NetSmarter Blog

Wordpress Plugin: WP-DBManager

NetSmarter — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:06:17 GMT

I just found a very useful Wordpress plugin: WP-DBManager.

This plugin manages your Wordpress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

Here is the link.

Category: Programming | Read Post | Visit Blog

Article Directory Sorted by Google Pagerank

NetSmarter — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:42:11 GMT

Below is a list of popular articles websites that accepts article submission. The list is sorted by the article site's PR value.

PR: 6

PR: 5

PR: 4

PR: 3

PR: 2

PR: 1

PR: 0

Category: Web Traffic and SEO | Read Post | Visit Blog

How to Install a CPAN module

NetSmarter — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:19:01 GMT

To install the modules on a *nix system, type:

perl -MCPAN -e "install XML::Parser"
perl -MCPAN -e "install XML::RSS"

Category: Programming | Read Post | Visit Blog

How to Redirect Website Visitors To an Other Page/Site?

NetSmarter — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:21:05 GMT

Method 1 - .htaccess 301 Redirect

The smoothest way to redirect your visitors is to use an .htaccess redirect. This has no delay since before a page is served to the browser the server checks first for an .htaccess file... if it sees this the old page never loads, instead visitors are sent directly to the new page.

These are a few .htaccess redirect codes that I've used that might come in handy for you. This is not a complete list by any means, but it took me ages to find how to do these so I'll save you the hassle and list them here. Oh, and please don't email me with questions about how these work, like I said, I found these with the help of others.. I have no idea in the slightest how to write this stuff and take no credit (or responsibility) for how they work.

If you're more technically minded than I am and want the information straight from the source, check the Apache Tutorial: .htaccess files for more detailed info.

Important notes about htaccess redirection

Always be sure to upload .htaccess files in ascii mode, sending it up as binary will break it (and usually make your server very, very unhappy.)
.htaccess does not work if you're on a windows server.
Make sure you triple check your changes. Clear your cache and look, test the server headers to make sure you see a 301 (that means its permanent) not a 302 (temporary) unless you are absolutely sure you really mean temporary.
Since some operating systems don't allow you to make a file without something before the "." you may need to save it as something.htaccess, some may even have to save it as htaccess.txt and change it once you've uploaded it.
Make sure your ftp program will show .htaccess files (FileZilla does and is free) It is a bit hard to edit something you can't see ;)
Double check that you're not overwriting an old one (some servers already place one there for your custom 404 pages etc.)
Make sure you replace example.com with your own sites URL ;-)

301 Redirect Examples

To Move a single page

Quick, easy and seamless for your visitors.

To Move an entire site

This will catch any traffic on your old site and redirect it to your index page on your new server. If you want to redirect each page to its new spot, this isn't the one for you.

Changed file extension?

This example is perfect if you've decided to switch to .php from .html pages. It will look for any .html page and redirect it to .php (ie http://www.example.com/yourpage.html and redirect it to http://www.example.com/yourpage.php). Now, be careful with this, it does mean any html page. I did this on one of my sites and had totally forgotten I had an iframe with .html content on some pages... I didn't notice for weeks that it was broken :S.
So learn from my mistake ;-) check, double check, then check again.

Redirect www to non www version of site

It's best to stick with either always using www.example.com or just example.com. Allowing both can confuse the search engines. So here's how to force your site to always show the non-www version. (Search for "canonical url errors" in your favorite search engine for more info.)

Note: If you do use either of the next 2 codes below, and use a secure server (ie. https:) be sure to check that it doesn't redirect the secure to the insecure version. I'm pretty sure this will do that and that isn't something you want!

Redirect non-www to www

Same as above except in the reverse, this one forces the www. into your url.

Redirect example.com/index.php to example.com/

Another snippet that I've heard is a good idea to make sure search engines don't give you a duplicate content penalty, this will also redirect example.com/folder/index.php to example.com/folder/.

I might add more later as I need them, for now those are the one's I use on a few different sites I run. Remember, I can't stress enough to test, test and re-test anything you do to your .htaccess file.

Method 2 - Meta Redirect

I'd really advise against redirecting this way! Most search engine are having difficulties with this one (and spammers have been using this in very bad ways) and it might get your page in a heap of trouble! Some browsers also don't read it properly so your would-be visitors may get stranded. Seriously, it really isn't advisable to use this anymore but if you insist on trying it, here it is.

Content="10; tells the browser to wait 10 seconds before transfer, choose however long you would like, you can even choose 0 to give a smoother transition.

