Microsoft has already announced that they will kill Windows Live Messenger in all countries worldwide in first quarter 2013, but China will remain the only country to keep the application, the company has now confirmed that it would retire the service on 15 March 2013. Existing Windows Live Messenger users are encourage to migrate their current WLM account to Skype, so the WLM contacts and Skype contact’s will be merged .

Since I start using Facebook, many of my friends slowly quit from Windows Live Messenger, and even I also seldom login to Windows Live Messenger anymore. Everybody is using Facebook chat, I believe that this is one of the reason of retiring of Windows Live Messenger.

So how to merge Windows Live Messenger account with Skype account? Please refer to the following steps, it is easy!

1. Download and install the latest version of Skype.
2. Launch your Skype. Logout your existing Skype account if you are still login.
3. Sign in using your Microsoft account (Messenger, Hotmail, or Outlook.com).
4. Sign in your existing Skype account by clicking “I have a Skype account”. It will merge your Windows Live Messenger contacts with your existing Skype account now.
5. Done! You can start chat with your friends – all in one application.

Google Chrome has now eclipsed Mozilla Firefox in the speed category, but I still using my Mozilla Firefox as my default browser and it is still my favorite browser that I will use very often because Mozilla Firefox still better than Google Chrome and other browsers in certain areas. But do you know improve the speed of Mozilla Firefox is possible? You can follow the below steps to make Mozilla Firefox somewhat faster than Google Chrome and other browsers.

1. Type about:config into the Firefox URL/address bar and hit ENTER. (You will be warned that you might void your warranty if you change some advanced settings, just click the button “I’ll be careful and I Promise!” to go ahead)

2. Search the following Preference Name/entry and set their values to “true” by double-clicking each one of them.

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

3. Next, find this entry too and double-click and set the value to 8.

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

4. Right-click anywhere inside the config page and select New –> Integer. Name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set the value to “0″.

5. Right-click anywhere inside the config page and select New –> Integer. Name it content.notify.interval and set the value to “500000″.

6. Right-click anywhere inside the config page and select New –> Integer. Name it content.switch.threshold and set the value to “250000″.

7. Right-click anywhere inside the config page and select New –> Boolean. Name it content.notify.ontimer and set the value to “true″.

8. Right-click anywhere inside the config page and select New –> Boolean. Name it content.interrupt.parsing and set the value to “false″.

You should be able to notice the speed improvement immediately after applying the above tweaks. Remember, you should also disable the “firefox addon” that you don’t use often, this will help to improve the speed of Firefox loading during the startup.

I just changed web hosting account recently but I still using the existing web hosting provider because this new web hosting will be hosted on an another domain name, so I need to upload all the necessary files to new web hosting again.

Normally I prefer using Filezilla to upload or download files, but sometimes I will found some error like 421 too many connections (8) from this ip. This may sometimes be accompanied with a “Delaying connection for 5 seconds due to previously failed connection attempt” error. So how to solve this type of problem? Do you ever see this error before?

When you see error 421 too many connections (8) from this ip, then you go to File > Site Manager. Select “Transfer Setting” tab, and then simply click on the checkmark box next to “Limit number of simultaneous connections” and you can keep “1″ in the box. (refer below image)

After you have limited the number of simultaneous connections to 1 but you still get the error 421 too many connections (8) from this ip, switch of your modem and on it back, and you may need to completely shut things down so the previous connections are killed.

Important: Don’t download thing when you upload or download files using Filezilla. and don’t surf net using browser too. Normally I seldom get the error 421 too many connections (8) from this ip.

If you don’t like the Twitter Counter Badge provided by TwitterCounter and you want to display your Twitter counter in plain text, actually it is easy. You can just follow the below simple step to do it.

1. Add the following code to functions.php.

function string_getInsertedString($long_string,$short_string,$is_html=false){
  if($short_string>=strlen($long_string))return false;
  $insertion_length=strlen($long_string)-strlen($short_string);
  for($i=0;$i<strlen($short_string);++$i){
    if($long_string[$i]!=$short_string[$i])break;
  }
  $inserted_string=substr($long_string,$i,$insertion_length);
  if($is_html && $inserted_string[$insertion_length-1]=='<'){
    $inserted_string='<'.substr($inserted_string,0,$insertion_length-1);
  }
  return $inserted_string;
}

function DOMElement_getOuterHTML($document,$element){
  $html=$document->saveHTML();
  $element->parentNode->removeChild($element);
  $html2=$document->saveHTML();
  return string_getInsertedString($html,$html2,true);
}

function getFollowers($username){
  $x = file_get_contents("http://twitter.com/".$username);
  $doc = new DomDocument;
  @$doc->loadHTML($x);
  $ele = $doc->getElementById('follower_count');
  $innerHTML=preg_replace('/^<[^>]*>(.*)<[^>]*>$/',"\\1",DOMElement_getOuterHTML($doc,$ele));
  return $innerHTML;
}

2. Copy and paste the following short code to anywhere on your theme files, remember replace your twitter username.

<?php echo getFollowers("yourtwitterusername")." followers"; ?>

I don’t like to use free email service without POP3 technology, that’s why I already say goodbye to Hotmail for long time ago. Since Hotmail officially announced that that POP3 technology is now available to Hotmail users worldwide, may be I will consider to use back as I have been waiting for so long for this.

What is POP3? It is a protocol that allows almost any e-mail software program that you’ve installed on your mobile phone or PC to get messages from your e-mail inbox on the web and deliver them in the designated program. For example, you can use Outlook Express to setup Hotmail account. During setting up Hotmail account in Outlook Express, you may be asked for the following information.

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25)
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes