Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Online Stores Offering Big Discounts Today (12.12.12)

All the popular shopping websites in India – from Flipkart to Infibeam to IndiaTimes – will offer discounts and deals during the next 24 hours.


Shopping Websites in India

The concept of Black Friday or Cyber Monday is virtually unknown here in India but Google is trying something similar with the launch of GOSF, or the Great Online Shopping Festival, that will begin in the next hour (12/12/12).

Google India has partnered with most of the popular online shopping websites in India – from Flipkart to MakeMyTrip to FirstCry – and all these stores will offer discounts, cash-backs and other deals during the 24-hour period.

The list of partnering sites is long but here’s a quick glimpse of what some of them plan to offer.

  • IndiaTimes Shopping is offering a 12% discount on every item listed on their website if you use the coupon code GOSF12.

  • At Flipkart, you get flat 25% off on all clothing brands.

  • Shop for Rs 1999 or more and get 10% off across all products on Infibeam with the promo code ILOVEDISCOUNTS.

  • BabyOye.com and FirstCry.com are offering a flat 15% discount on all products with coupon codes BOFLAT15 and FC121212 respectively.

  • GoIbibo.com offers Rs 600 off on all domestic flight bookings with the coupon code GF600 while ClearTrip offers Rs 1212 cashback with the coupon code CLEAR1212.

  • Myntra.com offers flat 20% discount on their entire catalog with the coupon code GOSF.

  • eBay India offers up to 24% discount on Nokia Lumia and Samsung Galaxy series of mobile phones including the Note II tablet.

  • Zovi will offer 25% off on all footwear products with the coupon code C121212.


All the deals will be valid only on 12/12/12.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

How to Download All Your Data From Facebook

Facebook has added a new download button in your account that will help you move all your data out of Facebook as a zip file. It will have all your photos, videos, status messages, events and everything else that you may have ever uploaded to Facebook.

The process, as demonstrated in the following video, is extremely simple. Just go to your Account Settings page and click the “Download Your Information” link.

How to download the “missing pieces”


If you have been staying away from Facebook all this while because it was a one-way street, now is a good time to reconsider that decision because the data lock-in problem has been solved.

There are however some things that you won’t find in the zip file. These include:

1. Your photos uploaded by other people

Facebook lets you download stuff that you have uploaded but if there are pictures of you on Facebook that were uploaded by your friends, they won’t be available in the zip.

In that case, you should use Fotobounce, an excellent app that can download all the photos where you were tagged with a click. Fotobounce is available on both Mac and Windows.

2. Facebook Phonebook

Facebook provides a neatly formatted phonebook with contact numbers all your friends who have shared them on Facebook. You will miss this data in the exported zip but there’s a workaround. Later, you can import this file into Excel or Google Docs, strip the unnecessary text and you again have a nice list of names alongwith phone numbers.

Update: Sorry but Facebook seems to have removed the phone book page recently.

3. Email Addresses of Friends

This I think is another important piece that you’ll miss in the exported data – email addresses of your existing Facebook contacts. If you move to another social site, how do you invite your existing network to the new place when you don’t have their email addresses.

Facebook doesn’t offer a way for you to export contacts but you can use this trick to get all the email addresses out of Facebook without breaking any rules. Connect your Facebook account with your Yahoo! Address Book and you’ll get the data you are looking for.

How To Protect Your Files And Folders using Password

Do you have files and folders on your computer that you absolutely don’t want anyone else to see? Or do you even carry important documents on those easy-to-misplace USB drives?

If the answer is yes, you should download a copy of SafeHouse Explorer – it’s a free and easy-to-use file encryption utility that will hide all your private files from prying eyes in few easy steps. You may use the tool to password protect files that are residing on your computer’s internal hard disk or even on external USB drives.

Tutorial: Encrypt and Password Protect your Files and Folders


SafeHouse Explorer, in simple English, works something like this. It creates a hidden storage area on your disk to hold all the files that you want to protect. These files and folders are hidden from normal view and will only become visible when you enter the correct password.

Here’s a more detailed tutorial on how you can protect your files with SafeHouse Explorer.

Step 1: Download and install the SafeHouse Explorer program to your hard-drive

The software works with XP, Vista and Windows 7 (both 32 and 64-bit editions). It is also portable so you may run it directly without installation.

Step 2: Once the installation is complete, click the “New Volume” button to create your hidden storage that will house your various files and folders.

You may either create one large volume to store all the “private” files or you can create multiple smaller-size volumes each corresponding to the type of files that they’ll store. For instance, you may have one volume for storing confidential documents and spreadsheets while another one could be for hiding those “personal” pictures and so on.



For step 2b, choose a volume size based on the size of the folders that you’ll be storing inside that volume. The “Pre-initialize Volume with Random Data” basically means that your virtual drive will be filled with random data if there aren’t enough files to fill complete that volume. Use the default “on” setting.

Step 3. Now that your volume is created, open Windows Explorer (Win+E) and you’ll see a new “virtual drive” under My Computer. Just drag and drop any of your folders and files into this virtual drive and they’ll instantly get protected using encryption.

