There is a BIG difference between the two. The problem is when people give you feedback about a design, more often than not they are talking about beauty aspect. There is only 1 way to find out if a design is useful or not and that is through analyzing user action on your website.

As some of you may know I run a website for used mobiles. The look of my website sucks. But it kicks ass of much better designed websites when it comes to number of used mobiles that get listed and number of users who visit on a daily basis. I think that is simply because of my focus on simpleand useful design.

I used to have text fields for entering the city, mobile brand and model in the page where people selling their used mobiles list the mobile phones. Then around 3 months back, I added simple drop down boxes to these fields. Mobile phones from cities in India that I was not even aware of started to appear on my site.

Next logical thing to do was add a search functionality to the listing pages. I did not have the time to do it properly. So I just went ahead and put the search boxes at the first white space that I could find. And the results since then has taken me by complete surprise.For the same number of unique users, the number of pageviews and my adsense income has gone up by 8 times!!!!!!!

Why am I writing about my experience on the used mobiles website on this blog about blogging. Because I think bloggers need to take their related posts plugin and popular posts plugin more seriously than they do now a days. Most related posts plugins show up posts that are 1 year or more old.

I am so excited and motivated to change the design of binaryday. If I can bring about a 8 times increase in income of binaryday, I can leave my day job and start living the internet lifestyle. Wish me luck guys!!!

While analyzing the traffic for binaryday, I was surprised by the statistics of my post about free rapidshare premium account. The post has got more than 23,000 pageviews and 80 comments in the last 3 months alone. The numbers prove 1 thing i.e there are a large number of users looking for a rapidshare premium account. My search for a permanent solution to this demand of premium rapidshare accounts took me to rapidshare premium link generator.

 What is a rapidshare premium link generator?

A rapidshare premium link generator is a site that allows you to download files from rapidshare with all the features of a premium rapidshare account. That means no waiting time, ability to download multiple files simultaneously and so on.

List of free  rapidshare premium link generator

Here is a list of free rapidshare premium link generator that you may use for faster download.

1. http://www.rapidsharepremiumlinkgenerator.com/
2. http://rapidhack.prv.pl/
3. http://www.rapiddownloader.info/
4. http://www.rapidquick.net/

Let me know if you get to know about any more free rapidshare premium link generators. I shall update with the rapidshare link generator so that all the users can benefit.

Other posts about rapidshare on binaryday

1. Rapidshare download Manager and Rapidshare manager
2. 5 free rapidshare downloader

The importance of feedburner is evident from the fact that it is rare to find a blog that does not have a feedburner subscription box. So I will directly get into how you can get the maximum out of it. I shall be dealing with 3 broad topics  in this article

1. How to get more visitors to subscribe to your feed
2. How to make more % of subscribers to actually click into your article
3. How to get more benefit out of the subscribers once they land on your page

[Read more →]

System restore feature was introduced in windows xp. The popularity of windows xp system restore feature has ensured that the feature is avialable in the latest OS offering from microsoft i.e windows 7 that too in a much improvesied form.

Understanding System Restore

If you have not encountered system restore in earlier versions of windows then think of it as a undo command for microsoft windows. If your os starts behavings badly after installing a particular programme or because of a virus etc, then you can use system restore to take your computer back to an earlier date when it was working fine.

How does System Restore in Windows 7 work

If you enable system restore then it takes periodical snapshot of your system and stores them as restore points when you make any significant changes or install any driver. When you use system restore to solve a problem it simply overwrites your current file system by this backed up configuration. Since the backed up version did not have the problematic software or virus, the problem gets resolved.

Scan for Affected Programs before doing system restore in Windows 7

A big problem with system restore in windows xp was that there was no way to find out what all programmes will be deleted after the system restore. The problem has been resolved to a large extent in windows 7 through a feature called scan for affected programmes. It will provide you a list of prgrams that will be uninstalled after the system restore, thereby making it easier to decide if you need to back up certain files.

The recycler virus is one of the most dreaded viruses. The most dangerous thing is that recycler virus makes use of portable devices like usb drives to spread itself. Basic modus operandi of the virus is to keep itself as a hiddent, read-only executable file on the USB. It also inserts a line into the autorun file of the usb pointing to itself. And once you double click on the usb, the virus runs and infects the clean pc.