Final Notes

I can't stress enough how important it is to test your server's response headers any time you make a change to your .htaccess file! If you use Firefox the LiveHTTPHeaders extensions is the best I've ever found. That will tell if you're sending a 301 (permanent redirect), 302 (temporary redirect, not what you want probably!) or 200 which means page found, as well as a ton of other info.

Category: Programming | Read Post | Visit Blog

How To Have Websites Built For You The Cheap Way

NetSmarter — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:23:23 GMT

Normally, if you want to have professional designers custom build your site, you must be prepared to dish out at least a few hundred dollars. All this can change if you know where to find the best deals, the best designs for the lowest price. Here's a rough guide:

First, you must understand that it is a rip off to get companies to design websites for you. Have you ever seen those advertisements in newspaper classified ad sections that offer a 5-page website at $500? These companies are established companies with physical locations, therefore they have to increase the amount they charge to pay off some overheads: office rent, designer's wages, advertising costs and so on.

Therefore, it would be wise to find freelance designers who work from home. These people are often working from home so they do not have a high operation cost like that of a company. On the other hand, they will be able to design images with quality similar to those of designers from big companies, so it's a "no-brainer" choice.

However, choose freelancers with care. The best way to do this would be to go to elance.com. There, you can post the abstract of your project and get thousands of freelancers to bid on your project, so you will surely get the best deal. On top of that, you will be able to choose the designers based on their experience, past transactions and ratings, so your value for money is secured.

Another route you can take is to design your website yourself. Think about it, if you only need 5 simple pages to present some simple information, why waste hundreds of dollars for it? Just spend a little time to sit down and do it yourself. You'll be able to design your own sites even if you do not know a single line of HTML code with the help of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) programs such as Microsoft Frontpage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and so on.

Category: Web Design and Hosting | Read Post | Visit Blog

Submit Sitemap to Yahoo and MSN

NetSmarter — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:39:15 GMT

Sitemaps are starting to become nearly ubiquitous, but we've seen a lot of sites ignoring Yahoo! and MSN - a big mistake! You can seriously boost your search traffic referrals from these engines by not only submitting, but verifying/registering your sitemaps with them. Yahoo!'s registration is here, and MSN/Live's is here.

Category: Web Traffic and SEO | Read Post | Visit Blog

WordPress XML-RPC Remote Posting Problem

NetSmarter — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:29:03 GMT

I was trying to use Windows Writer to post to a WordPress blog. However, I got an error message saying "xmlrpc.php 403 forbidden". After some research, I finally found the solution.

Just add the following lines to the .htaccess file:


SecFilterInheritance Off

Category: Programming | Read Post | Visit Blog

Lenovo ThinkPad and Slow IE New Window

NetSmarter — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:17:28 GMT

I just purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad notebook computer (T61). This notebook is supposed to be very fast. However, everytime when I used IE and clicked on a link that tried to open a new brower window, it'd be very slow and it'd take a long time for the new window to be loaded.

Finally I figured out the cause of this problem: It's the two ThinkPad add-ons: ThinkPad Password Manager and CPwmIEBrowserHelper. After I disabled those two add-ons, the problems were solved and it'd be pretty fast to open new IE brower windows.

To do so, go to IE's Tools -> Manage Add-ons -> Enable or Disable Add-ons and then disable "ThinkPad Password Manager" and "CPwmIEBrowserHelper".

Category: Misc. | Read Post | Visit Blog

Web Design: Boxes with Rounded Corners

NetSmarter — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:06:20 GMT

You will find that boxes with rounded corners are just a taste of web 2.0 design. You will see the rectangular shapes are for more professional websites, but you’ll also find the the rounded boxes more it look more playful and even more modern. You’ll find these are used on sites that indorse entertainment. You’ll find that these boxes can be used in so many ways, but you’ll want to keep all of the following information in mind when it comes to rounded corner boxes.

First you can use them as images. This is where you can use the rounded box the most and it is the easiest. You will find that you can create these boxes by using your favorite graphics editor. You will want to use it and save it as a background image for the website.

You will want to keep in mind that there are some drawbacks. Basically, they add some time to the loading time frame. You will find that these are okay if the person is loading the pages with a bandwidth that is appropriate, however, the slower the internet connection, the least effective this box can be.

Then there is the use of CSS. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is another way that you can create these boxes. You will find that these types of boxes will eat up less bandwidth and it will allow the page to load quicker then the other way. You’ll also find that this way takes a lot of time and energy, but most of all, some skill. You’ll find that there is a number of websites that use this method.

Category: Web Design and Hosting | Read Post | Visit Blog

Article Directories with High PR

NetSmarter — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:49:52 GMT

PR: 6

PR: 5

PR: 4

PR: 3

PR: 2

Category: Web Traffic and SEO | Read Post | Visit Blog