Free Bandwidth Monitor was simple and efficient; after trying out many other softwares, I am now happy with NetWorx – A free, simple, Bandwidth Monitoring and Analysis Tool.

NetWorx does its job fairly well. Reports can be seen on last 24 hours, daily, weekly, monthly and Total. It can also show you custom reports within the dates you specify.

Here is a screen-shot of NetWorx, for more screen-shots click the image.

With NetWorx you can -

• Find out and monitor how fast your Internet connection is.
• Find out and monitor how much Internet traffic you consume.
• Verify whether your ISP charges your Internet usage fairly.
• Detect a suspicious network activity on your computer.
• Perform simple network tests such as ping and trace route.
• Be notified about excessive Internet usage.

NetWorx stays as a button near the clock, additional features can be accessed by right click-ing the icon. Its that simple.

Download NetWorx Free – Look to the right sidebar for the download link. In case you need, detailed online help is available here.

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There’s nothing worse than running across technology that you must understand for your job, blog, or just for personal reasons, but truly don’t know what the heck you’re reading. Most people encounter this frustrating circumstance at some point in their lives. However, this doesn’t make the situation any less frustrating.

If you are in this sticky jam now, there are steps that you can take to learn it without pulling your hair out. Take a look at just how easy it could be to learn technology that you’re absolutely clueless about:

1. Take a Moment to Breathe

This may seem like an unnecessary step, but it helps tremendously when you’re feeling anxious, time-pressured and under-confident. Self-talk is a big deal when you’re trying to work through something as complicated as hard-to-understand technology, so before diving in, it’s a good idea to step back, tell yourself you can get through it, then go ahead and tackle it.

2. Read Instructions and Tutorials

The Internet is a wonderful playground for acquiring information on just about anything you can imagine, including how to learn specific technologies. The beauty of the competitive nature of the blogging world is that someone is always eager to be the first person to release instructions or tutorials on the latest technology.

This is to your benefit because there’s probably going to be some step-by-step tutorial out there to walk you through just what you need to do to get started. So if you’re stumped on how to get started, conducting a quick search on tutorials or other instructions is a great way to ease you through the process.

3. Don’t be Afraid to Backtrack

Sometimes it’s possible to take on something technological that happens to be two-steps past your current level of expertise. If this is happens to you, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with backtracking some to learn the pre-requisite technology needed to help you understand what’s presented in front of you.

You may not want take on this step if you’re technologically savvy because you may feel that it showcases a sign of weakness. However, nothing could be further from the truth. By taking the time to backtrack some and learn prerequisite technology, you could not only get the information you need to focus on the latest technology, but also expand your wealth of knowledge overall.

4. Don’t Allow Yourself to Get Overwhelmed

You may remember in school that if you were introduced to too much information too soon, you quickly felt overwhelmed. Sometimes, if you put too much on your plate when trying to learn specific technology, you could easily overwhelm yourself again.

The key to learning difficult-to-understand technology is to find the tutorials, define words you don’t know and learning technology that came before it to help you acquire knowledge on the current technology. If you take the process step-by-step without becoming overwhelmed, in no time you will know it like the back of your hand.

This article was written by Melissa Tamura, who writes on the topic of online accounting degrees for the Zen College Life Blog. She would love to hear from you at melissatamura@gmail.com. If you like to write a similar post, find details here.

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I ended up with a lot of categories and sub-categories. There are some categories that doesn’t even have a single post, to this day.

Here are the lessons

Making Good Use of Categories and Tags

Have a few categories only. Ten or lesser is good. Say you have 500 posts, and 10 categories, 50 posts per category is fine.

Make the categories broader so that you can accommodate more number of posts. A category named WordPress can include a larger share or posts than a category named WordPress Themes. How broad you wanna go depends on your Domain.

Do not go for sub-categories. Instead use Tags to sub-categorize the posts. For instance, Say WordPress is the main category. You can have tags like WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, WordPress Hacks etc.

