Toplists provide you only junk traffic!

Why toplist concept can circulate only junk traffic

As is the concept, toplists keep your link higher according to the qualifying clicks you send them. First of all they have a stricter validation for the 'in' clicks but nearly no validation check for 'out' clicks. That means for your site the shown 'in' clicks would be too less but the 'out' clicks would always be overpowering- but actually junk.

Suppose there are sites listed on a 'conventional' toplist as:
A
B
C
D
E
F
etc.

Important thing to note here is that most people in toplists use misleading or adult titles to attract most 'out' clicks. Most toplists allow it.

Suppose, a user is sent at the toplist from F incrementing its 'in' clicks by 1 (only 1). B here has a super attractive and most wanted bad/illegal title '18+ Super models'. Sure, many people will click on this title in the toplist. But when the user arrives on some xyz.com linked to the title, he will find that there is no content on the site similar to the link title! As a result, the user will instantly press back button to arrive on the toplist page again. Note that B here gets an 'out' click registered but no gains!

Now the user will click on some other title, say E, and maybe the same happens this time! User clicks, does not get the claimed content, presses the back button to come to toplist again. This may happen with a user multiple times before the user gives up, cursing the fake content.

Note that in this flow F's in hits increased by 1 but the same user got registered as out for B, E etc.! That means a single 'in' click was shown multiple times in 'out' of others.

Another issue is that toplists have multiple pages. Normal users do not have time to visit all of them by pressing 'next' and 'prev' button under each page. That means a toplist cannot replenish clicks to sites on pages other than first. Ah, toplists discovered a weird way to solve this too. Mostly, they use a link on top with title such as 'Top downloads', 'Hot downloads' etc. Such titles lead to random sites in the toplist which have less 'out' clicks. Again the same would happen. User will click on the title; arrive at a site; dismayed by mismatch in title and the content, press the back button. Out click would be registered, but no use: No conversion!

Even if they do not themselves cheat
The toplist concept as such is unfair. For example if there are titles:
A. Beach model videos
B. Best PHP scripts
C. Selena Gomez Albums free!

Obviously A and C will attract much better traffic than B. Hence the toplist will not be able to replenish even 1x clicks in return to B when it is genuine.

You will see clicks coming to your site but most of those users will never go beyond the very first page of your site!

Reality
General logic: No site (or toplist) can generate its own clicks except from search engines, other listings, direct traffic or some other linking. A genuine and fair traffic exchange can return only nearly the same clicks as a site would send it. If some site claims to send you too much of traffic for your small contribution, it is sure to be a lie, a fraud, or a miscalculation.

How to know if a toplist is cheating?

In addition to ineffectiveness of the toplist concept, most of the toplists active today are actually cheating their users by hardcoding click count manipulation in their scripts. You can not exactly know how actually a toplist cheats. But you can easily detect foul play.

Suppose the following portion of main page of a popular toplist (actual titles hidden):

1.A 7203/62312
2.B 3583/25284
3.C 3001/17098
4.D 2890.5/18628
5.E 2511/22682
6.F 2505.5/17356
7.G 2360/10642

Analysis
1. According to the logic, no one can generate its own clicks. So how A sent only 7203 clicks but got 62312 in return? If the toplist is genuine, it is unfair to others. Or if such stats are shown for nearly all sites in it, the toplist is a cheat!
2. Check D's stats. How the 'in' clicks are 2890.5 (LOL)? Can a site send 0.5 click? Probably a childish logic of dividing 'in' hits by 2! Cheat!
3. Check all the stats. Can you find even a single odd number 'out' clicks entry? No! That clearly shows the toplist is multiplying the 'out' hits either by 2 or multiples of 2! Cheat!
4. Finally, let us use some mathematics. For as many sites in a toplist as you can, add all the 'in' clicks and all the 'out' clicks separately. Here let us do the same only for the portion we are considering.
Sum(in)=7203+3583+3001+2890.5+2511+2505.5+2360=24054
Sum(out)=62312+25284+17098+18628+22682+17356+10642=174002

Wow! This toplist is amazing! Give them 24054 clicks and they will give you 174002 clicks back (7.2338x)! Where did the 149948 clicks come from? Does they have their own click generating factory? Seems like this toplist is cheating its users!


You can try our SpellUsers Directory Concept for advertising your mobile site.
How SpellUsers gives you Genuine and Highly-converting traffic

Travel Safety Tips in India (The Practical View)

Last Update: 30 August, 2015

Please share this article to help others.

Safety tips for tourists in India 

India is a grand country with warm hearted and welcoming people. 