Removing the recycler virus is as simple as listing files on your usb drive along listing hidden files as well. Look for a file autorun.inf and delete. See my post about removing virus from usb for the exact steps. Hubpages has a good post about usb virus removal as well.

We at binaryday seem to be too impressed with windows 7, the latest operating system from microsoft. We have previously blogged about windows 7 themes , windows media player 12 or wmp 12 and Free Download Directx 11 with Directx 3D for Windows 7 and Vista. In this blog post I shall be discussing how you can download windows 7 upgrade advisor.

What is windows 7 upgrade advisor

Windows 7 upgrade advisor is a tool that will let you know if all hardware and software on your pc are compatible with windows 7. It can be installed on windows vista and xp. The windows 7 upgrade advisor will hopefully protect users against unpleasant surprises.

Where to download windows 7 upgrade advisor

The beta version of windows 7 upgrade advisor is available at the official microsoft site at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/upgrade-advisor.aspx

How to install windows 7 upgrade advisor

As with all other products from microsoft, installation is a piece of cake and quite intuitive. So I need not explain this step.

Themes provide a really easy and useful way to change the appearance of content of windows and break free from the default look. Windows 7 themes is one of the many cool features of Windows 7 that include windows media player 12 and Directx 3D to name a few.

Windows 7 Themes

Some of the best themes of windows 7 are available at the official website of microsoft at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/Personalize. Mike Swanson has put together a cool theme for windows 7 at http://www.mikeswanson.com/wallpaper/Mike%20Swanson%20Macros.themepack. However while windows 7 themes have made it comparatively easy to get a cool look, that is not good enough reason to migrate your operating system.

Windows 7 themes for Vista

If you intend to continue with Vista O/S and get the looks of Windows 7, then you can do so by using windows 7 themes for Vista. Some of the best themes for Vista are available at http://giannisgx89.deviantart.com/art/Windows-7-Style-For-Vista-102269037, http://pankaj981.deviantart.com/art/Windows-7-Inspirat-76378417, http://vistaaero.deviantart.com/art/Windows-7-M1-Original-Theme-90127567 and http://deskmundo.deviantart.com/art/Windows-Seven-M1-VS-76834286

Windows 7 themes for XP

If you need to get a look similar to windows 7 on your XP machine, then you should consider using a windows 7 theme for XP.

http://rapidshare.com/files/193530863/Windows_7_M__20VS_2.zip, http://www.askvg.com/download-sevenvg-refresh-theme-with-superbar-for-windows-xp/, http://dopeysneezy.deviantart.com/art/Windows-7-Complete-109505907

Need to convert docx to doc 

Many people struggle to open docx files with microsoft word as the docx format was a new format introduced by microsoft in word 2007. Many other versions of microsoft word do not support the docx format. The official solution for it is to convert docx files to doc format by using microsoft compatibility pack. However using microsoft compatibility pack for docx to doc conversion can be quite cumbersome, especially if you are a technologically challenged person

Free docx to doc converter to the rescue

I am constantly surprised by the number of free tools that are available online. As I was researching for a convenient way to convert docx to doc format, I came across docx2doc.com. Docx2doc.com offers an online tool to convert docx to doc instantly. Let me know your views of docx2doc.com if you have ever used them before.Btw you may like to check my other posts about windows media player 12 , Free Download Directx 11, rapidshare premium account and Rapidshare download Manager.

Nero 9 is the latest version of the popular Nero software. Some of the highlights of Nero 9 includes

• Fast and easy rip, burn, Autobackup, and copy functions 
• ability to copy, burn, share, upload, and create music mixes.
• Convert music and DVDs to play on your iPod and other mobile devices

As can be seen from the post above, there is a significant improvement in the user interface of Nero 9. Nero 9 comes with a tape scan feature that allows easy preview and scene selection from digital videos.

Nero 9 Download

As with other versions of Nero, Nero 9 continues to be a not-free software. However the 15 day trial verion is free and can be downloaded here

Microsoft seems to be giving up its cnfrontation strategy and gradually moving towards a collaborative strategy with Windows 7. Many previously bundled programmes will ship separately now. However windows media player 12 or wmp 12 is going to be one of the few programmes that are going to ship along with windows 7. Btw do check out my post about Free Download Directx 11 with Directx 3D for Windows 7 and Vista.

