December 9th, 2008 by SwaraTech

E-mail Filtering

You can block an e-mail using spam filters. There are many definitions of spam, but one particularly useful one is the following:

Spam is the electronic version of junk mail, and has been around since the Internet was created. E-mail filters are a way of filtering your e-mail to remove unwanted mail based on a variety of criteria. You can block any sort of e-mail, not just mail of a commercial nature. Blocked mail can be deleted automatically or sent to another e-mail address or script. These filters are quite flexible - some examples are provided after the instruction on how to add a spam filter below. All filters are cumulative.

Useful spam links:

• Six simple things you can do to prevent spam
• Alternate definition of spam
• Usenet definition of spam

Also refer to Spam Assassin for another approach to dealing with spam.

To add an e-mail filter:

1. Click on the E-mail Filtering link in the Mail area.
2. Click on the Add Filter link.
3. Click on the required header field in the first drop-down list. These are the various fields in any e-mail message.
4. Click on the required filter action in the second drop-down list. This action will act on the text entered in the third field.
   • equals - match the text exactly (whole words only). “Credit” will block “Credit”.
   • matches regex - matches the text based on regular expression (regex) rules. Regular expressions are a powerful but complex area. You do not need to use regular expression filters for most circumstances. Refer to these two good introductory tutorials - Using Regular Expressions and Learning to Use Regular Expressions - for more information.
   • contains - match the specified text in any circumstance. “porn” will block “porn” and “pornography”.
   • begins with - match the specified text when it is the beginning of a word. “porn” will block “porn” and “pornography” but not “teenporn”.
5. Enter the filter text in the third field. This text is case sensitive.
6. Enter the destination for the filtered e-mail in the Destination field. There are three separate types of destination:
   • Destroy the e-mail - Enter Discard in the field.
   • Redirect to another address - Enter the e-mail address to which to redirect the e-mail.
   • Redirect to a script - Enter the full script path on the machine that hosts your web site.
7. Click on the Activate button.

Example:

• To redirect all e-mail from “name@sampledomain.com”, enter: From, equals, name@sampledomain.com, test@domain.com
• To delete all e-mail from sampledomain.com, enter: From, contains, sampledomain.com, Discard
• To delete all references to pornography, enter: Any Header, contains, porn, Discard
• To discard all e-mail that Spam Assassin has marked as spam, enter: SpamAssassin Spam Header, begins with, yes, Discard

(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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December 6th, 2008 by SwaraTech

You should not export items (item: An item is the basic element that holds information in Outlook (similar to a file in other programs). Items include e-mail messages, appointments, contacts, tasks, journal entries, notes, posted items, and documents.) that were created in multiple languages or in a language that is not supported by your system code page to a file type that does not support Unicode. For example, if you have items that were created in multiple languages in a Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders file (.pst), you should not export the items to a Microsoft Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders file (.pst). The latter file type does not support Unicode. Therefore, all items that contain characters in a language other than those supported by the system code page in text fields other than the body of items, such as To, Subject, and ContactName and BusinessTelephone Number properties of Contact items, will be interpreted incorrectly and displayed as question marks (?) and other unintelligible text.

1. On the File menu, click Import and Export.
2. Click Export to a file, and then click Next.
3. In the list, click Personal Folder File (.pst), and then click Next.
4. Click the folder that contains the messages you want to back up. If the folder contains a subfolder that you want to include, select the Include Subfolders check box, and then click Next.
5. Under Save exported file as, click Browse, and then specify a name and location for your backup file, for example, Mail Backup.
6. If you back up a .pst file that you have backed up to before, click one of the following:Replace duplicates with items exported Existing data will be overwritten with the information in the file being exported.Allow duplicate items to be created Existing data will not be overwritten, and duplicate information will be added to the backup file.

   Do not export duplicate items Existing data will be kept, and the duplicate information in the folder will not be copied to the backup file.

7. Click Finish.

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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November 5th, 2008 by SwaraTech

Ever go through the nightmare of changing significantly portions of your site, then having to deal with the problem of people finding their way from the old pages to the new? It can be nasty. There are different ways of redirecting pages, through http-equiv, javascript or any of the server-side languages. And then you can do it through htaccess, which is probably the most effective, considering the minimal amount of work required to do it.

htaccess uses redirect to look for any request for a specific page (or a non-specific location, though this can cause infinite loops) and if it finds that request, it forwards it to a new page you have specified:

Redirect /olddirectory/oldfile.html http://yoursite.com/newdirectory/newfile.html

Note that there are 3 parts to that, which should all be on one line : the Redirect command, the location of the file/directory you want redirected relative to the root of your site (/olddirectory/oldfile.html = yoursite.com/olddirectory/oldfile.html) and the full URL of the location you want that request sent to. Each of the 3 is separated by a single space, but all on one line. You can also redirect an entire directory by simple using Redirect /olddirectory http://yoursite.com/newdirectory/