Once you have added all the files to the “protected” volume, make sure you delete them from the original location as the original copy is unencrypted and therefore anyone can open it without requiring a password.

Step 4. Switch to SafeHouse Explorer and choose File – > Close Volume to lock up the files. Congratulations. You have successfully created your first encrypted and password-protected folder on your computer that you can only access after typing the correct password.

access protected files

To access your protected files, simply navigate to the folder that houses your SafeHouse volumes and double-click the corresponding volume file to open it. Type the password and you should see all the files and folders under a virtual drive in Windows Explorer again.

Encryption is obviously a complex subject for most of us but what you’ll really like about SafeHouse Explorer is that it hides all the technical details from the end user.

Encrypt your USB Flash Drive and Email Attachments


The tool will also be extremely handy for people who carry around important and confidential files on USB drives and external hard disks.

Instead of copying files and folders to your external disk directly, first encrypt these files on the hard-drive (as explained above) and then copy the encrypted volume (the .sksk file) to your external disk. Now even if the drive gets misplaced, the finder won’t be able to read any of your files and, since the software uses 256-bit encryption, it will be nearly impossible for anyone to crack your password.

Similarly, you can add an extra layer of protection to your sensitive email attachments with SafeHouse. Encrypt the files, send them as email attachments and communicate the password to the recipient over another medium (like phone).

Saturday, December 8, 2012

How to Save Money on Stock Photos



If you need some high quality images around a particular theme for your design project, be it web or print, there are dozens of stock photography sites out there that may just have what your looking for.
Stock PhotosResearch stock photos on Google Images before hitting the buy button!


Tips for Buying Stock Photos


That said, stock images can be a little expensive so you may want to do a little research before shelling out your hard-earned money on these images. Here are some tips:

Tip 1: Before finalizing any stock photo for your design project, always ensure that the  image is not overused. You can easily determine this with the help of Google Images.

First download the thumbnail image from the stock photography website and upload it to images.google.com. Hit the Search button and then click “More Sizes.” If you get too many results (as in the screenshot above), the selected graphic is too popular on the web and you may want to pick a different photograph.

Tip 2: Some stock photographers may choose to sell their images on multiple websites but the pricing will often vary across  these different sites. There aren’t any “functional” price comparison sites for stock photographs but you can use Google again to discover stock websites that offer the best deal on a particular photograph.

First copy the extract description of the image from the stock photography website and paste it into Google – put it in quotes for an exact match. Also, add the word “stock” to your search query to limit your search results to stock photography websites. Now select the “Sites with images” option under “More Search Tools” (see next screenshot) to quickly know if the underlying stock website offers the same image or not.

Now you can visit each of these matching sites to see if any of them offer better deals.
Google Sites with ImagesFind if an image is available on other stock photography websites?


Friday, December 7, 2012

How to Sign-up for Google Apps for Free

Google Apps is no longer free. If you wish to have a branded email address that reads like myname@mydomain.com instead of myname@gmail.com, you will have to subscribe to the Business edition of Google Apps and that will cost you at least $50 per year.

You have options though. You can either configure your web domain with Outlook.com (for personalized email addresses) or, if you prefer the Gmail interface over Outlook, you can use the Mail Fetcher option inside Gmail to manage your Outlook emails from within Gmail.
Google Apps Free You can still sign-up for Google Apps for Free using the App Engine route.

How to Get the Free Edition of Google Apps


Alternatively, here’s a quick and simple workaround that will still let you sign-up for the free edition of Google Apps even though Google has officially retired the free edition – all you need is a free Gmail or Google account.

  1. Go to appengine.google.com, sign-in with your Google Account and create a new Application. You may fill in any dummy date and click the “Create Application” button.

  2. Open the “Dashboard” and on the next screen, click the link that says “Application Settings.”

  3. Scroll down a little and choose “Add Domain” to associate a domain with your App Engine application.

  4. That’s it. Now you should see a special link* to sign-up for the free edition of Google Apps. You may either use your existing domain or buy one through Google Apps.


[*] You have to access this link through App Engine as Google Apps checks the HTTP Referrer information before serving up the sign-up page for the free edition of Google Apps.

Also, the Google App Engine website says that you only get a single-user Google Apps account when you sign-up through App Engine but in my testing, I could create additional users as well inside Google Apps.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

The 25 Super Best Wordpress Plugins Ever

The year is coming to a close, and if 2012 has taught us anything, it’s that WordPress is still the most widely used free, open source content management system (CMS) out there.

While the extensive adoption of the platform obviously benefits users, as it means there are going to be more developers creating plugins and designing themes that WordPress users can employ to spruce up their blogs or websites (in both appearance and functionality), it also presents a bit of a nagging problem. The issue is that there are so many options to select from, which makes it very difficult to differentiate the good from the bad.

Luckily for you, Website Magazine editors recently compiled a list of the 25 best WordPress plugins for websites of all shapes and sizes, just in time for the new year. However, if there's a plugin we may have missed, or you disagree with a selection, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Jetpack
If you want to get your hands on one of the best WordPress plugins around, why wouldn’t you want one developed by the creators of the platform? Well, Jetpack is just that, a plugin that is meant to expand the capabilities of your site by harnessing the cloud power of WordPress.com. There are a number of great features you can utilize, including displaying site analytics, creating photo galleries and even spell checking your copy, among many others.