Windows media player 12 or wmp 12 : the latest media player to ship

The Windows media player 12 is the latest media player to ship from the microsoft assembly line. Actually only the beta version has been made available. The final version will be released along with windows 7 only. In a notable shift from the past, even other formats including H.264 and AAC are supported.

The new interface for Windows media player 12

The biggest improvement on wmp 12 seems to have happened on its interface. wmp 12 comes with brighter and lighter interface. The windows media player 12 comes with 2 distinct interface modes i.e Now Playing view, and Library view. The interface would be pretty familiar to existing wmp users even though some buttons and toolbars have been moved around a bit.

“Play to” the coolest feature of windows media player 12

Windows media player 12 makes it easier to play music with any external device with the pc through a cool feature called “Play to”. It can stream to other computers in your HomeGroup, so, you can actually play back on the HTPC connected to your sound system while browsing your library on your laptop.

Download windows media player 12

Unfortunately, even after lot of Googling, I have not been able to locate a link to download windows media player 12. While I could find some rapidshare links, they were mostly for the spanish version of wmp 12. Let me know if you find a link for english version of windows media player 12.

I seem to have found a new interest in technology. After writing a post about free rapidshare premium account yesterday, I am back with a post about free download of Directx 11 for Windows 7. The few people who visit this post regularly for posts related to blogging, need not worry. The reason I am not posting about blogging is I am in the middle of a really good research about twitter. So please bear with these posts about Directx 3D while I complete my research.

Directx 11 for Windows 7 is the latest graphic technology

If Directx 10 was the preferred version for Vista, Directx 11 is the recommended graphic technology for Windows 7. Directx 11 is available as part of technical preview for public testing. It has got several new features. Hence our recommendation is that you must download Directx 11 ASAP.

Free Download Directx 11

The following are the links to the section on microsoft site from where you can directly download Directx 11.

• Download Directx 11 SDK here
• Download Directx 11 End-user runtimes here

Directx 11 with Directx 3D

The Directx 3D seems to be generating lof of buzz. Honestly I have not been able to figure out what is great about Directx 3D. Please leave a comment if you know the answer. The links to download Directx11 3D are the same as the ones listed above.

There seems to be a high demand for free rapidshare premium account going by the large number of blog contests with a rapidshare premium account as the prize. Hence I am taking a break from normal blog posts about blogging and writing some tips that you can use to get a rapidshre premium account for free.

Google Alert for rapidshare premium account

From time to time bloggers post a free rapidshare premium account username and password to attract new users to the blog. You can see the blog posts about free rapidshare premium accounts through google blog search. However most of the time the account would be useless by the time google picks it up. You can solve this by creating a google alert for ‘rapidshare premium’. This way you will get alerted as soon as anyone makes a post about rapidshare premium account.

Get a free rapidshare premium account by accumulating rapid points

You should consider creating a free rapidshare account. Then upload some interesting videos and share it with friends and blog readers. You earn rapid points for every download from your rapidshare account. Once you have enough rapid points, they shall give you a rapidshare premium account for free.

Advantages of a rapidshare premium account

If you have been wondering why the hell you need a premium account, then let me tell you that rapidshare has some real luxury for its premium customers including unlimited parallel downloads, unlimited upload space, fast connection speed among others.

How do you manage to find free rapidshare premium accounts?

Just imagine what will happen to your blogging dreams if your adsense account were to be banned. Well looks like if you are not careful enough any one can do that to you. 

I was having a chat with Pavan about whether use of adsense on my sample resumes website will result in a smart pricing. That is when it just dawned on me that if that is true then I can use anyone else’s adsense publisher details on that website and get his account to be smart priced. I am not that evil but still that is a possibility. Worse still, I can setup a p*o*r*n website and put up your adsense block in it and get you banned.

You can protect your adsense account from such evil people

Google adsense has a feature that allows you to control the websites on which your adsense can be displayed. Make use of that feature right now to protect yourself against any misuse.

Simply go to “adsense setup” tab and then the “allowed websites” subtab. Under the “choose your site settings” there are 2 radio buttons. Select the 2nd radio button and list down the websites where you want to display your adsense advertisements. Take care not to include any http or www prefix before website name. So I shall enter binaryday.com and mywalkin.com into that box.

