With that important a function, PayPal forms an important part of our daily finances, and we should be extra cautious about our PayPal account. Today, we will see how to change a PayPal password.

To change a PayPal password, login to your account. This will bring up the dashboard. Now, the funny thing is, there is not suggestive link where you can go to change your password. There is a link called “profile” all right, but it gives a menu with options to add bank account, credit card and likewise.

Where is the option to change the password or security question in PayPal?

So, where is the change password option? Well, you do not just have to hover over Profile. You need to click on it, and it will bring up a profile page. Tada! Nice UX PayPal!

So, now that you are at the profile page, look for the section that says Password. Beside that section, you will find a link to change the password. Click on it.

Now, clicking on change lets you change both the security question and thee password. Select the first option for password or the second option for security questions, and click Edit.

Next, it will ask for your bank information to verify your identity. Finally, after confirming your identity, you will get a link to change the password in your email.

That is all there is to changing a PayPal password. The next time you want to change your PayPal password, do not hesitate to use this guide.

This is the official video of the HTC One X.

Enough has already been said about the HTC One X and I am not much of a cellphone reviewer myself, so I will let this specs sheet do the talking. With a Quad Core 1.5 GHz processor on an NVidia Tegra 3 chipset and a 720*1280-pixel 4.7-inch display, the only reason not to buy this phone is the absence of an SD card slot, but is that reason enough? This is an open question and it is for you to decide.

GSM Arena gives a hands-on review of the HTC One X in this video.

Where can I buy this phone?

In the meanwhile, if you are tempted to buy this phone, there is good news. Clove Technology from UK is taking pre-orders for the HTC One X and they are shipping in almost all major countries across the globe, including India. Therefore, if you need a contract-free HTC One X, go place a pre-order to ensure you get it when it arrives, before they run out of stock.

What is the price of HTC One X, One V and One S in India?

The HTC One X has a price tag of £492 or USD 781 inclusive of vat. There is an extra shipping charge, and the eventual price comes to around £520.

Although not launched in India, you can still get the HTC One X shipped to India, from Clove UK. This would mean an expenditure of around Rs. 39,000 (give or take Rs. 1000). The price of this phone is a bit steep, but given its beastly features, it does deserve to be priced obscenely high.

The One S and One V are priced at  £450 and £264 respectively.

The One X is HTC’s flagship phone for this year and it puts the once popular handset manufacturer back on the Android radar. I have been an HTC fan myself, and I would love to see this device restore HTC’s position, and offer Samsung some tough competition.

Finally, after seeing low conversions, Airtel has decided to bring down the rates for its once overpriced 3G internet service. According to the new 3G internet plans in Airtel, the price slabs are the same although, the data offered on them have been (more than) doubled.

Initially, while the private players were busy with their aggressive 3G ad-campaigns, BSNL made impressive attempts at reasonable 3G internet plan offerings and we covered it extensively.

This is a snapshot of 3G plans in Airtel, as they used to be at Bengaluru a year ago.

The recent revision in rates has introduced some new plans and improved old ones. The Rs. 200 plan now offers 500 MB instead of 200 MB, and the Rs.450 plan offers 1.2 GB instead of 600 MB. If you are an Airtel postpaid user, Rs. 750 gives you a 5 GB plan, as compared to 4 GB for prepaid users. However, they have also talked about a service charge over the bill amount for Postpaid users, which will even out all differences eventually.

Enough talk. Where are the revised plan details?

The new charges are shown in the image below.

Update: Someone at Airtel forgot to update this page correctly, so you can see the right talking about a 5 GB plan, when this is clearly a 10 GB revised plan.

If you are the “let me see what this 3G is all about”, there is a plan for Rs. 10 too. There are only so many things you can get at Rs. 10 nowadays, and this is a good deal for those who want to load a map on Google maps and open a website to test how well 3G works in certain areas.

Which is the best Airtel 3G plan now?

