Tech With Ric » How-to

3 Easy Ways to Embed Video in Blog

Richie Sajan — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:29:17 +0000

Online video industry is skyrocketing. Millions of people watch YouTube and Vimeo daily. Top blogs have video sections with how-to video guides, editor’s video picks or video screencasts. These videos prove to be a great way to make a popular blog. Beautiful, appealing videos featured in a blog may bring lots of new visitors.

However, to embed a video properly is a complicated task for a novice webmaster. On the one hand, a blog owner need to deploy correct video HTML code. On the other hand – there so many techniques how to embed a video on a blog so it’s hard to make the best choice. Let’s look at the easiest 4 ways to embed video in a blog:

Free Video Converter

Free Video Converter by Freemake is a video freeware that helps to convert video to SWF or FLV format and to embed the resulting video to your blog. The process is simple: select a video, convert and check the “embed video to my web page” box. After the conversion, copy and paste the automatically generated code to your web page, upload the video to you server and enjoy unique video on your blog. Free Video Converter is a suitable tool for those who prefer less HTML coding and immediate results. Link to download.

HTML5 Video Embedding

HTML5 is a great standard for video playback directly in browsers. Latest versions of Chrome, Mozilla Firefox support HTML5 video. The advantage of HTML5 coding is that a video can be watched on any device: PC, Mac, iPad, Android, etc. However, this way is useful for advanced webmasters.

The process is the following: convert your video to all popular video formats like: mp4, swf, ogg or webm. Upload all videos to server. Put a code structure like the one below between. Don’t forget to test the quality of the video and watch it in various browsers.

Here is a sample HTML5 code:

DOCTYPE HTML>

mp4″ type=”video/mp4″ />
webm” type=”video/webm” />

Your browser does not support video

Video LightBox

Video LightBox is a Java script application that allows you to play video in a fancy pop-up window. If you want to create a custom video player for your blog, then LightBox will do its job. The process is pretty easy: add a video, choose a video player style, upload a video file to server and publish a new video on your blog. The software has free and paid versions so each blogger may benefit from Video LightBox. Here is a little how-to video guide about LightBox.

Author Bio

Victoria Kushner is a blogger and social media specialist. She writes about popular multimedia apps and takes an active part in their promotion in social media.

Airtel GPRS/ EDGE/ 3G Settings for Android (India)

Richie Sajan — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:02:55 +0000

OK so this is coming a little late in the day, nevertheless its going to help a lot of you’ll out there. Got your all new shiny android right now, but no 2G/3G working? Here’s the simple tip to enable it.

To have an internet connection on your phone, you must have it enabled on your card first. To enable it check out local schemes from your retailer and enable it. I have a 2G plan, Rs. 98/month for 2GB.

In most cases, once the above step is done, a ‘E’ symbol representing Edge, or ‘G’ representing GPRS or ’3G’ representing well, 3G will appear on your notification bar. So you’re good to go. If not continue on then.

The 3G icon in the notification bar indicates 3G is enabled.

Open up Settings => Wireless and Networks => Mobile Networks => Access Point Names (or something similar, it differs on each phone. You just need to find where you can put in an Access Point Name or APN.) Once you reach here, create a new Access Point Name (or modify the existing one, your choice) and put in the following details exactly:

Name: Airtel
APN: airtelgprs.com
APN Type: Internet

That’s it nothing else. Save it, enable it, restart phone. The net should be active by now. Still no? Continue on.

Well at this state you probably might have started repenting your Big Switch from Nokia to Android , but don’t worry I too had to go through all these steps.

But your final alternative unfortunately is to call up the support center @ 121. A better alternative however would be to mail their support desk @ 121@in.airtel.com. My experience with them definitely calls for the email support over the phone.

Still not working? Please do comment with your details. I’ll try to find the solution.

How to Delete All Facebook Notification Mails Quickly [GMail]

Richie Sajan — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:17:04 +0000

Facebook is awesome. That’s to be engraved in stone! Nevertheless all good things got a bad side to it. All the friend requests, messages, group posting etc. that happen at your profile, queue up as notifications at your Facebook page. Additionally if you have enabled email alerts, things tend to get a little out of hand when you have many notifications. So how to manage them easily? Here’s how.

Personally I don’t read these Facebook notification mails. I log in to my Facebook, check notifications there and if something is missing (like a deleted post or multiple tagged photos,) I come back to GMail.

So in most cases I just need to delete these mails. The method is rather easy. In the search box just type the following:

facebookmail.com label:unread

Now press enter. You’ll see all your unread Facebook mails over there. Scan through if you want.

To delete it just select the box at the top (the one next to Archive button.) This selects all you mails on the page (and even gives you an option to delete further mails)

Click the delete button. That’s it!

Best Way to Download YouTube Videos as MP3s

Richie Sajan — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 06:09:02 +0000

YouTube no doubt has THE most comprehensive collection of videos on the internet. And the most popular types videos are of course, music videos. Be it legendary bands to newbies, all kinds of musicians have their wares uploaded up there. So what if you want to download only the mp3 version of the video? Here’s a simple tip.

Just head over to Youtube-Mp3.org. Here, it’s as simple as 1-2-3:

Enter the URL of the YouTube video
Click on the Convert Video button
Click on the generated

Check out the video below for a demo:

YouTube-Mp3 also provides add-ons for Firefox and Chrome, which you can install and easily download the mp3′s of any video. You may download the add-ons from here.

How to Delete a Facebook Group?

Richie Sajan — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 04:24:43 +0000

Facebook Groups is possibly, one of the best features of Facebook. It allows people who aren’t friends but share a common interest to share information as well as interact with each other. Also put in types of restrictions like Open, Closed and Secret and you have a winner. I’m sure you all might have created a group. Now comes the deleting part, how to do it!? Read on.

Although Facebook provides an easy way to create a group, the method to delete it is a little stupid in my opinion. The instructions itself are buried deep.

Here’s how to delete a Facebook group:

First of all, to delete a group you need to be its first admin. If you’re the person who created a group, you are the admin by default.
Go to the group and in the member’s box (towards the right side of the group page), click on ‘See All‘
The first name you’ll see, will be is your own. Do not do anything to it (as of yet.)
Below your name you will see the names of members of the group. They have a “Make Admin” button next to them and right next to it you will see a ‘x‘ mark. Click on it and confirm you want to remove the member.
Remove each member in the similar way.
Last step, remove yourself from the group. That’s it.

Over the next few days, Facebook will automatically remove the group as it won’t have any members. This method may be lengthy for groups having many members, but unfortunately this is the only method.

How to convert non-bootable xp into bootable xp using nero 9

Jitesh Ranjak — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:24:16 +0000

Lots of times, it happens that you download a Windows XP iso file, burn it on a CD and then get a non–bootable CD. How frustrating!

You can install it directly from your DVD-drive (from My Computer) but what if your OS gets corrupt? At that point of time, you’ll require a bootable CD.

Now here are the steps to create a bootable CD from a non-bootable Windows XP iso:

First insert a blank CD and mount your Windows XP iso image using Magic disc or some mounting software.
For creating a bootable CD you’ll require boot file known as boot.ima . Download it from http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php
Open Nero Burning Rom 8 or 9 and select CD-ROM(boot) on the left side.
Click on Boot tab, browse to the boot image file boot.ima, then select Enable Expert Settiings.
Now Change Kind of Emulation to No Emulation and Number of load sectors to 4.

Now click on ISO tab. Select Mode 1 in data mode, select ISO 9660+Juliet from File System, Max of 31 Chars from file name length and ISO 9660 from character set.Also check all in relax restrictions

Click on the label tab and give any name for your cd.
Now click on new at the bottom, browse the Windows XP image and select all contents of image on the right panel.

Now copy and paste the selected items into left panel space.
Click on burn.

Simple wasn’t it?

How to Fix : Virus Converting Pen Drive Icon to Folder Icon

Richie Sajan — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:35:57 +0000

A pen drive (or more officially USB Flash drive) is one of the most commonly used data storage devices. The versatility and ease of use provided by it is unmatched. And as it is being widely used, it’s also become a rather favorite target for viruses. One of the most annoying viruses is the one which converts the pen drive icon into a folder icon and on double-clicking it, it shows the ‘Open With’ window. So here’s how to remove this problem.

Of course the best way to solve this problem is to format the pen-drive. However this will lead to loss of data in it. The following method shows you how to solve this problem without formatting:

Firstly, goto Start => Run (or Start+R)
Now type the drive of your pen drive followed by semi-colon (eg. my pen drive’s drive is ‘J’. Then enter ‘J:’ – without the quotes)
Now type

attrib autorun.inf

and press Enter. This is to verify whether the file is present.
Now type the following command:

attrib -h -r -s autorun.inf

and press enter. This removes the hidden attribute of autorun.inf file.
Now type the last command

del autorun.inf

this deletes the above-mentioned file.
One last step is to goto your My Computer Window and rename the pen drive. eg:
Rename pen drive (you can use F2 key)

That’s it your done. Your pen drive has now been cleaned and you can use your pen drive normally, as you could do before. Piece of cake, wasn’t it?

How to Set PATH Variable for JDK in Windows

Richie Sajan — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 06:30:12 +0000

If you’re a Java programmer you’d know what a pain it is to compile the program and run it. Especially if your working directory is in some other place, than where you have installed JDK. There is a simple workaround for this problem, setting a PATH variable. So instead of compiling a program with something like C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_20\bin\javac MyProgram.java you’d only need to use the command javac MyProgram.java.

Just follow these steps:

First right-click on your My Computer icon on your Desktop and click on Properties. Alternatively you could just press the Windows Key+Pause Break Key.
Now in the new window that opened, click on the Advanced tab.
Now click on Environment Variables.
In the new Window that opened, click on New.
In the Variable Name field enter PATH and in the Variable Value enter the path of your JDK bin folder. (For eg. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_20\bin)
Now press OK in the window that remains open, you’ll have to do it thrice.

That’s it. Now if you try to compile your program from anywhere else than your JDK\bin directory, you can do so successfully.

How to Install Statcounter in Drupal

Richie Sajan — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:49:03 +0000

StatCounter is a tool use for analytic purposes like tracking visitors, knowing which articles are popular and what keyword are people searching for among other things. Installing StatCounter is easy in most of the CMS like WordPress or blogger, however installation of it in Drupal requires a little extra effort than normal. Here are the steps.

Well, there are two ways to install StatCounter in Drupal. You may follow either method, but if you ask me, I’d recommend the first method.

Using StatCounter module:

Just install the StatCounter Module (http://drupal.org/project/statcounter) and activate it. Then under ‘Site configuration‘ find StatCounter. Configure it according to your wish and insert your StatCounter code there.

Now from the ‘Site building‘ => ‘Blocks‘, just drag the StatCounter block to somewhere (preferably the footer) of your choice.
By Create a custom block:

Drupal provides a powerful block architecture that allows modules to create their own blocks or users to define a custom block. You can create a custom block for StatCounter tracking code by following the steps below:
1. Goto admin => build => block via the administration area.
2. Click “Add block” at the top center of the page.
3. Enter something like “StatCounter” for the description and paste the StatCounter tracking code in the body section.
4. Now press “Save block.“
5. Locate the block in the list and set the “Region” combo to where you would like to display the code, most likely “footer.”
Optionally you can set the scope in which the block will be displayed, but it can be more easily set using the StatCounter Module.

That’s it, so simple isn’t it? Have any difficulties still? Please comment and let us know.

How To Clean Virus From Pendrives

sjnet — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:21:04 +0000

In this post I am going to explain to you, how to remove the residing autorun.inf file after you cleared all the viruses in your pendrive or local drives . This file does not allow us to access the drives, when we try to do it or when we try to rename the drive it won’t allow it either. This file is used by most of the virus authors to lodge in there and work all evening after the poor mortal has taken away all the viruses from the drive! This file give lots of annoyances. Basically it usally used to call or run the viruses frequently.

To remove this type of files from your computer do the following steps:-

Click start and then run.
Type cmd to open up the command prompt.
Change your directory to any on off your directory by using syntax driveletter: For example d:
Then type the command attrib in the prompt it display the list of executable files in the current directory.
Check whether autorun.inf file is present or not.
If not then you are lucky.
If present then you have to follow all the following steps to remove that file.
First you have to remove the power it is having for ex read only conception etc…
The attribute depends on viruses.
One common step to remove all its properties is type the following command in the command prompt:- attrib -s -h -r autorun.inf
-s to remove its system attribute, -h to remove its hidden attribute and -r to remove the read only attribute.
You can use this steps to remove any of the files which has this properties.
Remember before doing the above steps you have to remove all the viruses form your computer. I recommend avast home edition which is free and 100% perfect. If you haven’t clean the viruses first clean it because after you delete this file it will automatically creates it without your knowledge.
Then type the following command:- del autorun.inf.
Now you have successfully deleted the file after you deleted the file restart your computer or remove your pendrive and plug it again.

This is how we can remove the viruses that you might have accidentally downloaded through internet or pen drives.

How to Install JDK on your Computer?

Richie Sajan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:36:03 +0000

Whats JDK? Well if your familiar with the programming language called Java, you’ll know whats JDK. JDK stands for Java Development Kit, which is basically a tool to develop Java programs in. So one of my friends asked, ‘How do you install JDK?’ Here’s the tutorial.

So to install JDK, you’d first need to download the installer to your PC. To do that:

Go to the Oracle SDN’s Java downloads page.
Click on the appropriate package you want to download. If you’re a beginner, you’d want to download the basic package (see image below).

Just click on the JDK link.

In the new page that loads, select your appropriate Operating System and click on the red download button. You will be prompted to sign-in or register. You could do so if interested. If not just click on the close sign (on the top-right of the box).
You will now be redirected to a page, and your download should start automatically.
After the file has downloaded (its an executable), double-click on the file to begin installation. Continue on like a normal installation. There will be a download taking place at the 4th window, and may take some time on computers with slower internet connection.
When the “Complete” screen appears, click on the “Finish” button.

Thats it, you’re good to go!

You could also refer to this video tutorial for help:

How to Upgrade Your WordPress Installation

Richie Sajan — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:09:47 +0000

Well its official – WordPress 3.0, codenamed “Thelonious”, has just been released. Time to upgrade now. So how do you do it, without breaking up your site? Its quite easy in fact. There are mainly two ways to get about it, just read on.

Well the first way is to download the files and upload it via a FTP software and the other one is the automatic, easier and recommended method.

So first of all, before doing either of the methods, back-up (by downloading) your database(s) and your .htaccess file. Now select either one (ONLY one) method from below. I do recommend the second method.

Upgrading Via FTP

After performing the back-up mentioned in the previous paragraph, go and download the latest version of WordPress. You can do so from here.
Login to your wordpress dashboard and deactivate all your plugins. IMPORTANT.
Delete all files except the ones mentioned below:
- wp-config.php file;
- wp-content folder; Special Exception: the wp-content/cache and the wp-content/plugins/widgets folders should be deleted.
- wp-images folder;
- wp-includes/languages/ folder–if you are using a language file do not delete that folder;
- .htaccess file–if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess, do not delete it;
- robots.txt file–if your blog lives in the root of your site (ie. the blog is the site) and you have created such a file, do not delete it.
Now upload the previously downloaded wordpress package to the directory (or root, wherever) you had your wordpress blog.
Now go to the upgrade page of your blog. You can access it by pointing it to wp-admin/upgrade.php page of your blog, and follow the on-screen guide. Eg.: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/upgrade.php
Now install any plugins or reactivate the older ones you want.
Thats it your done!

Also Read: WordPress 3.0, Beta 1 Released + Screenshots

Upgrading Automatically

This is way easier than the previous method and also recommended one.

Login to your WordPress dasboard.
In the Tools menu, select Upgrade option.
Alternatively, you can just click on the ‘WordPress x.x is available! Please Update Now‘ link in the yellow shade above on the dashboard to access the upgrade page.
In the new page that opened, click on the Upgrade Automatically button.
After you click on the button, some messages will follow,with the last one being WordPress upgraded successfully.
Thats it, enjoy the new edition of WordPress!

Now that wordpress has been released you might also want to read on how to enable the Multi-User capability or Network mode, as it is called now. You can do so by viewing this article : How to Enable Network Mode in WordPress 3.0 beta 1

Tried it out yet?

3 Ways to Install A WordPress Plugin

Richie Sajan — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:27:31 +0000

Its no secret that WordPress is one of the, if not THE best, blogging platforms around. And one of the best things about it is the large number of plugins that it provides from the large community which supports it. So how do you install a wordpress plugin? Well there are 3 ways of which I know. As always, read on.

Well you must be knowing 2 if not 3 of the below methods already. The third option is a method commonly used by many bloggers, however there are still seasoned bloggers who don’t know about it.

Here are the three methods we will be taking a look at:

Upload Via FTP
Search and install via your blog’s plugins page
Install using One Click Plugin Updater plugin

Upload Via FTP

The most common and recommended method is to download your plugin and then upload it to your server via a FTP client like FileZilla.

In this process you find the plugin you want to install to your blog, download it to your computer and then upload it via the FTP software to your plugins directory/folder of your web-host (which is situated in the wp-content folder). Alternatively you could use an online File Manager provided from your web-hosting provider.

Plugins folder (as seen in FileZilla)

Search and install via your blog’s plugins page

This method works only for installation of plugins that are hosted on WordPress’s Plugin Directory. There are thousands of plugins hosted here so there may not be a need for you to go searching elsewhere.

So the first step here is to search for a suitable plugin in the directory. Alternatively you can search for the plugin via the Add New page in the Plugins section of your WordPress dashboard (yourdomain.com/wp-admin/plugin-install.php).

Search for the plugin

Once you press the Search Plugin button, the WordPress software searches for matches and presents a list to you.

Search results for the plugin

In this case the first result is the one we were targeting. So just click Install to the right of the result. Now a lightbox-type pop-up should open up. Click on install once again.

Now the plugin will be automatically downloaded and installed for you. When the page refreshes just search for the Activate Plugin link and click on it. Now your plugin is activated and you are ready to go!

Install using One Click Plugin Updater plugin

Well using the previous method, you could install plugins without using a FTP client. But the one condition was that you could only install plugins that were hosted on WordPress’s Plugin Directory.

To overcome this drawback, here is a plugin called One Click Plugin Updater. Firstly, use any of the above two methods to install this plugin. Now when you activate it you’ll get an option called Install a Plugin in your Plugins menu.

Search for the plugin you want to install. Now get the download link (by right-clicking and selecting ‘Copy Link Location’ or something similar), go to the Install a Plugin page and insert it into the top-most text-box, titled URL. Select the type as Plugin and click on Install.

Installing the plugin using One Click Plugin Updater

Thats it now, when the page refreshes just click on the Activate Plugin and I guess you can take over from there. You can also upload a plugin, which you might have earlier downloaded and stored away on your PC.

Interestingly the One Click Plugin Updater also allows you to install themes, without using a FTP software. Its similar to installing a Plugin, only change the type option to Theme.

So how did you find this article. Know about more ways to install a plugin? Please do share it with us.

Easy to Install Related Posts Widget for Blogger

Richie Sajan — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:12:27 +0000

Well I had earlier posted about 8 ways to install related posts in blogger. Nothing wrong in those methods and nothing much great in this one. The only difference is that I’ll post a step by step solution along with a video tutorial. Hope you enjoy it.

You can view the video tutorial here. For an image only tutorial follow on below. You can get the code’s shown in the video from below:

OK. So the installation goes as this:

First login to your blogger account and under the blog in which you want to implement the related posts, click onLayout. Next click on Edit HTML.
Now check the Expand Widget Templates check-box (as shown below). This check-box is found on the top-right of the box containing your template’s code.

Now press Ctrl+F to bring about your ‘Find Box’ in your browser, and search for the following code.

Now replace it with the following code (Code Listing 1.1):

You can change the number of related posts to be displayed by editing the number in pink.

To show related posts on all pages, just delete the text in red from both of the code listings.

Thats it, your done! Have any troubles? Comment, I’m right here to help!

Most Efficient Way of Including jQuery in your WordPress Theme

Richie Sajan — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:09:46 +0000

WordPress by default comes bundled with the jQuery framework. You can find it in the wp-includes\js\jquery directory. Many themes use this framework extensively for various effects and widgets alike. Unless you are on a dedicated server or are using a CDN, chances are that jQuery takes a whole lot of time to load. The best way is to speed up this process is to include the jQuery library fomr the Google’s Ajax Libraries API. Read on to learn how to include it in your theme.

Actually the method is quite simple. If your theme includes a direct jQuery call from the header.php (usually will be written like

or something similar) just delete the line.

If your theme designer had adopted efficient programming practices, he would have used the wp_enqueue_script() function. It can be identified by going to your Theme Functions (functions.php) file of your theme.

Now to include the script from Google`s Ajax Libraries API servers, just insert the following code into the Theme Functions (functions.php) file of your theme:

// smart jquery inclusion
if (!is_admin()) {
wp_deregister_script(‘jquery’);
wp_register_script(‘jquery’, (“http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js”), false);
wp_enqueue_script(‘jquery’);
}

Once done, save the file and your done. To check if the change has occurred, load your blog’s home page (or any other page for that matter). Now press Ctrl+Shift+R to force refresh the page.

Now take a look at the page source (Ctrl+U or View => Source). If the following line appears, you have successfully included this hack into your wordpress blog:

The advantage of this hack is that your page loading times will get faster and in lieu better!