Screenshot of how to enable the feature

If you have been blogging for sometime and especially if you have been reading some seo blogs, then I am sure that you have heard of the term “Long Tail”. Before I proceed with this post, I will let you on one secret. I can almost guarantee that you can take your blog to at least 1000$ per month by followin the advice listed on this one post alone. Hence even if this is the only post of mine that you are going to read, so be it. But read it very very carefully.

This is going to be a long post. I shall be discussing the following topics in it.

1. What gives me so much confidence that my advice can be used to easily take any blog to 1000$ pm earning
2. What is long tail of search
3. Why is it easy to succeed by targetting the long tail?
4. The steps to succeeding with the long tail
   • Setting up the blog
   • Identifying long tail keywords
   • Writing a post targetted to long tail keywords
   • Monetizing the long tail
   • A strategy that will increase your chances of success
5. Improving the performance of the blog post

What gives me so much confidence that my advice can be used to easily take any blog to 1000$ pm earning

I have talked about many seo topics and monetization tricks previously. However I doubt if I have ever sounded as confident as this blog post. It is quite simple though. I am confident because I have done it myself. If you have been reading my blog for sometime, then I am sure that you must have been irritated by my posts about Ron Pratte, Intel core 2 duo and dual core, Catherine Gomez Boxxy, How to format USB drives etc. The fact all those posts as well as my recent posts about Abraham Biggs Suicide Video, Melissa Huckaby and IPL 2009 are all part of my experimentation of getting traffic by taking advantage of the long tail of search. And I have been successful at it beyond my imagination to say the least.

So what exactly is the long tail of search

Many of you must have heard of the 80-20 principle. It basically says that 20% of your customers/product bring in 80% of your sales. 80-20 is the basic rinciple that every large organization runs on. You see if I am a large book store then I need to concentrate on 20% of the titles that bring in 80% of my sales.

The concept of long tail was made popular by Chris Anderson in an article in the Wired magazine. The basic premise is quite simple. The remaining 80% will be good enough for you if your cost of production is low. I will not get into theoretical detail as this is not a post about long tail but rather about how to attract traffic to your blog using this strategy of targetting the long tail.

Why is it easy to succeed by targetting the long tail?

The basic premise of this strategy is quite simple. If I have a new blog, I will find it very difficult to compete with more established blogs for a given keyword. Think of a new blog trying to compete with Digital Inspiration on a technology related blog. It does not matter how great a post you have about twitter, Amit’s post about he forgetting his twitter password will outrank you on Google in all probability. So what do I do?

There are 2 types of blog posts that you can write to take advantage of the long tail.

1. A detailed post about a very specific topic that target search terms with 3 or more keywords. So since I can not compete with existing websites on the keyword virus, usb or virus usb I write a blog post titled how to remove virus from usb and  Everything you may need to know about how to fix errors in USB Flash drives and how to Format USB Flash. Those long titles are there to target search terms that are 3 or 4 words long.
2. A post about a topic that established websites have not already written about: Google gets to see around 30% of search terms for the first time on a given day. Many of those are search terms that have become popular only recently. Typically these are news items. However do not write about news items that are going to get coverage from big websites. Rather focus on smaller issues like Melissa Huckaby and  Princess Kemeria Abajobir Abajifar that are going to have a decent amount of interest and not mch competition.

The steps to succeeding with the long tail

The idea of this blog post is not to tell you that you can succeed by focusing on the long tail. Rather I am going to reveal my secret of getting traffic and money by focusing on long tail. I strongly believe that all the steps that I list down below are essential for succeeding with the long tail strategy.

Timing is the most important aspect of success: We shall be removing competition from established websites and blogs by using this strategy. However keep in mind that you still have to compete with 1000s of other blogs for your success. That makes it quite important that you are amongst the first few guys to write about a topic, especially if you are targetting the hot words for your traffic.

Setting up the blog: When I say timing is important, it is not the time of you publishing the post. Since we shall be focusing on Google to get much of this traffic, it is actually the time when Google finally indexes your blog posts. A well designed wordpress theme with some essential plugins like sitemap plugin, all-in-seo plugin will normally do the trick. However to get the maximum benefit your theme must take care of many other issues including avoiding duplicate content issue, ensuring good internal linking etc. Do not worry if you are not too good at SEO. I am working on a wordpress theme that will take care of all these issues. But it will be available to the members of my how to make money with blogging ecourse. The course is absolutely free. So go ahead and signup with your email id alone.

