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Retina Display From Apple Is Not A Technology – Read On

August 15, 2013 by Blogger24x7

All of us are always overwhelmed by Apple products and we love those amazing and unique features of Apple. The New iPad with Retina display is already in news but the term Retina display is not new. Apple has already introduced the Retina display feature with iPhone 4 that released on June 24, 2010.

Retina Display: The Definition

If you look closely at a regular display screen, you can easily make out some individual pixels. A Retina display is packed with high density pixels that making individual pixels is indiscernible from a normal viewing distance. “Retina display by Apple has a high enough pixel density that the human eye is unable to notice pixelation at a typical viewing distance.”

The Retina display on iPad features a 2048 × 1536 resolution, that’s four times the number of pixels in iPad 2 and a million more than an HDTV. Those pixels are so close together; your eyes can’t discern individual ones at a normal viewing distance. When you can’t see the pixels, you actually touch your photos or read a book. This is what Apple tries to make you believe.

Retina Display – A Marketing Term

Apple introduced a resolutionary feature with the launch of iPhone 4. The mobile device was marketed for its “FaceTime” video calling feature and high resolution screen. The Retina display is just a marketing term and does not refer to a worldwide standard or display technology. It simply means that the screen has sufficient pixel density that you can’t make out all the individual pixels. Retina is a term coined by Apple and Apple has also registered the name “Retina” as a trademark. However, the displays are manufactured by LG or Samsung.

Retina Display on Different Devices

The amazing display is available on several Apple products, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and MacBook Pro. When Apple says that pixels are not distinguished at a normal viewing distance, it does not specify a value for the normal distance. Retina display states no specific definition and Apple is able to use the term how it wants.

It all depends on the size of the display and each device’s usage. Apple claims that the normal viewing distance is around 10-inches when you looking at the iPhone 4 which holds 326 pixels per inch. The New iPad display is able to produce pixel density of 264 pixels per inch which is significantly less than that iPhone 4 “retina display”. However, it’s twice that of the iPad 2 and Apple still calls it “Retina display”. This is because the distance is 15-inches for an iPad.

To deliver a Retina display at 10-inches you need to pack in more than 300 pixels per inch, but at 15-inches you can get an identical effect with considerably fewer pixels. The iPhone 4S has 326 pixels per inch, and the new iPad delivers the same quality with 264. At least that’s what Apple would like you to think.

How to Write Meta Description Effectively to Get Website Traffic

May 25, 2013 by Blogger24x7

Optimizing Description Meta Tag Using SEO Keywords

Importance of Description Meta Tag for SEO Professionals

April 13, 2013 by Blogger24x7

Description Meta Tag is a major SEO factor and mixing keywords within Meta description helps to pull more traffic to your website. It’s not only solve the purpose of highlighting your content on SERPs but sometimes also gains attention of average users offline and off the page. Some browsers show the description as extra information when you add the document to your favorites. Point to note that more than 50% of websites are not using the Description Meta Tag properly and they are running behind those who really care about it.

“Description meta tags weren’t being utilized to their full potential in 54% of submitted sites.” – Google’s Search Quality Team

Description Meta Tag is Part of HTML Document

They do play an important role in the success of your document.

Description Meta Tag is an integral part of HTML documents and one of standard metadata names. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has set guidelines for meta tags. Even content management system (CMS) softwares are making it compulsory and web developers are using it increasingly for better representation of websites.

“Although there is no obvious immediate benefit to adding meta descriptions, they do play an important role in the success of your document” — Adding Description

This is an example of snippet showing meta description

Description Meta Tag is a place where you represent each webpage specifically. It informs about the making of a webpage and purpose of the webpage content. This information never displays when webpage is viewed in a web browser but search engines extract it to display as preview text for each search result. The information is used to display snippets by search engines. This is where SEO writers can target and expect for more.

Even Google Cares About Meta Descriptions

Google’s concern is not Meta description; rather it’s more concerned about the quality of snippets.

This is true that writing a Meta description for each page is not less than pain for most content writers. But if you love Google and you want to be ranked on Google search engine result pages (SERPs), you cannot ignore some handy guidelines that are available on Google Webmaster Blog itself. It can take few extra minutes of yours to create nice intro texts for your webpages but you should still care about the tag because Google still cares about it.

Utilize the Power of Search Result Snippets

“The quality of your snippet can have a direct impact on the chances of your site being clicked” – by Snippets Team

Search Engines don’t necessarily use Meta descriptions for snippets. Google tries to extract most relevant information from different sources to best represent its search results and associated URLs. Even if you don’t create a Meta description at all, the search engine is still capable of creating snippet for your URL whenever it shows up on SERPs.

This is how meta description has been written for an important keyword term – Brick Making Machine.

Google’s concern is not Meta description; rather it’s more concerned about the quality of snippets. This is true that you can not control snippets on SERPs but you can increase the chances of displaying your content (Meta descriptions) for search result snippets. The tip is to write accurate Meta description that is related to source webpage and its content. Never use misleading texts to market your website, instead market your each webpage differently.

Make Your Important Keywords Visible

Search engines try to display snippets in a better way by making search terms appear in bold.

“This could be the crucial bit of information a possible visitor of your site was looking for and the reason for him to click the link.” — Descriptions on SERPs

Meta description has prominent place for keywords chosen by you for your webpage content. The Description Meta Tag offers an opportunity to SEO professionals to include their important keywords in web document. These keywords don’t help you to get better ranking but they are even sometimes more important. A keyword phrase is the term for which user is searching on internet. Search engines display those keywords in bold letters if found within snippet. This link has better chances of getting clicked than those are having no word highlighted.

bold keywords in the snippet — The second result compels users to click because of its appealing meta description as shown in the search result snippet.

