10 web-by things a technology student or you must know.

Technology has grown at massive pace and has now become the backbone of every company. With the rapid change in hardware, software, networking and even high end mobile devices has become an integral part of our daily lives. No doubts young people are more curious about new technology, teens who are really interested in Information and communication technology (ICT) want to peruse a career in this field. Many of you might know some of the things below but still,

1. Big Brother GOOGLE
2. Download managers, Bit-torrents and p2p file sharing
3. Social Bookmarking websites
4. RSS feeds and readers
5. Getting help from forums, groups and IRC
6. Getting help in other forms that text: Podcasts and screencasts
7. Blogging is fun
8. Using wikis
9. Content Management Systems
   
10. Other license than copyright
    (open the links in new window or new tab for better experience)
    

1. Big Brother GOOGLE: Google for some is a multi billion dollar industry which is one of the top most companies in the US on any basis but for most it's just a search engine. But wrong, its search engine packs such power to search the web we have never thought of the use of +, and, or etc operators refine the search to new dimensions. The use of define: term, inurl: url etc help us get the exact information we want. For more see http://www.googleguide.com . There are many other services google offers for free like video, map, news, groups, images, earth, code, analytics, webmaster tools, labs, trends etc. To try them just use the above word and .google.com like http://analytics.google.com. Google has arguably the best mail service and its list of company acquisition range from Youtube, Orkut to Blogger. If you want to know Big brother GOOGLE better try google in google search itself, want to try it now click on the Google logo.
   


2. Download managers, Bit-torrents and p2p file sharing: Fed up of not being able to download a large file as your web browser doesn't support download resuming no problem the solution lies in download managers. They comparatively increase the download speed and also allow resuming file downloads. A free download manager I use is free download manager. There are other download managers as well, like internet download manager, download accelerator plus etc. BitTorrent is peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol. BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using the BitTorrent protocol, each recipient supplies pieces of the data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence on the original distributor. A BitTorrent I use is utorrent, there are others as well. *.torrent file should be dragged and dropped in the torrent after downloading from a site like torrentsearch.us
   
   
3. Social Bookmarking websites: Bookmark on the net is as you bookmark a page on the book you are reading but of a different sort, you just save the link of that particular page mainly in the browser's favorites. But now things are different, you could only access your favorite pages or websites on the computer or browser you saved it with the advent and boom of the social bookmarking websites like digg, del.icio.us, stumble upon etc you can save/store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. I myself use del.icio.us which I like but statistics say digg is the most popular one. If you don't have an account no problem when you feel you are not getting anything to surf in the www just visit these sites there will be something to excite you in the homepage itself. For some cool links check our http://del.icio.us/geshan .
   
   
4. RSS feeds and readers: Simply Really Simple Syndication or RSS for short is getting some content you want from another website that gives this facility. For example if I want the latest South Asian news from www.bbcworld.com in my site in some block/part of the website I can do it. Formally, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually. Other usage to get updated with what's changing in your favorite site that provides RSS. RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader," "feed reader" or an "aggregator." The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds. Sites like bloglines, google reader etc act as a RSS reader. I use bloglines and live the news from www.engadget.com .
   
   
5. Getting help from forums, groups and IRC: Ever stuck in piece of code and trying to debug it for days but getting no where? if($ans=="yes") { echo("Its time to search for some help on the internet"); }. Just kidding. but groups like Google groups, Yahoo groups etc do help a lot when you facing some technical problems. If you are not a techie then also you can join the varied groups where you can discuss any and everything. There are may great forums to get help, music, videos etc or just put your opinion forward. Some great forums are www.expertsexchange.com, www.tech-forums.net etc. But if you wish to get help in realtime then IRC(Internet Relay Chat) is for you. This is not your conventional chatting with your MSN buddy. IRCs like freenode provide dedicated channels with many users who may provide you help in real time. To use IRC you'll need an IRC client like Chatzilla extension of Firefox or Pidgin which is also a messenger with which you can chat with your friends on google, yahoo, MSN, myspace, AOL etc all at the same time. Some IRC channels I visit if I have problem are #drupal, #drupal-support, #ajax, #php etc. But to use IRC you must seek some help initially that you'll get at www.freenode.net/faq.shtml.
   


6. Getting help in other forms that text: Podcasts and screencasts: So you want to learn a new programming language or new things in something you know and are tired of reading the text and looking at some pictures in various e-books or even printed books then the way out is learning from podcasts, screencasts and vodcasts. You can get various pod-casts (roughly an audio file that describes about a subject). Screen casts are the best way to learn as you can see in the video live how to do what you want to learn with someone who know speaking about it. Well to get more idea on Drupal (www.drupal.org) (I've written about it on Content Management System) I went through www.lullabot.com and www.drupaldojo.com to get the needed help. To learn php I recommend www.phpvideotutorials.com for others there is google just make yourself comfortable with keywords like screencast tutorial for {topic} or any other, do use your imagination.
   
   
7. Blogging is fun: "Blog" a much sensitized word means a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog"can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. It was popularly termed online personal diary but now its been used for a variety of things from just writing to earning good money as well. Starting a blog is no big deal, I assume if you can e-mail then you can start your own blog as you don't need to know any HTML or other languages as there are pre-made templates. You can try www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com to kick off your blog. Think why to have a blog, think again as of September 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 106 million blogs, so why not blog.
   
   
8. Using wikis: Wiki is a type of computer software that allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, power community websites, and are increasingly being installed by businesses to provide affordable and effective Intranets or for use in Knowledge Management. The best example of wiki is www.wikipedia.org the best online encyclopedia if you take my words why because of the massive collaboration the articles are amazingly refined. You can use wiki to your advantage, it has simple syntax and hassle free way to do collaborative work. Some popular wiki software are media wiki, tiki wiki etc. A site that has been turned into a wiki is www.fossnepal.org check it out as well.
   


9. Content Management Systems: A Content Management System (CMS) is a software system used for content management. Content management systems are deployed primarily for interactive use by a potentially large number of contributors. For example, the software for the website Wikipedia is based on a wiki, which is a particular type of content management system. For the purposes of this page, Content Management means Web Content Management. Web content management systems are often used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. So a content management system vastly simplifies a web-masters life. The webmaster using a web content management system can add common website features like blogs, forum, polls with just clicks. Content management system also provides great features like RSS, aggregator etc etc. Some of the most popular content management systems are Drupal, Mambo, Joomla, Xoops etc. Content management system's modular design allows you to add new features as modules or add-ons with just clicks. Without typing a single line of code you can change the look and feel of the website with almost no effect on the website contents with use of themes or skins. I sense that Drupal is the most popular one which many websites are using. check www.drupalsites.net to see some sites powered by Drupal, for some big names who use Drupal see http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites.
   


10. Other license than copyright: Copyright is a set of exclusive rights that regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea or information.So when you copyright something you have the rights to that information but if you want others to use it freely you should opt for Creative Commons license. If you choose a copyleft license then others have full freedom to use the published material as they wish but you can restrict the use in following forms. Attribution (by): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based upon it only if they give the author or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these. Noncommercial or NonCommercial (nc): Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works based upon it only for noncommercial purposes. No Derivative Works or NoDerivs (nd): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based upon it. ShareAlike (sa): Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work. Check out the license of this article at the end. If there is no license then it is licensed under copyright by itself.
    

All in all the next time you are surfing the internet just dont do the regular things check mail, chat with buddies on some instant messenger. Try to explore the web has to offer many things than just mail and chat. Have a great time surfing.

Geshan Manandhar

Around 1975 Words

Check http://del.icio.us/geshan for all the above links and more links.




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