Sabin Shrestha's Personal Site » Sabin Personel

SEO My Notes

sabin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:20:47 +0000

Include real words here . That little snippet of code will leave the words in the link (and you can replace link with the web-site address of your choice) in plain text, but the period at the end of the link will contain the link. It’s small, so most people won’t notice it, but the link is there, so search engines will notice it. Cloaking: This technique is used to make a highly optimized version of your page appear to search engines, but a more user-friendly page appear to site visitors. Excessive cross-linking: Excessive cross-linking can be a sign that a company has created multiple=">http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#3

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/wiki/White_hat,_black_hat,_and_gray_hat_SEO

http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html

http://www.blackhatseo.com/ (one of the best)

http://www.searchengineoptimising.com/glossary/seo-glossary-of-terms/display/1/all-terms

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/06/05/google-pagerank-what-do-we-really-know-about-it/

http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/

http://www.rankingtoday.com/seo/

http://www.linkpopularity.com/

http://www.seomoz.org/dp/the-internet-marketing-handbook

http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp#p/c/B52807846359D2EA

https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq–crawling–indexing—ranking#not-indexed

http://seo-optimization-tips-tools.blogspot.com/2009/03/vtc-seo-optimization-training-tutorial.html (Video Tutor)

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/ (programmer of google site)

http://www.ninebyblue.com/blog/social-media/should-restaurants-care-about-local-search/ (programmer of google)

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/search/label/webmaster%20guidelines (google seo blog must view all the videos)

http://www.seoresource.net/Search-Engine-Optimization.htm

http://www.chromaticsites.com/blog/9-practical-tips-for-building-your-website-authority/

http://www.scriptol.com/seo/faq/ (Very Nice One)

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My Notes

http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html

http://websearch.about.com/od/seononos/a/spamseo.htm

http://www.pushon.co.uk/articles/top-5-white-hat-and-black-hat-search-optimisation-techniques/

status code 302

http://www.seoglossary.com/cat/H#681

meta tag length 150

SEO Clustering

In search engine search results pages, clustering is limiting each represented website to one or two listings.

six segma

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Implementing-Six-Sigma-Methodology-for-SEO/

google quality guideline

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

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Top Ten SEO Steps recommended for a successful web campaign

Keyword Research & Selection

Competition Analysis

Site Structure

Content Optimization

Link Building

Social Media

PPC

Statistics Analysis

Conversion Optimization

Keeping It Up

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Keyword Research Tools:

Google: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Yahoo: Gone (old overture tool is gone)

MSN: http://adlab.msn.com/Keyword-Research.aspx

Wordtracker: http://www.wordtracker.com/

Keyword Discovery: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com

Submit Express: http://www.submitexpress.com/keytracker.php

Paid Search Keyword Tools:

Google: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

7Search: http://conversion.7search.com/scripts/advertisertools/keywordsuggestion.aspx

Miva: https://account.uk.miva.com/advertiser/Account/Popups/KeywordGenBox.asp

Keyword List Generators and Misc:

Google: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

SEOBook.com: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-list/generator.php

RustyBrick.com: http://www.rustybrick.com/keyword-phrase-tool.php

For Local keywords: http://5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php

Google Sets: http://labs.google.com/sets

Tag Clouds and keyword definitions: http://searchradar.webaroo.com/

Related Terms: http://www.kwmap.net/

Related Terms: http://www.urbandictionary.com/

Keyword Aggregators:

SEOBook: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

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Top Ten Google AdWords Keywords Quality Score Tips

Posted in Top Ten SEO Resources | No Comments »

Geo targeted campaign to specific city

Use one exact matched and one phrase matched keyword per ad group

Use the keyword in ad title, text & display URL

Link the ad to a Landing Page that contains that keyword in the head and body

Increase your CTR.

Look into the speed of your landing page.

Try to create best performing ads.

Change your Call-to-Action.

Include the city’s name in your ad.

Duplicate the keywords you already have and add the city’s name to them.

Try to write ads that are different from your competitors’ ones.

Generate a search query report (daily or weekly) and see if you could add some negative keywords…

Include the target keyword in your meta tags and body of the landing page

PUNISHED FOR OTHERS’ POOR PERFORMANCE

We’ve seen advertisers who are doing everything right, but because their industry was/is plagued by shady affiliates or advertisers who’ve done a sloppy job with their campaigns, they struggle to get a decent quality score. And even when they do, the minimum first page bids are sometimes quite high.

LOOK OUT FOR IMPRESSION BLEEDERS

A solid CTR is the main factor in getting a good quality score so watch out for any keywords that are accumulating a high volume of impressions with a low CTR. Over time these keywords will erode your quality score.

DON’T COMPLETELY IGNORE BROAD MATCH

You might want to experiment with some broad match keywords as long as you can maintain a solid CTR – aim for at least your campaign’s average or better. This could help you discover some high value, high CTR keyword variations that you can add as phrase or exact matches (Just try to avoid one word broad match or keyword variation that are too generic because they may generate a high volume of impressions with a lower CTR).

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Black Hat search engine optimization is customarily defined as techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. These black hat SEO techniques usually include one or more of the following characteristics:

breaks search engine rules and regulations

creates a poor user experience directly because of the black hat SEO techniques utilized on the Web site

unethically presents content in a different visual or non-visual way to search engine spiders and search engine users.

A lot of what is known as black hat SEO actually used to be legit, but some folks went a bit overboard and now these techniques are frowned upon by the general SEO community at large. These black hat SEO practices will actually provide short-term gains in terms of rankings, but if you are discovered utilizing these spammy techniques on your Web site, you run the risk of being penalized by search engines. Black hat SEO basically is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem, which is creating a Web site that provides both a great user experience and all that goes with that.

Black Hat SEO Techniques To Avoid

Keyword stuffing: Packing long lists of keywords and nothing else onto your site will get you penalized eventually by search engines. Learn how to find and place keywords and phrases the right way on your Web site with my article titled Learn Where And How To Put Keywords In Your Site Pages.

Invisible text: This is putting lists of keywords in white text on a white background in hopes of attracting more search engine spiders. Again, not a good way to attract searchers or search engine crawlers.

Doorway Pages: A doorway page is basically a “fake” page that the user will never see. It is purely for search engine spiders, and attempts to trick them into indexing the site higher. Read more about doorway pages.

Black Hat SEO is tempting; after all, these tricks actually do work, temporarily. They do end up getting sites higher search rankings; that is, until these same sites get banned for using unethical practices. It’s just not worth the risk. Use efficient search engine optimization techniques to get your site ranked higher, and stay away from anything that even looks like Black Hat SEO. Here’s a few articles that can get you on the road to knowing search engine optimization:

Search Engines Define Spam

Google defines spam as “trying to deceive (spam) our web crawler by means of hidden text, deceptive cloaking or doorway pages.” You can report sites you suspect of spam at Google’s Report A Spam Result page.

Yahoo defines spam as “pages (that) are created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant or poor-quality search results.” They have a pretty extensive list of what techniques they consider spam at their Yahoo Search Technology Content Quality Guidelines page.

MSN Search gives a few spamming techniques “discouraged” by MSN Search; among them are keyword stuffing, invisible text, or false links.

Ask defines spam as “the practice of purposely deceiving a search engine into returning a result that is unrelated to a user’s query, or that is ranked artificially high in the result set.” They give quite a few examples of search engine spam.

While not an exhaustive list of search engines, this should give you a good idea of what is considered spam by search engines.

Spam Techniques To Avoid

Invisible Text. Text that is the same color as the background pages; enables site owner to place more keywords on the page and attract more spiders.

Keyword Stuffing. Pretty much what it sounds like. Keyword stuffing consists of placing as many relevant or irrevelant keywords and phrases as you possibly can in content and Meta tags.

Unrelated Keywords. If you have a site about Depression era glass bowls and your keywords include “Viagra” and “Britney Spears”, that would be considered unrelated keywords.

Doorway Pages. Doorways are pages optimized only for search engine spiders in order to attract more spiders, thus more users. Usually optimized for just one word or phrase and only meant for spiders, not users. Read more about doorway pages.

Tiny Text/Alt Text. Tiny text consists of placing keywords and phrases in the tiniest text imaginable all over your site. Most people can’t see them, but spiders can. Alt text spamming is stuffing the alt text tags (for images) with unrelated keywords or phrases.

Mirror or Duplicate Sites. Don’t duplicate your site, name it something different, and submit it again. This is not only ill advised, but it borders on stupid. Search engines will know if you do this.

Submitting Repeatedly. Submitting your site to a search engine or directory repeatedly in a short period of time is a great way to get your site banned, or at least delayed. Read more about site submission.

Spam – Only Good For Breakfast

To recap: spamming the search engines may seem like the quick road to Easy Street, but it can get you in big trouble and is usually quickly discovered. The bottom line about spam and search engine optimization is this: a person who is determined to get around search engines, inflate their search rankings, or perform unethical SEO maneuvers is asking for trouble. Here are some good search engine optimization resources for beginners to SEO:

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Hallway Page

A hallway page is referred to as a web page that comprises the records of all the web pages as well as the links that later links up to the main website. The major reason why a hallway page is created is to help the search engine spider for indexing all the web pages and then later crawling into all the links which are made available in the hallway page. Generally the page ranks of these hallway pages are very high. Therefore this is an important consideration in emarketing.

Usually it has been seen that webmasters do not correctly adopt the seo technique. They are sometimes of the opinion that submitting a website and carrying out the seo services is very easy just as clicking a “accept” tab on any website. But then they usually fail to understand that the way in which they carry out these seo services is what will determine their page ranks in the search engines making the seo services more effective.

Hallway pages are one such seo technique that should be made use of by all the webmasters to grow on the search engine preferences. This is because some of the times the search engines give out ranks to the pages only as per the scoring given to the web pages by the search engine spider. Here comes the need for a seo technique that is Hallway pages. This seo technique will enhance your search engine page rankings and make your website appear in the first five results of the search engine pages.

This is because the hallway page that you will create will be linked up to all your doorway pages that you might have written for the purpose of seo optimisation. Then at appoint of time when these pages are submitted to any of the search engines the search engine spiders crawl into all these hallway pages and all the other branches that are connected to the links mentioned here. The search engine spiders indexes the pages that the website owner actually wants to get indexed. In this case or seo service the hallway pages that are crawled upon by the search engine spider will be ranked at a higher position than the pages that are individually submitted to the search engine by the web site owner himself. Therefore it is advisable for the seo service providers to advice the web masters to submit all their pages at one point of time.

In the recent times according to the seo analyzers it has been seen that the search engines give higher ranks to the main web page than any other webpage of your website. So it is advisable and also important for the seo service providers to advice the webmasters to link up the links to the main webpage of the website than making an altogether a different page as a hallway page. For gaining higher leverage all you can do is placing your hallway pages on a different domain which you may own and then submitting it to the search engines. Thus if correct seo techniques are opted for then you can always make your website rank higher in the search engines.

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http://www.alistapart.com/articles/accessibilityseo/

DESIGN AND CONTENT GUIDELINES:

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.

Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.

Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.

Make sure that your title and alt tags are descriptive and accurate. [...]

TECHNICAL GUIDELINES:

Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.

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Long Tail SEO Strategy

There has been a lot of talk lately about the “long tail” strategy in search engine optimization. People have been asking me how to work this into their campaign.

First, let me explain to everyone what “long tail” means in SEO. Picture a graph of your search terms in relation to traffic provided. That graph would have a peak for your most popular term, and then get shorter and shorter down to the least trafficked term. The idea of long tail is that the bulk of your traffic is made from these lesser terms, thus the long tail.

USWeb treats long tail as content development approach. With few exceptions, long tail is a common trend for our clients. The most notable exceptions being in certain e-commerce clients where only a handful of search terms convert. Still, search is not only about gaining the initial conversion, it’s about increased visibility to a targeted audience. For example, USWeb sees a significant long tail effect in search engines. Even though we rank on the first page for terms like “online marketing” and “internet marketing”. We see the bulk of our traffic from terms that were not intentional targets. This isn’t a bad thing, especially since most of the these less relvant terms are business related.

The long tail SEO strategy is one of the most effective traffic building approaches you can take. USWeb accomplishes much of our clients long tail success through constant content development. For most clients we try to determine the top 1000 search phrases. We figure out which terms they already rank for, which terms have pages of content ready to optimize, and then which terms we will need to create content.

USWeb is different than most search marketing firms in that most of the expense to our clients is for content development and link building, not just consulting.

Try to imagine the type of impact 1,000 targeted terms have on long tail. Suddenly your site is visible for all sorts of terms that you would have never thought of. One of the biggest clients USWeb has came to us through search, but not one of our prime target terms, but because they were searching for someone by name, who happened to be someone we mentioned.

The trick to converting long tail is to make sure that every page of your site properly explains who you are, what you offer, and a direct call to action. This is easier done for some sites than others, but the pay offs are significant.

One additional benefit to our search engine optimization clients is the search terms they discover once they optimize their site. It’s amazing the terms you can find by seeing how people find your site. You can then add those terms to your Yahoo and Google AdWords list and increase your visibility on terms that most likely are very inexpensive

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Authority of a Page or Web site

Google and other engines determine if a page or site is important “in general” as well as for a specific keyword. The importance of a Web site or page, expressed as Google Pagerank (or other variables not published by other engines) depends on:

How large the site is (in pages).

The age of the site/page.

Whether it is a main domain or a subsidiary domain.

Whether it is a “free Web site” subdomain – ranked lower.

Commercial or not – *.org *.info and *.edu may have more authority than *.com or *.biz.

How many pages link to that page within the site.

The number and importance of the pages/sites linking to that page.

“Demerits” or penalties that the site incurred for promoting itself in ways that that the search engine considers to be “underhanded” – “Black Hat” SEO.

Authority of a Web site is important because it is often used to determine the weight given to links to your Web site. A link from a large Web site is better than a link from a small new one, and a link from the main page of a Web site may help you more than a link from a back page of that Web site.

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Authority Sites

Authority sites (or rather authority site status) is what you are interested in if you are in the hunt for top position on the search engines. In search engine optimization terms, authority sites make your job 10 times easier than a website that has not already achieved this status.

Some websites are already authority sites, but since they have not undergone search engine optimization they are not recognized by the search engines as such. Other websites either lack content our lack the links to be considered authority sites.

On most search engines, for the highly competitive, high traffic keywords, you will notice that generally the top 10 results are loaded with authority sites. There are some exceptions of course, but in general the search engines smile favorably upon the websites they define as authority sites and reward these sites with top rankings.

What makes an authority site?

Authority sites generally have more content and more pages than other sites. The search engines feed on content-rich websites and those with many pages and much content per page will do better when going head-to-head with a smaller site.

In addition, links from other authority sites to your site will help establish your site as an authority site as well. Search engines generally give more weight to the incoming links from authority sites as long as their main keyword is the same as your own.

How do you establish your site as an authority site?

First, add more pages to your site. Second, add more content to those pages. Third, find some authority link partners willing to link to your site. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Before adding more pages to the website, most likely some research will have to be conducted. Get some ideas by checking out what the competition is doing and how they are doing it. You may come up with some good ideas as to why they are beating you in the search engine rankings and you may take corrective action.

Once you know what pages to add, you will either need to write some content, delegate this task to someone else, or hire a copywriter to do this for you. If you already know how to write content-rich, keyword-rich text, then you can take this task on with very little expense. If this is not your strength, then you may delegate this task or hire someone else to do it. There are even places online for article exchanges where you can pick up content by simply linking back to the author’s site.

Once you have more pages with more content, you will need to solicit other authority sites to becoming link partners with you. This can be accomplished through email. Some will and some will not answer your requests and of those who answer some will and some will not link to you. The more content and better design of your website, however, the more likely others will want to link to you.

Once your site has more pages, more content and more high-ranking link partners, you will want to make sure your pages are optimized for the search engines properly.

After all of these steps have been taken, then it is time to submit your website to the major search engines and directories once again so that they may re-index the website and move your site higher up in the rankings.

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seo spam

SEO spam is also called spamdexing (because you’re spamming indexes) and can come in all kinds

of shapes and sizes. There are some spam techniques that are obviously spam. But then there are

some that aren’t clearly spam, but that you should avoid. The list of spamming techniques is huge.

But there are a dozen or so items on that list that are constant.

Transparent links: These are links that are included in the page, but that users can’t see

because they’re the same color as the background.

Hidden links: These links are on the page but are hidden behind elements like graphics.

They don’t turn the graphic into a hyperlink, but a search engine can find them and follow

them, even when people can’t.

Misleading links: Misleading links are those that appear to lead to one place but actually

lead to another. An example of a misleading link is one that reads www.onewebsite.com

but actually takes you to www.differentwebsite.com.

Inconspicuous links: These links appear on a page, but they’re usually unnoticeable

because they’re represented as graphics that are 1 x 1 pixels in size.

Keyword stuffing: Loading the content or the meta tags of a web site with keywords that

are repeated over and over.

Meta tag stuffing: Stuffing meta tags with keywords that are repeated over and over.

Doorway pages (or gateway pages): These pages are designed specifically to draw search

crawlers but are essentially useless to visitors. Often, a doorway page will have only the

visible text, “click here to enter.”

Scraper sites: These are web sites that “scrape,” or copy their content from other pages on

the Web. Search engines don’t like scraper sites because they’re not original and because

they usually direct visitors to another site that’s less relevant to their search terms.

Machine-generated pages: These are web pages put together by a program that grabs the

content from other web sites. The content that’s grabbed could be from within the current

site or from sites belonging to other people. Usually these pages are considered spam

because they are of no value to web-site users.

Links in punctuation: This is a clever scheme. Some unethical SEOs create a hyperlink

that’s contained in a piece of punctuation. It’s done by using the following tag:

Include real words here .

That little snippet of code will leave the words in the link (and you can replace link

with the web-site address of your choice) in plain text, but the period at the end of the

link will contain the link. It’s small, so most people won’t notice it, but the link is there,

so search engines will notice it.

Cloaking: This technique is used to make a highly optimized version of your page appear

to search engines, but a more user-friendly page appear to site visitors.

Excessive cross-linking: Excessive cross-linking can be a sign that a company has created

multiple domains strictly for the purpose of building a false linking structure with a single

web site.

Hidden text: This text is the same color as the background of a web page so that users

can’t see it. Search engines can, and the text is usually an incomprehensible collection of

keywords and phrases.

Duplicate content: Duplicate content on a web site is construed as being a ploy to trick a

search crawler into thinking the site is more relevant than it actually is.

Link-only pages: These pages contain only links and should be avoided. The one exception

to this rule is the site map that you make available to visitors so they can quickly find

their way around your site.

Redirect pages: Redirect pages are usually coded for SEO, but again, they’re useless to

site visitors. When site visitors land on this page, they’re asked to wait while they are

redirected to another web site. Search engines look down on this practice because very

often, the web page that is redirecting is optimized for SEO but not for people.

Link farms: Link farms are simply pages of links that are only created to artificially boost a

linking strategy in an effort to speed the appearance of the web site in the top search ranking

positions.

Spamblogs: These are machine-generated blogs and their only purpose is to draw search

engine rankings.

Page hijacking: Page hijacking is accomplished by copying a very popular page on the

Web and using it to represent your site to search engines. When users see your page in

search results, they click through the link only to be taken to your actual page.

Sybil attacks: Sybil attacks are created when a spammer creates multiple web sites that

are all interlinked for the purpose of creating a false link structure.

Wiki spam: Using the open editability of Wiki sites to add links to a spam site in the

Wiki listing. Because this practice became so frequently used, especially on Wikipedia,

the nofollow tag has been added to most Wiki additions to prevent spamming search

engines.

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Have you ever noticed that when you go to MSN, Yahoo, or Google the cursor goes to the search box when the page loads? I know I notice it when I start to type something in the address bar and half way through the cursor goes to the search box. I call this phenomenon the “mouse trap.”

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keyword research

1 do this before designing and building your site

list of possible keyword or search for keyphrase

take your time and select with care

look at your site access logs

ask customer, co-workes, friends and others for key works

include singular and plural version of important terms

include commonly misspelled word like make some page did you mean this etc

missspell domain name

find possible keyword

refining your keywords

-remove ambiguous terms

diffent meaning to different people

analize compeditior siter atleast 3

-broad term

eg web design for wordpress outsourcing etc

-difficult terms

cd replication they don’t use most

-over-competitive terms

cdrom

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=tips for refining your keyword list

remove terms that are ultra-competitive

web design for wordpress outsourcing

focus on narrowly defined but highly relevant terms

webdisign

don’t work with too many terms

3 or 4 terms

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keyword and relative keyword

which terms are most used most often are looking for your product

worktraker.com to find statics

dogpile.com

use capital and bold and h1 for main keyword

keyword Relevancy

keywords must match the content of your site

keywords most match page tittle domainname meta description

first priority best keyword first, then send priority second

keyword density

how many times your keywords appear in relate to other words

sabin shrestha work page

dead weight words stop word

the of or for this that and to homepage wow web webpage etc

keyword placement

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Creating keyword rich pages

content-rich pages in which particular keyword is repeated

key word location

topof the page in title , description so on

keyword in top is more important make it h1 and bold etc

intitle:welcome used in title

used primary key word in title

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whey use meta tags

displayed as a summary in some se

real live customer use them

if omitted se construct their own

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meta keyword

ignore meta keyword by google

tips for using keyword meta tags

avoid repating words and phrased

limit tag to 12 words

use only keywords relevant to the content of your page

make sure keywords are also in body of pages

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optimizing content

begin your content by using heading

making text bold italics

upper case letters

or in list li

don’t use touch graphics

use alt for alternating text

don’t use more than 250 words

update site as possible as you can

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page content strategies

use keywords on pages through out your site

use keyword more than 10 times

include keywords in as many sentences as possible

first few lines should accurately define the content of page

contain link to other pages containing the same keywords

link to other pages which have the keyword in the file name

keep paragraphs short

use keywords in your file names

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we also need link coming inside or going outside the page

other wise searchengine may penalize

Advantages of links

they help search bots find other pages

keywords in the links tell the engines about the page the link points to

links tell the engines about the content on the page with the link

orphan pages dangling pages … without outbound links

just link the primary keyword …

create sitemap pages

search engine refuse to index or spider filled with links

create short desc on the every link in site map

common page content mistakes

targeting the wrong keywords(checking for bringing rite traffic)

too many graphics

cluttered pages (that don’t have content javascript,flash,graphics,html tags,limit void images map

don’ use frames

use text best link on the bottom of the site if you are using button in up

adword key word tool and get related word

put text on page

think about what users will type when searching for your service and put those words on the pages

add ability to add comments on page

put in twitter facebook

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linking popularity

google set linking that page with right keyword and contents is a good vote for that site

Successful Freelancing for Web Designers Notes

sabin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:50:01 +0000

Successful Freelancing for Web Designers Notes

http://www.noupe.com/tools/15-helpful-blogs-no-freelancer-should-forget.html

http://freelancefolder.com/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/21/essential-habits-of-an-effective-professional-freelancer/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/08/common-questions-about-design-professionalism/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/04/16/the-designer-who-delivers/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/28/critical-mistakes-freelancers-make/

http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/the-importance-of-customer-service-to-your-freelance-business.html

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/11/creatively-handling-the-admin-side-of-freelancing/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/09/the-roadmap-to-becoming-a-professional-freelance-web-designer/

http://sixrevisions.com/user-interface/the-future-of-user-interfaces/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/14/how-to-effectively-communicate-with-developers/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/15/identifying-and-dealing-with-different-types-of-clients/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/04/23/educating-your-client-on-web-development-successfully/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/10/how-to-explain-to-clients-that-they-are-wrong/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/01/how-to-respond-effectively-to-design-criticism/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/11/how-to-persuade-your-users-boss-or-clients/

http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/how-to-create-the-perfect-client-questionnaire.html

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/09/getting-clients-approaching-the-company/

http://www.ehow.com/how_2317357_convert-prospects-clients.html

http://www.theremsengroup.com/82

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/24/marketing-rules-and-principles-for-freelancers/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/28/discuss-how-many-ideas-do-you-show-clients/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/06/freelance-contracts-dos-and-donts/

http://www.noupe.com/freelance/what-s-in-a-price-the-guidelines-for-pricing-web-designs.html

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/14/quality-price-ratio-in-web-design-pricing-design-work/

http://designm.ag/resources/freelance-designers/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/24/a-short-guide-to-open-source-and-similar-licenses/

http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/12-secrets-of-effective-business-communication.html

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-designers-part-1-the-meaning-of-color/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/02/color-theory-for-designers-part-2-understanding-concepts-and-terminology/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/08/color-theory-for-designer-part-3-creating-your-own-color-palettes/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/16/how-to-find-time-for-everything/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/21/45-excellent-code-snippet-resources-and-repositories/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/29/45-incredibly-useful-web-design-checklists-and-questionnaires/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/13/15-useful-project-management-tools/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/12/effective-maintenance-pages-examples-and-best-practices/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/21/web-design-industry-jargon-glossary-and-resources/

http://www.noupe.com/design/simplicity-in-good-web-design-advantages-how-to.html

http://www.heinmaas.com/40-resources-to-become-a-successful-freelance-graphicweb-designer/

http://www.noupe.com/design/10-things-clients-look-for-in-a-design-portfolio.html

http://www.noupe.com/freelance/how-to-make-yourself-stand-out-as-a-freelancer.html

http://freelancefolder.com/3-steps-to-creating-a-freelancing-brand-that-sells/

http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/how-to-create-the-perfect-client-questionnaire.html

http://www.noupe.com/design/systematizing-the-design-build-process.html

Better Communication with Employees and Peers

http://www.inc.com/guides/growth/23032.html

SEO FAQ

sabin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 06:55:23 +0000

SEO Frequently Asked Questions

Questions about Google’s PageRank, and ranking in general, and how to gain some points, by natural ways, without to use bad practices as cloaking and spamming and other forbidden artifacts that may lead you to the black list…

Answers

Is it really useful to provide a sitemap to Google?

The site map, is a standard file in XML format to search engines that allow them to index all pages of a site. It is particularly useful when the engines can not reach internal pages by following links on the site.

The sitemap can be generated automatically by a CMS or with a script as simple map on a static site.

More: Should we generate a sitemap of our website for Google?

How do I know if my pages are indexed by Google?

