Celebrating 3000 hours of Quality Service Provided through oDesk

oDesk is a great place to work with International Clients all over the World. I have been providing IT services through oDesk. Today, I really feel happy to celebrate my success in Odesk. I have crossed the milestone of 3000 hours of Quality Service provided through oDesk. At the same time my company “Catch Internet” crossed the 2900 hours in just a year.

In Odesk, I especially work as an WordPress Expert. I have developed and customized WordPress Themes and Plugins. I have even worked in HTML/CSS, SEO and Web Security.

I would like to thank Odesk, My Clients, Associates, Family and Friends for supporting me to achieve this success.

My Odesk Profile

My Odesk Profile

Getting Results Using Online Workplace

Getting Results From Crowds

Getting Results From Crowds

Today I will be talking about how we can work online and get the result that we want as a service provider. Working online also known as Crowdsourcing or Outsourcing is very popular both in developing and developed countries. Now a days, you will see many freelancers and even the companies use the Crowdsourcing platform to get the projects and become successful. There are lot of opportunities as day by day the top companies are using Crowdsourcing to get their job done in low price but with the good quality. The another advantage of Crowdsourcing is that you can tap the resources from all around the World.

There are various site offering the platform to work online. Some of the popular online Agencies that you can use to post the job or get the job are as below:

I have been working as online Crowdsourcing service provider from last 5 Years. I would like to provide few basic advice to build great relationship with your clients and become successful Crowdsourcing provider.

My Case Study Published in Getting Results From Crowds Book

My Case Study Published in Getting Results From Crowds Book

  • Don’t Make Fake Promises: This is the most important point to remember to build the trust and relationship with your client. You should tell your clients about your strength and weaknesses. Don’t take the project which doesn’t fit in your skills set. You are not a superman who knows everything and can do any task. We all are normal human being who has set of expertise skills. So, just work on that.
  • Communication and Time Management: Ensure good communication and Time Management which quick responses, fixed delivery dates and effective task management is very important.
  • Online Availability: You need to be online using various tools such as Skype, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo and others as required to let your client know that you are available if there is any urgent issues. This bridge the gap of distance and trust as in corwdsourcing the client is always far from our physical reach.
  • Build Relationship: Working online, Communication, Time Management, Task Management are very important to make the work smooth in crowdsourcing. But it is very necessary to build good relationship with your clients to maintain long terms and ongoing relationship. This means that you need to be friendly and also talk about various personal and business matters. Which will bridge the gap from being unknown person to become the trustable and friendly person.
  • Build a Clean Resume and Showcase the Portfolio: You need to build a clean resume and showcase the portfolio. To add up you can use the testimonials and feedback from your previous clients.

Further Reading: Getting Results From Crowds: This book provides provides practical, pragmatic, clear guidance on how you can draw on the power of crowds to grow your business. Filled with real-life case studies and useful examples, it gives you everything you need to know to create success in a world where talent can be anywhere.

Thanks for taking time to read this article and I hope you all will be benefited from this. You can also read my Case Study in this Book. Just take a note about my advices but make your own good strategy of winning. All the best and Happy Crowdsourcing.

Redirect WordPress Feeds To FeedBurner Using Action Hook

Redirect WordPress Feeds To FeedBurner using Action Hook:
You can use this simple snippet in your function.php to redirect your WordPress feeds to Feedburner. If you try to go to http://sakinshrestha.com/feed, you will be redirected to FeedBurner’s feeds for Sakin Shrestha.

Just open funtion.php file which is located in your theme directory. You can simply add the following snippet in function.php to redirect your WordPress Feed to Feedburner.

//Redirect WordPress Feeds To FeedBurner
add_action('template_redirect', 'ci_rss_redirect');
function ci_rss_redirect() {
if ( is_feed() && !preg_match('/feedburner|feedvalidator/i', $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])){
header('Location: http://feeds.feedburner.com/sakinshrestha');
header('HTTP/1.1 302 Temporary Redirect');
}
}

In the above code you just need to replace http://feeds.feedburner.com/sakinshrestha with the FeedBurner URL.

There are other methods as well. For this you can Read More

TimThumb Script vulnerability issue in WordPress Themes & Plugins

Recently, lot of WordPress Themes and Plugins are open to the vulnerability found in the older version of TimThumb script that has been used by most of the popular themes and plugin. Exploiting this vulnerability an attacker can upload and excute a PHP file of his choice on a vulnerable website.