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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November 5th, 2008 by SwaraTech

Is there a pesky person perpetrating pain upon you? Stalking your site from the vastness of the electron void? Blockem! In your htaccess file, add the following code–changing the IPs to suit your needs–each command on one line each:

order allow,deny
deny from 123.45.6.7
deny from 012.34.5.
allow from all

You can deny access based upon IP address or an IP block. The above blocks access to the site from 123.45.6.7, and from any sub domain under the IP block 012.34.5. (012.34.5.1, 012.34.5.2, 012.34.5.3, etc.) I have yet to find a useful application of this, maybe if there is a site scraping your content you can block them, who knows.

(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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November 5th, 2008 by SwaraTech

Ever wanted a specific directory in your site to be available only to people who you want it to be available to? Ever got frustrated with the seeming holes in client-side options for this that allowed virtually anyone with enough skill to mess around in your source to get in? htaccess is the answer!

There are numerous methods to password protecting areas of your site, some server language based (such as ASP, PHP or PERL) and client side based, such as JavaScript. JavaScript is not as secure or foolproof as a server-side option, a server side challenge/response is always more secure than a client dependant challenge/response. htaccess is about as secure as you can or need to get in everyday life, though there are ways above and beyond even that of htaccess.

The first thing you will need to do is create a file called .htpasswd. I know, you might have problems with the naming convention, but it is the same idea behind naming the htaccess file itself, and you should be able to do that by this point. In the htpasswd file, you place the username and password (which is encrypted) for those whom you want to have access.

For example, a username and password of wsabstract (and I do not recommend having the username being the same as the password), the htpasswd file would look like this:

wsabstract:y4E7Ep8e7EYV

Notice that it is UserName first, followed by the Password. There is a handy-dandy tool available for you to easily encrypt the password into the proper encoding for use in the httpasswd file.

For security, you should not upload the htpasswd file to a directory that is web accessible (yoursite.com/.htpasswd), it should be placed above your www root directory. You’ll be specifying the location to it later on, so be sure you know where you put it. Also, this file, as with htaccess, should be uploaded as ASCII and not BINARY.

Create a new htaccess file and place the following code in it:

AuthUserFile /usr/local/you/safedir/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName EnterPassword
AuthType Basic

require user wsabstract

The first line is the full server path to your htpasswd file. If you have installed scripts on your server, you should be familiar with this. Please note that this is not a URL, this is a server path. Also note that if you place this htaccess file in your root directory, it will password protect your entire site, which probably isn’t your exact goal.

The second to last line require user is where you enter the username of those who you want to have access to that portion of your site. Note that using this will allow only that specific user to be able to access that directory. This applies if you had an htpasswd file that had multiple users setup in it and you wanted each one to have access to an individual directory. If you wanted the entire list of users to have access to that directory, you would replace Require user xxx with require valid-user.

The AuthName is the name of the area you want to access. It could anything, such as “EnterPassword”. You can change the name of this ‘realm’ to whatever you want, within reason.

(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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November 5th, 2008 by SwaraTech

This seems to be what people think htaccess was meant for, but it is only part of the general use. We’ll be getting into progressively more advanced stuff after this.

In order to specify your own ErrorDocuments, you need to be slightly familiar with the server returned error codes. (List to the right). You do not need to specify error pages for all of these, in fact you shouldn’t. An ErrorDocument for code 200 would cause an infinite loop, whenever a page was found…this would not be good.

You will probably want to create an error document for codes 404 and 500, at the least 404 since this would give you a chance to handle requests for pages not found. 500 would help you out with internal server errors in any scripts you have running. You may also want to consider ErrorDocuments for 401 - Authorization Required (as in when somebody tries to enter a protected area of your site without the proper credentials), 403 - Forbidden (as in when a file with permissions not allowing it to be accessed by the user is requested) and 400 - Bad Request, which is one of those generic kind of errors that people get to by doing some weird stuff with your URL or scripts.

In order to specify your own customized error documents, you simply need to add the following command, on one line, within your htaccess file:

ErrorDocument code /directory/filename.ext
or
ErrorDocument 404 /errors/notfound.html
This would cause any error code resulting in 404 to be forward to yoursite.com/errors/notfound.html

Likewise with:

ErrorDocument 500 /errors/internalerror.html

If you were to use an error document handler for each of the error codes I mentioned, the htaccess file would look like the following (note each command is on its own line):

ErrorDocument 400 /errors/badrequest.html
ErrorDocument 401 /errors/authreqd.html
ErrorDocument 403 /errors/forbid.html
ErrorDocument 404 /errors/notfound.html
ErrorDocument 500 /errors/serverr.html

You can specify a full URL rather than a virtual URL in the ErrorDocument string (http://yoursite.com/errors/notfound.html vs. /errors/notfound.html). But this is not the preferred method by the server’s happiness standards.

You can also specify HTML, believe it or not!

ErrorDocument 401 "<body bgcolor=#ffffff><h1>You have
 to actually <b>BE</b> a <a href="#">member</A> to view
this page, Colonel!

The only time I use that HTML option is if I am feeling particularly saucy, since you can have so much more control over the error pages when used in conjunction with xSSI or CGI or both. Also note that the ErrorDocument starts with a ” just before the HTML starts, but does not end with one…it shouldn’t end with one and if you do use that option, keep it that way. And again, that should all be on one line, no naughty word wrapping!

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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November 4th, 2008 by SwaraTech

For the best results using FeedBurner with your self-hosted WordPress site, we recommend the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin (originally authored by the legendary Steve Smith). The plugin will detect all ways to access your feed (e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/feed/ or http://www.yoursite.com/wp-rss2.php, etc.), and redirect them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. It will forward for your main posts feed and optionally, your main comments feed as well.

The plugin is currently compatible with downloadable WordPress versions 1.5 through 2.5. (Please note that “tag” feeds in later WordPress versions are not supported.)

Installation

Download the plugin, then follow the instructions below to begin forwarding all WordPress feed traffic to your FeedBurner feed.

1. Copy the plugin file, FeedBurner_FeedSmith_Plugin.php into your default WordPress plugin directory, wp-content/plugins/ .
2. Activate the plugin by logging into your WordPress administration area, clicking Plugins, then clicking Activate at the end of the “FeedBurner FeedSmith” row.
3. In the WordPress administration area, begin the configuration by clicking Options and then the FeedBurner FeedSmith sub-option.
4. Follow the links to create your FeedBurner feeds, or if they already exist, simply fill in their URLs in the boxes provided.Note: If you currently use the old, 2005-vintage version of the Ordered List FeedBurner plugin that generates a FeedBurner-specific URL (an example: www.yoursite.com/feedburner_838196/), that URL is no longer available or necessary. You will have to reset your FeedBurner feed’s Original Feed address to now use your standard blog feed address. Additionally, you should examine any .htaccess files that control access to your WordPress installation’s content and remove any existing references that forward or redirect your feeds, as these references will no longer be necessary.
5. Verify your URLs in the text entry fields, and click Save.

Now all of your WordPress feed traffic should be redirected to FeedBurner.

Deactivation

To deactivate automatic forwarding of your feed traffic to FeedBurner, deactivate the plugin via the Plugins section of your WordPress Administration control panel.

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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November 2nd, 2008 by SwaraTech

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks,” the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Sometimes a site’s structure (the relationships between its content) must be altered too. Because of this it is, from a client’s perspective, always better to incorporate Search Engine Optimization when a website is being developed than to try and retroactively apply it.

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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November 2nd, 2008 by SwaraTech

Keywords are the most important SEO item for every search engine – actually they are what search strings are matched against. So you see that it is very important that you optimize your site for the right keywords. This seems easy at first but when you get into more detail, it might be a bit confusing to correctly determine the keywords. But with a little research and thinking the problem of selecting the right keywords to optimize for can be solved.

1. Choosing the Right Keywords to Optimize For

It seems that the time when you could easily top the results for a one-word search string is centuries ago. Now, when the Web is so densely populated with sites, it is next to impossible to achieve constant top ratings for a one-word search string. Achieving constant top ratings for two-word or three-word search strings is a more realistic goal. If you examine closely the dynamics of search results for popular one-word keywords, you might notice that it is so easy one week to be in the first ten results and the next one– to have fallen out of the first 30 results because the competition for popular one-word keywords is so fierce and other sites have replaced you.

Of course, you can include one-word strings in your keywords list but if they are not backed up by more expressions, do not dream of high ratings. For instance, if you have a site about dogs, “dog” is a mandatory keyword but if you do not optimize for more words, like “dog owners”, “dog breeds”, “dog food”, or even “canine”, success is unlikely, especially for such a popular keyword. The examples given here are by no means the ultimate truth about how to optimize a dog site but they are good enough to show that you need to think broad when choosing the keywords.

Generally, when you start optimization, the first thing you need to consider is the keywords that describe the content of your site best and that are most likely to be used by users to find you. Ideally, you know your users well and can guess correctly what search strings they are likely to use to search for you. One issue to consider is synonyms. Very often users will use a different word for the same thing. For instance, in the example with the dog site, “canine” is a synonym and it is for sure that there will be users who will use it, so it does not hurt to include it now and then on your pages. But do not rush to optimize for every synonym you can think of – search engines themselves have algorithms that include synonyms in the keyword match, especially for languages like English.

