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Thursday, November 25, 2010

FEW SECURITY TIPS FOR BLOGGERS

We were looking for some valuable guest posts since long time. Many of our readers submitted articles but we rejected most of them either due to copied stuff or posts with less importance. Security tips are some thing that a  blogger need in each step. Mr. Satyajit who is an active blogger from Cuttack, Orissa, India is coming up with an exciting article about Security Tips for bloggers who are blogging on Google Blogger and Wordpress platforms. I request my readers to send us comments about this incredible post.

GUEST POST

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by a genius blogger, cool heart and a great personality.

Mr. Satyajit Das

 

Feel his incredible works at

BLOGGING SECURITYMany people now a days are very serious about blogging and even picked it up as there profession but at the same time few tend to forget about the security issues concerned with blogging. Have you ever thought that if you have a high traffic blog which if of good income source to you and one day it get compromised or hacked then....!!! So in this post I will illustrate few security tips for bloggers.

Note:This post is mainly for people having there blog on www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com platform.

1.Phishing and keylogging Threats:

a) These two are the most hyped tricks used by attackers these days so no need to explain these.While logging in always make a habit of typing the url in the address bar.

b) Always avoid accessing your blog dashboard from public computer cafes because you never know a keylogger may be planted.I advice the readers to use an firefox addon called "Keyscrambler" or a software called "Zemana Anti-logger" for safety.

2. Session Hijacking Threats:

Recently you must have come across "Firesheep" addon for firesheep,its simple but a killer one.By session hijacking one may access your account even knowing your password but by trapping the session cookies.

Countermeasure:

a) Use SSH Socks proxy for encrypting your sessions by setting up a ssh server and accessing it through a client.This is called as SSH tunnel.If you have Linux or mac installed in your box its really easy to do so but for windows users you can use cygwin to setup a SSH server using a free software openSSH

b) Always use SFTP instead of FTP especially for your self hosted wordpress blog.

c) Donot access your blog dashboard in public or open wifi network like coffee shop,airport etc.

d) define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true); copy this code to the wp-config.php file(for wordpress only)

e) Can also use wordpress secret key option in wp-config.php(for wordpress only)

3. Backup

Always keep a backup of the blog posts and database because you never know someone may hack into your account and delete all your post.

4. Strong Password

It is advisable to change the password of the account at least 2-3 times in a month.The password should be at least of 10 character and must be the combination of special characters(#,@...etc),numbers(1,2,3..etc)and characters so,that it will be hard to guess.

5. Update and hide the version ( For Wordpress only )

a) Always use an updated version of Wordpress because some attacker may exploit the vulnerability of the old version and get access to your blog.

b) Also donot forget to hide the version shown in between <head></head> tag of the source code.You can do this by this simply adding remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator'); to the function.php of the theme.

6. Restrict indexing by search engine ( For Wordpress only )

a) You can restrict the search engine to index certain files and folders so that they are not available publicly to attackers by using dorks.Just use "Disallow:/wp-[desired folder]" in the desired folder so that it will not be indexed. For example:Disallow: /wp-admin.php or Disallow: /wp-login.php etc.

b) Never put the login page link in the footer of the blog as many bloggers do.This makes the work of the hacker easy. For more details regarding this read (http://www.askapache.com/seo/updated-robotstxt-for-wordpress.html)

7. Security for wp-admin folder,wp-content folder,wp-config.php using .htaccess file(For wordpress only)

a) Wp-admin folder:

-This is one of the important folder so you need to harden it very well.

Take a text file and copy the below code with your Ipaddress to restrict the ipaddress access.

order deny, allow

allow from 192.168.78.1 (Your Static IP Address)

allow from 192.168.78.3 (Your Static IP Address)

deny from all

-If you are having a dynamic ipaddress then you an use this plugin to provide a password and username to the folder

(http://www.askapache.com/wordpress/htaccess-password-protect.html),this is if you are on apache.Check this out for more details (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/auth.html)

b) Wp-content folder:

-This folder mainly contains images,themes etc so there is no harm if we restrict this folder,which can be done by using the below code with in .htaccess file in the folder.