TimThumb is a “A small php script for cropping, zooming and resizing web images (jpg, png, gif). Perfect for use on blogs and other applications.“

You can download the fixed version (v1.34) from the TimThumb project page (http://code.google.com/p/timthumb/).

Read more

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple

My Inspiration and my best CEO ever, Steve Jobs has resigned from Apple yesterday 24th August 2011.  It a little bit sad to see him step over from the CEO but I think it’s the best decision to give opportunity to his successor Tim Cook as the new CEO of Apple .  Then best part I feel about the news is that he will still remain in Apple as the Chairman of Board. I think this line makes everyone feel good and secure about the future of Apple .

Letter from Steve Jobs to the Apple Board of Directors

Letter from Steve Jobs to the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community (Source: Apple.com)

 

Now it’s time to look where will Apple lead to with new leadership.  My Best wishes for the new CEO, Tim Cook . I look forward for better product, leadership and inspiration.

Click here to read the Apple Press Info of Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple.

Click Here to read Bios of Steve Jobs

Click Here to read Bios of Tim Cook.

 

 

Top Ten WordPress Plugins

Top Ten WordPress Plugins

Top Ten WordPress Plugins

I have been working as WordPress Developer from last 4 years. There are lot of plugins which makes it easy to add features in your WordPress Site. Previously, I also published articles where I listed my favorite plugins. Since, there is a grand list of plugins. Here I am just going to list top 10 plugins on the basis of stability and usefulness:

  1. Jetpack : It is a WordPress plugin that supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com. Features includes: Simple, concise stats with no additional load on your server. Previously provided by WordPress.com Stats. The WP.me URL shortener. Hovercard popups for your commenters via Gravatar. Easily embedded media from popular sites like YouTube, Digg, and Vimeo. For the Math geeks, a simple way to include beautiful mathematical expressions on your site. A widget for displaying recent tweets. Previously provided by Wickett Twitter Widget. Your readers can easily share your posts via email or their favorite social networks. Previously provided by the Sharedaddy WordPress plugin. Your writing will improve thanks to After the Deadline, an artificial intelligence based spell, style, and grammar checker. Previously provided by the After the Deadline WordPress plugin. The team is adding many more features.
  2. Akismet: Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen. Great spam protection. It is a must for the wordpress site.
  3. WP Page Numbers: Since there is no good page navigation is WordPress default installation. I recommend this plugin. With page numbers instead of next and previous links users can easily navigate much quicker to the page they want. It is good for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as well, because it creates a tighter inner link structure. Works with all well known browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari).
  4. Disqus Comment System: This is the best plugin for comment as of today. Previously, I recommended IntenseDebate Debate plugin. But the recent problem in it I go for Disqus Comment System
  5. WordPress SEO by Yoast: The latest and best SEO plugin for WordPress. This plugin also includes XML Sitemap, Breadcrumbs, Social Integration, Permalinks, RSS, Verify Webmaster Tool. I must may this plugin will soon replace the popular SEO plugin All in One SEO Pack.
  6. AddThis: Get more traffic back to your site by installing the AddThis WordPress plugin. With AddThis, your users can promote your content by sharing to 330 of the most popular social networking and bookmarking sites (like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon and MySpace). We also support address bar sharing in modern browsers. Our button is small, unobtrusive, quick to load and recognized all over the web.
  7. Google Sitemap Generator: How can I forget the Google XML Sitemap plugin. This plugin is must for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently. The plugin supports all kinds of WordPress generated pages as well as custom URLs. Additionally it notifies all major search engines every time you create a post about the new content.
  8. Contact Form 7: Very simple, flexible and easy to use contact form for your wordpress site. Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on. You can use Really Simple CAPTCHA plugin is not a strong captcha for advance protection but it is simple and easy to use captcha that goes well with Contact Form 7.
  9. NextGEN Gallery: Complete solution for your images. NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option. Before I start writing the plugin I study all photo and picture plugins for WordPress, I figure out that some of them are really good and well designed, but I missed a simple and easy administration back end to handle multiple photos, galleries and albums.
  10. W3 Total Cache : The fastest and most complete WordPress performance optimization plugin. Trusted by many popular sites like: mashable.com, smashingmagazine.com, makeuseof.com, kiss925.com, lockergnome.com, tutsplus.com, johnchow.com, ilovetypography.com, webdesignerdepot.com, pearsonified.com, css-tricks.com, yoast.com and others — W3 Total Cache improves the user experience of your blog by improving your server performance, caching every aspect of your site, reducing the download time of your theme and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.