If your site is called “www.sabinshrestha.com.np” for example (this is impossible), type this in the search window:

site:www.sabinshresth.com.np

Google will display your indexed pages and so allows you to check the title and description of the pages.

How to exclude a page from the index?

Insert a meta tag within into the HTML page:

A robots.txt at the root of the site may also contain rules to search engines for excluding files or directories.

Is the duplicate content penalized?

Duplicate content is the presence of same contents on page in the same site or in different site, or contents indexed twice. This could happen with different URLs pointing on the same page or with copies of pages. This would be a way for a site that would try to monopolize the top or result pages, but this never happen in the real world, so it can be concluded that engines penalize effectively duplicate content.
In a post on its blog, Google has clarified the rules about

duplicate content.

Is robots.txt helpful? How does Google use it?

This file is stored at root of any website by the webmaster. He said to search engines which pages should be indexed or which pages or directories must not be added to the index.
There is no standard but common rule to follow. Even if a page is excluded in the robots.txt file, that does not imply it will be removed from the index.
More about robots.txt.

Are RSS feeds useful for SEO?

It is a way to get visitors and amounts of backlinks. The RSS file contains a list of links on your articles and it can be replicated on other sites, as well as in directories. To find out how easily achieve an RSS file, and how to use it, consult the RSS tutorial or the RSS section on this site.
The backlinks provided by the RSS feeds which are echoed by many sites are temporary, they will disappear with the renewal of the content of the feed, therefore RSS is best suited for blogs.

Is the description meta used by Google?

The answer is given by Google on his blog for webmasters, in the article entitled “Improve snippets with a meta description makeover”.
Snippets are the descriptions in search results under the titles.
The description in the meta must be unique and must give details on the page. It should contain keywords related to its contents.

Should I fill the meta keywords?

The meta keyword is not used by Google. It may be used by other search engines. Some webmasters performed a successful experience with the meta keyword and Yahoo.
If you need for additonnal trafic from Yahoo, fill the meta keyword.

Why the link Google gives only a few backlinks?

The operator link in the search bar (link: site-name) is a command to display the number of links pointing to a site. In fact this command provides only a fraction of backlinks, in order to save servers bandwich.
The choice of outcome is totally random, this was confirmed by Matt Cutts in a video on Youtube. They have nothing to do with PR or with the quality of the pages, they are taken randomly.

Why a second indented link for the same site in results page?

The result of a query displays for a site, a link, and then a second, which is shifted. This means that the same site appears twice among the same search results page, in which case the two pairs title and descriptions are combined with no respect to the score of the second one.

Are internal links helpful?

Internal links, mainly on the home page, facilitate the indexing of the pages, and also tend to spread the PageRank of a page to another. Put a maximum of internal links in the content of the pages, when a term refers to the content of another page of course.
The anchor of the link must be descriptive, it helps search engines to define the content of a target page and therefore favors its rank.
Several links to the same page may be even added, as explained further.

For Matt Cutts, (see interview in references at bottom), a link is a link. And so links gained from social bookmark sites have same weight as other link in regular webpages.
But the weight of a link depends upon the PageRank of the page where it is added.

Is the domain extension important for PageRank?

No, the extension may be either .com, .edu or .org, this has no importance, only the PageRank of the page is important for backlinks. Links from these sites are not more trusted and do not pass more PageRank.
Référence in interview.

Are nofollow links followed by crawlers?

It is sometimes admitted that even if nofollowed links do not pass PageRank, they are used for discovery of new pages. This is denied by Google.
- Nofollow links do not pass PageRank.
- They are not used to discover new pages.
- The anchor is not used to define the content of the linked page.
They are totally ignored.
Référence in interview.

Several links on a page to the same page are they useful?

When multiple links point to the same page, only the first is taken into account by Google. But this is not the case if the links point to different sections of the page, determined by a fragment with the #xxxxxx format.
In this case, the anchor of each link is considered to index the target page. Whether it links to another site or on the same site.
It appears even that the first link on the page and not a section is ignored.
Tests have been made by seomoz to verify that.

Javascript links are they taken into account?

If they are easy to interpret they are considered as HTML tags and may even pass PageRank to the page that is linked.
Javascript links and search engines.

How many keywords can I put into a URL?

In the directory + filename, you can put until 5 keywords with no problem. Beyond that, your URL look as spam and the algorithm weights these words less. You can get spam report with lot of keyword in URLs (Matt Cutts in references).

How many links can I put into a page?

The guidelines recommend to put less than 100 links. You can bypass this number, technically, there is no problem as Google can parse a page up to 500 KB, but it is bad practice and it is better to split the page into smaller ones.

My page is not indexed by search engines

Perhaps the HTML format is not correct and therefore not recognized by crawlers…
Check your syntax with the validator of the W3 Consortium.
If the page is new, it takes several days or weeks for it to be taken into account. See also paragraph on sitemaps.
It is also possible that Google or another search engine decides not to index your site because robots.txt is empty or malformed.

See at robot.txt.

Can I force a Web page to be indexed?

If robots do not come frequenlty enough on your site (the date of the last visit is indicated on the home page of webmaster tools), you can still force the indexing by getting a link to the page on another site that is frequently crawled.
See the article How to obtain backlinks and similar article on this site for details.

How to improve the SEO of my site?

Several page here are dedicated to SEO, see the SEO summary.
This page is dedicated to the optimization for search engines.

Where can I get more information about Googlebot?

Googlebot is the crawler of Google. It could parse some pages on your site every day. This Googlebot FAQ gives details of how it works.

What is lemmatisation?

An expected progress for search engines to identify the root of words and retrieve pages sharing same roots of words. Do not really seem yet implemented in 2007.

What is hilltop?

A theoretical extension to the PageRank, and that could prevent manipulations by an algorithm which classifies a page solely on the basis of links from authoritative sites. This is partially used by search engines according to the Google’s patent.

What is SERP?

Search Engine Result Pages, ie results pages provided by search engines in response to a query.

How to avoid cloaking?

Cloaking is presenting to search engines text that is not visible to visitors. It may not be intentional when you add text unnecessary to visitors to index pages made of flash or images or dynamic text that are not scanned by robots. But this is not allowed.
You should use an alt attributes dedicated for images instead. And for text displayed by JavaScript and not seen by robots, it can be submitted into thenoscript tag, it is permitted.

How to type google.com without being redirected to my country version?

When you want to access the search engine, it automatically redirects you to the regional version of the engine. This is suitable for most users but not to the webmaster or the user who wants to do a search on google.com.
To reach google.com, type in the URL bar:

www.google.com/ncr

What can be placed in bookmark. “ncr” could mean “no country redirect”.

What is the bounce rate?

Definition from Google: “Specifies in what percentage visitors left the site without viewing any other pages.” The bounce is the fact that a visitor leaves the site as soon as he read the page on which it arrives. So if three out of four visitors do read a single page and leave the site without to read others, the bounce rate will be 75%.
It is generally preferable to have a low bounce rate, it means that there is interest in the content of the site and that one read so many pages, but on the other hand, when a visitor searches for something very precise he will leave the site after having found it and the bounce in this case is a positive factor!

How to improve the bounce factor

How can we overshoot Wikipedia?

Wikipedia, the big wiki, sort of online encyclopedia, tends to arrive at the top in Google, although before websites with more comprehensive article and with more backlinks!
One of the reasons is that this site is favored and another is in the impressive number of links between articles and sub-domains.
But there is room to move ahead and achieve top results in search engines. The weakness of the wiki is that all articles have a single word for name and thus anchor are also a single keyword.
The solution is to make articles based on two keywords, for example, grape + health, or health + diet. The title of the article include two keywords, as well as the file name, and the anchors of internal links…
Searches made on two keywords should return your page rather the one keyword page of the wiki.

Can I modify the snippets?

A snippet is the name that Google gives tos the description under the title of the page in search results.
It is actually possible to change this text and make it more attractive, especially with the meta description

How to improve snippets

How can I leave the sandbox?

A site enters the sandbox, because it is penalized by Google, the crawlers of the search engine have calculated that the content on the site is intended to artificially obtain a good ranking in results.
The first thing to do to get out of the sandbox is to delete from the content all possible causes of penalties, then you must work to obtain quality backlinks.

How to leave the sandbox.

What is minus thirty?

Many webmasters believe they have suffered a penalty that is called minus 30 or -30. Their site is bumped from #1 to #31 in results of Google, and it is very clear with the URL of the site. In general, a site ranks first on its name with the extension, or the sites are now found in 31th position.

My site has disappeared from Google’s index, what can I do?

The first thing to check is the robots.txt file to see if it does not block robots. Robots are blocked with a directive of the form Disallow: /
They are not blocked if nothing follows Disallow.
Then see the list of errors to not commit in SEO. If your site is in no case you must wait until it is inserted in the index again.

Why the link: operator from Google returns only a few backlinks?

The link operator in the search bar (link: site-name) is a command to display the number of links pointing to a site. In fact this command provides only a fraction of backlinks, in order to save bandwich of servers.
The choice of outcomes is totally random, this was confirmed by Matt Cutts in a video on Youtube. They have nothing to do with PR or with the quality of the pages, they are taken randomly.

How to be a trusted site?

Your site can become trusted in two phases. In a first step you have to gain authority among readers. Then it will be readers who will make your site trusted for Google, by citing its content. A list of ways to achieve this objective is given by Google.

Google tells you how to be a trusted site.

Should we add content frequently?

Continuously adding new pages can it not be harmful since it increases the number of links on the homepage?

Adding content is good but you we must follow some rules of organization. The homepage does not link to all articles but only a few. Each page must have a link on the home page and links to related articles: links should always be relevant.

That said, Google promotes new content, so assuming that your new articles are related to the actuality, or your change in previous articles update them, it is good for SEO.
The changes that are not of actuality have little interest, it serves mostly Adsense which targets preferentially pages that evolve.

Which percentage of users click on the first link in search page results?

A statistical study by a university on the one hand and a leaked document from AOL on the other give an answer, at least 70% of clicks are on the first three links and about 50% over the first.

Distribution of clicks in the results pages of search engines.

How to improve naturally the PageRank

PageRank, or website ranking, is a notation from 0 to 10, given by Google to each page of a website.

The higher is this value, the better will be the position of the page in results of searches, among other pages that match the request.

A 5 points PageRank is Good. 7 points may be reached with valuable backlinks. The number of 10 points PageRank websites is very short!

The word PageRank comes both from “page ranking” and “Page” that is the name of one of the two authors of the algorithm (Serguey Brin and Larry Page).

PageRank, or website ranking, is a notation from 0 to 10, given by Google to each page of a website.The higher is this value, the better will be the position of the page in results of searches, among other pages that match the request.A 5 points PageRank is Good. 7 points may be reached with valuable backlinks. The number of 10 points PageRank websites is very short!The word PageRank comes both from “page ranking” and “Page” that is the name of one of the two authors of the algorithm (Serguey Brin and Larry Page).

Is PageRank important?

According to Google, PageRank is the more important among 100 criteria to order pages in results of searches.
Thus, it is not the only one. But for websites that match a same group of keywords, it is very important.

Is PageRank used against duplicate content?

When two pages are identical, and if the date of indexing is not sufficient to know what is the original and what is the copy, Google considers that the page with the higher PageRank is the original. This was clearly stated in an interview of Matt Cuts by Stephan Spencer and confirmed by a post on the Google’s blog about duplicate content.

How is calculated PageRank by Google?

The value of PageRank doesn’t depend upon the content of the page, but only of links to the page instead.
Links in the page towards other website is important also.
Links to a page are considered as a vote for this page. But the value of this vote depend of the PageRank of the page that emits it.
The PageRank of a page is transmitted to linked page but the added value is divided by the number of links. If a page links to ten pages, the added value of the vote is divided by ten.
The ranking of a page depends upon of ranking of backlinks, and also ranking of other pages it links.

(From the article “Deeper inside PageRank” by A.N. Langville et C.D. Meyer)

What is cloaking?

This is creating alternate pages that are read by crawlers (robots of search engines) but not by human readers. These hidden pages are full of keywords to improve search results.
When cloaking is detected the website goes to the blacklist, their pages are no longer indexed. See “bmw.de” et “ricoh.de” affairs (same webmaster?)

What is spamming?

This is putting lot of hidden links into a web page (inside “no script” tags for example) to make more links to a friend website and improve its ranking. Once spamming is recognized, the two websites goes to the blacklist.

What is spoofing?

This is redirecting a page to a page in another website with a high PageRank, and this result in the source page to get the PR of the destination. The redirection is achieved by the use of the “refresh” meta tag. Visitors see the current page, but search engines see only the target page with the high PR.
This is known as a bug in the calculation of the PR, and is probably fixed now.

How to know my PageRank?

Just install Google’s toolbar on your browser. The PageRank of each page is displayed when you visit your website.
But this is a kind of mean as PageRank depends upon a group of keywords. To know the real ranking, perform searches with various keywords. The position of your page (when several match the request) gives the ranking: the top of list means for a ranking of 10. First page of search results means for 6-9 PR when lot of matches exists.
This website can also display the PageRank of your site.

A company guarantees me a 10 points PR.

I have been contacted by a company and it guarantees me a 10 points PR, and I want to improve my ranking. Should I accept?
According to Google, nobody can garantee a PageRank, for any position. (And I know only a dozen of big websites with a 10 PR).

Is the PageRank the first factor for the position?