Order Allow,Deny

Deny from all

<files ?\.(jpg|gif|png|js|css)$? ~>

Allow from all

</files>

c)wp-config.php :This file is also very important as it is the key file for the database

<files wp-config.php>

Order deny,allow

deny from all

</files>

It is also advisable to restrict the browsing the contents like plugins etc we can do this by copying "Options All -Indexes" to the .htaccess and putting it in the root folder.

8. I would like to point out that, If you are using a gmail id for blogger account, then do not share it with any of your friends or put it in your contact page of your blog or put it in "from:" email id section in Feedburner etc. So even if your secondary email id is hacked you will not lose your blog.

More to Read

ADSENSE APPROVAL WEBSITES – IS THIS A SCAM TARGETTING BLOGGERS?

Google AdSense is a free program that help online publishers to earn revenue by displaying relevant ads on online content, through websites, blogs, online software, search results etc. Adsense is proved to be a most accurate, simple, trustful program that is now a days biggest financial support for many bloggers, including me. Recently Adsense improved its performance through New Adsense Interface, which is giving more accurate data to analyze visitors and click ratios.

Adsense approval websites -  is it a Fake?

While surfing through internet, I have seen some websites that are offering help or assistance in getting approval for Adsense. I am quite surprised reading the details. As far as I believe, Adsense is a free program for all real and sincere Bloggers or website owners who adhere with the policies of Google Adsense. Me any many of my friends got approval after changing blogs according to the policy guidelines and standards of Google Adsense publishers. Even after getting approval we did verification steps and following all standards of a good Adsense publisher.

This is what surprised me that, some websites claims that they give Adsense accounts upon payment of money or buying some of their products. I feel this is quite impossible. When I search in Google Adsense help forums, I never find such a mentioning that Google allowed somebody to sell or give approval for an Adsense Account. So my readers and all other bloggers, please be careful while selecting such services.

If these services are Fake, then I appeal Google to take strict action on such fake people who are trying to steal money from poor bloggers like us.

My readers, if these services are fake, please don’t hesitate to share this message through all possible mediums like Facebook, Twitter etc.

The pictures of some of such websites are given below. Readers may please contact Google Adsense before trying any of such services by paying money.

Dizinart dotcom

ADSENSE ACCOUNT FAKE SELLING

 

adsenseg dot com

BUY ADSENSE ACCOUNT

 

adsensez dot com

GOOGLE ADSENSE

Remember, Google Adsense is a free program open for quality, real and sincere bloggers.

Happy and careful blogging:

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TWITTER BIRD MAY DIE IN 2015?

Twitter, the micro blogging service, started its operation in the year 2006. The growth after Twitter's origin was tremendous and today twitter is being used by many corporates, individuals and bloggers as a medium of short and hectic communication. Do you ever wonder how twitter is making revenue? How twitter is maintaining the operational cost? Recently we had a small discussion and analysis about what is going on behind Twitter.

How Twitter manage maintaining costs till 2010?

Twitter was believed to be successful in raising over US$57 million from venture capitalist growth funding. This money was pumped into Twitter over three installments within the first three years.  Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and Insight Venture Partners were some among the major financing sources.

LIKE THIS POST?twitter-bird-5

How Twitter planned to move further?

Twitter was actually created as a long term investment. The idea behind offering everything free with Twitter was to attract users and to establish the new idea of short messaging service as a monopoly of Twitter.

Twitter was successful in creating 190 million accounts, ( not visitors ) within this short period of time. But many programs like “Revtweet”, started making and sharing  money out of Twitter using automated advertisements through active twitter accounts. This created immense automated tweets dumped on most twitter accounts. Regular twitter users went into trouble in identifying useful tweets.

