The Digital Forest

How To Unblock and Use Skype in the UAE

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:12:00 +0000

Skype is blocked in the United Arab Emirates. That means no more cheap VoIP calling to all your loved ones back home overseas. However, there is a way to get around this. It's called HotSpot Shield and it's available free from Anchorfree. This program creates a VPN so your web surfing is "anonymous" which will enable you to visit sites that were previously blocked--Skype being one of them!

First things first, download HotSpot Shield for free here. Install the program, then go download Skype. If you cannot create an account, get a friend back home to create a SkypeOut account and fill it up for you. Remember to always launch HotSpot shield before launching Skype. There you have it, you can now call home for cheap from the UAE with Skype!!!

This has been tried, tested, and true by friends of mine living in Dubai. Give it a shot!

Blogging From An iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:47:00 +0000

Mooving Along with Blog Contests...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 02:23:00 +0000

There are so many blog contests out there nowadays. Which one to enter? How about this one?

“Over at JohnCow.com they must have the coolest web hosting provider in the pasture. These guys are having a cowpetition and are giving away a $500 prize! Here’s your chance to win a Playstation3,or an Xbox360, a Nintendo Wii, an iPhone .. you name it, they’ll pay it! Don’t miss out and check out their mad cow blog!”

I hope I win! Go enter now!!

Google Docs & Spreadsheets: Now with charts, range names and comments!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:29:00 +0000

Google Docs and Spreadsheets just introduced new features today! Check them out here:

Charts!
Now it's easy to show data in simple graphics to friends or co-workers with charts. Select from various styles to meet your visualization needs. Learn more
Range names
Now you can reference a range of cells in any formula by a nickname (like "zipcodes") instead of cell letters and numbers (like "A2:M33"). Learn more
Comments
Feel like leaving a comment for yourself or a friend on a spreadsheet? Now you can leave comments on any spreadsheet cell for all to see. Learn more

This just made their software that much better. I wonder how the upcoming PowerPoint software will incorporate with these new features.

Adsense Messages Just for You

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:16:00 +0000

Google Adsense today has implemented a new service: messages delivered to your new inbox within your Google Adsense account. This is to provide you with new personalized tips to optimize your Adsense account. They will analyze your account and ad settings. This is a great new feature from Google that will be sure to help all the websites and bloggers out there who are taking advantage of Google's successful Adsense program.

Google phone rumors are crushed

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:42:00 +0000

With the current hype over Apple's iPhone, there has been long time rumors of a Google phone. Just last week Engadget posted that a Google executive confirmed that a Google phone was in the making. This was obviously met with huge fanfare as digg picked up the story and many people were stoked. However, the news has changed as now Google has come out and crushed these rumors. Richard Kimber, Google's South-East managing director of sales and operations mentioned that it wouldn't make sense for Google to shift their company's business model toward hardware. They would rather stick to working together with phone manufactures.

If you ask me, it makes more sense for Google to work with phone manufactures rather than trying to build their own phone. Selling a physical product involves after sale support and other responsibilities that Google does not have to deal with. Google's number one source of income is through it's Adwords program--if it ain't broke, why fix it? Read more about this story here.

Could this be the future Google phone?

How to Create a Successful Blogger Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:54:00 +0000

Blogging--is it in you?

Out of the millions of blogs on the internet, new blogs are being created every minute and also being abandoned. Feel like joining the growing statistics of "having your own blog?" Well, keep on reading because this little tutorial just might be for you. I have lots of people asking me how to start up a blog all the time. Hopefully this article will address that.

There are many options out there if you are one of the millions who are considering starting a blog. The first step is finding a host for your blog. You can purchase and register your own domain from various web hosting companies out there. However, this tutorial will focus on Google's free blog service, Blogger.

Blogger is an excellent choice for building a blog. It is easy to use and feature rich. It can also be customized to your liking and tweaked if you have the knowledge to do so. This tutorial will focus on how I setup my blog as a standard three column layout, adding a graphic for the header, and monetizing with Google Adsense, along with the little fixes I have found along the way. I will try to make this as simple as possible, for the beginner blogger. If you're looking for an advanced tutorial on how to customize CSS, this is not for you. I am following the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle for my blog--a simple design for my readers. I will let my content be my brainchild.

Step 1: Creating a Google Account and your blog on Blogger

Previously, acquiring a Google Account involved getting an invitation to Gmail from a friend. However, Google has now opened up the floodgates and registration is now open to all. Go to www.blogger.com and click on "Create your blog now". If you have a Google Account, sign in. If not, you can create one on the spot through Blogger.

Step 2: Name your blog...whatever you want to call it!

Blog title: at this step you will have to do some soul searching. What do you want to name your blog? You can always change this later so don't worry about what you're going to write down.

Blog address (URL): this is the domain name that people will type into their web browsers to reach your blog. Think of something that you like and click "Check Availability" to see if it's available.

Word Verification: enter the letters you see in the picture. This prevents spammers from creating endless blogs.

Step 3: Choose template...pick your design!

Here you will choose a template, or design for your blog. You can change this later so just stick with Minima and click continue. That's it, you're finished! Now click on "start posting"...

You now have two choices.
A) If you want to start posting to your blog, you may do so now.
B) If you want to customize your blog and find out how to create the look and feel of The Digital Forest, keep on reading.

Step 4: Uploading a new template--Three Column Minima

If you're still following me, the next step is to upload a new template. We could manually change the CSS coding in the HTML template, but that's too complex for the average user (including myself!). The next best solution is to download one for free from Hoctro's Place!

Download it here and save it to your desktop:
Minima Stretch:http://hoctroarticles.googlepages.com/3col-minima-stretch.xml

1. Now, go to your blog and click the "Template" tab.
2. Next, click on "Edit HTML"
3. Where it says "Upload a template from a file on your hard drive," click on
4. Browse and find the template that you saved to your desktop. Then click "Upload". If it worked properly, it should say "Your changes have been saved".

Step 5: Resizing the columns--main column and sidebars

This next step is important if you want to monetize your blog by using Google Adsense banners and ad blocks. If you would like to put on a 468x60 banner at the top of your main posts, you will need to set the main column to 468 pixels. Also, my sidebars are larger to accommodate for widgets and other goodies that I will put up in the future. How do we do this? Well, it requires modifying your HTML template again. So, before we do this backup your blog template.

How do you backup your template?
1. Go to the "Template" tab in the settings and click on "Edit HTML".
2. From there, click on "Download Full Template"...save this XML file (it is your template) to your computer and that should be it. I would recommend doing this before you make any changes to your blog, as it is better to be safe than sorry!

Now let's move onto changing the sizes of your Minima three column blog layout. These are the changes that I made to my blog. If you want to try something else, go right ahead and experiment. That is the best way to learn how to modify your blog template.

1. Modifying the Header CSS code: Look for the following code in your template. Use the search feature in Firefox (Ctrl+F) and Internet Explorer (Ctrl+F) to quickly find this code. It is located in the top half of the HTML code:

#header-wrapper {
width:850px;

As you can see, I set the width for my header wrapper to 850 pixels. You can set yours to whatever you want.

2. Modifying the header description code: Look for the following code:

#header .description {
margin:0 5px 5px;
padding:0 20px 15px;
max-width:800px;

As you can see I set my max width to 800 pixels. Once again you can experiment with this yourself.

3. Modifying the outer wrapper code; I set mine to 850 pixels:

#outer-wrapper {
width: 850px;

4. Modifying the main wrapper code; I set mine to 468 pixels. This is crucial if you want a 468x60 pixel Google Adsense banner to show properly on your blog.

#main-wrapper {
width: 468px;

5. Modifying the sidebar on the right; I set mine to 175 pixels

#sidebar-wrapper {
width: 175px;

6. Modifying the new sidebar on the left; I set mine to 150 pixels. This was the default size. Ensure yours is at 150 pixels too:

#newsidebar-wrapper {
width: 150px;

Save your template. If all went well, it should save properly. If there was an error, click on clear edits and just leave your template as is.

Step 6 - Discovering your passion: What to blog about?

I'm going to stop this tutorial here. Your next step is to find a niche, or a specific area of interest that your blog will be about. As everybody says out in the world of SEO, "content is king". So that means you have to find something you will enjoy writing out--that way it won't seem like a chore when you're blogging. Have fun and be sure to subscribe to my blog!

Costco changes its return policy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:18:00 +0000

Costco is the ultimate dream for an electronics lover. Not because they have the widest selection of products, but because their "no questions asked, full refund" return policy was one of the best in the business. Don't like your latest high definition plasma TV or top of the line Intel processor based PC? That's okay, return that sucker for a full refund after it's been used and abused! The depreciation of electronics, especially computers nowadays is astounding. So by returning these products Costco loses money. Hence, they ended up changing their policy to 6 months for computer returns.

Many people respected their return policy and many people abused it. Well, it looks like now Costco has dropped the hammer and decided to make some drastic changes. Some people were buying high definition TVs and returning them two-three years later for the newer (and cheaper) model! This was causing concern so now, the policy has changed according to their website:

Membership: We will refund your membership fee in full at any time if you are dissatisfied.

Merchandise: We guarantee your satisfaction on every product we sell, with a full refund. Exceptions: Televisions, computers, cameras, camcorders, iPOD / MP3 players and cellular phones must be returned within 90 days of purchase for a refund.

How to Return: Simply return your purchase at any one of our Costco warehouses worldwide for a refund (including shipping and handling). If you are unable to return your order at one of our warehouses, please email customerservice@costco.com or call our customer service center at 1-800-955-2292 for assistance. To expedite the processing of your return, please reference your order number.

This new policy toward electronics will start out in California and then the rest of the continental USA. I am assuming this will also affect the Canadian market in the future.I admit it, I've been a culprit of maximizing their return policy. Here's an example of their lenient policy. One time I had a portable table top barbecue returned (it was only worth $50). What was the problem you ask? Well, the lid was painted red and I noticed that the paint on the inside was MELTING during cooking. That is not a good thing. I ended up returning the barbecue to Costco for a full refund. What makes this story interesting? The barbecue was just under a year old, I had no box, and no receipt! I got my refund, walked back into the store and purchased the exact same barbecue--but now it had a stainless steel lid! Go figure. But I have never returned a high definition TV after a couple years, that's stretching it a bit too far.