Let’s say you want to optimize your page for keyword phrase – handcrafted jewelry and accessories. With the implementation of other SEO rules, you should also include this term in Meta description. If you are lucky to be found on SERPs for the same term, you have better chances of showing Meta description for snippet area. Search engines try to display snippets in a better way by making search terms appear in bold. This is how Search engines and Meta descriptions can work together an extra mile for SEO writers.

What Google Thinks of Description Meta Tag

April 5, 2013 by Blogger24x7

Google really likes the Description Meta tag. Meta Description is a place where webmasters tell about their websites or webpages to introduce them. Google understands the importance of this information and prefers to display it as snippet along with the associated URL in search results.

Google Understands the Description Meta Tag

Google likes to see accurate Meta Descriptions that should be in accordance with original content of source page.

The very first point to take into consideration is that the Google recognizes the Description Meta Tag. Google considers the information included in this element as a short, concise and good explanation of webpage content. Google reads it and thinks of it as a source of useful information. It even uses the Meta description text for snippet display on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Google lists it in first place among acceptable Meta Tags known to it.

Make Sure That There is Always a Meta Description

Google wants you to write few lines for Description Meta Tag when creating webpages. Description has been set as a standard metadata name by W3.org and also become an important part of HTML document structure. Google follows HTML standards and also expects that every well structured website should follow them strictly. Google says that description should be created accurately for each webpage specifically.

Google Guides You to Write Good Meta Descriptions

“A little extra work on your meta descriptions can go a long way towards showing a relevant snippet in search results. That’s likely to improve the quality and quantity of your user traffic.” — Google Webmaster Blog

Google knows that most of the websites are not using Description Meta Tag properly in their web documents. Google says that it’s important to represent your webpages in your own handwritten sentences. Google likes to see accurate Meta Descriptions that should be in accordance with original content of source page. It’s always a good practice to include quality Meta Descriptions in all your web documents before submitting your website to Google or other web directories. The message is clear – Create good meta descriptions.

An Accurate Meta Description is Important

“This directs them to good results faster and reduces the click-and-backtrack behavior.” — Google Webmaster Blog

Google uses preview snippets to represent URL results on SERPs. Information displayed here for the associated URL gives a clear idea of source webpage to search users. If preview text looks good and searcher finds it useful, he will click to visit the source page. If source page fails to provide correct information, user would leave the page in frustration adding more numbers to bounce rate of website traffic.

Google works very smartly to display search results on its search pages and really cares about the quality of snippets.

This suggests that accurate and relevant preview snippet is important not only for the quality of Google search results but also for the webpage content. You will have more insight in the next section. As Google prefers to pick Meta Description to display it as preview snippet, the accuracy of Meta Description becomes more important and also helps to gain trust and attract more visitors.

Search Result Snippets are not Meta Descriptions

“We do sometimes use the description meta tag as the text for our search results snippets” — as Posted by Matt Cutts

Google works very smartly to display search results on its search pages and really cares about the quality of snippets. Here is an excerpt from Google’s blog post –

If description meta tags are absent or not relevant, a snippet will be chosen from the page’s content automatically. If you’re lucky and have a good snippet auto-selected, keep in mind that search engines vary in the way that they select snippets, so it’s better to keep things consistent and relevant by writing a solid description meta tag.

A small test is worth noted here. I randomly chose a searh term – most beautiful beach for travellers, and made a Google search.

Search Result snippet example — Search Term — most beautiful beach for travellers

I picked up second result from the first page to show you that preview text in the snippet is not from the Meta Description but starting matter of main content. Meta Description that is available on the document — When sea meets sand, beautiful things can happen. This Meta information does not seem accurate to Google when you are actually talking about beautiful beaches for travellers.

A well written Meta Description increases the chances of its display as snippet text on search result pages.

Your Meta Description represents your webpage but Google represents your pages on its SERPs differently. To create most convincing version of snippet, Google relies on its own algorithm that tries to extract most relevant sentences from webpage content. It can display first line of your Meta Description, first line of webpage content or unpredictable lines from any one of these sources. As preview texts of snippets change on SERPs for different keyword terms, search result snippets are not always meta descriptions.

Google Doesn’t Use the Description Meta Tag in Web Ranking.

“While accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won’t affect your ranking within search results.” — Google Webmaster Blog

Google is concerned about Description Meta tag and it does use the information included in the element for better understanding of associated webpage and its content. However, a well planned write up with inciting words could make great marketing content for Description Meta Tag. But that doesn’t help to determine the quality of source page content, nor does it establish the usefulness of available information on source page for visitors. People sometimes use bad practices to represent their content falsely by including misleading texts or stuffing repeated/duplicate keywords in an intention to provoke search users to click upon the associated URL. Google cares about accurate and relevant meta descriptions but Description Meta Tag is never a web ranking factor.

External Links » Read more on this topic »

Website Clinic for non-profits
Matt Cutts mentions Description Meta Tag

How to Update WordPress Plugins Manually – Complete Guide

March 16, 2013 by Blogger24x7

Plugins are widely used extensions of WordPress. You can create a WordPress website successfully but you can hardly manage it without using plugins. Plugins make your WordPress life easy and more powerful. To know more about plugins, you should definitely read previous tutorial – How to install WordPress plugins. Chances are you have already done it many times, but I am sure that these tutorials will help you in many different ways. Here, you will learn more about plugin updates not just —How to Update WordPress Plugins Manually. So get ready!

About WordPress Plugin Updates

Updates are always one more step towards better WordPress.

