How to shoot yourself in the foot as a new social site

Today I came across a story on Digg touting a “Facebook competitor” and a “Facebook killer” called SocialPog.com. According to the (absolutely awful) YouTube video, SocialPog is “BIGGGER” than Facebook and apparently revolutionary. If you take a look at SocialPog.com–and I refuse to link to it, so you’ll have to type it in if you really want to see it–you’ll notice that they have well over 6 users and it’s a clone of MySpace circa 2004.
Some revolution that is.
But the worst of it isn’t that the site is an outdated, ugly, useless piece of crap. It’s that SocialPog has irreparably destroyed its reputation before it even had one by gaming Digg and manipulating its way in front of thousands of eyeballs.
Though SocialPog is a social networking site, there’s much a blogger can learn from this mess of a launch.
You better deliver on your promises.
SocialPog claims to be revolutionary, but it’s not. SocialPog claims its launch was highly anticipated, yet only has 6 users. SocialPog says it’s “biggger and better” than Facebook. No way. It just doesn’t deliver on its loudest promises.
As a blogger, its much better for you to be honest and mediocre. As long as you let people know you are trustworthy and genuinely helpful, they’ll look past your flaws. Besides that, you’ll always be evolving and growing as a blogger. Successful bloggers might start mediocre, but they never stay that way.
But if you make incredible promises that you absolutely can’t deliver on, people will remember that and they won’t excuse it. Even if you transform the site into the most mindblowingly useful website ever created, people will still ignore you as that dick that lied to them. You only get one shot at a first impression.
Don’t pay spammers to pretend your blog is bigger or better than it really is.
How did SocialPog get to the front page of Digg with over 200 votes? A ton of accounts created specifically and exclusively for the purpose of digging the video and leaving “positive” comments.
Check out these gems:
“Dreaming to join this lovely site.”
“HUH! I never think in that way.”
“I simply love the way they are providing their services.”
“I am impressed with their effective working.”
“This website is going to be the turning stone in social networking.”
Those aren’t even things I’d want people to say about my site if I hadn’t paid them. This is dishonest and ridiculous.
Your blog should be able to stand on its own merits. If you have to pay people to talk about it, you’ve lost. If you have to pay people to share it, you’ve lost.
Your blog should be grown through genuine relationships and true fans.
If your concept depends on you being compared to a bigger and better site, find a new concept.
In their video, SocialPog describes itself as a Facebook competitor. The spammers describe it as a Facebook killer. This is a no no. Why?
Think about it this way. If I described Blog Design Guy as a ProBlogger competitor and a ProBlogger killer, whenever you visited you’d automatically see it through that lens. You’d ask yourself, “Is this site a better ProBlogger than ProBlogger is?”
The answer will always be “No” because this is not and will never be ProBlogger.
You want to carve out your own space and find your own audience. That’s not to say everything you do has to be 100% original (because that’s impossible), but as long as you are doing it your way its going to come across as fresh, interesting and authentic.
The Bottom Line
The principle underlying all this advice? Don’t cheat. Don’t try to be a success faster than you deserve to be. Whatever shortcuts you take will only push you further from lasting success.
What do you think about this SocialPog debacle? What would your advice be?

The internet bubble

In the age of technology that we are in information is only a click away. From pc to cellphones and even now tablets and ipads. We can get information easier than gettin a drink of water but how much of that in formation is the whole truth. You read stories about how other countries governmets block the information that there people see but what if not ur government but other factors where placeing u into a social bubble that doesnt block but filters what u see and even what you search for.What is he internet hiding from you? Eli Pariser’s New York Times best-selling new book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. Pariser who is the president of the board of moveon.org is has been applauded by net skeptics like Jaron Lanier and Evgeny Morozov as well as digital optimists like Clay Shirky and Craig Newmark. It’s an important book which argues that leading websites like Google and Facebook are delivering personalized information to us, thereby shielding Internet users from the broad news and ideas that traditional newspapers delivered to us. The method by which this is done is with a very special method  called algorithms. Algorithms are a special set of rules that are implanted into a program or site that governs its function. While this doesn't seem bad some net skeptics argue that the se algorithms are being used to almost censor the internet by not blocking what you see but by withholding information that they deam less important. Some can argue that this is creating a less well informed public. What do u think?

How to Prepare Your Computer for Off Site Repair

1 Backup your laptop/computer if possible. If your computer suddenly dies, the opportunity to back it up is lost. However, if you back up your computer at the first sign of trouble, you might be able to prevent being stuck. Signs such as a pink tinge on the computer screen when it boots up is a sign that the backlight might be ready to go out. Or, if you notice that your system isn't booting up as quickly as it used to, backup your sensitive information.

2 Remove or password protect important files. After you've backed up your computer, you can either delete or password protect sensitive files right before you ship your computer out for repair.

3 Clear your browser history, clear passwords, delete cached information, remove cookies and clear authenticated sessions. Doing so adds an added layer of protection. For example, if you use an online email service on which you have set the cookies to remember you on the computer, anyone using your computer will be able to sign into your email account.

4 Empty your recycle bin. The files that you deleted from your computer go into the Recycle bin. Empty it before you send your computer out for repair
Check ( How To Lock And Password Protect Folder In Windows 7/Vista) for another tip

How To Lock And Password Protect Folder In Windows 7/Vista

Do you want to lock and password protect your important folders in Windows 7 or Vista? If you are an administrator and have multiple accounts set up in Windows 7 / Vista, then you can block few important folders so that they can not be accessed by other users. Every time the blocked folder will be accessed, it will ask for administrator password. Therefore the folder will be locked permanently unless you don’t remove the lock yourself.