Matt Cutts is the member of the Google’s SEO staff who communicates the most often on medias about the algorithm. He said in an interview published on the Stonetemple site, in Octobre 8, 2007:

I would certainly say that the links are the primary way that we look at things now in terms of reputation.

Links are the source of the PageRank, according their weight and their number, and they are the first factor for the reputation of the document, which in turn is certainly the first factor for the position in results.

What means a graybar PR? Is this a penalty?

This is not necessarily a penalty and this is not a problem with the toolbar as some think. This is not equivalent to a PR 0.
The graybar is a signal that something is wrong with the page from the rules that Google wants to see applied by webmasters. The more often a lack of content, an excess number of internal or external links compared to the content.
In practice, it prevents the spread of PR. A page is rarely grayed if it has quality backlinks, otherwise you should study it as it can contain anomalies.

How to improve my PageRank (PR)?

The PR of a page depends on the number and the quality of links from other sites to this page. It is improved by getting quality backlinks, but other criteria contribute to the score of the page.

How to improve the PR of a page.

Other factors for the position in results.

PageRank, that is based upon backlinks, is only one factor among several ones, to calculate the position of link to your website, in results of search engines.
These factors are also considered:
- The localization of the host and the language of the request.
- Clicks on the link to your website rather than other links in results. Your page must be chosen. Imagine good title and description, clear and attracting.
- The number of keywords. This is used first to select a page, and then to calculate its position in the list.

A more complete list is given in the Google patent.

Does a 301 redirect mean a lost in PageRank?

When a page is redirected through the HTTP code 301, the PageRank is transmitted with a discount. This has been confirmed by Matt Cutts. The ratio of this reduction is unclear, but we can say from experience that it is enough to lose one or more positions in results.
It is better to avoid changing the domain of a site if it is not absolutely necessary.
Ref WebmasterWorld.

When the PageRank is it updated?

The actual PageRank depends on the evolution of backlinks among other factors and is constantly modified.

But the public PR as displayed by the green bar of the toolbar is automatically changed to fixed dates, every three months, in the beginning of January, April, July, October.

References

SEO manual. Step by step manual for how to succeed in SEO and to increase the number of visitors.
Answers from Google to webmasters
Lot of questions and the team at Google Webmaster Central answered all of them.
Interview of Matt Cutts. Head of Google’s webspam team.
Articles on robots.txt.
Sharing advices.

The Future OF User Interfaces

sabin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:30:42 +0000

Citation of Interesting article written by Cameron Chapman about the Future of User Interfaces.

User interfaces—the way we interact with our technologies—have evolved a lot over the years.

From the original punch cards and printouts to monitors, mouses, and keyboards, all the way to the track pad, voice recognition, and interfaces designed to make it easier for the disabled to use computers, interfaces have progressed rapidly within the last few decades.

But there’s still a long way to go and there are many possible directions that future interface designs could take. We’re already seeing some start to crop up and its exciting to think about how they’ll change our lives.

In this article are than a dozen potential future user interfaces that we’ll be seeing over the next few years (and some further into the future).

Brain-Computer Interface
Army Mind-Control Projects
The Matrixesque Brain Interface: MEMS-Based Robotic Probe
OCZ’s Neural Impulse Actuator
Biometric and Cybernetic Interfaces
Warfighter Physiological Status Monitoring
Fingerprint Scanners
Digital Paper and Digital Glass
Transparent OLED Display
LG 19″ Flexible Display
E-Ink
Telepresence
Telepresence Surgery
Universal Control System
Space Exploration and Development
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens
Wearable Retinal Display
Heads-Up Display
Privacy Concerns with Augmented Reality
Voice Control
BMW Voice Control System
Google Voice Search
Gesture Recognition
Acceleglove: Gloves that Recognize Sign Language
Gesture-Based Control for TVs
Nintendo Wii
Xbox Project Natal
Head and Eye Tracking
Gran Turismo 5
Pseudo-3D with a Generic Webcam
Artificial Intelligence
Cyber Security Knowledge Transfer Network
AI for Adaptive Gaming
AI for Mission Control
Virtual Assistants
Multi-Touch
Microsoft Surface
Apple Products
Mobile Phones

System integrity using Files, Permissions, Processes, Root and Sudo

sabin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:35:22 +0000

To be a good in system administration, we have to understand the basics of files, processes and permissions of our Linux/Unix hosts. Therefore, in this article, we will cover the basic stuffs regarding files, processes, permissions, the SUPERUSER “root” account and the sudo program.

Every file and process on a Linux/Unix system is owned by a particular user account. Every file has both an owner and a group owner. What this means is that the owner of the file enjoys one special property that is not shared with everyone on the system. This property is the ability to modify the permissions of the file.

Other users on the system can’t access files belonging to others without the owner’s permission, so this restriction helps protect a user’s files against “malicious” users!

Please note that all credits for this article goes to the authors of the book called “LINUX ADMINISTRATION HANDBOOK”. I recommend this book for all levels of system administrators. It can be accessed from the site http://www.admin.com

Having said that, although the owner of a file can always be a single person, many people can be group owners of the file if they are all part of a single Linux/Unix group. Groups are defined in the /etc/group file.

Ownerships of a file can be shown with the ls -l filename command as shown below:

-bash-3.00$ ls -l /export/home/tek/records
-rw-r–r– 1 tek wheel 869 Jan 4 14:43 /export/home/tek/records

As seen above, the file named records is owned by the user “tek” and the group “wheel”.

Linux/Unix in reality keeps track of owners and groups represented by numbers rather than as text names. User identification numbers (UIDs) are mapped to user names in the /etc/passwd file and Group identification numbers (GIDs) are mapped to group names in the /etc/group file.

The text names that corresponds to UIDs and GIDs are designed only for the convenience of the system’s human users! Next time a command such as ls are issued which displays ownership information, then the files /etc/passwd and /etc/group are queried.

Processes

A process is the term used by Linux/Unix to represent a running program through which the running program’s use of memory, processor time, and I/O resources can be managed.

Unlike files, processes have not two but four identities associated with them. They are a real and effective UID and a real and effective GID. The “real” numbers are used for accounting purposes, and the “effective” numbers are used for the determination of access permissions.

Superuser or root privilege UID (SUID) is always equal to 0 (zero).

For example, the Real UID (RUID) is the UID of the process that created the process itself. It can be changed only if the running process has Effective UserID (EUID)=0.

The effective UID (EUID) is used to evaluate privileges of the process to perform a particular action. EUID can be changed either to Real UserID (RUID), or SUID if EUID is not equal to 0. If EUID=0, it can be changed to anything.

Most of the time, the real and effective numbers are the same.

The owner of a process can send the process signals such as kill and can also reduce the process scheduling priority.

Under normal circumstances, it is not possible for a process to change it’s 4 ownership credentials. There is a special situation in which the effective user (EUID) and group ID (EGID) can and needs to be changed.

When a command which has the “setuid” or “setgid” permissions is executed, the effective UID (EUID) or GID (EGID) of the resulting process can be set to the UID or GID of the file containing the program image rather than the UID or GID of the user executing the command.

For example, let us look at the program called “passwd“.

-bash-3.00$ ls -l /usr/bin/passwd
-r-sr-sr-x 1 root sys 22620 Jan 23 2005 /usr/bin/passwd

As you know it, passwd is the command used for changing the passwords for a given user in a Linux/Unix environment.

As can be seen above, the UID and GID permissions are set to root and sys respectively. How is it possible for a normal user to run this program then? Well that’s what we called the “setuid” or “setgid” permissions!

The normal user’s privileges are thus “promoted” for the execution of that specific command only. Hence Linux/Unix’s setuid facility allows programs run by normal users to make use of the root account in a very limited way.

As in the passwd command example below, we can see the “setuid” permissions in action:

-bash-3.00$ /usr/bin/passwd tek
Enter existing login password:
New Password:
Re-enter new Password:
passwd: password successfully changed for tek

Here we see the passwd command that users run to change their login password is a setuid program. The program passwd modifies the /etc/passwd file in a very well-defined way and then terminates. To prevent abuse, the passwd program requires the users to prove that they know the current password before it agrees to make the requested password change. Nice security!

ROOT: The SUPERUSER

What exactly is the root account? Why does it has a very special place in Linux/Unix systems? Well the main defining characteristic property of the root account is that it’s UID is set to 0 (zero).

Linux/Unix systems permit the superuser (that is root) to perform any valid operation on any file or process. In addition, some process issuing system calls or requests directly to the kernel can only be executed by the superuser.

Below are some restricted operations which can only be performed by the superuser (root):

* Creating device files
* Setting the system’s hostname
* Configuring network interfaces
* Setting the system clock
* Raising resource usage limits and process priorities
* Shutting down the system

An example of superuser powers is the ability of a process owned by root to change it’s UID and GID. The login program and it’s window system equivalents like GDM and KDM are a case in point.

The login program that prompts you for your username and password when you log in to the system initially runs as root. If the username and password matches, the login program changes it’s UID and GID to your UID and GID and starts up your user environment. Once a root process has changed it’s ownerships to become a normal user process, it can never recover it’s former privileged state!

Therefore, it is extremely important for any system administrator to choose a very complex and secure password for the root user! I recommend a minimum of 8 characters with a mixture of Capital letters and numerical numbers! A warning has to be issued here, which is not to make the root’s password so complicated that you can’t remember it!

For remote administration, we obviously use the program called the Secure Shell (SSH) to manage our servers. For that matter, it is advisable to disable direct root access via SSH. To disable SSH to root user and set other security restrictions, at least enable/disable it’s parameters as shown below:

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

###Recommended values###

# Listen port (Default is 22, but change is to a higher port above 1025!)
Port 2012

# Only v2 (recommended)
Protocol 2

# Port forwarding
AllowTcpForwarding no

# X11 tunneling options
X11Forwarding no

# Ensure secure permissions on users .ssh directory.
StrictModes yes

# Default is 600 seconds. 0 means no time limit.
LoginGraceTime 120

# Maximum number of retries for authentication
# Default is 6. Default (if unset) for MaxAuthTriesLog is MaxAuthTries / 2
MaxAuthTries 4
MaxAuthTriesLog 3

PermitEmptyPasswords no

PermitRootLogin no
###End of sshd_config###

BECOMING ROOT

A better way to access the root account is to use the su command. If invoked without any arguments, su will prompt for the root password and then start up a root shell. The privileges of this shell remain in effect until the shell terminates (Ctrl+D or the exit command).

su does not record the commands executed as root, but it does create a log entry that states who became root and when.

So we have to extra careful as to whom to give root’s password! It is also a good idea to get in the habit of typing the full pathname to the su command rather than relying on the shell to find the command for you!

-bash-3.00$ whereis su
su: /sbin/su /sbin/su.static /usr/bin/su /usr/man/man1m/su.1m

Note: The exact location of the su command may differ from one system to another.

Next time you want to become root, simply type:

/usr/bin/su -

This will give you some protection against programs called su that may have been slipped into your search path with the intention of retrieving passwords.

sudo: a limited su

Since the privileges of the superuser account cannot be subdivided, it is hard to give someone the ability to do one task (backups) without giving that person the root privileges of the root account. Also if the SUPERUSER account is used by several administrators, you will have only a vague idea of who’s using it and doing what?

These types of problems can be resolved to some extent by a program called “sudo“. It is available in Debian, RedHat, SuSE, FreeBSD packages among other distributions.

For installation in Debian, it’s as simple as: apt-get install sudo

For Fedora and Centos, it’s: yum install sudo

For FreeBSD, you just make install in /usr/ports/security/sudo

sudo takes as it’s argument a command line to be executed as root (or as another restricted user). sudo consults the file /etc/sudoers, which lists the people who are authorized to use sudo and the commands they are allowed to run on the system.

If the proposed command is permitted for the user, sudo prompts the user’s own password and executes the command.

For example, suppose we have a normal user called “john” belonging to the “wheel” group. Under normal circumstances, user “john” can’t run the tcpdump command.

To give our normal user “john” the limited sudo access to the tcpdump command, we add the following entry in /etc/sudoers file.

(1.) vi /etc/sudoers

#Add the following

john, %wheel ALL= /sbin/, /usr/sbin, /usr/sbin/tcpdump

(2.) Save and exit.

If user “john” were to run the tcpdump command without sudo, it would resemble as:

john@localhost:~$ /usr/sbin/tcpdump
tcpdump: no suitable device found

But for user “john” to run the tcpdump command, he simply types the following sudo command:

john@localhost:~$ sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump

Password:
sudo tcpdump

Running tcpdump using sudo

Hence in this way, we can give a normal user some privilege to run a command to which only a superuser is allowed to.

Please note that I have touched only the tip of the sudo program. However below is a summary of what you can achieve using sudo:

1. Accountability is much improved because of command logging
2. Operators can do chores without unlimited root privileges
3. The real root password can only be known to one or few users
4. Privileges can be revoked without the need to change the root password
5. A single file /etc/sudoers can be used to control access for an entire network.

Linux/Unix Filesystem

In the Linux/Unix world, almost everything is represented by the file system. Processes, Serial ports, devices, you name it, is represented and managed via the file system.