The WordPress program updates are released time to time to help users manage their websites in better way. You should never miss an update as they are made to enhance website performance, options and functionality and most important security system. This is also important for plugin authors to update their codes to make them compatible with WordPress version update. Author may also update their plugins to make them more productive and less stressful.

You should always review “Changelog” of a plugin on WordPress Plugins Repository page before installing one. Generally three or more updates in a year make a plugin reliable and safe. Last Updated Date indicates freshness of code and compatibility.

Importance of WordPress Plugin Updates

Updates are always one more step towards better WordPress. Let’s dig more about plugin updates and become master of the subject. An enthusiast developer always listens to his fans and modifies his plugin if errors are reported. These plugin errors or flaws put your website into danger when they become public on support forums. In this case, ignoring an update might be your biggest mistake as this could lead to attacks in website security.

Users also ask for additional features to authors for their specific needs and authors add them if they like users’ suggestions. This is recommended that you always update to new version instantly whenever it’s available. Sometimes plugins are re-invented to perform faster and better with less server load.

Best Practices to Update WordPress Plugins Safely

This is always advisable that you take full backup of your WordPress website and database before making important changes to the website. A small act of plugin update can take your whole website down if new enhanced version conflicts and proves to be faulty. I am free to install automatic updates as my website is safe and backed up by online paid services.

Not all plugins are necessarily well-coded. Install plugins those are written by noted Developers.

A message is displayed on Installed Plugins page along with Plugin Description when changes are made to the plugin – “There is a new version of same plugin is available”. Click on View Version Details to know more about the update. Also view changelogs, support forum and visit plugin’s original site (see description tab) to get the idea or update warnings from the author himself. I personally don’t rely on plugins stability until I am satisfied with author’s reputation. WordPress itself helps you decide to take right approach —

Go to concerning plugin page on WordPress.org Plugin Repository and scroll down to Compatibility voting stats. The plugin compatibility checker represents a kind of meter to determine the success of plugin usability. You can download updated version and try your luck if enough people have already installed the plugin on their websites and voted for it by clicking on Works Button.

Or if Compatibility voting doesn’t send a green signal, you can optionally choose to wait for a while until enough votes are received. I suggest you not to wait because for most plugins, there is never enough data available for WordPress compatibility meter to send a signal. I will rather appreciate your efforts of (1) taking website backups, (2) installing and testing the plugin and (3) share your experience by voting on plugin page.

Few Things to Remember Before You Update WordPress Plugins Manually

Always have a fresh backup of your WordPress website
Install WordPress Plugins that are developed by noted authors
Upgrade to new version releases and keep your website up-to-date
Visit support forum or contact the author for any kind of help
If the upgrade is broken, roll back to previous version of plugin

How to Update WordPress Plugins Safely

Recognize the update signals

You can easily recognize the signals whenever updates are available for WordPress. When you log in to your WordPress website, the Dashboard home page appears as first screen. If you notice black dots on Dashboard menu with numbers, that means you are missing some updates on your website. The Updates button under Dashboard menu shows total number of available updates including WordPress software update and Plugin updates. The Plugins menu shows updates only when new versions are released for your installed plugins.

Update using WordPress Plugin Installer

Click on the Plugins button to see the list of installed plugins. Then click on the Update Available option on the plugin installer page. There you see the list of those plugins which are due for updates. Click Update now to update a plugin automatically. Simple is that.

You have no reason to worry if you love keeping your website backups regularly.

How to Update WordPress Plugins Manually using FTP Client

You can rely on Automatic Plugin Installer but you should not rely on plugins. They can do unexpected things to your site. We are going to learn -Update WordPress plugins manually, for such critical situations. Go to plugin page on wordpress.org website and download the latest plugin version on your computer in .zip format. Unzip the file and get the native plugin package. This package contains all plugin files. Install FileZilla or Cyberduck program (any one of them) and open the FTP client software. Enter hosting details in blank fields to connect to the remote server, where WordPress files are hosted.

Within FTP remote server frame, navigate down to the /wp-content/plugins… directory of WordPress website, where you can find all your installed plugins-packages by their names. Select the plugin directory which you want to update and choose delete option to remove the outdated version first. You will not loose plugin settings/data, most likely. Now, select the unzipped package that is still on your PC and drag it to the FTP window. Before you drop, make sure that cursor is inside remote location frame view and /wp-content/plugins/ directory is highlighted. This is how you upload the fresh version of plugin in place of previous version, inside the /wp-content/plugins directory.

Go to website dashboard, visit the installed plugins page and refresh browser window. Activate newly updated plugin if Activate button is displayed instead of Deactivate button. Your plugin is now up-to-date and should be working correctly. Plugin settings would have been restored. Go to previous tutorial for detailed version of handling FTP upload.

WordPress Plugin Update Troubleshooting

Oops! Something is wrong with the update? You have lost access to your WordPress Dashboard or you are seeing errors on the screen! Of course, there is something wrong with the new version which collided. The situation is not horrible for those who can restore their websites from backups. However, before you restore, you can opt for shorter method and try fixing the issue – revert/undo your plugin version.

Revert back to older version of WordPress plugin

Connect to the remote server using FTP Client and navigate to /wp-content/plugins directory to find the problematic plugin package. Remove it from your website by delete command. Then, visit the plugin page on WordPress.org and browse previous versions under Developers tab. Click on version number to download previous version in .zip format. Unzip the file to get back the older plugin package on your PC. Go to FTP client and upload this package to /wp-content/plugins directory. You have reverted to the normal WordPress screen. Still feeling sad because WordPress plugin update failed and you are back on older version! Well, visit support page and try to find others’ update experiences. Or keep blogging and wait for the next version release.

