windows XP, follow these steps:

To install the NETBEUI protocol:

- Locate the Valueadd/msft/net/netbeui directory on your Windows XP CD.Copy nbf.sys into the %SYSTEMROOT%SYSTEM32DRIVERS directory.

- Copy netnbf.inf into the %SYSTEMROOT%INF directory.

- In Control Panel, click Network and Internet Connections and then click Network Connections.

- Right-click the connection you want to configure, and then click Properties.

- On the General tab, click the INSTALL button to add the NetBEUI protocol.

How to use Windows Update Properly

2009-07-03T12:19:00.000+06:00

If you want to save your files to your hard drive, so after a format you dont have to download them all again, here's How:

- Logon to Windows Update

- Choose Windows Update Catalogue (left hand pane)

- Choose Find updates for Microsoft Windows operating systems (right hand pane)

- Choose your version and language then Search

- Choose one the following:

- Critical Updates and Service Packs
- Service Packs and Recommended Downloads
- Multi-Language Features (0)

- Once chosen simply click on what you want to download and then back at the top click Review Download Basket

- You are taken to the next page where at the top you can specify where the downloads are to be saved.

- Click Download now. Each patch will make a directory under the root of the folder you saved them to.
Once finished you need to go to where you saved the file (s) to and then simply install all your patches.

IP address of your connection

2009-07-03T12:18:00.000+06:00

Go to start/run type 'cmd'

then type 'ipconfig'

Add the '/all' switch for more info.

Make your Folders Private

2009-07-03T12:17:00.000+06:00

•Open My Computer
•Double-click the drive where Windows is installed (usually drive (C:), unless you have more than one drive on your computer).
•If the contents of the drive are hidden, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive.
•Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
•Double-click your user folder.
•Right-click any folder in your user profile, and then click Properties.
•On the Sharing tab, select the Make this folder private so that only I have access to it check box.

Note

•To open My Computer, click Start, and then click My Computer.
•This option is only available for folders included in your user profile. Folders in your user profile include My Documents and its subfolders, Desktop, Start Menu, Cookies, and Favorites. If you do not make these folders private, they are available to everyone who uses your computer.
•When you make a folder private, all of its subfolders are private as well. For example, when you make My Documents private, you also make My Music and My Pictures private. When you share a folder, you also share all of its subfolders unless you make them private.
•You cannot make your folders private if your drive is not formatted as NTFS For information about converting your drive to NTFS

NTFS vs. FAT

2009-07-03T12:16:00.000+06:00

To NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.

FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.

FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn't a problem if you're running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they don't need to know (and generally don't really care) what your underlying file system is.

The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don't worry. If you've already upgraded to Windows XP and didn't do the conversion then, it's not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think you'll want to.

The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you've booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you'd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don't think it's necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.

When to Use FAT or FAT32
If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer (see Dual booting in Guides), you will definitely need to format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.

Ports That Are Used by Windows Product Activation

2009-07-03T12:15:00.000+06:00

Windows Product Activation uses the following ports:

80 - HTTP
443 - HTTPS

Provide Remote Assistance When Using a NAT Device

2009-07-03T12:13:00.000+06:00

You can provide Remote Assistance to a friend who uses a Network Address Translation (NAT) device by modifying the Remote Assistance invitation using XML. Network Address Translation is used to allow multiple computers to share the same outbound Internet connection. To open a Remote Assistance session with a friend who uses a NAT device:

1. Ask your friend to send you a Remote Assistance invitation by e–mail.

2. Save the invitation file to your desktop.
3. Right–click the file, and then click Open With Notepad. You'll see that the file is a simple XML file.
4.Under the RCTICKET attribute is a private IP address, such as 192.168.1.100.
5. Over–write this IP address with your friend's public IP address. Your friend must send you his or her public IP address: they can find out what it is by going to a Web site that will return the public IP address, such as http://www.dslreports.com/ip.
6. Save the file, and then double–click it to open the Remote Assistance session.

Now, you'll be able to connect and provide them with the help they need. So that your inbound IP connection is routed to the correct computer, the NAT must be configured to route that inbound traffic. To do so, make sure your friend forwards port 3389 to the computer they want help from.

How to Rename the Recycle Bin

2009-07-03T12:12:00.000+06:00

To change the name of the Recycle Bin desktop icon, open Regedit and go to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

and change the name "Recycle Bin" to whatever you want (don't type any quotes).

Remove the Recycle Bin from the Desktop

2009-07-03T12:11:00.000+06:00

If you don't use the Recycle Bin to store deleted files , you can get rid of its desktop icon all together.

Run Regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/explorer/Desktop/NameSpace

Click on the "Recycle Bin" string in the right hand pane. Hit Del, click OK.

Restricting Logon Access

2009-07-03T12:10:00.000+06:00

If you work in a multiuser computing environment, and you have full (administrator level) access to your computer, you might want to restrict unauthorized access to your "sensitive" files under Windows 95/98.
One way is to disable the Cancel button in the Logon dialog box.
Just run Regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Network/Logon

Create the "Logon" subkey if it is not present on your machine: highlight the Network key -> right-click in the left hand Regedit pane -> select New -> Key -> name it "Logon" (no quotes) -> press Enter. Then add/modify a DWORD value and call it "MustBeValidated" (don't type the quotes). Double-click it, check the Decimal box and type 1 for value.
Now click the Start button -> Shut Down (Log off UserName) -> Log on as a different user, and you'll notice that the Logon Cancel button has been disabled.

Search For Hidden Or System Files In Windows XP

2009-07-03T12:09:00.000+06:00

The Search companion in Windows XP searches for hidden and system files differently than in earlier versions of Windows. This guide describes how to search for hidden or system files in Windows XP.

Search for Hidden or System Files By default, the Search companion does not search for hidden or system files. Because of this, you may be unable to find files, even though they exist on the drive.

To search for hidden or system files in Windows XP:
Click Start, click Search, click All files and folders, and then click More advanced options.

Click to select the Search system folders and Search hidden files and folders check boxes.

NOTE: You do not need to configure your computer to show hidden files in the Folder Options dialog box in Windows Explorer to find files with either the hidden or system attributes, but you need to configure your computer not to hide protected operating system files to find files with both the hidden and system attributes. Search Companion shares the Hide protected operating system files option (which hides files with both the system and hidden attributes) with the Folder Options dialog box Windows Explorer.

Set Permissions for Shared Files and Folders

2009-07-03T12:08:00.000+06:00

Sharing of files and folders can be managed in two ways. If you chose simplified file sharing, your folders can be shared with everyone on your network or workgroup, or you can make your folders private. (This is how folders are shared in Windows 2000.) However, in Windows XP Professional, you can also set folder permissions for specific users or groups. To do this, you must first change the default setting, which is simple file sharing. To change this setting, follow these steps:
•Open Control Panel, click Tools, and then click Folder Options.
•Click the View tab, and scroll to the bottom of the Advanced Settings list.
•Clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box.
•To manage folder permissions, browse to the folder in Windows Explorer, right–click the folder, and then click Properties. Click the Security tab, and assign permissions, such as Full Control, Modify, Read, and/or Write, to specific users.

You can set file and folder permissions only on drives formatted to use NTFS, and you must be the owner or have been granted permission to do so by the owner.

Set Processes Priority

2009-07-03T12:07:00.000+06:00

Follow this tip to increase the priority of active processes, this will result in prioritisation of processes using the CPU.

CTRL-SHIFT-ESC

1.Go to the second tab called Processes, right click on one of the active processes, you will see the Set Priority option

2.For example, your Run your CDwriter program , set the priority higher, and guess what, no crashed CD’s

Set up and Use Internet Connection Sharing

2009-07-03T12:05:00.000+06:00

With Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) in Windows XP, you can connect one computer to the Internet, then share the Internet service with several computers on your home or small office network. The Network Setup Wizard in Windows XP Professional will automatically provide all of the network settings you need to share one Internet connection with all the computers in your network. Each computer can use programs such as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express as if they were directly connected to the Internet.
You should not use this feature in an existing network with Windows 2000 Server domain controllers, DNS servers, gateways, DHCP servers, or systems configured for static IP addresses.

Enabling ICS

The ICS host computer needs two network connections. The local area network connection, automatically created by installing a network adapter, connects to the computers on your home or small office network. The other connection, using a 56k modem, ISDN, DSL, or cable modem, connects the home or small office network to the Internet. You need to ensure that ICS is enabled on the connection that has the Internet connection. By doing this, the shared connection can connect your home or small office network to the Internet, and users outside your network are not at risk of receiving inappropriate addresses from your network.
When you enable ICS, the local area network connection to the home or small office network is given a new static IP address and configuration. Consequently, TCP/IP connections established between any home or small office computer and the ICS host computer at the time of enabling ICS are lost and need to be reestablished. For example, if Internet Explorer is connecting to a Web site when Internet Connection Sharing is enabled, refresh the browser to reestablish the connection. You must configure client machines on your home or small office network so TCP/IP on the local area connection obtains an IP address automatically. Home or small office network users must also configure Internet options for Internet Connection Sharing. To enable Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) Discovery and Control on Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition computers, run the Network Setup Wizard from the CD or floppy disk on these computers. For ICS Discovery and Control to work on Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition computers, Internet Explorer version 5.0 or later must be installed.

To enable Internet Connection Sharing on a network connection

You must be logged on to your computer with an owner account in order to complete this procedure.
Open Network Connections. (Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double–click Network Connections.)

Click the dial–up, local area network, PPPoE, or VPN connection you want to share, and then, under Network Tasks, click Change settings of this connection.

On the Advanced tab, select the Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection check box.
If you want this connection to dial automatically when another computer on your home or small office network attempts to access external resources, select the Establish a dial–up connection whenever a computer on my network attempts to access the Internet check box.

If you want other network users to enable or disable the shared Internet connection, select the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box.

Under Internet Connection Sharing, in Home networking connection, select any adapter that connects the computer sharing its Internet connection to the other computers on your network. The Home networking connection is only present when two or more network adapters are installed on the computer.

To configure Internet options on your client computers for Internet Connection Sharing

Open Internet Explorer. Click Start, point to All Programs, and then click Internet Explorer.)

On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

On the Connections tab, click Never dial a connection, and then click LAN Settings.

In Automatic configuration, clear the Automatically detect settings and Use automatic configuration script check boxes.

In Proxy Server, clear the Use a proxy server check box.

Speed up your browsing of Windows 2000 & XP machines

2009-07-03T12:04:00.000+06:00

Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug installed as default in Windows 2000 that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And it turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 users will experience that the actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improve significantly after applying it since it doesn't search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how :

Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under that branch, select the key :

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

and delete it.

This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary.

This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.

How to make your Desktop Icons Transparent

2009-07-03T12:02:00.000+06:00

Go to ontrol Panel > System, > Advanced > Performance area > Settings button Visual Effects tab "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the Desktop"

How to Upgrade Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition Profiles to Windows XP Domain User Profiles

2009-07-03T12:01:00.000+06:00

This post guide describes how to upgrade a Microsoft Microsoft Windows 98-based, or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition-based client that has user profiles to a Microsoft Windows XP-based client.

The following steps enable the Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition (Me) profiles to be retained throughout the process.

Your best method to retain the profiles is to join the domain during the upgrade installation process.
Otherwise, you must use a workaround method to transfer the profile information over to the Windows XP profile.

During the upgrade installation process, at the networking section, the administrator is offered the choice to join a domain or a workgroup.
If you join the domain at this juncture, you ensure that all the existing profiles are migrated successfully to the Windows XP-based installation.

If you did not join the computer to the domain during the upgrade process, you must use the following workaround method:

Join the upgraded computer to the target domain.

All applicable users must log on and log off (which generates a profile).

Copy the appropriate Application Data folder from the Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me profiles to the newly created user profiles.

Upgrading to Windows XP

2009-07-03T11:59:00.000+06:00

You can upgrade a computer that runs Windows 98, 98SE, or Me to Windows XP Home Edition. Those same versions, along with Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and Windows 2000 Professional, can be upgraded to Windows XP Professional.

(1).To ensure a smooth upgrade and avoid networking problems, follow these tips before starting the upgrade:

(2)Install all network cards. XP will detect them and automatically install the right drivers.

(3)Have your Internet connection available. The XP setup process will connect to a Microsoft server to download the latest setup files, including changes that have been made since XP was released.

Some programs are incompatible with XP and can cause networking problems. Un-install these programs. After the upgrade is complete and the network is working, re-install XP-compatible versions of these programs: Internet Connection Sharing, NAT, Proxy Server Anti-Virus Firewall.

New Sound Blaster Drivers

2009-07-03T11:55:00.000+06:00

With the loads of problems reported by users with Soundblaster cards on Windows XP Creative has stepped up and offered drivers for at least some models of their Sound Blaster cards, but check your particular model closely. I have downloaded the SB128 drivers and my sound problems have been resolved..! So they do work.

http://www.creative.com/support/winxp/

Set the Search Screen to the Classic Look

2009-07-03T11:53:00.000+06:00

When I first saw the default search pane in Windows XP, my instinct was to return it to its classic look; that puppy had to go. Of course, I later discovered that a doggie door is built into the applet. Click "Change preferences" then "Without an animated screen character." If you'd rather give it a bare-bones "Windows 2000" look and feel, fire up your Registry editor and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ CabinetState.

You may need to create a new string value labeled "Use Search Asst" and set it to "no".

How to Remove Windows XP's Messenger

2009-07-03T11:46:00.000+06:00

Theoretically, you can get rid of it (as well as a few other things). Windows 2000 power users should already be familiar with this tweak.

Fire up the Windows Explorer and navigate your way to the %SYSTEMROOT% \ INF folder. What the heck is that thingy with the percentage signs? It's a variable. For most people, %SYSTEMROOT% is C:\Windows. For others, it may be E:\WinXP. Get it? Okay, on with the hack! In the INF folder, open sysoc.inf (but not before making a BACKUP copy first). Before your eyes glaze over, look for the line containing "msmsgs" in it. Near the end of that particular line, you'll notice that the word "hide" is not so hidden. Go ahead and delete "hide" (so that the flanking commas are left sitting next to one another). Save the file and close it. Now, open the Add and Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel. Click the Add / Remove Windows Components icon. You should see "Windows Messenger" in that list. Remove the checkmark from its box, and you should be set. NOTE: there are other hidden system components in that sysoc.inf file, too. Remove "hide" and the subsequent programs at your own risk.

Virtual labs overcome chemistry practical phobia

2009-07-02T10:38:00.000+06:00

A new e-learning tool is set to banish teachers' fears about 'letting students loose' in the lab.

The LabSkills* schools Dynamic Lab Manual enables the user to carry out 'virtual' experiments, practise the techniques and - for the first time - make mistakes - all before they enter the classroom, meeting the call for more practical science support for teachers head on.

LabSkills is being provided free to all chemistry teacher trainees, made possible by a joint Royal Society of Chemistry and Pfizer educational project, Discover Chemistry* funding and collaboration with the University of Bristol.

The recent Ofsted 'Success in Science' report1 identified that schools that focus clearly on how science works - the practical and investigational aspects - are more successful at teaching the subject. Yet the learning of practical experimental skills is an area of science education in the UK that is under threat, due to concern over new teachers not being equipped with the same confidence to teach science practical in the way they did in the past.

Kate Bellingham, newly appointed as the National STEM Careers Co-ordinator (supporting the government's 10 year STEM programme), welcomes the resource: "As a former Tomorrow's World presenter and scientific experimenter, it was fun to just 'try it and see'.

"With this software, I was able to 'blow up the lab' quite safely, learning how to avoid the same mistakes in reality! Practical scientific skills are so useful in many areas, and are vital to the chemists of the future.

"As a former teacher myself, I know LabSkills will add an extremely valuable new dimension to the study of chemistry by helping to reinforce the importance of scientific rigour and of health and safety, while being informative and engaging."

All PGCE trainee chemistry teachers (over 500) are encouraged to use the materials for free while on school placements. They will also be invited to propose ideas on how they would incorporate the tool into their teaching. The 10 who offer the most innovative idea will win a permanent copy of LabSkills for their school.

Dr Paul Hill, Chemistry teacher and head of e-learning at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School , Bristol, has already used the resource: "LabSkills is a fantastically interactive tool that helps students come into the lab prepared and informed about the practical work they are about to carry out.

"It helps students make the difficult link between theoretical chemistry and practical activities - a link that is too often missing! I wish this type of tool had been available when I was doing my PGCE!"

Teacher access to LabSkills has been funded by RSC and Pfizer Limited via a joint initiative called Discover Chemistry. The aim of this educational partnership is to address the changing needs of the chemical industry in the UK, encouraging the most capable students into chemistry, and ensure that they are trained with the correct skills.

Pfizer are providing up to £1million over a 3-5 year period to help support initiatives such as this virtual lab software, which is based on innovative best practice developed at the University of Bristol*.

Dr Tony Wood, Vice President and Worldwide Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Pfizer Global R&D, explains: "Discover Chemistry aims to capitalise on the excellent education work that many institutions and groups are developing. We bring their ideas and resources together to help expand successful schemes like LabSkills."

"In research-based companies such as Pfizer, there is a growing demand for scientists to have strong problem-solving and experimental capabilities. LabSkills could revolutionise the way practical chemistry is approached in schools. By encouraging students to prepare for their experimental work, it will help them to view practical chemistry as something much more than a recipe-following exercise. Through enhanced independence they will be better equipped to meet the future needs of industry."

Dr Wood continues: "Positive experiences in practical chemistry at school are key in influencing the paths of many would-be scientists. This is an opportunity that we must harness."

The Royal Society of Chemistry will host evaluation workshops over the coming few months for users to help identify gaps and improvements to the programme and ensure schools can make the best possible use of the resource.

The Heart of Judgment: Practical Wisdom, Neuroscience, and Narrative

2009-07-02T10:36:00.001+06:00

Thiele's book is oriented around the unassailable claim that practical moral judgment is both essential to ethical theorizing and practice and also comparatively understudied. He takes for granted, rightly in my view, that the best way to acquire a rich understanding of the virtue of practical wisdom is to examine it through an interdisciplinary lens. Thiele himself is a political theorist who is impressively well-read in other disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, literature, and philosophy. The book draws on its author's wide-ranging knowledge in its exploration of practical wisdom -- something that generates both its greatest strengths and its greatest weaknesses.

The book itself is comprised of five chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion. Thiele uses the introduction to motivate the project and set out the framework within which his discussion of practical wisdom will occur. Chapter 1 aims at what he calls an intellectual history of practical judgment. It consists of short discussions of practical wisdom and practical judgment in the work of philosophers and intellectuals from ancient times through the present: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche, Dewey, Heidegger, Gadamer, Arendt, Derrida, Lyotard, and Rorty. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of contemporary decision theory. Although Thiele's overall framework is aimed at providing a philosophical account of practical wisdom, the remaining four chapters draw on work from cognitive psychology and neuroscience to support his claims about the virtue's key features. In Chapter 2, Thiele uses scientific studies as the basis for his argument about the role of experience in laying the foundations for good judgment. Chapter 3 employs the same approach to account for a connection between the unconscious and practical judgment, and in Chapter 4, he argues that research in neuroscience supports the idea that affect is an essential component of good judgment. Chapter 5, which focuses on the centrality of narrative to the human experience, is rather more speculative, but here too, Thiele calls upon findings in neuroscience to illustrate and support his views about the narrative structure of human moral reasoning.

A book as ambitious as this one cannot possibly be all things to all people, and thus will inevitably fall short in some of the places where one was hoping to find greater insight. It would be unreasonable to demand a comprehensive treatment of all the book's themes from all possible angles, and presumably, it isn't Thiele's aim to give such a treatment. My comments will be aimed at what a philosopher interested in its central questions might draw from it and how it might be useful in furthering the discussion of practical judgment as it is currently proceeding within philosophy.

Let me begin with the introduction, which, while engaging, is overly dependent on jargon and somewhat muddled about its subject matter. It isn't until near the end of the introduction that we find out what Thiele has in mind by practical wisdom or practical judgment. Until that point, it is unclear whether he is intending to discuss specifically moral judgment, practical judgment in general, or something in between. More seriously, the introduction sets up a framework for his discussion that will likely strike philosophers as outdated or insufficiently nuanced. Consider this passage:

Moral and political judgments are never uncontestably right or wrong. They prove difficult to make not simply because they grapple with deep complexity -- that is to say, with diverse, interactive variables -- but because the very determination of ends and means -- as well as the standards by which these ends and means might be evaluated -- remain forever open to dispute. In moral and political affairs, the "canons of success" one might appropriately employ in assessing and evaluating judgments remain essentially contested (p. 11).

While no philosopher would deny that moral judgments are widely contested, Thiele is passing far too lightly over far too many substantive philosophical issues here. And it matters, because Thiele routinely makes claims about "good" practical judgment without much awareness of the resulting need to establish standards by which someone's capacity for, or use of, practical judgment can be assessed as good or bad. He asserts that there can be no experts in practical morality in the way there can be experts in chess, yet he immediately goes on to say that "the most we can aspire to in our moral and political life is proficiency of judgment" (p. 119). But in the absence of further explanation, which he does not offer, it is hard to see what proficiency might entail other than some sort of expertise. It is, of course, difficult to be a moral expert (perhaps even impossible), but it doesn't follow that the concept is incoherent. Indeed, while Thiele is unabashedly Aristotelian throughout the book, he pays little attention to the fact that for Aristotle, the virtue of practical wisdom is inextricably linked to an objective conception of human flourishing. The book eventually proves to be more concerned with explaining the phenomenon of practical judgment than with justifying it. There is a point to doing both tasks, but Thiele sometimes appears to mistake the first for the second. This leads him to make claims like the following:

For the most part, moral judgment is not a process of deriving imperatives for action from abstract propositions. Rather, it arises through the internalization of social values and the immediate perception of their violations. This process takes place without much in the way of recourse to theory (p. 71).

Setting aside the question of whether anyone really thinks that moral judgment is about deriving imperatives for action from abstract propositions, it is unclear what kind of claim the second sentence is supposed to be making. If it is simply a claim about human psychology, then it may be true, but it does not tell us much about how such judgments might be justified from a moral standpoint. (Surely, practical wisdom as a virtue requires more than simply the internalization of social values and the ability to determine when they are under threat.) From a philosophical standpoint, this is a rather serious shortcoming.

The second chapter, in which Thiele provides an abbreviated history of the philosophical foundations of practical judgment, is probably the most frustrating for a philosopher to read. On the one hand, it is certainly a valuable contribution to follow the trail of an idea throughout history, particularly since contemporary philosophers can be prone to ignoring important historical connections among ideas. On the other hand, I am skeptical that the concept of practical judgment is sufficiently similar across all these authors to make the comparison particularly useful. And while the chapter does show Thiele's truly admirable intellectual range, it also contains enough idiosyncratic interpretations and flat-out mistakes to send up some red flags. This is most unfortunate; it certainly made it harder for me to take at face value Thiele's accounts of ideas and findings in other disciplines. The discussion of Aristotle, which is probably the most significant for the rest of the book, shows some confusion about the distinction between moral and intellectual virtues, and the place of phronesis within that structure (p. 22). Thiele also employs the cardinal virtues as a way of explaining Aristotle's account in the Nichomachean Ethics (p. 20), which unsurprisingly leads to a mischaracterization of phronesis and its relationship to other virtues. The account of Aquinas -- oddly embedded in the section on Machiavelli -- bears little resemblance to his actual views. And although the section on Kant shows welcome attention to the Critique of Judgment, the use of Kant throughout the book presents an outdated picture of him as advocating a system of axiomatic moral rules on which all moral judgment should be based. Thiele himself seems aware that this is a caricature, and yet the book tends to set up reason-obsessed deontologists as the enemy, and Aristotelian practical wisdom, with its reliance on affect and its sensitivity to nuance, as the solution. But this way of framing the issue has rightly been cast aside by most philosophers working in normative ethics.

Indeed, one of the primary failures of the book from a philosophical standpoint is its lack of attention to how the debate over practical wisdom has transformed in recent years. I say this with some hesitation, because I doubt it is entirely fair to expect a non-philosopher to stay current with all the latest philosophical trends. Even so, it is disappointing to read a book with philosophical ambitions that discusses Aristotelian practical wisdom without any mention of currently important issues, such as moral particularism. We find Thiele saying things like this: "Most contemporary scholarship on judgment concerns itself with how we might counteract biases that intrude on rational decision-making" (p. 120). This has not been true in philosophy for a number of years, if it was ever true at all. In the end, Thiele's discussion seems unfortunately out of touch with the considerable volume of recent philosophical literature on practical wisdom and practical moral judgment.

Philosophers who are well-versed in the contemporary philosophical discussions of practical wisdom will not, I fear, find in this book a new way of looking at the debate. But this is not to say that the book is entirely useless to philosophers. In Chapters 3, 4, and 5, Thiele covers a wide array of fascinating data from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, all of which is relevant to understanding the virtue of practical wisdom in its embodied form. Philosophers working in the area will likely be familiar with much of it, but some of it is bound to be new to most readers. And Thiele does an especially nice job of sorting the research in ways that will be philosophically useful, although he tends to draw unwarranted conclusions from the data. The philosophical claims in those chapters are not particularly original, but they are well-illustrated, even when not well-supported. Thiele's discussion of narrative experience in Chapter 5, though repetitive in places, is more perceptive and more detailed than many such discussions in philosophy, and his facility with a wide range of authors and texts is a real advantage in that chapter.

The book, then, presents philosophers with a mixed bag. As a whole, it is not an especially novel or useful contribution to the philosophical literature on the subject, and it suffers from some quite serious mistakes. And yet there are novel and useful bits and pieces scattered throughout. I suspect, however, that the book will be of more value to those working outside of philosophy than for those already immersed in the philosophical debates on practical judgment.

Threshold Society

2009-07-02T10:33:00.000+06:00

AT A TIME when humanity is reaching a point of cultural convergence, ecological crisis, and rapid social change, we wish to facilitate the experience of Divine unity, love and wisdom in the world.

Our main objectives shall be:

to promote the truth of Divine love and knowledge through direct, personal experience,
to express and share the essential principles of spiritual development,
to recognize and develop a true partnership of man and woman,
to recognize the unity and interdependence of all human beings and all life,
to aid in the practical realization of living in harmony with our fellow beings and the natural world.
Our principal means shall be:

to develop educational programs in spiritual psychology and practice,
to sponsor intercultural retreats in various locations around the world,
to publish books and periodicals that further the purposes mentioned above,
and to facilitate the travel and exchange between cultures of people of wisdom and knowledge.

Varieties of Relationship and Participation Within The Threshold Society

THE AIM of the Threshold Society in the broadest sense is to provide an education in the universal principles of spiritual realization. As such, it is open to all people interested in its work, no matter what their beliefs or religious affiliation. There are at least three aspects to participation in the Threshold Society.

A person may, for instance, participate in various programs, including the weekly meetings, periodic seminars and retreats. If a person is participating in weekly meetings for at least three months, he or she may be invited to become a member and support the group through monthly dues. Implicit in membership is a commitment to attend the weekly meetings regularly as a matter of high priority, the willingness to be of service, and to accept and support the leadership of the group.

At another level, if one feels a connection to the lineage of the Mevlevi Order, one may receive initiation. This is for people who not only accept the responsibilities of group membership, but see the Mevlevi tradition as their primary spiritual commitment, and accept Kabir and Camille as their point of contact with the tradition. It also entails a willingness to acquaint oneself with and understand the sources and framework of the Sufi tradition, including the Qur'an and the sayings of the Prophet. It is not, however, required that a Mevlevi dervish embrace the religion of Islam in its outer, sociological form.

The relationship to a shaikh is one of the most important aspects of Sufi teaching. When the dervish opens his or her heart in receptivity and submission, the shaikh can be a source of knowledge and grace. This relationship passes naturally through many stages. It is a relationship that cannot be forced, but the degree of affection between dervish and shaikh is what allows the effective grace (baraka) of the tradition to be shared. It has been said: As difficult as it may be to find a perfect shaikh, it is more difficult to be a minimal dervish.

Practical Aspects of Dervishood

2009-07-02T10:32:00.000+06:00

Mahmoud Mostafa

For me, dervishhood is a total commitment to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet, Mevlana Rumi, Shams, and all the blessed ones who traveled the way of love. There are many aspects to this following and over the years it has been shown to me that the sincerity of commitment to this path is manifest in knowing that one is a servant and living one's life in this truth. What are the practical aspects of this way of living? For me there are several dimensions, there is a state of being, an active practice, a quality of self-reflection and self-knowing, and a way of conduct in daily life.

State of Being:

When I reflect on how this path has changed me over the years I see a definite shift in my perspective. The meaning of my life has changed, my understanding of the events and interactions that I live every day is very different from what it used to be. If I were to describe how my perspective was before I would say that I saw things as if I were the center of existence; it was all relative to me. I saw things in the context of what I wanted, what I liked and disliked, what I thought I should be like, what I imagined people thought of me, how I wanted them to see me, and what I thought they expected of me. Now my perspective has shifted to what can best be described as being in love with the tremendous and beautiful divine manifestation that is life. It is a state of seeing my life as part of a much greater whole, that my life is an integral part of a oneness that pervades everything and that is conscious and alive. This shift has enabled and empowered me to have the resolve and courage to let go of many of the attachments and conditioning to which I was shackled and to learn to accept, trust, and find joy in what is. Some of the attachments that I am aware have largely left me are: my religious identity, my professional self-image, my desire for social and economic status, my sense of national identity, my relationships and what I want them to be for me, and my self-projections upon my children. I find that I am loving more often, less worried, more forgiving, more compassionate and less anxious and hurried about life. I find myself more aware of the inner dialogue that tries to trap me into fear and worries about acceptance and lack of abundance. I've gone through some big stressful experiences recently and this state of being has helped me to not only cope with these major stresses, it has made the difficult experience a blessing and gift from God. By no means do I see myself as truly free of attachments, I still face some major issues with my ego and the road is filled with surprises! What I do see is that I am relating to my being in a different way and from a different place.

Active Practice:

Growing up as a Muslim I've been conditioned to think of Islamic practices as defining our religion. Now I have a different understanding of the purpose and meaning of our practices. A daily practice is one of the most important things because it loosens the grip of habit, the heedlessness of procrastination, the urgency of time, and the noise of the world upon our hearts. A regular practice interrupts automatic living and gives us a chance to renew our intention, revive our awareness and to seek forgiveness for what we've wasted of our lives. Practice softens the heart and increases our longing, it teaches us humility, it gives us opportunity to face our defensiveness, resistance, and arrogance and to respond to these impulses with obedience and purpose. In my experience I have often stumbled in my daily practice because of taking on too much. It helps me to remember the Prophet's guidance to, “Take on those practices which you have the capacity to sustain...” Lately, I've come to understand the importance of constancy even if it is only for a few minutes a day. It is vital to keep that connection, to not relapse into complete heedlessness and automatic, habitual living. To follow the guidance of taking what has been made easy for us to receive is very important, even if it is for just five minutes a day. For the Prophet completed his earlier guidance by saying, “…for God does not grow weary unless you do.” I've found that by persisting in a daily practice doing as much as I am able on any given day and then putting aside a longer period of time once a week, say one evening, when one can be with the practice without a time limit, when one can go on for an hour or longer, can go a long way in increasing one's capacity for presence and remembrance. I learned this from the bitter experience of trying to do too much every day and failing miserably and giving up all practice eventually because of despair. I found that trying to complete a count or duration of zhikr got me into trouble. Then being on retreat it became clear that what is important is to keep up as much as possible of a daily practice without counting, even if it is little, and then to dedicate a longer period of time weekly when one can deepen one's practice and be free of time pressure.