Disqus
Don’t let the punny title fool you, Disqus is one of the best comment systems available. The tool allows users to add comment functionality to their site/pages, giving visitors an opportunity to engage with the content (and the brand). Those interested in building a community of users on their sites should get Disqus ASAP.

Social Toolbar
Social media has become a necessity for most Web professionals, so it’s more likely than not that you’re on at least one (and probably more) social networks. Why not show off your social prowess with Social Toolbar, a plugin that places a toolbar at the bottom of your blog/site to display links to all of your social network profiles. But that’s not all it does; additional features including sharing buttons, a full display of your latest tweets and more.

WP Google Fonts
A big part of having a sleek design for your blog or website means utilizing cool, appropriate fonts that really invoke the spirit of your brand. Unfortunately, most generic font packs are limited in what they offer. That’s why you should download WP Google Fonts, which allows users to easily incorporate a slew of new fonts from the Google Font Directory into your WordPress theme.

WPtouch
Mobile is hot, and any successful Web strategy must include a mobile-optimized site. For WordPress users, the fastest and simplest way to accomplish this is by using the WPtouch plugin, which will serve up mobile visitors a different theme. This comes complete with a new device-optimized and user-friendly version of your content.

Gravity Forms
One of the most important aspects of working on the Web is gathering consumer data to use in the future, and the best way to go about doing that is by using forms. The Gravity Forms plugin is able to create any kind of form you may need in a flash, regardless of its complexity. This can include email signup forms or extensive applications.

WordPress SEO
Look, even with all of this social media hullabaloo, SEO is still one of the most important practices that a site owner can conduct to increase his or her audience and generate more revenue. WordPress SEO from Yoast is one of the better plugins for search engine optimization, featuring XML sitemaps, customizable title and meta description options, RSS optimization and social media optimization – and that’s just for starters!

W3 Total Cache
Want to make your WordPress site run up to 10 times faster? Check out W3 Total Cache, a powerful plugin that caches every single element of your site, so readers can read your post in no time. Use this plugin to reduce download times and provide transparent CDN integration.

NextGEN Gallery
Everyone loves images, and the more you can (appropriately) add to your site or blog, the more likely you are to drive traffic and interest users. So why not add this fully integrated image gallery plugin? It is absolutely chock-full of features, which offer a lot of flexibility in creating gallery content, such as the ability to add watermarks to images, create slideshows, use different display themes and organize pictures into albums, among many others.

Digg Digg
As aforementioned, social media plays a big role in Web success these days, and accruing Likes or +1s (or other social seals of approval) on your content is a great way to get it (and your brand) noticed. Use the Digg Digg plugin to integrate the most popular social buttons into your WordPress site, which can be configured to display in various locations.

All in One SEO Pack
The All in One SEO Pack is the most comprehensive search engine optimization plugin available for WordPress users and remains one of the platforms most downloaded plugins ever for a good reason. It’s especially useful for new users or those who aren’t terribly familiar with coding. In includes Google Analytics support, as well as other features like custom post types, canonical URLs, automatically generated meta tags and much more.

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator for WordPress
Create a fully customizable sitemap for your WordPress website with this plugin from Dagon Design, which gives users multilevel categories, pages and permalinks support. You’ll be able to choose which links you want to display, the order their shown in, comment counts and post dates to make your site more searchable for, uh, search engines.

WP e-Commerce
This is one of the most popular and easy-to-use e-commerce platforms available for WordPress sites. WP e-Commerce offers a 100 percent customizable experience with easily modified templates, in addition to community support, integration with multiple payment gateways (including PayPal, Authorize.net and Google Checkout), various marketing and SEO features, checkout capabilities with SSL security and the ability to manage orders and shipping from within the plugin. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. To say this plugin is “feature rich” is a massive understatement.

Sociable
Make your content more social with Sociable, which will automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and RSS feeds.

Google Analytics for WordPress
Google Analytics is the widely adopted, fully featured analytics platform from one of the Web’s leading companies, so it makes sense that it would eventually be turned into a plugin for WordPress users. With this plugin, you can easily track your WordPress site or blog and use a lot of fancy custom variables to track the metadata on your pages, such as author, single or multiple categories, post type, publication year, tags and more.

FeedBurner FeedSmith
Have a bunch of different RSS subscribers that you don’t know how to manage? Never fear! Just use FeedBurner FeedSmith to detect all of the possible methods through which users can access your original WordPress RSS feeds, and then redirect them back to your FeedBurner FeedSmith feed to track every single subscriber.

Akismet
If building a community is an important part of your Web strategy, you no doubt allow your visitors to comment on and discuss your content. Unfortunately, as your traffic increases, so will the amount of comment and trackback spam you receive. Luckily, this popular plugin from Automattic checks comments and trackbacks against the Akismet Web service, and if they’re found to be spam, they’ll automatically be moved into your WordPress installation’s spam folder. You’ll never have to get your hands dirty.

