Friday, December 21, 2012

Beginners Guide to Third Party Ad Networks

If you are looking to earn a small residual income from your blog then the easiest way to do so is by displaying third party ads on your pages. But, what exactly do I mean by a third party ad? Though huge organizations like Yahoo!, Youtube, FaceBook etc. can lure in advertisers on their own as a small time blogger you will be best advised to rely on an agency like Google Adsense which has 1000s of network ads from 100s of different advertisers which it will rotate amongst all the various sites and pages in their system. Such third party ad servers are mainly of 3 types and here's a quick look.

Cost Per Click ( CPC )
As the name suggests, CPC ad providers will pay you a share of the revenue they generate when a valid click is registered on one of their adblocks on your site. The keyword here is click. CPC ad networks are possibly the most popular and often the only alternative available to small publishers and bloggers.


Some popular CPC ad networks available to site with almost no requirement include: 
  1. Bidvertiser
  2. Taggify
  3. Chitika (before signing up be sure to read about the Chitika    Revenue Audit)


Cost Per Mile ( CPM )
Here the name is somewhat of a misnomer. What CPM or cost per mile basically means is the amount money paid to you for a specific number of page views (typically 1000). CPM ad providers usually restrict their service to large (over 100,000 views a month) and those who do serve ads to small publishers and bloggers usually offer very poor rates (around $1/1000 views) and will not be worth your while. Another issue with CPM ad providers is that sometimes they don't monetize traffic from all the countries. But the great benefit of CPM ads is they convert traffic directly into revenue without any worries about poor click through rates.

Some popular CPM ad networks include:
  1. Tribal Fusion
  2. Casale Media
  3. Burst Media
A Combination of CPC and CPM
Many sites also offer both CPC and CPM ads. This is how the system usually works: you get to fix  a CPM rate for your site. One or more advertisers may bid for that space in your website. But until anyone agrees to pay your minimum CPM rate you will be served (usually low paying) CPC ads called "network ads".

Some such sites are:
  1. Adbrite
  2. Adhitz
Other Kind of Ad networks
There are several other kinds of ad netwroks as well such as:
  1. In-line ad networks (Infolink, Konterra, Text Link Ads)
  2. Pop-up or pop-under and similar ad netwroks (Affinity)
  3. Ad networks which monetize outgoing links (Taggify, Link Bucks)

Sunday, December 16, 2012

How to Use Dropbox for File Synchronization?

The first question is of course what is Dropbox?Dropbox is one of the most popular file synchronization applications whereby you can both synchronize your documents (virtually anything) across several platforms and hardware as well as share it with anyone you wish through the internet.

How to use Dropbox?
To get started simply visit the Dropbox website and sign up for a free account. Also download their software and install on any hardware you wish to use it on. It will create a Dropbox folder on a location of your choice on your computer. Dropbox also has dedicated apps for Blackberry, iPhone, iPad and android.

Once, you have synced your Dropbox account with your Dropbox folder(s) you can simply put anything (text, photos, folders etc) in your Dropbox folder and it will show up on all your synced Dropbox folders and also your online Dropbox account. (But for this to work an internet connection is obviously necessary.)

Further, you can share all (or some) of the files in your Dropbox folder with friends and colleagues either by e-mail or by sharing an auto-generated link. Or invite Dropbox users to  a "shared folder" which will be synced the Dropbox accounts of all the concerned members and anyone can modify it and automatically share it with team mates. This is very useful for team projects that everyone encounters at school or work.

Using Dropbox you can also offer downloadable documents to people with a specified link but I am not entirely convinced just how safe it is to share this link with the public.

Dropbox Storage Space and Plans
You start with a free account at dropbox.com with 2GB space but can increase your space by an additional 875+MB by doing some very basic and also useful stuff such as taking a beginners' tour and syncing your dropbox account with Facebook and Twitter or by simply providing feedback.

Another way to expand your free storage space (upto a maximum of 18GB total) is by referring friends to dropbox. You get 500MB for every successful referal.

Dropbox also offers paid storage staring from 100GB at $9.99/month. Visit dropbox.com to find out more about this really great service.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Free Keyword Search Tools List

It is common knowledge that to get a good ranking in Google and generate decent traffic you must use the proper keywords on your posts. Easier said than done!And that is where keyword search tools come in handy. Though, most keyword suggestion tools charge at least $50 per month for the service there are a few keyword search tools which can help you perform some basic but still vital keyword research for your website.

Here is a list of a few keyword search tools which are definitely worth checking out, especially for the entry level blogger.

