Abdussamad's blogspace

Often when switching hosts or signing up at new host you'll have to set your domain's name servers to your new website host's name servers. This step is necessary because it allows your new host's servers to receive and serve requests for your website from your visitor's browsers. However the Domain Name System (DNS) is such that it takes time for this new mapping between your domain name and your host's servers to propagate across the Internet. Depending on your new host's DNS servers and your Internet Service Provider it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days before you will be able to access your website via the domain name. If, in the meantime, you want to upload files to your website and test it you will need to edit your Windows HOSTS file to manually map your domain name to your web host's IP address.

The first step is finding out the IP address of your new host's servers. A lot of enlightened hosts include this information in the email they send you when you sign up with them. In that case you can skip to the next step. But if your host does not provide with this info then you will have to do an ns lookup:

• Go to http://www.kloth.net/services/nslookup.php
• Type in your domain name, your web host's DNS name server and make sure that the query field says ip address.
• Click on lookup and you should see your site's new ip address.

Next open up your windows HOSTS file using your favourite text editor such as notepad. You can open this file by copy pasting %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS into your editor's open file window. In most cases you can also try C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS . Keep in mind that the file has no extension.

Open up the file and on a new line type in your host's ip address followed by a space and your domain name. For ex:

208.113.192.208  websitetheme.com

You may also prefer to add the www version:

208.113.192.208 www.websitetheme.com

Save the file and try to access your site by typing in your domain name in your favourite browser. It should work now! To enable ftp access add another line with the ftp subdomain:

208.113.192.208 ftp.websitetheme.com

Using this technique you should be able to access your site while DNS is being propagated.

The Cricket World Cup 2007 starts today at around 7:00 PM Pak time when Windies take on Pakistan. 16 teams from around the world will be vying for cricket's greatest prize. Pakistan is abuzz with cricket mania as the tournament nears. As a cricket fan I will be writing about the tournament and my favourite team Sri Lanka on my cricket blog.

Although the tournament starts today , the real competition begins with the Super eight sometime in April. The tournament will conclude on the 28th of April and I hope to see Sri Lanka lift the World Cup on that date.

The level of western hypocrisy is mind boggling. Western countries like to lecture the world about a lot of things that they themselves are guilty of.

Consider the hypocrisy over freedom of speech. America and other western countries love to lecture the rest of the world about freedom of speech yet their own media is extremely fond of toeing the government line. We saw how the US media helped delude its citizens about Iraq before the invasion and now we see how it continues down the same path as it helps demonize Iran just like the US government wants it to. The western media clearly endulges in self censorship and has an obvious bias especially against Muslims. The BBC, for example, openly talks about racial profiling of Muslims as if institutionalised racism against Muslims is perfectly okay.

Recent news stories suggest that things are much worse in the new colonies of Iraq and Afghanistan. The raid on the offices of an Iraqi journalist's union and the destruction of a freelance cameraman's footage in Afghanistan are just the the most recent examples.

Then there is the rampant intolerance. The west loves to lecture the rest of the world about the need for "moderation" and tolerance while it launches ever increasing attacks on Muslim countries around the world. People in the west can't even tolerate Muslims living on the same planet as them much less those living in their own countries. So much for "freedom" and tolerance!

Here are a few ideas on how bloggers can mess with their readers :

Use an animated feed icon like this guy writes about. The idea is that the animation attracts visitor's attention to your blog feed but I think it is distracting and annoying. Observant readers will have noticed that I use an animated feed icon too. This is because my icon uses slow animation and fade effects which I think does not make it as distracting. If you disagree then its ok because I like to mess with my readers .

Make sure your comment form asks users for their website address. Also make sure that that website address is never displayed in user's comments . Users eager for backlinks will place comments on your blog only to find that they have been duped and their comments don't include links to their sites . A similar tactic is widely used on wordpress blogs where links in comments do not pass page rank because the blog software automatically inserts no-follow attributes.

Write a post supporting censorship and make sure that you enable moderated comments. Enthusiastic users will write lengthy comments only to find that their comments disappear once they press the submit button . Some of them will even protest that their comments are not showing up without realising the bloody irony of the whole business .