Identifying long tail keywords

I think this is the single most important trick to succeeding with the long tail strategy is to find out keywords that have decent amount of traffic and not much competition. The simplest way to do this is to monitor google trends. Just go through that page and you will find 100 keywords that you can blog about. You can even target country specific google trend pages. However if you read that last line carefully, you will realize that I said Google trends is the simplest method and not the only method. Some other tricks that I use to find hot keywords includes analyzing submissions to social sites like digg, propeller, indianpad etc and Predicting what keywords will go hot on google trends in 2-3 days hence by going through event calendars like movie schedule, movie releases, valentines day, bloggers’ meet etc. Keywords identified by above methods are not targetted by many other sites. Hence you may use the above tricks to find superior result.

Another method to find long tail keywords is to use google adwords keyword tool. Let us say you want to do a post about seo. Enter the keyword in this tool and it will throw up a large number of terms related to seo. Depending on the level of competition for the keyword, you may choose a particular topic to create your blog post.

Find out low competition terms: It is not enough to identify terms that will have a lot of searches. You need to identify terms on which there is comparatively less competition to worry about. And the number of search results is not an indication of competition. Rather use the methods suggested by me to find out the level of competion for a keyword.

Writing a post targetted to long tail keywords: Ranking on Google is decided based on 2 types of factors off-page factor and on-page factor. Off-page factors include backlinks to your blog, age of your blog etc. While on-page factors include stuff that is on your page like keyword usage, formatting of your post etc. If you have a comparatively new blog you will have a disadvantage in the off-page factor. Hence it becomes extremely important that you make the most of the on-page seo factors. I have covered this topic in depth in my post titled The best way to use keywords on blog post for maximum impact.

Some exclusive tips to increase chances of success dramatically

1. It is difficult to get links to a blog targetting long-tail keywords. Start your blog on some other topic like make money online or technology, get good number of links and then migrate to long tail keywords.
2. Alternatively you may mix these posts with some other linkable topics like I do.
3. Read my Beginners guide to building free backlinks to get free backlinks
4. Hire me as a consultant to kick start your blog. On a serious note I am ready to work on other blogs on a revenue sharing basis.
5. Avoid the issue of duplicate content by all cost. Never user ctrl+c and ctrl+v. Read others’ posts and then rewrite them in your own english. Do not reproduce the entire post
6. Make use of images on your posts.

Finally become a member of my how to make money with blogging ecourse. The course is absolutely free. So go ahead and signup with your email id alone. Trust me I shall be revealing at least 3 more secret tips about how to find super hot long tail keywords in the ecourse.

If you found this blog post then please help me reach more people with a digg/ stumble/ twit or link from your blog

The dreaded com surrogate has stopped error

Microsoft windows may be the most popular operating system in the world. But it is notorious for its vulnerability to virus attacks and several bugs that can cause error in most basic functions of a computer. Com surrogate has stopped  is one of the stupid bugs that can drive you crazy. As usual the help message from microsoft makes things worse rather than better.

What is com surrogate?

Com surrogate is one of the many dll files present in windows. The com surrogate dll extension is used by the OS while playing a video file. For those who do not know what a dll is, it is a software component that an application links to at the run time. My sense is plugins in wordpress will be a similar concept.  

What is com surrogate error?

The com surrogate error occurs when the video player tries to use a codec that is not compatible with vista. In such a case the com surrogate dll extension closes down while Vista tries to bring up the first frame of the video player. That results in the com surrogate error which in turn brings up the dreaded message of com surrogate has stopped error message.

How to fix com surrogate stopped error in Vista?

Microsoft makes all small problem look too complex by using its trademark cryptic message. The last I was faced with this issue, I tried a simple google search for com surrogate. The solution is quite simple. Check video related programmes like DivX and Nero. Upgrading them to latest version normally solves the com surrogate error. Else remove your existing codec files and reinstall newly downloaded codec files to get rid of this issue.

Why do I get the dreaded “NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart” error?

At boot-up, the BIOS of your computer tries to locate the primary hard drive’s active partition to read the first sector for the Master Boot Record and uses that info to load the rest of the Operating System.  In the earlier versions of Windows i.e Windows NT /Windows 2000 and Windows XP the MBR is pointed to the NTLDR or New Technology Loader.  The “NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart” error can occur for a variety of reasons including when the BIOS didn’t look for the right drive, didn’t find the MBR, or the MBR didn’t list NTLDR in the right place or  the location of NTLDR changed.

