how I moved my blog from wordpress.com to blogger

I just want to share how I moved my wordpress.com blog to blogger. It's really sad coz there are a lot of cool features in wordpress that's not available in blogger like the cool addicting statistics, better looking dashboards, more professional looking templates and other widgets etc. Bottom line is that I can't put javascripts and adsense in wordpress.com so I've decided to go back to blogger.

Anyway, I find the migration easy. Here are the simple steps that I've done:

1. I've signed up another blog in blogger.
2. After that, I logged in to my wordpress.com blog. I downloaded the WordPress WXR export file under 'Tools' and then saved it in my computer.

3. At first I've tried importing the WXR file to blogger but it doesn't seem to work. Looks like they're not compatible. I did a little research and found this tool to convert them.
4. Once the file was converted, it's now ready to be imported in blogger. Under the 'Settings' tab, I clicked import blog and then imported the converted WXR file.

5. I published all of the posts that I had in wordpress. However, I had some issues with PR, backlinks and dup content. It seems that it will take a while to remove fallen paladin from Google's SERPS.

Read more »

Posted in: Technology,web development

10 signs of a spammy website

What is spam? Spam has different connotations depending on the application. In most cases, Spam is defined as 'unwanted e-mail (usually of a commercial nature sent out in bulk)'. These emails could be adverts, newsletters, press releases, adwares, spywares or even links to porn,pills and gambling.

In website development, spammy websites are websites obviously created to rank in search engine results. They're not made for humans but for web crawlers of search engines such as Google. Of course search engines are not perfect that's why there are quite a few people who still find ways to cheat in ranking their sites.

Since I'm working as a quality assurance guy, I've made a short list of things I'm looking at a site:

1. Hidden text. Old school SEO people believe that writing all their keywords in their homepage would improve their rankings. This was done by matching the text colour with the background colour.
2. Hidden links. This is the almost the same as number one. But here, links may have different purposes. (Some sites are even using 1x1 pixel picture for links!)
3. Too much keyword density. Like for example using their targeted keywords in a repetitive manner which is not making any sense to the readers.
4. Interlinked networks. I noticed that interlinked networks still bursts but once google discovered this, the whole network will be penalized.
5. Incoming links from free sites, directories, forums, comments etc. This is practiced by a lot of people. Getting free links with no value at all is simply spammy.
6. Overly interlinked web pages. I normally see this in blogs. The main purpose of this practice is to make the page rank flow to almost all pages, making the PR closer to the home page's pr.
7. Excessively highlighted keywords. Most of the old school SEO practitioners do this. Like the targeted keywords were stressed out by placing bold, underline or italize tags with a very very big font size. Yeah, most of these sites look like shit.
8. MFA sites (made for adsense). There's nothing wrong with adsense. But the thing is there are lots of sites out there that were designed for people to click the adsense.
9. Link farms. Link farms are usually fake blogs with unique content. They also rank but the main purpose of it is to act as inlinks for other sites.
10. Duplicate content. Content is king. The one with better/useful content will obviously rank higher than others. If a site has duplicate content, that simply means that the owner of the site doesn't have time to write quality articles so he just copied everything from a famous site. 

Conclusion:
There will be always ways to cheat but a good website is a site that is really really helpful to people and would naturally get inlinks.

Read more »

Posted in: Google,seo,seo stuff,Technology,web development

How to center a div in a browser window like firefox

It has been a while since my last web development project. The antonov star search made me skip a few small projects. But the good thing is that we've acquired a sort of big project from a milk company. It's huge coz we have to maintain the site for a year.

I was assigned to code the design template. Everything went well but then someone from the company requested that the site should always be in the center of the browser. I was kinda stumped with the request since I'm not really the css guy in my old team. I'm Mr. Widget - the guy who's doing all the purely decorative stuff in a site. But anyway, going back to the code, I tried experimenting a few settings but this is the one that worked in the css:

#main {
width: 600px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right:auto;
}

So yeah. I spent like 30 minutes experimenting on the css only to find out that it's all about the margins. :) By the way, "main" is the name of the biggest div. It's like the parent table in the layout. So there. Another good no know...This is a very simple layout since it's just a two-column layout. If you wanna use it. Feel free to copy paste. lol And there's only one div for the content so most probably I'll just add another one when the need arises. :)

Here's what my nested divs look like:

<div id="main">

<div id="top">
</div>
<div id="left">
<div id="navigation">

</div>
<div id="mainpic">
</div>
</div>

<div id="right">
<div id="content1">
</div>
<div id="footer">
</div>
</div>

</div>

So far so good. We're almost done with the project and it looks cool! I haven't tested it in Internet Explorer though. :)

Read more »

Posted in: how to,Technology,web development

how to add emoticons like smileys and music notes in facebook status messages/chat

I keep on seeing people posting a line of a song with this music note symbol  ♫.  One of my friends was also posting his status message with a ♥ (which is so gay). It somehow pissed me because I don't know how to do it. I guess I could research it via internet but I was so busy doing my own stuff so I didn't bother doing a quick search.

Something interesting happened today. I was playing with my keyboard while I was typing my status message in facebook. I accidentally typed 1 while holding 'alt' and it gave me this cute smiley ☺. I experimented with a couple of numbers and this is what I got:

Hold ‘alt’ then type 1 – ☺

Hold ‘alt’ then type 2 – ☻

Hold ‘alt’ then type 3 – ♥

Hold ‘alt’ then type 4 – ♦

Hold ‘alt’ then type 5 – ♣

Hold ‘alt’ then type 6 – ♠

Hold ‘alt’ then type 7 – •

Hold ‘alt’ then type 8 – ◘

Hold ‘alt’ then type 9 – ○

Hold ‘alt’ then type 10 – ◙

Hold ‘alt’ then type 11 – ♂

Hold ‘alt’ then type 12 – ♀

Hold ‘alt’ then type 13 – ♪

Hold ‘alt’ then type 14 – ♫

Hold ‘alt’ then type 15 – ☼

Hold ‘alt’ then type 16 – ►

Hold ‘alt’ then type 17 – ◄

Hold ‘alt’ then type 18 – ↕

Hold ‘alt’ then type 19 – ‼

Hold ‘alt’ then type 20 – ¶

Pretty cool huh? Just keep in mind to turn your num lock ON before doing the alt+number thingy.  Let me know if you discovered something too!! :) Cheers!

Read more »

Posted in: Facebook,how to,random stuff,Technology

Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources

I usually rely on tutorials over the net to create something pleasing to the eyes. For months, I've been trying to find my "inspiration" to create something new on Photoshop but no idea comes in. Guess, it all boils down again to laziness!

But but but! I have no excuse now, for I have seen a couple of good things to play around. I saw this bookmarked page in delicious and it was delicious indeed to the eyes of an artist. The author did a lot of bookmarking in the web to gather the most wanted Photoshop tutorials and resources. You can find lots of useful stuff like vectors, amazing effects,useful patterns, brushes and a lot more. The author even sorted all these things into:

1. Photoshop Textures


2. Photoshop Patterns


3. Photoshop Tutorials


4. Photoshop Brushes


5. Photoshop Actions


6. Photoshop Downloadable .PSD Files


7. Photoshop Cheat Sheets
   

Sweet! Here's the URL and enjoy! :)

http://www.noupe.com/photoshop/60-most-wanted-photoshop-tutorials-brushes-psds-and-resources.html

Read more »

Posted in: Art,Graphics,Technology