Technology Tips & Tricks
Archive for December, 2009
Cell Phone Lookup
Dec 16th
Reverse Cell Phone Lookup | If you are reading this, you are probably wondering how to do a reverse lookup for cell phone numbers online. I won’t waste your time telling you the typical reasons why most people do this kind of search. You probably have your own reasons.
So, if you want to learn how to do this kind of search without getting ripped off by some of the fraudulent sites that exist on the Internet, just keep reading and you’ll find out all you need to know.
Reverse Cell Phone Lookup – Don’t Get Scammed
The first thing you need to learn about searching wireless numbers is that results of such searches are NOT free. That’s the long and short of it.
And the reason is simple.
Cell phone carriers like Nextel, Sprint, and Verizon do not provide directories to the public for the wireless numbers they service. They don’t publish a free directory and they also don’t publish a paid directory.
Instead, they lease their most current information to third party data brokers known as reverse cell phone directories. These directories sell the results to people like you and me.
The wireless carriers aren’t the directories only source of information, but I can assure you the directories pay the largest amount of money to these carriers.
So, when someone like you or me comes along and wants access to the results of a reverse cell phone search, we have to pay a small fee for the reasons just discussed above.
And, with all that said, do you honestly think there are companies on the Internet that will undercut these directories so much that they will actually offer results for this kind of search for free? Of course not!
The sites that offer “free” results are actively looking for suckers who believe they can get results for free – despite the facts. These sites don’t give anything away.
They always charge a fee in the end – and usually for outdated and inaccurate information. And sometimes they don’t even supply that. But they will still take your money.
So, if you are looking to get fast and accurate results for a reverse cell phone lookup, make sure you work with a reputable directory like Reverse Phone Detective.
What I consider a good directory is one that doesn’t make me pay money up front to search through their database and also enables me to get all of my money back if I am not satisfied for any reason
Once you’re tired of earning simple trickling in and are ready to boost your online business earnings, it is also time to come out from behind the security of anonymity and stop being so shy. You need to come out loud and proud of yourself and your business. Be ready to show the world an inside look at all your success! However, Do not lie! Be open and honest about all of your ventures and show your failures as well. This will help build trust amongst your readers as they’ll see that it’s true, nobody and nothing is perfect.
A blog has become one of the best marketing avenues available today for an online business. It’s safe to say that the people who read your blogs and posts want to learn a little more about you and your business. These are potential customers that are reading your blog. They came in search of someone they can trust and feel comfortable working with and learning from. What you need to do is share some tips. Show them that you’re their friend and want to share a little something special with them. If nothing more you’ll be able to get them into your subscribers list and you will be able to network with them further.
If you have yet to create a blog, now is the time to do so. Now before you start rattling off your life story or how your stepped on the cat’s tail last night, I have a few things that may assist you in obtaining and retaining readers:
-Blog about your venture, as you proceed though it. If you blog as you do, it makes coming up with what to blog about easy as pie.
-Share your stories to show your mistakes. Then give them advice as to what not to do.
-Five reasons why your business or product is superior to the others.
-Share tips for on how to build a strong foundation of readers and subscribers.
-Show them the importance of setting goals.
-Share stories about other successful people and those who may have mentored you. Show them other success stories.
If you’re still feeling a little hesitant about building your own blog, here are a few reasons why you should:
-Don’t be shy. There are many free blog sites and they are easy to navigate.
-Did you know that blog posts can even be automated now? So you don’t even have to sit and write everyday anymore. You can write 1 a day or several and post them throughout the week.
-Blogs do wonders for your Google rankings.
-They are also awesome ways to obtain backlinks.
-A great way to bring yourself to the forefront and get more visibility.
-Besides advertising your own business, you can even monoticize it with other opportunities as well.
-How to sell products through your blog.
-Your faithful readers will post comments and converse with you. This lets them feel more at home and in the care of a friend showing them the ropes.
-In the end they will look up to you!
By now you should now see the importance of starting and maintaining a blog. Basically What it comes down to is you can drive about all sorts of traffic to your website by simply blogging. Soon enough you will see that your loyal readers will become recruits and customers all thanks to blogging.
Credits: Paul Rogov
How to Install WordPress For Your Niche Blog
Dec 15th
What is wordpress?
Wordpress
Wordpress is a content management system (CMS). It is a type of software you install on your domain name that easily allows you to publish content ~ be it text, audio, video, images to the web. If you have ever filled in an ad on a free ad blog you’ve already used wordpress and just didn’t know it.
Why can’t I just use wordpress.com?
While wordpress.com and wordpress.org (the one we’re going to install today) look exactly the same there are a few key differences.
1. wordpress.com is hosted for you. While it’s nice to not have to pay for hosting, there are certain rules to be followed when using wordpress.com and one of them is that you can’t make any money from your site, and another is you can’t use the site to help boost another site in the search engine rankings. (We run both of those kind of blogs which will lead to your account being deleted at wordpress and all your content/hard work/time GONE at their discretion, in a minute)
2. You don’t have the ability to add plugins to your site at wordpress.com which is part of what makes wp so fun when you host it yourself.