1. Ubersuggest.org 
This is a very simple and basic keyword suggestion tool and quite hassle-free to use with no registration or even captcha requirement. Ubersuggest provides results in various languages and across several search verticals such as web, news, images etc. It also come with very handy cut paste options for "exporting" your keywords.


2. Wordtracker
Wordtracker is one of the most used keyword research tools and many other paid keyword research packages also uses some of its variations. The free version of this keyword tool not only suggests a HUGE amount of related keywords but also provides an estimate of the number of searches performed for each for  a better insight. Also there is a filter for adult keyword which may be particularly useful in some niches. However, to regularly use the Wordtracker tool you must sign up for a free account and there is a cap on the maximum keyword searches you can perform in a day.


3.SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool
SEOBook is one of the most complete keyword research packages that is still available for free. Not only do they provide you with a list of keywords with some Google insights to help you make better decisions but SEOBook also provides free courses for more effective keyword research, several other SEO tools and Firefox extensions and also some exclusive free trials for other keyword search tools. All you need to do is signup for a free account!



Apart from thse you can always use the free and highly reliable SEO and keyword research tools provided by Google such as Adwords Keyword tool, Google Trends, Google insights etc.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Mind Mapping with Bubbl.us

A mind map of Reviews & Guides
Bubbl.us is a popular web based mind mapping application offering both free as well as paid plans.

You can use this very easy to use application to create clean and coherent mind maps such as the one shown along side (click image to enlarge).

Getting Started with Bubbl.us
The best thing about creating mind maps with Bubbl.us is the speed and simplicity with which you can go about it. Signing up is super easy with the only requirements being a username, e-mail and password. And you don't even need to confirm your ID!

Creating a Mind Map with Bubbl.us
You start with a tab. From this tab you can create any number of child tabs and from each child yet more child tabs to create a tree. You can also create more independent tabs and connect them through arrows. You can choose the color as well as the text size. You may also include links in the bubbles (tabs). A simple drag  facility helps you to align the bubbles any which way you wish. You may also add labels to the lines joining the bubbles.

Exporting and Sharing Your Mind Map
Once your mind map is ready Bubbl.us allows you to export it either as an HTML embed code or a simple link to your mind map. You can also download the mind map as a .jpg file as I have done in the mind map above. Or else you can simply save the mind map in your bubbl.us account.

Bubbl.us Account Options
Free account holders can save up to 3 mind maps but can create an unlimited number of mind maps.  Premium accounts are priced at $6 per month or $59 a year.

Ubersuggest : Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

Admittedly, to draw Google's attention towards your blog first and foremost you need plenty of  decent and niche content but to really go anywhere with your blog it is of utmost necessity that you pay due attention to SEO and optimize your content for at least the most popular search engines like Google Yahoo and Bing. 

One of the easiest way to get noticed is by choosing the proper keywords for your post. Alternately, after you decide upon the broad general topic you can do some quick keyword research and phrase your article accordingly.

Another reason why you should definitely do some keyword research before writing your article is because the CPC rates for Google Adsense (along with most other ad servers) depend heavily on the keywords associated with your content and since on an average less than 3% of the visitors to your blog actually click on a contextual 

But effective keyword research is quite a difficult and laborious process to master and it is more than likely that unless you are a hardcore pro blogger you will neither find the time nor the enthusiasm for extensive keyword research. In that case it is best to take the help of a simple keyword suggestion tool. While there are plenty of paid options it is perhaps best with a free alternative such as Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest Screen Shot. Redbox--language Bluebox--search vertical Grey Ellipse--search term
It is a very simple keyword suggestion tool where you simply need to type in a query and then select a language as well as a search field (such as images, news, recipe or web) and it will generate a list of relevant  and related keywords. You can choose as many of the suggested keywords as you want and Ubersuggest will create a list of the keywords which you can easily copy and paste in the "tags" field of your post. It's that simple and of course free!

However, its simplicity unavoidably leads to lack of features. Most notably Ubersuggest gives no hint as to the competition for each keyword as well as its CPC value. Another thing you must remember is that many blogging platforms (including Blogger) requires you to separate keywords by commas. Ubersuggest's listbuilder doesnot do that. So you must remember to enter the commas manually.

Overall Ubersuggest is a simple and fast way for newbie bloggers generate a handful of relevant keywords without having to wrack your brains. Nothing more nothing less.