Instead, think of more keywords that are likely to be used to describe your site. Thinking thematically is especially good because search engines tend to rate a page higher if it belongs to a site the theme of which fits into the keyword string. In this aspect it is important that your site is concentrated around a particular theme – i.e. dogs. It might be difficult to think of all the relevant keywords on your own but that is why tools are for. For instance, the Website Keyword Suggestions Tool below can help you to see how search engines determine the theme of your web site and what keywords fit into this theme. You can also try Google’s Keyword Tool to get more suggestions about which keywords are hot and which are not.

When choosing the keywords to optimize for, you need to consider not only their relevancy to your site and the expected monthly number of searches for these particular keywords. Very often narrow searches are more valuable because the users that come to your site are those that are really interested in your product. If we go on with the dog example, you might discover that the “adopt a dog” keyphrase brings you more visitors because you have a special section on your site where you give advice on what to look for when adopting a dog. This page is not of interest of current dog owners but to potential dog owners only, who might be not so many in number but are your target audience and the overall effect of attracting this niche can be better than attracting everybody who is interested in dogs in general. So, when you look at the numbers of search hits per month, consider the unique hits that fit into the theme of your site.

2. Keyword Density

After you have chosen the keywords that describe your site and are supposedly of interest to your users, the next step is to make your site keyword-rich and to have good keyword density for your target keywords. Keyword density is a common measure of how relevant a page is. Generally, the idea is that the higher the keyword density, the more relevant to the search string a page is. The recommended density is 3-7% for the major 2 or 3 keywords and 1-2% for minor keywords. Try the Keyword Density Checker below to determine the keyword density of your website.

Although there are no strict rules, try optimizing for a reasonable number of keywords – 5 or 10 is OK. If you attempt to optimize for a list of 300, you will soon see that it is just not possible to have a good keyword density for more than a few keywords, without making the text sound artificial and stuffed with keywords. And what is worse, there are severe penalties (including ban from the search engine) for keyword stuffing because this is considered an unethical practice that tries to manipulate search results.

3. Keywords in Special Places

Keywords are very important not only as quantity but as quality as well – i.e. if you have more keywords in the page title, the headings, the first paragraphs – this counts more that if you have many keywords at the bottom of the page. The reason is that the URL (and especially the domain name), file names and directory names, the page title, the headings for the separate sections are more important than ordinary text on the page and therefore, all equal, if you have the same keyword density as your competitors but you have keywords in the URL, this will boost your ranking incredibly, especially with Yahoo!.

a. Keywords in URLs and File Names

The domain name and the whole URL of a site tell a lot about it. The presumption is that if your site is about dogs, you will have “dog”, “dogs”, or “puppy” as part of your domain name. For instance, if your site is mainly about adopting dogs, it is much better to name your dog site “dog-adopt.net” than “animal-care.org”, for example, because in the first case you have two major keywords in the URL, while in the second one you have no more than one potential minor keyword.

When hunting for keyword rich domain names, don’t get greedy. While from a SEO point of view it is better to have 5 keywords in the URL, just imagine how long and difficult to memorize the URL will be. So you need to strike a balance between the keywords in the URL and site usability, which says that more than 3 words in the URL is a way too much.
Probably you will not be able to come on your own with tons of good suggestions. Additionally, even if you manage to think of a couple of good domain names, they might be already taken. In such cases tools like the Tool below can come very handy.

b. Keywords in Page Titles

The page title is another special place because the contents of the <title> tag usually gets displayed in most search engines, (including Google). While it is not mandatory per the HTML specification to write something in the <title> tag (i.e. you can leave it empty and the title bar of the browser will read “Untitled Document” or similar), for SEO purposes you may not want to leave the <title> tag empty; instead, you’d better write the the page title in it.

c. Keywords in Headings

Normally headings separate paragraphs into related subtopics and from a literary point of view, it may be pointless to have a heading after every other paragraph but from SEO point of view it is extremely good to have as many headings on a page as possible, especially if they have the keywords in them.

There are no technical length limits for the contents of the <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, … <hn> tags but common sense says that too long headings are bad for page readability. So, like with URLs, you need to be wise with the length of headings. Another issue you need to consider is how the heading will be displayed. If it is Heading 1 (<h1>), generally this means larger font size and in this case it is recommendable to have less than 7-8 words in the heading, otherwise it might spread on 2 or 3 lines, which is not good and if you can avoid it – do it.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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November 2nd, 2008 by SwaraTech

There are four main steps:

• Step 1 - Use the right words on your website.
• Step 2 - Get lots of relevant sites to link to yours.
• Step 3 - Use the right words in those links.
• Step 4 - Have lots of content on your site & add more regularly.

Just 4 step we customize our website, I sure your website in a good ranking…

Gud Luck

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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