External Links » Read more on this topic »

Upgrade WordPress Plugin Manually Using cPanel
Dashboard → WordPress Updates → Plugins

How to Install WordPress Plugins – Complete Guide

March 2, 2013 by Blogger24x7

Installing a plugin is super easy from WordPress Dashboard on self hosted website, and it’s also not hard even if you do it via FTP. But that doesn’t mean that I should not write a tutorial – How to Install WordPress Plugins. That also doesn’t mean that you should install any other plugin just because you like it. Plugins are necessities of WordPress life – PLUGINS ARE NOT FUN.

Importance of WordPress Plugins

WordPress is really a great platform for web publishing and plugins are something that makes it even better. You create an awesome blog with WordPress and WordPress makes full featured website with plugins. The Codex simply explains, “Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress”. However, installing too many plugins is not recommended as it could lead to poor website performance.

Plugins are necessities of WordPress life. Plugins are not fun.

Personally I appreciate 10 plugins installed and activated at most. But I know that 10 are not enough because they are already those plugins which every blog or WordPress site should have for basic website requirements, for example – cache plugin, contact form plugin, SEO plugin. There would be more plugins that you want to install for your specific needs and of course you and your website have something different (features) for your users. So practically, limiting to 10 is not possible (I am using 15) and you can go for up to 25. You can even install more, but always keep your WordPress clean and compact.

Changing File Permissions

This part is optional and does not require you to look into if everything is working fine on your hosting server. WordPress users usually complain when they are asked to input FTP details. However, my complete guide should inform you that some WordPress plugins require the creation of a temporary directory to store cache data in it. In this case you need to change directory and file permissions so the WordPress plugin is able to create and write to a directory without failing. Plugins get installed if write permissions to the /wp-content/plugins directory is set to 755.

You can skip this part for now, or read on to learn more. You should have an FTP Client on your PC to connect to your web server or download FileZilla or Cyberduck. Install and open any one of them. Enter host name/web address, followed by your username and password (provided to you by your hosting service) in given fields. Click on connect button. Once connection is established, you will be able to view your website directories on the remote server.

Usually public_html directory hosts all WordPress files. The directory public_html at the root of your account is actually a link to /domains/yourdomain.com/public_html.

Navigate down to the …/wp-content/plugins/ directory and right click on it to select and open “file attributes tab”. This enables you to change file permissions. Set the file permission to 755 and click OK. Now you are ready to install plugins.

Install WordPress Plugins Using Admin Panel

Log in to your website. Go to Menu > Plugins > Add New

search wordpress plugins — Automatic WordPress Plugin Installer Page

After hitting the Add New, you will be taken to Plugin Installer Page. Here, search option lets you search the Official WordPress Plugins Repository online that hosts thousands of plugins, developed and contributed by users around the world.

WordPress search results — Go to Details page for more information

Choose a plugin from Installer Search Results
Search Result display number of plugins along with their Version numbers, Ratings and Descriptions. You should always go to Details page for more information before hitting Install Now option. I am more comfortable to search Plugins Repository via wordpress.org website. I visit the Plugin Directory page and insert my keywords there in search field.

WordPress Repository — Sorting plugins by Relevance – WordPress.org

About WordPress.org Search Results
By default, WordPress.org displays search results having plugins sorted by Relevance or you can select Newest, Most Popular or Highest Rated (sorting methods) and click Search Plugins again to sort items in different manners. Relevance displays those results which are very close to keywords. Newest are obviously recently added/updated. Most Popular are most liked plugins in the history of WordPress and Highest Rated are top rated on the scale of 5 stars. Popularity actually reflects continuous success of a plugin from its inception. About Highest Rated, people tend to rate a plugin when they are able to manage its actions by given settings. However, Relevance works best most of the time because Most Popular and Highest Rated usually show best plugins of all time.

About Google Search Results
Why I am talking about Google and not Yahoo or Bing! The answer comes from WordPress.org itself. Each WordPress.org search result page holds a note at its bottom (just above the footer) – “You may also try your search at Google”.
Click on “search at Google” and here it presents Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). All the links on SERPs are from one source, wordpress.org/extend/plugins/. They are truly more relevant links which only present top rated pages, also happened to be most viewed pages – This is and that’s why Google.

Go Back to WordPress Dashboard
I know that I can search from my website dashboard but as I told you, I find it more comfortable to read about plugins on wordpress.org pages. I go through descriptions, ratings, version updates, stats section, compatibility with current version of WordPress and even demo/home sites, and then I choose my preferred plugin. I select and copy its TITLE and also retain its version number.

After this kind of research, I get back to Plugin Installer page (dashboard) and place TITLE text there for search. Of course, my preferred plugin gets top place on search results. The version number (should match) confirms my selection and I click “Install Now” button without any doubt or delay.

Let’s Complete the Installation

Plugin should install successfully. Now, click on Activate Plugin in order to start using its functionalities on Installed Plugins page. Each plugin has two options – Deactivate and Edit. Click Edit to update source files (not recommended). Click Deactivate to stop using a plugin. This action does not remove your plugin but keeps its settings and you can Activate your plugin any time in the future. Isn’t it beautiful?

About Plugin Settings

Usually plugins get installed with some Settings. It helps to customize How plugin should work by making changes on Settigns page. Most plugins work fine with default settings but you must learn them carefully. Some plugins work only after you complete all the details on settings page – You can install Google Analytics Plugin but this does not enable google analytics on your site until you add web property ID (UA-0000000-0) from Google Analytics to the settings. Keep that in mind and always visit plugin site for more help.