It totally depends on what you intend to do with 3G. If you come back home, plug your smartphone to the computer and use it for surfing the Internet on your computer, you should go for at least a 10 GB pack, priced at Rs. 1250. However, if you want to load up that Google Map really fast or be on a Skype call while travelling, the Rs. 675 plan offering 2.5 GB for 30 days is absolutely worth it.

For all these plans, standard 2G browsing charges will apply once you cross the data usage limit. Airtel has also listed video calling rates separately at 5 p/sec. I am not sure how or whether this will apply in a Skype call.

To subscribe to 3G, simply call 12134 or SMS “3G” to 121. Visit this page for exact prices and offerings for your circle.

As a country, we have always been sensitive towards any form of criticism. Our country has still not gotten over the fact that we were a British colony, until a few (over fifty!) years ago. Any criticism of the Government is not taken in a positive light. However, our politicians can merrily watch pornographic videos on their cellphones inside the house, and read the foreign policy of the Portuguese Foreign Minister for a good long three minutes, without knowing something is wrong.

In this court case against Google and Facebook, the Indian Government has also ignored our own India’s I.T. Act Amendments, which clearly states that any intermediary shall not be held responsible for third party information. What is the point of having an IT Law, which does not hold any value? After all, this law was formulated by eminent people who understand the industry!

Until now, India was seen as potential market for online business. India has one of the fastest growing online populations, with 9% of growth in the IT sector alone. However, this intolerant attitude of the Government will be counterproductive, and will pose a big hindrance for upcoming online businesses.

According to this proponent of censorship, Mr. Vinay Rai, who is solely responsible for this publicity stunt,

Such content can create communal riots across the country.

On why he did not contact the companies directly-

 I did not deem it appropriate to approach foreign companies myself. I put my point across to the government who, in my view, is the best body to pursue this with multinationals.

In my opinion, Mr. Rai is a person who does not understand the damage and ridicule he has brought down on our nation.  Religion has always been a sensitive issue in India, and there are strong laws guarding religious interests. However, this is the first time that these laws are being used as an excuse to censor the Internet in India. In some crude way, religion is playing the part of the media industry in the US, in India’s move towards censorship (remember SOPA/PIPA?)! With so many religions and regional sentiments, as a country, we have too many masters to serve.

Are we expecting too much from the fact that we are a democracy? Is this democracy going to grace general knowledge books as the largest democracy, without actually giving democratic freedom to its people?

This situation reminds me of a movie, I saw a few days ago.

(Image via)

The primary source of income for a merry blogger like me, is a CPC advertisement like Google Adsense. Today, we will see how to place Google adsense advertisements inside a blog post.

Placing Adsense ads inside a blog post is harder than it appears. Firstly, you have to know which file to edit. Secondly, you have to know what kind of code to use, so that your blog post does not appear broken.

How to Show Ads After the First Paragraph in a blog Post?

In Hybrid theme, you can edit the file called singular.php found in your Hybrid folder, for making changes to single posts. However, there are two codes, which you can use to show ads inside post body. The first one checks for a certain number of characters, and places an ad after that. Though, this is not a practical solution at all. Who would want to see ads pop up between words!

The second one brings in some reason, and places ads after paragraphs. Even in this code, the number of paragraphs has to be specified by the user, and it is a constant. So, when using this code, make sure it suits your blog’s paragraph styling and the formatting of your posts.

<div class="entry-content">
< ?php
$paragraphAfter= 4; //shows the ad after paragraph 1
$content = apply_filters('the_content', get_the_content());
$content = explode("</p>", $content);
for ($i = 0; $i <count ($content); $i++) {
if ($i == $paragraphAfter) { 
?>
<!-- START OF AD CODE -->
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "ca-pub-6740844476322233";
/* Banner-Between-Post */
google_ad_slot = "3186213048";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
<!-- END OF AD CODE -->
< ?php
}
echo $content[$i] . "</p>";
} ?>
< ?php wp_link_pages( array( 'before' => '<p class="page-links pages">' . __( 'Pages:', hybrid_get_textdomain() ), 'after' => '</p>' ) ); ?>
</count></div><!-- .entry-content -->

Now, where shold you put this code? Wherever you find the line

<div class="entry-content"></div>

replace everything including that line up to the line before

< ?php do_atomic( 'after_entry' ); // hybrid_after_entry ?>

That is all you need to do. With this hack, you will get advertisements inside post. However, you have to control the number of paragraphs, after which the ad will show.

What are link ad units, and where should they be placed ideally?

Link ad units are like a list of links. They do not have any descriptive text, byline or images. All they have is one or two words, and they are available in vertical and horizontal layouts. As you can see in the image below, I have marked the link ad unit.

How to Insert Link ads under Menu on Hybrid Theme?

To insert link ads under the menu, we have to know where in the code the menu comes into the picture. Let us start with the header.php present in the Hybrid directory (not in the child theme). In header.php, you will see an opening div tag with an id of “container”. If you have worked in web-development for long enough, you might have noticed how this id is used for the content area, below the header. So, everything prior to this is our header.

Right before this div tag, we can place our link ad code. I have used the same css for the link ad, as found on the menu. The color of the link unit should also match the color of the menu bar. Enclose your adsense code between div tags and finally, your code should look like this.

</div><!– #header-container –>

<?php do_atomic( ‘after_header’ ); // hybrid_after_header ?>
<div align=”center” id=”primary-menu” class=”menu-container”>
<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
google_ad_client = “ca-pub-6740844476322233″;
/* Link_ad-Under-Navigation */
google_ad_slot = “5116863245″;
google_ad_width = 728;
google_ad_height = 15;
//–>
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js”>
</script>
</div>
<div id=”container”>

That is all you need to do  to display ads below the menu, on the Hybrid Theme. Do not copy the code given in this example as it is. Replace the link unit code with your own adsense link unit.

What is the problem with duplicate Meta tags?

A duplicate meta tag is like giving two descriptions for your page. It confuses your search engine, and generally, the search engine picks up the first occurrence of the meta tag. This can prove to be fatal in search rankings, and can have an adverse effect on your page SEO.

What causes duplicate Meta tags in the Hybrid Theme?

The Hybrid Theme Framework has its own SEO features. However, many people prefer using All in One SEO (AIO) Pack. This can create duplicate meta tags. The unfortunate thing is, although Hybrid has methods to check if another SEO Plugin is installed, it somehow did not work on my Hybrid News Theme installation. Thus, I was getting two Meta tags for “description” and “keywords”. I had to find a way of turning off Hybrid’s SEO!

How to turn off Hybrid SEO?

Hybrid SEO is a core feature. To turn it off, we have to tweak the way Hybrid is activated on your blog. However, don’t be scared by all that. In reality, you have to add a single line of code to your functions.php file on the child theme.

Look for the line that says, function hybrid_[your_theme_name]_setup(). Now, go to the end of the function, which should be the place where you find the first closing brace ( ”}” ) on a single line.

/*removes hybrid core SEO */
remove_theme_support( ‘hybrid-core-seo’ );

That is all. Now, Hybrid SEO will not interfere with your own SEO plugin, and you will see single tags for meta description and meta keywords.

We have sen how you can setup the Hybrid Theme on your blog, and how to show excerpts instead of full posts on your blog homepage, when using Hybrid theme. We have also seen how to add advertisements under a post title, remove duplicate meta tags and how to show link adverts under the menu.

The main source of revenue for a blog like mine is Google AdSense. Google ads on a WordPress blog need to be well placed for maximum clicks, yet be non-obtrusive to respect the user’s reading preferences. I usually tend to follow Google’s AdSense ad placement guide, when it comes to monetizing my blog. If there is one destination where Google wants us to put advertisements, it is under the title. This has a high visibility, and does not block the content of the post.

