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There are many things that you can do to optimize your website for better ranking in search engines. Below are a list of things that anyone can do to rank better. I’d like to imagine search engines using a point system to govern the billions of websites in the universe, giving points for elements and keywords that will help in bringing the most relevant results to searchers. I’ve divided the list into 3 different categories, for better understanding of the importance that each item brings. Important, quite important and very important.

Very Important

Keywords in < title > tag

Imagine walking down a street with dozens of shops on the left and right, each with a name at the top, wanting to buy a table lamp. The street is busy and as you walk down further, you see a shop with the name of ‘Lights & Lamps’. You walk in, buy that table lamp you’ve been searching for and walk out. Little did you know, the shop next door also sells table lamps but with a cheaper price. You didn’t notice it cause it’s name was ‘Mr Chee’. It’s name sounded more like a restaurant than an electrical store.

Shop = your site
Signboard = < title > tag

Keywords in URL

http:// rangit.com / keywords-in-URL /

Directory names can help rankings in Google even if competition is competitive although keyword stuffing in URL may contribute to the site being flagged as spam. If the content is of quality and it matches, you’ll have full points for it.

Keyword density in content

Keyword density is the ratio of the word that is being searched for against the total number of words appearing on a given web page. A naturally written document contains a keyword density of at most 10%. It’s one of the simplest way of gaining points in search engine rankings. Chris did it.

Keywords in anchor text

The anchor text of inbound links can be a decisive factor when going after top ranking on extremely competitive search terms. John Chow displayed the power of anchor test when he lured anchor text in the form of contests, though linking for prizes is considered a violation of Google’s terms and conditions.

Keywords in headings

There are six levels of headings from < h1 > (the most important) to < h6 > (the least important). User agents may use headings to construct a table of contents for a document automatically. If the content is of quality and relevance, you’ll have full points for it.

PR of inbound links

In the world of Google, the higher your PR the higher your reputation. Getting an inbound link from a high ranking site will certainly give more value to the inbound link.

Site similarity of inbound links

A hundred related sites linking to yours is more valuable then a thousand unrelated sites. Full points is awarded for relevance and and similarity.

.edu and .gov inbound links

Both top level domains are not sold to the public, hence the value. They don’t expire, are trusted and an inbound link carries much more weight than any other.

Quantity of inbound links

The more the better. It’s like voting. 1 link = 1 vote. All legitimate ones are counted and weighted against link popularity and originating context.

Site accessibility

Just think like a website visitor and your best selling layout is generated in your mind. Improvements include checking browser compatibility, reducing password protected areas, 404 errors and broken links. Getting more pages successfully indexed will earn a site full points in this area.

Another fundamental issue, which that is often neglected. If the site (or separate pages) is unaccessible because of broken links, 404 errors, password-protected areas and other similar reasons, then the site simply can’t be indexed.

Unique content

Content is king. Wrong.

Unique, high-quality, unduplicated content is king!

Regular content changes

Frequency of content updating in blogs and websites are becoming of more value to Google than it used to be. The more frequent the content, the more likely others are going to visit your site and find articles that they want to link to, which in turn provides leverage in SERPs. I personally regard frequent content updating as the BEST marketing tool you can ever have in today’s web.




Quite Important

The first in line

The heading should contain the most important keyword. Followed by a paragraph containing all the important keywords. Logic being the higher up the keyword, the more important it should be.

Keywords in < alt > tags

< alt > tags are considered by all 4 major engines. Use them to describe images. Put appropriate keywords in them as long as they actually describe the picture.

Anchor text of internal links

Internal links are hyperlinks that join the documents in the website. This is assuming you have more than one page which should be the case if you are serious about optimizing your site. As you have direct control over these internal links this is the place to start using the keywords that you are targeting in the anchor text.

Around the anchor text

Search engines pay attention to all of the text around a link as key words and descriptions to further indicate the relevance of the link. The text around it is also used to determine the nature of the link, whether if it is artificial or natural.

Age of inbound links

Think of it as wine. Also, gaining links consistently will certainly appear natural to search engines. A sudden spike in links will certainly alert them.

Links from directories

Certainly a boost in rankings. However, the most boosts will come mostly from huge directories like dmoz.org, yahoo directory, or about.com.

Age of document

Recent and regularly updated documents gain points from search engines.

Sitemap

Gain favor with search engine spiders. Every website should have one. Here’s a suggestion. Try this sitemap generator.

Site size

The bigger, the better. Also, take user friendliness and ease of navigation into consideration as it grows.

Site age

The older the site is, the more recognized and regarded it will be. Trust points are awarded to respected and established sites, for they indicate the notion that they have been around and are here to stay.

Site theme

This is an area that matters a lot as it promotes the ranking of pages that are related to the theme. The theme ‘because you value your mind‘ is one example of low theme/content relevance.




Important

Keywords in < description > and < keywords > metatags

Since the search engines use a wide variety of factors to determine site rankings, optimizing a page to rank high is a cumulative effort. You should use everything available to you that the engines might give some weight, and therefore you should certainly use < Description > and < Keywords > metatags along with every other legitimate, acceptable technique available. At best, it may help boost your site a bit in those engines that still read them.

Keyword phrases & adjacency

The gap between 2 keywords is best when close to each other. Imagine ‘heart surgery’ in the first paragrgaph compared to ‘heart’ in the 1st sentence and ‘surgery’ in the 10th sentence. Keyword phrases stand a better chance when it is popular like ‘free online dating’ or ‘make money online’.

Secondary keywords

Rank better for targeted traffic. Imagine battling with hundreds of thousands of others for ‘plastic surgery’ compared to a handful for ‘plastic surgery manchester city’.

Misspelled keywords, Word stemming and Plural keywords

Sometimes misspelled keywords can represent a very high number of searches. Obviously, you don’t want to have misspelled words be visible on your page, however, it is a good idea to include them in your keywords meta tag.

Word stemming refers to the use of root words as synonyms for other words. For example, the word “climb” will be treated the same as “climbing”. Most search engines use word stemming, but in many cases the search results will vary. It is best to add the most commonly used versions of each word.

You will also find different results when searching for singular and plural keywords. It is best to include both.

Synonyms

Search engines do take into account synonyms of targeted keywords besides the main ones. The site get points from search engines when ranking and relevancy is calculated.

Total outgoing links from the page that links to your site

Scarcity brings value. Imagine an ice cream sale everyday and an ice cream sale once a month. The less outgoing links that the site has, the more value it brings to your site.

Named anchors

Using named anchors where appropriate improves keyword relevancy. When links are in the form < a href="/keyword.aspx#keyword" >, then keyword targeting is improved.

IP address of inbound link

MSN and Yahoo! may not take into account inbound links that originate from the same IP classes. However, Google takes all inbound link IP classes into account.

Page size

A page size of < 40KB gains more favor than a page size of > 100KB.

Location of files

The nearer a file is to the root directory, the better it ranks. Imagine comparing it against another file that is stored in the 5th layer of the tree.

Domains and Subdomains

The domain name http://rangit.com is definitely given more points by search engines compared to the subdomain of http://rangit.wordpress.com

Hyphens in URL

An underscore ‘_’ is not considered as a divider by Google.
Only hyphens ‘-’ are.

Budget

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The single most important deciding factor in purchasing your next mobile phone. Whether if it is a high end, mid range or lower range mobile phone, it all depends on your spending power. I assume that most have the budget for a mid range phone, at least. Now, I’m telling you DON’T. If you have the cash for a mid range phone, you should spend it instead on an older model high end mobile phone. For example, if you can’t afford a Samsung Galaxy S2, get the Samsung Galaxy S instead. It’s half the price and it will stay relevant longer than if you were to spend it on a Samsung Galaxy Ace.

Screen

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One of the most looked at feature when buying a phone. Most people like it big but then they have to realize that the bigger the screen size, the more power it is going to consume. Also, nothing beats LED as they are lowest in power consumption, thinner than LCDs because they do not need to be back lit, really bright screens, truer blacks, wider viewing angle and have better heat dissipation that LEDs. The best screen you can get at the moment is from Samsung called the HD Super AMOLED.

Battery Life

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A very, very important feature to look out for, especially if you are on the road a lot! The lower the battery capacity, the faster it dies out on you. When browsing through specifications of phones on the internet, always look out for talk time. Anything less than 12 hours (half a day) on 2G, forget it. HTC has a really bad reputation when it comes to battery life.

Contract

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It may look good on paper, but in actual fact, it isn’t. The savings for going contract-less is enormous. For example, an AT&T customer with an Apple iPhone on a traditional plan pays at least $130 a month, excluding taxes and fees, for unlimited calls and web use. Compared with the $50 a month, all-inclusive prepaid plans, the iPhone owner pays nearly $1,000 more over the course of a year!

Keyboard

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On slide out fairly big screens, a physical keyboard thickens the mobile phone. Blackberries like the Bold series are slimmer with the keyboard on the surface but the screen is much smaller. The only reason you would want to consider buying a mobile phone with a physical keyboard is if you email a lot. Most mobile phone keyboards are the QWERTY type that resembles the computer keyboard for familiarity and faster typing.

Network

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The most popular network band in the world is GSM, used by 80% of the world’s population. The other 20% belongs to the CDMA network band. Which means that when buying your next phone, check that it accepts both network bands for convenience purposes especially if you travel a lot.

Durability

The only way to find out if the phone survives a fall is to search youtube for “drop tests” of your phone model. For example, the youtube video above is the most popular drop test of 2011.

Camera Quality

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Of course, a real proper camera’s picture quality will always be better than one from a mobile phone but the thing is, the point and shoot or DSLR with isn’t always with you. Whereas, your phone is. So it is an important feature to consider as well. Don’t be too caught up on megapixels. It has little impact in producing a higher quality photo. The easiest is to find and compare photos taken by different mobile phones by users that uploaded them to the internet. A really good site for comparing every detail from colour to shapes to text is GSM Arena’s Photo Compare Tool.

Radioactive Level

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Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is a measure of the rate at which energy is absorbed by the body when exposed to a mobile phone’s radio frequency electromagnetic field, defined as the power absorbed per mass of tissue and has units of watts per kilogram (W/kg). SAR levels for mobile phones sold in the US must not exceed 1.6 W/kg while Europe’s must not exceed 2W/kg over 10g of tissue. Motorola has a really bad record for having high SAR levels while Samsung’s record is the best. Check out the complete list of SAR levels of mobile phones here.

What other important thing do you think one should look out for when buying a mobile phone?

]]> http://rangit.com/mobile/smart-phone-consider/feed/ 0 http://rangit.com/mobile/smart-phone-consider/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/Ox5b7a-JCVc/ http://rangit.com/money/scam-fraud-cons-online-report-website-auction/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 01:03:19 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/handle-money/scam-fraud-cons-that-everyone-ought-to-be-aware-o/

People cheat for the same reason that dogs lick their balls. Because they can.

