Leaning with Intent

Archive for the ‘Web’ Category

Many people decide to use Firefox as their preferred Internet browser due to many features not found in other browsers like Internet Explorer. One of the really useful things in Firefox is the built-in spell checker. It is a great tool that will help you spot any mistakes you make while you type in Firefox. Unfortunately, Firefox only checks the spelling on large text fields, not all of them. In order to enable spell checking for all fields, you will have to do some small modification. To do so, you should first type “about:config” in the address bar. Later type “layout.spellcheckdefault” in the filter box, and double click on preference to change value from 1 to 2.

After restarting Firefox your new settings should be applied. You will see that it works, if typos are going to be underlined in red. You can even try to misspell some words on purpose to see if it works.
This tweak will allow you to spot any mistakes you make, even if you are typing in small fields, such as when you fill out forms. From my personal experience I can say that spell checking can be very useful. However, if you really want to avoid making mistakes, you should only be writing when you feel rested, because being tired can greatly reduce your concentration.

Very often writing a high quality and unique post is enough to ensure that people will read it. On the other hand, there are many marketers who say that most readers make up their mind if they want to read your post just after reading the title. That is why choosing the title of your post might be the most important thing to do in order to make people stay on your blog. Of course, writing high quality content is also necessary if you want to interest your readers so you should not neglect that.

There is no magic rule when it comes to choosing the title, and it depends what kind of visitors you have. It also depends on what you exactly want to achieve. A good way to attract readers to read your post is to simply make them believe that they will learn something valuable from reading it. If you have some kind of unique content, do not be afraid to clearly state so in your post title. Depending in what niche you are, there will be completely different post titles that will try to attract visitors that are interested in that particular niche. The knowledge of the preferences and interests of your visitors is definitely going to help in creating a great title. Will your visitors be drawn to a shocking title, a funny one, a puzzling one, an intriguing one? Your job is to try to figure that out because you need to know the preferences of your readers.

Working on your blog is not always easy, so it is important to work on it in an efficient way. This will ensure that it will take you less time to write an article, and that the quality of the article will be higher. There are a couple of things that you can do to improve blog productivity:

• Have a list of URLs that you can visit for ideas of topics to write about. Every writer needs some inspiration. Who knows, you might get inspired and write your best article after finding some interesting topic to write about.
• Research the topic you are interested in more carefully. You may want to search for related posts about it on other blogs. Write only about topics you have knowledge about. Posts that contain a lot of useful information and reflect the knowledge of the writer are going to become popular.
• Use the best browsers. For example, your browser should allow tabbing. No doubt that Firefox and Opera are currently one the best browsers, but even IE has some useful features, although probably not as many.
• Store ideas for articles that you will want to write about in the future. There is nothing worse than running out of ideas.

Remember, whatever you do, make sure you enjoy it as your readers will be able to feel your enthusiasm or lack thereof.

Torrent engines allow the distribution of very valuable materials. A lot of them are non-copyrighted and perfectly legal for distribution, but unfortunately some of them are pirated materials. That is why from time to time major Hollywood Studios accuse torrent directories such as torrentspy.com of distributing pirated material. In case of torrentspy.com, they won the battle. The court ordered torrentspy.com to pay $110,970,000 for distributing 3,699 films and shows. In my opinion, this number is quite hilarious, as I doubt that torrentspy.com has more than a couple of thousand of dollars lying around. Having said that, it is a decisive victory for Hollywood Studios, and even though they will probably not receive this amount of money, they definitely made a point. This is a great example of how justice works.

There is a bit different situation with MPAA, which has been vigorously engaged in fighting piracy for many years. The question arises if lawsuits will really help them win this war. MPAA has filled a lawsuit against a site that allegedly profits from piracy by indexing and posting links to what is believed to be pirated content. What is really interesting about this case is that MPAA was giving away free publicity to a mostly unknown site. Many people flocked to this site, which I prefer not to mention, to check out the site and see what it offers. This was especially true as there was a risk that it could shut down permanently. This site might have actually benefited more from this lawsuit than it had to lose.
As you see, there are some battles won against distributors of illegal content. However, there are also some battles that are lost. It is important that companies choose their battles wisely, because they cannot win all of them.

We often like to read news in order to stay informed about the most important events. Generally, we simply want to know what is going on in the world. Where are many ways we can have access to news, such as through a newspaper, magazine, TV, or even the Internet. Actually, reading news on the Internet is very popular these days. Not only you can read news online, but you can personalize it, so that you will stay informed about the things you really care about. To get started visit news.google.com and click “Personalize this page”. You can delete sections, increase or decrease the number of stories shown in each section, or even add different categories. This is a great way to read news, as you will feel that the news site is really optimized for you to have the best experience.