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Free and Easy Folder Encryption Software

Just thought I'd tell you about a free, easy and portable folder encryption software that I have been using for quite a few years now and am pretty satisfied with. It is called 1 Second  Folder Encryption and it really does not take much more than just a single second. And the best part is it is absolutely free!

It simply encrypts any folder on your system so that they cannot be viewed unless they are decrypted by the user. It is as simple  as downloading and installing the set up files and spending a couple of minutes getting familiar with the minimal and intuitive user interface.

Being a freeware however, it does have plenty of limitations:

  1. It only allows a single user, that is, there is only one master password to encrypt or decrypt all the folders on your system.
  2. The encrypted folders are neither hidden nor shredded, they are simply "locked" so that if someone tries to open he will simply get a system error message
  3. The interface though intuitive could have been made somewhat more efficient and user friendly.
  4. Last and most importantly the distributor refuses to take any responsibility in case of failure.
Overall, 1 Second Folder Encryption is ideally suited for those photos and videos and documents you'd rather other members of your family or friends not see, but trusting it with anything more sensitive may not be such a good idea.  

Friday, September 14, 2012

MathType : Software Review

MathType is a specialized software which enables typing out of complex mathematical formulae and expressions which cannot easily written on popular text editors like MS Words or even MS Excel.

Some Useful Features of MathType
The most remarkable feature of MathType is its intuitive and user friendly yet immensely powerful simplistic user interface. There are several modes such as derivatives, matrices, statistics, algebra etc with each mode having a series of one-click expression entry options for commonly used expressions. 

There are also a series of tabs for easily entering all sorts of symbols and commonly used Greek letters. In this regard it may be worth noting that though MS Word definitely boasts of a much more exhaustive set of foreign characters and symbols (though many of them find NO use in writing mathematical expressions), it is far easier to find and properly use them on MathType.
Mathtype Toolbar


Another impressive feature of MathType is the highly efficient way in which they have dealt with superscripts and subscripts and even sub-subscripts. This feature is far superior than any other word editor I have used either online or otherwise. In fact, in many ways the ability of MathType to seamlessly handle scripts of different sizes and at different realtive positions simultaneously is the corner stone of its success.

The matrix/vectors of any dimension can also be suitably represented with MathType.

Expressions involving summation and various types of integration (surface,volume,line etc) can also be easily written using MathType.
A few experimental equations to showcase Mathtype's ability  to handle complex mathematical equations


Disadvantages of MathType 
Though MathType is a highly efficient software and fits its product description perfectly, yet its nearly $100 price tag is quite exorbitant.

Also, personally I felt its integration with MS Words could have been considerably better as it is quite a hassle to rectify the typos once you have pasted to Words. Further, alignment of the MathType symbols with the Words documents is also not always perfect.

Last but definitely not the least not all online publishing platforms support Math Type, and I am talking major sites such as Hubpages, and to the best of my knowledge even Blogger!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Free Flash Games at Stick Sports : Review


Of all the hundreds if not thousands of free online gaming websites Sticksports.com is probably my favorite. As of present it offers the following five games and several variations/dervatives.
In order of preference (preference is of course subjective) they are:

1. Stick Tennis
This is my absolute favorite online game. It has probably got the best graphics of all the games in the Stickfranchise and as far as the game play is concerned it is in league with any of those EA sports games that you spent good money to buy. With all five grand slam scenarios (Wimbledon, US Open, Oz Open and Roland Garros) along with separate graphics (grass, clay or synthetic) for each of them and accurate players’ skill levels (Federer moves faster than Rodick but Rodick’s surf is faster than Roger’s) ensures that Stick Tennis stays head and shoulders above the competition, at least for the time being.
Further the game is sufficiently challenging so that you have to work for your wins and that makes Stick Tennis an even better game.

2.Stick Cricket
Up next is Stick Cricket–the very first game in the Sticksports family. With a descent game play and tolerable graphics this is also a damn good freebie. Like Stick Tennis this is also a very fast game and usually each match lasts no more than 10 minutes. However, if you’re very busy and can’t possibly spare 10 mins. there’s no need to despair–try the T2 mode, it hardly takes a couple of mins  to complete a T2 match.

3.Stick Football
Sorry football lovers but this game is know where near as good as the two mentioned above. For one thing the graphic is absolutely pathetic (I can’t remember the last time I played a game where the characters glidedinstead of walked)
On top of that this game is so easy that you get tired of scoring goals even before the first half is over! A real disappointed!