Over the years countless people have been intentionally mislead to achieve financial goals of unscrupulous people. The first known scam ever published by the press was in 1849 during the trial of William Thompson who was known as the ‘confidence man’. He would chat with strangers until he asked if they had the confidence to lend him their watches, whereupon he would walk off with the watch. Thompson was captured when a victim recognized him on the street.

Below are 12 types of common scams reported around the world.

Prizes and lotteries



• You have been proclaimed by people or letters to have won a vacation, prize or competition you do not remember entering.
• You may be asked to pay a deposit to access your prizes.
• Some others are just ploys to sell cheap stuff like poor quality jewelry at exaggerated prices.
• Some may ask for personal details instead of money. Providing any detail will only widen the exposure to other scams. Victims’ bank account number have been used to make unauthorized withdrawals and credit card to incur additional charges.
• Some approaches to consumers are made by overseas lottery ticket sellers. Most are illegal. Even in the USA, there are restrictions. Find out more about it here.

Solution

• Always ask yourself, ‘What’s the catch’?
• If you really have won something, you need not pay a cent.
• Never give your personal banking or credit card details to unknown traders or companies.

Astrology / Psychic Related Cons



• Consumers will be told by psychics, who claim to have seen visions of your rich future, to pay a fee to receive their lucky numbers, talismans, golden eggs or guides.
• Some people are just so vulnerable. Consumers have been known to send thousands of dollars in the name of ‘good luck’ to only realize that the items that they receive are crap quality pieces of cards or beads.
• Respond once and you will be targeted for further scams.

Solution

• Do not respond. Once they sniff interest from you, they will keep hounding you.
• Never give credit card or bank account details to people you don’t know about.

Advanced Fee Scams



• Nigerian-style scams are one of the most common types of advance fee frauds.
• A ‘relative’ of a senior government official in mainly African countries writes asking for assistance in getting funds out of their homeland by depositing the money into your bank account.
• A response will trigger them to ask for advanced money to process the payments or bribe officials.

Solution

• Do not ever give personal information to someone you do not know or trust.
• Do not respond to any offers.

Pyramid schemes



• Also known as franchise fraud or multilevel marketing are investment frauds in which an individual is offered a distributorship or franchise to market a particular product.
• It is a system of selling in which you sign up other people to assist you and they, in turn, recruit others to help them.
• You see, success in multilevel marketing means continuously getting additional people to join the pyramid. What many people don’t see is the practical limit to how many distributors can be found and to how many product units that can be sold.
• Many of them will have no real commitment to the program. They may have been high-pressured, just like you, to become a distributor.
• Entrance fee to include yourself as a node to the pyramid is usually very high.

Solution

• Understand the fact that there is no easy way to wealth, with the only exception of the genius who originated his multilevel marketing organization.
• NOTE whether the basis of the promotion is the sale of a product at the retail level, as opposed to an emphasis on recruiting more and more distributors to help you increase your income.
• Refuse to commit to anything at high-pressure meetings or seminars. Take time to do your homework on the scheme. Think it over and seek professional or legal advice.
• Check that any products can be returned if unsold. Refuse schemes that require you to purchase more inventory than you need.

Email Scams



• Email spammers have access to lists of email addresses to send fraudulent emails to which can cover millions of internet subscribers in an instant. Word lists to registered Internet domains not even knowing if they are actual email addresses.
• A handful of replies from victims at no cost is still a good deal to them.
• An option to unsubscribe to their mailing list has become a method to verify that they have reached a real email account. By replying, you may find that you are targeted with more spam.
• The most common scams will claim that they come from your bank or credit card company. Your account details and your PIN will be requested by return email or through a website. By responding you are opening yourself up to identity fraud, spam and viruses.

Solution

• Do not open email from unknown people. Delete it from your in-box and empty your email trash can.
• Do not open email that is not specifically addressed to you.
• Do not open email that promises you some unrequested benefit.
• Most email systems today provides spam/junk protection. If not check this out.
• Remember spam can be used to send spyware that saves your keystrokes.
• Be careful of unsubscribe and remove options on unsolicited email. Do not click on any link. The link may be used to confirm your email account details and send more spam to you.
• Protect your email address by only providing your email contact details to organizations that you know and trust.

1-900 Premium Rate Numbers



• Fax back scams that usually offers weight loss programs, employment opportunities or competitions, use 1-900 premium rate numbers to incur very expensive charges per minute.
• There have also been reports of defrauders using slow responding fax machines to suck more cash out of victims.

Solution

• Know that ALL 1-900 services will always cost higher than average phone services.
• Ignore any 1-900 offers that are supposedly urgent or time limited.
• Avoid any overseas services linked with 190.
• Avoid any 1-900 services that do not clearly disclose the total cost of their service.
• I know it may not be easy but read all terms and conditions carefully first.
• Shop or ask around locally to see if the offers are available elsewhere, cheaper.
• Shopping locally will always give you better redress if something goes wrong.

Directory Listings / Registry Scams



• Posing as publishers of magazines, directories or internet sites, these scammers will call business and community groups.
• They repeatedly send invoices and demand payment without signed authority for an advertisement in a poorly circulated or non existent publication.
• Some may even pose as government officials. Victims have reported being sent business invoices to ‘renew’ their internet domain name registration for double the cost.

Solution

• Do not give personal or banking details to anyone you do not know and trust.
• If a call or letter is supposedly related to an existing arrangement, contact the organization yourself to verify and request a copy of your signed authority.
• Request the street address and phone number of any new advertising offer and check them out with Consumer Protection.
• All orders regardless of how small, should be recorded and cross-checked by the person who pays the accounts.
• Never pay anything that has not been authorised or fully understood.

Investment scams



• The calls often come from overseas and offer you high returns for your money. Sometimes an appointment is made for a ‘senior adviser’ to call back. They generally offer share, mortgage or real estate investments, high return schemes, option trading or foreign currency trading.
• They are persistent and bent on making you look foolish when you say no.
• People with specific religious or community interests are targeted with promises to send profits to charity or worthy causes.

Solution

• Work out the risk first.
• Always investigate money making schemes very carefully before parting with your money. Take time to seek professional or legal advice.
• Take time to do some homework first. Don’t be pressured into making a decision on the spot.
• Ask for published independent substantiation of projected earnings, current financial statements, and prospectus. Ask for proof of testimonials of financial success.
• Ask the scammers these questions and they’ll probably hang up in embarrassment:
  - What is your securities dealer’s license number?
  - Who is lodging your prospectus?

Employment scams



• Defrauders are using the internet, newspaper advertisements, seminars, mail and direct approach to lure people into self-employment schemes. Instead of making money, it ends up costing money.
• Look out for ‘make large amounts of money quickly and with little effort’, ‘work from home’, ‘requires payment for registration or for more information material’
• These scams sell information of no value, some pretend to provide skills which turn out to be unmarketable, and others pyramid schemes which rely on recruiting or luring others into joining.
• Computer gambling or share market software programs that guarantee winners is a scam.
• Money transfer or money mule schemes are worse. It’s money laundering. You will be prosecuted. There is no way around it.
• Anti-fraud experts say the money being transferred is often stolen from other people’s bank accounts via the Internet. Defrauders use Trojan and key logging viruses to capture customer online banking details. Once you receiving the money, you take your share and pass the rest to a prearranged overseas destination.

Solution

• There is no ‘easy way’ to make money from home.
• Get details before committing to anything.
• If you are asked to pay money, find out more.
• Always ask yourself, ‘Why contact me when we have no business relations at all’?
• Find out if there is a market for the work you plan to do.
• Check whether there are special legal requirements such as licenses or other constraints on working from home.

Door to Door



• The product or service may be real or fake. Either way, con artists can still act illegally to the detriment of other people.
• It may be roof repair, maintenance, bitumen work or telephone services but they are itinerant and flee as soon as they have their money.
• Payments come in the form of deposits or full, in cash or by credit card. As checks can be easily canceled, they are not an option.
• Genuine door to door salespersons will always show personal identification and neither pressure nor require you to purchase any good or service.
• Genuine sales come with an official receipt with the company’s registration number, name, address and telephone details.

Solution

• If it’s a survey, ask for identification. Surveys are often a means to make an appointment for a salesperson to call. If you accept, make sure you know the name and address of the salesperson and of the company.
• If you are smart enough like the rest of the world, you won’t be cheated of claims such as `your roof needs painting’ or ‘your vacuum cleaner doesn’t work properly’.
• Never accept quotes at face value. Always do your homework, compare prices and terms.
• Get everything in writing. Ask about warranty coverage and periods and know all the costs before signing anything.
• Salespeople are required to show you company identification when you request it. Make a written note of the person’s and the company’s name, address and telephone number.
• If you think the salesperson is pressuring you or preying on your emotions, such as your fear, need, curiosity, sense of obligation, then give a simple ‘No’ ask them to leave. If the message didn’t get through, then just tell the salesperson to f**k off.

Gambling systems



• Will you sell a system to make money if it was a certainty? Isn’t it like finding a treasure chest and telling the world where to find it.
• Usual targets are retirees and people with funds to invest.
• The promotion of the system of reaping money from horse racing, lottery tickets or share market do not have the word ‘gambling’ on it.
• They will promise huge returns based on past results which are actually manipulated to prove a particular outcome.
• The schemes may involve a SMS service to your mobile phone to tell you which teams to bet on.
• Let’s take a look at how the football picks scam works. First, the scammer sends out tip sheet stating a game will go one way to 50 potential victims and the other way to another 50. The next week, the 50 who received the correct answer are divided into two groups and fed another pick. This is repeated until a small population have received a series of supernaturally perfect picks then the final pick is offered for sale.

Solution

• These are high-risk schemes and are not worth wasting your money on.
• The high-pressure sales tactics and slick presentations are crap. Let it swirl around your head first.
• It is very easy to claim that you predicted that a particular team won a match after the match has finished.
• If it’s a horse race, ask yourself how a computer can make an accurate prediction on a horse race based on weather conditions, the state of the horse, the jockey, the track, the draw and luck? How can a computer predict what numbers will be drawn in a game of chance like Lotto?
• All ‘Get rich quick’ schemes are crap. Higher returns mean higher risks. If common sense says that it sounds too good to be true, then it is.

Telemarketing



• Though annoying, telemarketing is a legitimate marketing practice. However consumers need to be alert to con artists who use it cheat people.
• Telemarketing is big business with companies wanting to sell you goods and services, to participate in surveys, or to make donations to charities.
• You may be contacted by an operator, sometimes a telemarketer based overseas.
• There are also automated prerecorded voice messages and, pop up internet ads which require you to contact a telemarketer. Some may also encourage you to respond to voice interactive premium telephone services which can charge up to $5 a minute.
• Automated dialing equipment which randomly dials numbers, and if you answer the phone, the telemarketer is switched through to you.
• Most telemarketers are very good sales officers that catches you off guard and try to get you to agree to something right there and then.
• Consumers usually agree to buying services and goods without understanding exactly what they are getting, or the exact terms and conditions of the offer. For example, people have agreed to buy overseas accommodation without realizing the package does not come with airfare.
• Some telemarketers start their sales pitch with ‘Congratulations! You’ve just won yourself a ….’ or ask you to participate in a survey, when in fact they are just trying to hook you in.
• Never agree to buy anything until you’ve done homework and find that it is of value to you. Introduce a delay to allow you to ‘sleep on’ the offer. If not, forget it.

Solution

• Tell them to ring back at a time that suits you.
• Always check out the terms and conditions of the contract before agreeing to anything.
• Compare prices on any goods or services offered with local traders first.
• It is very difficult to enforce your consumer rights with a company based overseas.
• Any opening pitch which says ‘Congratulations, you have won …’ is questionable.
• If you are asked to participate in a survey or poll, ask questions to make sure it is legitimate and not a pitch to sell you products, or worse, criminals trying to ascertain your movements
• Your personal details are worth money to others, like telemarketers, so guard it carefully.
• Below is a video of the greatest thing ever said to a telemarketer.

]]> http://rangit.com/money/scam-fraud-cons-online-report-website-auction/feed/ 2 http://rangit.com/money/scam-fraud-cons-online-report-website-auction/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/bUxDZXGtpuQ/ http://rangit.com/internet/best-free-website-cool/#comments Sun, 18 Mar 2012 04:39:35 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/?p=231 Arrived at the office early? Got some time to burn during lunch? Sitting comfortably with nothing to do? Look no further. I have compiled a list of 93 sites that I find very interesting. Interesting enough to distract me from finishing this article. Took me 2 weeks when it could have been settled in 2 days. Oh well, it just goes to show how entertaining the sites were. Some sites you may have come across before, some not. So far, I’ve only managed to find 93 that make the cut. So if you have one in mind, let me know, yes?

Have fun getting distracted!

Contents
• Generally Interesting (11)
• Videos (8)
• Photos (6)
• Games (10)
• Celebrities (11)
• Travel (10)
• Education (9)
• Life Improvement (16)
• Comedy (6)
• Others (6)




Generally Interesting

Digg



Digg is a social news website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories. Voting stories up and down is the site’s cornerstone function, respectively called digging and burying. Many stories get submitted every day, but only the most Dugg stories appear on the front page.

StumbleUpon



StumbleUpon is an Internet community that allows its users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos. Web pages are presented when the user clicks the “Stumble!” button on the browser’s toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which Web page to display based on the user’s ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests.

FARK



Fark.com is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows users to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. It is one of the top 100 English language websites, receiving over 2,500 submissions a day and over 5 million unique visitors per month. It is generally seen as a destination for strange news stories and snarky commentary.

Delicious



Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks that has more than five million users and 150 million bookmarked URLs.

Reddit



Reddit is a social news website on which users can post links to content on the web. Other users may then vote the posted links down or up, causing them to appear more or less prominently on the Reddit home page.

Yahoo Buzz



Yahoo! Buzz is a community-based news article website, much like Digg, that combines the features of social bookmarking and syndication through a user interface that allows editorial control. Users can be allowed to publish their own news stories, and link to their own or another person’s site that links to a full story of the information, therefore driving traffic to that person’s website and creating a larger market for sites that research and publish their own news articles and stories, such as CNN or smaller, privately owned websites.

Technorati



Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google and Yahoo. As of June 2008, Technorati indexes 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.

Mixx



Mixx is a user-driven social media web site that serves to help users submit or find content by peers based on interest and location. It combines social networking and bookmarking with web syndication, blogging and personalization tools.

Kaboodle



Kaboodle is a social shopping community where people discover, recommend and share products. Kaboodle’s powerful shopping tools allow people to organize their shopping through lists, discover new things from people with similar style, get discounts on popular products and find best prices. At the heart of Kaboodle is a fun and engaging community of people who love to shop.

Propeller



Propeller, previously known as Netscape.com, is a social news aggregator operated by AOL-Netscape.
It is similar to Digg; users can vote for which stories are to be included on the front page and may comment on them as well.

I Am Bored



A site containing loads of viral videos, games, memes, lists and social networking for when you’re bored.




Videos

Youtube



YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. It uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos.

Dailymotion



Dailymotion is a video hosting service website, based in Paris, France. Its domain name was registered one month after YouTube. As of January 2008, the site was getting about 16,000 new videos posted daily, and page views in excess of 26 million per day.

Metacafe



Metacafe is similar to other video viewing websites such as YouTube or Dailymotion, but with several differences that include a different type of Adult content filtering, a community member reviewer panel, VideoRank, and Producer Rewards. Additionally, Metacafe pays video creators for original work that has exceeded a certain threshold of both total views and VideoRank score through its Producer Rewards Program.

MySpace Video



A service similar to the YouTube video sharing website.

Yahoo! Video



Similar to sites like YouTube, MySpaceTV, MSN Video and Veoh, Yahoo! Video began as an internet-wide video search engine and added the ability to upload and share video clips in June 2006. A re-designed site was launched in February 2008 that changed the focus to Yahoo-hosted video only. The site now consolidates all premium video from across Yahoo! properties with user-uploaded video.

Megavideo



A video site for streaming flash videos like the other video sharing sites.

Project Free TV



Project Free TV does not upload any videos nor do they know who and where videos are coming from. Links to the videos are submitted by users and managed by users.

FileCabi.net(NSFW)



Lists of interesting videos divided into 4 categories, mainly New, Top Rated, Most Popular and NSFW.




Photos

Flickr: Explore!



Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. As of November 2008, it claims to host more than 3 billion images.

Photobucket



Photobucket is an image hosting, video hosting, slideshow creation and photo sharing website. It was founded in 2003 by Alex Welch and Darren Crystal and received funding from Trinity Ventures. It was acquired by Fox Interactive Media in 2007.

PicasaWeb Explore



Picasa Web Albums is a photo-sharing web application from Google, often compared to programs like Flickr. It allows users with accounts at Google to store and share 1 GB of photos for free. Users can purchase more storage space, which can be shared between Google services.

deviantART



deviantART aims to provide a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works which are organized in a comprehensive category structure, including photography, digital art, traditional art, literature, Flash, filmmaking, and skins for applications, among others, along with extensive downloadable resources such as tutorials and stock photography.

Behance



Behance is a company that designs products and services that empower the creative world to make ideas happen. The Behance team studies exceptionally productive people and teams working in creative fields. They document the methods and resources that these productive creative professionals use to push their ideas forward.

NASA Images



NASA Images is a service of Internet Archive, a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers. The goal of NASA Images is to increase our understanding of the earth, our solar system and the universe beyond in order to benefit humanity.




Games

AddictingGames



AddictingGames is one of the first Flash game portals and helped popularize both the Flash platform and casual games. It is today part of the MTV Online Network, receiving over 10 million visitors a month.

Yahoo! Games



Yahoo! Games is the section of the Yahoo! website in which Yahoo! users can play games either with other users or by themselves. The games on the website are typically Java applets or quick Flash games, but there are others which require a download. Yahoo! Games has a large user base playing various kinds of games, such as card games, board games, fantasy sports, emulated arcade games, and word games.

MiniClip



Miniclip was first launched in 2001 by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie where Small was fresh out of university when he founded the company with futures trader Presbie on a budget of £40,000. 43 million unique users visit the site per month and the company has been valued at over £200 million, having been profitable for six of its seven years, with turnovers exceeding £20 million in the past two years.

PopCap Games



PopCap Games was founded in 2000 by John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka, and currently employs more than 180 people. Most of Popcap’s games can be played free in a limited form, with the full version available for a fee. PopCap’s games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times, and its flagship title Bejeweled has sold more than 10 million units across all major platforms.

Shockwave



They have been giving their large loyal audience its daily dose of online interactive fun since 1998, and Shockwave became a part of Viacom’s MTV Networks in 2006. They’ve got more than 450 games, with new ones added each week.

Pogo Games



Pogo.com is a gaming website that offers a variety of free casual games, from card and board games to puzzle, sports, and word games. Since 2006, Pogo.com has consistently been a top-10 Internet site for U.S. visitors when measured by time spent online.

Some of Pogo.com’s competitors for casual and social gamers include Yahoo! Games, Viacom’s Neopets, Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, and IWon.com.

Guild Wars



Guild Wars is an episodic series of multiplayer online role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. ArenaNet hosts official Guild Wars tournaments where the most successful players and guilds may compete for the chance to play live at gaming conventions and win prizes up to 100,000 USD. The games in the Guild Wars series were critically well received and won many editor’s choice awards, as well as awards such as best value, best massively multiplayer online role-playing game and best game. Guild Wars was noted for being one of the few commercially developed games in the MMORPG genre to offer online play without subscription fees, its instanced approach to MMORPG play, and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications. The sequel, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007. It will have updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and will continue the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees.

Neopets



Neopets is based around the virtual pets that inhabit the virtual world of Neopia. Visitors can create an account and take care of up to four virtual pets, buying them food, toys, clothes, and other accessories using a virtual currency called Neopoints. Neopoints can be earned through playing games, investing in the game’s stock market, trading, and winning contests. On 20 June 2005, Viacom bought Neopets, Inc. for US$160 million.

Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates



Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is a massively multiplayer online game where a player takes the role of a pirate, having adventures on the high seas and pillaging money from roaming enemy ships. The mechanics of Puzzle Pirates are driven by puzzles. As of December 2008, there are 4 million pirates registered to the game.

IWon.com



IWon.com is a free casual game site and web portal that offers the chance to win cash and prizes through activities such as clicking through links or playing online games. Iwon began as an internet search engine, offering daily prizes in exchange for points earned using their engine. Activities on the website earn entries into daily, weekly, monthly and the annual cash sweepstakes and other giveaways. For example, performing an internet search earns 30 coins; you can win coins by playing games. Entries cost 100 coins each. The site is most known for awarding an annual cash prize ranging from US$100,000 to US$1 million annually.




Celebrities

People



Website of a weekly American magazine of celebrity and human-interest stories which focuses exclusively on celebrity news. In February 2007, the website drew 39.6 million page views ‘within a day’ of the Golden Globes. However ‘the mother ship of Oscar coverage’ broke a site record with 51.7 million page views on the day after the Oscars, beating the previous record set just a month before from the Golden Globes.

TMZ



TMZ.com is a celebrity gossip and news website, the result of a collaboration between AOL and Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Bros. TMZ stands for ‘Thirty Mile Zone’, a term that represents the center of Hollywood.

