Migrating Blog From Blogger BlogSpot To WordPress

Are you one of those, who have been blogging for a while on Blogger aka BlogSpot and somehow felt that your blog lacks something, may be that Killer Punch, may be a Dashing Design, which can catch its visitors’ attention. Yes, there comes a time, when you make that decision to switch to WordPress. You were possibly attracted by a plethora of easily Customizable WordPress Themes or the cool widgets, which let you do almost everything you want to do.  If you are planning to migrate your blog from Blogger to WordPress, but worried about the whole process of importing blogger posts with comments into WordPress, just take a deep breathe and calm down. It is ridiculously simple to migrate. In fact, its so easy that you won’t stop laughing at the end of it !!

Here are the simple steps to easily “Migrate Your Blog from Blogger to WordPress“

Step 1. Go to Dashboard -> Tools (You will find that on the left right at the bottom) and click on Import

Step 2. You will taken to an Import page, wherein WordPress will show up a host of Blogging Platforms, from which you can migrate your blog to WordPress. Click on Blogger

Step 3. You will be taken to a page where WordPress will ask you for your permission to login to Blogger and have the authority to access all your blog-posts and comments. Click on Authorize

Step 4. Next you will see a confirmation window from Blogger/Google about allowing WordPress to access your Blogger Account. Click on Grant Access

Step 5. Now you will be shown your Blogger Blog with the number of your blog-posts and comments, along with an Import option, the so-called The Magic Button. Click on Import Button and the Migration Process will start

Step 6. The Progress-Bar will tell you about the Completion of your migration. When it finishes, you will see a message like the following

That’s it !! Yes, you are done 🙂 All your Blog-Posts, Comments, Categories (Blogger Labels) and Users will be visible in WordPress in few minutes depending on the size of your Blogger Blog. You will also be glad to know that all your Blogger Blog-Posts’ Date and TimeStamp are preserved and don’t require any action from your front.

Now is not that as easy as a walk in the park ?? Yes, it indeed is !! Now you know, you have been unnecessarily developing cold-feet about migrating your blog from Blogger to WordPress, right 🙂

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SIP(Systematic Investment Plan)

Do you want to invest money on regularly basis in stock market but don’t have meaning of even a single word of dictionary named stock market.Then be happy you have an option that is SIP. It’s same like recurring deposit in which we invest a fixed amount at regular interval usually monthly or quarterly,but difference is only one that in SIP your money is invested in mutual fund.

By knowing that your money is going to be invested  in stock market,some investors may jittery about it because of recent financial crisis.But don’t worry if you are going for long term SIP investment,in any case you will get decent returns.

For Example:
Suppose Ram has decided to invest Rs. 1000 per year  in SIP just before market crash.At that time assume that the NAV(Net Asset Value , or the price of one unit of a fund) was Rs.10 . Now after four years of seeing a continuous market  fall lets assume that NAV has regained its past level of Rs 10. A stock market investor who has invested Rs 1000 in stock market will never be happy to see that his investment has not appreciated in last 4 years.

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Amount Invested	Rs1000	Rs1000	Rs1000	Rs1000	Rs1000
NAV (Rs)	Rs10	Rs8	Rs9	Rs7	Rs10
Units (Nos)	100	125	111	143	100

But now,what about SIP investor:

• Total units purchased in 5 years (2006 to 2010) = 579
• Present NAV = Rs.10
• Present Value of Investment = Rs.5790
• Input of Investment = Rs.5000
• Profit = Rs.790(15.8%)

As aforementioned , even in market crash situation investor got profit of 15.8%.Then you can imagine for good market:).

Payment mode:

• debited directly from your account.
• post-dated cheques.

Hidden charges:

• Entry load:It is a percentage of the amount you are investing but a number of mutual funds do not charge it.
• Exit load:It is same as an entry load, except this is charged when you sell your units.It is charged if you are selling your units within a year.

Thus SIP is a good investment for long runs at least 5 years by which you are also developing saving habits and without realizing you are accumulating a great wealth. Last but not the least be sure that you can  shift from stock market to money market on short notice by which you can get benefit of booming market.

Airtel 3G Prices and Tariffs

Today 3G, Third Generation Telecom Technology, is talk of the town. Bharti Airtel, which is the No 1 Cellular Service Provider and has close to  150 million mobile  subscribers has just unveiled its 3G Services in Bangalore on 21st Jan 2011. As we write this blog post, yesterday they have launched 3G Services in two other south Indian cities, Chennai and Coimbatore, as well and promised to launch 3G Services in 40 Cities by March 2011.

