I am going to start a new forum and found a free forum hosting service. Forums-Free.com is a free forum hosting service that provides you with the tools and storage to set up and run your very own forum, at absolutely no cost.

The service provides you with unlimited access to your forum, with an unlimited amount of users and messages, and also 1GB space for all of your files, photos and music. There are over 40 different themes to choose from when setting up your forum, whether you want a business or fun cartoon style, and also you can personalise this further with additional logo and avatar functions. There are over 30 languages available, making Forums-Free.com perfect for hosting communities worldwide, and some great chat box and portal features to make your forum as accessible and easy to use as possible, with full administration functions.

Once you create a forum, you will be able to access any of the new free upgrades, including increases to storage space. They also provides a ‘new functionality’ submission form for all of its members, so you can suggest what upgrades you would like for your forum, from additional themes to more options on the control panel for administrators.

Forums-Free.com provides a full help and support function for all of its users, which includes an FAQ feature so that users can look up quick answers to common problems, such as set up and login issues and basic formatting problems. If you have any particular queries you can contact the support team via an online submission form. There is also a special BBcode guide, to help you through using BBcode (a type of HTML) to set up and run your forum. The help and support pages include a news page, with all of the latest announcements from the site regarding upgrades and other changes, and you can also view a list of all the top posters and see who is currently online.

Popularity: 17% [?]

There is hardly any person who surfs the net and who loves videos and yet does not know about YouTube. This is one of the most popular video sharing sites on the web. Calling it one of the most popular would be a misnomer and maybe an insult to this website. In fact, it is so popular that there are no challengers who come even within handshaking distance of it. Millions of people visit this site to upload their videos or to watch videos uploaded by their fiends and relatives.

YouTube or Email attachment?

Suppose there was a birthday party at your home and you wanted to share the same with your friends all over the world. This question was asked to one of the rare few that had no idea about YouTube. This gentleman in question used to compress the video files and then used to send them as an email attachment if the size was small. By small he meant videos that were approximately 100mb in size.

Though this gentleman had a high-speed broadband connection and it did not take him more than 15 minutes to upload the videos he wanted to share with his friends, what about those to whom he had sent those videos? There are many ISP’s that just do not permit attachments beyond a certain size and those who were using such ISP’s would have the mail along with the attachment knocked of the server itself. Then there was his friend in a remote country who was on a 56kbps dial up connection.

Easy to use software

It would take that poor chap approximately 400 minutes to download that video. This gentleman has finally found out about YouTube and is now a regular up loader to the same. A few days one of his video files got corrupted but he was not dismayed. He knew that there was a copy of the same on YouTube that he could download and make good his loss. He did not know beforehand but he was in for the shock of his life. Try as he might he was not able to download the video in question from YouTube.

He did not know that the videos uploaded to YouTube are converted to the flash format on the fly and are then displayed on their website. This makes it impossible to download them and save them to a local drive. Impossible to those who do not know! There is one site that makes it possible to download YouTube videos, which is straightforward to use.

When one sees a video file on YouTube, there is a unique URL for each video. Just highlight this URL and copy the same by right clicking and then selecting copy. Paste this URL on the appropriate field in Ripzor. Once you have done that just click the convert icon and select the video format you want the software the video to be converted to. Now select save giving the location you want to save the converted video to.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Needing to import a massive amount of bulk data into a mysql database for a client, I went in search of a tool to help me convert the client’s CSV files into mysql.

After much searching I found the perfect tool! CSV2SQL by info-pack.com allowed me to automatically convert the CSV data files into SQL queries that I could import into phpMyAdmin. The program ran on my Windows PC, took a file name for the input file and a filename for the export file, it then converted the CSV to SQL automatically.

I was then able to log in to phpMyAdmin, select the Import tab and import the SQL straight into the database.After converting the data with such ease, I decided to poke my nose around their site to see what else they have on offer, they have a range of handy tools for webmasters to help organise and develop their websites. I really found the Color Picker handy to grab the HEX codes for colors displayed on web pages I needed to match.

Hope you will find the site interesting, if you know more such webmaster tools and resources, post your comments plz.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Web hosting is vital for those individuals and businesses who want to run a website without setting up and maintaining their own server. A web hosting service will lease you space on their server, and provide you with Internet connectivity and data storage. There are several main web hosting companies, which offer different levels of service from basic small scale hosting for individuals, to comprehensive sites with database and SSL support for large companies and online e-commerce businesses.

Choosing the right web hosting company to suit your needs is vital and at WebHostingRating.com you will find an independently run directory that lists all the top web hosting companies, and up to date information on the various services they provide. Web Hosting Rating also provides reviews on each service, as submitted by actual users, which can help give you a realistic idea how the service actually runs and whether it would be beneficial to you.