Add Google Ads under post Title in Hybrid Theme

Generally, in other themes, you edit the posts.php file to get your custom content under the title. However, with Hybrid, there is no posts.php file. So, how exactly do we do it? Let us see.

With the Hybrid Theme, it is not easy to edit files here and there. So, initially, I tried a plugin to put ads under the title, but it was messing with my theme! Good SEO practice requires us to have our Title in H1, but the plugin was creating confusion, removing the H1 tag from my post title.

Then, I moved on to edit my theme files. I searched for a call to the_content(), as that is the function used to display post  contents and it should be on one of the files that format the post.

Surprisingly, I found it in many pages, along with the singular.php file. Now, all you have to do, is paste the AdSense code right between

<em>&lt;?php do_atomic( 'before_entry' ); // hybrid_before_entry ?&gt;</em>

and

<em>&lt;?php the_content(); ?&gt;</em>

With the code in place, your Google ads will start appearing on all posts, below the title. You can see an example of what I am talking about, in this post.

If you have a more efficient way of doing this, please leave a comment.

Currently, I am using Hybrid News Child Theme on this blog. You can read my initial review and setup information regarding Hybrid Theme, in this post.

Assuming you already have the Hybrid Theme installed on your blog, and you have a child theme, which is showing full post contents, we will now see how to replace that full post content with post excerpts.

How to Replace Post Content with Excerpts on Homepage?

If there is no option to do this in settings of your Hybrid Theme, you have to edit the theme files manually. Now, Hybrid is a Theme Framework, and there are different ways of editing theme files in it. Either you can modify functions to make your desired changes, or, you can replace function calls at respective places.

The function to show post excerpts is the_excerpt() and the one that shows the entire content of the post, is the_post(). It is a bit confusing to modify the homepage, since the homepage has no marked out index.php file. Instead, we will modify the functions.php in your Hybrid child theme.

Go to the directory wp-content/themes/[your hybrid child theme] on your webroot. In my case, I am at /public_html/wp-content/themes/hybrid-news.

Now, open the functions.php file. You have to add the code given below some code to the file, and save it back.

Firstly, add 

add_filter('the_content', 'my_excerpts');

at the end of this file, before the “?>”. This tells WordPress that the-content will now be filtered as my_excerpts. But where is my_excerpts? We have to define that too.

Just above the last line “add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘my_excerpts’)”, which you added recently, paste this definition for the my_excerpts function.

function my_excerpts($content = false) {
// If is the home page, an archive, or search results
if(is_front_page() || is_archive() || is_search()) :
global $post;
$content = $post->post_excerpt;
 
// If an excerpt is set in the Optional Excerpt box
if($content) :
$content = apply_filters('the_excerpt', $content);
 
// If no excerpt is set
else :
$content = $post->post_content;
$excerpt_length = 55;
$words = explode(' ', $content, $excerpt_length + 1);
if(count($words) > $excerpt_length) :
array_pop($words);
array_push($words, '...');
$content = implode(' ', $words);
endif;
$content = '' . $content . '';
 
endif;
endif;
 
// Make sure to return the content
return $content;
 
}

Save the file, and come back to your homepage. All your posts on homepage will now show excerpts instead of full-page posts. If you have a caching plugin installed, do not forget to clear your cache before checking for the changes.

However, I tried the same Global Download Center page from here in India, and saw no trace of that model.

Accoding to the rumor mills, Samsung Galaxy SIII will have a 4.6 inch screen with Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 720×1280 pixels, and a 1.8 GHz CPU powering it. It will also sport a 12 MP camera, and needless to say, it will run Android 4.0 Ice-cream Sandwich. If everything goes as planned/rumored, this might be Samsung’s nemesis for the iPhone 5.

So, is the Galaxy S3 Coming at MWC?

Either Samsung is going to launch the Galaxy SIII at MWC after all, or, this is a new phone that Samsung has been secretive about. Either way, whether this i9300 is the Galaxy SIII or not, there is a huge chance that this phone might appear at MWC and when it does, we will be waiting.