The work of undertaking a daily practice brings us to see our relationship with time and how we spend it. Do we see the time we've been given on this earth as part of the sacred trust or do we squander it without much thought? The Prophet advised us to, “Be more careful with your time than with your wealth.” And he warned us that, “Every human being will be asked how he spent his time…” It is so easy to squander our time. It doesn't take much for us to fall into our mindless habits and automatic patterns and it takes a lot of effort to counteract this inertia and resistance that we have to undertaking the effort that can lead to our transformation. Mevlana says in Book IV of the Mathnawi that, “God gives each lover a taste of bliss at the beginning, and then when the lover, driven by desire for this taste, begins to strive forth, God places an obstacle before him each day!” So it is important to understand how it is natural and part of God's scheme that we struggle with resistance and difficulties whenever we undertake a practice, it is part of the cooking process that we need to experience and we grow from it.

My daily practices consist of Salaat, Zhikr, and Wird. I try to do as much of each as I can each day even if it is for a short period of time. Then once a week I dedicate one evening to a longer period of Zhikr, Quran, and Turning. Recently I also have made my intention to do a mini-retreat at home where I would go into seclusion for 1.5 to 2 days every three months. This I found to be a very valuable practice because it brings me into a more centered state of presence and remembrance.

Another active practice that has been vital for me is fasting. I do it often and sometimes for extended periods. I realize this is not for everyone. For me it is a deep practice of inner stillness, trust, and intimacy. Sometimes I will undergo long fasts of 3 months during the months of Rajab, Shaaban, and Ramadan. And during the year I try to fast two days a week. When I feel that fasting is becoming habitual I will stop for a while and then resume again when I feel a change in my heart. I have found that fasting is an effective polish for the heart and that it wakes me up in a way that is deep and loving.

Self-Reflection and Self-Knowing:

I find that self-examination and witnessing is a very important aspect of dervish-hood. Observing the machinations, ploys, and inner dialogue of the Nafs are key to awareness and transformation. Without keen insight into ourselves we can be easily lulled to sleep by our egos. I find that it takes a lot of courage to be able to look with honesty and sincerity at ourselves and it also takes compassion to accept and seek forgiveness for our faults. Over the years I've come to see my greed, my desire for recognition and attention, my fears, my hypocrisy. It's not easy to know these things about myself and to face them with courage and compassion but it is part of the work of transformation. I found that the more I consciously practice self-witnessing the more insight is given to me during zhikr and in my dreams. Important things have been shown to me in dreams or during sleep. Deep knowing about myself and how my Nafs works were revealed that have guided me and have released me from several biases, assumptions, and harmful behaviors.

Another aspect of self-knowing and observation is to oppose the desires of the Nafs. Many sheikhs advice us to go against whatever the Nafs wants. This is an important advice. The more we can know what the Nafs is driving us to do, the more we can stand in the way of these impulses and exercise our free will to choose otherwise, the more we are transformed and the more we grow spiritually. I struggle with this a lot and it is a very difficult effort. For example eating is one of the great desires of my Nafs. I find myself overeating or eating mindlessly, sometimes I find myself eating greedily with a devouring urge. I try to oppose this impulse but I am often defeated by it. Another example is with sleep or the delaying of practice. I feel shame when I see how diligent I am to make appointments and deadlines such as being on time to catch a flight or make a phone call, but I will make every excuse and take every way to put off waking up in the morning for prayers or any of the other daily practices. I've come to understand that the way to oppose the Nafs is not in fighting it but in turning away from its obsessiveness and seeking God.

The Way of Conduct in Daily Life:

This I think is one of the greatest and most effective teachings of our way. Often we find ourselves relating to spirituality in a way that takes it out of our daily life or, just as harmfully, that attempts to takes us out of daily life in the name of spirituality. Our way is not this. To be in the footsteps of the Prophet is to learn to bring spirituality to life in our daily lives, to let Spirit enrich and beautify us in normal everyday things that we do. This is part of the Tremendous Character of the Prophet. I've found that there are two important aspects to this conduct: relationships and Adab. To bring spirituality into relationships to me is to be consciously asking, “What would Love do?” When we ask this question our defensiveness, our agendas, our pettiness, our fears, and our greed somehow melt away and we are left facing a profound truth from which it is difficult to turn away if we want to live our life with integrity. “What would Love do?” has changed my life. It has, in many significant ways, saved me and those I love from my Nafs. For example, it has brought me to acceptance and to genuine respect for the sacredness and integrity of my children's lives and their right to live their lives and make their choices without fear of my judgment. “What would Love do?” broke down my defensiveness and my deep-seated desire to see my children “doing better than me” that is code for, “I want to succeed where I think I failed.” This is a veiled, great tyranny that was handed down to me from my own parents and which I quite naturally assumed was a good thing to inflict upon my own children until I learned to ask, “What would love do?” This one amazing question has helped me to understand many important things about relationships and what it means to love.

Adab is the other tremendous aspect of our way. The practice of Adab is critical in developing our awareness and our servanthood. This was indelibly etched upon my heart when Cafik Jan came to California for our summer retreat. One time, when Sheikh Cafik was leading the prayer I was late joining the group and so was not done when he finished. I remember that I thought about being late and I was anxious about him starting the Tesbih before I was done. I let go of this thought and focused on completing the prayer. Then I realized that nothing was happening around me, everyone remained seated in silence. When I finished and gave the last salaam I looked up and saw his kind, old eyes from the front of the congregation focused on me like a hawk and as soon as he saw me finish he started the Tesbih. I wasn't expecting this at all. I was in the very last row and he was up front where it was normal to not be aware of what's going on in the back, but he was fully aware, fully present to those who were with him and, just as significantly, fully aware of his servanthood to us. I understood then what the true meaning of Imam was; it was not to lead the prayer but to offer the prayer from one's heart as a service to one's friends. This was a keen, unforgettable lesson in the beauty of Adab from a true master of our way.

Dynamic vs. Static URL’s

2009-07-02T10:23:00.000+06:00

Dynamic websites have the advantage of using only a handful of files to generate thousands of pages. They do this through the variables passed onto the server in the URL string. For example, a server’s software receives a request for the following URL: “http://www.yourblog.com/?p=123” The software then uses the template file and the variable “?p=123” to search the database for the information. Once the system has it, the page is sent to the user.

Larger search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo can index URL’s that include a limited number of variables (from 1 to 3). However, smaller search engines do not index them at all. So keep it simple and rewrite your URL to make it easier for all spiders. No engine, large or small, has any issue indexing static-looking, directory-based URL’s.

In addition, it is virtually impossible to layer content to maximize visibility in the search engines with dynamic URLs as the seach engine simply will not be able to identify the site structure. A content layer is a logical level of organization within your directory structure.
The tool to rewrite a URL string depends on the platform you host your site on. The two most common servers are Apache and IIS. For an Apache server, the Module ‘MOD_rewrite’ comes standard (although it may not have been installed). For IIS, the ISAPI filter functions identically to the MOD_Rewrite module.

The Mod Rewrite module is implemented in Word Press, and if you go to Options and then Permalinks in your blog, you come to a page called Customize Permalink Structure. It is highly recommended that you use something else than the Default option.

The new custom structure will depend a lot on the way you have organized your blog in the first place, but in any case, %postname% must absolutely be in there. Whether you choose to add date or post ID or other parameters must be based on the current blog structure.