Do you want to know how to obtain a free hard drive? I might not be able to tell you how to obtain a regular one, but you can get an Internet virtual drive by utilizing Gmail. You will need to have a Gmail address, but these days it should be quite easy to obtain. Secondly, you will need to download the Gmail Drive shell extension and install it. You can do it by visiting this link: softpedia.com/get/Internet/E-mail/Mail-Utilities/GMail-Drive-shell-extension.shtml. Once installed, this software is going to create a virtual file system around your Google Gmail account. What this means for you, is that you will be able to save and retrieve file directly through Internet Explorer. Of course, the transfer rate of files is going to be a lot slower compared to copying files between your regular hard drives. On the other hand, since it is completely free, it is useful anyway. I must admit that I really appreciate the ability to back up my files this way. There are many users who use this Gmail drive on a regular basis. I would like to encourage more people to benefit from this free hard drive, as I am aware of the fact that not many Internet users know about it yet.

Even if you have a small niche blog, you can have the ability to influence your niche. Influencing others is one of the things that each person wants to do. We want others to respect us, and know that what we said or did, influenced their way of thinking about many different things. Naturally, if you want to influence other blogs, their authors, as well as other readers, you have to put some work into it. Here are some of my thoughts about how you can influence other people by having a blog of your own:

Apart from the points that I gave, try to get involved whenever there is something interesting happening. This includes forums, top lists, and other places.

Internet Explorer enables you to add search providers and even switch them easily. This feature is especially useful, if you want to search for a specific item, for example a book, through your favorite search engine. The good thing is that you do not have to be limited to one search engine, as it is natural to have at least few search engines, which you might want to use. It is also a good idea to set one of your search engines as a starting page. This way, every time you open your browser, your favorite search engine will appear and you are ready to use it. To get started you should locate the Instant Search Box at the top right. It should have the name of the selected search engine written inside the box. Next, click on the arrow to the right of the magnifying glass and choose “Find More Providers”. Now you can add search providers and select the one you had in mind. From now on, you can change the search provider whenever you wish without any problems. Google is probably a good choice when it comes to search engines, but there are also other overlooked search engines.

There is no doubt that there are a lot of websites on the Internet. While some of them have very valuable content, some of them are poorly designed, and may not be that attractive to visitors. There are so many websites on the Internet of different quality that this was one of the reasons that bookmarking sites were created.

The way bookmarking sites work is that you create an account on one of the bookmarking sites, and are given an option to categorize the sites of your choice according to your preferences. What do you do once you have your bookmarks ready? You share it with your friends that you can meet on one of those bookmarking sites. They also mark their favorites and are willing to share their favorite sites with you. This way websites that have something valuable to offer are being recommended, and consequently visited by a higher number of people. It does not mean that less valuable sites are not going to be visited at all, but it simply means that those websites that have proven to be really useful will get acknowledged. Many webmasters bookmark their own sites in order to boost their popularity, and there is nothing wrong with it, as long as a person does not abuse it. Overall, I believe that bookmarking made the experience of surfing the Web a lot more enjoyable. Do you visit bookmarking sites yourself?

The problem with working in an office is that you might not always be busy. And when a worker is not busy, he might be tempted to start looking for something to do, like surfing the Web, or writing emails. There are many people who just surf the Internet for fun during work, or use their email for other purposes then strictly work. According to the study conducted by AMA (American Management Association) among three hundred companies US companies more than a quarter of employees were fired because of misusing email, and every third worker has been let go for not using the Internet properly at work. Whereas accessing pornographic sites during working hours was the main reason for being fired for misusing the Internet, simply surfing the Web was the reason one third of the employees lost their employment. Office workers are also being downsized for the misuses of emails, mostly because of the inappropriate language used in correspondence. Twenty five percent of bosses said that they fired their staff because of excessive personal use of email.
I think that it is quite apparent that a worker should not access pornographic websites, or other sites considered to be offensive. When it comes to emails avoiding using vulgar language is another thing that employees should remember about. Workers should also realize that in order to have everything under control many companies monitor their Internet connections, and as a matter of fact, it has been said that 66% of companies monitor their Internet connections. In many cases companies do not even have to notify employees that their activity at the computer is monitored. Every employee should remember that and try to represent their company in the best way possible. Employees should also try to use their time effectively because they are usually paid on a per hour basis. Of course, employees also deserve privacy to some degree, so monitoring Internet connections may not be the best way to motivate employees to work more efficiently.