But Windows Vista does not use NTLDR

That is right. Windows Vista does not use NTLDR. Then why does Vista throw up the NTLDR missing error? According to the official microsoft site the NTLDR missing in Vista error can occur only if you have migrated from an earlier version of windows to Vista that too only when you have used some imaging software to install the earlier windows version.

How to fix NTLDR missing error in Vista

The official microsoft support center talks about the correct method for fixing this issue as well. The process mentioned on this page is quite self explanatory. Let me know if you have any doubts about the NTLDR is missing error and I shall help you out. BTW you may also like to read my explanation of difference between intel core2duo and dual core processors and how to format USB flash drive.

You will never have to search for a wordpress plugin again. All that you need to do is bookmark this page. That is a promise.In this post I shall be listing most useful plugins that will help you in

1. Search Engine Optimization (8)
2. Effective Internal Linking (3)
3. Commenting (Including spam protection) (8)
4. Social Media Marketing (Digg, stumbleupon, plain email) (6)
5. Caching (1)
6. Navigation (3)
7. Advertisement and Monetization (6)

Wordpress plugins for Search Engine Optimization

• Google XML Sitemaps: Slap yourself and slap hard if you do not have it already. The plugin creates a sitemap for your blog and keeps updating it automatically everytime you make a new post. Super useful plugin that needs to be installed immediately.
• Sitemap Generator: Highly useful for effectively passing link-juice to the important blog-posts. It produces an html sitemap for your blog that your human visitors can see. You can see it in action here. It provides you with the ability to group your posts into categories, choose which posts to show in the sitemap and which ones to hide. Use the plugin to list your most important posts and then build significant links (internal and external) to this page.
• Canonical URL Plugin: Makes use of the canonical tag feature supported by Google, yahoo and msn and thereby avoids the dreaded duplicate content issue. A must have plugin right in the category of Sitemap generator and All in one SEO Pack.
• All in One SEO Pack: A super useful and most popular wordpress plugin. Automatically optimizes the title,meta description and meta keywords for your post. Allows you to customize them if you want.
• Platinum SEO Pack Similar to the All in One SEO Pack. However some bloggers seem to prefer this one
• Ultimate Tag Warrior : Tags are extremely helpful for targetting long-tail keywords. I know keywords in the title are important. However I can not write a title as “wordpress plugins for seo | wordpress plugins for comment management | …………..” even though I want this post to rank for all those keywords. The best solution is then to add those keywords as separate tags and then I shall have one url pointing to this page with title wordpress plugins for seo and another url with title wordpress plugins for comment management.
• Plugin to solve canonical url issue : Google treats http://binaryday.com, http://www.binaryday.com, http://binaryday.com/index.php and http://www.binaryday.com/index.php as 4 different urls !!!!!!! This splits the external link juice amongst the urls and creates problem of duplicate content. The www-preference (linked above) solves the issue by doing a 301 redirect of all 4 urls to a single url.
• Permalink Migration plugin : Permalink structure determines the format of url for individual posts. The structure of your permalink has significant impact on seo. The problem is if you change your permalink structure then old bookmarks and external links will stop working. This plugin solves the problem and allows you to optimize your permalink structure for best seo result.
• Search Meter : Your blog is the best place to conduct keyword research. It tells you what are the keywords yours users are searching for so that you can create content that satisfies their need.
• SEO Friendly Images: More people search for images than you think. Image search has become even important after Google’s universal search roll out put image into standard Google SERP. It is common knowledge that having good alt and title tag helps a lot in image search. The seo friendly images plugin will autmatically assign an alt and title tag in situations where you have forgotten to put one.

Wordpress plugins for Effective Internal Linking

Internal linking is very often the most neglected SEO aspect. Considering that this is the single most important reason for wikipedia pages ranking so high, I am surprised that not many bloggers use it. Effective internal linking keeps your olders posts fresh on google index and builds new links to them, thereby protecting flow of traffic to them.