Now a days, Mobile is not only an audio device, it behaves more like a mini laptop by which you can Browse Internet, Check Emails, Send and Receive Faxes and Instantly Download e-mail Messages with Attachments. After 3G‘s advent, Mobile Calls will not be restricted to Voice Call alone. With a 3G Enabled Mobile Handset and access to the 3G Network, you can make Video Calls, do Video Conferencing, receive Streaming Video from Web, watch Live TV, have access to High Speed Internet. almost everything possible with 3G services at hand.You can even switch between Voice Call and Video Call.

3G not only offers an amazing and lightening speed of up to 21 MBPS for Web Browsing and File Download. It can also empower demanding multimedia applications such as Video Conferencing, Voice-over-IP (VoIP), full motion video and streaming music.

But there is a word of caution, you can’t always expect good lightening speed from 3G, it depends upon various factors like including User Location, Network Availability, Mobile Device, Transmission Direction and external constraints. For effective use of 3G it’s better to use high speed HSPA handsets(High speed Packet Access) than WCDMA handset.

Prices and Tariffs:
Don’t worry about the changes involved, its going to eat up from your pocket, it won’t cost you much. 3G services plan would be broadly divided into Time-Based and Flexi-Shield plans.

Time-based Plans:
Occasional Users
Rs. 10, Rs. 45 and Rs. 60 recharge coupons.

Medium Users
Rs. 200, Rs. 450 and Rs. 750 recharge/plans with 30 day validity.

Heavy Users
With a rental of Rs. 650 per month, users get 1.25GB worth FREE data usage. Once the 1.25GB data usage limit is crossed, Airtel will charge 10 paise per MB till 14GB data usage and Rs. 2,000 Bill Cap. If you cross even the 14GB data usage then your data connection speed drops to 128kbps. This plan will most probably be targeted towards Airtel Post-Paid Mobile Subscribers.

This is not the end of 3G services offered by Airtel. Airtel 3G USB Modem Data-Cards have also arrived in the market, which gives you unbelievably high speed internet. As of now, there are two USB Modems available

• Airtel 3G USB Modem 7.2 Mbps – E1731
• Airtel 3G USB Modem 3.6 Mbps – E153

More information regarding Airtel 3G Future Launches, Exciting Offers, Prices and Tariffs, you can go to Airtel Website  http://www.airtel.in/Airtel3G/

So what are you waiting for ?? Just go and enjoy the experience of being in a new world of high speed 🙂

How To Link Connect Facebook Account With WordPress Blog To Automatically Update Facebook Wall About Any New Blog Posts

In one of my earlier blog posts, I had described “How To Connect Your Twitter Account With WordPress Blog To Automatically Update Twitter About Any New Blog Posts“.  Today I am going to talk about the same thing i.e, How to Connect Social Media to Your WordPress Blog so as to ensure Real-Time Updates, as and when you update your blog with any new post. After Twitter, its the turn of Facebook.

Generally, if you have to post something on your Facebook Wall with regards to any new blog-post, that you recently wrote, you will have to manually copy some relevant content out of the blog, copy the URL (or take help  of any URL Shortener) and paste it across in your Facebook Wall. Now in stead of doing all that yourself, how about WordPress doing all that work for you for free ??

Yes, you heard this right, WordPress allows its users to connect/link their Facebook Account to their WordPress Blogs, so that their Facebook Wall gets updated automatically on their behalf, every time they post a new entry to their blog. Here are the steps on “How to link or connect your Facebook Account with yout WordPress Blog” and “Automatically update your Facebook wall with any newly created Blog Posts”.

Step 1. Go to My Account -> Global Dashboard, you end up with a page like the following

Step 2. Select “My Blogs” from the left side menu, which will lead you to a listing of all the blogs you are a member of

Step 3. Under the Publicize drop-down, you check the Facebook Box. It will open a Pop-up confirming your action and asking for your permission to authorize your WordPress account to connect with your Facebook account. You press the Authorize OK button

Step 4. It will go to Facebook URL and now Facebook will ask for your confirmation with regards to allowing your WordPress Account access to your Facebook account. You click on Allow

Step 5. After you have allowed your WordPress account to access your Facebook profile, next in line is a permission to post to your Facebook wall. You click on Allow

Step 6. It takes some time to complete and when it finally returns, you will again be back to the Global Dashboard page with a congratulatory message at at the top confirming the same that you have successfully connected your WordPress Blog with your Facebook account.