USmagazine.com



USmagazine.com is the website for Us Weekly, a celebrity magazine that covers topics ranging from celebrity news and style, to the latest trends in fashion, beauty, and entertainment. It currently gets approximately two million visitors per month. In addition to features from the magazine, the site has a breaking celebrity news blog, exclusive photos, red carpet galleries from premieres and events, plus games, videos, quizzes and polls.

omg!



omg! is a celebrity news and gossip website, run by Yahoo! News’s entertainment division. Due to heavy publicity on Yahoo’s front page and with its partnerships, readership took off, with four million readers logging on to omg! in the first 19 days alone. As of autumn 2007, omg! registered over eight million readers a month, and is the second most-read gossip website in the United States, ahead of People and behind TMZ.com.

Starpulse.com



Founded in 1999, Starpulse.com began as a link directory evolving from just 12 original pages. The website is independently owned and operated, consisting of approximately 5 million pages of deep content on entertainment news, movies, TV shows, music, red carpet events, movie premieres, and an average of 40 million page views per month.

E! Online



E! Online is the online arm of E!, an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite network, providing the latest daily news and celebrity inside information in a fun, irreverent tone. E! Online attracts approximately 2.5 million unique U.S. users per month.

Perezhilton



Perezhilton.com is the website of Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr, an American blogger and television personality who posts gossip items about musicians, actors and celebrities. He also posts tabloid photographs over which he has added his own captions or ‘doodles’.

PopSugar



PopSugar.com is Sugar Publishing’s celebrity news and gossip site that differentiates itself from other gossip blogs by refraining from posting ‘snarky’ commentary about the celebrities it follows. PopSugar publishes between 25-28 posts daily on weekdays. The site’s content features up-to-the minute news, candid photos and magazine photoshoots, major event recaps, celebrity interviews, “Pop on the Street,” video comments, daily features (polls, celebrity “Guess Who?,” etc.) and highlights of the best of other gossip blogs/sites.

The Superficial



The Superficial is a website devoted to celebrity gossip. It was named one of the five best celebrity news websites by a Chicago Tribune writer. The Superficial is known for its sharply negative and biting wit. Unlike other celebrity news sites such as E! Online and TMZ.com, The Superficial lampoons the behavior of celebrities, to a degree even greater than Perez Hilton.

Dlisted



Dlisted is a celebrity gossip blog written by Michael K that garners more than a million hits a day. His distinctive style and humor have been described as ‘snarky’ and ‘unforgiving’ which fit the blog’s tagline: ‘Be Very Afraid’.

What Would Tyler Durden Do?



What Would Tyler Durden Do? is a gossip blog named after the Fight Club character Tyler Durden. The blog, which is occasionally not safe for work, is notable for publishing rumours, criticism and revealing photographs of celebrities. In a 2006 Youth Trends survey, What Would Tyler Durden Do? was one of two blogs top 10 most popular websites with females aged 17–25, a popularity the researcher attributed to ‘Gen Y females’ current adoration with content surrounding celebrities and their ‘uh oh’ moments.




Travel

TripAdvisor



TripAdvisor.com is a free travel guide and research website that hosts reviews from users and other information designed to help plan a vacation. TripAdvisor reviews cover more than 212,000 hotels and 74,000 attractions in over 30,000 destinations worldwide. With more than 15 million reviews and opinions and nearly 30 million unique visitors a month, TripAdvisor claims to be the largest travel community on the web.

Wikitravel



Wikitravel is a Web-based project “to create a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable worldwide travel guide.” Wikitravel received a Webby Award for Best Travel Website in 2007. That same year, Wikitravel’s founders began Wikitravel Press, which publishes printed travel guides based on the Web site’s content. The first print guides were released on February 1, 2008.

Lonelyplanet



Lonely Planet’s online community used by over half a million travellers for trade tips and advice. The Lonely Planet website was upgraded in 2008; new features include the ability to rate and review sites and restaurants, save them to a favourites list as well as a Trip Planner tool.

Fodors



Fodor’s is the world’s largest publisher of English language travel and tourism information, and the first relatively professional producer of travel guidebooks. In 1996, Fodor’s launched a travel-related website fodors.com, which was nominated for a Webby Award in 2004. Today, Fodor’s has published more than 440 guides (in 14 series) on over 300 destinations, and has more than 700 permanently placed researchers all over the world.

World Travel Guide



Website of The Columbus World Travel Guide, the company that publishes travel guides to every country in the world as well as detailed city, ski, beach, cruise and airport guides. Their World City Guide, providing information on over 200 culturally important cities, adds to the portfolio of comprehensive travel information. One the other hand, the World Events Guide features over 4,000 events across five continents in some 80 countries, ranging from small-scale local events to major international festivals where new events are added to the site weekly.

Travel Guides – Travel Channel



The Travel Channel is a cable television network that features documentaries and how-to shows related to travel and leisure around the United States and throughout the world. Programming has included shows in African animal safaris, tours of grand hotels, and visits to significant cities and towns, with recent programming putting an emphasis on how the rich travel and on “haunted” destinations, like Most Haunted and Ghost Adventures.

10Best



10Best is one of the the trusted sources for online travel advice. One could find unbiased, top-rated recommendations for a city’s best sights, restaurants, clubs, and shops. No business can pay to be listed.

TimesOnline: Travel



Tourism and travel arm of The Times newspaper of UK.

Destination360



A producer of online travel guides throughout the world.

Yahoo! Travel



Yahoo!’s travel service offering travel guides, booking and reservation services.




Education

Wikipedia



Wikipedia’s 12 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can access the Wikipedia website. Launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, it is currently the most popular general reference work on the Internet. Wikipedia is not only important as an encyclopedic reference but also as a frequently-updated news resource.

HowStuffWorks



HowStuffWorks is a website that was founded by Marshall Brain and is dedicated to explaining the way many things work. The site uses photos, diagrams, video and animation to explain complex terminology and mechanisms in easy-to-understand language.

eHow



eHow is an online knowledge resource of articles and videos offering step-by-step instructions on “how to do just about everything”. eHow content is created by both professional experts and amateur members and covers a wide variety of topics organized into a hierarchy of categories.

National Geographic



The website of one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history.

Discovery Channel



The website of the American satellite and cable TV channel that provides documentary programming focused primarily on popular science, technology, and history which reaches 431 million homes in 170 countries. In the U.S., the programming for the main Discovery network is primarily focused on “reality-based” television themes, such as speculative investigation (with shows such as Mythbusters, Unsolved History, and Best Evidence), automobiles, and occupations (Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch).

Internet Public Library



IPL is a non-profit, largely student-run website at Drexel University. Visitors can ask a reference question and the volunteer librarians and graduate students in library and information science form collections and answer questions.

NASA



Website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States government responsible for the nation’s public space program. NASA’s self-described mission statement is to “pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.”

Innerbody



Innerbody’s vision is to provide high quality educational content about human anatomy through low bandwidth Internet access to children, parents and schools worldwide. At the time of writing this, Innerbody is serving approximately 500,000 people with about 12,000,000 page impressions per month. The Inner Sites have become part of the curriculum at many schools around the world.

Britannica



Website of Encyclopedia Britannica, a general English language encyclopaedia that publishes articles in aimed at educated adult readers. The size of the Britannica has remained roughly constant over the past 70 years, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. It won the 2005 Codie award for “Best Online Consumer Information Service”.




Life Improvement

Lifehacker



Lifehacker is a blog about life hacks and software that covers Microsoft Windows, Mac, and Linux programs as well as time-saving tips and tricks. The staff updates the site about 18 times each weekday, with reduced updates on weekends. Time magazine named Lifehacker one of the “50 Coolest Web Sites” in 2005, one of the “25 Sites We Can’t Live Without” in 2006 and one of the “25 Best Blogs 2009″.

Dumb Little Man



Jay White started Dumb Little Man after realizing that his time had literally disappeared with the birth of his second child. As the site’s audience grew so did the site. People began sharing their experiences and today, most of the articles are from people who started out as readers. Dumb Little Man covers all sorts of ideas from budgeting at home to starting a business or trying to lose weight.

Zen Habits



One of the top blogs on the internet covering goal achieving, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits. Leo Babauta, Zen Habits’ creator, produced his first print book, The Power of Less, that reached Amazon’s best-seller list on its first day and remains one of the top business motivation books on Amazon.

Steve Pavlina



Steve Pavlina’s blog covers topics such as personal development and success; consciousness and courage; productivity, motivation and goal setting; career, wealth and business; and spirituality. Some of his most popular writing is around lifestyle and lifestyle experimentation, where he will try a different style of living and transparently blog about the day-to-day experience. Examples include raw veganism and polyamory. His most famous experiment in this regard is with polyphasic sleep, the practice of taking multiple naps in a 24 hour period.

Stepcase Lifehack



Leon Ho founded Stepcase Lifehack in 2005, a blog on tips and tricks that get things done quickly by automating, increasing productivity and organizing.

PickTheBrain



A website dedicated to self improvement with a focus on personal productivity, motivation, positive psychology, and self education.

Brian Kim



Brian Kim inspires, provides and shares what he learned and successfully applied from his analysis of several hundred self improvement books he has read for over a decade that have helped him achieve all his goals in life.

43 Folders



Merlin Mann started 43 Folders in 2004 focused on an arc about how to improve the quality of your career and life by managing your attention in a way that allows you to work your ass off on the creative projects that matter most to you.

Self Growth



Self Growth’s mission is to provide informative, quality self improvement and natural health information to help people improve their lives. The site provides information ranging from goal setting and stress management to natural health.

Stevenn Aitchisen’s Blog



This contains lots of different links, articles, blogs, thoughts anything and everything that will help you make yourself a better person.

The Positivity Blog



The Positivity Blog is focused on positivity and opening up new possibilities through motivating and practical articles on how to improve your life.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich



I Will Teach You To Be Rich is a community focused on personal finance and entrepreneurship. It’s been featured in Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR, ABC News, and CNBC.

Wise Bread



Wise Bread is a community of bloggers who pitch in ideas to live large on a small budget. The goal is to maintain financial independence while enjoying life at the same time.

The Simple Dollar



Trent Hamm went through a complete financial meltdown in April 2006. He threw himself head first into trying to figure out every nuance of fixing his financial situation, and after a few months, he began to get the picture. Within eight months, he paid off all of his credit card debt, paid off his vehicle and also established an emergency fund. Since he had a passion for writing and had learned so much about how personal finance really works, The Simple Dollar was established near the end of 2006 to tell the world about what he had learned and help people who were struggling with the same things.

Get Rich Slowly



Get Rich Slowly, named most inspiring money blog by Money magazine, is devoted to sensible personal finance. JD, the author, publishes stories about debt elimination, saving money, and practical investing. He started out when he found himself deep in debt and when it finally became too overwhelming, he began reading personal finance books, hoping to find answers.

Litemind



Website of Luciano Passuello who realized that his deep fascination for the mind was his greatest underlying passion and, in some way, intersects with many other interests of his.




Comedy

I Can Has Cheezburger?



I Can Has Cheezburger? is the name of a blog featuring lolcats (a cat with humorous caption in broken English). Created by Eric Nakagawa (Cheezburger), a blogger from Hawaii and his partner, Kari Unebasami (Tofuburger), the website has become one of the most popular lolcat sites on the internet, receiving as many as 1.5 million hits per day.