In a nutshell, the filesystem can be summarized as:

1. A namespace – a way of naming things and organizing them in a hierarchy
2. An API – a set of system calls for navigating and manipulating objects
3. A security model – a scheme for protecting, hiding, and sharing things
4. An implementation – software that ties the logical model to actual hardware

The filesystem is presented as a single unified hierarchy that starts at the directory / and continues downward through an arbitrary number of subdirectories. / is also called the root directory.

The list of directories that must be traversed to locate a particular file, together with it’s filename, form a “pathname”. Pathnames can be either absolute (/tmp/foo) or relative (mydocs/chap4) . Relative pathnames are interpreted starting at the current directory.

The terms file, filename, pathname, and path are more or less interchangeable. Filename and path can be used for both absolute and relative paths; pathnames generally suggests an absolute path.

The filesystem can be arbitrarily deep. However, each component of a pathname must have a name no more than 255 characters long, and a single path may not contain more than 4095 characters. To access a file with a pathname longer than 4095 characters, you must cd to an intermediate directory and use relative pathname.

There are no restrictions on the naming of files and directories, except that the names are limited in length and must not contain the “/” character or nulls. Spaces are permitted but because of UNIX’s long tradition of separating command-line arguments at whitespace, legacy software tends to break when spaces appear within filenames. However, these cases are very rare nowadays.

In shell and in scripts, spaceful filenames just need to be quoted to keep their pieces together. For example, the command:

-bash-3.00$ more “My very long file.txt”

would preserve My very long file.txt as a single argument to more command.

Below is a graphical summary representing the Linux/Unix File System:
Linux File Structure

MOUNTING AND UNMOUNTING FILESYSTEMS

As seen on the diagram above, the filesystem is composed of smaller chunks – also called filesystems- each of which consists of one directory and it’s subdirectories and files. For clarity, we use the term “file tree” to refer to the overall layout of the filesystem and reserve the word “filesystem” for the chunks attached to the tree!

Most filesystems are disk partitions but they can be anything that obeys the proper API: network file servers, kernel components, memory-based disk emulators, etc.

Filesystems are attached to the tree with the mount command. mount maps a directory within the existing file tree, called the mount point, to the root of the newly attached filesystem.

For example on a Linux host,

root@localhost# mount /dev/hda4 /mbox

The above command will install the filesystem stored on the disk partition represented by /dev/hda4 under the path /mbox. You can then use command “ls /mbox” to see that filesystem’s contents.

On a Solaris host:

# mount /dev/dsk/c2d0s6 /mbox

The above command will mount a secondary hard drive represented by /dev/dsk/c2d0s6 to the path /mbox in Solaris.

A list of the filesystems that are mounted on a particular system is kept in the /etc/fstab file in Linux/FreeBSD machines. On a Solaris machines, it is kept in the /etc/vfstab file.

The information contained in this file allows filesystems to be checked (fsck -A) and mounted (mount -a) automatically at boot time. It also serves as documentation for the layout of the filesystems on disk and enables short commands such as mount /var for which the location of the filesystem to mount is looked up in /etc/fstab or /etc/vfstab.

Filesystems are detached with the umount command. You cannot unmount a filesystem that is “busy” or in use! There must not be any open files or processes whose current directories are located on that filesystem, and if the filesystem contains executable programs, they cannot be running!

When you are trying to umount a filesystem and the kernel complains that the filesystem is busy, you can run fuser to find out why.

For example, running the df -h command below shows:

Linux df command

df -h command

Viewing the contents of /etc/fstab:

Linux /etc/fstab

If we try to umount /usr :

umount /usr busy

umount /usr showing as busy!

Running fuser -mv /usr:

fuser -mv /usr

“fuser -mv” command showing why /usr can’t be unmounted

File Types and Permissions

Linux/Unix defines seven (7) types of files. They are defined as follows:

1. Regular files
2. Directories
3. Character device files
4. Block device files
5. Local domain sockets
6. Named pipes (FIFOs)
7. Symbolic links

We can determine the type of an existing file with the ls -ld command. The first (1st) character of the ls output encodes the type of file.

For example,

# ls -ld /etc/ssh

drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 512 Nov 21 14:28 /etc/ssh

Remembering that the 1st character determines the type of file, the table below are the codes representing various types of files:

Linux/Unix File Types Table

As can be seen from the table above, rm is the universal tool for deleting files you don’t want anymore!

A word of caution: Use rm very carefully. You could mistakenly remove a very important file such needed by your system. If that happens, your system might not boot anymore!

If in doubt, always use the -i option with the rm command.

For example,

# rm -i /etc/rmmount.conf
rm: remove /etc/rmmount.conf (yes/no)?

(1.) Regular files

A regular file is just a file containing certain amount of bytes! Linux/Unix imposes no structure on its contents. Text files, data files, executable programs like gcc, shared libraries are all stored as regular files.

(2.) Directories

A directory contains named references to other files. You can create directories with the mkdir command and delete them with the rmdir command if they are empty. If the directory is not empty, you are wipe it with the rm -r command.

For example, let’s list the contents of the /etc/ssh

# ls -al /etc/ssh

total 208
drwxr-xr-x 2 root sys 512 Nov 21 14:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 87 root sys 4608 Jan 7 11:24 ..
-rw-r–r– 1 root sys 88301 Jan 22 2005 moduli
-rw-r–r– 1 root sys 861 Jan 22 2005 ssh_config
-rw——- 1 root root 668 Nov 21 14:28 ssh_host_dsa_key
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 605 Nov 21 14:28 ssh_host_dsa_key.pub
-rw——- 1 root root 883 Nov 21 14:28 ssh_host_rsa_key
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 225 Nov 21 14:28 ssh_host_rsa_key.pub
-rw-r–r– 1 root sys 5215 Jan 7 15:38 sshd_config

If you have noticed, in every directory, there are two (2) special entries “.” and “..”.

They refer to the directory itself and to its parent directory respectively; hence they cannot be removed! Since the root directory has no parent directory, the path “/..” is equivalent to the path “/.” (and both are equivalent to /).

(3.) Character and Block device files

Device files allow programs to communicate with the system’s hardware and peripherals. When the kernel is configured, modules that know how to communicate with each of the system’s devices are linked in. These days, the kernel can also load modules dynamically.

But what exactly is a kernel module? Modules are pieces of code that can be loaded and unloaded into the kernel upon demand. They extend the functionality of the kernel without the need to reboot the system. For example, one type of module is the device driver, which allows the kernel to access hardware connected to the system. Without modules, we would have to build monolithic kernels and add new functionality directly into the kernel image. Besides having larger kernels, this has the disadvantage of requiring us to rebuild and reboot the kernel every time we want new functionality.

Microsoft Windows needs to reboot so often because they lack the support of modules from their NT kernel unlike Linux/Unix!

The module for a particular device, called a device driver, takes care of the messy details of managing the device.

Device drivers present a standard communication interface that looks like a regular file. When the kernel is given a request that refers to a character or block device file, it simply passes the request to the appropriate device driver.

It is important to differentiate between device files and device drivers. The device files are are just ordinary points that are used to communicate with the drivers. They are not the drivers themselves.

But what is the difference between a character device file and a block device file? Character device files allow their associated drivers to do their own input and output (I/O) buffering.

Block device files are used by drivers that handle input and output (I/O) in large chunks and want the kernel to perform the buffering for them.

Simply, a block device would read/write bytes in fixed size blocks, as in disk sectors. Character devices read/write 0 or more bytes, in a stream, such as a TTY or a keyboard.

Device files are characterized by two numbers, called the major and minor device numbers. The major device number tells the kernel which driver the file refers to, and the minor device number tells the driver which physical unit to address.

If we on at the example below,

09:26:57 root@gw-dml-sp:~$ ls -l /dev/lp0

crw-rw—- 1 root lp 6, 0 Jan 4 13:05 /dev/lp0

From above, the major device number is 6 and the minor device number is 0.

We can create device files with the mknod command and remove them with the rm command. Most systems provide a script called /dev/MAKEDEV that creates the appropriate sets of device files for common devices.

(4.) Local domain sockets

Sockets are connections between processes that allow them to communicate in a proper manner. Linux/Unix provides several different kinds of sockets, most of which involve the use of a network. Local domain sockets are accessible only from the local host and are referred to through a filesystem object rather than a network port. They are also known as “UNIX domain sockets“.

Although socket files are visible to other processes as directory entries, they cannot be read from or written to by processes not involved in the connection. Some standard facilities that use local domain sockets are the printing system, the GNOME and KDE Window Systems, and syslog.

Local domain sockets are created with the socket system call and can be removed with the rm command or the unlink system call once they have no more users.

(5.) Named pipes

Like local domain sockets, named pipes allow communication between two processes running on the same host. They are also known as “FIFO files” (FIFO is short form for “First In, First Out”).

You can create named pipes with the mknod command and remove them with rm.

Like local domain sockets, real-world instances of named pipes are very few and rarely need administrative action.

(6.) Symbolic links

Symbolic links consist of a special type of file that serves as a reference to another file or directory. Unix-like operating systems in particular often feature symbolic links. Basically, a symbolic or soft link points to a file by name.

You can think of symbolic links in a similar way when you create “desktop shortcuts” in MS-Windows!
Unlike a hard link, which points directly to data and represents another name for the same file, a symbolic link contains a path which identifies the target of the symbolic link. Thus, when a user removes a symbolic link, the file to which it pointed remains unaffected. Symbolic links may refer to files even on other mounted file systems.

We create symbolic links with the ln -s command and remove them with the rm command.

For example, if we want to make a symbolic link between the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and /home/tek/myssh_config, we issue the following command:

# ln -s /etc/ssh/sshd_config /home/tek/mysshd_config

# ls -l /home/tek/mysshd_config

lrwxrwxrwx 1 tek tek 20 Jan 8 21:48 /home/tek/mysshd_config -> /etc/ssh/sshd_config

FILE ATTRIBUTES AND PERMISSIONS

Every file has a set of nine (9) permission bits that control who can read, write, and execute the contents of the file. The nine permission bits are used to determine what operations on a file, and by whom.

Linux/Unix does not allow permissions to be set on a per-user basis. Instead, there are sets of permissions for the owner of the file, the group owners of the file, and everyone else. Each set has three bits: a read bit, a write bit, and an execute bit.

In a summary, there are three types of people that can do things to files – the Owner of the file, anyone in the Group that the file belongs to, and Others (everyone else). In UNIX they are referred to using the letters U (for Owner or User), G (for Group), and O (for Others).

Therefore there are three types of permissions:

r – read the file or directory
w – write to the file or directory
x – execute the file or search the directory

Each of these permissions can be set for any one of three types of user:

u – the user who owns the file (you)
g – members of the group to which the owner belongs
o – all other users

Let us look at an example:

-bash-3.00$ ls -l /usr/bin/yelp

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root other 107504 Dec 17 2004 /usr/bin/yelp

As you can see above, there are nine (9) permission bits on the file /usr/bin/yelp

On the left side, you can see the file attributes and permissions:

-rwxr-xr-x
- r w x r - x r - x
Owner Group Other
File Read Write Execute Read No-Write Execute Read No-Write Execute

As can be seen, the following users have the following permissions on the file:

Owner – can read, write, and execute

Group – can read, no-write, and execute

Other – can read, no-write, and execute

Owner of /usr/bin/yelp is root and group owner of /usr/bin/yelp is other.

More examples:

drwxrwxrwx : a folder which has read, write and execute permissions for the owner, the group and for other users.
-rwxr–r– : a file that can be read and written by the user, but only read and executed by the group, and only read by everyone else.

Using numbers (octal) for permissions

We can also use numbers for setting file and folder permissions. Each of the three numbers corresponds to each of the three sections of letters. The first number determines the owner permissions, the second number determines the group permissions and the third number determines the other permissions. Each number can have one of eight values ranging from 0 to 7. Each value corresponds to a certain setting of the read, write and execute permissions.

These values are added together for any one user category:

1 = execute only
2 = write only
3 = write and execute (1+2)
4 = read only
5 = read and execute (4+1)
6 = read and write (4+2)
7 = read and write and execute (4+2+1)

For example:

777 is the same as rwxrwxrwx
755 is the same as rwxr-xr-x

ls output is slightly different for a device file. For example,

09:17:07 root@gw-dml-sp:~$ ls -l /dev/tty0

crw-rw—- 1 root tty 4, 0 Jan 4 13:05 /dev/tty0

crw-rw—-
- r w x r - x r - x
Owner Group Other
Character file Read Write Non-Execute Read Write Non-Execute No-Read No-Write Non-Execute

As can be seen, the file /dev/tty0 is a Character device file whose owner and group owner can read, write but could not execute it since this is a character device file!

The filesystem maintains about forty (40) separate pieces of information for each file! But the good news is that most of them are only useful for the filesystem itself. As a system administrator, we should be concerned mostly with the link count, owner, group, mode, size, last access time, last modification time, and type.

Looking at the next example,

09:32:10 root@gw-dml-sp:~$ ls -l /bin/gzip

-rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 55792 Feb 22 2005 /bin/gzip

Summary:

The first field specifies the file’s type and mode. The first character is a dash, so /bin/gzip is a regular file.

The next nine characters in this field are the three sets of permission bits. I have stressed several times the order of this 3 sets of permission bits. The order is owner-group-other.

In the example of: -rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 55792 Feb 22 2005 /bin/gzip

In this case, the owner can read-write-execute, the Group owner can only execute-read and Others can only execute.