People: Fairest and Darkest. Smartest and the dumbest. Richest and the poorest. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsies and nearly all other religions unite here.
Places: Coldest and the hottest. Most dry to super rainy. Coasts to the highest mountains in the world. Deserts to super fertile. Poorest slums to highly developed urbans. You can see from ancient to futuristic here.
India is a country where thousands of languages are spoken. Thousands of cultures are followed.

India is the land of contrasts. India is a world in itself.

In this post I would do my best to present my views and suggestions to help you be safe in India. Also I would mention various things to know before visiting India.

I am an Indian who got a chance to see some cities of India from a non-Indian point of view. Four of my friends from France (French natives) came to India in the month of July, this year. While traveling various places with my friends, I felt that the image which international tourists get of India is mostly not the real India. Real India's image is blotted by thugs, pickpockets, perverts and other miscreants.

Indians are very helpful, friendly and welcoming.

It is my humble request to everyone who wishes to visit India to kindly understand the grand country, the culture and the people before coming to any conclusions. You are most welcome to India. I sincerely hope you have a great stay!

If offer a friendly hand to everyone who wishes to visit India. Kindly use comments for any questions/queries/comments.


Always keep a map of the city and a tourist guide book (Lonely Planet India (Travel Guide) suggested) along with you. 

Best time to be in India

India has a highly varied climate all throughout the country. You can find subzero mountains in Kashmir and then there are hot deserts of Rajasthan. It is best to study a little about the climate and best time to visit a certain place. Months from May to August for visiting most part of India (excluding high altitude areas) are the worst - very hot and humid.

General Tips to be safe in India

• Remember  in general: confidence, alertness and knowledge can help you avoid complications, everywhere. Google and tourist books are your friends.
• You can always reach the local police on phone throughout India by calling: 100
• Think long term and do not trust people easily. Always calculate your stakes.
• Do not carry too much cash with you. Carry an international Debit/Credit card. Ask your card issuer beforehand about its working in India to be on safer side.
• Do not be at wrong places at wrong times. Avoid being out at night especially if you have luggage. Strictly DO NOT if you are a female - make it a rule!
• Beware of thugs and pick-pockets.
• If you need guidance, talk to established shopkeepers instead of just random people on the road.
• When being at local markets train yourself to deduce genuine prices. Watch; Explore; Learn; Buy. Learn to bargain. It works most of the times.
• Tourist guides are important when visiting monuments and other important places. Before you hire any tourist guide, ensure that he should be able to speak proper and fluent English (or your language). Put him to a little test before hiring him. Interact and tell him to give you a little overview about the place to check his language. Moreover, bargain well before hiring the tourist guides. In Taj Mahal, we were approached by self-proclaimed govt. approved tourist guides at the ticket stalls who demanded around Rs.1000 for the tour. We denied. As we walked closer to Taj Mahal's entrance, the charges of tourist guides started to decrease unbelievably. One guy even approached us for as low as Rs.100.
• Something too-good-to-be-true would actually be very well so. Beware!
• Avoid crowds. Your stuff can be easily misplaced/stolen. Especially if you are a female, beware, as you can be badly groped and harassed in crowds.
• Get a local mobile SIM card. Make sure you get one of the following network operators only: Airtel, Idea, Vodafone. They have the widest network coverage in India. You can easily get a mobile SIM card in India. Having mobile Internet on your phone is always a good idea. 
• Prefer to carry a power bank to charge your phone on the move. We all know how badly smartphones suck at battery backup.

Where to Stay?

There are so many trustworthy sites like OYO rooms, Goibibo.com, makemytrip.com etc. from where you can pre-book hotels, guest houses, lodges etc. at very reasonable prices. Read reviews about the places. Look out for approachability to the places you wish to visit.

Also enquire about Wifi connectivity of the place beforehand.

In Agra, Hotel Sheela is very economical and is quite close to Taj Mahal. International tourists stay with them mostly.

In Amritsar, Tourist Guest House is quite economical and is close to Golden Temple and Railway station.