You can read more about the different parameters for permalinks on WordPress’ own site.

Canonical redirects – 301, 302 and Page Hijacking
The problem in a nutshell is that the search engines see http://yourblog.com and http://www.yourblog.com as two different sites. Both “sites” will normally be crawled, indexed and ranked in the search engine, and this results in the following — the search engine identifies the site as two different sites as duplicate sites — which is never a good thing.

Another problem that also occurs is that some sites will link to your http://yourblog.com while others will link to http://www.yourblog.com. As these are treated as separate sites, they will each receive different link popularity as well as different Google Page Rank. Unless you do something about this problem, you basically get your link popularity diluted because of this technicality.

You are also exposing your site for a phenomenon that’s referred to as 302 hijacking. A page hijack is basically a technique exploiting the way the search engines certain commands that a web server can send to a visitor. In essence, it allows a hijacking website to replace pages belonging to target websites in the Search Engine Results Pages.

The solution thankfully is fairly simple: Adding a 301 redirect from http:// yourblog.com to http://www.yourblog.com. The 301 redirect means permanently moved, and the result is that the non www version of the domain will pass on all ranking power to the www version of your site, thus increasing Google Page Rank and chances of ranking well in the search engines.

The same problems occur if you can access either of these in the root of your site:

http://www.yourblog.com/index.html
http://www.yourblog.com/index.php
http://www.yourblog.com/index.asp
http://www.yourblog.com/index.jsp
http://www.yourblog.com/index.cfm
…et cetera
If your site use a folder based navigation structure, be advised that you may run into the same problems as with the above. http://www.yourblog.com/products/ (with and without trailing slash) and http://www.yourblog.com/products/index.php are regarded as two different pages with duplicate content in the eyes of a search engine.

There is very little information as to which format the search engines prefer, however, there are certain indications that they follow the Keep It Simple principle, and that you should in other words strive to present the shortest possible URL.

So my recommendation is to 301 redirect the http://www.yourblog.com/products/index.php as well as http://www.yourblog.com/products (no trailing slash) to http://www.yourblog.com/products/

As a final note, choosing the correct type of redirects can make or break your search engine ranking, and when dealing with canonical redirects, always use 301 permanent moved redirect and not a 302 temporarily moved.

Here’s another really nifty plugin. If you by any chance decide to move the content of one of your posts or pages to another location, there’s a 301 Re direct plugin for that too, and it’s called Angsuman’s Permanent Redirect and it permanently redirects posts and pages that contains “redirect” custom field, to the value of the “redirect” custom field.

Category Naming Convention
Be descriptive with naming Categories. Don’t get carried away, but make sure at least one keyword or keyword phrase appears in the Category name in the format /descriptive-keywords/ This is not an area to stuff keywords.

Categories should be named appropriately as part of the overall theme and should be relevant to the directory content.

Image Naming Conventions
Instead of naming your file image01134.jpg, you would ideally name it keyword-phrase.jpg or image-name.jpg. Many sites have poor, even non-existent Alt tags, so a focus should be to make those Alt tags as efficient as possible, using at least one keyword relevant for the page and page category. Also, remember to use dash, not underscore in your image names. This is quite important from a SEO perspective.

Many computer programming languages have variables or constants such as _MAXINT, which may be different than MAXINT. So if you have an image like word1_word2.jpg, Google will only return that page if the user searches for word1_word2 — which of course almost never happens. If you have an image like word1-word2.jpg, that image can be returned for the searches word1, word2, and even “word1 word2?.

Title Tag
The title tag is the single most important on-page element for ranking well in a search engine. Rule of thumb is to put the Title tag immediately after the Head tag, and it is said that certain search engines does not count it if it’s after other Meta Tags. Many web sites and blogs have a Title tag naming convention like this: [Company Name] – [Page Title].

While this is certainly much better than not having any title tag (did you know that there are over 25 Million pages in Google with the Title “untitled document”?), switching things around to [Page Title] - [Company Name] is a much better approach as you get the keyword rich Page Title first.

Unless your company is a very well known brand, page title should always come first. The reason is that the searcher is looking for a product, service or information, not your company. And when you give prominence to the Page Title rather than your company name, you will rank better.

The way to do this in Word Press is to use a plug-in called Optimal Title. This simply switches the Blog title and the Post title around so that you get it right.

Heading Tags
The heading tag is the second most important on-page element for ranking well in a search engine, however all too often do I see pages with not one single Hx tag. Or it’s used incorrectly. The H tag is primarily to be used to structure a document, not to style text. It’s clearly defined by W3C how to use it — both in the HTML/XHTML specs, but also in WACAG and other guidelines.

The search engines don’t care about the pretty colours or the cool fonts, only the document structure and will rank the page based on that. Follow the W3C specifications, use the H tags to construct proper page hierarchy and the search engines will love you for it.

Normally your Post title will be a H1, but if you write long posts, I highly suggest using H2 and possibly H3 as well for sub headings instead of just bold text.

And while on the subject of styling fonts — use external style sheets and put all your styling in there. Do not use inline text styling. It makes your page faster, and it gives the search engine much less code to go through, thus making it easier for the spider.

H1 is the main heading, and thus you should only have one occurrence of the tag per page. A page should always be focused on a over all theme, and you can use these headings to cluster them around this overall theme.

Ideally you use the H tag alone without a class, but some times you need a different look or colour of the same H, and that’s when you use classes. Thankfully, most Word Press themes are coded very well, so this won’t be a problem for most. In most cases, I would also highly recommend that your Title tag and your H1 tag is identical, or that they contain the same key phrase or semantically matching theme. This also seem to be the standard for most Word Press Themes

Lists
Lists are a great way to display key features of a product or service. On the web, the visitors tend to scan content instead of reading, Putting key features inside a list makes it easier for a visitor to do so — and the search engines put emphasis on text inside a list. Lists can also be used for creating great looking menus with dropdown or hover effects as a replacement on JavaScript menus, but more about that later.

Page Text
Without moving into the copywriter’s domain, there are a few aspects to page text from a designer’s perspective. Yet again, follow W3C Guidelines. Proper use of P tags instead of BR for paragraphs, strong instead of b, em instead of i and so on.

Anchor Text
“Click here”. How often is that key phrase relevant for the content of your page? Not very often. However, a search in Google on that phrase gives you a absolutely mind-blowing 2.5 billion results. Now that’s what I call a waste of search engine marketing power. Link text should be concise and descriptive, using topic relevant keywords and phrases. A hot tips here is to use anchor text that makes sense when read out of context.

There are ways to get the best from both usability, accessibility and SEO via CSS, and is something that’s being used here at SEO Bomb.

Meta Tags
Unfortunately, none of the common Meta tags comes as default in Word Press and you need extra plug-ins for this. Below are the plug-ins for Meta Keywords and Meta Description respectively:

Jerome’s Keywords: Adds a keyword field below the post text field
Head Meta: Let you use Custom field as Meta Description
Some search engines will index the META Description Tag found in the section of your web pages. Google is one of them, and if the META Description is written correctly, with a maximum of 156 characters including space, it will display your description instead of snippets from the page content provided that the description contain the term or phrase being searched for.

Normally, you would only write a description based on primary target key word- or phrase, but I have successfully managed to write up to three different descriptions and have the search engine display the appropriate description depending on which key word is being used in the search engine query.

Yahoo & MSN does also use the META Description, but I find them both, and MSN in particular, a bit tricky from time to time. Another thing I’d like to mention when it comes to MSN is that they some times seem to prefer the description from DMOZ, so if you do have a DMOZ listing, you may find yourself in some trouble if you haven’t paid much attention when authoring your description.

META Keywords
The META Keywords Tag is where you list keywords and keyword phrases that you’ve targeted for that specific page. There have been numerous discussions surrounding the use of the keywords tag and its effectiveness. The overall consensus is that the tag has little relevance with the major search engines, but it may help the search engine to determine the overall theme of your website.

