The web portfolio of Mujtaba Ahmed

Today i’ve launched my new website and my first web portfolio.

You can check it out here: www.dynamicguru.com/mujtaba/ .

The site is one of my best works till date and is the first site of mine to use ajax and is powered by jQuery. The site uses awesome jQuery effects for page transitions. Also it has validated XHTML 1.0 Strict markup. Check it out and tell me in the comments what you think about it?

I launched Scrapground.co.cc around an year ago when Orkut enabled html scraps. The site was my first project as i had just taught my self css and php. It featured an online “scrap creating tool” which designed your scrap in 40 different html templates and all you had to do was copy and paste the code given below any template into your friends scrapbook. The site was hosted for free at www.x10hosting.com and had a free .co.cc domain. It worked fine untill i moved to India and stopped logging in into my hosting account frequently, i got suspended a couple of times for inactivity and last week i found out to my surprise that my hosting account had been terminated for inactivity!!! I lost both of my sites as i didnt have a backup of it on my local machine!!!

The lesson i learnt were : Never rely on free webhosts and if you cant do without a free host Take regular backup of your site so even if you are kicked off the hosting service you can still quickly switch to another free host.

There are even more reasons as to why free hosts are highly un-reliable, like:

• Limited or low bandwidth
• Limited or very less web space
• Frequent server downtimes
• No or limited customer support
• Lack of freedom/ restrictions
• Search Engines ignore you

.htaccess , Whats is it?

According to Apache:

.htaccess files (or “distributed configuration files”) provide a way to make configuration changes on a per-directory basis. A file, containing one or more configuration directives, is placed in a particular document directory, and the directives apply to that directory, and all subdirectories thereof

‘Directives’ usually refer to the commands that are contained in the .htaccess files, which control or modify your server’s various behaviours. Many free and paid web hosts permit you to change and modify your .htaccess files but remember if you have a website running on Yahoo Geo Cities,Goolge sites or freewebs then this article is meaningless for you cause they dont allow access to .htaccess files

What can you do with .htaccess?

.htaccess can be used in many different creative ways , but its most common usage is for:

• Setting up custom 404 error pages
• Enable/Disable directory browsing
• Change default homepage for a directory
• Block certain users from accessing your site
• Block specific refferers
• Prevent certain files from being viewed
• Block Hotlinking

How to create one?

Create a text file from any text editor, Note Pad,Text Pad and save it as .htaccess ( remember the period before htaccess and no .txt extension ).
Upload it in your home directory…The rules in .htaccess file apply to all the sub directories in your files directory

Doing some cool stuff

Now here comes the real thing…
To enable your server to use a custom 404 file not found page for broken links or URL typos…
include the following code in your .htaccess file:

#The page notfound.html should be in the same directory as your .htaccess
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html 

#Alternatively you can specify just raw html to be used instead of a page
ErrorDocument 404 "<h1>yikes! that  page passed away a while ago...</h1>"

Enable / Disable directory browsing

Change directory homepage

Block some users from accessing your site

Are you a desperate blogger/webmaster stuck with your free webhost where server crashes thrice a day and a freedomain that is ignored by search engines? Are you looking for free domain with free hosting but dont know where to go? Well then BuddingBloggers is the right thing for you. BuddingBloggers ,as the name suggests is helpful for growing bloggers who dont have a domain of their own. Now you might be wondering what maybe the procedures or criteria for getting a free domain via this service, well the good news is, BuddingBloggers doesnt require you to put some work into it or first complete some sponsored criteria(s) or purchase any service to be liable to recieve a freedomain( as other free domain services do) .Instead ,BuddingBloggers is completely free without any hidden costs, all you gotta do is fill out the application form here : http://buddingbloggers.com/apply and if you are lucky and enough you might get selected for the sponsorship program.but brfore make sure you have read and understood the program guidelines which you can find here : http://buddingbloggers.com/blog/program-guidelines/

Cheers and happy blogging!