The next field in the listing is the link count for the file. In this case, it is 3, indicating that /bin/gzip is just one of three names for this file (the others are /bin/gunzip and /bin/zcat). Each time a hard link is made to a file, the count link is incremented by 1.

The setuid and setgid bits

The bits with octal values 4000 and 2000 are the setuid and setgid bits. These bits allow programs to access files and processes that would otherwise be off-limits to the user that runs them.

When set on a directory, the setuid bit causes newly created files within the directory to take on the group ownership of the directory rather than the default group of the user of the user that created the file.

The Sticky Bit

The bit with octal value 1000 is called the sticky bit. If a sticky bit is set on a directory, the filesystem won’t allow anyone to delete or rename a file unless that person is the owner of the directory, the owner of the file, or the superuser. This convention helps to make directories like /tmp a little more secure.

If the setuid bit had been set, the x representing the owner’s execute permission would have been replaced with an s, and if the setgid bit had been set, the x for the group would also have been replaced with an s.

The last character of the permissions (execute permission for “other”) is shown as t if the sticky bit of the file is turned on. If either the setuid/setgid bit or the sticky bit is set but the corresponding execute bit is not, these bits appear as S or T.

The filesystem automatically keeps track of modification time stamps, link counts, and file size information. The permission bits, ownership, and group ownership can only be changed by with the chmod, chown, chgrp commands.

chmod: change permissions

The chmod command changes the permissions on a file. Only the owner of the file and the superuser can change its permissions.

The octal notation is generally more convenient for administrators but the mnemonic syntax can be useful for new comers.

The first argument to chmod is a specification of the permissions to be assigned, and the second and subsequent arguments are names of files on which these permissions apply to.

chmod-encoding-table

To see chmod in action,

chmod-711-action

As can be seen above, the original permission of the file /home/tek/myprog was:

-rw-rw-r–

Upon issuing the command chmod 711 /home/tek/myprog, the permission was changed to:

-rwx–x–x

The same effect can be applied using mnemonic syntax instead of octal notation.

For example,

chmod-mnemonic-action

chown: change ownership and group

The chown command changes the file’s ownership and group ownership. It’s syntax mirrors that of chmod, except that the first argument specifies the new owner and group in the form of user.group (user:group). Either of user or group may be left out. If there is no group, you don’t need the dot either.

Looking at the example below:

chown-action

The above command changes the owner:group of the file /home/tek/robots.txt from root:root to tek:wheel.

To change a file’s group, you must either be the owner of the file and belong to the group you’re changing to or be the superuser. However, you must be the superuser to change the file’s owner.

Like chmod, chown offers the recursive -R flag to change the settings of a directory and all the files underneath it. For example, the sequence:

# chmod -755 ~john

# chown -R john:wheel ~john

might be used to setup the home directory of a new user called john after copying the default startup files. The commands above will set the directory /home/john and all it’s files and sub directories to be owned by user john and group wheel.

chgrp

Traditional UNIX uses a separate command called chgrp, to change the group owner of a file. Linux provides the chgrp command too. It works just like chown but chgrp takes just a parameter which is the group owner.

For example:

chgrp-wheel-group

The above chgrp command will change the group owner from tek to wheel.

I hope that the materials above will serve as a basis to understand the file system and structure of your Linux/Unix machines. It should also give you hindsights to avoid common mistakes such as making a important file to be read, written, or executed by everybody. It should also provide you how to protect and give access to important files and directories only to certain users on your system.

Make Mozilla Fast

sabin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:18:08 +0000

1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down
and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time.
When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really
speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This
means it will make 30 requests at once.
3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it
“nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″.
This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on
information it recieves.

If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages 2-3 times
faster now.

What Employers Are Looking For

sabin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:14:06 +0000

What Employers Are Looking For
There are 6 key areas an employer will evaluate you on. Aim to outshine
in every one of them. The interview seat looks tired and worn and you
know you have a difficult task ahead of you, competing with all those
candidates who occupied the chair before you. The next time you find
yourself seated across the desk from a potential employer, bear in mind
that there are 6 key areas you will be evaluated on and aim to outshine
in every one of them!

1. Work Experience and Education
Your skills, credentials and training will be paramount in placing you
above the fray. Have all your relevant work experience at the tip of
your tongue and ready to recite. There is no substitute for the right
experience and qualifications and you need to be able to recite a
history and general aptitude for success in the given role and industry.
The right credentials coupled with sound examples of how these
credentials have been professionally applied in different positions to
add to productivity will be the main determinants of your suitability
for any role.

2. Business Sensibility
Employers look for candidates with a sound understanding of how
businesses in general, and this business in particular, are run. They
are looking for efficiency-minded people with an eye for productivity
and the bottom line and a keen sense of business policies and
procedures. In any position you apply for, the employers are looking for
individuals with finely honed problem-solving skills who can identify
and define a problem with clarity and find and implement the optimal
business solution.

3. Enthusiasm and Willingness to Learn
Attitude alone will not get you the job but goes a long way in bridging
the gap between you and a potential employer. Enthusiastic employees
with a positive attitude typically show more initiative in their role
and are more likely to go the extra mile. In any role, your initial
learning curve will probably be steep and employers want to be sure that
you are willing to make the effort and put in the time to learn the
ropes, perfect the role and continue to take the initiative to make
positive strides forward. Moreover, employers know that enthusiasm is
contagious and they hope that adding an employee with a positive
attitude and unbounded energy will rub off positively on the rest of the
team and elevate the general morale and spirit of the unit.

4. Work Ethic
A professional attitude, work style and work ethic are critical in any
business setting. You need to demonstrate dedication and commitment to
the company and your career, honesty, integrity, sound business
judgement, motivation and reliability. Make sure you always present
yourself in a professional light and have a keen understanding of how
your professional role impacts the company and the bottom line.

5. Interpersonal Skills
Your emotional intelligence and ability to get along well with peers,
management and clients will play a key role in your success and will be
under the spotlight during the interview. Be sure to demonstrate that
you are a cooperative teamplayer and have no problems interacting with
other people.

6. Manageability
Even star performers have to report to their boss and have to follow
company rules and procedures. An employer’s worst nightmare is an
entrepreneurial type who cannot take directions and is focused on
outperforming in his own little domain independent of the team and the
manager. Make sure you emphasize your ability to work in a team, follow
the chain of command and take instructions, advice and constructive
criticism positively.

======================================================================

Interview Tips
Interview skills are learnt. Do your pre-interview homework, learn what
questions you can anticipate and how best answer them. Practice and
preparation are key for a successful interview.Your CV has impressed,
your research and networking activities have paid off and you have
landed an Interview with your company of choice. Now to make sure you
turn this Interview into a pot of gold and secure the job of your
dreams. Below are some general tips and guidelines that should assist
you through the Interview:

1. Research
Most of you will have researched your company of choice thoroughly in
order to get to this point. For those who haven’t, it is essential that
you do some background research on the company and the job before you
walk in that door. The Interviewer will expect you to know a little
about the industry and the company and will be very impressed if you are
familiar with specific events, news and concerns relating to the
business. Newspapers, industry and trade magazines, local libraries and
the Internet are all a good source of information. Feel free to pick up
the phone and ask the company for their annual reports any marketing
materials – most companies are more than happy to oblige. The very
minimum information you will want to know is what the company does, what
job you are applying for and any well-known news pertaining to the
company eg. Merger, big scandal, new CEO.

2. Be prepared
For those of you who were cubscouts, we are not suggesting ropes and a
tent. We would however recommend you take with you a notebook and extra
copies of your CV (in many cases the employer will have misplaced it,
have an unclear copy or simply expect you to provide it). In many types
of jobs, you may want to take with you examples of your work eg. past
creative work if you are in advertising, design or similar roles,
architectural plans you are proud of if you are an architect, an example
of something you have had published in a journal etc. Employers are
usually very impressed to see examples of your work – it shows you have
taken initiative and it makes their decision much easier.

One other thing we recommend you bring with you for Middle Eastern job
interviews is your college graduation certificate(s) where available.
Employers often specifically request to see this, so you should be
prepared.

3. Dress for success
Your first Interview is the first impression an employer will have of you
and it is essential to make a favorable first impact. You should always
plan to dress conservatively for the first Interview even if the job
involves casual wear. You can always dress down in later meetings.
Generally, the image you want that first meeting is clean, well-groomed
and conservative.

Men should wear dark suits, preferably in navy or charcoal grey.
Pinstripes are fine. We recommend you wear a white shirt which should be
crisply ironed with a conservative necktie. Socks and shoes should be
dark, preferably black. Jewellery on men is usually not favourably
looked upon at the Interview stage – you can always dig out the hairdye
and that amethyst ring from your great granddad after you have secured
the job.

Women are also advised to wear dark suits for that first Interview. In
the Middle East it is advisable that skirts are below the knee and not
exorbitantly figure hugging. Trouser suits are more casual but quite
acceptable these days. Blouses can be any colour but again we recommend
they are on the conservative side in cut and print. As a general rule of
thumb shoes should be dark, with a low-to-moderate conservative heel and
no stilletos. If the weather permits (often not the case in the Middle
East) it is highly advisable to wear skin-colour tights with your shoes.
Excessive jewelery looks unprofessional and we would advise you to keep
it to the minimum: earrings, wedding ring(s) and maybe a pendant or a
brooch or a simple bracelet. Long dangly busy earrings are generally
unprofessional looking. Finally, wear your hair cleanly washed and
well-groomed; if it is long and unruly, we recommend sweeping it off
your face in a simple style that will allow the Interviewer to see your
face and eyes. The first interview will give you a feel for the company
culture and you can choose to tailor your look accordingly thereafter.

In the Middle East and other Asian countries, dress allowances are
usually made for local attire in the domestic companies. A Kuwaiti man
may be expected to show up for an interview at the National Bank of
Kuwait in a Dishdash for example and the same may apply across the board
in the Gulf. General Western dress code rules are often relaxed in
Middle Eastern companies to allow for the diversity of our work cultures
with Saris, Dishdashes and different types of headdress being very
permissible and quite common in the local companies.

4. Be punctual
Make sure you arrive for the Interview a good 15 minutes early. Allow
yourself plenty of time for any potential mishaps eg traffic jams,
unclear directions, public transportation difficulties etc.

5. Attitude counts
This is the time to show off your interpersonal skills. Employers are
looking for certain key character traits and you need to demonstrate
them at the Interview. Keep the following in mind:

Listening skills. Make sure you let the Interviewer complete his
sentences and you don’t interrupt. At the same time, show interest in
what he is saying and encourage him to talk and ask questions. Good
listening skills and a friendly pleasant demeanor are key attributes in
any job.

Enthusiasm. In many cases, you will not be ideally qualified for the
position, or you may have a steep learning curve ahead of you. You need
to demonstrate to the Employer that you are extremely interested in the
position and love what you do! Enthusiasm is contagious and employers
are always keen to add enthusiastic members to their team. Your positive
attitude will also rub off on the interviewer as long as it is genuine
and not overplayed and he will leave the Interview with a favorable
‘feel’ about you.

Eye contact. Maintain eye contact with the Interviewer. Looking away
continuously suggests distractibility and disinterest. Looking down
suggests shyness and lack of confidence. By all means though keep it
natural and feel free to nod your head and smile and even laugh where
appropriate.

Flexibility. You need to demonstrate to the Interviewer that you are
flexible, ie willing and able to adapt readily to new environments,
demands, people, work styles etc. The Interview is a good place to
demonstrate this. Be sensitive to the Interviewer’s personal style by
paying attention to his general behavior, his demeanor, his office space
and the types of questions he asks and tailor your answers accordingly.

Professionalism. Above all, BE PROFESSIONAL! Respect the
Interviewer-Interviewee boundaries at all times and do not behave in an
overly friendly or casual fashion with the Interviewer. Avoid bringing
up any of your personal life unless in a directly relevant manner, do
not comment on politics, religion or any other controversial topics dear
to your heart, do not stray from the Interview topics unless you have a
common interest such as golf, and keep your answers factual, honest and
professional.

6. Have the answers
There is no telling what style an Interviewer will take and what
questions he will come up with. Interviews range from the very
structured and professional ones conducted by HR departments in
multinationals and banks, to ad hoc conversations in small outfits where
the employer may ask you to simply talk about yourself. In most large
corporations however, certain questions are very standard and we
recommend you take the time to really think about them, develop answers
and find evidence to support your answers from past experiences and
qualifications. Bayt has prepared a list of Common Interview Questions
that you can start practicing on.

===================================================================

Questions to Ask the Interviewer Here are some questions to ask to know
what you’re getting into.

Why is this position open?

What level of experience/ skill are you looking for in the person who
fills this role?

What kind of training would be available?

What would my initial responsibilities on the job be?

What would a typical day look like in terms of projects,
responsibilities, deadlines etc?

Can you tell me something about the team I would be working with?

What objectives would you like the person in this role to accomplish?

Is there a specific career progression path that I would have with your
company?

What are some of the more difficult problems I might face in this role?

What resources would the person in this role have – in terms of support,
budget etc.

What significant changes do you foresee in the company in the near future?

In what areas do you consider your company to have the greatest strength?

How would my performance be evaluated in this position?

================================================================
Interview Don’ts Some interview pitfalls to avoid.

Don’t arrive at the interview late.