Google XML Sitemaps
Google just does it all, doesn’t it? With this plugin, you can generate an XML sitemap that will help search engines – and not just Google, but Bing, Yahoo and others – better index your WordPress website, which means crawlers can see all of your site and retrieve data from it much more quickly and efficiently.

WP-DBManager
You’re probably well aware of the delicate nature of working with digital content, likely because some mishap or other in the past has led you to lose a substantial amount of work before you were able to back it up. Don’t let that happen with your website or blog; instead, download the WP-DPManager plugin that allows you to optimize, repair, backup and restore your database. You can also delete backed up content, drop/empty tables and run selected queries. WP-DPManager even supports automated backups, optimization and repairs.

Contact Form 7
This simple, yet flexible contact form plugin allows users to manage multiple contact forms. Also, they can customize their forms and mail content by using some simple markup. Contact Form 7 also supports various security enhancements, including Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA and Akismet spam filtering.

Editorial Calendar
Managing a blog can be a hassle, but never again with the Editorial Calendar plugin that lets users see all of their scheduled posts and when they’ll be posted and offers drag-and-drop functionality to change post dates, draft management, quick edits of post titles,  content and times and the ability to manage posts from multiple authors.

All in One Favicon
Website owners and bloggers can easily add a favicon (the small icons next to the URL in the address bar, the page name in a browser tab and/or the page’s name in a bookmark list) to their websites and WordPress admin pages. The All in One Favicon plugin offers complete upload functionality and supports all three favicon types, ico, .png and .gif, which can even be animated.

WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the best e-commerce platforms for WordPress users, allowing users to turn their websites into fully functional, highly customizable online stores that deliver enterprise-level quality and feature. This includes a PayPal standard gateway, Mijireh checkout, free and flat rate shipping functionality, Google Analytics and international and local shipping and local pickup, among many others.

ShareThis
This social media plugin enables WordPress users to seamlessly allow visitors to share the site or blog’s content on up to 120 different social channels, including email, Facebok, Twitter, Google+ and more. With ShareThis, users can do more to engage their audiences and increase traffic. Plus, the plugin features customization functionality that means it can be seamlessly integrated into a user’s site.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
YARPP may be just "another related posts plugin," but its also the best. It provides a site or blog’s visitors with a list of posts and/or pages that are related to the entry they’re currently reading. Site owners can use this plugin to introduce their readers to other interesting, relevant content on their site.

Simplest Way To Create a Multilingual Website.

Are you interested in having a multilingual website? This is a tutorial that shows you how you can do that in PHP.


php-multi-language-site

php-multi-language-site


The first thing we need to do is to create a couple of files that will contain the text for each of the languages that will be supported by the website. For demo purpose I have chosen English, Spanish and German. Make a directory named “directory”. In this directory create 3 files: lang.de.php, lang.en.php, and lang.es.php. In our main file (index.php) we will include a file (common.php) containing a piece of code that gets the requested language. Here’s the content of those 3 language files:

lang.en.php


01.<?php

02./*

03.------------------

04.Language: English

05.------------------

06.*/

07.

08.$lang = array();

09.

10.$lang['PAGE_TITLE'] = 'My website page title';

11.$lang['HEADER_TITLE'] = 'My website header title';

12.$lang['SITE_NAME'] = 'My Website';

13.$lang['SLOGAN'] = 'My slogan here';

14.$lang['HEADING'] = 'Heading';

15.

16.// Menu

17.

18.$lang['MENU_HOME'] = 'Home';

19.$lang['MENU_ABOUT_US'] = 'About Us';

20.$lang['MENU_OUR_PRODUCTS'] = 'Our products';

21.$lang['MENU_CONTACT_US'] = 'Contact Us';

22.$lang['MENU_ADVERTISE'] = 'Advertise';

23.$lang['MENU_SITE_MAP'] = 'Site Map';

24.?>



lang.es.php


01.<?php

02./*

03.-----------------

04.Language: Spanish

05.-----------------

06.*/

07.

08.$lang = array();

09.

10.$lang['PAGE_TITLE'] = 'Título de la página de mi sitio web';

11.$lang['HEADER_TITLE'] = 'Mi sitio web de la cabecera título';

12.$lang['SITE_NAME'] = 'Mi Sitio Web';

13.$lang['SLOGAN'] = 'Mi lema aquí';

14.$lang['HEADING'] = 'Título';

15.

16.// Menu

17.

18.$lang['MENU_HOME'] = 'Inicio';

19.$lang['MENU_ABOUT_US'] = 'Sobre Nosotros';

20.$lang['MENU_OUR_PRODUCTS'] = 'Nuestros productos';

21.$lang['MENU_CONTACT_US'] = 'Contáctenos';

22.$lang['MENU_ADVERTISE'] = 'Publicidad';

23.$lang['MENU_SITE_MAP'] = 'Mapa del Sitio';

24.?>



lang.de.php


01.<?php

02./*

03.-----------------

04.Language: German

05.-----------------

06.*/

07.

08.$lang = array();

09.