3. You can’t customize the site as easily or as much as you can with your own hosting.
4. Did I mention you don’t own your content and it can be deleted one morning when you wake up? (yes, it was pretty traumatic)
So ~ whether you choose to build a blog on a wordpress site you host yourself or you decide to go ahead and do it on a free platform I definitely recommend you do not use wordpress.com ~ go for blogger or tumblr, or even Bravenet.
Where am I going to put wordpress?
We are going to go into your hosting account and you are going to put wordpress on the domain you want it to show up on. We are going to put it on the “root domain” which just means when you go to www.mountainbikeforsale.net it will be right there. The other option is to put it in a directory so you would go to www.mountainbikeforsales.net/blog and it would show up when you went there instead. For our purposes of this niche blog we want it on the root domain ~ but I wanted you to understand the terminology.
If you used your niche blog domain for your hosting that’s fine. If you added on your domain that’s fine too. Either one will work, and you’ll see just how easy this is going to be.
Ok. let’s get started.
1. Login to your hosting account and go to your cpanel.
2. Scroll around until you find the fantastico button. It will be the happy smiley face. Your layout may look different than mine but the fantastico button will still look the same.
Fantastico
3. Click the fantastico button. You will find on the left hand side there are many programs you can install with fantastico. You want to find the link for wordpress and then click it.
You will see a bunch of information on the next page ~ well you probably won’t see as much information as I see lol, since I have a BUNCH of current installations. You want to look for the “new installation” link and click it.
The next page is where you choose where you want to put wordpress. It asks install on domain? Yes ~ that’s where you want to install it since we are installing on the root domain. There’s a drop down menu (if you have more than one domain name in your hosting account), click the drop down menu and choose the domain you want to install wordpress on.
The next step is to create your username and password. These are the things you are going to use to get into your blog to post etc. Make sure you make note of this information in whatever fashion you’ve chosen to keep track of your site usernames and passwords (for me it’s writing it in my rolodex).
Next you’re going to choose an admin name ~ this is the name that will show up when you post to your blog. Use whatever name you want to show up when you make new posts ~ it can be your own name but if you are going to use a pen name this is where you would put that.
You are also going to enter an email address. This is the address wordpress will use to send you information from your blog ~ when you have a comment etc. So you can use your main address or you can create a new address that you plan to use for everything related to this blog ~ either way works. No one sees this, it’s just so you can get information from your blog.
You also want to put in the name of your site. The default is the url (on my hosting), but I like to change it to the name I want my site to actually have. This is what will show up in your header ~ as well as in the blue stripe at the top of the browser you’re using. This can be changed later ~ so don’t stress, just put something in.
You can also add a brief description in the next spot ~ but you can also leave it blank and do it later from inside the blog ~ either way will work.
All of these images and steps are all on the same page, one right under the next.
After you’ve filled in those pieces you’re going to hit “install wordpress”.
The next page will tell you the directory has been created. It will ask you again that you want to put it on the spot you told it and there’s nothing for you to do other than click “finish installation”.
The next page says you have installed wordpress. It reminds you of the username and password you have chosen and tells you how to access the blog which is always www.yoururl.com/wp-admin. So for my mountain bike site it’s going to be www.mountainbikeforsale.net/wp-admin ~ then I’ll use the username and password to sign in.
That’s it. You’ve done it. You installed wordpress!! Congratulations. Go ahead and go to your site and log in. Take a look around. We’ll be going on a tour of wordpress for the next post. You can’t break anything ~ most everything can be undone, so go ahead, look around, get familiar with things and I’ll see you on Wed.
If you have questions about installing wordpress, please ask them below. If something has gone wrong ~ and sometimes it happens ask here, but your best bet may be to call your hosting company directly. They can see what’s going on with your site and can easily and quickly help you fix the problem. Me I could guess which of 10 things it could be, but since I can’t see what’s going on it would be faster and less frustrating to call them direct.
Credits: Jackie
Freebie Release: 45 High Quality Fruits Stock Photos
Dec 10th
The collection is made up of 45 high quality fruit photos and they are all free to download with no strings attached.
You can use these photos in all sorts of individual or commercial project without any restriction. However, you may not be able to resell, hotlink, re-distribute or make profit out of these photos. Please link to this article if you find these photos useful and would like to help spread a word.
Behind the scene
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Min Thu for the generosity to release these stock photos (for free) in hongkiat.com.
My intention was to shoot these photos and to use them on free templates specifically created for flashmo.com and templatemo.com websites. Then, I think it would be really great to share with other people who love those kinds of photos around the world.
The photos were shot using Canon Kiss X3 (also known as 500D) mounted Canon F/4L 70-200mm lens. Some of them are shot using a tripod (Velbon DV-6000). I put the fruits on the 5×2 feet white table located at a big open-air balcony of my home.
Hongkiat is a very great place for web designers and developers on the net and it occasionally features photography related posts and useful freebies. I think it would be great giving free stock photos that can be used for any purpose for Hongkiat readers – Min Thu.
Thank you very much Min Thu for the great intention, we really appreciate it!
Download Fruits Stock Photos
Left click to open up image in a new window for preview, or right-click, “Save link as” to download.
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