I Has A Hot Dog



Similar to I Can Has Cheezburger? but dogs instead of cats.

FAIL Blog



Contains pictures and videos of blatant stupidity or incompetence with captions involving the words “[Epic] Fail” prominently.

CollegeHumor



CollegeHumor is a comedy website that features a collection of original and user-submitted videos, as well as pictures, articles, and links. As the name implies, CollegeHumor is directed towards and features content that would appeal to the university and college-aged demographic.

funny or DIE



A comedy video website founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company, Gary Sanchez Productions with original and user generated content. Funny or Die is also unique in that it contains a good deal of exclusive material from a number of famous contributors like Judd Apatow and James Franco.

Stupid Videos



A viral video website dedicated to humorous, off-the-wall videos, including wild stunts, wacky animals, sports bloopers, funny commercials, song and dance parodies. and more.




Others

Quizilla



Quizilla is a user generated online quiz website.

Jalopnik



A weblog covering cars, car culture, and the automotive industry. The blog began publishing in 2004 and is known for its mix of automotive news with an ‘irreverent’ style and tone. The site gained prominence relatively quickly upon its founding. Its contributors have been included in media events and press conferences hosted by major automotive manufacturers.

Autoblog



A web site that offers daily weblogs and podcast news and commentary about automobiles and the automotive industry. The blog began publishing in 2003.

Mashable



An internet news blog about MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter and startups, but it also reports on less high-profile social networking sites. It garners 5+ million pageviews per month.

Yahoo! LAUNCHcast



LAUNCHcast allowed users to create personal radio stations or playlists of songs tailored to their musical tastes. Music videos could also be rated, allowing users to create personal music video channels as well.

Last.fm



Last.fm is a UK-based Internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It claims over 30 million active users based in more than 200 countries. Users can create custom radio stations and playlists from any of the audio tracks in Last.fm’s music library, and are able to listen to some individual tracks on demand, or download tracks if the rights holder has previously authorized it.

]]> http://rangit.com/internet/best-free-website-cool/feed/ 4 http://rangit.com/internet/best-free-website-cool/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/JJT5I1H3JG4/ http://rangit.com/internet/handle-sudden-traffic-increase-to-website/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:59:12 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/internet/8-preparation-methods-that-everyone-should-know-about-for-the-next-digg-slashdot-effect/ And so it was my first time getting into the frontpage of Yahoo, experiencing the sudden spike of traffic exceeding 60,000 users in 2 days. What a phenomenon. So much that I got a notice on my website looking like this :



I had mix reactions actually. Good in the sense of exposure, bad in the sense of forking out additional cash to buy extra bandwidth. I wasn’t really prepared for the wrath, but nevertheless it’s an eye opening experience.

Over the hours, I scoured the web for all the information I can find about preparing myself for the next StumbleUpon, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Plus effect. Some of the methods suggested seemed complicated but anyhow, all are useful. Anyways, here are 8 simple things that everyone should know about preparing for the next sudden increase of traffic due to social network sites.

What’s The Host’s Reaction?



I for one, am a client of a shared hosting account. If you are like me, you don’t have much control of the situation when a spike occurs. When it happened to me, I thought that i could bring forward some of next month’s transfer limit. However, the only choice presented to me by my host was buying additional bandwidth which will only last until the end of the month. I bought it today 28th May, and will last only till 31st May.

I found out that some other hosts may even think that the spike is an attack of some sort. So it’s pretty important to find out the actions of your host. Cause once the server is down, none of the steps below will help.

External Media Hosting



This includes images, videos and audios. All the media for all my websites are hosted externally. It helped me tremendously. I had over 60,000 visitors before I exceeded my bandwidth transfer quota of 10GB. It meant that the size of a page is about 166KB. If I had included the 8 screenshots, the total size of the page would’ve been over 500 KB, capable of serving 20,000 visitors, 3 times less, before exceeding bandwidth.

I host ALL my images in imageshack, videos in YouTube and audio files in imeem. All 3 are highly reliable media hosting sites in their respective categories. Thanks to them, I have lifted a huge burden on my server’s side by keeping page sizes as small as possible.

WP-Cache 2



Super efficient caching plugin by Ricardo Galli. It improves pages of self hosted WordPress blogs by caching and storing them in static files, improving efficiency by skipping the process of compiling the entire PHP code and building the page from the database. Serve hundreds more for each passing second and improve performance from near a minute to millisecond. WP-Cache 2 is a huge improvement over its predecessor, WP-Cache.

PHP Accelerators

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The name says it all. As long as the application is written in PHP, you get to enjoy the performance boost. What it mainly does is
cache the compiled bytecode form of PHP scripts to avoid overheads on ALL page request of parsing and compiling source code that may never even get executed.

Depending on execution time and the percentage of source code executed, the PHP code will experience speed boosts of an average of 6X on a given request. Check out the list of PHP accelerators. The current general preferred accelerator is eAccelerator. However, you will need to ask your host about installing this. Your webhost may have already installed a PHP accelerator.

Mirrors



duggmirror and Mirrordot are the most famous mirrors for social networking sites like Digg and Slashdot. Both sites will mirror articles that hit the front page of both social bookmarks, keeping a copy in their servers in the event that the ‘dugg’ site goes down. For example, here’s my site’s ‘dugg’ article mirrored in duggmirror. Put the mirror link in the comments of Digg or MirrorDot, to redirect traffic in the event the site fails.

Switch Off Plugins



Know that plugins are also files that are called by your themes to generate queries to the database to yield the information on your blog. The more plugins, the more queries to the database. Sudden increase in web traffic will last mostly around 2-3 days. Choose a few from among the list of plugins that you can live without for a few days. Once you realize an incoming surge of traffic, quickly turn a few off temporarily.

Optimizing Apache Server



This article lists 5 steps that you can take to configure Apache for maximum performance.

Upgrade Hosting



If frustrations still appear after executing the above steps successfully, then it’s time to move up. Take everything a step at a time. If you’re on :

• Shared hosting, try upgrading to Virtual Dedicated Hosting.
• Virtual Dedicated Hosting, try upgrading to Dedicated Hosting.
• Dedicated Hosting, try upgrading to a higher-powered dedicated server.
• High-Powered Dedicated Hosting, go for multiple Load Balanced Servers.

If it is a bandwidth transfer problem, try negotiating for an increase. If not, move over to a different provider that can feed your traffic bandwidth requirements.

]]> http://rangit.com/internet/handle-sudden-traffic-increase-to-website/feed/ 3 http://rangit.com/internet/handle-sudden-traffic-increase-to-website/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/QYOHKDVYH1o/ http://rangit.com/discoveries/8-steps-to-a-good-powerpoint-presentation/#comments Sun, 26 Feb 2012 04:19:22 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/discoveries/8-steps-to-a-good-powerpoint-presentation/ Presentations. One of the most prevalent forms of persuasion technology. Powerpoint presentation saves a ton of time compared to overhead projectors and whiteboards. The ease of use has also been an influencing factor for professionals like business people, educators and trainers. It caters well to the needs and desires of both presenters and audience. I have thought out 8 very useful tips on how to make an impact with powerpoint presentation from my experience working in my previous company.

Serif, Sans-serif

Serif



Serif fonts have curls or tails at the end of each letter. Use this font type in titles. Why? Cause serif fonts take a bit longer to digest. Gets the mind ready for whatever that’s next.

Sans-serif



Sans-serif, on the other hand, has no tail. This improves readability speed so it’s suitable for texts of sentences. The minimum text size for any text is 14 pt. This will help your powerpoint presentations to get the message across efficiently.

Design

Bad





Good





Keep it composed and analyzable. The most important thing is to focus on getting the message across. Distractions from lousy templates with low quality pictures will give others a sense of disconnection. Keep it clean, bulletize your lists, be consistent on fonts, colour and background. Limit punctuation and avoid putting words in all capital letters. Empty space on the slide will enhance readability. Use contrasting colors for text and background. Dark text on a light background is best. Patterned backgrounds can reduce readability of text.

Keywords



Use only key information. Period. Having to spend more than 2 minutes on a slide equals to yawns and thoughts of ‘hmm… i think I’ll have burritos at Pablo’s for lunch’ during the presentation.

Slide transitions



‘hmm.. let’s do something flashy. Lets have the title fly in from the bottom with the sound of drums’. FORGET IT! It’s old stuff. Maybe if it were the 80′s it will win you clients like drinking water, but now’s the 21st century. Having animations and sound effects will only impact the presentation negatively and you lose credibilty. Value in content will impress most.

Images



Only use high quality images. Low quality pixelated photos will only weaken the message. I have made a post on 9 reliable gigantic websites where you can get reusable high quality images for free. Use them.

Don’t read the whole slide



Only the title. The pool of text after the title is for the audience. Do it professionally. Relax and keep yourself composed at all times. Keep the audience motivated and try your very best to look like you’ve burnt a kilo of midnight oil preparing the presentation for your audience.

Body posture



Face the audience. Speak only after each successful page load. Don’t talk to the slide while checking. The audience may not hear your words clearly.

Keep it cool



For example, you’re at slide 11 and you forgot point number 5 and 6. Cover up and act cool. Do it like as if it’s in the plan. The last thing you wanna do is say ‘sorry’. That’s why simplicity is the number 1 factor in giving out steady presentations. When people can read something easily, they will understand what you want them to. Most importantly, have fun! =)




Here are 2 excellent examples of what I mean by good powerpoint presentations.

The Brand Gap




Shift Happens

]]> http://rangit.com/discoveries/8-steps-to-a-good-powerpoint-presentation/feed/ 6 http://rangit.com/discoveries/8-steps-to-a-good-powerpoint-presentation/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/mf7LTQf46vk/ http://rangit.com/operating-systems/top-40-most-useful-free-mac-os-x-softwares/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:51:18 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/operating-systems/top-40-most-useful-free-mac-os-x-softwares/ Here are a list of 40 freewares that I dug up from all around the web, tested and reviewed. All that are listed here are pretty useful if you ask me. Each of the listed are free to download and use. If you see something you like, just download it and try it out yourself.

Apple Boot Camp



Boot Camp is a new technology that lets you install and run Windows on your Mac. If you have an Intel-based Mac computer and would like to try Boot Camp, you can download the public beta today.

AppleJack



AppleJack is a user friendly troubleshooting assistant for Mac OS X. With AppleJack you can troubleshoot a computer even if you can’t load the GUI, or don’t have a startup CD handy. AppleJack runs in Single User Mode and is menu-based for ease of use.

Burn



Burn is an application to burn most common disks: data disks, audio disks (mp3, audio cd), video disks (VCD, SVCD, DVD-Video, DivX), images and disk copy.

Butler



Designed to make it easier for users to perform different potentially recurring tasks. Customize and assign triggers to a task. Butler is very flexible and feature rich in terms of triggers and tasks. Start using it and discover the features one day at a time.