Don’t over or under dress or dress inappropriately for the position.
First impressions do count and you want to be dressed to show that you
fit into the desired role.

Don’t wear strong perfume.

Don’t forget to take with you extra clean copies of your CV as well as a
notebook and pen with which to take notes.

Don’t forget to shake the hand of the Interviewer firmly – a limp or
sweaty handshake will not be looked on favorably.

Don’t chew gum, smoke, eat or drink at the Interview.

Don’t act distracted. Look the Interviewer straight in the eye and give
him your full and undivided attention.

Don’t let your body language send the wrong messages. Be aware of the
nonverbal cues you are sending out! Sit upright and straight in the
chair facing the employer and smile. Lean forward occasionally to
express interest. Avoid crossing your arms or legs in front of you
(suggests defensiveness), slouching in the chair (suggests sloppiness
and lack of energy), leaning too far back (may be interpreted as being
overly familiar and disrespectful), talking to the floor (lack of
confidence) or flirting.

Don’t refer to the Interviewer by his first name unless he specifically
asks you to do so.

Don’t talk about your weaknesses or failings or apologize for lack of
education, experience, training etc. Everyone has weaknesses; the
Interview is the time to showcase your enthusiasm and strengths.

Don’t make derogatory comments about previous bosses or peers. This is
never acceptable and particularly works against you in the Interview.

Don’t act tired or jaded. Employers are invariably looking for someone
to energize, inspire and uplift the team. Try to act enthusiastic and
full of energy and motivation.

Don’t act unfocused and uncertain about what you want. Whatever
interview you’re in – you want THAT job.

Don’t lie. Answer briefly, truthfully and concisely.

Don’t interrupt.

Avoid giving ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Support your answers with
examples and be as factual and concise as you can.

Don’t talk too much. Focus your answers on the particular question and
on your related strengths. Watch for signals that the Interviewer is
losing interest and stop talking immediately.

Don’t talk about your personal life. You have not been hired yet so keep
it professional. This is no the time to talk about failed love lives, a
husband who asked you to quit your job etc.!

Don’t treat questions as jokes or try to be too funny.

Don’t ask about holidays, perks, hours or compensation until you’ve
actually been made a serious offer.

Don’t act overly confident or superior. Ultimately, unless you are
applying to the very senior level positions, the Interviewer is looking
for someone who is manageable and will fit into the team.

Don’t drop names of influential friends and acquaintances unless you are
passing a message or someone has referred you. Be very careful and
professional when you mention names of clients and make sure you are
never giving out confidential information.

Don’t leave abruptly. Shake the Interviewer’s hand firmly, thank him
for his time and ask what the next step will be.

=======================================================================
Interview Q & A Some sample interview questions and answers. Common
Interview Questions:

1. Tell me about yourself.
Keep your answer short and focused on your professional life. This is not
the time to bring up relationships, childhood experiences, family etc. A
brief history of education, career and special interests is what is
called for here. End it with why you are interested in this particular
job.

2. Why are you applying for this particular job?
Show interest and demonstrate that you have researched the job and know
what you are getting into. Bring up evidence from past work/ studies
that supports your interest in this role and any skills you have
acquired in preparation for the role. You can say something like ‘I
would like to work for a leader in innovative network and
telecommunications solutions and my college degree in computational
mathematics has given me a solid background for this role. Mention the
value-added you can bring to the job.

3. What do you know about our company?
Indicate what you have learnt from your research activities – from their
annual reports, newspapers, word of mouth, other employees etc. Use this
to flatter them and show that you have done your homework.

4. What makes you qualified for this particular job?
Again, explain that you are very interested in the job and demonstrate
what it is about your past experiences, education and qualifications
that makes you ideal for the job. Show enthusiasm and support your
answers with evidence wherever you can (eg. my summer internship at
Citibank gave me broad exposure to the area of equity analysis and I
think I can apply many of the tools I learnt there in this job).
Elaborate on all the past experiences and skill sets that make you
suitable for the job.

In cases where your past experience is not directly relevant, you can
still find elements of it that can be useful. Play up teamskills,
computer skills, leadership roles, specific courses and independent
research activities that can be useful to the job at hand to show your
initiative even where you don’t have directly relevant job experience.

5. What can you do for us that someone else can’t?
Demonstrate key strengths, skills and personal characteristics.

6. Why should we hire you?
See 3. Because you have all the experience/ traits/ credentials
demonstrated in 3 and in addition to being qualified, you are
enthusiastic, intelligent, hardworking, flexible and willing to learn.
Also mention any key relationships you may have that may assist you in
the job.

7. What do you look for in a job?
Be honest. Also mention keywords such as challenging, steep learning
curve, good work culture, demanding, rewarding, opportunities for
advancement and growth, team environment, opportunity to build and
maintain client relationships etc.

8. Why are you looking to make a career change?
Mention your interests and make sure you bring up all skills/ experience
however insignificant that can support your move in this new direction.
It is quite common in this day and age to make a career switch. You need
however to show that you have very carefully thought about the change,
have a strong interest in the new career and can use some of your
previous skills/ education/ relationships to make that move.

9. Why did you leave your last job?
Do NOT use this as an opportunity to badmouth past employers or peers or
talk about a failure of any sort. Any of these answers are acceptable:
you were looking for a new challenge, your learning curve had flattened
out in the previous job and you were looking for a new learning
opportunity, the company or department were restructuring, you were
ready to start something new after achieving your career goals at the
previous company etc.

10. Why do you want to work for us (as opposed to the competitor
companies)?
Demonstrate that you know something about the company, that you believe
they are leaders/ innovators in what they do, or you think their work
culture is exactly what you are looking for, or you like their
product(s) or you have friends who work there and have always been
attracted to the company etc. Flatter the company and show you know
something about it.

11. How long will it take you to start making a meaningful contribution?
Show that you are enthusiastic and willing to learn and will put in all
the hours and effort necessary to learn the ropes and start making an
immediate contribution. Indicate that your past experiences/ skills/
credentials will enable you to make an immediate contribution at some
level while you quickly learn all new aspects of the job. An Interviewer
wants someone who is willing and able to learn and will make a return on
his investment sooner rather than later.

12. What are your strengths?
See 14 below. In addition, keywords such as good teamplayer, work very
well under pressure, very creative, very strong quantitative or computer
skills, and very strong client relationship skills may be appropriate
depending on your chosen field.

13. What are your weaknesses?
Do NOT mention key weaknesses here. This is not the place to say you are
bad at meeting deadlines or you never mastered highschool mathematics
etc. Turn this question around to your benefit. For example, you are
‘overambitious’ or ‘extremely attentive to detail’ or ‘like to take
on too many projects’. Make it sound positive.

14. What are your career goals?
Show you have thought forward and are committed to your career.

15. How would you describe yourself?
Any of these are good examples of attributes employers are looking for:
intelligent, hardworking, quick to learn, enthusiastic, honest,
efficient, productive, ambitious, successful, compassionate (in the
medical fields).

16. How would your colleagues describe you?
Do not bring up anything negative here.

17. How would your boss describe you?
They will check references anyways so bring up the most positive
attribute you can think of about yourself eg hardworking, honest etc.
and leave it to your Boss to say anything to the contrary.

18. What did you most like/ dislike about your past job?
Do not use this to badmouth past jobs/ employers. Keep it light and in
your favour eg I outgrew the job, there wasn’t a clear career
progression, I wasn’t learning anything new etc. Ideally, you will have
loved your last job and would like to achieve the same kind of success
and job satisfaction in a more challenging area as you have now
‘outgrown’ that job and are ready for ‘new challenges’.

19. Describe a situation in your past where you showed initiative?
You could describe any new methods you came up with to do your job or to
save money for the company or to turn around a bad situation. It can be
something as simple as changing a filing system, or establishing a
relationship with a vendor that saved your department a lot of money. If
you are in sales, you may want to talk about how you brought in that big
account. Creatives may talk about how they came up with that cutthroat
image or design that brought in the business.

20. What were your main responsibilities in your last job?
Have these ready and list them all. Dwell on the ones that are most
relevant to the new job. This answer should be smooth and practiced.

21. What do you consider your greatest accomplishments?
Many of us have one or two milestones in our career that we are very
proud of eg. that early promotion, that ‘huge’ deal we brought in, the
design we came up with, the costs we saved, the revenues we increased,
the people we trained, a new invention or process we came up with etc.
Examples of accomplishments may be: ‘Reduced costs by X%; or renamed
and repositioned a product at the end of its lifecycle, or organized and
led a team to do do XYZ, or achieved sales increase of X% etc. If you
are a fresh college graduate, talk about extracurricular activities,
leadership roles and grades.

22. Describe your management style (if relevant)
No answer

23. Do you work better in teams or independently?
Show that you are a proactive teamplayer and like to bounce ideas off
others and get input; however you are very capable of working
independently (give examples).

24. How do you work under pressure?
Well. Give evidence.

25. What other jobs have you applied for?
Don’t mention jobs in different career directions (eg advertising and
investment banking). Do however bring up any other offers or Interviews
from competing firms.

26. How did you do in college?
Keep it positive. It’s okay to say you were very busy making the most of
college and were very involved in sports, activities, social life etc.
Employers want human beings not robots. Mention the areas you did very
well in even if it was just one or two courses you excelled in. They
will check for themselves.

27. What kind of hours would you like to work?
Employers want to see flexibility. Indicate you are willing to put in
whatever hours are necessary to finish the job. Do however mention any
constraints you have eg. you would like to be home to pick your kids up
from school at 3:30. Most employers are willing to work around your
constraints if you show flexibility on your side as well.

28. Do you have any questions for me?
YES you do. Questions engage the Interviewer and show your interest. Ask
questions that show you know something about the company or the job,
that you are planning ahead, that you are anxious and willing to learn
the ropes and that you are committed to the position. See Questions to
Ask the Interviewer for examples.

===================================================================

Salary Negotiations: the Basics Bayt reveals some basic tools to use when
you ask the employer to show you the money! Congratulations! You’ve
landed the job. Now to take home the package that is most commensurate
with your skills, ability, experience and the job responsibilities. Bayt
reveals some basic tools to use when you ask the employer to show you
the money!

1. Negotiate
Yes, do negotiate. Employers actually EXPECT you to negotiate your
package even when they pretend they don’t so don’t deprive them, or
yourself, of that pleasure.

2. Negotiate After You Have An Offer
The time to negotiate your salary is after the employer has decided he
wants you on board and has made you a concrete offer – not in the
elevator on the way up to the Interview or after an interview question
you think you’ve particularly aced. An offer indicates that the
employer wants you on board and is convinced you have the skillset and
potential to be a valuable addition to the team. You now have the upper
hand and should use it to secure a compensation package commensurate
with your worth. It is far easier to negotiate a satisfactory package at
this stage when the employer really wants you and is focused on getting
you on board, than after you are on board and firmly entrenched at a
given salary level and job description. It is unlikely you will ever be
in a better position to negotiate a good package than you are at this
stage.

3. Establish Job Responsibilites
Clarify your job responsibilities before beginning to negotiate the
compensation. Make sure you have all the facts pertaining to the new
position and are very clear about your role, responsibilities and the
job title. This detailed knowledge of the position will come in handy as
you negotiate your package.

4. Determine Your Salary Range Beforehand
Before you can begin negotiating, you need to determine a salary range
that you can base your discussions with the employer on.

Firstly, determine the minimum salary you could possibly accept, and make
sure this is a salary that you can survive on. This minimum is not to be
revealed to the employer in your negotiations.

Next, determine a reasonable mid-point salary based on what the job
responsibilities are, what you have to offer the employer and what you
are worth in the market. To get a realistic idea of what the position is
worth, research the market. Look at published annual salary surveys and
job ads for similar positions in newspapers, magazines and on internet
job sites and talk to friends in the industry and recruitment agents. If
you are applying to a position at the right level, there should not be a
large discrepancy between what the position is worth based on your
research and what you are worth based on your experience, education,
compensation history and what you have to offer the position.

Finally, determine an extremely generous salary level that is not too
unrealistic for the position and that you would be extremely
ecstatically happy to receive.

5. Get the Employer to Reveal his Hand First
Always get your employer to reveal his hand first to avoid pricing
yourself out of the game or limiting the discussions prematurely. If you
are first to put a number on the table, you run the risk of being
perceived as ‘overqualified’ if your range is too high or casting
doubts on your professional abilities and track record if you shortsell
yourself. Revealing your expectations or salary history will limit your
negotiating range and remove a lot of the leverage you otherwise have.

Often, the employer will make you a verbal offer and throw the salary
ball into your field by asking you what salary you expect, or what
salary you made in your previous position. Try to throw the ball right
back in the employer’s field by countering with another question, such
as “What do you think someone with my track record, experience and
skills could make in this position?” or “You now have a good idea of
my skills and track record and potential. What do you think is a fair
salary given the job’s requirements and responsibilities?”

Do not reveal your previous salary if you can possibly help it. Focus the
discussion instead on what your background, responsibilities and
potential contributions are worth in this position. Your goal should be
to maximize your worth and potential value to this employer through
effective negotiation – the value your previous employer placed on you
should be irrelevant. Remember, what you are worth to this employer is a
function of the value-added you can bring to this particular job and
your potential contributions in the new role, not a function of how your
skills were utilized (or misutilized) in the last job.