• Yet another related posts plugin Shows related posts at the bottom of each post. Increases number of pageviews per user.
• Show your best work to visitor: It calculates popularity based on pageviews, comments and trackbacks. Helps you display the most popular posts to visitors thereby increasing the probability of them getting impressed and subscribing/ linking to you.
• Internal Linking: The plugin lists the most widely used words and against them you can specify a url to link to. Then whenever you use any of those words, it automatically inserts a link to the relevant post. Great for keeping content fresh in Google-cache.

Wordpress plugins for better Commenting and spam protection

• Akismet: You can not allow commenting on your blog without installing this plugin.
• CommentLuv This plugin shows a link to the latest blog post of the commentator. Definite encouragement for other bloggers to leave a comment on your blog especially if your blog gets decent traffic.
• Top Commentators widget Shows the top commentators of your blog. You can select the duration over which the top commentator is calculated. Avoid the temptation to set it to 1 day as then only spammers will show up. If you set the time period to 7 days or a month, regular commentators on your blog get a free link from you.
• Show an email to first time commentator : It does exactly what it says i.e sends an email to the first time commentator on your blog.
• Most recent comments Displays the recent comments on your sidebar. Keeps the discussion alive by getting attention to posts where discussion is going on.
• subscribe to comments plugin lets a user know when someone has replied to a comment that she has posted. Works like a charm in getting some passionate discussion going.
• Nested comments is a great way to keep different threads of discussion among the users separate. Not necessary for smaller blogs with less than 10 comments per post though.
• comment highlighter allows you to make the comments by the author stand out by highlighting the same in a different color.

Wordpress plugins for Social Media and plugins to help your blog go viral

If you have a relatively new blog, then you will do well to focus more on social media sites like Digg and Stumbleupon, rather than waiting for google to start showing you some love. Social media tends to treat each individual post on its merit. Hence if you can write good and interesting topic then you can attract traffic.

• Addthis : This is one of the few plugins that I use on Binaryday. Adds a button to the post. As the users clicks on the button, it opens a page with large number of social media sites links. Keeps your site clutter free while providing the user an option to add your site to any social media he likes.
• diggZ-Et : It puts the familiar digg button on your posts. Works like a good reminder to your visitors to digg up your post. Hope you will remember to digg this post by seeing that big digg button at the bottom of this post.
• Stumble-It : Puts a stumble button at the bottom of your post. Great for reminding users to stumble you.
• Stumbleupon for wordpress : It allows users to read more similar posts from your blog. Really helpful at increasing pageviews/user.
• WordTwit: Highly useful plugin for publicising your blog on twitter. It automatically pushes your published post to your twitter account.
• email this: Allows users to email your post to their friends. You will be surprised by how useful it can be.

Wordpress plugin for efficient caching

If you have done the above steps (SEO, internal linking and social media marketing) correctly then there is a good chance that your server will be having tough time serving up your blog to the massive traffic that is flowing in. Wp-Super-Cache reduces the load on your server by caching your blog pages and then serving static html pages to subsequent users.

Wordpress plugins for Better Navigation

• Pagination Plugin : Display clear and beautiful links to the inner pages of your blog. Offers the ability to style the page bar according to your choice with little bit of coding.
• Horizontal Dropdown Menu : This is not a plugin. Rather this is a code sample explaining how to create a magazine style horizontal menu. I could not find a good plugin for this functionality. If you hate coding, here is a plugin. But then the fact is the demo looks little messy.
• Sticky Post : Adds a sticky post feature to your blog.

Wordpress plugins for Advertisement and Monetization

• All in One Adsense and YPN and adsense deluxe allow you to insert adsense ads into your blog post. Can help in increasing CTR significantly.
• AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System enables you to share revenue with blog authors
• Now Reading Display books from amazon and earn commisson
• Paypal Donate Add a link to your paypal account so users can tip you
• chitika plugin helps you integrate chitika ads to your blog.

Wordpress plugins for Everything else

• Contact Commentators : It allows you to contact the previous commentators on your blog. You can now thank your new commenters for their comment, appreciate long term active commenters for their continued support, inform all commenters about new services, send greetings on special occasions or events, analyze the commenters’ contribution etc
• Wp-Security-Scan It scans your wordpress installation for security vulnerabilities like 777 file permission and offers corrective measures
• Wp-DB-Manager: Automates the backup, repair and all other admin functionalities related to wp database.