Chicken of the VNC



A fast, lightweight Virtual Network Computer (VNC) client for Mac OSX that allows you to display and interact with a remote computer screen. In other words, you can use Chicken of the VNC to interact with a remote computer as though it’s right next to you.

Carbon Copy Cloner



Easy-to-use backup/cloning utility. Other features include synchronization, scheduled tasks, creating disk images on the fly, and creating NetBoot and Apple Software Restore-prepared image sets from fully customized installations of Mac OS X.

ClamXav



ClamXav is a free virus checker for Mac OS X. It uses the tried, tested and very popular ClamAV open source antivirus engine as a back end.

Cyberduck FTP



Cyberduck is a graphical open source FTP and SFTP client for Mac OS X licensed under the GPL. It supports FTP/TLS (FTP secured over SSL/TLS), using AUTH TLS as well as uploading and downloading by drag and drop and is able to synchronize files and directories. In addition, it is also able to open some files in external text editors. Cyberduck includes a bookmark manager and supports the Mac OS X Keychain and Bonjour networking.

Desktop Manager



Virtual desktop manager for the Mac OS X. You can have any number of named virtual ‘screens’ (up to available memory) to arrange your programs on.

FinderPop



A classic Mac utility, now a prefpane for OS X. FinderPop is a Universal Preference pane that extends OS X’s contextual menus using a FinderPop Items folder much as the Apple Menu Items folder used to do for the Apple menu.

iGetter



iGetter is Safari’s download manager replacement. Doesn’t take up too much resources and is easy to use. It greatly improves your download speed by using segmented downloading. You can also schedule downloads for low traffic periods, auto resume broken downloads, shut down on completion, etc.

ImageWell



ImageWell is the easy way to edit, rotate, crop, and resize your image and upload it to your iDisk (.mac account), FTP server, or WebDAV server. No need to launch multiple applications to add text, labels, thought clouds, talking balloons, drop shadows, watermarks, and shapes.

iWebMore



This lets you easily and quickly add features to sites created in iWeb that would be difficult to add without this utility. This is the dig for the iWeb developer. Embed HTML in your iWeb pages and finally have those flash animations, applets and google ads on the website.

iWillQuit



This is sure to save your laptops hard drive. If you have a network in your house, schedule it to download files at night so as to not slow down others using the network or to keep your VOIP working without delay. Apple’s scheduler will not shut down/sleep while there is an internet radio stream, but iWillQuit does. iWillQuit works just as it said it does, shuts down, sleeps, etc.

Linotype FontExplorer X



Font sorting, font shopping and font discovery are now more fun than ever. FontExplorer X gives computer users all the font functions they could need, and lets them decide how deeply they wish to dive into various font themes.

MainMenu



MainMenu will run all the various tools and scripts and system maintenance routines to keep your Mac running smoothly right from your menu bar. It will rebuild your Spotlight library for faster searching, repair permissions, clean caches to improve application performance, etc.

Max



Max is an application for creating high-quality audio files in various formats, from compact discs or files. Look nowhere else to meet your needs in handling a wide range of codecs and other audio tools. Sbooth, the developer, is the leader of a community that cares deeply about high-quality audio on the Mac, and he has forums that are a key site for knowledge about Mac audio.

MenuMeters



MenuMeters is a set of CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools for Mac OS X.

Namely



A very good application launcher that is really easy to use, doesn’t need much resources, and doesn’t get in the way when you don’t need it, which is nice. Namely is actually faster than Spotlight in application launching and you can choose your favourite aqualicious color too so it matches the Spotlight menu or your desktop very nicely.

OnyX



It allows you to run misc tasks of system maintenance, to configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, Login window and of some of Apple’s own applications, to delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome, to see the detailed info of your configuration, to preview various logs and CrashReporter-reports, to check the Preferences files and more.

Perian



With Perian, the Swiss Army Knife for QuickTime, any OS X application that uses QuickTime can now use all the other common media types like DivX, XviD, mpeg4, AC3 audio, etc.

PTHPasteboard



PTHPasteboard is one of those applications which expands the functionality of copy and paste. It does this by allowing you to copy many things without having to paste them straight away; making good use of multiple ‘pasteboards’ which store everything you copy. Using this application means you never have to worry about losing anything you’ve copied ever again!

Service Scrubber



Wouldn’t the services menu be much more useful if it weren’t overcrowded by services you never even thought of using? With Service Scrubber, you can restructure the services menu, change service keyboard shortcuts or disable services. It also lets you deactivate, activate, reorder, rename and redefine the keyboard shortcuts for all the entries in the services menu. It does this in a way that is pretty much foolproof so you can always revert.

SharePoints



SharePoints is an application or a preference pane that makes it easy to add and delete share points like in the old Finder. In Mac OS X, by default, you are limited to sharing only what is in your public folder in your home directory. This program makes it easy to share any folder. In addition SharePoints also brings back users and groups management to Mac OS X as well as easy configuration of AppleFileServer (AFS) and Samba (SMB) Server properties.

Sizzling Keys



Sizzling keys allows you to control iTunes with keyboard shortcuts from any application. Pause, adjust the volume or skip a track without leaving the current application. Far more efficient than using iTunes itself. As well, one is generally using a lot more keyboard shortcuts when on the go anyhow.

Skim



Incredible great software for PDF reading. The new version is almost perfect certainly in the field of full screen reading and presentation. Easier to use as a viewer than Adobe Reader. The ability to attach notes is an added bonus.

SlimBatteryMonitor



This application is excellent! It cuts the menubar space by half and is easily customizable. For example, you can easily change the color of the icon outline from black to blue. It is suggested to move the application from the desktop into the Applications folder before installing.

SMARTReporter



SMARTReporter is an application that can warn you of some ATA hard disk failures before they actually happen! It does so by periodically polling the S.M.A.R.T.-status of your hard disk. S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a technology built into most modern hard disks that acts as an “early warning system” for pending drive problems.

smcFanControl



Keep your MacBook about 15 °C cooler than when it isn’t running. When the CPU is taxed, Apple’s controls take over and the fan speed increases according to Apple guidelines, but when it is running normally, you can set the fan at a faster speed to keep your system cool. A great little program that is very unobtrusive, easy to turn on and off at will.

Springy (StuffIt replacement)



Springy archiving and compressing application let you do all your work with archives and compressed files using a graphical interface similar to Finder. Features include browsing files in archives in all three view types (as icons, as list, as columns), extracting all or particular files or folders from archives, modifying archives (add, delete, replace, rename files or folders in archives), full drag & drop support, working with encrypted and password protected files, support for HFS/HFS+ metadata and resource forks, compressing and decompressing files and many more. Dragan Milic, the developer, is pretty responsive. Just leave your issues and you will get addressed in a short time.

SuperDuper!



Exactly duplicate your hard drive. The clone is even bootable. The interface explains clearly what’s going to happen so that you can be sure that you are doing what you want to do. Runs both on Intel and Power PC Macs! Taking into account its clear interface, excellent functionality, and informative documentation, I consider SuperDuper! to be a must-have utility for Mac OS X.

TextWrangler2



TextWrangler 2.0’s text-handling operations are swift and precise. The ‘Text’ menu holds an array of time-saving commands. This version of TextWrangler is a boon to coders and system administrators. It gives you direct integration with the Unix scripting environments of Perl, Python, and shell scripts. This version has improved syntax coloring for a plethora of structured languages and file formats. The program also now sports a powerful AppleScript dictionary.

TinkerTool



TinkerTool is an application that gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into Mac OS X. This allows to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system.

Transmission



A lightweight yet powerful BitTorrent client whose simple, intuitive interface is designed to integrate tightly with whatever computing environment you choose to use. Transmission strikes a balance between providing useful functionality without feature bloat. Furthermore, it is free for anyone to use or modify.

Unarchiver



The Unarchiver is a replacement for BOMArchiveHelper.app, the small application that handles archives by default in OS X. However, unlike the default archive helper, this program has a very impressive list of supported formats that it can work with. These formats range from very common ones, to some of the most obscure.

UNO



UNO is a theme that brings the sunken unified toolbar/titlebar look & feel to every single window on your system (metal or aqua, and already unified windows as well).

Vienna



Vienna is a freeware, open source RSS/Atom newsreader for the Mac OS X operating system. It provides features comparable to commercial newsreaders, but both it and the source code are freely available for download.

VLC Media Player



VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, etc) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

WhatRoute



WhatRoute is designed to find the names of all the routers an IP packet passes through on its way from your Macintosh to a destination host. It also measures the round-trip time from your Mac to the router, thus enabling you to determine slow links or hops in the Internet. WhatRoute can also find dead links, such as routers that don’t respond.

Yahoo Messenger



The ONLY Mac messenger at the time of writing that can consistently do video chats with people who aren’t using Macs. iChat and AIM seems to be very fickle with cams. Plus, since YIM and MSN now interact happily, it’s easy to cam for anyone on your MSN or YIM lists.

]]> http://rangit.com/operating-systems/top-40-most-useful-free-mac-os-x-softwares/feed/ 51 http://rangit.com/operating-systems/top-40-most-useful-free-mac-os-x-softwares/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/BC7KA-LKC_s/ http://rangit.com/linux/best-game/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:52:09 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/?p=370 Since a few years back, tons of new Linux games have been made. Many from other OS’s were ported over to Linux and vice versa, which is good in the sense that it benefits the games that are built around online mulitplayers. Some are free and some are paid but the Linux games listed below are DEFINITELY worth every minute of your time. As the saying goes, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. So you will find all kinds of the top linux games listed below like RPG, FPS, RTS, MOBA, MMO, platformers, etc.

Enjoy reading and watching!

Capsized



This wonderful little platformer is very enjoyable. I really dig the atmosphere, sound, and feel of the game. It’s very straight forward and the gameplay has a generous mix of activities. You don’t merely shoot up aliens as you solve puzzles too. The story is pretty simple. A crew of astronauts find themselves in a world of trouble and are forced to evacuate their ship. Each one boards their own space pod and launch themselves onto a nearby planet. Scattered from your crew, you explore this strange place in search of survivors and a way to get off the hostile planet. The game art is really spot on and very consistent. Capsized’s style has a lot of flavor while keeping things simple and easy to read. The controls are fun and easy to manage, even on a keyboard. The environments and creatures are weird and sometimes creepy, but always entertaining.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




SuperTuxKart



While it may be frustrating a few times during option changes, once you’re set up this game is extremely fun! There are several tracks that are very different to maneuver and many options that can completely change the way this game looks and plays. The tires leave skid-marks, so you can tell where cars are braking or spinning out. Depending upon settings, this game can be anything from a horrible to fantastic racing experience. But it’s not a bad game, just highly variable. Keep playing with it until you find the settings you like. Totally fun and very addicting!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




CodeRED : Alien Arena



In many ways I believe it can be called the best free FPS out there as Alien Arena is becoming the standard by which others are judged. It is already including features not yet implemented like ragdolls for example. The CRX engine is amazing. For those of you that have been playing games a long time, this will remind you of the old Quake Arena days. Also Alien Arena is “Doom” inspired, and it’s definitely got that “Unreal” feeling about it. It can be very addictive but in a good way. The IRC is fantastic as you get to meet some really great people there who are always willing to help. The Alien Arena forum is amazing. The response time to a question is really fast. Alien Arena seems to have what you people are looking for in a game, consistent fun!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Frets On Fire X aka FoFiX



Frets On Fire X is a fork, or a standalone modification of the original Frets on Fire. It’s built off of the python based Frets on Fire engine. Frets On Fire X has many great themes that can transform your game to look exactly like Guitar Hero or Rock Band. The themes it comes with are pretty stripped down. Two player multiplayer support has been added as well. If the song supports it, you can play drums too!