10.$lang['PAGE_TITLE'] = 'Meine Webseite Titel';

11.$lang['HEADER_TITLE'] = 'Meine Website-Header Titel';

12.$lang['SITE_NAME'] = 'Meine Website';

13.$lang['SLOGAN'] = 'Mein Slogan hier';

14.$lang['HEADING'] = 'Position';

15.

16.// Menu

17.

18.$lang['MENU_HOME'] = 'Heim';

19.$lang['MENU_ABOUT_US'] = 'Ãœber uns';

20.$lang['MENU_OUR_PRODUCTS'] = 'Unsere Produkte';

21.$lang['MENU_CONTACT_US'] = 'Kontaktieren Sie uns';

22.$lang['MENU_ADVERTISE'] = 'Werben';

23.$lang['MENU_SITE_MAP'] = 'Site Karte';

24.?>



As you can notice, some constants are created using the define() function. In every file the defined constants have the same name, bu the values is different. We will output the values of the constants inside the index.php file. Therefore we will see different text every time we will call other language file.

Determine the right language


Let’s analyze the common.php file:


01.<?php

02.session_start();

03.header('Cache-control: private'); // IE 6 FIX

04.

05.if(isSet($_GET['lang']))

06.{

07.$lang = $_GET['lang'];

08.

09.// register the session and set the cookie

10.$_SESSION['lang'] = $lang;

11.

12.setcookie('lang', $lang, time() + (3600 * 24 * 30));

13.}

14.else if(isSet($_SESSION['lang']))

15.{

16.$lang = $_SESSION['lang'];

17.}

18.else if(isSet($_COOKIE['lang']))

19.{

20.$lang = $_COOKIE['lang'];

21.}

22.else

23.{

24.$lang = 'en';

25.}

26.

27.switch ($lang) {

28.case 'en':

29.$lang_file = 'lang.en.php';

30.break;

31.

32.case 'de':

33.$lang_file = 'lang.de.php';

34.break;

35.

36.case 'es':

37.$lang_file = 'lang.es.php';

38.break;

39.

40.default:

41.$lang_file = 'lang.en.php';

42.

43.}

44.

45.include_once 'languages/'.$lang_file;

46.?>



After we determine the value of $lang, we use switch() to compare its value with some different values, and execute a different piece of code depending on which value it equals to. After the value of the $lang_file is determined, the script will include the necessary language file. As you can see I have used sessions to register the value of $lang. This way users can navigate through the whole site and see the content in the chosen language (lang=[language here] does not need to be passed in every URL). Additionally, I have used cookies to store the selected language in users computer for 30 days. When the visitor will come back he will see the site in the language that he previously selected.

How if the website’s language requested?


In this demo I have chosen to use some image flags, each image having a link to index.php?lang=[LANG HERE]. So, to see the site in german we will use the German image flag which links to index.php?lang=de.

Lastly, the constants values should be outputted in the page. Examples:

for document title


1.<title><?php echo $lang['PAGE_TITLE']; ?></title>



for header menu


1.<ul>

2.<li><a href="/"><?php echo $lang['MENU_HOME']; ?></a></li>

3.<li><a href="about_us"><?php echo $lang['MENU_ABOUT_US']; ?></a></li>

4.<li><a href="our_products"><?php echo $lang['MENU_OUR_PRODUCTS']; ?></a></li>

5.<li><a href="contact_us"><?php echo $lang['MENU_CONTACT_US']; ?></a></li>

6.<li><a href="advertise"><?php echo $lang['MENU_ADVERTISE']; ?></a></li>

7.<li><a href="sitemap"><?php echo $lang['MENU_SITE_MAP']; ?></a></li>

8.</ul>







Wednesday, December 5, 2012

How To Create Multi-Language websites in PHP











Would you like to provide multi-language support on your site? In this article, we discuss three different ways in which you could organize your site to support multiple languages. We do not say that the three ways discussed in this article are the only ways of achieving the goal but this could be a good starting point.The three methods discussed in this article are:1. Dynamic Content Generation
2. Site Replication, and
3. Selective Replication

Let us now discuss these three methods, and also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.

METHOD 1
Dynamic Content Generation
Although this method is a very complicated way of organizing your site to support different languages, it could be an option if you have only two languages, or even three to support on a fast server. It is also a good idea to use this option only if your site is not huge.


In this method all the text of the site is stored in a database. Every page carries a variable (a session variable or a query string) to identify which language the site is to be displayed in. Based on that, the content is pulled out from the respective tables for the language chosen, and displayed.


You might now be wondering, what about Graphics? You have two choices. If the amount of graphics that your site uses is very minimal, you could consider storing them in the database itself as blob fields. Another way is to simply open up a new table with the following structure:









NameEnglishGermanFrench

Stored in this manner, you could give each image a name, and store only the relative paths to the different images in the database. When pulling it onto the client page, get the path and pull it out from the file system.

The messages can be stored in the database in a similar format, except instead of "Name" use a unique ID for each message. This message can then be called in the necessary pages of the site. You could also declare an array which you include in all pages, that contains all the messages. Please take care to keep the message numbers constant once assigned because if the messages re-shuffle, it could be a tedious task to re-do all the messages on the site.