Traveling within in India: Always pre-plan long distance journeys

• Major cities can easily be reached via flights. 
• Trains are cheap and have a huge network throughout India. Make bookings beforehand. Train reservations in India should well be made in advance. Expect crowds and long queues at Indian train stations. Fortunately, most of the big cities have special section for International tourists. Prefer using them. Kindly check Indian Railways page for International Tourists. When traveling in trains, especially at nights, you can avoid most of unwanted staring if you choose the upper berth.
• Indian trains generally have these classes in order of decreasing fare prices: 1AC, 2AC, 3AC, Sleeper, Chair Car, Second Class. It is much more safer to travel in AC classes than the others.
• Avoid traveling at night; Especially if you are a female. If you do need to travel at night, think wisely and use prepaid taxis or call-cabs. The idea is that your driver should know that someone else is keeping a track of him and you.
• Before booking tourist buses, enquire thoroughly about the time the bus would take and if the bus would waste time picking up other passengers.
• For internal traveling, most of the big cities have a good government run buses. If you are in Delhi, Mumbai or any city that has Metro trains, always opt for them. 
• Avoid auto-rikshaws when you can use bus or metro train.

Foods, eating and water in India

Avoid unpackaged water while traveling in India. Always buy and carry packaged (and SEALED) water bottles. Do not buy water just from any hawker or stalls. External hygiene of the water bottle especially near the seal is as important as the water content itself.

India is known for foods, curries and spices. Most Indian foods start with spices. Hence, if your stomach cannot handle spicy food well, you need to be careful at making choices. You may consult the restaurant staff to enquire about the spice content. Try to train yourself gradually to handle a little spicy food so that you may relish Indian foods.

NEVER eat the salad or cut fruits sold by street vendors and hawkers. They can be major vectors of various diseases.

Tip: Have food at a place which has a good sale at the time you have food. Better circulation ensures food would be freshly cooked.

If you can have egg, you can always find a place where street-vendors sell bread-omlette. It is nutritive, very inexpensive, instantly prepared, hot and hence hygienic. My French friends always loved it. :) You can also enjoy roasted corn (local name: Bhutta or Chhalli) which is easily available at street sellers during and after rainy season. They serve it with rock salt and lemon which makes it yummy! Since they roast the corn on open charcoal flame, it is very much hygienic.

When unsure about food while being outside, buy packed branded food stuff like biscuits, fruit cakes etc. instead risking your health.

General public is very helpful

Feel free to ask for general information like routes etc. from general public. Indians are very helpful. Just keep in mind the basic safety rules.

Beware of auto-rikshaw (or tuk-tuk) drivers!

At tourist places in India 70% of them are shameless, inhuman, highly nagging and practically uncontrolled. When they see you are an international tourists, you can easily see "I got a prey!" feeling in their eyes. Early you learn how to tackle them, the better it is. Know the distances and routes and learn to estimate genuine fares. Sharpen your bargaining skills. If you are at a tourist place, dash out, decisively. Do not reply them the ones on the way and do not hire them. Preferably hire an auto-rikshaw that is mobile and already running on road. If you want to cut down costs, always prefer to share auto-rikshaw with other passengers whenever possible. 

Do not trust auto-rikshaw drivers. They may have plans to stupendously overcharge you. Also, take care of your luggage! Always keep a close watch.

DO NOT ask any auto-rikshaw driver for any places to stay i.e. hotels, lodges, guesthouses etc. You would land up at an over-priced worst place where he would get a good commission for bringing you in.

Good guidebooks do have fair-prices given for auto-rikshaws for various destinations. You may also consult fellow passengers (IN FULL DISCRETION from the tuk-tuk drivers) about fair-prices for route from A source to B destination.

Some tips for female tourists

• I do not recommend females traveling solo in India. At least a single male accomplice is highly recommended. 
• If you feel the situation is dangerous, call police by dialing 100
• DO NOT TRAVEL AT NIGHT!
• When traveling in Metro Trains and buses, claim the seats reserved for ladies. Don't hesitate. Its your right to claim the seat if it is reserved. In Metro trains, there are some wagons specially reserved for ladies only. Use them to avoid inconvenience and inappropriate behavior of men especially at rush hours. In Delhi Metro trains, the first two wagons are always reserved for ladies. In Mumbai local trains too there are wagons reserved for ladies; there are full ladies-only trains as well.
• Always be confident, well-informed, alert and agile.
• Dress modestly. Do not wear shorts, mini skirts, sleeveless tops etc. Also, do not wear tops with deep-necks or too much back-revealing. Avoid wearing see-through or very tight fitting clothes. It is a good idea to carry a cotton 'dupatta' (a long rectangular scarf).
• If any pervert(s) cause any inconvenience to you, you do not have to bear it! Create a little fuss if needed. Do ask for others' aid. General public is very helpful in India. 
• Avoid talking to unknown men. 
• Always try sitting next to women in public conveyance. 

 

Conclusion

Just be smart and informed. Be alert. Feel free to experiment new things, being safe. India is very economical and highly enjoyable. India is lovely!

I hope you have a great time in India! Feel free to comment below. Also if this article helps, share it. It would help others too.