Plugin settings options — Settings button may be found on one of these places

You can find plugin Settings button on different places. It may be available on Installed Plugins page below plugin name or under description text. Or you may find it on Dashboard under Plugins or Settings menu by plugin name. Some plugins install their own seperate menu options on WordPress Dashboard.

Install your Favorite Plugins

What are Favorite Plugins? The ability to favorite a plugin was added to the WordPress.org plugin repository in 2012. A user must be registered in order to mark plugins as favorites on WordPress.org pages. You can also view your favorite plugins listed in one place on your Profile page – Go to My Favorites. You can register and log in to the site (see below the main navigation) from Plugins page.

You can register yourself to WordPress.org with a username and get password. Once logged in, you can mark a plugin as Favorite by clicking the Favorite button below the Download button.

How to Install Favorite Plugins – WordPress.org

Access Plugin Installer page (Plugins > Add New) from your Dashboard and go to Favorites option instead of Search. Version 3.5 introduced the ability to display and easily install a user’s favorite plugins through Add New plugin option of WordPress. Use your existing WordPress.org username and Get Favorites. You can view all your Favorites Plugins and also install them here on WordPress Admin Screen. Making favorites is really awesome.

Use Upload Option to Install Plugins

There is one Upload option next to Search option on Plugin Installer page. It simply asks you to browse, select and upload *zip file from your PC. Do you have plugins in .zip format on your PC? Well, you can download plugins from WordPress.org website in zip format. This downloading and uploading can be avoided using other options on the same Plugin Installer page. But there are other sources also which are not accessible using these options. Premium plugins are sold separately on plugin marketplaces. Authors also tend to host their codes on secure places like github. You can download zipped plugins from demo sites too or maybe you have got one e–mailed to you. Right!

*A zip file is a special file that allows you to store and compress many files together, resulting in a single file that is small and fast to download. Select one to upload and click Install Now.

Upload via FTP Client instead of Plugin Installer

This method requires unzipping of downloaded plugin. Unzipping of zipped files may require additional software, from coffeecup.com, if your computer is not able to do it. Click here to learn more.

Unzipping creates a directory on your PC with the same name as zip file. Some softwares create a surrounding directory for the unzipped package. Click and open unzipped directory to see if it’s a container, or plugin package itself – where all plugin files are located. You should upload plugin package and not the container or surrounding directory.

Connect to web server using FTP Client – refer to Changing File Permissions above. Browse wp-content/plugins/ directory where WordPress keeps installed plugins. So what WordPress Automatic Plugin Installer does is, unzip the .zip file on its own and place the unzipped package here. You have got your unzipped package too, now upload this plugin directory onto your web server. To upload, select (highlight) the directory on your PC, then drag it to the right-side frame (remote site) and drop into the appropriate directory (roll your mouse over the plugins folder to highlight) on the remote server. Each FTP client operates differently, so please consult help file for complete instructions. Uploading should complete in few seconds. Go to your website Dashboard and locate your newly installed plugin here on the Installed Plugins page. Got it? OK, now you know what to do – click Activate.

How to Uninstall WordPress Plugins

You can Deactivate any one of the installed plugins and keep it idle in plugin directory with current settings untouched. This option could be used to stop a plugin temporarily. If you are sure that the plugin is not useful, then it’s better to uninstall it from WordPress. WordPress offers you Delete option instead of Uninstall. Delete button appears when you deactivate installed plugins.

How to Delete WordPress Plugins via FTP

You can also uninstall or delete WordPress plugins using an FTP Client. As you have already learned about FTP programs, you can complete the process in 3 simple steps. Open FTP program and log in to the site using FTP details. Navigate to the folder named after plugin title inside …/wp-content/plugins/… directory where all WordPress plugins are placed on remote server. Select the plugin folder/files and press Delete option to remove it from the server.

How to Update WordPress Plugins

Installing is only an aspect of managing plugins. There is more you should know. But don’t worry, when you start practicing things you learn naturally. I don’t want to make this tutorial too long, that’s why I am writing about plugin updates in an another article – How to Update WordPress Plugins – Complete Guide.

External Links » Read more on this topic

How to Manage Plugins
How to Choose Plugins and How Many

Best Free Web Hosting with NO Ads

February 17, 2013 by Blogger24x7

We cannot compare feature rich paid hosting plan with a free service even if it’s best free web hosting. A premium hosting is always worth buying because of its safety, reliability and better resources. When we pay, we know that service provider is bound by a contract and will keep its services up and running till the term ends. It’s kind of moral or legal satisfaction.

Free web hosting is not always happy hosting — Free web hosting services

About this review article, I spent a good amount of time to complete *my list of 5 best free web hosting services with no advertisement. My evaluation is not based on anonymous user reviews or SEO based search engine results. I rather relied on company’s background and experience in various web products. I also tried to assure myself that a company is not just running into bold catchy words but also cares about its products, hardware and technology. The services listed here are having new versions of MySQL and PHP and offering access to control panel for easier web management.

Free web hosting is recommended for beginners who are here for learning or professionals who are working on their under construction projects. Low traffic business websites can start with trying free services from these hosting providers but eventually should buy a reliable hosting plan. However, here is the list of best free web hosting services, in no particular order –

000webhost.com

000webhost Review: 000webhost.com is probably the most popular website which offers free web hosting services without advertising. When I got to know about it, I immediately visited Alexa.com to see the website’s global ranking and to my surprise, it ranks at 1,461. I was surprised because 1and1.com (world’s largest web hosting company with over 11 million customers on paid services and over 18 million domain names) ranks very close at 1,435 globally by Alexa.