On April 13, 2010, Twitter announced plans to offer paid advertising for companies such as  that would be able to purchase "promoted tweets" to appear in selective search results on the Twitter website, similar to Google ‘Adwords'.  This was a brave step to boost the revenue for Twitter.

What could be the killer of Twitter?

Twitter is beleived to have 190 million accounts as of today. Unfortunately 2.1% are dead accounts, 14% fake accounts, 62% irregular login, 12% regular login and 9.9% are one time login (these accounts never opened after they were created-hoping that these accounts may login at any time). This statistics shocked us, and we decided to go for further analysis.

  • 2.1% dead accounts, are due to forgetting the password , account deletion due to violation of terms, and physical death of account holder.
  • 14% fake accounts are created by Twitter account marketing people to sell Twitter followers. These accounts have no revenue value for twitter.
  • 62% irregular login, is due to the influence of other social media networking sites. At the time of its creation, Twitter was not facing any major competition. Twitter spend two years to make Tweeting as a popular action among internet users. Once, Tweeting became popular, then new services like Google Buzz, Google Wave, emerged and Facebook gave more visible importance to short messages. Several other services changed their pattern similar to Twitter. this high competition prevented many real users to stay away from logging into Twitter.
  • 12% regular login accounts can be very smaller account number while considering the invested amount on Twitter.
  • 9.9% are one time login accounts, in which they fear to use twitter due to privacy leak or less knowledge of irregularly updating Terms and Conditions.

Twitter remained very slow in loading when compared to some other services.

The policy of Following or Unfollowing creating a lot of confusion in account holders.

There is no way of making money with a Twitter account otherwise I had to join in some other programs that may violate the Twitter policies resulting in an account ban.

Lack of more services inside Twitter. Other services like Buzz, Waves and Facebook are offering Short messaging, email, video sharing, picture sharing and much more in a single platform.

10 ideas that could save the life of Twitter

  1. Keep an account active as long as possible. Never put hard rules and suspend an account on the name of Terms and Conditions.
  2. Respect privacy of an account holder. Give more privacy options.
  3. Shift Twitter to new faster loading servers. Establish servers in different countries and establish  accounts on local twitter domains.
  4. Enable Transliteration for more languages that may help Tweeting more funny in local languages.
  5. Include more services like Email, Games etc that pushes an account holder to login.
  6. The most important service is a revenue sharing option for an account holder. Twitter may develop a PPC or PPP ( pay per video play) as an advertisement option.
  7. Enter into an agreement with Google, to display Adsense advertisements in Twitter accounts. Use most possible spaces in a Twitter account. Keep two area to display ads, in which Twitter can display their own advertisement or Twitters Adsense account and in the other allow the account holder to display his/her own Adsense account advertisements. Then share the revenue with the account holder.
  8. Remove all restrictions in follow or unfollow. Let an account holder to follow or unfollow as many accounts as he wants. This process is similar to a Game, in which a user love to increase his followers. The more he stay in his account, the more Twitter earns.
  9. Another suggestion is to introduce credit system by setting a Clean Behavior Pattern Credits for  users. This will give value to an account, based on the account behaviour in internet. That means this value is derived from number of login, number of followers related to the key word, less spamming , tweeting pattern etc.
  10. Allow users to sell or but a Twitter account.  Clean Behavior Pattern Credits will be the benchmark for estimating value of a Twitter account. Twitter may open an electronic exchange similar to stock exchange where people can sell or buy their own accounts. Transacting through Paypal, Twitter may  maintain a pool account for account holders who wish to sell or buy their accounts. Twitter can charge a nominal amount on each transactions.

Caution bench:

oldmanIf Twitter owners didn’t adopt at least some of the suggestions given above, then you may hear 2nd January 2015 as the funeral date of this service.