Best Mail Client for Linux (Ubuntu)

There are so many mail clients available for Linux. But nearly all tend to lack at some or the other thing. It is a good thing to stick with products from big giants when stability and features are concerned. Moreover, they stick to technology standards.

I cannot discuss all the features these clients provide. I would simply point out certain major things that I noticed for myself.

Thunderbird

I used Thunderbird for quite some time. It works well. Mail accounts can easily be set, the GUI is neat and clean, there are numerous add-ons available for Thunderbird too. Also there is a cool feature of archiving messages to different folders based on the year they were received in. But well, I never liked the way it presented emails. The consolidation of all the accounts is not so good and it looks cluttered.

To install Thunderbird, go to Terminal and type in the following command:

For Ubuntu like distros:
sudo apt-get install thunderbird

For RPM based distros (CentOS, Fedora etc.)
yum install thunderbird

Opera Mail

Opera is an amazing web browser (I don't use it for browsing though). But most of the people are not aware of how amazing Opera's Mail client is. It is superbly fast and easy to use. Dealing with multiple email accounts has never been easier! Even the consolidation of all your email accounts is superb! Under a single head, you can have all your emails which are grouped by receiving days.

Opera Mail also has in built RSS feed client! Isn't that amazing as well? :)

To install Opera Mail,
Go to http://www.opera.com/ and download the deb package if you are on Ubuntu like distro or RPM if you are on Centos, Fedora etc. or other package according to your distro.

Setting Opera to minimize on close

In Opera, enter following in address bar:

opera:config

Hit Enter

Search for 'exit'.

Set 'Show Exit Dialog' to 1

Once you do it, Opera would ask if you wish to hide or close itself on closing.

Auto-starting Opera on Session login
This varies accordingly to DEs.

For Unity, in your Dash search for 'Startup Applications'. After that, add an entry with command 'opera'. That is it.

For XFCE (I am using it), in applications menu, go to Settings Manager. Then go to Sessions and Startup. Click on Autostart applications tab. Add an entry with 'opera' as command with other fields of your choice.

Conclusion

Choosing a best mail client is not something conclusive. Everyone's choices are different. Best way to choose your own mail client is to try some popular names. :) Personally, I love Opera Mail.

Reduce Firefox memory/RAM usage

We all love Firefox but hate its memory footprint, especially if you keep numerous tabs open simultaneously. I always love to find new ways on how to achieve better performance in my every day computing experience as well as faster speeds. Reducing memory footprints of applications or switching to lightweight applications is something I am passionate about.

Let me discuss few tips that I use to keep my Firefox slimmest on memory

Unload Tab extension

Modern web pages gorge heavily on memory and keeping too many tabs open is not a good idea. Often we forget to close the tabs that we do not need. Or we sometimes feel as if we would 'lose' our tabs. It is most probable that we do not use all the tabs open side by side. Eg. I would keep around 20 tabs open but would be frequently switching only between 4-5 tabs. Rest of the open tabs would consume system memory for no good. With a Firefox extension called Unload Tab, the unused Firefox Tabs would automatically be suspended and their memory would be released. You can also choose not to suspend particular sites/urls from being suspended automatically. I personally love this extension! Make sure  you choose not to automatically suspend dynamic sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. Otherwise you would not be able to receive any updates when your tab is inactive.

Cleanup Firefox's cache and History

Firefox uses in-memory indexes for history and bookmarks to keep them loaded for instant 'awesome-bar' results. Having big amount of history always available is good. But then you have to 'pay some costs'. It is better to remove stale history of a previous month or previous week to be on safer side.

Flash players (especially Youtube)

Many a time, we open a video on Youtube or Metacafe somewhere in some tab and then we switch to other tabs, not aware that it may hog a crazy amount of your system memory by even simply being open. It is just the way Flash player and plugin stuff works. Do not forget to close down the video playing (or Flash player) pages after you are done watching.

Avoid memory munching web pages

Here, you would have to use your own experience to find out which sites/pages have memory leaks and when they are open your memory usage gets higher and higher over time. One such site has been Wunderlist. For me, Firefox's memory consumption would cross beyond 1.5GB even when only a single tab with Wunderlist.com was opened in it. I hope Wunderlist should already have solved this memory leak issue. There may be many sites like this. Avoid them.

Too many add-ons/extensions

Well, having too many add-ons/extensions itself is not bad. But when you have some add-ons installed which implement themselves on each page and do some fancy stuff, their memory consumption would add up. Buggy extensions are worse! Best way is to avoid the add-ons you can live without. Or you can disable the unused extensions temporarily from add-ons menu.