000webhost is providing free cPanel hosting services with no ads since 2007 and guarantees that it’s hosting will always be 100% free. The website also adds, “We are probably the only free web hosting company that has proof for 99% uptime guarantee.”

Special Features

Disk Space – 1500 MB
Data Transfer – 100 GB/month
Latest version of PHP and MySQL
5 E-mail Addresses
2 MySQL Databases

AWARDSPACE

AwardSpace Review: AwardSpace attracted me because of its number of services offered, which only reflects that AWARDSPACE.COM is here for serious business. The company has gathered an extensive background of its two mother companies AttractSoft GmbH & Zetta Hosting Solutions ltd. AttractSoft GmbH is a new generation internet company while Zetta Hosting Solutions Ltd. was founded in 2003 as a pure free web hosting provider.

You can sign up for free web hosting service to take a test ride before you go for a paid plan or you can continue to host your low traffic/non-profit website or under development project. AwardSpace.com is maintaining free hosting with fixed traffic allotment.

Special Features

250MB disk space, 5GB traffic and 1 domains hosting
PHP 5, Perl/CGI-BIN, 1 MySQL(v.5) Database and FTP Access
100% No ads

FreeHostia

FreeHostia Review: FreeHostia gets its place in the list because I found the name everywhere else when I was doing my research. I also found that it’s quite popular among users who are looking for a good free web hosting service. Freehostia.com is owned by LiquidNet Ltd, a UK-based company. LiquidNet Ltd. was established in February 2003 and since then offering professional services including web hosting, reseller hosting and domain registration.

FreeHostia’s free web hosting plan can accommodate personal websites, small community portals, forums, blogs, content management systems, online shops and corporate websites. Moreover, you can use your free hosting account for as long as you want without any charge. No ads, no hidden fees.

Special Features

250 MB Disk Space, 6 GB Monthly Traffic
POP3/IMAP E-mail accounts
PHP & MySQL

Hostinger.ph

Hostinger Review: Hostinger International Ltd (hostinger.com) is providing free web hosting service from its Philippines based web address hostinger.ph while its operating in United States from hosting24.com (paid hosting service) website. Hostinger reasons that free service is part of its branding strategy and it covers the cost by offering paid hosting upgrades. Hostinger also says that it has no plans to close this service anytime.

Hostinger Group established in 2004. “Hostinger, UAB is an ICANN accredited registrar. ICANN accreditation mean that company has been verified, has a strong financial ground and can be trusted.” – As mentioned on hostinger.com

Special Features

2000 MB of disk space
PHP 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 versions
MySQL Version 5.1

xtreemhost

XtreemHost Review: Xtreemhost is a web hosting service that provides free and cheap unlimited hosting including PHP and MySQL support, domain name support, etc. without ads. The free service is part of ServeNets, a company located in Belgium. ServeNets also offers ad supported free hosting, premium hosting, domain name registration and site management.

The only good thing I have found is Xtreemhost has recently upgraded the PHP version on all free hosting servers to version 5.2.17 and upgraded a few other modules like Zend and phpMyAdmin.

Special Features

Webspace – 2500 MB
Monthly Bandwidth – 100 GB
MySQL Space – 50 MB
File Size Limit – 4 MB
1 MySQL Database and 1 FTP Account

*My list of free services is for reference purpose only and does not promote any website. SlicePages.com is not responsible for your decision of using these services. Please read terms and conditions page from each service provider before signing up.

How to Create a Website Free of Cost

February 15, 2013 by Blogger24x7

Maintaining a good website is not easy for starters as it requires both time and money. People with good coding skills come with a level of confidence and they also risk spending some money in order to publish a website. Today, I am going to list here few services that are essential for any blog or website, and interestingly they are absolutely FREE*. So now, you can create a website free of cost, that’s too backed by powerful web services. This is definitely an unbeatable deal.

*Free services are subject to change. Each free service comes from a different provider. You may need to pay for one or two services to setup your own self-hosted website. All the information were verified on February 8, 2013. Links to other websites are references and not our recommendations. Please read terms and policies for services you sign up for.

Domain Name Registration

Domain Name Registration is an essential process that you follow to reserve a resource name for your website. A generic form of a domain name is www.yourwebsitename.com. Domain name is used for addressing a website, so that people can connect to that site via the world wide web. You should register domain names with domain name registrars.

Web Hosting

Web Hosting is the most important thing that you need to publish a website. When you are ready with your website, you need enough space on a web server (connected to internet) to host your website files. A web hosting service makes those files accessible for internet users via the World Wide Web. Accessing website files is generally known as visiting a website. That space or web server is sold by Web Hosting Companies.

Now, these two things (domain and hosting) are primary for any website, and hosting companies spend a lot of money to run their businesses. Of course, quality comes with a cost but there are alternatives that you can try for free as a starter.

1- Free Domain Name

Almost all major web hosting companies offer one free domain name for registration if you buy a hosting plan from them. Such offers are sold to make new customers and that’s why the domain is made free for first year only. You pay for consecutive years. In this case, you have to buy a hosting service.

Caution: There are few online services that provide domain name registration absolutely free but they do not offer generic top-level domains (.com and .net). Also, such companies reserve rights to shut down their services without any obligation and you may fail to keep your business or blog online.

2- Free Web Hosting

I have come across a service, GoToNames.com, that promises free web hosting included with a domain purchase. Free web hosting is also available from some notable service providers but they sometimes require you to agree upon their conditions – such as ads would be displayed on your published website. However, you have to buy a domain name.

