Ok, Here is the question….

Is it safe to upgrade your blog to WordPress 3.3?

And the answer is yes. It’s safe to upgrade and the old database will be automatically restructured to fit the new WordPress. Most of the plugins will (literally all of them) will work as it is, unless it is using any deprecated functions or database fields (no need to worry, we can remove them in a click, that’s why we call them PLUG-IN).

Just take a backup of your Blog’s MySql database and start the update. If you need help in taking backup refer to this post 5 steps to do before updating your WordPress Blog

Just go to you www.[yourBlog].com/wp-admin/update-core.php and look for the update link. Just click it and you are good to go with your newly updated WordPress 3.3

That’s it. I have already updated it and it’s pretty nice too. I have uploaded these images with the drag and drop upload interface.

Go play with your pet blog….

We see images of the phones, but we don’t know what it’s like in real. I am going to get a new smartphone at the end of this month and I have my eyes on several phones including HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V etc… So I went to a local store and asked for the demo phones and there is no demo phones on some models at the moment.

It’s too bad. I was so eager to see what’s the real size and to know will it fit my hands and finger while I type. But I couldn’t.

Then after a long search I stumbled upon this site, this is very interesting this site shows the real size images of the phones and we can compare the smart phones. There are not many phones right now, but they have data on major models and all of them are smart phones.

So all you have to do is to go http://versusio.com/en/ and click the image that says “Original size 1:1″. Then a light box pops up with an image of a credit card.

Now you place your credit or a debit card on the screen and adjust the size of the credit care on the screen with a +/- buttons. Now the Javascript that runs behind the screen will change the layout of the image to your view size.

BINGO….. There you have. All the phones on your screen with their real world size.

Beyond this, the site compares the phones and gives you a list of reasons why you should but that phones.

Damn… Credit card sizes…. they are all about the same through out the world. Why in the world I couldn’t thought of this before… I should use this idea in my next project were it’s applicable.

“image014.gif” has failed to upload due to an error Unable to create directory

/[YOUR SERVER PATH]/[YOUR BLOG FOLDER]//wp-content/uploads/2011/12. Is its parent directory writable by the server?

something like that. You might think that this is because of  your upload folder “permission”.  You might have already tried and failed changing the folder permission to writable (777 permission), but still it’s not working right?

The problem is with the upload directory url in the media settings page.

To solve this problem go to http://[BLOG-ADDRESS]/wp-admin/options-media.php and you will see the text boxes like these below.

Now you must be seeing some path already set in those text boxes.

All you have to do is to delete those urls and make them empty as it is in the image above,  and save those changes. That’s all, now your uploads are good to go with your blog.

These errors may be popped up because of…

1. after you mess up with the upload path in the settings
2. after moving your blog from one host to another
3. after restoring database from old backup database
4. changing folder of your blog in your hosting account
5. etc…

Now google have made some changes to the algorithm to display ads that the readers interested in rather than just going for relevant ads. We all make searches in google every day, at least 20 – 30 times a day (well i do 100+, practically google is my magic wand).

All these searches made were saved in google and these search terms are used to figure out what we like most. By this google displays ads of our interest.

My site displays ads of bikes and Cars to me when I view my site which has absolutely nothing to do with Automobiles . Then Why? Because I do at least 10 to 20 searches a day on my favorite automobiles and gadgets. So google knows that I like and it shows them.

See the pictures below, number of cookies i could find in my system just from google inc. (All these cookies are not used for ads,  i’m just showing them to let you know how much data can be gathered from us)

But one thing, it seems to be google in not always using this methodology to display ads, when there are more relevant ads to display, then google will only display ads that are relevant.

For now, it seems to be google is using this new method of displaying ads on pages that are too hard to predict and on pages that are not yet recognized for ad category.

Have you felt difference in ad display lately…. let me know using the comment box below.

I am using wampserver and I was wondering how to enable curl in wampserver. I googled for few mins and found it. It’s all same for WampServer, XAMPP etc…

Follow the simple steps. (this is for wampserver and XAMPP is the same once you locate your php.ini file)

1. Start the WampServer.
2. In your system tray icon, click the WampServer icon -> PHP -> php.ini (see the image below)
   
3.  The php.ini file will open up. In the file locate the line

   ;extension=php_curl.dll

   and remove the “;” in that line. Actually we are removing the comment symbol and make it available. now the line will look like this…

   extension=php_curl.dll 

4. Now save the php.ini file and close it.
5. Restart WampServer.
6. Now look at the localhost homepage, in the extension list curl will be there.
7. That’s it… curl is enabled in WampServer

So i thought this is going to be a tedious work…. but…. with wordpress sometimes live gets easier than we think.

I did it with few clicks. (accidentally stumbled upon this one… )

Follow these steps….

I am assuming that you are having the MySql database backup with you and you have already installed the wordpress in your server.

now let’s do it…

1. First open your phpMyAdmin page of your hosting server. I hope you know where it is. It’s in your hosting admin panel, look for this icon.
   
2. In your MySql admin page select your blog’s database.
3. Drop all the tables. (yes! you heard me right, drop em all)
4. Now click the “Import Tab” at the top.
5. Now import the old database file from your system.
6. That’s it We are good to go.
7. Now go to http://yourBlog.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php
8. Now you will see the following message,
   
9. Click the “Update WordPress Database” button.
10. Now you will see the following message.
    
11. Now you can navigate to your home page and see your site using all the content from the uploaded database.

Simple isn’t it?