So next time you write a new blog-post, you don’t need to go to Facebook manually for updates regarding your new blog-post. The moment you click “Publish” button, WordPress goes ahead and automatically updates your Facebook wall with relevant details regarding your blog-post, as follows

So, enjoy the feeling of not posting anything on Facebook wall about your new blog-posts any more 🙂

How To Enable Guest Blogging in WordPress Blogs

In one of my earlier blog posts, I had talked about the Various Benefits of Guest Blogging and also explained How To Enable Guest Blogging in BlogSpot/Blogger Blogs. If your blog is hosted on WordPress, you will be glad to know that WordPress also allows Guest Blogging on your blog. In fact, you can have as many as co-authors for your WordPress blog, as you want. BlogSpot/Blogger limits this number to 100, but WordPress doesn’t set any upper limit for the same. Here are the steps on “How To Enable Guest Blogging in WordPress Blogs”

Step 1. Login to your WordPress blog and go to Dashboard. On the left side menu towards the end, you will find a Users button.  Click on Users


Step 2. It will take you to Users page, where you will see a list of all Current Authors for your blog, along with a form-field to Add More Users. Enter the email addresses for people, you want to invite as Guest Bloggers for your blog. Unlike Blogger/BlogSpot, which allows you to specify a Comma Separated List of Email Addresses, WordPress allows only one email address at a time. You also have to select the privileges your Guest Blogger is going to have. Unlike Blogger/BlogSpot which only has two levels of privileges : Authors and Administrator,  WordPress has as many as four of them

• Administrator – Access to all the administration features
• Editor – Publish and manage posts and pages as well as manage other users’ posts.
• Author – Publish and manage their own posts and not others’
• Contributor – Write and manage their posts but not publish them

Step 3. If the user whose email address you have provided already has a WordPress account linked to that email address, he or she will be immediately be added as Guest Author to your blog.

But if your invitee doesn’t have any WordPress account linked to that email address, he or she will have to create one and after you have clicked on “Add User“, you will see a page like the following

Once you click on “Invite Your Friend“, there will be an invite-form, which will be sent to the email address given in “Add User” page.

Once you “Send the Invite“, your invitee will be receiving an email asking them to join WordPress as per your invitation

Once your invitee clicks on WordPress link provided in the email, he or she is taken to WordPress Sign-Up Page. WordPress allows you to register just for a username and is not necessary that you have to have a blog registered in order to sign-in to WordPress.

Once they sign-up on WordPress, they will be automatically be added to your blog as Guest Authors and on their Dashboard they will be able to see your blog. So have fun with your blogging and enjoy Guest-Posts being written by your Guest-Bloggers

How to Transfer A Blogger/BlogSpot Blog to Another Blogger/BlogSpot User or Google Account/User

In one of my earlier posts, I had talked about “Transferring a WordPress Blog to Another WordPress User or WordPress Account“. Today, I am going to talk about the same thing Transferring Blogs only, but on a different blogging platform that is Blogger aka BlogSpot. Yes, Blogger also allows Blog-Transfer Across Blogger Users, so if you don’t need any blogname, you can pass it onto someone, who may need it. Unlike WordPress, Blogger doesn’t have a “Transfer Blog” feature allowing direct transfer of blogs across WordPress users, but  it still allows us to achieve the same objective via Guest Blogging Route.

Here are the steps on “How to Transfer A Blogger/BlogSpot Blog to Another Blogger/BlogSpot User or Google Account“.

Step 1. First you have to add the person, to whom you wish your blog transferred to, as a Guest Blogger to your blog. Steps on how to do that are explained in one of my earlier posts about Guest Blogging on Blogger.

Step 2. Once you have added the person as a guest blogger, Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Permissions, it will show you a list of current Blog-Authors. This will include you as well as the person, whom you have just invited for Guest Blogging.

Step 3. Click on “grant admin privileges” link, it will throw a pop-up warning you of the consequences of Granting Admin Privileges to a Guest-Blogger and confirm the action from your side.