There are companies that offer free products or very low cost services. I should warn you that not all of them offer reliable and secure hosting. Alternatively you can choose discount/holiday offers, or pay using discount coupon codes. It’s good to sign up for receiving newsletters right into your email box from hosting companies and you will be notified whenever offers are available.

3- Free Website Building

There are other alternatives if you really don’t need a domain name specifically for your website. WordPress.com is a well-known blogging platform which enables you to create a website on its address. You can register a website in the form of – yourwebsitename.wordpress.com. I would also mention – Google Sites, Weebly and WIX. They are good options for starters as free website building and hosting go parallel – you publish webpages as you build them.

You can have a free website on your domain with ZOHO sites. GYBO.com is also helping to Get Your Business Online which is a fast and free service from Google. This offer is only available to US businesses.

4- Free Website Templates

Website templates reduce the time of website designing and coding. Also, premium templates come with well-structured and well-designed pages which help us to edit them quickly and they also perform well on the internet. To download a premium template, you have to pay anything from $30 to $60. However, you can also choose a website template from a wide range of free categories. Below you can find few website links for free website template download.

Free website template download

DreamTemplate
XHTML Templates from xoops-theme
OS-Templates
Free Web Templates
i website template

5- Free Web Design Software

If you are designing website for yourself, a web-design software is an essential tool that you will ever need. Adobe Dreamweaver is the world’s most popular web-design tool that comes with a price tag. However, a trial version is an option that you should not miss, which makes it free for 30 days. A full-featured designing software is never going to be free unless it’s an open source work – just like WordPress. Before you start feeling sad about this, here you can find best tools that would help you to design your website for free –

Open source Dreamweaver Alternatives
MicroSoft Expression
KompoZer – Easy Web Authoring
TinyMCE – WYSIWYG Editor
Serif WebPlus Starter Edition

6- Free Stock Images and Free Icon Download

Colors make things attractive and images make your website interesting. You should always place enough images along-with your text content to support your ideas. Get images and icons to make your webpages communicative and interactive as long as they are free to use. Start your downloads now –

Free Stock Photos
Leading Free Stock Photography Site
Stock Vault – Stock Photos
Free Vectors, Photos and PSD
Free Icons and Vector Graphics

7- Free FTP Solution

There are two ways of moving your website files and images onto your web server from local PC. Either use the file manager from your web host’s control panel or use an FTP client to upload and download files as for maintaining website. An FTP client is a software which uses the file transfer protocol to transfer files to and from a remote computer.

FileZilla is a cross platform client that offers tons of features, such as support for FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS), and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). Filezilla is GPL and works seamlessly with FileZilla Server. Another best free ftp available is from CoffeeCup in my opinion.

8- Free Website Backups

Website backup is something that makes you worry free. Wondering why to spend on a website backup service! Website backup is the best protection against hacks and mishaps. Surprisingly most hosting providers do not offer backup service and website copy on a test server is not going to help you as you and your users would be making updates online.

Better if you could buy a good backup service. Or you can sign up for free service which generally offers manual backup for one website, up to 2 GB of storage and includes no support. You should try them as they are reliable and completely risk free –

Website Backup from Backup Machine
Website Backup in the Cloud by CodeGuard
Comcure Cloud Backups for your Website

9- Free CDN or Content Delivery Network

A good webmaster is always careful for his website safety and its speed. The reputation of your website heavily depends on its loading time. Get your coding correct, buy a dedicated server and use a good CDN (content delivery network) to speed up your site. You can learn about CDN in this amazing video from Level(3).

CloudFlare is one of the best CDN providers. CloudFlare automatically optimizes your pages and accelerates your website online, all for free. CloudFlare also promises not to bill you for bandwidth usage. You can also buy a paid plan for faster site performance.

10- Free website promotion

Are you business oriented? Don’t you want to make your website a brand?

You would be having lots of friends and family connections on social media sites. Send them updates about your site regularly and use different methods on different platforms. Probably you already knew about this. What else? Have you ever tried bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon! Or you ever thought of submitting your site to Bing, Yahoo! Directory, Google Content Program or Open Directory Project (originally directory.mozilla.org).

Website promotion demands good amount of time and hard work as it’s never ending process. You have to do it as long as you interested in running your website. Write some articles about your subject with appropriate links back to your website and post them on HubPages.com or Squidoo.com. These tips are in addition to SEO practices, so don’t forget to apply basic SEO techniques to optimize your webpages for search engines.

External Links » Read more on this topic

Free Design Platforms To Build Your Own Site
How to Build a Website at No Charge
Setup A Self-hosted WordPress Blog for Free
Websites to Download Free PSD Files

WEB PLATFORM DOCS – not just community-driven site!

January 19, 2013 by Blogger24x7

It was October 8, 2012 when W3C announced Web Platform Docs and one more yet fresh and new community driven site was launched to help web developers and designers. I instantly visited the website www.webplatform.org with curiosity and lots of excitement. This is what I love – learning about latest web trends. The WPD is not a trend yet but it will become soon as the expectations are high and the project is under progress.

“Web Platform Docs is currently in alpha” as on Jan 16, 2013.

Introduction to Web Platform Docs

We have needed a site like Web Platform Docs for years.

I really admire the internet for it is the main resource of my learning. As a web technology lover, I visit tech news and design/trends websites on a daily basis to keep myself updated. Sometimes, I go to different sites to learn different aspects and have wider understanding of a particular subject.

The emergence of Web Platform Docs is good news for me and my web developer/designer friends. It aims to help professionals and enthusiasts like you and me by providing definitive resource and reliable information on Open Web Platform. The concept of WPD is to keep and maintain it as single source of accurate and quality content on latest web standards. It would also serve as common place where everyone (beginner or advanced users) can come, learn, explore and even contribute. Since the whole community of designers is invited to participate and get engaged, the information found here would be tested and updated. If you feel that the information needs to be improved, you are welcome to be part of the project and edit the information here.

