Best Alternatives for Paypal

Payal is a good service but there are few downfalls in Paypal that would make you look for alternatives. Paypal has very high fees and some countries are not accepted to receive money, in my case it's Sri Lanka.
Following are two services I use effectively to do online transactions.

Moneybookers

Low fees and accept many countries including Sri Lanka. Instant money transfers, you only need the email. You can withdraw money to your local bank account anywhere (Bank wire). You can use its API or gateway to accept credit card payment in your site.
Trusted by many companies like:

www.getafreelancer.com
www.skype.com
www.ige.com





AlertPay

Similar to moneybookers, low fees and trusted by many.
money.cnn.com paypal alternatives

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How to find a good hosting company

There are lot of hosting providers out there giving lot of promises (Like politicians). It's actually very hard to find a 100% good web hosting provider but you can look for common good points. Here are some points I look for,

• 24/7 support (Chat or Phone).
  
• No long term contract (I look for monthly billing).
  
• Provide more than shared hosting service (Reseller and Dedicated).
  
• Look for user reviews in webhostinggeeks.com
  
• Reasonable price (Too low means there are hidden fees or long contract)

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Find who is not following you back in Twitter

friendorfollow.com is a great free service where you can find which friends are not following you back in twitter.
This is a good tool if you have lot of friends in twitter.
There is a limitation after 2000 followings in twitter so it's important that people you follow will follow you back.

Who follow you back

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Blogger profile user views not updated (profile count)

I recently found out that my blogger profile views stop updating. When searched for the problem I found out that it is not a bug.

It seems like Blogger team had high traffic problems logging each and every profile count. Some people try to manipulate the views by automated scripts since the count is increased in every profile page load which puts unwanted heavy load in the server.

Now they give a estimated count of profile views, I don't know how they estimate it but look likes my count is not increasing for a long time now.

You can find more info from the Blogger help group.
http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help-troubleshoot/browse_frm/thread/96d9f89eb4774fba#

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Twitter over capacity in specific times

Sometimes when I try to access twitter between 12.00 AM - 4.00 AM in Sri Lankan time (12.00 PM - 4.00 PM US time) I get this page Twitter over capacity.
The strange thing is that it happens all the time in this time period. wonder why so much overwhelming traffic comes at that time.
Hope they fix it soon. It's really annoying to see this page over and over again.

Anyway nice page design and convey the message in a creative way.

https://twitter.com/movie_catcher

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Alternatives for Microsoft Office Excel Spreadsheet

Microsoft Office Excel is a pretty good software but it comes with a price tag.
So is there any Free alternative for Excel. Luckily there are some tools freely available to replace Excel Spreadsheet.

OpenOffice.org Calc (spreadsheet)

Freely available for download by OpenOffice.org Lot features similar to Excel.



Google Docs Spreadsheet

Freely available to any one who has a Gmail account. The best thing is that it's available online to you anytime anywhere.



http://docs.google.com

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Taare Zameen Par - Reflect the soul of everyone

It's rarely I get a tear in my eye watching a movie. but this Hindi movie Taare Zameen Par gave tears to my eyes throughout the whole movie.
I wonder why it's so emotionally touched me. maybe I see a reflection of myself in that little boy. The neglection and hunger for freedom. People always misunderstand or really don't care about you.

Making money is the predefined priority assigned by the society and you are almost helpless to follow what ever your heart desire. However I have seen very few people pursuit their know hearts.

As a final note I can only say to watch this film.

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Can you stop support for IE 6 when designing web sites

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) has been realesed by Microsft recently and IE 7 was there for sometime now.
Does this mean that we can stop support for IE 6 when we design web sites.
IE 6 has many bugs that make web developer's life a living hell.
Sadly we cannot stop support since majority of people still use IE 6.
According to StatCounter Global Stats 24.22% users all around the world use IE6 (01 Jul 2008 to 17 Apr 2009).

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Browser Version Market Share

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Google Analytics cannot see the full url of referrer

It's too bad that by using a tool like Google Analytics you cannot get the full url of referrer. It only gives the main url.
That means if you really get a hit from www.example.com/page.html you will only see the www.example.com in your stat. They should fix this or I don't see any point of using Google Analytics.
If you are using cPanel there is a tool called Awstats, you can find lot of information about the site traffic using that tool, maybe the best guide for a site.

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Host Gator Web Hosting 20% Off April Coupon Code

For the month of April HostGator.com has a 20% off on all of there web hosting solutions including Reseller Hosting and Dedicated Hosting.
Host Gator is a reliable, supportive and has won many Award for Web Hosting.

Coupon Code: SPRING

www.hostgator.com

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flv2mp3.com - flv to mp3 converter

flv2mp3.com is a free service which will convert any flv or flash file you have to a mp3 file.
You can upload or give a url of a website that has the flv you need (Ex: Youtube)
With few easy steps and your file will be ready for instant download or to email.
You can upload a file up to 100MB in size and you will get good audio quality.

www.flv2mp3.com

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howitshouldhaveended.com - How It Should Have Ended

howitshouldhaveended.com is one super cool site who creates funny clips about movies and how should they end. It targets mostly the movie's dumb parts.

Take look at these clips they have made,

How Lord of The Rings Should Have Ended



How Texas Chainsaw Massacre Should Have Ended



How Beowulf Should Have Ended



How The Matrix Should Have Ended



How Underworld Should Have Ended



www.howitshouldhaveended.com

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serprank.com - Free Privacy Policy Generator

Do you find it difficult to create a meaningful privacy policy as a adsense publisher? Then try using this free tool offered by serprank.com
You can easily Generate Privacy Policies for using,

1. Google Adsense
   
2. Commission Junction
   
3. Adbrite
   
4. Widget Bucks
   
5. Kontera
   
6. Clickbank
   
7. Azoogle
   
8. Chitika
   
9. Linkshare
   
10. Amazon
    

http://serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/index.php

serprank.com also offer other free services like,

• Search engine results page (SERP) Rank check
  
• Check Google Pagerank, Alexa Rank and Backlinks 
  
• Check Link Popularity
  

www.serprank.com

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Sinhala and Tamil New Year 2009

Sinhala Aluth Avurudu will dawn on April 14th 2009 at 00:47
Every Sri Lankan will shop for new cloths and prepare for one of the most celebrated days in Sri Lankan calender.

Avurudu Chariththra (Customs & Rituals)

Ahara Piseema (Starting to prepare meals) - April 14th 2009 at 05:05 AM

Weda Alleema ha Ganudenu Kirreema (Starting Work and exchanging gifts), Aahara Anubavaya kireema (Taking Meals) - April 14th 2009 at 5:50 AM

Hisa thel Gaama (Applying oil on to the head) - April 15th 2009 at 7:32 AM

Raki raksha shadhaha pitath wima (Leaving to work) - April 16th 2009 at 6:19 AM or April 20th 2009 at 6:28 AM

Suba Aluth Aurudhak Wewa!!!

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fmderana.lk - FM Derana (Derana Radio)

I don't know weather we need more radio stations in Sri Lanka. Anyway Derana TV has recently launched a new FM radio station called FM Derana. I think it's a 24 hour service mainly targeting young crowd.
You can listen to it online by visiting FM Derana website.

Areas covered (When writing this post)

Colombo 94.5
Ruhuna 102.3
Uva 95.8
Udarata 99.2
Rajarata 92.4

www.fmderana.lk

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South Park New SEASON 13

I waited so long for South Park SEASON 13.
At last SEASON 13, Episode 1 (The Ring) was aired on March 11, 2009.
South Park is one of my all time favorite cartoon. With recession and unemployment in USA, South Park team will have lot of things to criticize with dark humor.

You can watch full episodes free from the south park website. But there is a freeze period usually I think one month, that means you can watch the full episode free after one month from original air date.

www.southparkstudios.com

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What some people think about Sinhala Unicode

Recently I had a chat with a person who runs a bit popular website in Sri Lanka (Related to music). Some part of his site had some special characters, usually you see them because the relevant font is not installed in my computer. I asked him why he's not using Sinhala Unicode. He gave these two reasons.

1) Most people do not have Sinhala Unicode installed, most of them have some popular Sinhala font, So changing to Unicode will cost me valuable traffic.

I said installing Sinhala Unicode is pretty easy. Then he gave me the second reason.

2) Installing Unicode is too technical for most people even though you could do it easily. For example you need service pack 2 to install Sinhala Unicode but some have service pack 1 and 3, He also added that most of the time Installing first time does not work, you need to try more than once.

I don't know how true these points are, I find it pretty easy to install the Sinhala Unicode. However I feel that Microsoft need to preinstall Sinhala Unicode into the systems in the future version so there will be no issue in the future.

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Is my computer infected with Conficker virus/worm ?

confickerworkinggroup.org has come up with a simple yet effective tool (Conficker Eye Chart) to check weather your computer is infected with this dangerous Conficker worm (aka: Downandup, Downup, Conflicker, Kido). You can find more details about this worm in confickerworkinggroup.org

Conficker Eye Chart

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BridesofSriLanka.com - For Sri Lankan Brides

Wedding day is the most important day of a girl's life (Most of them). They usually day dream about it from a very young age.
Sadly Sri Lankan brides do not have lot of information available for them to plan it glamorously.
BridesofSriLanka.com is a site where you can get lot of information on planning your wedding and save lot of money.
They also sell Brides Of Sri Lanka bi monthly Magazine.
I don't know how good they are but I think it's worth checking out.

www.bridesofsrilanka.com

(Wedding in Sri Lanka)

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Online tools similar to Photoshop

I will share two fantastic image editing websites that can replace your photoshop software. These sites are free to use, No installation needed, No registration needed. Do everything using your browser. You will be amazed to see how many tool panels they offer to do image manipulation.

picnik.com



www.picnik.com

splashup.com



www.splashup.com

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New favorite: Serenity Dies - Hollow Lives

After sometime I have a new favorite song. This band is not popular internationally but they should be, They got the talent. Serenity Dies is a Maldivian metal band, I first heard about them from TNL radio website.



Music in this song is super awesome and Lyrics are pretty good too.

Serenity Dies - Hollow Lives Lyrics

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smashingmagazine.com - Web Designer's Information Heaven

If you are a web designer or a developer Smashing Magazine is a must to read.
When I found this website I was greatly surprised by the wealth of information they give a way for web designers and developers for FREE. You should really check this out. I highly recommend that you subscribe to their feed. They usually post 1 article per day and believe me they are really good.



http://www.smashingmagazine.com

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