4.Stick Baseball
The gameplay is very similar to Stick Cricket but can't really say much more as baseball is really not my sport


5.Stick Racing
The latest addition to the Stick Sports family is Stick Racing. However, this game is also very disapointing and rather boring with stupid graphics and a pathetic gameplay.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

How to Choose a Free Website Hosting Service


For first timers and casual webmasters (like myself) free services are particularly appealing even if they are restricted and lacking in features. These days there are hundreds of companies who offer free web hosting but most them of them have some sort of a catch in order to force you into opting for one of their paid plans to gain greater freedom on the net.
The following is a beginners guide to web hosting mentioning a list of features that are available for free and are particularly helpful to webmasters.

1. MySQL and PHP support.
MySQL and PHP are very important and you can run a very limited number of applications without them. For example even a basic WordPress blog requires a MySQL database and PHP support. Apart from this a lot of popular applications such as Movable Type require Perl for proper functioning.

2. FTP Access
FTP access is very important to maintain a website because every time you need to upload something you will be needing it. Even if you have browser upload facilities it is not always very reliable, specially when dealing with relatively large files, in which case FTP is the best and easiest method to achieve your end.

3. Bandwidth
Bandwidth is basically a measure of the maximum amount of traffic that your website can receive within a given frame of time (usually one month). Assuming that you are hoping to get at least a few visitors to your website apart from yourself and family you should look for a web host which provides bandwidth in excess of 200MB/month at least. For a very realistic estimate a text-based website which has received around 200 page views will expend 90MB bandwidth.
If you are considering photo blogs or Vblogs (video blogs) you should only consider web hosts providing over 500MB data transfer per month.

4. Advertisement
A lot of free web hosts monetize their service by forcibly  placing banner or pop-up ads on your website. Some include a footer text like “Click here for free web hosting”. If it is a purely personal blog these advertisements hardly pose a problem. But otherwise it somehow seems to undermine the credibility and authority of your website, not to mention become tiresome to your readers.

5. Diskspace
Depending up on the nature of your site this may be either your most important or your least important concern. For most purposes a disk space of above 500MB should be quite sufficient and a lot of web hosting companies provide more than that. However, if you are planning on creating your portfolio and get your high resolution photos or HD videos online you might be a touch hard put to find a free host with sufficient amount of disk space. (the maximum I’ve ever heard of is 50 GB and that’s a bit rare).

6. PHP cURL and fsockopen enabled are two other important features for a web host but these are very rare in case free web host provider. I’m not sure exactly what purpose these two features serve, but I can guarantee you one thing: If you are looking to use any auto blogging   applications chances are they won’t work without cURL and fsockopen enabled.

This is basically all you need to know in order to find yourself a descent web host. In case you get stuck, never mind, I’m planning to do another article discussing my experiences with some of the larger web hosting companies that provide free hosting.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Zurker : Own a Social Networking Site for Free !!!

Have you heard of Zurker yet? It is a new Social Networking sites which claims to be more fun than Facebook and is making no bones about the fact that toppling Facebook as the number social networking site is their main ambition--and that should tell you something about what its creators think about the potential for Zurker. However, it has one major difference from Facebook, Myspace and just about any other social networking sites--it is owned by its members and you get paid for Zurker's success.


How does the payment structure at Zurker work?
Zurker assigns its member vShares for every new successful referral. And I am very happy to say that Vshare isn't another one of those abstract revenue sharing rating points. Instead Vshare is simply a virtual share and will become a real share once Zurker get 1 million members. The value of one Vshare is one-millionth of the evaluation of Zurker. So here's the catch: only the people who refer the first 1 million people will be awarded Vshares. So it is best to join Zurker as soon as possible to maximize your chances of referring new members.


This is actually a great earning opportunity considering that Social Networking sites are some of the greatest money makers in the cyber world and even if Zurker falls way short of Facebook's $50 billion evaluation and is evaluated at just $50million (and that is quite a conservative estimnate considering Myspace fetched close to $600million and Bebo $800million), each vShare (which you are getting for free) will still earn you $50! Now that's not to shabby.


Other features of Zurker
Apart from this radical new development, Zurker has all the features you would expect in a social networking site. However, for obvious reasons Zuker doesn't allow multiple accounts  and they are also planning to go open source sometime in the future. Another point to note about Zurker is that it has already introduced country specific TLDs (like in Blogger) and this shows that they are more than willing to adapt to the present scenario, which has now become almost a prerequisite for success on the internet.


The future of Zurker is still quite uncertain, but it has been building up members at an impressive rate and is already of PR4 site with an Alexa rank of around 58000. So I will definitely reccomend you to check out Zurker specially as it is completely free and easy to use. 