If absolutely pressed for a number and the employer will not give you an
idea of his target range despite all your best efforts to gain the upper
hand, you can present the employer with the range you have determined
beforehand. The ‘expected’ salary range you reveal will have what is
really your midpoint as the minimum, with the upper bound representing
your ‘dream’ salary. Make sure you always start your negotiations with
a range, not a specific salary level.

6. Let the Games Begin
You are now officially at the starting line, equipped with a verbal
offer, your own well-studied salary range and a solid understanding of
your job responsibilities in this new role. The negotiations will be
fired either with the employer revealing his salary range for the
position or, despite all your best efforts to reverse the roles, you
revealing your predetermined ‘expected’ salary range first.

Best case scenario: You have played your cards right and the employer
extends you an offer that is at the upper bound or significantly above
your expectations. Your downside risk has been eliminated and you can
now focus your discussions on making a good situation even better. If
your predetermined salary range was $75,000-$90,000 and the employer has
offered you $90,000 – $95,000, you can counter with something akin to
“That is close to the range I had in mind. My expectations given my
background and the job responsibilities were closer to $95,000 -
$105,000 with $95,000 really having been my very minimum. How much
flexibility do you have on the upside?”

Worst case scenario: You have prematurely limited your negotiating range
by revealing your hand too soon and the employer counters with a lower
range, or the employer starts the negotiations with an offer below your
expectations. This is where your negotiating savvy really comes into
play.

Before you begin to negotiate, make sure you and the employer are roughly
in the same ballpark. If your well researched and well thought out range
of $75-90,000 was met with an offer of $50-55,000 from the employer, you
have either misconstrued the job responsibilities or the employer is
paying significantly below the market. This is where your minimum salary
comes in. Does the range meet your minimum threshold? If not and your
negotiations don’t bring you upto that minimum requirement, this may
well be the wrong position and/or company for you!

7. Justify Your Counter-Offer
Your $75-90,000 range was met with a $70-75,000 offer from the employer.
All is not lost. You will keep the discussion alive by coming back with
a sell proposition along the lines of “Well let me see, the job’s
responsibilities as I understand them are ABC” at which time you
carefully recite in detail all the various aspects of the job. “I
really feel that someone with my track record and qualifications could
be making a minimum of $75,000 on the job. I was actually looking for a
salary much closer to the $80,000 mark.” You then proceed to justify
your range. Confirm to the employer that you are very interested in
working with the company and that you feel you would really fit into the
team and could make a significant contribution there. Recap on your most
relevant work experience and mention again the skills you will
immediately put to productive use on the job. Mention that you feel your
ideal salary is actually very realistic given your experience and the
job requirements.

8. Gain Leverage by Negotiating the Job Responsibilities
If the employer’s range is carved in stone despite all your
well-rehearsed negotiation tactics, move to another stone. You do this
by altering the role, albeit modestly to justify a higher salary. This
is where your detailed knowledge of the position comes in.

You can do this in three ways. Firstly, you can add to the list of job
requirements a task or responsibility you have thought of beforehand;
one that you have either read about, thought of yourself or heard about
from a friend in the industry. Secondly, you can seize on one of the
problems the employer mentioned during the Interview and offer a
solution that you would personally be responsible for. Thirdly, you can
ask the employer outright, what added responsibilities he would ideally
like to have the person holding this job ultimately assume if they were
brought upto speed quickly enough. Another way to pose the latter
question is what added responsibilities or areas does the employer wish
your predecessor had taken charge of. Asking the question “What are
some of the areas you would like improved on” or “What are some of the
problems that my predecessor faced” during the Interview comes in
useful at this stage of the negotiations as you try to establish
additional value-added ground.

The ‘business solution’ or added responsibility you come up with need
not be monumental; in fact you should refrain from making any big
promises. It can be something as simple as a Marketing Executive
offering to arrange a brief monthly newsletter for the firm’s clients,
or a database that would speed client reporting up, or a slightly
revised format for the monthly reports that would be more visually
appealing. The important thing is that once you have elevated the
position to a slightly higher plateau, you can then proceed to justify
your ‘ideal’ salary as commensurate with the increased
responsibilities. You can go back to the employer with “From what I
understand, my role in this position would be XYZ. However, I am also
bringing to the job the following function(s) and responsibilities . . .
” at which point you recant the additional responsibilities.

Justifying your desired salary as being commensurate with a higher level
of responsibility is an excellent way to jumpstart stalled negotiations.

9. Negotiate the Package not just the Salary
You should be ready to negotiate the entire package, not just the salary.
Remember that you can enhance a less than stellar salary by negotiating
the perks. If your most ardent, well-rehearsed salary negotiation
tactics were ineffective at boosting the starting salary, you can try to
gain the lost ground at this stage of the game. Your discussions can
include medical insurance, car and housing allowance, children’s
education, plane tickets home for expats, club memberships and further
education and professional training for yourself. Try to get any
courses, seminars or further education you intend to take included in
your package. In many industries you can negotiate a guaranteed bonus at
a given date or a sign-up bonus. You can try to secure a commitment to a
minimum salary increase and/or title promotion at a prespecified date in
the future providing you meet certain performance criteria. At the very
minimum, you can ask for a performance (and salary) review a few months
after joining.

All the best.

A SMALL TRUTH TO MAKE LIFE 100%

sabin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:25:24 +0000

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.Then
Hard Work
H+A+R+D+W+O+R+K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

Knowledge
K+N+O+W+L+E+D+G+E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

Love
L+O+V+E
12+15+22+5 = 54%

Luck
L+U+C+K
12+21+3+11 = 47% ( don’t most of us think this is the most important ??? )

Then what makes 100% ?

Is it Money ? … NO ! ! !
M+O+N+E+Y
13+15+14+5+25 = 72%

Leadership ? … NO ! ! !
L+E+A+D+E+R+S+H+I+P
12+5+1+4+5+18+19+9+16 = 89%

Every problem has a solution, only if we perhaps change our attitude. To go to the top, to that 100%, what we really need to go further… a bit more…

That is
ATTITUDE
A+T+T+I+T+U+D+E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

It is OUR ATTITUDE towards Life and Work that makes OUR Life 100% ! ! !

Change Your Attitude … And You Change Your Life ! ! !

Enjoy Life. Cheers!!!

Services

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 19:22:09 +0000

The advent of the Internet has created new opportunities for freelancing, particularly for software developers from countries with low average salaries. A number of websites have become bustling marketplaces for farming out software development projects to freelancers at rates generally considered rock-bottom by Western standards. Such websites typically provide a convenient central forum for posting job requests, rating and documenting history to judge potential buyers and sellers, an escrow system to protect participants from fraud, and arbitration in the event of disagreements between the coder and the buyer. The system for setting prices is usually organized as a reverse auction.

Freelancing JOBS

1) Project Management and Reseach & Development

2) Web Development using
HTML, Java script, VB Script, CGI (using C and Pearl), LAMP (Linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP), AJAX , XHTML, ASP, JSP, DHTML, Flash, XML, WAP, Frontpage, Dreamweaver, XHTML, CSS, Standard Template Library, PHP smarty Template (http://smarty.php.net) Adv. Java 5 (3 TIER, JDBC, Networking, J-Beans, RMI-IIOP, Servlet, CORBA, EJB, JMS, JTS, JNDI, JM, IDL, J2EE, WAP, JSP, XML) WAP Programming, Flash with Action Script, Photoshop, Image Ready, Coral Draw, Freehand, Illustrator etc

3)Software Development using
C, C++, Visual Basic, Java 5 (Core Java, Swing, JDBC, Networking, J-Beans, RMI-IIOP
Servlet, CORBA, EJB, JMS, JTS, JNDI, JM, IDL, J2EE, WAP, JSP, XML), UML, Pearl, Python, Bash Scripting, D2K, C# (C Sharp), VB6, VB Dot net, Crystal Report, Pascal, Dot Net Tech, Delphi,
Consultant Services

1)Vast, Router, Firewall, IDS & Switch
Cisco IOS, Firewall, IDS, Routers 1600/1800/3700,Stack Catalyst 3750 POE Switch, Microtick Routers , Wireless Devices. Stack Switch, VLAN, VSAT etc

2) Operating System
Sun Solaris, Unix, AIX, BSD, Redhat, Debain, Fedora, Suse, Mac OSX , Linux Kernel 2.4/2.6 with Advance Bash, Pearl Script Programming and Configuring Servers like (Qmail, Sendmail, Postfix, Bind DNS Server, RAS, Squid Proxy Server, WHM/Cpanel, Plesk, Apache Web Server, Tomcat, Samba, NFS, PPPOE, Clustering, Load-balancing, NAS, LDAP, DFS, ACL, SeLinux, PPOE, Openvpn, Radius Server, Router more), Windows 2003 Servers (Active Directory, GPO, ACL, Template, Certificates, VPN, DNS, DHCP, RAS, DFS, IP Security, Internet / Firewall Security, Monitoring) , Lotus Notes Domino 6, Exchange Server 2003, ISA Server 2003 , Critix Server

3)Security & Monitoring
Hardening Unix Installations,Router Security, ACL,IPSEC on Linux, FreeBSD and Cisco,OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris , MAC OSX, Linux like OS,Linux Iptables, Ipchains, TCP Wrapper, Selinux,Cisco PIX Firewall, Routers 1600/1800/3700,Stack Catalyst 3750 POE Switch etc, IDS,Remote Access Server,Nagios / Oreon / MRTG / RRD / Cacti / Netflow/ Sflow/ Munin, RADIUS/TACACS+/Diameter Server(freeradius, gnu radius, openradius, jraidus),Bandwidth Management and Monitoring (netlimiter, bandwithmonitor, microtik, lartc.org),PPP, PPOE, VPN, RAS, VOIP DNS, FTP, Active Directory, ISA ,Mail, Proxy Servers

4) Networking & Design:
Configuring and Troubleshooting Cisco Routers, Firewall, VPN with TCPIP,RIP,IGRP,EIGRP OSPF protocols in LAN and WAN. Configuring Stack VLAN, Designing Network Infrastructure,
Configuring Wireless LAN, ISP, Fiber Optics, Gigabit Ethernet, CAT 5e etc
Secure, Diagnose and Troubleshoot them

5) DBMS & RDBMS, ORDBMS, Web RDBMS:
Oracle 10g (SQL, PLSQL, DBA, Backup and Recovery, Performance Tuning), MS SQL Server 2003, My-SQL, Access with VBA Programming

Contact Me

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 19:20:47 +0000

Mr. Sabin Shrestha
sabinshresth@hotmail.com , info@sabinshrestha.com.np
Cell: 00977-9841538787, Home: 00977-1-2004314
Kamalpokhari, Ward no. 33, Kathmandu, Nepal
http://www.sabinshrestha.com.np

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Sabin Shrestha's Personal Site » Sabin Personel

SEO My Notes

My Notes

Top Ten SEO Steps recommended for a successful web campaign

Keyword Research Tools:

Top Ten Google AdWords Keywords Quality Score Tips

Hallway Page

DESIGN AND CONTENT GUIDELINES:

Long Tail SEO Strategy

Authority of a Page or Web site

Successful Freelancing for Web Designers Notes

Successful Freelancing for Web Designers Notes

Better Communication with Employees and Peers

SEO FAQ

SEO Frequently Asked Questions

General questions

SEO tools

Improving ranking

Links and backlinks

Questions about the PageRank

Answers

Is it really useful to provide a sitemap to Google?

How do I know if my pages are indexed by Google?

How to exclude a page from the index?

Is the duplicate content penalized?

Is robots.txt helpful? How does Google use it?

Are RSS feeds useful for SEO?

Is the description meta used by Google?

Should I fill the meta keywords?

Why the link Google gives only a few backlinks?

Why a second indented link for the same site in results page?

Are internal links helpful?

Are social bookmark links giving less weight than other back links?

Is the domain extension important for PageRank?

Are nofollow links followed by crawlers?

Several links on a page to the same page are they useful?

Javascript links are they taken into account?

How many keywords can I put into a URL?

How many links can I put into a page?

My page is not indexed by search engines

Can I force a Web page to be indexed?

How to improve the SEO of my site?

Where can I get more information about Googlebot?

What is lemmatisation?

What is hilltop?

What is SERP?

How to avoid cloaking?

How to type google.com without being redirected to my country version?

What is the bounce rate?

How can we overshoot Wikipedia?

Can I modify the snippets?

How can I leave the sandbox?

What is minus thirty?

My site has disappeared from Google’s index, what can I do?

Why the link: operator from Google returns only a few backlinks?

How to be a trusted site?

Should we add content frequently?

Which percentage of users click on the first link in search page results?

How to improve naturally the PageRank

Is PageRank used against duplicate content?

How is calculated PageRank by Google?

What is cloaking?

What is spamming?

What is spoofing?

How to know my PageRank?

A company guarantees me a 10 points PR.

Is the PageRank the first factor for the position?

What means a graybar PR? Is this a penalty?

How to improve my PageRank (PR)?

Other factors for the position in results.

Does a 301 redirect mean a lost in PageRank?

When the PageRank is it updated?

References

The Future OF User Interfaces

System integrity using Files, Permissions, Processes, Root and Sudo

Make Mozilla Fast

What Employers Are Looking For

A SMALL TRUTH TO MAKE LIFE 100%

Services

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