Multiplayer has co-operative and face-off modes. In co-op mode each player gets their own note streak counter and star power/overdrive meter, but they share a single rock meter, and score. Face-Off mode completely duplicates the first player game window for the second player, with separate rock meters and scores. Whoever does better in the end, wins. Lastly, there’s a Pro-Face-Off mode where each note player 1 hits decreases player 2′s rock meter, and vice versa; the goal is to cause the other player to fail.

Customizing Frets on Fire X is pretty easy to do. You can find tons of themes online and all you need to do is drop them into the themes folder and select it from the options menu in the game. I’ve seen BioShock, SpongeBob, Star Wars, and of course Rock Band and Guitar Hero themes. Themes are highly recommended as it makes the game look A LOT better. Unlike the console games, you can remove songs that you do not wish to play, inappropriate stages and even fret designs!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Flight Of The Amazon Queen



Flight of the Amazon Queen is a graphical point-and-click adventure game by Interactive Binary Illusions originally released in 1995 for Amiga and DOS and re-released as free software in 2004 for use with ScummVM. It is very similar in style in many ways to LucasArts’ many popular point-and-click adventures of the 1990s, and was inspired by Monkey Island and Indiana Jones. The character has in fact several comments about a few LucasArts and Sierra games, which will give you quite a few laughs!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




0AD



0 A.D. is a free, open-source, cross-platform real-time strategy game of ancient warfare. In short, it is a historically-based war/economy game that allows players to relive or rewrite the history of Western civilizations, focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D. The project is highly ambitious, involving state-of-the-art 3D graphics, detailed artwork, sound, and a flexible and powerful custom-built game engine.

The game is still in alpha stage as of writing and is nowhere near being fully complete yet, but do try the game, be amazed and help out the game’s developers!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Minecraft



The game is truly a wonder of game design. It features simple, intuitive, and interesting mechanics easily learned on the fly, yet it also features an emergent depth of gameplay. The graphics are lo-res, yet charming, and reminiscent of old style 8-bit games, with a 3d touch. For the price, this is one of those games that you will not regret ever getting as before you realize it, you’ll have spent hours and hours digging “just one more tunnel. ”

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Penumbra : Black Plague



Black Plague did everything Overture had accomplished and made it better, tweaking all the flaws from the first like the incredibly awkward combat. It also more then triples the scare factor of the game, replacing simple animals that were already dreadful with a horrifying new breed of danger. Coupled with an atmosphere that is so dark, chilling and gripping that the game demands to be played fully emersed in dark, at night, with the lights off.

The graphics aren’t amazing, but as the name of the series hints (penumbra simply means a small area of light surrounded by darkness), this is not so much about graphics as the lighting. The shadows easily hide the sins of the outdated graphics and while the lighting is amazing, it is rarely reassuring in the gritty, claustrophobic environment that is “The Shelter”. Coupled with some underrated script and voice acting, not to mention immersive sound that leaves you jumping at every little noise that goes “bump”, the game becomes a very frightening world for your character to explore, run and hide in.

If you’re a fan of horror, do not miss this game. It excels at what it sets out to do and creates not so much a game as more an experience, if not an utterly terrifying one. It’s simply an amazing hidden gem in a sea of games. Not everyone will find it or even appreciate it, but that makes it all the more savoring for people like you, who have just discovered it.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Heroes Of Newerth



Heroes of Newerth is the best MOBA (Multiplayer Online Batte Arena) title on the market right now. It stays very close to the original game DotA, with slight gameplay and major interface enhancements. For example, matchmaking gives you an easy way to enter a game with people who are about the same level as you. No more server browsing, no more host leaving the game, etc. The only critique you’ll have with this game is the incredibly steep learning curve. To actually be a valuable asset to your team you have to play numerous hours, about a day’s worth, and in the beginning you’re going to feed very very much. Anyhow, you’ll be hooked by the first minute.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Dungeons of Dredmor



Dungeons of Dredmor is a Roguelike (a sub-genre of role-playing video games) that you can proudly show your friends, as it offers graphics and sound instead of ASCII characters. For the unfamiliar, it’s a turn based Dungeon Crawler (a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games) that has the Hero (you) trying to descend 10 levels of the dungeon to kill the villain and escape. You have a variety of skills, weapons, and magic items to help you on your task, and encounter a staggering array of enemies and traps to hinder you. The game is very difficult and is meant to be played with permadeath (meaning you start over each time you die) so patience is a must.

The graphics are fine, the sounds are good and the soundtrack is sharp, though peculiar at times. The mostly mouse driven interface is intuitive, though navigating some skills and your inventory can be annoying at times. You may have a few minor quibbles and suggestions for updates after playing it a while, but for the time invested, you’re going to get a lot of game with Dungeons of Dredmor.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Steel Storm : Burning Retribution



The single player is simple: find enemy A to open force field B to reach exit C. This formula is tolerable, as there are usually some great moments of oldschool gunplay, ambushes and the like between A and C. What it doesn’t provide, however, is a compelling reason to do anything except shoot. That doesn’t mean the game isn’t a lot of fun for a bit, but it does mean that it doesn’t leave a strong impression. The production level when it comes to sound feels quite decent, though almost all explosions are the same explosion, etc.

The look of the game is unique, detailed and cartoonish in equal measure. In spots, it feels like the old ‘Desert Strike’ isometric helicopter games of the 16-bit era with shots coming from all directions while you try to find a safe spot to flank from heavier enemies. Level design has some nice variety and clever puzzle-type elements and secret passageways that break up the monotony of “shoot – open door – shoot” that otherwise comprises the gameplay.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Counter Strike 2D



This is a stand-alone, 2D counter-strike game. You control your character from a top-down perspective and guide them throughout more than 15 included maps to fulfill various objectives. Just as in the original Counter-Strike, you can use a variety of weapons and team tactics online or in bot matches.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Amnesia : The Dark Descent



This game is amazingly frightening! The game takes advantage of all the little details of human nature not usually included in video games, and by combining heavy breathing with dizziness and eerie creaks, you practically became the person in the game. In fact, sometimes you would hear something to the left, and you would look away from the monitor yourself. And more than just being creepy is the realism of the game, although some things are designed unrealistically on purpose, it just makes you feel like you’re going crazy. You’ll be scared shitless many times, and the subtle revealing of the plot as you advance gives you more understanding of the situation, yet makes you feel even more scared. It doesn’t require much puzzle-solving, but its goal is to scare you stiff, and Frictional Games did an excellent job of that.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Trine 2



There isn’t a single thing in this game that could possibly detract from its quality. It improves every aspect of Trine 1 by a long shot. I thought it was going to be mostly like the original but there’s just a lot more depth to it, and it looks so much better now. The original looks great too, but it’s incredible how a solid art style can make a game look so beautiful. On top of the visuals, growing plants using a dynamic stream of water never gets old and there’s so much more to the puzzles than that. It’s just so involving and intuitive while being simple. The narrative isn’t overdone and it’s intriguing despite it being almost like a children’s book. The banter amongst the heroes keeps you interested in the actual story while you play, just like in the original Trine.

A game like this doesn’t come around often in my opinion. That’s an amazing price for an amazing game. Lastly, the game runs BEAUTIFULLY smooth. With a relatively outdated computer, you could set everything to the highest setting at 1080p resolution with some anti-aliasing and get super smooth frame rates! This game doesn’t need a lot of anti aliasing to make edges look nice either. It just looks so amazing yet it runs so perfectly. Respect to Frozenbyte, as they’ve outdone themselves yet again.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




M.A.R.S.



A great space ship shooter! It’s very fun even if it’s only in testing stage. Although it could use more weapons, powerups and multiplayer functions (currently a 2 player game), it’s a fun game to get a friend over to your house to play with! This game has great potential. Hopefully bigger maps could be implemented where you get to hide out of view of your opponent and add to the fun!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




MegaGlest



MegaGlest extends Glest’s gameplay by including five new factions which are Egyptians, Indian, Norsemen, Persian & Romans, new scenarios, a much improved multiplayer system, in-game mods download section etc.

There are 4 main resources in game, out of which 3 are common for everyone (gold, stone & wood), the fourth one is dependent on the factions. For Tech, Romans, Egypt, Persians & Norsemen it is food and for Indian & Magic it is housing space (Magic faction calls it energy, but it’s the same thing). Every unit consumes food or housing space, depending on the unit and the faction. The limit can be increased by producing more farming unit (chicken, cow etc.) or building tents/energy sources to increase housing space.

Different factions also have different units. For example, Romans do not have any flying unit, but stronger ground units. Egypt starts with a Priest who can summon mummies (allowing user to build military quicker), but they don’t have any artillery, making it hard to go against guard towers. This allows for different game style and new strategies.