Step 4. Once you have granted admin privileges to the guest blogger, you will see the following in your Blog Authors Page
Did you notice a “Remove” button against your name, which was not present earlier ?? Yes, it shows up only when you have more than one ADMIN user. Yes, its true, you can remove yourself from your own blog 🙂

Step 5. Click on Remove and it will throw a pop-up warning you of dire consequences of removing yourself from your blog

Step 6. Click on “Remove Blog Member” and you are done with your blog-transfer !! The blog stands transferred to the other Admin user. Next time, you login to your Blogger/BlogSpot account, you will no longer see this Blog underneath your name.

MNP (Mobile Number Portability) : Change Your Mobile Service Provider Without Changing Your Mobile Number

If you are really fed up with your Mobile’s Service Provider because of its high call rates, poor signal strength, but at the same time extremely reluctant to switch to other service providers in  order to avoid changing your number, then you have reasons to feel happy. After missing several deadlines set earlier(we almost lost count of how many of them), Finally the day has came when the much-touted and anticipated Mobile Number Portability(MNP) has been implemented all over India on 20th January 2011. To start with, it was first launched in Rohtak in Haryana on 25th Nov 2010. But customers in Rohtak were not very enthusiastic about using MNP, so it had an abysmal slow start with only around 0.75% of the subscribers opting for the service. Here is a complete “How To” about MNP (Mobile Number Portability)

What is MNP ??
This is a service introduced by all Mobile Service Providers, by which Celll Phone Users will be free to Change their Operators, without losing their prized-number.

Prepaid Versus Postpaid
It is available for both postpaid and prepaid customers. But at present, you can’t switch from a Prepaid to Postpaid and vice-versa.

My Prepaid Balance ??
You will lose you prepaid balance, if you switch your Service Provider.

GSM Vs CDMA
Yes, you can switch from GSM to CDMA and vice-versa. But in case  of a platform shift, you will have to change your handset. This means if you decide to move from CDMA-to-GSM or vice-versa, you will also have to change your handset.

How much time to process my request
On an average Seven working days, but fifteen working days in J&K, North-east.

How frequently can I switch ??
A subscriber must be with a service provider for at least three months before he can opt for switching his or her service provider.

Can I retain the same number in another city?
No. You can’t change circles. This means, you  cannot take your Bangalore number to a service-provider in Delhi. You can only change your operator within Bangalore.

Charges Involved
Changing your mobile service provider will cost you Rs 19. This will go to your new service provider.

Process to exercise MNP :

Step 1
Send an SMS to 1900 in following format: PORT – eg. PORT 9999999999.
Step 2
You will get an SMS reply that contains a unique porting code.
Step3
SMS to the preferred operator quoting the unique code. This code is valid only for a few days, and one must apply again if it expires.
Step4
Your existing operator will check with new operator & if there are no dues then approval will be given for porting
Step 5
You will get an SMS on the time and date when porting will take place. Rules mandate that process be completed within 7 days of applying.

So, will MNP(Mobile Number Portability) be a success or will it be just a damp squib after so much hype  ?? Previously, there was a huge competition  among telecom operators to attract new subscribers and they always tried to  lure them by giving away lucrative offers. But it used to be valid only for few days and then customers had to stick with their operators, just because of their reluctancy to change the mobile number. But now that subscribers are armed with MNP,they will be forced to offer innovative and quality services to retain their subscribers.

At the very least, it will appeal more to high and middle class customers who were willing to pay  more just because of their unwillingness to change their numbers. And they will be easy pickings for any Service Provider, who can promise Good Network Connectivity and Lower Tariff to them. So let’s wait and watch, how the saga unfolds 🙂

How To Enable Guest Blogging in BlogSpot Blogger Blogs

In one of my earlier blog posts, I had talked about the Various Benefits of Guest Blogging. BlogSpot/Blogger allows Guest Blogging on your blog. In fact, you can have as many as 100 Authors for your blog. Here are the steps on “How To Enable Guest Blogging in BlogSpot/Blogger Blogs”

Step 1. Login to your blogger account and click on Settings

Step 2. On the Settings page, click on Permissions

Step 3. Now you’ll see your name along with your gmail address, listed as Blog Author.

Step 4. Click on Add Authors and enter the email address(es) you wish to be guest author(s) on your blog and click on Invite. If you are entering multiple invites, you can specify a comma separated email addresses list.