Note:At present Zurker is in beta testing and you cannot sign up without an invitation. So ince you don't have one feel free to use mine (or click on any of the links to Zurker in the article above):
http://www.zurker.in/i-123003-ajdsilrbdk

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Catasia Studio : Screencast Software Review


If you are looking to create computer based video tutorials or demos to promote your products and applications then the easiest way to go about it is by using a screencast software which captures all the actions going on on your computer screen and directly renders it to popular video formats which can be used in just about any which way you want.

Though there are a large number of free online and offline screencasting options available on the internet, it is quite likely that if you are trying to produce a video with any degree of professionalism then you would want to use a paid screencast software, and sooner rather than later. Here is a look at one of the more popular paid screencasting software, Catasia Studio.


Features I Like About Camtasia Studio 6
Intuitive User Interface
Camtasia Studio uses a very user friendly interface which is so intuitive that you hardly ever need to consult the help files, which themselves are are pretty comprehensive albeit compact. But to help you master the software better you can also download or stream short tutorial videos from their website.


Zoom-n-Pan
The Zoom-n-pan feature gives you great control over the camera angles (such zooming in to a particular section of your screen) and is very handy in just about any tutorial as it allows you to focus in on the relevant part of your screen in every single shot.


Caption
Caption is a very basic feature and present in most screencast software. It basically allows you to add subtitles to your video and is a very handy feature as it will almost invariably increase your audience.


Call-Out
The Call Out feature allows you to add various kinds of "boxes" inside your video during post processing and maybe used for a variety of purposes such as highlighting text, drawing special attention to a part of the screen  or to simply blur out sensitive information from the screencast.


Drawback of Camtasia Studio 6
I had just two issues with my Camtasia Studio 6 software:
  1. It is slightly difficult to get the aspect ratio right in order to get the maximum possible screen area for your video. Further, if you are using captions they too tend to eat up quite a bit of screen space.
  2. The Youtube version of the rendered videos often turn out to be of a slightly lower quality than expected as per the preview.
 Pricing of Camtasia Studio 7
The latest version of Camtasia Studio available is Camtasia Studio 7 and it is priced at a marginally expensive $50 for the individual license and also offer a host of different licensing options.  

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Make Money from Product and Movie Reviews


Out of the several ways you can make money on the Internet, one of the easiest and most popular is by writing product reviews. Most review sites are free to join and offer either upfront or residual payment for reviews you write for them. The following is a list of the most popular websites that pay you for your reviews:

1) Review Stream: Review Stream is one of the few websites on the Internet that accept international members as well as pays upfront. Set up with an aim to pay for every review published with them, it is one of the best places to earn substantial money on the net. They accept reviews of almost everything and anything under the sun, ranging from books to softwares to local restaurants.
The amount they pay for reach review varies between $1.25 to $2.5. Apart from that they buy slightly inferior reviews at a bulk rate, which is the normal rate divided by five.

2) Epinion: Epinion is another major player in this industry but unlike Review Stream they only offer a passive revenue sharing for your reviews. They encourage you to write reviews on products available on their store and a percentage of the sales made by them is distributed amongst the authors. This does not mean that you cannot write a negative review on Epinion as they pay you even for negative reviews.

3) Ciao!Ciao! (Not to be confused with Ciao.com) is another major website dealing with reviews and is probably powered by Bing!. However they do not accept international members. Ciao has specific websites for different countries such as Ciao.co.uk for the United Kingdom, and Ciao.it for Italy. If you live in any of these countries then I can assure you that Ciao has one of the finest revenue-sharing policies out there.

4) Softwarejudge: Softwarejudge accepts reviews of only softwares. For every review published on their site that pay you a minimum of one dollar but it might go up to as much as $50. However the cash redemption process of Softwarejudge is slightly troublesome and you’ll probably have to write quite large number of reviews before reaching their payment threshold of $100.

5) Squidflix: It is a subsidiary of Squidoo and is dedicated solely to movie reviews. You simply need to choose a movie, decide whether you love it or hate it, write hundred words about it and Squidflix will do the rest. It will display Google Adsense and Infolinks(optional) advertisements on your Web page (or lens as they are called). Apart from that you can also easily integrate Amazon and eBay modules and earn through referrals by displaying related products available on Amazon or eBay.

6) Shvoong: Shvoong accepts reviews of all most all forms of published text ( such as books, news etc.) as well as websites and movies and the site pays 10 per cent of the revenue generated from your reviews.