Web Hosting Rating lists full details on the various web hosting services, including pricing information,
domain and email features (POP3 emails, unlimited spam protection etc), available databases (MySQL) and eCommerce, scripting, site building and security features. It also lists any details of current incentives and offers, such as the 30-day money back guarantee with Globat.com packages.

This site also offers free control panel tutorials, including detailed guides on how to use ‘Plesk’, a market leading control panel used by both individual and professional web designers. There are also other useful web hosting tutorials and articles on a wide range of relevant issues, such as Linux hosting, colocation hosting, eCommerce, scripting and security.

So that you can see the current market leaders at a glance, this site has an independent web hosting awards section, with winners in various fields such as best blog hosting and best eCommerce hosting. The awards are based on factors like customer satisfaction, service costs, percentage uptime and technical support. Each winner is featured in detail, including information on all their web hosting services and company contact details.

Popularity: 24% [?]

I got my domain name renewal email yesterday, it prompted me to shop around for a better deal on my domain and hosting. Looking around, there is a massive difference between domain name providers and hosting providers, so I found I could save myself quite a significant amount, especially on the hosting.

While looking around for the best deal on Google, I found CouponMeUp.com which provides a range of coupon and discount codes for most of the major domain name providers and a heap of web hosts, so not only could I shop around for a better deal, but I could get a coupon discount on top of the better deal. CouponMeUp.com has thousands of coupons for all sorts of stuff like clothes and electronics too, this could save me thousands over time.

So I am now set to save quite a large percentage on my hosting and domain name registration costs! I just saved $11 for my 5 domain renewals.

Get yourself over to CouponMeUp.com before you shop online, grab a coupon code and save heaps on your next online purchase.

Popularity: 19% [?]

As we discussed in the previous post, a file extension is the suffix added to the end of a file name, which allows the computer operating system to recognize the format the file has been saved in, and which program is needed to open it. File extensions can also help users to quickly see what format the file is saved in, without having to open it first. But many computer newbies always have problem understanding file extensions.

File extensions are optional and some operating systems either hide the extensions (such as Windows XP), or in the case of systems like Mac OS do not use them at all, and instead utilize a file type code (which can only be viewed and changed with specialized software) to store format information.

A common problem with Windows operating systems is a filename extension error. This usually means that the system cannot recognize the filename suffix for some reason, and there are several websites that offer free system scans so that you can identify and resolve any file extension errors. Another reason for a filename error could be that you do not have the correct program loaded onto your system to open and run that particular file (e.g. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to open .PDF format files).

There are hundreds of different file extensions in use, and the list is growing all the time. There are several online resources that provide detailed information on the various types of filename extensions, and which formats they represent. For example the file extension JAR relates to a Java application file that has been compressed using the .ZIP program so that it can be stored and archived. The file extension SMC relates to a format that has been produced by the games company Nintendo, in order to format Super Nintendo console Rom images (SNES ROM). These SMC files can be used in conjunction with a Nintendo emulator in order to play Nintendo games on a PC system.

Popularity: 27% [?]

The Apple iPhone was undoubtedly one of the highest profiled launches of any single mobile phone in the world, but it was also one of the most controversial. This was because Apple chose to work intimately with phone network operators on the iPhone model, instead of producing a SIM-free smart-phone like some the other phone manufacturers. This meant that the iPhone was restricted to one single network, severely limiting who could buy the phone and how and where they could use it. In addition to this a minimum two year contract restriction was also placed on the iPhone, further limiting its appeal to the customer.

Even loyal fans of Apple were disappointed with the restrictions placed on what had been such an eagerly awaited product, and the backlash was that hundreds of iPhone owners found ways to bypass the product’s factory settings, in effect ‘hacking’ into the phone to unlock the network restrictions. Apple retaliated against this hacking by implementing a software update that would interfere with any non-standard applications, and effectively neutralise unlocked iPhones so that they could no longer be used. This update however was not completely effective and this process to unlock iphone is still popular among iPhone users, with whole websites currently dedicated to the task.

There are many different sorts of websites that offer tutorials on how to unlock any iPhone, one of which is unlock-the-iphone.com. This site has information on how to unlock even the latest iPhone versions, including the new 3G model. You have to purchase the instruction package, currently at a cost of $24.99, but this includes all future updates and downloads, and caters for both PC and Mac users. The instructions cover how to unlock 3g iphone 2.0 and still enable GPS, RSS, SMS/MSS and instant messaging, which can be a problem with some other unlocking techniques currently in circulation. Once you have successfully followed the instructions, you will be able to use your iPhone with any service provider, with no loss of features or functions on the handset.

Unlike other iPhone unlocking sites, unlock-the-iphone.com does provide 24/7 support for its customers, as even with detailed instructions unlocking phones is not always a straightforward task. This site also offers a 100% full money back guarantee if customers are dissatisfied with the service or product provided.

Popularity: 30% [?]