My readers, if you agree with me, please comment and follow us twitter-bird-5 here. And I welcome all readers to give their own suggestions or ideas to save Twitter

More to blog:

Monday, November 22, 2010

GREAT GOOGLE CHROME EXTENSIONS FOR BLOGGERS

I am frequently using Google Chrome extensions since long time. The one click easy operation of all these extensions have helped me  in maintaining more than one blog. I suggest my readers to select some of the extensions given here and use them while blogging. These extensions are very useful in blogging, tweeting, image handling, sharing in social media, secure blogging, and much more. Just go through the list and let us know how you love these great utilities.Here we provide you a list of 21 great Google chrome extensions for bloggers. If I miss to add something, please comment here.

How to Use Google Chrome Extensions?

Installing Google Chrome is the first step to do. Then click on the links given here to install the desired extension. The program will get installed with your Google Chrome browser. When you open the Google Chrome browser, you can see a small logo of the installed extension. Just click on it, and you will get all the features immediately. Simple, isn’t it? (Links checked on 22/11/2010)

image

Blog This! (by Google)

This Google Chrome extension adds a Blog This! button to the browser toolbar, which lets you post to your Blogger blog from any web page, with just one click.

Zemanta

This extension helps to enhance your blog with related contents like  latest news to learn more about the topic, link articles to improve the value of the post and to use pictures to make a post richer. More on Zemanta

 

Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotate                

(Verified author: diigo.com). This extension helps us to capture a whole page or any portion, annotate it with rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and text, blur sensitive info, one-click upload to share.


Google Share Button by share-extension@google.com

Use the Share extension to share web pages via your social networks, email and blogs.

Chromed Bird

(Verified author: chromedbird.com) Do you like to get twitter in one click? This is a Twitter extension that allows you to follow your timelines and interact with your Twitter account.

 

TweetMeme 

Retweet some of the hottest stories on Twitter with TweetMeme extension.

 

Shareaholic for Google Chrome

(Verified author: shareaholic.com) Another sharing giant that easily shares in social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Email, Gmail, Buzz, Reader, Bookmarks etc

Chrome Scrapbook

(Verified author: www.chromescrapbook.org). Do you like to do something offline. Simply use this extension and save web pages for offline use.

 

Webpage Screenshot

(Verified author: www.webpagescreenshot.info)  An excellent, fast and simple extension that helps  to Save & Share & Print & Edit screenshots of any webpage.

 

Chrome SEO

(Verified author: marketingabuse.com) The Google Chrome SEO Extension that extracts all the SEO Statistics and Tools for a blogger.

 

SEO Site Tools

(Verified author: cartercole.com) Another search engine optimization extension that helps in page / external metrics, social Media info, PR / numbering on Yahoo, Bing, Google SERPs.Extends WMT, YSE and GA with metrics

 


Alexa Traffic Rank

The Official Alexa Traffic Rank Extension, providing Alexa Traffic Rank and site Information when you click on this extension button on your browser bar.


eBay Extension for Google Chrome (by eBay)

(Verified author: anywhere.ebay.com) Make some money, spend some money on ebay and watch all your activities by this official eBay extension.

 

Handy Google Shortcuts

(Verified author: crunchmeme.com) A perfect shortcut  for a total 48 useful Google Services and Google Buzz.

 

Google Translate

Bloggers may use this wonderful extension that translates entire webpages into a language of your choice with one click.

Google Dictionary (by Google)

A great extension for non English bloggers to know the definitions easily as you browse the web.

TypePad Blog It

If you have a typepad blog, use this extension to post to your TypePad blog.

 

ScribeFire Verified author: scribefire.com

A blog editor that assist a blogger to easily post on all of your blogs.

Resolution Test

An extension for developers to test web pages in different screen resolutions, with an option to define your own resolutions. This will help  a blogger to know how his blog pages behave in different resolutions. Good one for those who have a photo blog


ChromeSplits

Want to drive in two cars at the same time? Just use this extension split your browser's window into as many columns or rows as you need.

Click&Clean

Verified author: www.hotcleaner.com. Some thing to protect your privacy. This extension deletes your browsing history, typed URLs, flash cookies, all traces of your online activity to protect your privacy.

 

More to Read

Thursday, November 18, 2010

ADD LINKS IN YOUTUBE VIDEOS AND MAKE MONEY

I have seen in YouTube that many videos shared got much visitors than a blog, by specific key words they use accidently. These immense visitors have great potential in generating money. Before, there was an option in Google Adsense to link Youtube videos with Adsense accounts and generate money by the clicks accumulated on it. Now Google Adsense removed that option and showing Google’s own advertisements. With all respect on Google’s own program, I would like to state that visitors always love to click on advertisements, if displayed attractively.

What is LinkedTube?

LinkedTube is a Flash widget that adds link and sharing options to YouTube videos. With this LinkedTube, you can transform any YouTube video into a useful promotion tool as well as money making tool. You can create video product listings linking direct to your shopping cart, music video links to the iTunes store or just link back to your website or blog. Also, when others share your video they all link back to your own URL.

Easy configuration of LinkedTube:

Just fill in the details given in there and link the video as you wish.

image

Click here to get LinkedTube

More while you blog:

GOOGLE SEO GUIDE – EVERYTHING A BLOGGER WANTS TO OPTIMIZE A BLOG

Did you download the new Google SEO Guide, that is an updated version of Google SEO guide, published two years ago. This time, Google provided the new version of the guide with more content and examples. The new stuff include Glossary to define terms throughout the guide, More example images to help you understand the content , Ways to optimize your site for mobile devices, and clearer wording for better readability.

I suggest all beginner bloggers, to read this book before they decide to hire any company for Search engine optimization. So, whenever you think about improving your website or blog, description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, please read this Guide.

This guide is now available in many languages such as Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English (GB), Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (BR), Portuguese (PT), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

You can download the new version here in PDF.

So, improve your blogging with this marvelous guide.

More to read while you blog:

Thursday, November 11, 2010

NEW ADSENSE INTERFACE – MORE MONEY FROM ADSENSE

Google Adsense rocking again. Much awaited new Adsense interface will soon be available for all Adsense accounts. The expectations of Adsense publishers since last November, now reaching an excited finishing point. Google Adsense Publishers will see a “Try the new AdSense interface” link appear in the upper corner of their own Google Adsense account. Clicking on that link will bring the new interface. We are very thankful to Google Adsense in providing the new interface that supports Adsense Publishers to make more money out of the program.

ADSENSE NEW INTERFACE Let us check what are the new changes that is going to roll out from this PPC Giant. The new interface primarily focus on

Data analyze and Increased Insights

In new interface, an Adsense publisher can now run even more detailed performance reports by ad type, ad size, ad unit, targeting type, and bid type for total earnings and other metrics, over custom date ranges. The graphs of the data available on the new Performance reports tab. One more important support is that, a publisher can quickly view impressions, clicks, and earnings all in one graph, compare text ad performance to image ad performance, compare date ranges, and easily analyze data to recognize trends.

Control over Running Ads

Till today, an Adsense Publisher have limited control over the ads that run on the blog or website. In this new interface, all ad controls are now in one place, on the Allow and block ads tab. Here, a publisher will be able to filter ads from specific advertisers, categories, and ad networks. This feature will help you to identify potential advertisers and thereby earn more money. 

Updated Ad review center

In the new interface, the ad review center is updated to make it easier to review and manage ads that have been placement-targeted to websites or blogs. This feature will help you to search for ads in the ad review center by ad type, keyword, URL, or ad network, and choose to allow or block them.

Easy Management of an Adsense Account

The new interface allows you to manage an Adsense account  quite easily and quickly by seeing earnings and payment information, find relevant features, and make necessary changes to your account. A help offered without leaving the account to bring other resources, like videos and blog posts, right into the interface.

So never hesitate to click on the button to try new Adsense interface.

Happy Adsensing

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