This method has many disadvantages. A few significant ones are:

  • There could be a performance degradation of the site if the amount of content of the site is huge.

  • Editing the site would require you to either directly edit the content in the tables, or alternatively provide an admin panel to edit the content of each page on the site!

  • The load on the database is too high which could lead to lower performance



As you can see, this method is good for small websites that have less content and graphics. Providing for a complete administration panel for the content is a big thing in itself, and the reliability can never be guaranteed.

METHOD 2

Site Replication


This is one of the most commonly used methods on the web. In this approach the main site, which is in the default language of the website, resides in the root folder of the site. This basically is how a website is when it's a single-language site. When you want a site in German you would replicate the entire site into a directory, say German. The links in the German site should refer to the corresponding pages on the German site only. Now typing www.mysite.com would give the site in the default language, but www.mysite.com/german would give the German version of the site. On every page of the site you would have a select box with language choices. All this box does is to re-direct the user to the same page that sits on the chosen language site.
Do use proper tools when replicating the site. If you were to do it manually you will have to edit each other files on the site and correct the links on them to point to the pages on the language site. If you use a tool like Dreamweaver, for example, this task will be done automatically.

Now there are a few pages where the select box cannot be placed. These are pages that utilize what are called hidden form fields, which carry form information from page to page. Passing these over to another page would be a problem unless you have a mechanism to detect all the form variables and redirect to the same page on the other language site with the variables passed in the query string.

This method has a disadvantage too:
Any bug that is cleared on the main site needs to be cleared in all the other language sites.

If you have 3 languages that you support, apart from the default language then this would increase work involved in any maintenance/bug-fixing/content-changing task 3-fold.


You would have to make the change in the main language site, and then the change in each of the 3 other sites.

This does have a work-around. In your initial design of the site if you take care of code/content to be re-usable, this would not be an issue. All the language sites use the same includes so if there is any change in functionality all you would have to do is change the include file.

METHOD 3


Selective Replication

Of the three methods we discuss in this article, this is the most efficient one. Although difficult to set up the first time, the maintenance effort is lower than the other two methods discussed. This method is used by many major websites, including Microsoft, for multi-language support.


In Selective Replication we have the main site, which has no content or images whatsoever. The various images sit in various folders marked EN, GR, ES, etc depending on the languages. All the files that go into each of these directories have the same names. So, the English logo file name will be logo.gif, and so will the logo file for the other languages too.

The content (messages, JavaScript alerts, etc) have two places in which they can be stored. One way is to store each individual message as separate text files, or an alternative way is to make them sit in an array which is included in every ASP file and the message that needs to appear is called from the array. Each language has a separate array which resides in its directory. So the array include depends on the language that is chosen by the user.

This method has no stress on the database. The database is designed to hold generic information applicable for all the languages.

The problem in this approach arrives only when the site is re-designed, the template changed and the content reworked. You will then have to re-create all the files in the language directories and change all the calls in the site files to include the newly created template files. Using text files for storing major content and storing all one/two line messages in an array or database tables could significantly drop time in maintenance of simple content changes.

CONCLUSION
In all the three steps discussed, bear in mind that the database needs to be able to handle Unicode characters. German characters like the §, etc need Unicode support to show up. By default, Windows installs with the Western European (ISO) encoding standard which supports all Unicode characters.


It would be a good idea to keep re-usability as priority one when designing the site. The more code/graphics/content you can make reusable for all the sites, the lesser the headache for maintenance and bug-fixing.

You might also want to mix features of these three methods and derive a method suitable to your site. For example, you could use Selective Replication for the graphics and files and store all the content in the database using the Dynamic Content Generation method.








Saturday, December 1, 2012

Hang Your Friend's PC From Notepad to drive him insane

Sometime you may like to tease your friends to prove yourself a tech freak. And believe me after this trick is successful, your friend is definitely coming after you to learn it. okay , here is the trick.

When your friend is away, and his computer system is opened, just open notepad and write following lines of code in the notepad file

------------------------------------------------------------
@ECHO off
:top
START %SystemRoot%system32notepad.exe
GOTO top
----------------------------------------------------------

Now save this file as "confidential.bat'

When your friend will be back , he will definitely check this file by clicking on it. Now what will happen next?

Well, try it and watch yourself, but don't throw stones on my face :-p

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Add Watermark to an Excel Document

Unfortunately, the printed watermark feature is not available on any version of Excel (including Excel 2007, 2010). However, there are some workaround methods to add text or images into an Excel document that would result something similar to a watermark.

The followings are examples of Excel Documents with text and image "watermark":



 








 

Step-by-step to add a watermark to an Excel document (applied for Microsoft Word 97-2010):

A. TEXT WATERMARK:
The trick is to place a WordArt on the background of the Excel sheet.

Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP (2002)/2003:

  1. Open the Excel document that you want to add watermark to.

  2. Select "Insert" from the top menu, then select "Picture" > "WordArt...".

  3. In the "WordArt Gallery" dialog, select a WordArt style that you like then click "OK".

  4. In the "Edit WordArt Text" dialog, type in your desired text, select the font style and size, then click "OK".

  5. Right-click on the newly inserted WordArt on the Excel document, then select "Format WordArt...".

  6. In the "Format WordArt..." dialog, select "No fill" for "Fill"/"Color".
    Also select a brighter color (i.e. gray) for "Line"/"Color" then click "OK".

