TechGuyNextDoor.com

Here’s a quick list of 24 RSS directories where you can submit your RSS feeds to for free, without needing to register. If you have a blog, these directories will help you bring in some traffic quickly.

All links open in a new window:

1. FeedsFarm.com
2. FeedBees.com
3. FeesHoster.com
4. Plazoo.com
5. LeighRSS.com
6. RSSMicro.com
7. FeedFury.com
8. RSSMountain.com
9. FindRss.net
10. FeedBase.net
11. RSSMotron
12. MillionRSS
13. Yahoo Publisher
14. ReadABlog.com
15. GoldenFeed.com
16. BlogDigger.com
17. WeBlogALot.com
18. FeedBoy.com
19. BlogPulse.com
20. IceRocket.com
21. RSS-Network.com
22. JordoMedia.com
23. BrainBliss.com
24. FeedPlex.com

Enjoy…! :)

If you install a number of scripts on a regular basis, here’s a useful tip that’ll speed up your installation process.

I’ve installed a number of scritps in the last 2 years and almost all of them come in the form of a ZIP file that need to be unzipped first. But if your host has cPanel, you don’t need to go through the hassle of extracting the contents of the zip file and then uploading them via FTP.

Instead, here’s what you can do:

1. Upload the zip file as is via FTP.
2. Login to your host’s cPanel and look for the “File Manager”
3. Once you’ve started the file manager, go to the location where you just uploaded the zip file
4. Click on the zip file’s name and it will bring up a couple of options (like Move, Copy etc.)
5. One of those options is “Extract”. So click it and your zip file will be extracted right there

This is especially useful if you’re installing scripts that are big in size or that have a number of separate files and directories. Also, you don’t have to worry about uploading the files in binary or manual mode. Just select the “Auto” mode when uploading the zip file.

A word of caution: Some scripts create a new folder when you unzip them (an example would be WordPress: it extracts all the file in a directory called ‘wordpress’). When this happens, you will have to move all the files in this directory to your desired directory. This can easily be done by using any FTP program.

Just found this quick video tutorial by Jim Montgomery’s on how to change your Twitter background. Very useful, especially if you’ve just started using Twitter. Think of what this could do for your branding! :)

http://jimmontgomery.co.uk/jimsblog/2009/02/07/how-to-change-your-twitter-background/

That reminds me, this Tech Guy needs to brand his own Twitter page too, lol.

Unless you are installing WordPress using Fantastico or a similar script, you cannot change the admin username for WordPress. This poses a security risk as a hacker simply needs to guess your admin panel password while using the username ‘admin’ (the default username).

To make your WordPress blog secure from such an attack, you can change the Admin user name from within WordPress. This requires you to create a new admin username and delete the older one.

Here’s the step by step break down on how to do this in WP 2.7:

1. Login to your WordPress panel
2. Under ‘Users’ on the left, click on ‘Add New’ link.
3. Enter your preferred username, password and email.
4. Set the Role of this user as ‘Administrator’ and click the Add User button
5. You’ve successfully created a new admin user.
6. Now, log out from your admin panel and log in again as the NEW user you just created
7. Finally, delete the old ‘admin’ user from Users > Authors & Users

You’ve just made your WordPress installation more secure. Stay tuned as there are going to be some very interesting developments on the blog (Hint: there’s a lot of stuff coming for YOU which you’ll love - I promise).

When promoting a product as an affiliate, it’s a good idea to cloak your affiliate link so as to prevent commission theft. In this post, I’m going to show you how to integrate “Free Link Cloaker” script with WordPress easily.

As the name goes, Free Link Cloaker is an affiliate link cloaking script written in PHP. You simply need to download it and use it to cloak all your affiliate links, as well as track how many times a particular link was clicked. You can download it here: http://www.freelinkcloaker.com/download.php

While it’s pretty simple to use FLC as is, integrating it with WordPress requires you to take a few extra steps. Since both WordPress and Free Link

Cloaker use a .HTACCESS file, you need to make sure they don’t end up overwriting each other’s .HTACCESS files.

A cloaked affiliate link looks something like this: http://mydomain.com/recommends/abc

Now, if I have WordPress blog installed on my domain at mydomain.com, I will have to make sure that Free Link Cloaker doesn’t overwrite my .HTACCESS file with its own. So here’s what you can do to prevent this:

1. I first install WordPress on my domain just like I normally would, using Fantastico. I configure it to my liking and then download the .HTACCESS file that it generates from the ‘public_html’ folder on my server and rename it to ‘new.htaccess’
2. Then, I install Free Link Cloaker using the steps given at http://www.freelinkcloaker.com/install/guide.html
   
3. When FLC is installed, it creates a file called ‘.HTACCESS’ right after step 6 in its installation guide. FLC requires you to move this file (and two other files - link.php and cloaker_config.php) to my public_html folder. But, I already had a .HTACCESS file in there (created by WordPress).So, I move the other two files as required by FLC and download this .HTACCESS to my computer.
4. Here’s the trick to integrate WordPress & FLC:
   Open up the ‘new.htaccess’ file in a text editor and find the following code (may vary a bit depending on your WordPress settings):

   # BEGIN WordPress
   <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteBase /
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
   </IfModule>
   # END WordPress

   Then, open up the .HTACCESS created by FLC and find the code below:

   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule ^recommends/([-_A-Za-z0-9]+)$ link.php?keyword=$1

   Copy this code and paste it BEFORE the code in the new.htaccess file and save your changes. Your file should now look like this:

   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule ^recommends/([-_A-Za-z0-9]+)$ link.php?keyword=$1
   # BEGIN WordPress
   <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteBase /
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
   </IfModule>
   # END WordPress

   Save your changes and upload the ‘new.htaccess’ file back to your public_html folder. Delete the .HTACCESS file already present there and rename new.htaccess to just “.htaccess”.

   That’s it! Now cloak all your affiliate links EASILY and protect yourself against affiliate commission theft!

Ok, you’re probably going to wonder whatever happened to “tech” guy. Here I am sharing with you tips on niche blogging on a supposedly tech blog.

Well, I’m not the one to disappoint. I’m going to share with you some quick tips on Niche Blogging BUT with a touch of tech in it. I wouldn’t be much of a tech guy without that, right?

These come from an old video I did:

1. Use a Niche-related WordPress Template
   I can’t even begin to count the numerous niche blogs where the template or design being used on blog has nothing to do with the content at all.

   Using a WordPress Template that matches your niche or content is a great way to build a connection with your readers as well as give them a seamless experience.

   WordPress has a HUGE repository of themes you can check out at:
   http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes

   Just making this extra effort can make a lot of difference to your READERS. And if you cannot find a theme for your niche there, fret not, Uncle Google to the rescue. Uncle Google is kind and caring and helps you find a niche template easily.

   Search for something like “YourNiche+WordPress template” or “YourNiche+WordPress Theme” and go through the results. There are some golden nuggets out there.

   If all fails and you can’t find a niche specific theme, go for a generic one that suits your style. Then, use a niche specific header image to build that connection with your reader.

   Some great tips on changing the header image and other header related info is here:
   http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/09/24/problem-solving-the-wordpress-header/

2. Make AdSense and Other Ads Blend
   AdSense and other ads are quite common on niche blogs. A nice way to make them less obtrusive and still ensure your readers SEE it is to make them blend with your WordPress theme.Blending is just a matter of matching the colors of the ads (borders, font colors, link colors etc.) with that of you template.

   For Google AdSense, this can be achieved via their in built Color Picker. You can also use a nifty plugin called ‘AdSense Manager’ to easily add AdSense (and other ads) anywhere in your blog and even change their appearance right inside your WordPress Admin Panel.

   The plugin can be found here:
   http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adsense-manager/
   

3. Monitor Your Traffic
   A niche blog wouldn’t have traffic in the millions (unless you know of some super secret strategy I’d love to hear about :D).Nonetheless, it’s important to know where and how your visitors find your blog.

   Monitoring traffic data lets you understand how visitors reach your site and also, what they do once they’re there.This gives you an idea how to optimize your niche blog to get BEST reader response (which is not just limited to comments but also includes click-through rates on advertisement etc.).The easiest (and free) way which I know of to analyze traffic is Google Analytics. With a snippet of code in your page, you can track all the traffic that’s coming, where it’s coming from, how it found your site and a number of other details.

   If you’re using WordPress, you don’t even have to mess with the code AT ALL. This little plugin called Google Analyticator does that job for you with a few clicks!

   Download the plugin at:
   http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analyticator/

4. Cloak Your Affiliate Links
   Here’s another overlooked aspect on niche blogs: ugly affiliate links.You be the judge and tell me what looks better:

   (a) http://somesitehere.com/?affid=45435&cust=asd24wf&disc=50off23

   (b) http://www.MyNicheSites/recommends/somesitehereA or B?

   ‘ B’ is better for the simple fact that it looks EASY on the eyes and professional. Plus, it looks as if the site owner is actually recommending ’somesitehere’.

   Most link cloaking scripts come with a ‘tracking script’ that tracks how many clicks a particular cloaked link received. Combined with the traffic related data you gather through Google Analytics, this could give you some interesting insights on link placement etc.

   Here’s a simple, easy to use and FREE Link Cloaker Script: http://www.freelinkcloaker.com/

There we are. See, I said it was going to be “tech-ish”  :-)

WordPress is a powerful blogging platform and Content Management System (CMS).  There are a plethora of plugins which you can add to increase its functionality (and there are some amazing things you can do with it) and a number of free themes to suit your design needs.

However, installing WordPress can be difficult at times if you are doing it for the first time. So, here’s a free report called “How to Install WordPress Easily!”

This free report outlines the process of installing WordPress using Fantastico as well as manually with screenshots at every step.

Download this report here: How To Install WordPress Easily (265)

Share it! Feel free to share this ebook with anyone you feel would benefit from it :)