Google Blog Search
While on the subject of Titles and Meta descriptions, Google Blog Search seems to have a slightly different take on the Description they display. While Google normally display up to 156 charachters from potentially the Meta Description fields, Google Blog seach is fetching info from your RSS or XML feeds, and display up to 240 charachters in the description.

That means that your Optional Excerps should not be more than 240 charachters to be displayed as a whole:

Listing includes
Title: 66 charachters – Does not include Blog Name
Description: 240 characters including space (Optional Excerpt in Word Press)
Date
Author

Normal search
On normal keyword and phrase search, Description is displayed

Advanced search
On advanced search, it does not display the Description, but rather the first 240 following characters.

RSS and Syndication Your Content
I could nix this section directly from SEO Blackhat but I’m not gonna. Their article about RSS and syndicating news is excellent, so check it out. I also highly recommend looking at their Ping list - which happens to be the same list as I use on this blog.

I must point out that my custom made syndication buttons are way sexier than theirs — and you can use them all you want if you promise to link to this site. But anyway, here we go:

Step 1: Download my custom syndication buttons: black or white and put them in your images folder

Step 2: Add the HTML for your chosen buttons according to SEO Blackhat’s directions

Preventing Blog Spam - Akismet
Not that this has anything directly to do with making your website search engine friendly, but one of the drawbacks of lots of traffic to your site is the increase of blog spam. That is what you have the Akismet anti blog spam plugin for.

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web serivce to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use this service. You can review the spam it catches under “Manage” and it automatically deletes old spam after 15 days. Just do yourself a favour and install it. It’ll make your life so much easier.

And there you have it — the ultimate guide for making your blog rank in search engines. Of course I have a few more tricks up my sleeve if you’re really serious about blogging, but that’s for clients only. If you like it, link to it, if you have comments or questions, leave a comment!

Robots and Robots.txt

2009-07-02T10:22:00.002+06:00

To make the job easier for the robot to spider your blog, you should add the following HTML code inside the HEAD tag of your website:

With this, you’re telling the robot to index your site and to follow all links contained within your site. It is also recommended that you have something called robots.txt.
The robots.txt is simply a .txt file that you put in the root directory of your website, and unless you have any folders you don’t want to be indexed, I suggest you allow the robot to index your whole site. Your robots.txt will then look like this:
User-agent: *Disallow:

How the Search Engine Works in a Nutshell

2009-07-02T10:22:00.001+06:00

When you submit your site to a search engine, or the search engine follows a link from another site, the search engine will send a “robot” to your site. The search engine robots will then spider your blog. What this basically means is that it will try and follow all links on your site, i.e. links in your site navigation menu, your site content and all other links on your site.
When the robot is done spidering your website, it will add it to the “search engine index”. When a person performs a query in the search engine, it will then return its result page and rank the different websites based on how important the search engine thinks your site is.

Making Your WordPress Blog Search Engine Friendly

2009-07-02T10:21:00.000+06:00

The search engines rank your site based on several factors — some more important than others. Even though search engines are able to spider, index and rank poorly written, poorly organized and poorly designed sites, making your site accessible to search engines greatly improves your chance of getting those sweet top 10 positions that will drive huge amounts of visitors to your site.
What you basically want to do is to make your site search engine friendly — make it easy for the search engines to make sense of your site. There are several ways of doing this and several aspects one must take into consideration: Technical, On site, On page and Off site, however that latter is not covered in this document.

SEO Terminology

2009-07-02T10:19:00.001+06:00

On Page SEO: Factors on individual pages within your site
On Site SEO: Factors site wide or within sections of your site
Off Site SEO: Links to your site from other sites and what these links say about your site – Site reputation and link popularity.
Document: A page or any other electronic document on your site
Robot / Spider: An automated piece of software which travels around the internet looking for web pages and storing them in the search index.
Search Algorithm: The algorithm used by a search engine to decide which web pages are the best match for a search term.
Index: The database of web pages used by a search engine. When you perform a search, the search engine looks in this database to find the best matches.
SERP Search Engine Result Page, the list of web pages shown when you perform a search.

The Ultimate Guide to Make Your Blog Search Engine Friendly

2009-07-02T10:17:00.000+06:00

In this presentation of how to make your blog search engine friendly, we will show you a number of extremely useful tips – and WordPress plugins that will really make a difference for your blog – and your bank account.
SEO is the process of improving web pages so that it ranks higher in search engine for targeted keywords. There are many SEO techniques, and in general, these can be categorized as On-Page, On-Site, and Off-Site Optimization.
There are also two schools of SEO: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO, where White Hat SEOs are those that play by the rules and guidelines provided by the different search engines.
Black hat SEO basically means pushing the limit of SEO and employ techniques that are according to the search engines questionable or prohibited, such as cloaking, mirror or doorway pages and so on.

Create blog site with Drupal

2009-07-01T12:52:00.000+06:00

Try Drupal! Get a FREE Drupal installation with SiteGround Drupal hosting Package!
Drupal is one of the best Open Source CMS tools in the web. It has been recently awarded the Overall 2007 Open Source CMS Award at the PacktPub Contest.
Drupal is written in PHP and requires a MySQL database, both of which are available with the SiteGround Drupal hosting services. Drupal basic installation can be easily turned into many different types of web pages - from simple web blogs to large online communities. Drupal includes features to enable content management systems, blogs, forums, newsletters, picture galleries, and more. Here we will explain the use of Drupal as a blog application.
Drupal installation
Please, visit the pages listed below to find detailed instructions how to install Drupal on your website with the help of the Fantastico auto-installation tool or via the web.
How to install Drupal via Fantastico
Manual installation of Drupal
How to create a blog site with Drupal?
Once you have finished with the installation of Drupal, you should navigate to the web address, where the script is located and you will see the main page. First you should create your account:
Once you have your password, you can log in the Administration area. There you can create content or edit your profile, manage your installation and more from the administer menu:
To start using Drupal as a blog, you should first enable the blog module from Administer -> Modules. The following modules should be checked:
menu
node
path
page
statistics
story
taxonomy
Also you can download and install image module.
Drupal Settings
Then please go to Administer -> Settings and fill in the text boxes with the required information. This will help the Search egnines to easily crawl your blog site.
After that you should continue setting the access control in Administer -> Access control. Click on the roles tab. Create your own role. The rights you give here depend on how you use your site. In the beginning you can check the following options:
administer and create images
administer menu
access content and administer nodes
create pages and edit own page
create url aliases
access statistics
create and edit own stories
access administration pages
administer taxonomy
After that you should go to Administer -> users, click on the configure tab and choose "Only site administrators can create new user accounts". Click on the add user tab and create a user account you will blog with. Assign it the role you have created earlier.
Now it is time to navigate to Administer -> themes. Choose your desired theme and select the configure tab. Scroll down to "Display post information on" and uncheck the box next to "page".
In "Toggle display" make sure that "Site name", "Site slogan" and "Mission statement" are checked. With Drupal you can change the visualization of your site without changing the links to the content.
Creating Content
Now you should go to Administer -> content. There you should click on configure tab and then on content types. Click on "page". In the "Workflow" remove the check next to "Promoted to front page". Save and do the same for "story" as well.
This will set only story type content to be automatically promoted to the front page.
It is time to create content for your blog. Please, logout from the administrator's area and login with your newly created account. You can create content for your blog from create content link.
There you can add or edit a page or a story:
If you want to add a static page, like a contact page or an about page, use the page type.
Stories are articles in their simplest form: they have a title, a teaser and a body, but can be extended by other modules. The teaser is part of the body too. Stories may be used as a personal blog or for news articles.
Once you are done, you can go to your home page. There you will see that the default Drupal new site message is now gone and your post is placed.
Useful links:
Drupal Developer's page
Best hosting solution for Drupal
Drupal tutorial

Create blog site with WordPress2

2009-07-01T12:51:00.001+06:00

Adding blogs from external sources - Blogger
In WordPress there is a way to import posts and comments from a Blogger account. First you should make an account in Blogger at the following location: Blogger.com. The creation of a new account is pretty easy. All you have to do is to click on the orange arrow with title "Create your blog now" and follow the instructions. Once you are ready and you have a post there, you can import it in your WordPress site. There are some simple steps, that you should complete:
Step 1. Log in the administrator's area.
Step 2. Click on Import tab.
Step 3. Choose Blogger.
Step 4. Enter the login credentials for your Blogger account and click on [Start] button.
Step 5. Once the automatic procedure is over, you can see your Blogger content on the main page of WordPress.