USB Drives, Flash Drives, Pen Drives or USB Flash drives are one and the same thing. These are one of the most popular and useful medium to carry content around. I may be on the extreme end, but I carry most my most useful code on my USB Drive. So few days back, when I my Flash drive was infected with virus, I was really worried. Though finally I managed to delete the virus from the USB drive.

Make sure to remove read only from USB drive USB drives are popular because of the ease of writing on it. As I was going through the forum posts about issues faced with USB drives, I was surprised to see many users facing issue simpl because they had not removed the write-protect on their USB drive. You may not have write protect button on your Flash drive. Ignore the above then

Always keep a back up of the data present on the USB Flash drive
Threat of loss of data due to some corruption of memory is real. Sometimes files present on the USB flash drive, simply refuse to open. It is always a good idea to have a back up copy of data present on the pen drive.

Never remove the USB drive while data transfer is on
Remove the pen drive only after stopping it properly. Go to ‘Safely remove hardware’ (green arrow icon art bottom right corner), stop the usb drive and remove it only when it says it is safe to remove it.

If a file is not opening, transfer another copy of the file with a different name
When you transfer the same file with the same name the file may get stored in the same physical location and the problem may persist. Many a times transferring the file after renaming it helps.

The nuclear bomb: format USB drive
Never use formatting your USB drive as the first option. You will loose all your files and too many formats may reduce the life of the USB flash drive. Think of formatting as the nuclear option, use it only when everything else has failed.

Avoid quick format of USB drive
quick format gives rise to more problems than it solves. At least that is my personal experience. Avoid the temptation to do a fast quick format and go for the detailed option.

How to format USB drives?
The required software to format USB drives is generally present on the CD accompanying it. If you have misplaced the CD then simply google for it. You will find it on the support website for the manufacturer of the USB drive.

Intel core 2 duo, Intel dual core and Intel Pentium D are the 3 type of processors from the chip maker intel. However not many people are sure about the exact difference between the 3.

The confusion of Intel core 2 duo, Intel dual core and Intel Pentium D

The confusion between Intel core 2 duo and Intel dual core primarily resulted from a stupid naming convention by Intel. 2 and dual may be synonyms in English but that does not make Intel core 2 duo vs Intel dual core any more similar. The similarity of names makes even many computer geeks confused when asked to do a comparison of Intel core 2 duo and Intel dual core.

Intel Pentium D CPU comprises of two dies, each containing a single core residing next to each other on a multi-chip module package. The Pentium D consumes a relatively high power. It runs very hot and is not a good OverClocker.

Intel Dual Core is the first dual-core CPU from Intel. The Dual core makes use of two cores on a single die i.e it has two chips in one package. It solves the problem of overheating of Intel Pentium D without compromising on the performance.

Intel Core 2 Duo processors are the next gen processors from Intel. It is developed with a new Architecture called Core. The new architecture of Intel core2 duo makes it a lot better processor that runs cool. Most importantly the Intel core2 duo is a super over clocker.

I hope the comparison between Intel core2 duo and Intel dual core has made the decission of choosing a better processor for your laptop comparatively easier. Let me know if you still have any concerns in the comments and I shall answer them after more research.

How to remove usb virus

I was faced with the problem of how to remove virus from usb drive recently. Normally I would have taken the nuclear option i.e format the USB drive to remove the virus. Unfortunately I had the entire source code for my blog ranking project on the pen-drive before it got infected by the virus. That meant I had to show restraint and deal with the issue in a diplomatic manner.

Anti-virus software failed to delete virus from USB Drive

One run of the anti-virus software and the virus will be history is what I thought. However removing the virus from the USB drive proved to be a lot more difficult task than I had initially guessed. I was left scratching my head for sometime. Why the hell did the USB drive continue to be infected by the virus?Frustrated I consulted my best friend ….Google. Well I had overlooked a simple concept. The virus had made itself read-only. No wonder the poor anti-virus software was identifying it but failed to remove the virus.

To remove the virus from usb drive you need to

1. Go to Start—-Run. Type cmd and hit enter. This will bring up the command prompt.
2. Type the drive name of the USB drive and hit enter.
3. In command prompt type attrib -r -a -s -h *.* and press enter. This will remove the Read Only, Archive, System and hidden file attribute from all the files.
4. Now just delete the files using the command del filename

That’s it. The virus has been removed from the USB drive.