Archive for February, 2010

You can backup and update your WordPress blog very easily. On your administrator dashboard, when you get notifications of a new version of WordPress saying what the new version is, just click on that link to get started. Then you will have the option to backup your blog posts, that is up to you. I backup my blog posts in notepad anyway, and backing up is a good idea in case something ever goes wrong with your blog host.

Then you will see two options, download the update or automatically update, and I suggest the automatic update. Once you click the automatic update, just sit back and let WordPress do the rest. In a couple minutes you’ll have your updated version of WordPress.

Next, you might see a red square with a number next to your plugins on the left column of the WordPress dashboard. Click on those to activate them again, but there is really no reason to activate the “Hello Dolly” plugin, unless you want lines from Hello Dolly to show up on your blog.

Have a look at these other blog related posts that give tips and advice on writing blog posts, filtering spam, writing to increase traffic, ways to come up with post ideas and more.

Learn more about WordPress Advantages Over Blogger and a Blogger to WordPress Blog Conversion that I did for Masterson Construction.

The main types of malware include adware, backdoor, heuristic, rogues, trojans, viruses and worms. Each of these have their own level of danger and degree of maliciousness.

Adware or spyware is a small program designed to show advertisements on your computer. Often adware reports personal information back to its owners and as a result your privacy could be violated.

Backdoor programs are used to gain access to a computer bypassing its security programs, giving the attacker unlimited rights. Backdoor programs can spy on a user and install other malware on a computer.

Heuristic detection is a technique to detect malware by empirical means without having the specific data, based on observing the behavior of the suspect malware, or perhaps even the pattern of what it does.

Rogue programs are malicious programs that are disguised as a trustworthy anti-spyware program or registry cleaner. These programs are put on the market to scare you into buying them because they either make claims about the safety of your computer, give erroneous scan results or install their own malware on your system.

A trojan horse is a malicious program that pretends to have a particular function, but is actually destructive. Trojans cannot multiply themselves like a virus or worm.

A virus is a malicious program that multiplies and is capable of attaching itself to other programs after being executed. Viruses then cause an infection causing various degrees of damage to your computer.

Worms are often characterized as a malicious application that uses a host machine to infect others. Therefore worms can create enormous damage on networks with multiple computers.

Knowing the main types of malware could be helpful to understand what kinds of dangerous software could threaten your PC. Keep yourself informed in order to avoid a possible threat or attack to your computer system.

A recently launched website on my Degerstrom family genealogy has been launched along with a matching blog and family tree page. This website documents one branch of the Degerstrom family name from Maine with the help from my father, Jim Degerstrom, his brother Ed Degerstrom, and Leif Persson in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Degerstrom Genealogy website features the Swedish branch and history of the Degerstrom family from Maine. The other branches are covered in Degerstrom.org, known as the Degerstrom International Family Page including Peder, Petter, Gabriel, Carl, Fredrik, Jacob and Per Degerstrom. Myself and my father are descendants of our root ancestor Peder Danielsson born in Ranea, Sweden in 1560.

Genealogy is a great way to see the history of your family and understand where you come from. Some great genealogy websites include RootsWeb, My Heritage, US Gen Web Project, FamilySearch, and also very useful for research would be The 50 Most Popular Genealogy Websites for 2009 and Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet.

The comparison between Pay Per Click (PPC) and search engine optimization(SEO) brings up the question of which one would be more profitable to use. Choosing the proper way to drive traffic to your website involves research, although I tend to lean towards Natural Methods of Search Engine Optimization.

Pay Per Click advertising is used on websites to increase traffic by paying for keyword phrases related to a target market. Advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked on and usually use a fixed price per click rather than a bidding system.

Using natural methods of search engine optimization tends to be a more permanent method to have a website that is indexed well in search engines. By obtaining the proper keywords, keyword density, updated original content, inbound links and avoiding duplicate content in your website, there is no need to pay for PPC advertising. These natural methods could far outweigh using paid advertisements in order to get more traffic to your website.

Although there are hundreds of Pay Per Click search engines to buy traffic from, search engine optimization could be a better choice for getting traffic to your website. However, should you decide to go with Pay Per Click advertising, here is the top 8 search engine list you could consider:

7Search
ABCSearch
Google AdWords
Marchex AdHere
MIVA
MSN AdCenter
SearchFeed
Yahoo! Search Marketing

Spell check your website because when your readers do not find mistakes in your spelling, chances are they will trust your online content more than if they had. Besides using the automatic spell checker in your blog dashboard or on the Wordpad you use to prepare website pages, you could utilize TextTrust’s online web page spellchecker to find your spelling errors on your website and blog.

TextTrust is a free trial that scans your entire website for spelling errors, therefore preventing you from overlooking embarrassing mistakes. This tool is free, fast, automated, easy to use, and may be the key to a website that is free from inaccurate spelling. TextTrust could be especially helpful if you have a large 100+ page website. Simply visit TextTrust for a free trial spell check of your website and you will receive the results by email.

Keep your website free from errors so your visitors will know you pay attention to details. Don’t be embarrassed by simple spelling mistakes anymore. Have your website scanned for spelling errors today, and have a look at my website page about Spell checking Your Website.

Finding the distance between cities is rather easy with the resources that are online now. Free distance calculator websites can be used anytime you would like to plan long trips or just calculate the distance between cities.

Simply choose a starting city and destination city and these distance calculator websites estimate the distance between the two either in kilometers or miles. In some cases these sites can even calculate the distance between cities either driving or as a straight line.

Most of these distance calculators now support locations worldwide, not just within the US. These services are provided for free with unlimited access. TravelMath Flight Distance Calculator also offers other options such as flight time, closest airport, driving or flight distance, drive time, hotels in the area, major cities, time difference, fuel costs of driving, flight emissions and latitude/longitude.

Here are a few popular distance calculator websites:

ConvertIt Driving Distance Calculator
Infoplease Distance Calculator
GeoBytes City Distance Tool
MapCrow
Symsys Mileage Calculator
TravelMath Flight Distance Calculator
World Atlas Travel Distance Calculator