Create a Blog Site with WordPress

2009-07-01T12:48:00.000+06:00

WordPress is a free personal publishing platform. It is an easy to use, fast and flexible blog script. It comes with a great set of features, designed to make your experience as a publisher as pleasant as possible. With WordPress you can easily:
Publish and edit posts;
Sort articles in categories;
Search within your content;
Manage user access;
Change your website themes and more.
With the SiteGround WordPress hosting services you can use all WP features.
How to install WordPress?
Please, visit the pages listed below to find detailed instructions how to install WordPress on your website with the help of the Fantastico auto-installation tool or via the web. Please, note, that you can have a free Wordpress installation with SiteGround hosting pack.
How to install WordPress via Fantastico
Manual installation of WordPress
How to create a blog site with WordPress?
Once you have installed WordPress you can start building your blog. First, please navigate to the WP login page from your side menu under the section Meta -> Login or by entering the exact URL:
www.yourdomain.com/wp-login.php
There you should enter the login credentials, which you have chosen during the installation process. Then you will enter the Administration area of the WordPress script:
Where to start blogging?
To start writing posts in your WordPress blog, simply click on the Write a post link from your Dashboard. You will be redirected to a page where you can create your article.
Click the [Publish] button once ready and your post will be immediately visible at the front page of your blog!
Wordpress Categories, Comments, and Themes
How to create a category?
How to post comments in WordPress?
How to change a theme?
Options in Wordpress
Useful links:
Best hosting solution for WordPress
WordPress Developer's page
WordPress tutorial
Adding blogs from external sources - Blogger

Blog Tutorial

2009-07-01T12:43:00.000+06:00

You don't have a blog website yet or you have problems with your current host? Check out the Best Blog Hosting Service (including a free blog installation)!
People feel the need to share their thoughts and opinion with other people. Nowadays the most effective way to do that is to create your own weblog or, as it is most popular - blog. But how to start your own blog? Fortunately, starting a blog site is a really easy task.
There are free Open Source blog tools which help you create and manage your blog site.
You do not need to know anything about web design or development to start blogging.
All you need to do is open a hosting account where you can have a blog application installed and activated. Here at SiteGround we offer FREE blog installation with our blog hosting package. You can start creating your site right away.
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The easiest way to create a blog site is by using a ready-made blog tool.
The blog application has built-in fuctionality such as posting articles, HTML editor, commenting, archive, etc.
The most popular blog tools have a large supporting community. You will be able to find free themes for your blog and customize it the way you like.
Which blog application to use?
With the help of a blog application you needn't be a web designer or developer to share your thoughts with the world. In the following pages you will find brief instructions on how to build your own blog by using two of the most popular blog applications:
Create a blog with WordPress
Create a blog with Drupal
Define: Blog
There are different descriptions of that concept. According to most of the articles on the Internet 'blog' is short for 'weblog', a frequently updated publication of comments and thoughts on the web. Usually it is reflecting the views of the blog's creator. Blogs consist of text and images and are sorted by date. The newest information is on the top and there is an archive of the old one. People create blogs to share their thoughts with the world. A person writing in the journal is called a 'blogger'. Bloggers write about different topics: from the typical daily situations to the progress of some scientific researches. The readers also can leave comments and thus make the whole blog more interesting and useful.
History of blog
Blogs are part of the World Wide Web since its creation. In the beginning they did not have a defined name, but their purpose was more or less the same as that of contemporary blogs. Here is a list of the first blogs:
Dawn of Internet: Tim Berners-Lee at CERN begins keeping a list of all new sites as they come online.
June 1993: NCSA's oldest archived 'What's New' list of sites.
June 1993: Netscape begins running it's 'What's New!' list of sites.
January 1994: Justin Hall launches Justin's Home Page which would become Links from the Underground.
April 1997: Dave Winer launches Scripting News.
December 1997: Jorn Barger coins the term 'weblog''.
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We have long experience with blog applications such as WordPress;
Our servers are perfectly optimized for blogs;
We offer FREE installation of more than 60 WordPress templates;
Our blog hosting package is the best offer on the market - it has the lowest price for the quality and features it includes;
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Learn How To Make Money With Survey Referrals

2009-06-08T15:42:00.000+06:00

Anyone who has searched for ways to make money online has probably bumped into one of the survey sites. These are the sites where you get paid to try different offers and fill out surveys. You can pick up some extra money doing this but not a lot as the surveys may pay anywhere from a quarter to a dollar and the offers not much more. People who join these sites either end up loving them because they can make a couple of dollars everyday or hating them because they can't make enough.

When you sign up for a survey site, and there are a lot of them, the chances are it has some sort of referral program. Most people have no idea what a referral program is and end up missing one of the best ways to make money. If you do a search online, you will be able to find lists of the many ways you can refer people to a site and if they use your link, you will get credit. Unfortunately, most of these lists only have offline ways to refer people such as printing up business cards and leaving flyers on cars. While these methods might work, they are no where near as effective as moving your referring efforts online.

Even online, many people attempt to get survey referrals in the wrong way. A common method is to sign up to many forums and include your link in the signature. Then they spend many hours every day looking through the forums and answering questions hoping their links will be seen and followed by the other forum members. This ends up being a lot of hard work for very little return as people in forums are quite Internet savvy and most have already heard about and signed up for surveys.

Anyone who wants to learn how to make referrals in the most efficient way needs to start a blog and learn how to drive targeted traffic to it. Once you get a steady stream of targeted traffic that converts, it is like opening up a water faucet and having the water pour out. Unfortunately, most poeple have little knowledge about blogs and even less knowledge about how to get traffic. Putting up a blog, writing articles for it, and getting traffic is not something that is done overnight. The process takes a tremendous amount of patience and it can take many months of hard work to become successful. If you do things correctly though, the end result can be worth it.

What Types of Content are Good For Building Blog Traffic

2009-06-08T15:35:00.000+06:00

The main key to generating blog income is traffic. If you can double your traffic, your blog income can possibly be double as well. As long as the visitors keep on coming, your blog gives monetary gains. More visitors mean more ad clicks, more donations if you ask for in your blog, more affiliate sales and more leads.How to build good traffic with content?Create valuable content: Provide your users with valuable content. Try and improve the quality of the content as frequently as you can. Expand the people’s thoughts, actions and their awareness. Strong content is usually valued as long as it generates long term referral traffic. Quality is more important than quantity. So be careful in doing the needful.

Create original content: even though it takes efforts to produce original content, it is a good strategy for long term planning. If people like one of the articles, that is basically the writing style, they may also be interested in others. If someone reads content from a single person, it is bound to create awareness and much interest. Even though original content takes some time in building the traffic, it lays a solid long lasting foundation.Create timeless content: It is not necessary to write on current topics. You can even write on the older ones as long as they attract viewers. These articles will be available even after we are long gone. In traffic building, timeless content is for much longer time than the time bounded content.Write what you actually believe in: writing in something which you do not believe will not be fruitful as you will not put your full self into it. Being honest with yourself and also with the viewers of your blog is very important strategy, and will definitely attract more and more traffic. Sometimes you will be praised, sometimes criticized, but do not lose hope as one day you will succeed.Treat your visitors well: Do not write stuff that will go against any ones religion or personal life, at least if it affects him/her. Do not humiliate others at the cost of your writing. Treat your viewers as real human beings.