Best 2 Know

The Ultimate Blogging Resource

Author: Ritesh Sanap

25 Tips To Optimize Your Blog For Readers & Search Engines

Everyone and their dog (yes, there are a few dogs out there with their own blogs) have started up a blog these days, but many people just aren’t taking the steps needed to optimize their blogs for both readers and search engines. While blogs can be business related (another blog about mesothelioma anyone?) they can also be personal where you talk about the great ham sandwich you had for lunch today or the crappy service you had at that trendy restaurant last night.

But whether your blog is business or personal, you should ensure that you are optimizing your blog for both your readers (after all, you want to keep those readers coming back) and the search engines. Unfortunately, optimization is an important step that far too many blogs seem to be skipping over, even those that have a broad appeal to surfers and have the potential to be monetizable.

However, optimizing a blog is a bit different than your standard website search engine optimization (SEO), particularly because most blogs run off standard blog platforms, or worse, run as a hosted blog on someone else’s domain name. And there are design issues that can be unique to blogs which can impact your rankings.

When you optimize your blog for the user experience, you make it easy for users to return and engage in your blog without dealing with any of the hassles that can cause them to abandon other sites or blog entries. Repeat visitors are the cream of your blog, so by following these tips you have given them the tools they need to return as well as the user experience that makes them want to come back.

Fortunately, if you are on the case to make your blog rank well while not hindering your visitor’s experience on your site, there are definitely things you can check – and fix – to prevent any indexing issues from occurring, and ensuring your blog a happy and healthy existence in the search engines.

So here is advice on how you can optimize that blog of yours for both users and search engines without alienating one or the other.

1) Dump The Default Template – Looks Count!
I cringe when I see a blog using the “out of the box?? WordPress or MovableType template. Hire a designer to create a unique look for your blog, or at the very least, take advantage of some of the free templates available and customize it a bit with a unique logo or a slight color upgrade.

2) Just Say No To Bad Color Schemes
While a hot pink with lime green color scheme might be your favorite, consider what your readers will be expecting. That color scheme might work perfectly on a teenage gossip site, but would look extremely out of place as the corporate blog for a men’s suit company. Likewise, gamers would think nothing of a black background on an Xbox 360 blog, but it would look horrendous on a parenting or pregnancy site. So while you should experiment with colors to find a good mix for your blog, keep in mind user experience and their expectations.

3) RSS Me!
Make sure you have RSS available. Many hosted blogging solutions don’t have RSS automatically available, so you will need to add it. And when you do add it, ensure you have those RSS links in an obvious spot. Don’t tuck them away at the very bottom of your index page after your most recent 20 entries, or hide them on a separate “About Us?? page. Place all those handy subscribe links in your sidebar, which is exactly where people will look for them. If you use Feedburner currently, have a look at their new MyBrand option which allows you to host your own feeds for a seamless user experience.

4) Offer RSS & Feed Subscription Buttons
Yes, when people want to subscribe to a blog, they will often look for that orange RSS logo as well as the logos of the standard aggregators such as Bloglines. So it is worth the time to add the most popular ones to your blog so visitors can easily do their one-click subscriptions to your feed without it require much effort on their part. If you make it hard to subscribe, most just won’t bother. FeedButton offers a service that allows you to offer multiple RSS aggregator and feed reader buttons with a single expanding rollover button.

5) Offer Posts Via Email
Some people just don’t get RSS. So cater to them by offering them an option to get your blog posts by email instead. The most popular service to do this automatically is FeedBlitz, although there are also many other tools available to do this.

6) Decide On Full Or Partial Feeds
Do you offer full feeds or partial feeds? This is a personal preference, and is often dependent on what market space you are blogging in. One option is to offer two feeds, one being an ad-supported full feed, with an RSS ad included, and the other being an ad-free snippet copy of the feed, where readers won’t see ads but will have to actually view your blog in order to read your full entry. But this will often come down to personal preference, and the preferences of your readers.

7) Write Compelling Snippets/Descriptions
If you do use snippets for your RSS feed, be sure to make them compelling or leave readers with a cliffhanger to encourage them to click and read the full entry. This will get you many more readers to your entries than just using the default option of including the first X number of words in the blog post as the snippet. Use your excerpts to generate interest and clicks.

8) Pay Attention to How You Write.
One of my favorite bloggers has the unfortunate habit of writing detailed long entries… without a single paragraph break and with the double whammy of also writing with a font size smaller than usual. If I look up for a moment, it is hard to find my place again in her 1000 word entries. As a result, I don’t read it as often as I would like to, simply because reading it is such a painful experience.

9) Spelling Counts
Spelling is also worth mentioning. Add one of the many spell checkers to your internet browser and run a quick spell check before you publish your entry. Every word doesn’t have to be perfect, and I am certainly guilty myself of letting on occasional typo slip through unnoticed. But I also get annoyed when I am reading typo after typo after typo in an entry. And yes, if it happens enough, I will unsubscribe out of sheer frustration.