Step 5. Now your invitees have to accept your invitation to be a guest-blogger.Till they accept, you will see them on your Invitee-List

Step 6. After your invitation is sent, your invitees will all be receiving a mail to be a Contributor on your blog.

Step 7. Once they click on the “To contribute to this blog” link provided in the email, they will be taken to Blogger home-page asking them to sign-in. If you are a google account (Read gmail) holder, you can straight-away enter your credentials and sign in. If you don’t have a google account, you will have to create one, which you can use to sign-in to Blogger.

Step 8. Once they click on “Accept Invitation“, they will automatically be added to your blog as Guest Authors and you will see as such in your Dashboard as such

By default, the Guest-Bloggers will be added as Authors, which means, they will only be able to edit their posts alone and won’t be able to edit blog’s settings or template or edit other members’ posts.  So you don’t have to worry about your settings or things, your Guest Blogger may have access to. Have fun with your blogging and enjoy Guest-Posts being written by your Guest-Bloggers 🙂

Use Guest Blogging To Publicize and Promote Your Blog And Increase Traffic and Google PageRank

Guest Blogging is defined as Accepting Posts from other Bloggers to publish for free on your blog, or writing posts for other Bloggers to publish on their blogs for free (If you are good enough, you can charge some money as well. But then, if you are already good enough to make money with your writing, you won’t be writing on others’ blogs, Right ;-)).

Guest Blogging is a great way to build your Online Reputation and Drive Traffic to your blog and can be treated as a Traffic-Building and Networking-Tool. This will help in your Blog’s growth and also gives you an opportunity to market your writing skills in Bloggers’ Circuit. Usually, Guest Bloggers are allowed to have a small brief about them, which appears at the bottom of every Guest Post written by then and people allow Guest Bloggers to have one or two links of theirs, something like
So you can choose to mention your Blog URL, so that visitors who may have liked your Guest Post can go to your blog for more.

So by doing Guest-Blogging on a mature blog with decent traffic, a novice blogger can get more visibility by virtue of more Backlinks and Hits to his new blog. It also increases your Google PageRank as its pass the PR to your website from the hosting blog. Further, it brings freshness to your blog. All of us have a certain way of writing, and so have the Guest-Bloggers. So with their fresh content, your blog will be queried by search engines with more and more search terms, further boosting your traffic and PR.

Now a days, most of the blogger, if not all, who are interested in Networking and Generating Traffic for their Blog, are into Guest Blogging. So next time, you see the following at the top or bottom of a blog-post

You know this is a Guest Post written by a Guest Blogger. Now that, I have discussed enough about the various benefits of allowing Guest Blogging and writing Guest Blog Posts, when are you going to do that 🙂

How To Password Protect A WordPress Blog Post

Recently I published a blog-post on one of my Professional ToastMaster Club WordPress Blog. It was related to minutes of an officers meeting, that was held to discuss the charter of the club and future course of action for coming 6 months. After it got published, some members (rightly) raised flame about its availability in public view. Even I realized that this should not have been made public. Now, I wanted to retain my blog-post as I wanted to keep a record of meeting-minutes, but at the same time, I didn’t want it to be in public view. I didn’t know how to achieve that, except for taking off my blog-post. But, fortunately WordPress came to my rescue.

Did you know, you can have a blog-post on your WordPress Blog and still be private ?? Yes, WordPress makes it possible. Ever since inception, Blog has almost become synonymous with Public view. But WordPress gives you an opportunity to restrict its access to a selected few individuals, with whom you want to share this blog-post. Yes, you can Password Protect your WordPress Blog-Post and without knowing the password, nobody will be able to see its contents !!

Here are the steps on “How to Password Protect your WordPress Blog Post”

Step 1. On your WordPress Blog-Edit Page, You will see a Publish box on the right hand side at the top.

Step 2. Click on Visibility button, which is set to Public by default. It will open a drop-down menu with followings as visibility options

Step 3. Select Visibility as “Password Protected”, it will open a text box, asking for your password.

Step 4. Enter the password for your blog-post and press OK. Now complete your blog-editing and press Publish. When it gets published, you will see  that this blog-post is showing up differently from others.

Now whoever has the password, only they can view this Post. So essentially, you have protected your precious blog-post from public eye and kept it restricted to a selected few, with whom you will be sharing your password. So keep blogging and have fun with Password Protection, every-time you want a restricted access to your post 🙂