Extras

This page contains a few links that are not related to Islam, but that I hope may be of interest or use to Muslims and non-Muslims.

Give Sadaqa (Charity)

The American Red Cross - Give blood to help disaster victims. (Muslims: yes, donating blood to non-Muslims is halal)

Give Water - Just a click of your mouse can help provide clean, pure water for the poor and needy around the world. You can donate every day, and it's free to you! Such an easy thig to do, and yet it can make such a difference for people.

The Hunger Site - Just a click of your mouse can donate food to help the hungry and needy around the world. Like with the Give Water organization, you can donate every day, and it's free to you! Such an easy thing to do, and yet it can make such a difference for people.

Recommended Free Website and Computer Tools

AceFTP - A freeware FTP program. There are not very many of these left anymore. At first, I used a series of 30-day trials, then I used a browser based Java applet. Finally, I found AceFTP. I am very pleased with it (note: you can also download this program from the Bravenet website.)

AVG - An excellent free anti-virus program. I highly recommend it.

Bloglines - A free server-based RSS newsreader/aggregator. Want to read blogs via their RSS feeds but can't afford to pay for a newsreader? Want a newsreader that's server-based so you can access it from any computer? Bloglines is for you. An excellent service with a lot of features.

Blogrolling - Similar to Bloglinker, it helps you manage your links list. You can use a pop-up window to update your blogrolls from any webpage. Also indicates which blogs have been recently updated.

Bravenet - Probably the best single collection of free add-ons for your website. I have hit counters, polls, surveys, "recommend this page" tools, an "add your own links" page, a URL redirect, and a guestmap among other goodies from them.

Feedblitz - An email subscription service for blogs. People can sign up to be notified when there are new posts to your blog.

FreeFind - Want to give people the ability to search your site? FreeFind offers this service for free. I am very pleased with FreeFind. They spidered my site right away and did a thorough job. You can set how often you want your site re-spidered, whether daily or less often. You get a report after each time your site is spidered as well as a weekly report of what searches people are running on your site. Highly recommended.

Movable Type - My blogging tool. It is not for beginners, because you have to install it on your own webspace (and there aren't really any free webhosts that you can reliably install it on, so this was a factor in my move to paid hosting) and you really need to know a little bit about CGI to get it going, but the features are awesome! Plus the developers, Ben and Mena Trott, are very responsive to the MT blogging community.

PayPal - Send and receive money online, usually with immediate approval, but without getting into the complications of credit cards.

SiteMeter - One of the most popular hit counters. If you just want to know how many people have visited your site, this is a good choice; if you need information on what specific pages they're visiting, try AddFreeStats (see below). I originally used Bravenet's hit counter but SiteMeter's is much better.

SpyBot Search and Destroy - This product finds and removes "spyware", which is little programs that some companies and advertisers secretly download to your computer to track your preferences. You may be shocked at how many of these programs SpyBot S&D finds.

Inexpensive Web Tools

Dreamhost - My webhost. They offer excellent features at a good price. And their support system is top-rate. Also, if you prefer not to use credit cards, they will accept PayPal.

NameCheap - Where I registered the muhajabah.com and niqabiparalegal.com domains. Good prices, and they accept PayPal.