Tags may be plenty, 3 to 5 tags per post is healthy.

One post goes into one and only one category. There is no point in categorizing a post in many categories. Instead use Tags to group similar posts. For instance, posts about a WordPress plugin hack could go under the category WordPress and Tags as WordPress Plugins and WordPress Hacks.

If you use the All in One SEO Pack, and your tags contains keywords, make sure you check ‘Use Tags for META keywords’ in the All in One SEO Settings.

Good luck!

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Online Profits is an Online Training Programme on Internet Marketing, Business and related entities. Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips.com is the Founder and key instructor with support from 9 other Internet Celebs including Yaro Starak and Courtney Tuttle.

The programme opens up once in a while, takes in a few participants and closes till the training of the batch is complete. Its open now with just 300 seats, and as I write this, I assume that it is getting filled. It should be, after the over-whelming response and reviews of last year.

I am sure Daniel has much more than what I am gonna say here; here is what I got in the last season.

The Training programme began from the very basics of the internet, business and understanding the basic concepts of search engines. If you had been using the internet for a while you might have probably come across some of those. Then there are always points that you missed.

Fast forward a couple of lessons and I ended up with Domains. There are some tools inside the members area that will help you decide on a good domain name, plus the tips on choosing a good domain name are awesome. Obviously after Domains came Web Hosting.

There were lessons on Niche Marketing and lessons that teach you how to choose a niche market, how to do market research and some working Business models that will help you in making money online, if you are interested Links to free and paid tools were also included.

Well, am getting into too much details, let me make it super-quick. WordPress, SEO basics, Forums, Link Building, Advertising, Affiliate Marketing and other stuffs you need to build up your own website and online business are all in the package.

Each lesson ends with action points. An audio version of the lesson was also available, and it should be there this time too.

PLUS there is an amazing forum where you can talk on the lesson and also with other members. Forum discussions extend beyond those in the lessons. The best thing is Daniel is available on there almost 24×7. Forum threads are promptly replied. Daniel treats you like friends, so its not like the replies that you get to comments on his blog, much better.

Ok, Online Profits wont make you a pro in SEO or Niche Marketing in 3 months. Don’t expect to learn some secrets that will make you a millionaire over-night. The truth is there are no secrets (as far as I know, or are there any?). You will get the lessons, and the tools, if you use them and work on them, you will be good.

The cost is $98 x 4 instalments , for which you get life-time access to the forums even after the course is over. See whats in store this time and Sign-Up.

If you like to start your own online business or take up Blogging seriously, then its your lucky day. Go ahead. I strongly recommend Online Profits.

In case you are looking for something specific, or got any queries, contact Daniel via email.

P.S.: His Newsletter subscribers get a free one-hour consulting with Daniel on any topic of your choice, which is something big. I don’t know if its available to new subscribers too. No matter what, subscribe to his newsletter, one or two articles a month, amazing tips.

Update: Just 50 more seats remaining, act now.

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The easiest way out was restarting Firefox. Restarting is not a big deal, if you have free bandwidth and have the habit of completing everything you started. That doesn’t describe me at all.

Luckily, I stumbled over a amazing plugin called RAMBack.

RAMBack is a simple plugin that does nothing but clear the RAM that’s being used by closed tabs and unused pages. The plugin will add a menu item ‘Clear Caches’ into the Tools menu (see the snapshot). When clicked, it will do its job.

I had been using RAMBack for over a month on FF 3.5.1, so far so good.

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The Top 10 Hosting Rankings on the homepage might seem similar; see the Best Host Awards section. Its a monthly rating of web hosts based on the votes given by users. Awards are given to hosts on a category basis.

Web Hosting Rating also has an whole section of CMS hosts. Hosts are categorized in terms of their Support for specific CMS like WordPress or phpBB. A section on Best WordPress Hosting is there!

There are also some good articles and a wide knowledge base that might interest you. Here is one: 6 Essential Tips for Better SEO.

Hope you guys find this useful. Good luck!

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Dude?

OK. This is a post honoring four bloggers who travelled way lot during the past year. They may not seem very successful in all respects, but they sure know what they are doing. Presenting, In no specific order…

Amal Roy of Computing Unleashed

Amal is a Tech Blogger from Kerala, India. He writes about Computers, Softwares, Hardwares, and shares Tips and Tweaks related to Computers. Some of his articles are so comprehensive that they ended up on the homepage of Digg. Last December he got his domain, and now this December he is on WordPress. Way to go!

Girish G of DotGiri

Most Bloggers I have met took really long time to get their First Google Adsense check, this guy did it in a matter of few months. He writes about Windows and Linux How-To’s, Tech Reviews, Computing Tips, Softwares and the Internet. He has already started expanding his network of blogs. Good luck!

S.Pradeep Kumar of HellBound Bloggers

Lately I found that he have been spending 15 hours a day on various Blogging activities. He uses that time to do research and brings them all into his blog. He writes about Blogging, the Internet, Security and Tech. You will find some amazing and useful List Posts there. A job well done

Sriraj of Sriraj Digital Magazine

The name suits it well; his blog is a real magazine. He writes about Blogging, Technology, Gadgets, Softwares and Web on one side and then on Automobiles, Career Tips, News and Sports on the other. Thoughtfully, he have provided separated feeds for each category. Grew to over 1000 RSS readers this year, congrats dude!

Wish you all a great year ahead!

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Unfortunately, very few people have tried more than a couple of hosts, so every person you ask for a recommendation would give you a different answer. Probably you end up with the same host that your friend uses.

What if you could pass a piece of paper around and ask all your friends to rate their favorite host on various parameters, say Uptime, Support, and so on? Take a look at Web Hosting Geeks.

Web Hosting Geeks is a Hosting Rating and Reviewing service. Various hosts are grouped into different categories and users can rate them on nine different parameters (Tech Support, Customer Support, Software, Traffic, Reliability and Uptime, Space, Price, Quality, and User-Friendliness). Also a custom review in words can also be added.

The Homepage features a list of Top Ten Web Hosts of 2009 based on user ratings. The sidebar links will help you choose the right one for you. For instance, if you are looking for the best VPS hosting, just look around.

Something more interesting is the way various Hosts are grouped (see them on the left sidebar). Hosts with Free Google Adwords, Free Yahoo Marketing, and if you care for the environment (which you should do), there is a list of Green Web Hosting providers. Green Web Hosts uses Renewable Sources of energy like solar power or wind power, adopt measures to reduce CO2 emissions and recycle waste. Cool huh?

Web Hosting Geeks also have a pretty good knowledge base for the beginner. Starting from their homepage (below the fold) is a general introduction into various types of website hosting. Also you will find some good articles. Which Web Hosting is good for you, and How to make Money with Web Hosting are two articles that I choose to read and found some new tips.

They also maintain a Blog sharing tips of all kinds, SEO, CMS’s and other stuffs that interests every webmaster. The Blog, as well as the ratings are updated regularly.

Wish there was an interactive form that recommends the right host for you based on the options you choose. Like, if you are looking for a Green Host for under $10 p.m. with free dedicated IP and free domain, you would enter your options, click on submit and you would get a list of hosts matching your criteria sorted based on their rating. But you can’t ask for everything, or can you?

Hope you find Web Hosting Geeks useful. Good luck choosing your web hosting partner!

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Best Blogging Practices might sound like an oxymoron when blogging itself is loosely defined. Blogging itself is defined in many ways by many people and I am going to try to give away some of the tips which I find will help corporate blogs reach out to their audience better.

1. Personalize your communication – Blogs are commonly referred to as an informally written journal and taking that definition into your company blog is very important to your readers. They need to know who they are reading about and the posts need to connect to the user on an informal level. Personalize and humanize your blog instead of making it a press room.
2. Join Conversations – Listening is perhaps one of the most important activities in Social Media if you ask me. There are discussions on your service, your product somewhere out there in the wild web. Find them, join in the conversation on your blog linking to the sources and when you start a new conversation, people will listen to you.
3. Be Consistent – One of the major reasons we advocate a firm to think twice before starting their own company blog is updating it! Most companies starting their own blog lose steam in a few weeks and they end up becoming an eerie dead pool. Underestimating the energy, time and commitment to maintain a blog is a major mistake by most companies.
4. Provide Value – Are you a gardening supplies company? Tell your readers about the best ways to grow a garden. Are you a web designing firm? Tell your readers about the latest trends in web designing.
5. Comments – Treat comments as posts. The comments in any blog are an important part where you get feedback, bricks and roses and be ready to acknowledge the good the bad and the ugly. Give your readers the feeling that they are being listened to and their suggestions appreciated. This will increase your blogs credibility and authority.

If you have a corporate blog, I would be really interested in hearing from your experiences of maintaining one. Do share your views on the comments!

This is a guest post by Anand Subramanian, an Internet Marketing Consultant from India who helps businesses get online and use internet as a marketing medium.

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The Basics

First you need to understand is that, Twitter is not a chat; it’s a never ending party. When you have a conversation, with someone, you two are not the only listeners. The world is listening; well, at least it seems so

Since every tweet gets logged into the timeline of all followers, on twitter, people seldom use the normal IM formalities and the trivial responses. Don’t expect people to say ‘bye’, or ‘see you later’. They might just leave without any notice. That’s the way it is supposed to be, remember it’s not a chat.

Your First Chat

For a start, unlike IM where you start with a hello, I often jump into middle of some conversation already going on. Maybe he or she tweeted something that interests you, and you can start with a reply to it. When you do that, he or she gets the message that you are listening. If you reply with something that can be easily replied upon, it’s a great start.

For instance, someone tweets, “My Dog seems to like Candies more than biscuits”. If it was me, I might say, “@someone Lol, I should try that on my Dog too, what dog is it?”

Building on @replies, one after the other.

If you want to have a successful conversation, make sure they have something to say to the last reply you sent them. People seldom reply with just ‘lol’ or a simile, as in IM. Those things are taken for granted. So if you want a good talk going on, make sure the person will have something to add to it.

In the previous example, if I had just said, “Lol, I should try that on my Dog too”, the person would read it, maybe pass a smile and not reply anything at all.

Twitter is a Blog

The tips we have been hearing for getting user interaction and comments on blogs works really well. Ask questions; ask for their opinion, and the like. After all it’s a micro-blog. Wish building RSS readers was just as easy as building followers. Lol.

Mix things Up

Depending on what you use twitter for, spread out your tweets so that your followers won’t get bored. If you share links, tweet some awesome links in between talks. Tweet the normal things you do in between the conversation.

#HashTags always help

How will you do a group chat on Twitter? That’s easy, use a hashtag for the talk, and ask all participants to search for it. Many clients have in-built search, if yours don’t have, turn to TweetDeck. It’s simply awesome or better said as Simple and Awesome. The participants can follow the hashtag and reply to each other while others listen.

Me and some friends have been using this effectively for over a year to hang out in the evening and have random chit chat with the hashtag #coffeeclub. Feel free to join when you feel like talking

End with Statements.

Conversations naturally end when you reply with something that doesn’t have a reply. Like, what reply can you think of, when someone says, ‘yeah, I agree to that’. On the other hand, if you deliberately want to end it, you know what to do I guess. Like, ‘see you around’ or ‘nice talking to you’ or what?

Payback time baby, how do you handle conversations? Some tips please.

Hope it was useful. A conversation makes good friends. Tweet ON

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