10) Fontography Counts
Make the font easy to read. Some bloggers think it is cool to have their handwriting turned into a customized font, or use a trendy font that would be better suited to a scrapbook layout. But not everyone has those wild and weird fonts installed, which means that those people will see a standard font such as Times New Roman, and it can really kill the look of your blog. So instead design the text of your blog entries to use a standard font in a standard size.

11) Don’t Forget Navigation
Is this blog part of a larger site, such as a corporate blog on a site for a major company? Don’t just link to the main page of the blog. Syndicate your recent headlines in the sidebar to encourage visitors on the main site to check out the blog too.

12) How Fast is Your Host?
Another one of my favorite blogs has such a slow response time when I click from the snippet in my RSS to the full blog entry that I only actually end up waiting around for it to load about 10% of the time. Don’t lose readers because your hosting company thinks 30 seconds is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to load up a page.

13) Avoid Widget Overload!
Yes, there are definitely some cool widgets you can add to your blog, such as MyBlogLog or a Flickr photo box tied to your photo gallery. But be aware that having a large number of javascripts can slow down your site. So don’t sacrifice timely loading time for nice-but-not-all-that-necessary widgets.

14) Have Descriptive Titles
Some blog software actually makes your entry titles seem pretty repetitious in the search engine result pages, and can result in a lower click through than you might have had otherwise with highly optimized titles. If your title’s say something like “Jason’s Tech Industry Rants & Ramblings Blog >> New Xbox 360 title announced for April release?? you should change it to “New Xbox 360 title announced for April release??. Unless you are well known as an authority blog in that market, the blog name is simply wasting crucial space at the beginning of the title tag and causing the rest of the entry title to end up getting truncated in the search results. And make sure your titles actually enhance the entry and don’t leave the reader wondering what on earth the blog entry could be about. Ensuring you have great titles when you have a small readership and are depending on search engines to send you readers is one of the first steps you should take to optimize your blog.

15) Look at your Cascading Style Sheets.
Most blogs use a tremendous amount of CSS to create that custom look. And while most of the “out of the box?? designs that come standard with the installed template include all CSS in an external file, there definitely are some blog designers who will put their CSS on the individual template pages rather than placing it all in an external CSS file. And when you don’t place CSS in an external file, it can clutter up your pages and result in the most important part of the page – the entry text – being much further down in the HTML code when it has to go after the masses of CSS coding lines.

16) Post Often
The more frequently you post, the more likely Googlebot and other bots will stop by on a more regular basis. If you only post once in a blue moon, expect that it might take a while for Google to stop by and see that you actually have updated again. Google loves updated fresh sites, so it make sense to feed the bot what it wants.

17) Spread the Link Love
If you are blogging about a story, link up the original story as well as other’s commentary on the same topic. When you do so, you will often make those bloggers aware of your blog’s existence (if they weren’t already) when people click from your blog to theirs. And it also increases the odds that they will either link to you on that story or on something you blog about in the future.

18) Be Aware of Your Anchor Text
When you link to someone’s blog entry, or even a previous blog entry on your own site, make sure you link well. This means instead of linking to someone’s blog entry with the anchor text “click here??, you link to them using anchor text related to the blog entry, such as “Jason’s scoop on the new Widget Xbox 360 game??.

19) Create Unique Stories
Bloggers love to link to other bloggers. When you write original blog entries, rather than just rehashing something someone else has already said, you increase the odds that someone will find yours interesting enough to link to and talk about. And a reader of that blogger’s blog might read the entry and decide to write something about what you said as well, meaning yet another link as well. And if you are fortunate, it will go viral, meaning suddenly it seems like every blogger in your market space is talking about what you wrote. Rinse and repeat as often as possible for maximum exposure and link juice.

20) Use a Related Posts Plugin
Not only does this make sense to keep readers around for other articles on your site that are related to your current post, but it also allows you to deeplink from a current page on your blog to older entries. Often, older entries get buried several pages deep on an archive page, and this allows you to showcase entries written months or years previously and give those “oldies but goodies?? an extra little kick in the search engines. There are several related post plugins available depending on which blog platform you use.

21) Ping Other Sites
When you add a new blog entry, you might want to ping site such as Technorati and FeedBurner to let them know you have a brand new blog entry on your site. You can also now ping Google’s Blog Search as well for faster indexing in their blog search engine at blogsearch.google.com. Automatic pinging is an option in the control panel of most blog platforms including WordPress and MovableType. And Ping-o-Matic offers a service that allows you to quickly pick and chose what to ping.