7) Gomolo: It is probably a subsidiary of Shvoong and specialises in Indian and especially Hindi films. Its revenue-sharing policies are same as Shoovng.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Leading Microstock Sites


Wouldn't it be nice if you could somehow rake in a cool passive income from your holiday photos? Well actually you can do just that by signing up for a microstock site! Microstock sites essentially connects small time or amateur photographers willing to sell their photos to publishing houses willing to buy them.
From the seller's perspective, the biggest advantage of using a microstock agency is that they seldom claim exclusive rights to your photos meaning the same photo can be sold over and over again. From the buyer's perspective also, microstock is often preferred over regular stock photos because they are a lot cheaper (often costing less than $1 per photo).
Following is a list of some of the most popular microstock sites available to international citizens.

iStockphoto

A subsidiary of Getty Images, iStockphoto is the oldest and probably the largest (profit wise) microstock agency. A very stringent quality control policy ensures that only the best photos get approved and it is very difficult to become a contributing photographer for them. However, they also provide industry leading contributor compensation schemes making sure their photographers can enjoy a steady and substantial income.
Apart from photos iStockphoto also accepts vectors and video clips.

Shutterstock

Another major player in the microstock industry is Shutterstock. Unlike most other microstock agencies Shutterstock operates on a subscription basis, which means instead of single photos, large publishing houses buys hundreds of photos from them at a bulk rate. This in turn ensures their photographers have a greater chance of selling a large number of photos in a short period of time, generating a sizable income. Reportedly,some contributing photographers are earning as much as $10,000 a month from Shutterstock alone.
Another great feature of Shutterstock is their support forum which contains lots of interesting discussions and tips and tricks from some of the industry leaders and is a treasure trove of information for any budding photographer.
Shutterstock is always on the look out for editorial photos and can even provide you backstage passes if you are willing to cover any newsworthy event in your locality.

Dreamstime

Dreamstime is a much smaller microstock site, but still a lot of people are making hundreds of dollars with them every month. An unique feature of Dreamstime is that they offer critical reviews of the photos they have rejected, giving the photographer a chance to either plead his case or make the necessary adjustments and resubmit the photos.
Dreamstime also allows the selling of exclusive rights at a recommended price of $350 (negotiable).


Bigstockphotos

A subsidiary of Shutterstock, Bigstockphotos have well over 3 million photos on their database. Their editorial team is a lot more lenient making it a good place to start for beginners. Unfortunately, however, at present it is rather difficult to generate any sort of revenue with Bigstockphotos.

A few other well known and reliable microstock sites include Fotolia, Crestock and Canstock Photo.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

C++ Tips and Tricks for Beginners

I am learning a bit of C++ as part of my Engineering curriculum and I am picking up a few interesting tricks along the way and I thought I'd share them with other new learners of C++ hear today. This article is not meant for the pros but you are welcome to read through anyone and I hope you will be kind enough to point out any mistakes I have committed. So here goes:


Tip 1: Use Parenthesis and Logical Operators Whenever in Doubt
It is a rather common mistake to think that the computer is your maths teacher because it can interpret your mathematical expression in an entirely different manner. For example, suppose you want to accept a value and find out if it's between 500 and 1000 (ie. 500<x<1000). But you use a if loop like
if(500<x<1000) 
The computer will always evaluate it as TRUE. Why? Because it evaluates the function from left to right and because < is a binary operator the evaluation is in fact (500<x)<1000.
Now, 500<x is either 0 (false) or 1 (true) but in either case it is <1000. So the if loop always evaluates as TRUE.


Tip 2: Use Do-While Loop to Your Advantage
The main difference between the do-while loop and other common loops like the for loop or the while loop is that the checking is done at the end of the loop rather than at the beginning. Which means, no matter what the loop will evaluate AT LEAST ONCE. You can use this to your advantage in more ways than you may think and make your program more convenient to write and also create a few nice tricks. Here is a very easy trick you can perform with the while loop:
int main()
{
define your variables
int rerun;
do{
write your statements
cout<<"Enter 1 to try again"<<endl;
cin>>rerun;
}while(rerun==1);


Tip 3: Evaluate Functional Value While Using Non Linear Equation Solving Algorithm
If you are using computer programs for non linear equations solving by methods such as Regula Falsi, Bisection and Newton Ralphston, then keep in mind that the programs have a tendency of returning false roots, ie, values at which the functional value is not sufficiently close zero. So, it is best to CHECK if your functional value is actually zero before returning the answer.



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