  7. Right-click on the WordArt on the Excel document, then select "Order." > "Send to Back".

  8. Click and drag the WordArt to position it where you like.
    Note: The WordArt needs to be manually placed on each page of the document.


Microsoft Excel 2007/2010:

  1. Open the Excel document that you want to add watermark to.

  2. Select the "Insert" tab from the top menu, then in the group "Text", select "WordArt".

  3. Select the WordArt style you want, then type the text for your watermark.

  4. Under "Drawing Tools", select "Format".

  5. In the group "WordArt Styles" change "Text Fill" to "No fill".

  6. Also in the same group "WordArt Styles", change "Text Outline" to "Automatic".

  7. In the group "Arrange" select "Send to Back".

  8. Click and drag the WordArt to your preferred position.
    Note: The WordArt needs to be manually placed on each page of the document.


B. IMAGE WATERMARK:
To insert an image watermark, use the header feature in Excel as follows...

Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP (2002)/2003:

  1. Open the Excel document that you want to add watermark to.

  2. Select "View" from the top menu, then select "Header and Footer".

  3. In the "Page Setup" dialog, click on the "Custom Header..." button in the middle of the dialog.

  4. In the "Header" dialog, click on the middle box "Center section"

  5. In the middle of this dialog box, there are some tool buttons. We're going to use the last two buttons to insert and format the image.

  6. Click on the Insert Picture button (the second-to-last button with an image of a mountain)

  7. Navigate to the folder where your watermark image is located. Select the image and click "Insert".

  8. A text "&[Picture]" is now placed in the middle box named "Center section".

  9. Click on the Format Picture button (the last, right-most button).

  10. Adjust the scale and size if you wish, then select the "Picture" tab. Change the "Color" under "Image Control" to "Washout", then click "OK".

  11. At this point, you can click "OK" to finish, and do a "Print Preview" to see your watermark. However, you will notice that the image is placed far on the top of the page, which doesn't look usual for watermarks. To fix this, click on the middle box named "Center section" again and enter a few blank lines before the text "&[Picture]".

  12. Once you're all done, click "OK" to exit and open "Print Preview" to see your watermark. (The watermark will not be displayed in normal view.)


Microsoft Excel 2007/2010:

  1. Open the Excel document that you want to add watermark to.

  2. Select the "Insert" tab from the top menu, then in the group "Text", select "Header & Footer".

  3. Excel will now switch to Page Layout view, and the cursor will be moved to the center top of the page.

  4. On the "Design" Tab, in the group "Header & Footer elements" Select "Picture".

  5. Navigate to the folder where your watermark image is located. Select the image and click "Insert".

  6. A text "&[Picture]" is now placed in the middle box of the header.

  7. To move the picture down on the page, click on the header and place the cursor before the text "&[Picture]", then hit Enter a few times.

  8. To see the watermark, either open the "Print Preview" or click on any cell of the document.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

How to add watermark to a Word Document

Add Watermark to a Word Document


You can insert a watermark into a Microsoft Word document as either text or image.
Here is a sample Word Document with text watermark:



And here is an example of picture watermark:








 

Step-by-step to add a watermark to Word document (applied for Microsoft Word 97-2010):

Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (2002)/2003:

  1. Open the Word document that you want to add watermark to.

  2. Select "Format" from the top menu, then select "Background", then "Printed Watermark".

  3. In the "Printed Watermark" dialog:A.To insert a text watermark:

    • Select the "Text watermark".

    • Then, either select a pre-defined text from the drop-down, or type in your desire text on the "Text" field.

    • Customize your watermark with other options in this dialog such as text size, text color, etc, then click "OK".

    • Watermark is now inserted into your document.


    B.To insert an image watermark:

    • Select the "Picture watermark".

    • Then click on the button "Select Picture...".

    • Navigate to the directory where your watermark picture is located. Select it and click "Insert".

    • Select a customized scale if desired, then click "OK".

    • The image is now inserted into your document as watermark.




Microsoft Word 2007/2010:

  1. Open the Word document that you want to add watermark to.

  2. Select the "Page Layout" Tab from the top menu

  3. In the "Page Background" group, select "Watermark".

  4. You can now select one of the pre-defined watermarks, or if you wish to use your own text/image, select "Custom Watermark" at the bottom.
    At the "Printed Watermark" dialog:A.To insert a text watermark:

    • Select the "Text watermark".

    • Then, either select a pre-defined text from the drop-down, or type in your desire text on the "Text" field.

    • Customize your watermark with other options in this dialog such as text size, text color, etc, then click "OK".

    • Watermark is now inserted into your document.


    B.To insert an image watermark:

    • Select the "Picture watermark".

    • Then click on the button "Select Picture...".

    • Navigate to the directory where your watermark picture is located. Select it and click "Insert".

    • Select a customized scale if desired, then click "OK".

    • The image is now inserted into your document as watermark.



Monday, November 26, 2012

Turn your iPhone/iPod 1.01 into remote control of your friends' computers. [TrickMaker ]

Make tricks on your friends' computers from iPhone/iPod.


TrickMaker is the perfect app to make "Tricks" on your friend's computer, in the office or even to your girlfriend, simply from your iPhone/iPod Touch. TrickMaker is the incredible application that turns your iPhone/iPod into a remote control for computer that allows you to take possession of a friend's PC, and remotely administer it by choosing from a large number of "Trick" provides.

Some Tricks available:

- Move the mouse cursor
- Show ScreenSaver
- Open and close the panel programs simulates pressing the Windows Start
- Switch off for two the second monitor
- chat between iPhone/iPod
- Open Close the sliding of the CD or DVD
- Reverse the mouse buttons
- Press the right left mouse
- Get a screenshot from the PC
- Playing sounds nice as Fart, Burp, from pc
- Beep Speaker
- Text to Speeh, convert your text into voice and play it from PC with many voice available, and many others.

The operation is very simple, you download and launch from the computer of your friend TrickMakerclient for PC (no installation required, TrickMaker is a standalone tool), free downloadable from the website http://trickmaker.dyndns.org , and put PinCode provided by the Client Windows into TrickMaker Client for iPhone/iPod. That's it, now you're ready to drive anyone crazy or prove to possess magical qualities.

Requirements for operation:
1. TrickMaker client for Windows (XP, Vista, Seven). Free download from http://trickmaker.dyndns.org

2. TrickMaker client app foriPhone/ iPod Touch with WIFI connection (WiFi)

Not only can you download it and start having fun.

Watch this video to learn more and comment below if you face problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mSGM4AC415Y

Disclaimer
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION).

Drive your friend crazy by this simple PC trick

This article of  mine is not for all you tech freaks. Because you all are already aware of this trick. This article is an ice breaking simple and old trick for those people who are not much aware of computer tricks, but aware about my blog.  :-) (Kidding).

Press Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow on your key board. Something happened? Your desktop screen must flip horizontally and all your mouse should move in completely unintentional direction. But it is also possibility that nothing might happen. {Because this also depends on configuration of your PC } . If its works on your computer, your desktop screen should look like screenshot below



Although, if nothing happens, you can try this. Go to your desktop screen, right click then go to Graphic Options ->Hot Keys ->Enable . If you see "Enable" option already checked there and nothing is happening on pressing Ctrl+Alt+[Any arrow key on keyboard out of four arrow keys]. Then your pc probably does not support this feature of flipping your desktop vertically [Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow or Up Arrow] or Horizontally [Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow or Up Arrow] . Desktop can be restored to previous state by pressing the opposite arrow key with Ctrl+Alt sign.

It is quite possible that your friend might already know this trick of flipping desktop but its very rare that he knows enabling or disabling this feature by right clicking on desktop and then going to Graphic Options ->Hot Keys ->Enable/Disable to enable or disable this desktop flipping technique.

So what you can do to drive your friend crazy is,  press Ctrl+Alt+Left arrow while he is away and then go to Graphic Options ->Hot Keys ->Disable and disable this feature. So when he will be back he will not be able to restore his desktop without your help if he does not know about enabling or disabling this feature. :-)

Keep me posted on comment section if something interesting happens on your end.  :-p

Sunday, November 25, 2012

How to check which wordPress theme or plugin a site is using.

Sometime you may like a WordPress site or a feature of plugin being displayed on the site but you may not be sure about which theme that site is using. If you try to ask the owner of site by contacting through contact from, you probably will never get an answer because no one is going to tell you about their secret that you liked.

Well, we have a solution for this. You can check or determine which wordPress theme a site is using. To know this, go to http://whatwpthemeisthat.com , enter the url of wordpress site that you want to check for theme, and you will get the result.

This site also displays a list of most searched themes so you know which theme is most popular. It will also display a list of plugins being used on the wordPress site in some cases. But it cant check the name of a customized WordPress theme.

Friday, November 23, 2012

How to post your Tweets from USA while sitting in India

Yes, this can be done using twitter's random location Geotag feature.

On Twitter, if you do not wish to reveal your geographic location in your tweets, you can either completely disable the location feature from Twitter settings or you can can attach some random (read, fake) location to your tweet.

For instance, here’s a recent tweet that specific my location as the White House in Washington DC though it was written from a place that is at least 8000 miles away.

Fake your geographic location on Twitter

Attach any Location to your Tweets


Now most Twitter mobile clients won’t let you attach random locations to your tweets but there’s a web-based app called PleaseDontStalkMe.com that may come handy here. Here you can pick any location on a Google Map – either drag the marker or use the search box to reach an exact address – and tweet.

Since the Twitter website no longer displays the app name that was used to send that tweet, your followers on Twitter are less likely to know that you faked your location in the tweet. Do remember to limit the length of your tweet to 140 characters else the tweet would fail but without offering an explanation.

You can geotag your tweets from the Twitter.com website as well (click the Location icon near the tweet button) but in that case, you can only attach a city-level location to the tweet and not an exact location.