22) Buy Your Own Domain Name
Don’t always think your free blog hosting company will be around forever. What will you do if you build up a loyal readership then one day you discover yourblogname.examplebloghost.com no longer works because examplebloghost.com has gone out of business? You want to make sure the search engines have a URL they will always find your blog at, rather than have to worry about them re-indexing your previously well-ranked blog on am entirely new domain… that is if you are lucky enough to get your blog posts from your free hosting company. Both Google’s Blogger & WordPress allow you to use their hosted blog service while displaying it on your own domain instead of their own branded one.

23) Manage Your Trackback & Comment Spam
You don’t want Google or Yahoo to find masses of spammy links on your site to all manner of less-than-quality sites submitted to your blog by a blog spammer. Use one of the many tools on the market for your blog platform to manage both comment and trackback spam.

24) Use a Good URL Structure
Don’t use “permalinks?? such as www.yourblogsite.com/?p=123 . Instead, use www.yourblogsite.com/2007/01/01/blog_entry_title_here. Most blogging platforms allow you to change from the standard numbered permalinks to this style of search engine friendly ones. And just in case the blog platform you use has funky dynamic URLs for each entry, you will want to ensure that the bots can crawl them easily or use a mod rewrite to create a good structure such as in the example.

25) Use Great Categories
When you write a post, place it in 1 to 3 different categories related to the post. For example, and article on the television show Grey’s Anatomy could go under “Grey’s Anatomy” and “ABC”. Avoid the temptation to add it to ten different categories though, such as including “drama,” “hospital,” “interns” and “Seattle” because that is just overkill. But if you wrote something great on Grey’s Anatomy, you have made it easy for your reader to find all your posts on Grey’s Anatomy because they simply have to click on the category link at the top or bottom of the entry.

While some bloggers insist that search engine rankings will come naturally to those who wait, who really wants to wait for Google? A blogger can run into several unique challenges when it comes to optimizing for search engines, and it makes sense to get the jump on it now than simply hoping that if you write it, the bots will come. It is far easier to ensure you have a well optimized blog now than trying to figure out what the issue is 6 months down the road when only your blog’s index page is found in Google!

Happy Blogging !!!!

How To Make Your Blog Load Faster ?

When people come to your Blog via a Search engine.. you just get maximum 10 seconds to hold their attention. If thats not enough to Load your Blog , then you are gone….
A good web host is essential, although, ensuring your blog not wasting valuable bandwidth on poorly optimized images, and unnecessary scripts and widgets is also important. So how do you optimize your Blog for the best performance? Here are some key tips:

Optimize Images

I think having attractive images in your articles is a key part of blogging, but I also think you need to optimize images so that they not any larger than they need to be. If you are lucky enough to have a copy of Photoshop, it is ideal for this task. A few rules which will help you out are:

  • Save images that use a limited pallet as .gif or .PNG. i.e a logo that just uses red, white and blue.
  • Save images that use the full color spectrum of colors as .jpg i.e a photo of yourself.

If you are saving for the Internet you should use “Save for web”. The aim is to get the final file size as small as possible without wrecking the appearance of the image.

PNG & Gif (indexed): Set the total amount of color to the lowest value possible without effecting appearance of the product. You can play with dither, for some images it will help remove artifacts, by adding a bit of noise. Raise the value of Web snap as high as you can go without making the final product look ugly.

Jpg (RGB): Lower the quality to as low as possible without making the final product look ugly, and without adding too many artifacts, you can also add some blur which may remove so ugly artifacts, but don’t get too carried away.
Make sure that if you are resizing images that you set the mode to RGB. Indexed images don’t resize well.You should ensure that images are cropped to remove any unnecessary parts, and resized to the correct final size. Don’t waste valuable bandwidth by using html code to resize an image.

Use A Minimalist Theme

Attractive graphics and excessive use of plug-ins in your theme can add to the file size of your site, and raise your loading time. So selecting a minimalist theme is a great way to reduce the size of your Blog.

Compress the Stylesheet and Javascript files used

You can compress Javascript and the Stylesheet used in your theme. To compress Javascript you can use a Javascript compressor. For the CSS files, you can remove the comments, and remove blank lines and spaces using your favorite text editor. This will optimize your set up a small amount.

Reduce Overall Latency by Reducing HTTP Requests

PlanetEnjoy writes about the importance of reducing HTTP requests:

Every HTTP request, or loading each item on your website, has an average round-trip latency of 0.2 seconds. So if your site is loading 20 items, regardless of whether they are stylesheets, images or scripts, that equates to 4 seconds in latency alone (on your average broadband connection).

So it is important to ensure that you are not including an unnecessary amount of HTTP requests.

Don’t Rely on Other Sites!

If you are loading content from other web sites it is going to slow your loading time. For example both the widgets at the bottom of this page load from other servers, Blogrush and Blogcatlog. If either of these servers are having bad days the widgets can take an age to load. This is part of the reason why I have them in the footer, so any lag doesn’t stop any other content from loading. Ad networks, badges, widgets, images, scripts may all be loading content from other servers. For optimal performance you need to rely as little as possible on other servers.

100+ Best Online Games – Who Else Wants to Play ?

This is THE Collection of some of the best Arcade. Why buy Nintendo games or pay a monthly subscription fee, When a free version of any good game can be found here. These are my favourite timepass, and I enjoy playing them a lot… you should give it a try…

Mysteriez

Play. Find hidden numbers in the pictures.

Brain trains: attention to detail, cognitive control, processing speed

Set Online


Play. Set Online is based on Set, The Card Game, first brought to my attention by Cory Doctorow here. Basically, you have to make sets of three based on facets of color, shape, shading, and number. Each facet must be all the same or all different. Tutorial here. This game has the ability to rewire your brain.

Brain trains: cognitive control, processing time, permutations

Red Team Game


Play. Control two characters at the same time.

Brain trains: coordination, multitasking, spatial intelligence,

Triangles

Here. Play two avoidance games simultaneously. One with your left hand. The other with your right hand.

Brain trains: coordination, cognitive control, peripheral vision

Building Houses 2

Play. Make the shape on the left using cubes. Sounds easy, but challengingly difficult.

Brain trains: spatial intelligence, strategy, visualization

Jumble Word Vault

Play. New twist on an old favorite. Jumble requires you to make words and unscramble. This time around, you must fill quotas and race against time.

Brain trains: verbal reasoning, processing speed, permutations

Word Drop


Play. Make words with letter tiles. Make it on the hi-score list.

Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, peripheral vision

IQ


Here. A really good brain workout which consists of a whole bunch of IQ puzzles.

Brain trains: logic, spatial intelligence, permutations, visualization

How Much Time Has Passed?

Here. You’re given 2 times and you have to indicate how much time has passed. A little like the Brainage game.

Brain trains: math, processing speed, concentration, brainage

Numbers

Play. Click on the numbered tiles so that they add up to the target number.

Brain trains: math, processing speed, big picture

Fun Game


Play. Kind of like solitaire meets Tetris where you have to combine blocks of 4.

Count The Cubes

Play. You’re shown a bunch of cubes. Count how many there are.

Brain trains: perspective, processing speed, spatial intelligence

Find People


Here. Like Where’s Waldo?, but made into an online game. Spot the selected person in the crowd. Lots of fun.

Brain trains: concentration, processing speed, attention to detail

Connect 2

Play. Connect pairs of tiles and clear the board.

Brain trains: perspective, processing speed, concentration

Rings


Play. Copy the pattern you’re shown. Do it quick or else the pattern will disappear. Very good brain game.

Brain trains: processing speed, visualization, memory

Mouse Speed


Here. Very challenging game where you must click on numbers as quickly as possible.

Brain trains: cognitive control, reaction time, peripheral vision

Dupligon


Play. Like the drawing game in Brainage, you are briefly shown a shape and then you have to draw it based on memory.

Braintrains: memory, visualization, concentration

Colour Word 2

Play. A stroop test game that is very well polished. You’re shown a word in a certain colour and you have to click on the colour of the word and not the name of the word.

Brain trains: cognitive control, reaction time, processing speed

25 Boxes

Play. Find the target letter(s) on one side, but click their corresponding box (es) on the other side.

Brain trains: peripheral vision, coordination, processing speed

Memry


Play. An interesting twist on the classic game of Concentration. In Memry (that’s not a typo), you flip over two cards at a time and try to match picture pairs. The picture pairs, however, are taken from random Flickr photos. You can specify a tag which will determine the pictures that will appear in your game.

Brain trains: concentration, memory, visualization

Anagrammatic


Play. Given 9 random letters, try to find the longest word. Play against opponents from around the world. Very fun.

Brain trains: verbal reasoning, processing speed, concentration

Pipe Mania

Play. Fit the pieces of pipe on the game board so the water can get to the drain. Oh and there’s a time limit.

Brain trains: visualization, processing speed, strategy

Pirate Chains


Play. Get the key to the lock by removing tiles standing in the way. Remove by creating non-diagonal patterns of three or more tiles . Oh and there’s a time limit and move limit.

Brain trains: big picture, pattern, processing speed

Arithmetiles

Play. A special number is shown. Click on two other numbers that either add, subtract, multiply, or divide to equal that number.

Brain trains: math, processing speed, concentration

Digit Span Memory Test


Here. Try to remember a sequence of numbers that get longer and longer.

Brain trains: memory, visualization, concentration

Spot The Difference


Here. Polished flash version of a classic brain trainer. Within a limited time, spot the five differences in the two pictures.

Brain trains: concentration, processing speed, visualization

Stroop Test


Here. You are shown a box and presented with two words, one of which identifies the color of the box. Press the left or right arrow key to select the correct word.

Brain trains: cognitive control, processing time, reaction time

Word List Recall


Here. You’ll be shown a list of words one word at a time. Afterwards, you’ll be asked to write down as many as you remember.

Brain trains: memory, visualization, verbal reasoning

Parachute

Here. Did you play Bandai handheld games as a kid? They were the DS’s and PSP’s of my generation. This one is a classic. Using the left and right direction key, catch the falling parachuters or else they’ll be eaten by the shark. Thank you Aaron for porting them to Java.

Brain trains: spatial intelligence, strategy, coordination

Test Your Reaction Speed

Here. Stare at a red dot. Mouse click when it turns yellow. Your average time is calculated after 5 tries. Addictive.

Brain trains: reaction time, concentration, processing speed

Dr. Mario

Here. Don’t know how long it will be before this site is taken down, but while it’s available, brain train with Dr. Mario, a classic Nintendo game. IMHO, it’s better than Tetris, but that’s just me. Place the two-unit pills in such a way that you complete 4 units of the same color.

Brain trains: pattern, processing speed, visualization

CodeWord

Here. Like Mastermind, but with words. Guess the word. The computer will give you feedback about which letters were correct so you can fine tune your next guess.

Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, processing speed

Colour Connect


Here. Click on the circles to get rid of them. You can only get rid of a circle if it matches colour with the circle before it.

Brain trains: strategy, big picture, pattern

MemoTST

Play. You are shown piano keys with different colors. The colors disappear. Do you remember the color of a certain key? Exceptionally well-designed game.

Brain trains: memory, visualization, concentration

Mastermind

Play. Guess the four colors and the order which they appear. Classic logic game.

Brain trains: logic, permutations, memory

Words In A Word

Play. Try to make as many new words as possible in the time given. One of the best Boggle-themed games because of the level of competition.

Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, processing time

Wordz

Play. Click on two white letters to swap them in order to make the right words.

Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, processing speed

Letter Rip

Play. Make words from the letters on the playing field. Each letter of a word must be adjacent to one another. Click on the last letter to submit.

Brain trains: big picture, verbal reasoning, pattern

Brain Age 2


Play. Click on either plus, minus, times, or divide to make the math statement true. Do it as fast as you can. Once finished, the game will display your brain age.

Brain trains: math, processing speed, reaction time, brainage

Wii Picross


Play. Use the clue numbers on the side of the playing field to mark out a hidden picture. Like Sudoku meets Minefield meets Mastermind.

Brain trains: concentration, logic, multitasking

Nblox aka Tetris

Play the best Tetris clone available. Use left and right arrow keys to move the shape. The up key to rotate.

Brain trains: pattern, perspective, reaction time

Curveball

Play. In first person view, paddle a ball back and forth against the computer.

Brain trains: spatial intelligence, coordination, reaction time.

Day Of The Bobteds

Play: Decide the ideal position to place a shiny metal ball(s) and watch it will drop/bounce on intended target(s).

Brain trains: prediction, spatial intelligence, strategy

Green And Black

Play. Flip a column or a row. When you flip, greens becomes black and vice versa. The goal is to get everything green within 10 seconds.

Brain trains: processing speed, strategy, perspective

Shift


Play. A very fun platformer with a Paper Mario-type twist. Press the shift key to shift your world view so that you play as black or upside down as white depending on the problem at hand. This dynamic forces your brain to simultaneously think right-side up and upside down.

Brain trains: strategy, coordination, perspective

Lamb Chop Drop


Play. You’re a falling lamb and you must steer yourself into the path of colorful stars flying upwards. This game trains your spatial awareness because you’re given a three-dimensional view instead of 2D. Finally, the more stars you get, the more money donated to a worthy cause – much like freerice.com.

Brain trains: spatial intelligence, prediction, perspective

Brain Age 1

Play. You’re shown a bunch of numbers scattered about the screen. The screen goes blank. Next, you’re shown placeholders where the numbers were and you have to click on the placeholders in order from least to greatest by the numbers they represented. Your brain age score is calculated after ten rounds.

Brain trains: memory, concentration, visualization, brainage

Spin The Black Circle Game

Play. Only the left and right arrow keys are used to rotate the entire screen in order to move the ball to its destination. While it sounds easy, the reality of ball physics will make this an addictive brain trainer.

Brain trains: reaction time, spatial intelligence, coordination

Fruit Smash


Play. A good Bejeweled clone. For those who don’t know what Bejeweled is, you click on a fruit and then another either to north, east, west, or south of it. This causes the two fruits to swap in the hopes of making lines containing three or more of the same fruit. The completed lines are removed and surrounding fruit move to fill in the void. It gets really fun when combos happen.

Brain trains: processing speed, pattern, big picture

Three Glasses

Play. A modern take on the classic math logic problem where you’re given pails of different volume capacities and you must use them to measure out a specified amount of water.

Brain trains: strategy, permutations, logic

Lilly Hop

Play. You control a frog that must hop from lily pad to lily pad. You must touch every lily pad, but you cannot retrace your steps.

Brain trains: strategy, permutations, logic

Phit


Play. Take the odd shapes in the white area above and place them so the entire yellow area below is covered. It’s like tangrams meet Tetris.

Brain trains: permutations, spatial intelligence, visualization

Blue

Play. You’re required to make all the tiles light up. This is done by moving the sphere. Whenever the sphere is over a tile, the four adjacent tiles to the north, east, west, and south of it are toggled to their opposite: dark tiles are lit, lit tiles are turned off.

Brain trains: permutations, prediction, visualization

Do 100 Arithmetic Questions In 5 Minutes

Do. Try to do 100 arithmetic problems in 5 minutes. Great Brain Age replacement to train mental math skills. Did them in under 2 and half minutes. Try to pwn me.

Brain trains: processing speed, math, reaction time

Troyis

Play. For those who play chess, you know how the knight/horse moves in an L shaped pattern? Use that type of movement to turn all the white squares purple. The blue square are off limits.

Brain trains: permutations, reaction time, big picture

8 Letters


Play. You’re given 8 letters and you have to make as many new words from them as possible (think Text Twist). Get extra points if you can unscramble the letters and find the 8 letter word before the time runs out. The idea isn’t new, but the presentation is flawless.

Brain trains: processing speed, permutations, verbal reasoning

Reverse

Play. Using your mouse, move the object through the maze, to the goal. Oh, one more thing. If your mouse moves left, the cursor moves right, and vice versa. You have to will your brain to do the opposite of what it’s been conditioned to do.

Brain trains: concentration, cognitive control, coordination

Squiz


Play. Get points for clicking on four icons of the same type in such a way that they represent the four corners of a square or rectangle. The bigger the square/rectangle, the more points you get.

Brain trains: visualization, pattern, big picture

Matter / Tangrams


Play. Assemble various smaller shapes into a predefined big shape.

Brain trains: visualization, pattern, big picture

Planarity

Play. Move the nodes around until no strings overlap.

Brain trains: strategy, prediction, visualization

Squares

Play. You’re a black square. Gain points by touching any other black object in the game. Black squares give you more points and black circles give you bonuses. Stay away from red things. Red squares kill you and red circles curse you.

Brain trains: concentration, processing speed, reaction time

Reflex


Play. Guide the constantly moving ball to the exit. The only way to steer the ball is by toggling the panels to guide its direction.

Brain trains: strategy, permutations, prediction

Nucleus

Play. Using only left mouse click, move the charge (as represented by the light blue ring) inwards until it reaches the nucleus. Movement of the charge is possible only when the two revolving electrons are close to one another.

Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, prediction

Picto


Play. Click on the icon which was the newest addition to the screen. Sounds easy, but once the screen starts filling up, you’re forced to keep track of what came before.

Brain trains: memory, concentration, visualization

Ray Ray’s Parade


Play. You control a formation of cute, chubby babies. Your job is to get them all to stand up by clicking on them. When you click a baby, any other baby to the north, east, west, or south of it is affected. If the other(s) baby is crouching, it will stand. If it is already standing, it will crouch. Cute way to train you brain.

Brain trains: permutations, logic, big picture

Nodes

Play.The red nodes are connected to one another by lasers. Drag the red nodes so the lasers pass through each and every blue node.

Brain trains: strategy, multitasking, visualization

Mass Attack


Play. Your job is to balance the scales by creating balls with different masses to offset the computer-generated load. The difficulty lies in the fact that you only have a limited number of tries.

Brain trains: math, prediction, visualization

Spa Cat

Play. Given a screen full of multi-colored, multi-sized numbers, you must click them in order from least to greatest before the time runs out.

Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, big picture

Keyway


Play. Press the corresponding arrow key when you’re shown it, and press space bar when you’re shown a square. That’s all there is to it. Oh and every mistake you make, you lose 5 seconds. Every round you pass, you gain 10 seconds. Try to get as much points as you can before time runs out. Simple, yet elegant with a hypnotic soundtrack.

Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, coordination

Eskiv

Play. A simple concept, but powerfully addictive. You’re a big dot that gets around the screen using the arrow keys. Touch as many squares as possible. Avoid small dots. The catch is: for every square you touch, another small dot appears. Try to get 135 points. That’s my high score.

Brain trains: concentration, cognitive control, visualization

Excit


Play. Really fun game that uses an excel spreadsheet as its backdrop (sorry if your boss walks by, it looks like you’re doing work). Using the arrow keys, the object is to guide the ball to the green ex(c)it. Once it starts moving, the ball won’t stop so you have to steer its path using immovable objects randomly placed on the game screen.

Brain trains: strategy, permutations, visualization

Cube Field


Play. Using the left and right arrow keys, steer clear of objects coming at you at what seems to be a million miles per hour.

Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, spatial intelligence

Cell


Play. Frustrating, but in a good way type of game where your left hand controls the gray block and your right hand controls the fence around the gray block. Move both to the goal. This game works because it demands us to coordinate both hemispheres of the brain.

Brain trains: concentration, multitasking, coordination

Chat Noir

Play. Turn-based game (you and the computer take turns making a move) where you must keep the cat from escaping the play area by clicking light green circles to make them dark. The cat cannot step on dark green circles.

Brain trains: strategy, permutations, logic

Binary Game

Play. Interesting game created by Cisco Systems to train their own techs. The game involves converting bytes into whole numbers or the other way around. Has a Tetris-like feel because if you’re slow and the bytes get too high, game over.
Thanks to Jessica Bridges, for informing that the cisco link is broken and giving an working alternative link.

Brain trains: math, concentration, processing speed

Bloxorz

Play. Very well-made puzzle game which involves moving a brick into a hole.

How To Change Windows XP Shutdown Dialog Box

Here I am going to tell you that how to customize the default Shutdown Dialog Box in Windows XP.

First let me tell you what is Shutdown Dialog Box. See below :

Lets Start :


Requirements :

1) Resource Hacker
2) Windows XP Installed on your system
3) Images you want to replace

Before starting I would like to tell you that this tutorial needs some basic knowledge about Resource Hacker. Click here to read the post on Resource Hacker.

First download these images that you have to replace with default images.

We have to edit 2 dll files here :

1) Shell32.dll
2) Msgina.dll

Editing Shell32.dll :

Now open Resource Hacker and press Ctrl+O and navigate to C drive >> System32 >> shell32.dll and click on Open.

Navigate to Bitmap >> 14351 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan1.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap > 14353 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan2.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap >> 14354 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan1.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap >> 14355 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan2.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap >> 14356 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan3.bmp

Now save your file.

Editing Msgine.dll :

Again press Ctrl+O and navigate to C drive >> System32 >> msgina.dll and click on Open.

Navigate to Bitmap >> 20140 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan1.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap > 20141 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan2.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap >> 20142 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan1.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap >> 20143 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan2.bmp
Navigate to Bitmap >> 20100 >> 1033 and replace this image with gagan4.bmp

Now save your file.

And when you will click on Shutdown button, the dialog box will look like this :

So hows the new look ?? Do reply !

110 Amazing Magic Tricks with Everyday Objects – eBook

Magic is a wonderful hobby. This book contains selected 110 superb magic tricks, most of which can be performed with simple everyday objects.

10zb9nd

Once learned, you will be able to mystify and entertain no matter where you are. Read and follow the illustrated instructions carefully and regularly practice and rehearse the tricks until you feel completely confident – then get ready to baffle, bewilder and amaze! But remember our magicians code and NEVER REVEAL YOUR SECRETS! Have Fun!

.Download.

6 Easy Ways to Optimize/Boost your PC Performance

Are you frustrated with your PC?
Is it feeling sluggish or crawling at a snail’s pace?
Are programs running slower than they used to?
Are you just plain fed up with frequent slowdowns, freezes or crashes?

Then it’s time to stop what you’re doing and optimize your system to improve PC performance!

Follow these 6 simple sure-fire tips to help improve PC performance and you’ll be surprised by the results! Each comes with an indication of how often you should do it.

Improve PC Performance Tip #1:

CLEAN UP YOUR WINDOWS REGISTRY (Frequency = Daily)

This is an essential, but often overlooked, task to improve PC performance. In fact most PC users are unaware of the necessity to regularly clean the Registry as Microsoft does not include a cleanup tool in any version of Windows.

Every time a program is installed it makes changes to the Windows Registry – a huge internal database of Windows’ settings. Virtually all Windows programs, and Windows itself, store a massive array of information inside the database. These thousands of entries control the behavior and appearance of virtually everything on your system.

Changes to your PC system are not always handled correctly in the Registry, leading to conflicts and the slowing down of your PC. Over time this leads to a bloated, and possibly corrupted, Registry. Reasons for this include:

  • frequently installing or uninstalling programs
  • removing a program which leaves traces behind
  • leftover entries from a hardware uninstall
  • unused drivers on your system
  • Spyware or similar programs that reappear every time you reboot

You can edit the Registry manually using a Windows program called Regedit, but this is really a job best left for hardened PC experts.

Thankfully, programs are available that can clean up your Registry automatically to help improve PC performance, such as “Registry Optimizer ’06”. This scans your Registry, looks for entries that are redundant or invalid and lists them so that they can be corrected with one mouse click. As an added bonus, to improve PC performance, it runs automatically in the background every time you start your PC.

Improve PC Performance Tip #2:

EMPTY THE RECYCLE BIN (Frequency = Weekly)

Regularly empty Windows’ Recycle Bin.

This will release hard drive space and help improve PC performance.

When you choose to delete a file, rather than removing it completely from your computer, Windows first puts it into the Recycle Bin. This gives you a second chance, as it means you can restore flies from the Recycle Bin back to their original place on your computer.

To ensure optimum PC performance, empty your Recycle Bin weekly (or even daily). To do so, right-click the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop, and choose Empty Recycle Bin.

Improve PC Performance Tip #3:

REMOVE PROGRAMS (Frequency = Monthly)

Installing programs is easy – but once you have, it’s just as easy to end up leaving them languishing, forgotten, on your hard disk.

Most programs come with their own uninstaller. You’ll find this under the program’s entry in All Programs, from the Start menu.

If the program doesn’t come with its own uninstaller, open Control Panel from the Start menu, and double-click Add/Remove Programs. Your PC will pause briefly while it gathers a list of all the programs you have installed.

Once it has done so, find the program you’d like to get rid of, click it and then select Change/Remove.

Be aware that some programs leave uninstalled traces all over the Windows Registry! Therefore, to improve PC performance after an uninstall, it’s essential to clean the Registry.

Improve PC Performance Tip #4:

RUN DISK CLEAN UP (Frequency = Monthly)

Windows’ Disk Clean Up is a fantastic built-in utility that automates regular maintenance tasks to improve PC performance, such as deleting Temporary Internet files, Setup log files, etc.

To start Disk Clean Up, double-click My Computer, right click on your ‘C:’ drive and then select Properties. Now click Disk Cleanup. Your computer will then spend a few moments analysing itself.

When it has completed the audit Windows will give you a list of areas where it has found files to cleanup. To clean an area, put a tick in the box next to it. To leave something intact, such as Temporary files, just remove the tick next to the item and click OK.

Your computer will then begin the removal process to improve PC performance – this can take some time.

Improve PC Performance Tip #5:

DISK DEFRAGMENTATION (Frequency = Quarterly)

When Windows stores programs on your PC hard disk it saves fragments of files in the nearest empty spaces.

This slows down your PC as it has to spend time hunting down the fragments and piecing files together.

There is a simple cure – running the Windows program Disk Defragmenter. This gathers together the fragments of programs and puts them back in the right order.

This makes it far easier for your hard disk to find what it’s looking for, enabling programs and files to load more quickly – a sure-fired way for improving PC performance.

To defragment your hard disk click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and then Disk Defragment. When the program has loaded, click Defragment.

The process can take well over an hour. Because defragmenting your hard disk takes such a long time, you really don’t want to go through the process too often.

Defragment your hard disk every 3 months or so – this way you’ll get the best results and optimize the performance of your PC.

Improve PC Performance Tip #6:

EMPTY THE PREFETCH CACHE (Frequency = Quarterly)

To improve the time it takes to load programs, Windows guesses which files are likely to be needed next and loads them into a pool or ‘cache’.

This process is called prefetching, and it generally works well. Overtime, though, the prefetch cache can become clogged with files you no longer need – and that can slow down Windows’ startup.

To clear Prefetch, choose Run from the Start menu, and enter Prefetch into the text box that appears. When you’ve done that, you’ll be confronted by a window filled with icons. Press Alt+A to select them all and press Delete.

The cache will quickly refill with links and files that Windows really needs. As a result, your system will feel more responsive and benefit from a PC performance improvement.


So there you have it, 6 sure-fired PC performance tips to revitalize your PC. Now you know how to improve PC performance – simply follow these steps and repeat them regularly.

A Great Magic Trick With Google – Fool your Friends

Surprise yourself along with your friends with this amazing MAGIC TRICK you can perform easily with the help of your PC and Internet Connection..

Here’s a magic trick to surprise friends with; go to the flash-based fake Google homepage by Dark Arts Media.See This Video first….

Go here to Access that Magic page

Ask someone casually to watch the Google logo; don’t announce you’re about to perform a magic trick. Now click anywhere on the page while pointing at the logo with the other hand, and then move two of your fingers to completely cover the the “o”s in the Google logo. When you remove the fingers, hopefully to much surprise, the letters “o” will be missing from the logo.
Now ask the visitor to move her fingers over the missing “o”s, and click on the page again. After your friend removes the fingers, the logo will be complete again. The trick here? Whenever you click on the page, the letters will disappear after five seconds. Clicking again will make them reappear after five seconds. (A third click, by the way, will change the page to an actual Google homepage so you can perform searches then.)