Upgrade Firefox and its extensions

Over time, developers of Firefox and extensions tend to get better with their products in terms of stability, efficiency and memory consumption.

Firefox Health Report

You can go to Help menu and click on Firefox Health Report to learn more about your Firefox's health, startup times, troubling add-ons etc. 


Please feel free to add your own tips in comments.

Happy surfing! :) Thank you Firefox!

Private Window in Firefox PC and Android

Ever want to surf without leaving any tracks - history, cookies, cache, temporary files etc., just for some time or for some sites?

Conventional way to do so in Firefox 

(in PC version)

* Go to History menu > Clear Recent history

* Time range to clear: Everything

* Select all the checkboxes

* Click "Clear Now"

^^ Surf all the pages you wish to surf privately and repeat the above process

(in mobile version)

* Tap Menu Key

* Go to Settings > Privacy > Clear private data

* Check all the checkboxes

* Tap "Clear Data"

^^ Surf all the pages you wish to surf privately and repeat the above process

This is cumbersome! And also would log you out from everywhere in Firefox and remove even the required history! :(

The better way: Enter Private Browsing 

(in PC version)

* Go to File menu

* Choose New Private Window

^^ In that private window, surf all the pages you wish to surf privately and simply close the private window and everything you did in that window would be fully vanished!

(in mobile version)

* Tap Menu Key

* Tap "New Private tab"

^^ In that private tab, surf all the pages you wish to surf privately and simply close the private tab and everything you did in that tab would be fully vanished!

Using this method only the data from the private window would be erased, keeping your main browser's data (history, logged in sessions, cookies etc.) remain intact.

In other browsers:

* In Google Chrome, similar feature is called "Incognito Window"

* In Opera, "Private Window"

Happy surfing!

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS mouse pointer problem

The latest Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is awesome! I chose to run an upgrade on the Ubuntu 13.10 to get to the latest one.

Except for one thing. Right after the upgrade, I am randomly facing a weird issue with mouse pointer. After I keep working on an app's window (Firefox, for example), the mouse pointer would start misbehaving and it would start to actually point somewhat 20 pixels below what it appears to me. This issue occurs only with maximized windows. And it occurs randomly. It may not happen at all or it may happen quite frequently.

The issue can temporarily be dodged by restoring the window by double clicking on the title and then re-maximizing it again.

Update: 13-09-2014

Unfortunately, I could not find any solution to this myself for a long time. Also Unity was very heavy on resources of my laptop. Hence, I decided to switch to xubuntu-desktop instead. It is very fast and light... Also it does not have this issue. :)

Use this command in terminal to install xubuntu-desktop on your already working ubuntu.

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop gksu leafpad synaptic

After you install it, you can switch to it by logging out of your system and then on the login screen, you would have the option to switch to Xubuntu session.

Feel free to contact me incase you have any issues.

How to use SetCPU to save battery (After rooting)

SetCPU is a powerful app for controlling CPU frequencies to gain maximum performance when you use your Android device and low energy consumption when you do not use the device.

* Let us assume that you have installed the SetCPU app on your Android already.

Setting it up...

I would keep this simple and to the point

* Open SetCPU

* Go to Profiles Tab and create a new profile by clicking on the '+' Sign.

* Click on the '+' Sign in front of "Turn this profile on when..."

* From the events, choose "Screen On/Off" and finally choose "Screen Off".

 

Hit Next>  and 
* Check "Set the CPU speed".
* Set Max frequency around 800 and Min frequency to (or close to) the lowest.
* Do rest of the settings shown in the screenshot below.

 Hit Next>

* Name the profile "Powersave"
* Priority can be left as it is.

 * Hit Next>



Lets create another profile for the time when screen would be on using the same method as above.

* In "Turn this profile on when...", choose "Screen On/Off" and finally "Screen Off"

Hit Next>

* Set Max frequency to the max of your phone. In my case I am setting this to 1200
* And the lowest should be set as close to the lowest...
* Note that here we would be setting the CPU governor "ondemand" so that the CPU scales up quickly as required within the range specified.
* Do the other things as specified in the screenshot.

* Hit Next>
* Name the profile: "Screen on: H"
* Leave the profile as default.

Hit Next> to save the profile and make sure you enable both of the profiles.

"Powersave" would be activated when your screen is off and when on, the "Screen on: H" would be activated.

NOTE

We are not setting the CPU too low in both the profiles. Setting CPU frequencies too low while processing intensive apps run would simply elongate the processing and keep the CPU more occupied. This would result in more battery consumption only.