Nate-Tech Tips

Ever notices the RSS feed icon on someone's Blog? Or on someone's website in general?

What Is RSS?

• RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication.
  
  
• A RSS feed looks like this.
  
  
• Here is what another version of the RSS for this domain looks like
  
  
• Wiki on RSS

If you have never noticed it, I do have some links even in the footer of this site titled "Excel RSS | Reviews RSS | Tips RSS" This links link out to each sub domains blog's RSS feed. These are than submitted to services like...

• TweetLater (soon to be known as SocialOomph.com) this services allows for your Ping.FM account or Twitter account to publish a shorty story and link out to your new blog post
  
  
• Google WebMaster Central allows you to add your RSS Feed a listing of your site maps, this allows for google to quickly find and index your new blog posts. (see image below)

RSS feeds are like Site Maps and are "living documents" that continuously update with your new blog posts; because they continuously update with your blog posts, the goal is to have this RSS feed file update each time you pull the 'publish' lever for your blog.

If you use a Blog publishing service like Blogger, TypePad, or WordPress chances are you already have a RSS feed or ATOM feed and do not ever know about it.

Check it out, you will be amazed how much better you will rank over your competition that does not have site maps indexed by google.

Labels: ATOM.XML, blog, blogger, Google Webmaster Tools, how to, internet, Internet Browsing, RSS, SEO, web site promotion, XML

Privacy is becoming more and more of a important thing to people, especially while you are sitting in your own home, on your PC browsing the internet.

You may be asking yourself, how could anybody trace what I do on the internet back to me?

The answer is fairly simple, each device that connects to the internet has a ip address, every device that is on the internet has some sort of ip address. At your home with multiple computers with 1 internet connection all your computers will have what is known as private ip addresses; While your DSL Modem, Cable Modem, or whatever other device is providing your gateway to the internet this device has the networks public ip address.

You can find out where your ip address is, at any of the following websites:

• http://www.ip-adress.com/
• http://whatismyipaddress.com/
• http://www.whatismyip.org/
  
  

There are multiple ways to make sure that your internet experience is safe and anymous one of my favorite ways to accomplish this is through java based proxies to surf the internet anonymously without having to install any special software. The services that run right from a web page are often java based, and are sometimes hit or miss as far as how well they conceal your browsing experience.

• http://www.the-cloak.com Internet Based Java Proxy
• http://www.hidemyass.com/ Internet Based Java Proxy
• http://www.proxybrowsing.com/ Browser Base Proxy
  
• http://anonymizer.com/ This service requires you to download a client piece and run it to browse anonymously.
  
• http://anonymouse.org/ This service requires you to download a tool bar to run while browsing the internet to be anonymous.
  
  

When using one of these services, you can verify that the service is working by visiting one of the first lists sites and seeing where they think your ip address is located.

Wiki Article on Anonymous browsing.

Labels: Anonymous, blog, browser, Internet Browsing, ip address, java, proxy, public computer, squid

Ever want to take your FireFox with you, along with your favourites and saved passwords?
The first thing you need to get a portable application on a computer is a flash drive, or some other way of getting to your executable file while you are at the public computer.

Labels: blog, browser, firefox, flash drive, jump drive, local admin right, portable app, portable applicaions, proxy, publich computer, squid, usb

The last few hours of my time with this website has been troubleshooting the "Content Encoding Error" that was occurring in the FireFox browsers.

Labels: blog, browser issues, clear, content encoding error, firefox, html, internet

With the World moving more and more towards web-based applications and content it becomes more and more important to understand how to troubleshoot basic Network and Browser Errors.

The number one troubleshooting step for fixing browser issues is...

Clearing Your Cache and Cookies!

The reason that you want to clear your cache and cookies is to force your computer to go out and get the correct or updated web page.

Basically, Internet browsers are lazy and dont want to have to do more work than they have to, so they store pages locally on your computer, so when you go out and visit these web pages the browser does not have to work so hard to go out to the internet and get the web page it just pulls the page off the hard drive (this practice lets you surf the web quicker and reduce network\internet traffic).

Sometimes these pages stored in your browser's cache get corrupted, or your computer continues to grab the pages locally off your hard drive even though there is a updated version of the page out on the internet.

How do I clear my cache and cookies?

IE7

If your menu bar is hidden tap "Alt"



Click on The Tools "Menu" --> than on "Internet Options"



Then on the "Delete" Box



Check all the boxes (if you want to leave "Form Data" and "Passwords" you will be fine).

Then click on delete.

Close all of your IE7 sessions and reopen; see if your problem is resolved.

FireFox

Follow the steps located at the link below:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/maintenance/ht/clearcacheff.htm

Chrome

Click on the wrench icon.



Click on "Clear Browsing Data".



Click on "Clear browsing Data".

Safari

Check out the link below.

http://www.verio.com/support/documents/view_article.cfm?doc_id=4069

Conclusion

If you still have problems after clearing your cache.

See if the problem persists in another browser.

If the problem persists in another browser, than the problem is most likely outside of your computer.

Labels: blog, browser, browser issues, chrome, clear cache, firefox, ie7, internet, safari, troubleshooting

There are alot of malicious programs out on the internet and there are a-lot of malicious companies out there trying to see you products to "protect" you from these malicious applications like Spyware and Adware.

AdWare and Spyware can be picked up by installing applications downloaded off the internet, or by visiting websites that are not legit.

So the question becomes... How can you protect yourself?

There are 3 things I have done for the past 7 years and they have not failed me, and I have not had to sacrifice any computing power to run a virus scanner, or firewall.

---> The first thing you can do is, separate your computer from the modem by a router. A simple router separating your computer from the modem, having a router will prevent almost all hackers from being able to get into your computer. There will ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR A SOFTWARE FIREWALL IF YOU HAVE A ROUTER.

--->The next thing I do is avoid non-legit websites.

Follow the rule of: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is non-legit.

---> The final thing that I do about every month is run AdAware (the free version), this takes care of any SpyWare and AdWare that may be slowing you PC down.

On a final note, if you computer starts acting weird, be proactive about solving whatever it is that it is doing, waiting to fix problems only snowballs everything until you end up disk wiping your computer and starting from scratch.

Labels: AdAware, adware, blog, firewall, internet, spyware, virus

Ever wounder how to Backup your DVD collection to your computer, just in case your dog decides to chew on it or your kids decide to scratch them up?

Labels: backup dvd, blog, copy dvd, DAEMON Tools, dvd shrink, dvd43, how to, ISO