To lock a folder, right-click on that folder and select Properties. Now navigate to Security tab, and click Edit as shown in the screenshot below.



A new window will pop-up, now under “Group and User Names”, select the user from the list whom you want to deny access to a specific folder, now under “Permissions for Users” check the Deny checkbox next to Modify(all other checkbox will get ticked automatically) as shown in the screenshot below.

Click OK and then click Yes when a Windows Security window will pops-up as shown in the screenshot below.

Now click OK again and you are done. Now the specific user that you selected from the list will be denied access to this folder. It’s that simple!

Free alternatives to popular programs

Here are a few free alternatives to popular programs like Microsoft word

Microsoft Word/Power point/excel spreadsheet
Free alternative(s)
1:open office-the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers
link: http://www.openoffice.org/

2:Abiword-AbiWord is similar to MS Word and MS Word users will not find much problem in switching over to this free application and will certainly love it as there is nothing better than a powerful and free word processor.
Link:http://www.abisource.com/download/


Photoshop
Free alternative(s)
1:GIMP-GIMP stands for “GNU image manipulation program”, and it is one of the oldest and most well known alternatives to Photoshop in existence.
Link:http://www.gimp.org/

2:Krita-Krita is slightly less powerful than both Photoshop and GIMP, but does contain some unique features.
Link:http://www.koffice.org/download/

Nero
Free alternative(s)
1:CDBurnerXP-This is by far the most popular free alternative to the expensive Nero Software. Works on Vista as well.
Link:http://www.cdburnerxp.se/es/home (site is in Spanish but software is multi-language)

2:InfraRecorder-This is the software that I currently use on my computer as a Nero alternative, and I must tell, it’s damn simple and straightforward. Has all that you might expect in a CD DVD Burning software like Nero.
Link:http://infrarecorder.org/?page_id=5

how to play any video and music format

ever try to download a video file or music file only to be told by windows that i cant play or recognize the format. here are a couple of tips to make your PC/laptop  play any video format with no problems

 download a codec.
    A codec is a set of small programs that are able to read and translate a form of media. they are easy to install and they turn on and off by themselves.they usually come in packs of more than one type. each and every media type has a single codec hence the packs of them

here are a few codec.

xvid
this is a low level codec pack that is able to read some main stream media types. use this if you just want to play a basic range of Media types and don't want to take up a lot of space or processing power to run
plays: mp4, wmv (windows media video), and AVI
Link:xvid codec


Divx
this is a mid-high level codec pack that is a field leader. this pack gives you the option for personal tweaking that helps to make it better (although you must know what you are doing as you can mess up your computer). this codec pack also gives you the option to download there HD video player if you are tired of windows media player it works with there codec pack if you want to try something different
plays:DivX, AVI, MKV, MP4 and MOV.
Link:Divx codec


K-lite
this is a mid-high level jack of all trades codec pack. this is one of my personal favorites.it plays almost every type of video and even has a special pack to play duel audio and subtitled video. it also comes with its own media player called windows media player classic.this pack also allows for extra tweaking with a little know how you can have a very full video experience.
plays:AVI, MKV, MP4, FLV, OGM, MPEG, MOV, HDMOV, TS, M2TS, and OGG files
Link:k-lite mega pack (you don't need to run the scan just go to direct download 1)

VLC
this last option is not a media pack but a full media player. instead of downloading codec's this media player has them all built in. the vlc media player has the ability to play all media types it even has the ability to repair damaged or corrupted media files.
plays:AVI, MKV, MP4, FLV, OGM, MPEG, MOV, HDMOV, TS, M2TS, and OGG files
Link:VLC media player

Note: all codec and media players work on mac as well as PC

how to recover a windows password (high level)

Warning High level of PC knowledge required:

If you are trying to recover a password from windows, you are in luck since it isn't terribly difficult. The best case scenario is that the windows workstation is set up with a guest account or an account that you actually know the password to. In this case, you can log in using that account and employ some password cracking software.
Modern versions of the Windows software uses the secure hash standard, which is an algorithm used to encrypt passwords that are stored on the system. Without such encryption, it would be even easier to find the passwords. The easiest method to find out such passwords is to employ an application that brute force attacks it with character and number combinations. A brute force approach essentially tries every possible combination of characters and numbers until it finds a password that works. With today's computers, this process can typically be done within a day for short passwords, but can take significantly longer for long passwords. In any case, no Windows password cannot be cracked eventually with this approach.
Some cracking applications can be found in our downloads section. The easiest to use is LCP, although the Cain and Abel program has more features. To crack a password, load LCP and select Import/Import from local computer. A list of user accounts and hashes should appear. Now select the brute force attack button and select Session/Begin audit. Now all you have to do is wait for the program to find the right password!
If you aren't able to log in at all to the Windows workstation, don't worry. All you have to do is recover the SAM file by booting up an alternate operating system on the computer. The easiest way to do this is to burn a copy of Knoppix (a port of Linux) and perform a boot from the CD-ROM with this disk in the drive. Once you are in Knoppix, locate the SAM file in the Windows directory (usually C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\lmhosts.sam) and either copy it to a USB thumb drive, floppy disk, CD, or the Internet. Alternatively, you could use a DOS boot disk.
Now that you have the SAM file, take it to another PC that has LCP running on it. Copy the SAM file into the LCP directory, boot up LCP and select Import/Import from SAM file. This will load the hashes and you will be able to execute a brute force attack on them.