www.youtube.com/watch?v=myu7czfNlCs

In today’s episode we will learn how to create a free static website using your Dropbox account. You do not need to pay for any hosting provider and can use the public folder of Dropbox for running a simple mini website for free.

The idea is very simple - download a free HTML template and edit the content of your website. Then create a new directory in your Dropbox account’s public folder and upload all the files to that directory. Next, copy the public link of the folder and you have the URL of your mini website ready to be shared with anyone

This technique can be used to create a small scale HTML only website and you won’t be able to use a CMS like WordPress or other software which requires server side scripting.

For the text version of the above video, please check out our earlier tutorial - How to use Dropbox to Host a Static website for Free

Links:
1. Dropbox
2. Free HTML templates

Create a Free Static Website Using Dropbox [Screencasts] originally published on Ampercent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHmCDbT0pW8

In this episode we will learn how to create a proxy server using Google App engine and Python. A Proxy server can use used to open blocked sites from any computer.

Download Source Files

Read the tutorial

Create Your Own Proxy Server Using Google App Engine [Screencasts] originally published on Ampercent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKMyhii-3kU

2010 is coming to an end and majority of the social networking websites and search engines have put their year in review pages live. If you haven’t seen the year in review pages of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google yet, click through the following links to visit:

• Twitter’s year in review page
• Facebook’s year in review page
• YouTube’s year in review page - video
• Google’s year in a review - Zeitgeist 2010

But if you are interested in creating a customized year in a review page, here is an interesting Flash based tool from Guardian.co.uk, which is well worth a waste of 5 minutes.

The Guardian’s 2010 Year in Review page lists all the major international events of 2010 arranged in an interactive flash interface. You can click through each thumbnail and read the story or blog post in a new browser tab. An excerpt of the article is shown at the top of the page so that you can read the description and the date of publication.

What’s interesting regarding the Guardian page is that the tool allows you to handpick specific stories and arrange them in a nice collage format, month by month. You can then share your customized year in review 2010 page with anyone, through a web link

I played with the tool and created a custom Year in a review page with selected stories of my interest. (see example)

Go ahead, build your own year in a review page. It’s really fun to play with !

Create A Customized Year In Review Page [Screencasts] originally published on Ampercent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gRl0cLp88U

In today’s episode, you will learn how to sync any file or folder outside your computer’s “MyDropbox” folder taking help of Symbolic links in Windows.

Dropbox is a cloud based file sync application which allows you to sync files and folders with multiple computers and mobile devices. Anything that you put inside the “My Dropbox ” folder, gets synched across all computers, and these files are also accessible via a web interface.

But the sad part is that Dropbox does not allow users to sync files and folders that are stored outside the “My Dropbox” folder. However, this little command prompt trick can be used to create symbolic links and sync any folder with Dropbox.

For the text version of the tutorial with screenshots, check out our earlier tutorial on how to sync any file or folder with Dropbox.

Sync Files And Folders Outside The My Dropbox Folder originally published on Ampercent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9kM8lUvDhQ

Facebook allows you to import a list of contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, Windows Live mail but the reverse isn’t true. You can not download the contact details and email addresses of all your Facebook friends from your Facebook account.

However, you can connect your Facebook account with Yahoo or Windows live Hotmail and use their contact importer to import the email addresses. Then download the email list as a CSV file and import the contact details in Gmail, Google Apps or Microsoft Outlook.

For the text version of this video, please refer our earlier tutorial - How to download email addresses of Facebook friends.

Export The Email Addresses of Facebook Friends originally published on Ampercent

The limitation of Dropbox is that it does not allows anyone to upload files to your Dropbox account. Your friends who do not have a Dropbox account can not upload files directly to your Dropbox account’s folder. You can use this method to create a public page where anyone can upload files directly to your computer’s My dropbox folder, which will be synched to your desktop if the Dropbox client is running.

The script allows password protection as well, hence spammers or unknown strangers will not be able to upload files without your consent.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GES7P8ZL2I

For the text version of the tutorial please read our earlier article - Allow anyone to upload files to your Dropbox account.

View the Demo

Download link of the script

Note: This script was featured on Lifehacker and Addictive tips , the video has received close to 4500 views.

Create A Simple Public File Uploader Using Dropbox originally published on Ampercent

The idea here is to create shortcuts or links to the files and folders required by the program to run and then place the shortcuts on the installation directory. Then the core files and folders are moved to another non operating partition of your choice.

For the text version of the above video, please check out our earlier tutorial -  how to move installed programs to a non operating system drive.

Move Installed Programs To Another Drive Without Reinstallation originally published on Ampercent

After some days, you will be able to see the heatmap and click pattern in your blog, an example can be seen here.

We tested the heatmap script on our blog which is powered by WordPress, however it will work fine on simple HTML websites ( Sorry, blogs hosted on blogger.com are not supported).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF_hPTpseV8

For the text version of this video please read our earlier article - How to Install a Free Heatmap Script on a website and track visitor clicks

Link: ClickHeat

Install a HeatMap Script In Your Website And Track Visitor Clicks originally published on Ampercent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ahsx6vOuBc

In today’s episode, we will learn how to create an instant search engine for your website or blog using Google custom search and Google AJAX API. To do this, you will need a web server that supports php and a Google Account.

The instant search works the same way as Google Instant does, it allows you to preview search results as you type in the search box. You can include multiple domains in the instant search engine and the script will search all the specified websites and show the results.

Demo:  Here is a demo of an instant search engine which searches this blog for posts and pages that matches with your keywords.

To set up the instant search on your website, watch the above video or read the instructions.

Tip us: If you have any tips, suggestions or project ideas, send them over at tips@ampercent.com and we would feature your trick in our next video tutorial.

Create an Instant Search For Your Website originally published on Ampercent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKf2lJShDeA

In today’s episode we will learn the usage of  a Network monitoring software which can be used to control and monitor your computer network in various ways. You can keep an eye on file downloads, visited websites, time interval and many other important parameters.

To start monitoring your computer network and track usage behaviors, you will need a network monitoring software. There are tons out there but we highly recommend using GFI web monitoring program which can be found here.

For the text version of this tutorial, please read our earlier post  - Control and Monitor your Network activity using GFI Web Monitor

Use a Network Monitoring Software To Monitor Network Activity originally published on Ampercent