Multiplayer is the most fun part of the game, playing with friends or strangers online. MegaGlest allows you to play with other people, no matter whether they are using Linux, Windows or Mac OSX. As long as everyone has the same version of the game, they can play together!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Machinarium



A very beautiful game that will take you back to your childhood days playing monkey island and full throttle. The puzzles are not that difficult as you are only allowed to move within small areas so items and objectives are easy to see. I was trying too hard with some puzzles as more information was given than needed to complete them. Also most of the puzzles are very similar, in that you look at a control panel on the wall and have to move lights/beads from A to B in a certain way. The main gripe would be the control system, you’re only allowed to interact with items that are close to you. If you’re used to other game controls you’ll constantly try to click objects with inventory items halfway across the screen and find nothing happening. Walking can be very annoying too. You can extend the robots body and when he is tall he walks very slow. One thing for sure is you will love the game completely. Even with certain control limitations, it was very refreshing to play the adventure genre again. The graphics are just right, comedy is great and the storyline albeit light will keep you wanting to know more about the situation you are in.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Doom 3



The graphics and sound is amazing. And I mean AMAZING! The shadows and reflections, the textures, the demonic howls and everything else really feels like you are there. The atmosphere is fantastic, and the many dark rooms are really cool at first, but then they do start to get a bit annoying. If you’re just the type of gamer who wants to walk through the game and take in the sights and sounds, too bad. Even on easy, enemies take several bullets to go down. The normal hand to hand zombies are easy but once you start fighting faster, ranged enemies, it will get quite hard if you’re not experienced with shooters, especially since it is usually hard to see. If you’re used to FPS games, Doom 3 is not going to give you too many headaches.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Quake 4



Quake 4 is another science fiction FPS that picks up where Quake 3 left off. This game’s graphics is exceptional! The game is somewhat like Doom 3 at times with the dark vents and corners. And yes your flashlight is on your gun. Gamespot said that the story was just deep enough to keep you interested in what will happen next. I found it to be a bit more immersible. Your character doesn’t say anything but all those guys around you will completely distract you from that fact. You really feel like you’re a part of something in this game. The story has been found to be shallow by some people but that part is pretty much up to you. However there is a major twist in the story. I won’t ruin it for you but it is definitely the most shocking story twist you will ever see. The AI, which is really good, helps you along the way as you get even more immersed into the experience. Multiplayer is fun and traditional. Its mainly quake 3 with better graphics and a couple of new maps and one new weapon which is the dark matter gun. IT OWNS!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Quake Live



Basically the remake of Quake 3 so don’t expect too many new things from it. However, the little tweaks of Quake Live with the game system is marvelous. The game play is generally the same with Quake 3 but with apparent playing style changes because of these tweaks. The good things, like the great fast tempo of Quake 3 and the emphasis on moving and thinking, besides shooting, are preserved. Faster rocket speed, weaker rail gun, new spawn system made the game more favorable to aggressive players and is much more balanced. New visual effects make the graphics of the game acceptable even nowadays, almost 11 years after the release of Quake 3. The new hitbeep and other little things make the game very pleasant for competitive play. The tier system makes players of different level able to enjoy the game. More can be done to make this game even better, but now it is already a brilliant piece and will easily kill your spare time.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Revenge Of The Titans



The graphics are retro and cute, the gameplay engaging, and the difficulty punishing. Revenge Of The Titans is a nice twist on the ever-more-stale tower defense game, where your defenses are far from invincible and your management strategy necessarily hands-on rather than watch-and-wait. It’s rewarding if at times nailbiting, and you will find yourself switching to a lower difficulty to figure out levels and then replaying them back at normal just because the waves of enemies can be so brutal. Adding to the problem is a tech tree with a zillion options but little guidance as to where to actually go, which will have you more or less brute-forcing everything rather than trying to craft any sort of intricate strategy, which is usually more fun!

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Shadowgrounds Survivor



Very fun little action game. The graphics are a step up from the previous game and look pretty darn good for an indie developer. It has fast-paced action and a serviceable storyline for people not looking for a lot of epic storytelling or tons of depth. It’s pretty standard space opera fare, but that doesn’t mean that it is not truly enjoyable. Voice acting and dialog are cheesy and fun, exactly what you’ll want from a game that lets you play out a cheesy sci-fi action movie. The addition of physics is a nice touch. The RPG-like system of character upgrades is back in full force and incredibly fun. Overall, a great action game for people looking for a nice diversion for a few hours. Don’t pick it up looking for the best game ever made and you won’t be disappointed.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




BEEP



This game involves controlling a robot with the keyboard and mouse in a 2D world. The world contains physics which allow you to move many objects around the environment with a grappling gun that the robot has. The robot also has a gun that can shoot enemies. This gun features auto-lock so once you are in range and hover over an enemy it will lock on and you can jump around without having to re-aim. The autolock works through ledges but you can’t shoot or be shot through the ledges. The controls are spot on. One nice feature is you can move the mouse to the edge of the screen to see ahead which allows you to view enemies that are coming up before they get in range to attack you. The requirements for the game do seem high but as stated by the developer on Steam forums, the physics require some optimization.

This game deserves to succeed and is more complete than a lot of other indie games on Steam. Moving from level to level uses a quirky space ship flying around which you control to the next level by using the mouse and keyboard. This seems a little unnecessary but adds to the quirkiness of the game and does make use of the physics for gravity on the levels as you fly around them. BEEP doesn’t support controllers but the controls are very well implemented for keyboard and mouse so you probably won’t need your game pad.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay




Globulation 2



It is a small and fast-paced RTS minus the micromanagement. For example, you tell the game that you want ten workers on the construction-site, rather than telling a worker to get their asses over to the site. There is a custom-game mode, a great tutorial, campaign-mode and LAN/Online gaming-mode. You can also create your own maps, and those who are good at C++ can do their own bots/AIs.

The game is pretty normal, except the nonexistent micromanagement. You gather resources, build a colony, upgrade units and buildings, destroy other civilizations, build empires, etc. There are only a handful of types of units namely workers, warriors, and explorers. They can be upgraded to walk faster, hit harder, work more effectively and even swim by to construct buildings like School, Pool, Racetrack, Barracks and so on. The units are all globules. They look a bit like clay. They are supposedly built by five clay-balls, connected with four clay sticks. One ball is the body, two are the arms and the remaining two are the feet.

Website : Click here.

Gameplay



]]> http://rangit.com/linux/best-game/feed/ 0 http://rangit.com/linux/best-game/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/CtxIDPs4vqM/ http://rangit.com/blogs/how-write-title-post-article-attractive-good/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:37:39 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/?p=130 How do you do a blog post that is attractive? That is of high quality?

Rangit.com has been around since 2007. From the very first post written till the article you see now, many things have changed. Plenty of blog writing mistakes were made and I’m glad they happened. It’s a long learning process and I would like to share with you what I have learned so far. Below are seven ways I’ve experienced through blogging that has helped this blog be what it is today.

Start with the end in mind.

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This is habit no.2 of Stephen Covey’s Habits of Highly Effective People. It is so important to know how the article is supposed to look like, how the points are arranged, etc. Once it is clear, you will then know what to focus on and everything will fall into place at the end.

Images.

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As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. It improves the value of the article by invoking feelings and getting the point across to readers.

Title.

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The single most important thing that draws readers to read the written article. It’s the one line summary that appears in social media, search engines and rss feeds. Including numbers and interesting words like “Top 25 Linux Games” or “140 Faces Of Well Known Bloggers You Won’t Want To Miss” increases the appeal even more. More example titles here.

URL.

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To search engines, the URL is more valuable than the article title. You may construct your title attractively but keep the URL short. Like for example, the title may be “7 Things To Look Out For when Writing A Blog Post” but the URL should be keyword rich like “http://rangit.com/blogs/how-write-title-post-article-attractive”, omitting out irrelevant words like ‘to’, ‘for’, ‘when’, ‘and’.

Spacing.

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Keep paragraphs less than 10 sentences. Or less 5 is possible. Also, include lists. A list simplifies information and readers are able to scan through easily as compared to picking out from a block of text. Readers will know how long the content is especially if it’s a numbered list.

Research.

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The content of what you are going to write may already have been published by many people before you. Read theirs. Find out what they are missing and include it when writing your own article. Get ideas from the comments section of their article.

Originality equals personality.

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It shows honesty and genuineness. Also, humor and mischief is stylish and attractive in its own way. Yep, a pretty good example is thesuperficial.

]]> http://rangit.com/blogs/how-write-title-post-article-attractive-good/feed/ 0 http://rangit.com/blogs/how-write-title-post-article-attractive-good/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rangit/~3/7ml2C6nPVKA/ http://rangit.com/information-technology/most-useful-facebook-applications/#comments Fri, 29 May 2009 06:30:46 +0000 Chris http://rangit.com/?p=229 Facebook, the social networking site that has more than 200 million active users nationwide, is as interesting as it is today thanks to its awesome base of applications. As of July 23rd 2008, the total number of applications have exceeded 33,000. What’s more, they’re growing more each passing day as developers identify potentials of having their stuff all over millions of Facebook profiles.

Sounds good but let’s be honest. Facebook is not a tool. It is an escape. Very few people go there or would want to go there to write a document, plan a meeting or collaborate. Out of the tens of thousands of applications, only a handful is truly worth your time. Below are some of the most useful Facebook applications I’ve come across.

Default Applications

Photos.



In my opinion, this is the most popular and useful Facebook application. There is no limit to the number of albums and photos an user can upload, you get to control your own privacy settings and label users in the photo with the ‘tag’ feature. What an interesting, natural interaction generator.

Block Application.



Frustrated by annoying applications? No more. Since the introduction of the ‘Block Application’ feature, you could easily block the application directly from the request. Once blocked, it will not be able to send you any more requests.

Mobile.



Facebook while taking a crap in the toilet or waiting for the bus.

3rd Party Applications

kaChing



Great application that is worth getting addicted to. Relevant to the world and your career. A cross between Google Analytics, Yahoo Questions and Seeking Alpha. Ka-Ching is easy and simple to understand, all stocks and shares ARE REAL, based on real time and experts from all sorts of fields to learn from. The combination of visual risk metrics, statistical tools, and a structure conducive to high-value interactions amongst its community investors makes Ka-Ching the #1 in terms of investing ideas.

SocialVibe



SocialVibe is a great way to give back to the world that we live in. What happens is you get yourself sponsored by your favourite brands and earn donations for the charity of your choice. The idea is to enable everyone to play a great part and network globally.

Selective Twitter Status



Update your Facebook status from Twitter, but ONLY for the tweets you choose. IMO, better than the original Twitter developed Facebook application as it avoids confusion with your Facebook friends and prevents swamping your profile with too many updates.

How well do you know me?



Have fun constructing your own questions and have friends answer them.

Extended Info



Winner of the Facebook F8 Contest. Extended Info allows you to add extra fields to your profile, such as Currently Reading, Favorite Foods, or anything else you can think of. Supports videos, images, music, and HTML.

Similar People



Discover people that share your personal sense of humor, style, politics, art, and more. The best way to connect with people you’d actually want to be connected to in Facebook.

Shopaholic Magazine(For Girls)



You’d love this. Shopaholic Magazine keeps fashionistas ahead of the curve with insider info, exclusive photo shoots, a virtual store and addicting fashion games.

Sexgames



Sex Games is a tongue-in-cheek multiplayer game where you work with an Entourage to prove your skills in the Club. Complete sexual conquests and pick up all the hottest players on Facebook.

Groupcard



An application that allows you to create group birthday cards, group greeting cards, and other group cards for your friends. Start the card and then invite your friends to sign it.

Quitclock



Most motivating application for smokers. It keeps track of how long you’ve been off the ciggy and a total running cash you’ve saved. Youc an also read handy health tips and collect support messages on your Quitclock wall.

Myxer



Select from hundreds of thousands of ringtones, wallpapers, videos and games for your mobile phone available at no charge. Also, make your own original mobile content and share it with millions of other Myxer users. You can even make money by selling your own original content as ringtones. Limited to North America.

On Track



A practical online application that helps you save time and effort by keeping you focused on goal objectives, tasks, and progress. On Track significantly improves the chances that the goal will be achieved on target.

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