Finally go to the media tab in the settings and check and reset the actual path for uploads if necessary.

Now… you think this is cool? I think it’s cool. WP always rocks.

Note: For this to work you must use the same site’s database, That is if the database is of http://problogstar.com then it should be used for http://problogstar.com. If you are willing to use it in other wordpress site then you must make some changes to the database to fit the new site.

P.S : PLEASE BACK UP EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING WITH WORDPRESS DATABASE. or Hire a wordpress professional to handle things. 

I just received a chat message from one of my buddy saying “Did you know I just got glasses? Do they look ok or should I go get contacts right away?” and a download link…

WARNING: THE BELOW LINK HAS A VIRUS HOSTED

www.picturesend.co.cc/up/38102/MyPhoto09.JPEG.zip

I thought my friend bought a new spectacles for him… (obviously fell for that…) Then I downloaded the file and tried to open it. My avast detected the hazardous file and blocked it form accessing internet. I am not sure what kind of virus is that, but I am bit confident that’s not so serious.

Then I contacted him and asked him about that… He said “I haven’t sent it, It’s a spam message that is been automatically sent from my account”.

Boom…. Hacked. I am not sure that it’s been sent from gmail or triggered by some virus in his system through Outlook express or similar mail client…

I think, Maybe that’s an adware that pops-up random crap websites. But I hardly recommend you not to open the file. See the co.cc domain extention… that’s an free domain service (actually subdomain).

Few week back I have posted a wall message in my facebook profile about “facebook is been hacked”… Bit annoying when I end up like this…

Dhanaraj, One of my friends. His site was hacked few months ago. He hosted the site in blogger.com and added a domain to it. But now… It’s Hacked… Changed… and been used by the hacker. Nothing could be done.

This is just a sample from the hacking cloud.

Today I am saved by me antivirus, that’s why I highly recommend you to have a antivirus installed in your PC at least to save our home content.

I went for a small vacation last week and ended up with a slow internet connection. I was in need of watching a Youtube video and have to download it for future reference…

You can download the youtube video in different file formats from several youtube downloader sites, but now I have to watch it and download it in 128kbs connection.

So I came up with a little old hat trick. All data that are displayed in the browser must be stored in the browser’s cache memory, so we must be able to extract the video that is being displayed.

I was using the chrome browser, so this guide is based on chrome browser.

So these are the steps to extract the video from the chrome’s cache.

Step 1: Navigate to the chrome’s local data storage folder

Finding chrome’s cache folder is bit tricky but easy… the cache files located in this root folder…

Windows XP –> C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome

Windows VISTA –> C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\

Window7 –>\users\[USERNAME]\appdata\roaming\Chrome

(I am not sure that the path for Windows7 users is the correct one, please check it, or google it)

replace the username with your username… if your the administrator then it will be “Administrator”.

Step 2 : Finding the cache folder

Now you will see 2 folders (default and temp) and some files, navigate to the folder named “default”. Inside that default folder you will find the “cache” folder.

Step 3 : Finding your videos

The cache files will be named in a unknown series, and it’s difficult to find your video. But here we are going to use our 1400 grams BRAIN.

The browser cache files are very small in size, usually from 15KB to 1MB, but our flash files and youtube videos are at lest 5mb in size even if the video is less than a minute.

So right click and arrange (sort) the files by size… now the files are sorted from small files to large files. Now select the files that are large as video files. These are the video files that you saw in youtube…

Step 4 : Playing the Files

The files that you retrieved from the cache folder is in a different file format. But don’t worry, you can play that video file in a VLC media player. The latest VLC media player supports that codec. Or you can play that file in any player that plays FLV videos.

NOTE: This technique will work not only in youtube but on all video sharing sites like Metacafe, Veoh etc…

So first thing First,

What Should you outsource?

It would be easier for you if I point them as a list,

• Blog design
• Plugin design
• Backend works (database related works)

The above works must be outsourced to professionals, because they affect your blog in a great way. Never ever mess it up. If you are a programmer like me then you may touch them, else…. STAY AWAY FORM BACKEND

I think I did enough shouting at you….

Beyond these you can out source thing like

• Content generation
• Simple code implementations
• Aweber subscription
• Feedburner badges
• Tracking codes
• Blog promotion etc…

but you don’t have to outsource all these things, so know when to out  source.

When Should you outsource?

The second list above contains minor works that anyone can do. You should out source then only under two circumstance,

1. When you have no time
2. If you got no idea about it, (ex: Blog promotion, code implementation)

Try to do such small thing all by your self, I recommended only code implementation and blog promotion for outsourcing.

Where you Should outsource?

The web is full of freelancers like me, you can hire them for you jobs. There are good sites like oDesk, Scriptlance, eLance etc… where you can hire a programmer, designer, ghost writer for your blog.

But I recommended you to work with a freelancer in a long term, because when ever you hire a new one in those site you will have to pay again and again for those sites.

In oDesk, you can hire programmers for “hours of work”,  you pay them only for the hours they work. I am always available on oDesk and have clients pay me for hourly works like code implementations, graphics, programming etc…

I think now you got some basic idea about when, where, and what to outsource right?

Note: If you want me to hire me then you are most welcomed to contact me. or you can hire me at oDesk