Let’s name the contributors

The project is in a very initial phase and relatively small in size at this moment. The website would grow over time and become huge as we can expect from its nature. The responsibility is really high for W3C and this is why big names like Apple, Adobe, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and many others have come forward to support and fund the project. The group is called Web Platform stewards.

“We have needed a site like Web Platform Docs for years”, says Lars Erik Bolstad, VP Core Technology, at Opera Software. Opera is also participating as a steward.

Importance of Web Platform Docs

The project targets the entire Open Web Platform and serves comprehensive and authoritative source for web developer documentation.
The mission is to keep information up-to-date and correct in parallel with its practical acceptance.
It is one more step towards maintaining web standards and web technology features, and their promotion across the community.
The strength of the project is not only its detailed documentation but also the concept of making it open, current and trusted.
Anybody can access the resource, learn and share with the community, even contribute to Web Platform Docs.

Structure of Webplatform.org

Web Platform Docs is the first and most important piece of WebPlatform.org

The docs or wiki pages are the source/main pages where you can find all kind of information to learn and boost your skills. You can also find tools to edit the information as a generous member of the site, if you feel that you can improve or update pages. A community driven site is incomplete without a forum. You can visit the section if you wish to interact with the community. In addition, you can even join live chat to communicate to other members almost on any topic. Further, read blog posts to know status and see changes of WPD.

The docs are helpful in three different ways. You can start with learning basics of the web and various technologies. Browse topics to have good understanding of web standards and design concepts. For completeness of the learning process, tutorials have also been uploaded.

All materials on Web Platform Docs are freely available and licensed under creative commons. That means you can share and reuse the content so that more and more people can apply latest HTML5, CSS3, and other Web standards.

Events or Doc Sprints

WPD Stewards have already started working on the project. We should thank them for their contributions and appreciate their genuine efforts for making it better and more useful. What is noticeable is all this happening in a focused and speedy way. Quite frequently, they are organizing events which is a series of Doc Sprints. And progressively, they are improving Web Platform Docs, step by step.

A doc sprint is a period of concentrated effort by a number of people to improve documentation.

Doc Sprint in progress in the city of Mountain View

With each doc sprint we do, we’re getting better at running these
—Scott Rowe, Google.

Looking at the future

People all over the web are contributing great ideas and tools, and the momentum for viable, open, global web standards is growing every day.

—Published on Jan 16, 2013.

This is the alpha release of Web Platform Docs and they have put enough content for developers/designers to start with. There is no doubt in the reliability of the project as W3C itself is there to administrate the project. Big players from the industry have come together to support the project that makes it prospective and flourishing. Also, learning is a never-ending process and web technologies never stop evolving. It is expected that most people would love to attach themselves and become part of the project.

W3C has said that the site would also display the status of a particular technology’s standardization and cross-browser implementation. I really loved the idea of maintaining such a definitive resource for all open web technologies. With Web Platform Docs, web professionals will save time and resources by consulting with confidence a single site for current, cross-browser and cross-device coding best practices.

Both thumbs up!

Helpful Links »
Testimonials by contributors – Must Read
Web Platform Docs – Video Launch
Getting started contributing content
A Quick Start to your contributions

Google Insights for Search dissolved in Google Trends

October 6, 2012 by Blogger24x7

Google Insights for Search has been removed by Google from its services and products page on September 27, 2012. Google has ended more than 50 products from its collection within a year and Insights for Search is one of them. Well, good news is that the tool has dissolved in Google Trends.

Google explains, “The new Google Trends now includes features from both products and makes it easier and more intuitive to dig into the data.” Google promises a clean new interface to give you a clearer view of what’s on the world’s mind. Users can now visualize the data with more advanced line charts and maps those are powered by Google Chart Tools.

Google Insights for Search and Google Trends are ONE

The new Google Trends now includes features from both products and makes it easier and more intuitive to dig into the data.

Google Insights for Search and Google Trends services have been put into one place and Google presents this merger as a revised version of Google Trends. Insights for Search was a proven tool for researchers, businesses and SEO professionals. Google Trends was not able to help people with such kind of research work prior to the merger. Instead, Google Trends was helping marketers as they could monitor and research queries relevant to their products. Google Trends was available with simple interface to show the latest hot topics and hot searches happening on the internet.

Now, you can find the functionality of both worlds into one. You can still use the functionality of Insights for Search and this is available with a different interface. However, both functionalities are based on the volume of search terms entered by the Google users around the world. Google has not developed anything new with the release of freshly Google Trends except the idea of Google Insights merging. This is why; the merge should not be confused by advanced version of Google Trends. On the contrary, access to Google Trends for websites (trends.google.com/websites) has been discontinued and facility of website comparison and viewing traffic stats is closed now.

Insights for Search dissolves to make Trends better

Google Trends and Google Insights for Search have been redesigned and merged into a single powerful tool.

In order to make Trends better, easier and more popular, Google decided to deprecate the great tool — Insights for Search. Now you can use Google Trends for your keyword research and plan your digital marketing. You can also find what’s hot in your region and what is trending around the Globe. The revamped tool is even helpful to study and predict search terms. You cannot use the web address www.google.com/insights/search to get the tool but if you do so, you will be redirected to www.google.com/trends that still offers Google Trends and that is with the power of Insights for Search.

External Links » Read more on this topic

The New Google Trends
One Mobile-Friendly Service
Google Insights for Search