Check out Your Website's Alexa Rank

Do you have a website or a blog? If you do, you can check out how your website ranks globally or locally in the Internet by checking your website's Alexa ranking.

To check out your website's Alexa ranking for free, go here:
http://www.alexa.com/



Currently, these are the top 5 sites globally:
1. Google
2. Facebook
3. YouTube
4. Yahoo
5. Live

Aside from finding out your website's Alexa ranking, you can also monitor your website's data statistics and install their customizable Alexa toolbar for your Internet browser.

You can also check out the most popular or hottest web pages in the Internet on their list of hot topics.

Error 623

Recently, I came across a new error while using my internet browser (Mozilla Firefox). Whenever I opened it, the error would always pop-up and the browser would crash.

To solve it, I did various things:

1. I reinstalled the browser. After I reinstalled it, I ran the browser. Unexpectedly, the error still popped up.

2. I searched the Internet and tried finding how other people solved it. Luckily, I found out how at Microsoft Support.
( Link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320693 )

Error 623: The system could not find the phone book entry for this connection.

I read about it there and did these steps:

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Network and Internet Connections
2. Select "Set up or change your Internet connection"
3. Under the connections tab, select "Never dial a connection" (if you use DSL)
If you use dial up connection, select your dial up connection and click the "Set Default" button. Click apply and Ok.

After I did these, the error did not pop up again. If you also happen to encounter errors on your Windows OS computer, try visiting this site: http://support.microsoft.com/

If you don't find the answer there, you can still search for the solution through the thousands of websites out there.

Plants vs Zombies

Need a break? Try the game, Plants vs Zombies.



Your objective:
Protecting your brain from zombies who want to eat it


How:
Raise an army of plants on your lawn, backyard, and roof to fight them off !!


With its simple game play, easy to follow guide, and adorable graphics, this game will surely keep you entertained for hours.

Plus after you complete the game, you will get to listen to their Original Sound Track: There's a Zombie on your lawn. There are also mini games that will be unlocked after you complete the adventure.

Want to try the game? There is a free demo available at their official website:
http://www.popcap.com/games/pvz

Shorten that URL!

Do you use twitter and post tweets regularly with links on it? Or do you post messages on blogs and forums and sometimes add links on your posts?

You will notice most deep link URLs being usually long. By using these tools, you can shorten them:

1. bit.ly


2. goo.gl


Using them is fairly easy. You just paste the URL that you want to be shortened on the input box, and click the shorten link.

Aside from giving you a shorter URL, it also provides stats on how many people have clicked the link. So if you want to post links, try using these tools.

Sinking Cities

Did you know that there are over seven cities that are said to be sinking? According to an article that was just recently featured in Yahoo, these cities are:

1. Bangkok, Thailand










2. New York, America











3. Houston, Texas









4. Shanghai, China










5. New Orleans, Louisiana











6. Venice, Italy










7. Mexico City, Mexico












You can read about the article here:
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/mb/20101011/tel-seven-cities-you-should-visit-before-8a1add4.html

Let Your Site Go Mobile!

Do you have a favorite site? Or even better, do you own a site yourself?

As an online visitor or website owner, you could only view it through your pc or laptop online.

But that is all in the past. Now, you can visit your favorite website anytime or check your very own website anywhere. How? By going mobile!!

If your phone can access the web, you can check the latest changes on your site with the browser on your phone. But that is not all there is to it.

If you have a website, you can let it go mobile!

How? There are lots of ways. You could have someone do it for you or you could make it yourself.

One good place where you can build your mobile site for free would be at widgetbox. There is no cost Only a small ad will be displayed on your site. Plus, if you become a premium member, the ad on your site will no longer be there.

This is just one of the options you have. So if you want to show your site to your friends or family, create a mobile website. Show it to them anytime and anywhere on your phone and have them be astounded with your great website.

Meta Tag Your Site

In designing a website, you will work with a lot of tags such as the Meta tags.

Examples of Meta tags that you should consider placing in your website are:

meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"
meta name="keywords" content="keyword,keyword,keyword"
meta name="description" content="A short summary about what the site is about"
meta name="robots" content="Index,Follow"

Here is a short description for the Meta tags:

1. The content specifies the information for that meta tag.
2. The keywords attribute of the tag lists the keywords for your site. When users type in a word in the search engine, your site may appear on the search results if the word used are these keywords.
   
3. The description attribute is used by search engines as the summary that will be shown below your link in the search results.
4. The robots attribute determines which pages of your website the search engines can crawl in.
   

Whether the website is just for fun or for business, take your time in finishing it. Meta tag it. Optimize it. Create elegant designs. And lastly, add useful stuff for your visitors.

Like Button

As you browse through countless website, you may have seen this button:



If you have, then you may have recognized that this button is made from Facebook with the small "f" icon beside it. The reason why I posted this is because as I visited one of my favorite websites, I happened to find this icon on their website.

With the button, you can get visitors of your website to "like" your site and share it to their friends on Facebook.

If you are interested, you can also get it for your website by going here:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
This is the link on the Facebook developers page where you can create your own like button for your website.

You will also find other plugins at the site such as a comments plugin, which I have also tried out on my website at:
Projects

Launch of Tutoria

Tutoria - My tutorials website

Check it out to read tutorials on:

• AutoCAD
• Photoshop
• Mathlab
• Cisco
• Nippongo

The website is also available for mobile devices.
Go here: http://m.wbx.me/mobile-site-selcher

If you have any comments, please share them with me.

Key Tips for Using the Search Engines

Ever felt frustrated of not being able to find what you are looking for in at Google, Yahoo, or Bing?

Why not try using the advance search options or these simple tips:

• add a - if you want the search results to leave out a certain term

• use specific terms to narrow down your search

• if you need a serial number, add 94FBR as one of the key words (I'm not sure if this works)
  

• for specific files such as an mp3 file, add .mp3 to the keywords

These are just some common tips. If you want to find more search tips, read them here: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=134479

Hope this tips will help you and if you know some, share them with us here.

Tips and Tools for Beginning Website Owners

Interested in making a website? As a beginner, I also had a hard time figuring out where to begin in making a website. To help you with your website creation, here are some useful pointers:

1. Try out websites offering website creation services
Some of my favorite ones are Yola, Wix and Weebly. With Yola, creating a website is easy with the drag and drop widgets. For website owners interested in making a flash website, then Wix would be the best option.

2. Create a blog
Creating a blog for a website will help. To create a blog, use the popular blogging sites such as blogspot, typepad and wordpress.


Once you have created the website, be sure to regularly update it with new content and improve the design to make it easier for users to navigate through the website.

After the website has been completed, the next step would be to optimize it for the search engines. To get tips on how to optimize a website, try searching for search engine optimization (SEO) in the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing).

Add This To Your Website or Blog

Have you ever wondered of an easier way in sharing your website or blog to other people?

If you have, then you may already know that social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace is one of the popular ways of spreading news about your website or blog.

Looking for a tool to do this, try using the button below.



The html code for this button is freely available at addthis.com if you want to add it to your website or blog.

So Delicious

Interested in social bookmarking?

If you haven't heard about it before, social bookmarking allows you to bookmark links to your favorite websites online.

Why try it out? Well, there are a lot of reasons. For me, the main reason is that it allows me to keep a copy of my favorite links in case I want to visit them even when I am not using my personal computer.

To give you a sample, here are my bookmarks on Delicious (a social bookmarking website):






selcher's Bookmarks on Delicious

Music Search Engine

Finding specific songs in the Internet to listen to used to take me so long. I had to search countless pages before I could finally find the song that I wanted to listen to. However, I was able to find a website that made it a lot easier. I bet you're interested in finding it out.

Well here it is: MRTZCMP3.net








It is a music search engine that allows users to search for songs based on the name of the song or the artist of the song.

For me, it was easier to find the songs I was searching for in the Internet. A small tip if you happen to visit, be sure to look for the small link (>>>>) when you start using it.

Follow me at Twitter

Twitter, one of the most popular tools in the Internet to get updated information from users.

Just created my account yesterday. Click on the image below to view my profile.

Constructing a Sentence in Romaji (Part 1)

A simple sentence mainly consists of :

1. Subject
2. Predicate

Example:

I am reading a book.

Subject: I
Predicate: am reading a book

In Romaji:

I = Watakushi / Watashi
Read = Yomu
Book = Hon
Is, Are, Am = desu
Was, Were = deshita
*Wa usually follows the subject of sentence

Watashi wa hon o yonde imasu.

*this example may be quite advanced for beginners but this example will example will give an overview on what you need to learn next.
Take note on how hon (book) is used as a direct object and on how the verb yomu (read) is changed into yonde (reading)

Another example:

This is a book.

This = Kore
That = Sore
That over there = Are

Kore wa hon desu.

That's all for now. I hope you learned something and try to translate these sentences into Romaji:

That is a book.
That over there is a book.
This is a cat. (Cat = Neko)
That is a dog. (Dog = Inu)

Special Days

This is a special day for me. The reason for this, I will keep a secret. For those who have visited my blog, I express my sincere gratitude. Come visit again for the next posts.

Basic Nippongo (Japanese Language)

Niponggo is the name of the Japanese language. Basically the language uses different kinds of characters when writing. The different kinds are:

1. Kanji
2. Katakana
3. Hiragana
4. Romaji


For most words, there is usually an equivalent Kanji character.
There are around 2,000 to 3,000 Kanji characters that are being commonly used.


Example:
English: strong
Kanji: 強




For Katakana characters, these are characterized by short, straight strokes. There are approximately 48 Katakana characters.


Example:
English: read
Katakana: ヨム




For Hiragana characters, a more cursive form of handwriting is used. There are also approximately 48 Hiragana characters.


Example:
English: read
Hiragana: よむ




Romaji is simply the representation of Japanese characters into Latin alphabet characters. Romaji is also used to show how Japanese words are pronounced.

Example:
English: read
Romaji: yomu



To read more about the topic, please visit the sources.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese