The Seven Best WordPress Alternatives

Once upon a time, blogging platforms like WordPress were only used for blogging. Now, WordPress is commonly implemented for easy, user-friendly website design. But these days, WordPress isn’t the only game out there.

Below are the best established and up-and-coming WordPress alternatives, both for blogging and websites.

WordPress Alternatives
1. IM Creator
IM Creator bills itself as “a simple & elegant website builder,” and includes mobile-friendly templates that are a far cry from the early days of WordPress templates, which were flat, clunky and difficult to customize. Templates fall into categories like Architect, Wedding, Hotel and Restaurant and use visual imagery that fit each genre.


The site offers ample support, including “how to” articles and manuals for those wanting a bit more technical detail but who, perhaps, don’t have that level of knowledge.

And while designing a site is free, IM Creator also offers white-label services for companies (marketing agencies, as an example) that want to provide their clients with branded website, hosting, email and domain services.

2. SilverStripe

SilverStripe is actually two animals. Its content management system (CMS) is used for building websites, intranets and Web applications. It is open source, which means, of course, it’s free to use.



For most small business owners, that’s all you’ll need from SilverStripe. But if you’re more technical and looking for more complexity in your content management system, its Framework platform might fit the bill. The benefits of using Framework, according to the website are that it “reduces the overhead associated with common programming tasks, and enables developers to write code in a logical and structured manner.”

3. Tumblr
Tumblr is designed for blogging and social sharing. Stripping away all the scary backend of a blog platform, Tumblr makes it dead simple to share a blog post, video, photo, link or audio file.

Its simplicity, combined with the fact that users spend on average 154 minutes a day on Tumblr, make it a resource worth considering to reach a wider audience (especially if that audience is between 18 and 34 and male).
4. Google Sites
For those die-hard Google fans, Google Sites offers a simple, no-frills solution to website creation. If you’re looking for fancy marketing copy and rich, visual images, you’re in the wrong place. Google assumes if you’ve stumbled upon its unpublicized Sites page, you’re already accustomed to the spartan attitude that is Google.

The templates aren’t frou-frou, but there are interesting add-ons like maps and blogs (using Google properties, naturally).
5. Blogger

Another Google property, this one focused on blog development, is Blogger. Consider it Google’s response to the massive popularity of WordPress. An obvious benefit of staying in the Google family is that Blogger uses Google Analytics without having to visit a separate site entirely.


Blogger, whose hosted blogs are all hosted on Blogspot domains, also ties in seamlessly with Google+, as would be expected. Bloggers can view and respond to blog comments through Google+ rather than having to log into the blog backend. AdSense publishers like Blogger because Google’s ad platform is integrated into the blogging platform.
6. GetHiFi

Unlike the other WordPress alternatives listed here, HiFi is more targeted to the small marketing agency who designs or updates websites for its clients. It still requires a designer and/or a programmer to customize its visually rich templates, but after that, anyone, technical or otherwise, can easily update content through the CMS

HiFi promises that, even if you don’t know what SEO (search engine optimization) stands for, it can help ensure your site is search engine friendly. If you do know what SEO is, you can edit the meta descriptions yourself, which is easy enough to do.
7. Ghost

Consider Ghost the antithesis to WordPress in that it removes the clunkiness (“What do I do with this plugin? No idea.”) that many less technical bloggers experience with WordPress and focuses instead on writing and publishing.

The premise is that bloggers can write in Markdown, a text-to-HTML conversion tool, and see a preview of what the post will look like.

Interestingly, the platform is free, but Ghost charges for its server. In fact, Ghost charges based on the number of blogs, as well as the total traffic of all blogs (one blog with 10,000 or fewer views a month is $5 monthly).

* * * * *

Bottom line: With more blogging and WordPress alternatives available, it’s easier for small businesses to find exactly what they’re looking for, based on their technical skill level, how much support they need, budget and type of site they want to publish. There are alternatives for those who want more of a blog approach (Blogger) to those who want more of a website presentation (IM Creator).

Source from: http://smallbiztrends.com

Posted by Unknown 8:29 AM 0 comments

How To: Check If Someone Is Using Your Wi-Fi

There are many reasons why you'd want to check if an unauthorized party is using your wireless network. It may be that you're experiencing a slower than normal Internet connection or you simply don't want anyone getting a free ride while you pay the bill. Of course, there are also security implications if this person can somehow access files on your network, and even legal implications if he uses your connection for piracy or other illicit activities.

Whatever the case it's better to stay on the safe side. Many of you may have already taken some basic precautions when setting up your wireless network and know your way around troubleshooting these issues. This brief guide is aimed mostly at novice users in need a hand to find out if, indeed, their Wi-Fi is being stolen.

Check the devices associated with your router
The first thing you need to do is login to your router's administrative console by typing its IP address directly into the browser address bar -- typically 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 depending on which router you have. If you don't know your router's default address check out this guide or simply go to the command prompt (Start > Run/Search for cmd) and enter ipconfig. The address you need should be next to Default Gateway under your Local Area Connection.
Alternatively, if you are on a Mac, you can find the default address by going to Network under System Preferences. It should be listed right next to "Router:" if you are using Ethernet, or by clicking on "Advanced…" and heading to the "TCP/IP" tab if you are using Wi-Fi. Next, point your browser to that address and enter your login details -- if you haven't changed the default settings it should be a combination of "admin" and "password" or blank fields. Here's a default username and password list (PDF) you might find useful, but we recommend you change this afterwards.
Once inside your router's administrative console look for a section related to connected devices or wireless status. In my old DIR-655 from D-Link it's available under Status > Wireless but you'll find it as "Attached Devices" in Netgear routers, under DHCP Clients Table on Linksys routers, "Device List" if you are using the Tomato firmware, and so on.



This should provide a table with the IP, MAC address and other details of every device currently connected to the router. Check that list against your gear to find any intruders. You can find out the MAC/IP address of your computers by going to the Command Prompt again and entering 'ipconfig /all'. The MAC address will be shown as the physical address. I'll let you figure it out for mobile devices like smartphones and media players since I can't possibly list all options.
Taking action
The best and simplest solution is to set up a strong password using WPA2 or WPA -- WEP is very easy to crack so avoid that if possible. There are some other methods you can use to beef up security, like switching off the SSID broadcast (which prevents it from advertising the name of your network to nearby Wi-Fi devices) or setup a filter for allowed or blocked devices by MAC address. It won't stop the most determined intruder but it will slow him down.
That should be more than enough for most users but if you need to actually track down who's been breaking into your network it's possible to pinpoint his physical location using a tool called MoocherHunter. You'll need to burn a Live CD to boot your laptop with and walk around to track down unauthorized wireless clients. According to the program's description, it detects traffic sent across the network and can find the source within 2 meters accuracy.
Needless to say, we're not suggesting you take matters into your own hands, but it might come in handy if someone is getting you in trouble with authorities using your network for illegal purposes -- or simply to have a cool story to tell.

Bonus: Profit by setting up a paid Wi-Fi hotspot
If it doesn't bother you to have someone piggybacking on your connection you might as well get something in return, right? Chillifire is a good third-party firmware alternative if you want to run a public hotspot, as it allows you to offer for-pay or free Internet access points from your consumer router. Alternatively, you can get a Fonera router, which gives you free roaming at Fon Spots worldwide in return for sharing a little bit of your WiFi at home.

Source from:http://www.techspot.com/

Posted by Unknown 5:35 PM 0 comments

FEATURES HARDWARE How to Reduce Your Monthly Wireless Bill: 12 Useful Tips

Wireless providers thrive on peddling a myriad of extra features and services on top of your basic service plan. Early nights and weekends, roadside assistance, mobile TV, hotspots and GPS are all fair game and can add anywhere between a couple of bucks to $10 or more to your wireless bill each month, per service.
What’s even more concerning is that many people don’t even look at their monthly bill. Checking your bill and eliminating some of these unnecessary perks can go a long way to putting some extra dough back in your pocket each month. Here are 12 ideas to help cutting back on your wireless cell and data plan:

1.Use Wi-Fi whenever possible.
A most obvious tip yet equally rewarding as well... using Wi-Fi whenever possible will help cut down on data usage, especially when streaming music or video to your smartphone. I realize that some may disable Wi-Fi when not in use due to extra battery drain but forgetting to turn it back on could be a financial mistake if you don’t have an increasingly rare unlimited data plan. Just use caution when submitting sensitive information over public hotspots and you should be fine.

2.Negotiate a lower rate.

Despite what you’ve probably been taught, everything is negotiable. Your mileage here will vary but you’ll never know unless you ask. This usually works best in person at your local authorized retailer, but deals can be arranged over the phone as well. One way to segue into a negotiation is threatening to take your business elsewhere. I had one wireless carrier offer me a high-end phone free of charge if I agreed to sign another contract. Normally I would have had to pay $200 for said phone but I got it free simply by mentioning I was interested in another carrier.

3.Ask for corporate / organization / educational discounts.
Thousands of companies, organizations and educational institutions have partnerships in place with wireless carriers to offer discounts to employees, members and students. The problem is that most people don’t know about these as wireless providers don’t exactly advertise them front and center.

Most simply require you to enter your organizational or school e-mail address to see if you qualify. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon all have discount pages for your convenience. I’ve personally seen discounts range from 10 percent to as much as 25 percent.

4.Evaluate wireless data usage
True unlimited data is a rare commodity these days. As smartphones became more widespread, carriers quickly realized they could make more on average by charging less for fixed data packages and banking on the notion that at least some would go over their data allotment and have to purchase additional data at a much higher rate each month.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are those of us that are grandfathered into comparatively expensive unlimited data plans that don’t need to be. I was a perfect example of this not too long ago. After analyzing my data usage over the past two years, I realized I never once exceeded 2GB on any given month. For me, it made more sense financially to drop the expensive unlimited plan in exchange for a cheaper 2GB plan.

5.Buy off-contract / used phones.
If you aren’t obsessed with owning the latest and greatest phone, you can save yourself a lot of money by purchasing an off-contract phone or even better, a used handset from eBay or Craigslist. While most Apple products tend to hold their value over time, you can find some fantastic deals on an array of Android handsets if you spend a little time digging around.

But before you go shelling out money on a deal that seems too good to be true, there are a few things to be aware of. It’s entirely possible that a second-hand phone could have a bad ESN / MEID / IMEI, which would render it useless. This can happen for any number of reasons such as if the device was reported lost or stolen, if it’s still active on the original owner’s account, or if money is owned on the account to which the device is tied to.

Additionally, if your wireless provider doesn’t provide an off-contract discount, there’s no reason to take advantage of off-contract phones. AT&T, for example, rolls their carrier subsidy into the price of service each month. Even after you’ve “paid” for your smartphone, you’re still being charged that same hidden fee each month.

6.Avoid early upgrade plans.
Early upgrade plans for AT&T, T-mobile and Verizon may seem like a great idea at first glance – get a new phone every six months or one year – but once you do the math, they are little more than a rip-off phone rental service. If you haven’t done so already, I’d encourage you to read over my previous analysis of these programs and save yourself a ton of money over the long haul.

7.Consider alternative carriers / pre-paid.
The big four are responsible for providing the majority of wireless service in the US but there are alternatives. Regional carriers like C Spire and U.S. Cellular are great places to start your search if they provide service in your area. Optionally, pre-paid carriers like Virgin Mobile, MetroPCS and Aio Wireless all piggyback off the major providers’ networks (usually Sprint). It’s not uncommon to find a great deal here but be sure to read the fine print as some carriers don’t offer high-speed 4G LTE just yet.

8.Consider a family plan if you are paying for multiple lines.
If you are paying for more than one line of service, a family plan is certainly worth looking into. Most plans allow you to add an additional line for as low as $9.99 each and the more lines you add, the more you save overall. The savings sure beat paying for lines individually but take note of what each carrier offers. While some provide unlimited packages, others rely on a shared pool of minutes or data which could present a problem if you have a talkaholic or data hog in the family.
9.Use the same carrier as friends and family.

If a family plan isn’t in the cards, perhaps the next best thing is to sign up with a carrier that the majority of your friends and family use. Most carriers offer free in-network calling and texting to other subscribers on their network. If the majority of the people you keep in touch with all use a certain carrier, you could save some by joining them and opting for a smaller bundle of voice minutes or text messages

10.Bundle services to save money.
Just as insurance companies offer multi-policy discounts, telecoms will throw a discount or two your way if you bundle multiple services under one account. It seems like every time I have to call Comcast, they offer me a bundle that includes Internet, voice and television at a discounted rate. The same type of deals can be had with AT&T, Verizon and probably several others I can’t think of at this time. As mentioned earlier, it never hurts to ask, especially if you have multiple services through different providers.

11.Use free texting apps.
Free texting apps like WhatsApp, TextMe, Viber, Nimbuzz and GroupMe have exploded in popularity over the past few years. Much like iMessage and BlackBerry Messenger, these services all use data to circumvent traditional text messaging delivery methods. This simply means messages sent using these programs count against your data plan (or nothing at all if on Wi-Fi) instead of a text messaging plan. If your friends and family are on the same programs you use, you could ditch your text messaging plan and save anywhere between $5 and $30 per month.

12.Utilize data compression apps.

Another method to extend the life of your capped data plan is to try a data compression app. One such example is the Onavo Extend app for Android, iPhone and iPad. Onavo Extend has garnered excellent reviews on both platforms though be aware that like Amazon's solution to speed up the Kindle browser and Opera, it works by directing all traffic through their servers to compress data. The app provides a breakdown of your data usage so you can see which apps are consuming the most and make more informed usage choices. Best of all, the app is free of charge.

source from:http://www.techspot.com/

Posted by Unknown 5:18 PM 0 comments

Best Cloud Storage Tools for 2015

The best cloud storage option for you will depend both on how much space you need and on how much you need to protect your files. If you work in a highly regulated field, such as financial services or health care, you should be willing to pay more for solutions that offer premium information security. If you’re a consumer or work for a company that doesn’t store a lot of sensitive information, convenience, cost-effectiveness, and storage capacity will matter more than strong security.

Safe cloud storage combines both encryption and server virtualization security. Let’s take a look at your five best options for personal and business cloud storage.

Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive: Big on Convenience

With solutions for both consumers and businesses, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive epitomize convenience and cost-effectiveness. The security disadvantage of all of these services is that they don’t encrypt files locally before transmitting them over the Internet. Your files do get encrypted once they reach the storage location, but they’re not encrypted from the moment you upload them. It’s not a big deal for most individuals and organizations, but it matters a lot if you deal with PCI or HIPAA.

Dropbox
Dropbox has support for more devices than any other cloud storage alternative, including support for Linux, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. For free accounts, Dropbox’s storage capacity is pretty measly: just 2 GB. You can earn more storage without paying by referring friends to Dropbox, setting up automatic camera uploads from your mobile phone, or linking Dropbox to social media accounts.

You can upgrade to Dropbox Pro, which for $9.99 per month or $99 per year, offers 1 TB of storage. Dropbox for Business provides 1 TB of secure cloud storage for companies at the cost of $150 per year per user.
OneDrive
OneDrive offers 15 GB of free storage, and you can earn an extra 5 GB by referring others to the service and 15 GB for backing up your camera roll. If you’re already an Office 365 user, you get 1 TB of OneDrive storage for free. OneDrive’s free version also allows you to set permissions when you share files, such as read-only or edit, something that’s only available in Dropbox’s Pro and Business versions.

Additional OneDrive storage, at 100GB, 200GB, and 1TB, costs $1.99, $2.99, and $6.99 per month, respectively. Keep in mind that Microsoft’s privacy protections are iffy; according to the terms of service, Microsoft can banish files that the company deems inappropriate.
Google Drive
Google Drive offers 15GB of free storage across all of its services, including Gmail, Google Apps, and Google Photos and Streams. If you already have a Google account, then you already have Google Drive available.

Google Drive lets you set permissions for shared files at no cost, but it only offer 128-bit encryption as opposed to the 256-bit encryption supplied by Dropbox. If you’re a Google Apps organization, you have 30GB of free Google Drive storage. You can purchase additional storage, with 1TB costing $9.99 per month.

SpiderOak and Tresorit: For Serious Security

Both SpiderOak and Tresorit have a “zero knowledge policy” on stored files because every files is encrypted the moment it leaves your computer or mobile device. Each service handles file sharing and security a little differently.
SpiderOak

When you share files, SpiderOak creates a room for you and the others who need to access the file. The room is password protected and accessible through website embeds, file links, or email invites. Its Hive feature syncs files across all of your devices, but only if you drag and drop the file into your Hive. You get 2GB for free, and 30GB, 1TB, and 5TB at $7, $12, and $25 per month, respectively.
Tresorit
Tresorit lets you establish groups, or tresors, into which you invite different people. Then, you share files within your tresors, and you set the group access rights for each tresor. Tresorit has offered a $50,000 bounty to any hacker that can penetrate its storage. So far, no hacker has succeeded. You can get 100GB of encrypted storage for $12.50 per month. Businesses can get 1TB of HIPAA-compliant storage for $25 per use per month, and enterprise tools cost $50 per user per month.

There you have it — a look at 2015’s best cloud storage offerings. Choose the one that strikes the best balance between convenience, budget, and security.

Source from: http://www.worldstart.com/

Posted by Unknown 5:51 AM 0 comments