If you want the complete list of My Favorites WordPress Plugins then Click Here

Power up your WordPress with wp-config.php

I have just published the article title “Power up your WordPress with wp-config.php” in Catch Internet. I have pointed out 20 lists to power up your WordPress site with wp-config.php

wp-config.php is the most powerful and important file in your WordPress installation without which WordPress simply won’t work. With the basic setting like configuring the database with default setting is enough for basic WordPress installation.
But there are lot other cool thinks like improving security, performance and functionality.

Read more

The Great Himalaya Trail

Visit  The Great Himalaya Trail. Here goes brief introduction to the site taken from http://www.thegreathimalayatrail.org/about/

The Great Himalaya Trail

The Great Himalaya Trail

Great Himalaya Trail is a network of existing trails which together form one of the longest and highest walking trails in the world.

Winding beneath the world’s highest peaks and visiting some of the most remote communities on earth, it passes through lush green valleys, arid high plateaus and incredible landscapes. Nepal’s GHT has 10 sections comprising a network of upper and lower routes, each offering you something different, be it adventure and exploration, authentic cultural experiences, or simply spectacular Himalayan nature.

Great Himalaya Trail Stylised Map Poster

Image by http://www.thegreathimalayatrail.org/

Download fullscreen PDF of this map poster (1.1MB)

The 1700km Nepal section of the trail begins near Kanchenjunga on the eastern border and heads west navigating the domains of eight of the world’s 8000m peaks, from the beautiful but lesser-known Makalu to the famous Everest. It is not the easiest nor most direct route across Nepal, rather a route through the Greater Himalaya. The Nepal section ends either in Humla on the Tibetan border.

The route offers an incredible diversity in terms of landscapes, flora & fauna, people and culture: from snow leopards to red pandas; from sub-tropical jungle to fragile high-altitude eco-systems; from the famous Sherpas, to Shamanism, to the ancient Bön Buddhist culture of Humla.

National Geographic Adventure Magazine‘s Jame’s Vlahos observes, “Nepal’s mountains are minimally developed, but they offer a wealth of trade and pilgrimage routes. The GHT elegantly connects these existing paths without blazing a single new trail.”

The Nepal section is part of a longer alpine adventure traversing the spine of the Himalaya from Bhutan to Pakistan. These sections are currently being researched, trekked and documented. There still is a a lot of Great Himalaya Trail exploring yet to be done!

Nepal is a poor country and tourism contributes an important 4% of GDP. However this is concentrated, as far as trekking is concerned, in the 3 most popular areas of Solo Khumbu (Everest) region, Annapurna region and Langtang.

By trekking away from the beaten trail, you will making a direct difference to communities in these areas by spending money on food, accommodation or services such as guides, porters and cooks.

Many people come to Nepal to get away from the crowds and to seek adventure. That is more than possible in Nepal.
While not everybody will have the time or resources to attempt the whole route, it is possible to walk sections or do short treks in the areas the GHT passes. There are many more places to visit in Nepal that just Annapurna, Everest or Langtang, beautiful as they are and we hope to bring further information about these possibilities.

The Myth of Record-High Gold

“Gold sets record high amid economic fears,” The Associated Press recently wrote. “Gold surges to record high,” CNN said. Gold closed Monday “at a record $1,402.80 per troy ounce,” the front page of The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

It’s a good story. Unfortunately, it’s not true, at least not in any meaningful sense. Continue reading

How to Enable Multiple Site Network Option in WordPress 3.0

We have been hearing about the Multi-Site feature in WordPress 3.0. This doesn’t come by default and to activate this feature you need to configure it in your wp-config.php file.

In this article I am going to tell you how you can enable the Network settings option to enable multi-site feature in WordPress 3.0.

Step 1: Go to the wordpress root directory and open wp-config.php file.
Step 2: Add the following code and save the file
define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);
Step 3: Go to your WordPress Dashboard and now you can see “Network” added in your Tools options. This mean you have successfully enable multiple site Network option in WordPress 3.0
Step 4: To add Click on Network under Tools Options and fill in the details and install it