Published by Zaheer

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see my Alexa rank became145,792. The night before it was some where in 233,00 range. My first thought was something is not right. So I went to Alexa.com and found out that they have changed their ranking system. And that new system is the cause of this new rating. Instead of ranking a website based only on the visits by the visitors who have Alexa toolbar installed, Alexa is now using “other sources” to determine website rank.

Alexa won’t provide any details on those other sources but this new ranking system will certainly helpnon-tech websites and I think the new ranking system will give a more accurate rank. Honestly, the older ranking system was skewed towards tech-heavy websites where most visitors would have the alexa toolbar installed.

So how did this new ranking system affect your Alexa rank? Do you even care about Alexa ranking at all?

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1 Comment . Apr 18, 2008
Filed under: Blogging
Tags: Alexa, rank

Published by Zaheer

Regular expressions provide a powerful and flexible way to search for phrases or characters but they are also confusing and many developers find them quite daunting. If you have been reluctant to learn regular expressions because of their apparent complexity, fear no more. Read more…

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Post a comment . Apr 14, 2008
Filed under: Best Sites
Tags: RegEx, regexr, regular expressions

Published by Zaheer

In Java you can find maximum or minimum value in a numeric array by looping through the array. Here is the code to do that.

public static int getMaxValue(int[] numbers){
  int maxValue = numbers[0];
  for(int i=1;i < numbers.length;i++){
    if(numbers[i] > maxValue){
	  maxValue = numbers[i];
	}
  }
  return maxValue;
}

public static int getMinValue(int[] numbers){
  int minValue = numbers[0];
  for(int i=1;i<numbers.length;i++){
    if(numbers[i] < minValue){
	  minValue = numbers[i];
	}
  }
  return minValue;
}

These are very straight forward methods to get maximum or minimum value of an array but there is a more cleaner way to do this. Read more…

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2 Comments . Apr 13, 2008
Filed under: Java
Tags: Array, Java, maximum, minimum

Published by Zaheer

Reading properties file in Java is much easier than you might have thought. Following example illustrates one simple way of reading properties from a properties file.

Let’s say we need to read from myConfig.properties file.
The properties file has following entries.

Directory = C:/prodFiles/
NumberOfFiles = 25
Extension = java
Here is the class to read the values of these keys.

import java.util.Properties;
import java.io.*;
   public class ReadValues{
	private static final String PROP_FILE="myConfig.properties";
	public void readPropertiesFile(){
       try{
		InputStream is = ReadValues.class.getResourceAsStream(PROP_FILE);
		Properties prop = new Properties();
        prop.load(is);
		String directory = prop.getProperty("Directory");
        String numberOfFiles = prop.getProperty("NumberOfFiles");
		String  fileExtension = prop.getProperty("Extension");
        is.close();

	  /* code to use values read from the file*/
       }catch(Exception e){
         System.out.println("Failed to read from " + PROP_FILE + " file.");
       }
   }
  }

The code is quite simple and self explanatory. Let me know if you have any questions.

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4 Comments . Apr 08, 2008
Filed under: Java
Tags: Java

Published by Zaheer

Want to find out how much does your blog worth? Just go to DNScoop.com and get your answer. DNScoop.com estimates the dollar value of an established domain name. Its estimation is based on several factors including

• Links pointing to the domain
• Popularity of the domain
• Age of the domain
• Pagerank of the domain
• Traffic to the domain

Although the estimated value is just that, an estimate, it can give you a good indicator of how much to expect if you sell your domain. This tool can also be used to estimate the price of established domain name you are interested in buying before you make an offer. Think of it as domain name’s blue book (like Kelly’s Blue book).
So go ahead and check your blog or URL’s worth.
Share with us what you think of this tool.

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1 Comment . Apr 02, 2008
Filed under: Blogging

Published by Zaheer

Today I stumbled upon an excellent WordPress plugin. It is called CommentLuv. This plugin rewards the visitors who leave comments on your posts with backlinks to their recent posts. This is an excellent way to encourage your visitors to leave comments on your post. It is a win-win situation for you and the visitors. You get a more engaged visitors and they get the chance to promote their latest posts and get a deep link to their posts.

The plugin is very easy to use. Just download the zip file, extract and upload the plugin file to your wp-content/plugins directory, and activate the plugin.
Once the plugin is activated , it adds a check box with following text beneath the comment text box on each post:

“Enable CommentLuv which will try and get your last blog post, please be patient while it finds it for you.”

The checkbox is selected by default. If the commentator enables the CommentLuv the plugin will visit the feed of the comment author and inserts a link to his/her last post under the comment. Really terrific!

Try it now by leaving a comment below.

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5 Comments . Mar 25, 2008
Filed under: Blogging
Tags: commentluv, plugin

Published by Zaheer

Image credit:Kelly Sims

To become a successful blogger is not difficult but the success does not come overnight. You have to be patient and persistent. Remember the 3Ds for success. Desire, determination and dedication. If you have the desire, dedication and the determination to be a good and successful blogger then you have nothing to worry about. Infact, blogging is quite simple but it needs some discipline to be a successful blogger. Following are some simple tips that can make blogging stress-free and make you a better blogger.

• Set goals and work to acheive them:

  This is the most important tip of all. Set your short and long term goals. Write them down on a piece of paper and keep the paper where you can see it regularly. It is a well known fact that people with written goals achieve more in life than the people without any goal. Some examples, where you want to see your blog in next few months, what you want to accomplish today, how many subscribers would you like to have by next month? Make sure you do some activity daily that leads towards your goals. Plan regularly for both short and long term goals and monitor your progress towards your goals.
  Read more…

  Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

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  Post a comment . Mar 14, 2008
  Filed under: Blogging

Published by Zaheer

Photo credit: AMagill

Ever since I started placing AdSense units in my posts I have been getting emails from readers asking me how I position my ads in the right hand corner of my posts. So I decided to share this information in a post rather than explaining it over and over in individual emails.

To position the ads in my post I use CSS float property. I’ll show you how you can display the ads on either left or right side within in your post.

Steps to ‘float’ ad unit to right side in your post:

• In your post type
  <div style=”margin: 0 0 10px 10px; display: block; float: right”>
• Copy your AdSense script.
• Close the div with </div>

The float:right property will move the ad to the right side. To push the content away from the left and bottom sides of the ad I added 10px for bottom and left margins.
Example:
<div style=”margin: 0 0 10px 10px; display: block; float: right”>
Your Google AdSense Script
</div>

Place ads on the left side:

If you want to float your ad unit to the left side of your post change CSS style to this

<div style=”margin: 0 10px 10px 0; display: block; float: left” >

Again we are using margins to add white space . We still have bottom maring of 10px but now instead of left margin we are using right margin of 10px to push the content away from the ad.

Example:
<div style=”margin: 0 10px 0 0; display: block; float: left” >
Your Google Script
</div>
This approach of embedding CSS styles within posts has one serious drawback. Read more…

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Post a comment . Mar 06, 2008
Filed under: Blogging

Published by Zaheer

photo credit: aussiegall

Continuing with our JavaScript regular expression series today we will discuss JavaScript regular expression to validate U.S phone number. Previously we talked about validating email , Social Security number and zip code using JS regex.

In today’s post I’ll show you how to use JavaScript regular expression to validate U.S phone number.

Although in this article we are discussing U.S phone number format I am sure this can be applied to other phone number formats with little or no change.

Let’s begin by looking at the JavaScript code.

function validatePhoneNumber(elementValue){
var phoneNumberPattern = /^\(?(\d{3})\)?[- ]?(\d{3})[- ]?(\d{4})$/;
return phoneNumberPattern.test(elementValue);
}

Explanation:

The argument to this method is the phone number you want to validate.

In the method body we define a variable (’phoneNumberPattern’) and assign a regular expression to it.

Phone Number format: The regular expression for phone number is Read more…

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Post a comment . Feb 28, 2008
Filed under: Javascript
Tags: Javascript, RegEx, Regular Expression

Published by Zaheer

Folks I am very excited to inform you that with all your votes zParacha.com is now in the final of the iBlogCup. 64 blogs participated and now we have two best blogs competing for the cup.

Thank you all who voted for me during this competition. It was a very good contest and some very good blogs were nominated for this competition. Now is your chance to vote for the best blog. I request you to spare few more minutes and vote for me in the final round. The polls close at midnight 02/27/2008 (Wednesday). Don’t delay vote today! Just click here and cast your vote now.

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Post a comment . Feb 26, 2008
Filed under: Blogging
Tags: , iBlogCup