Technology Digital Magazine

The American Auto Bailout

2009-02-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

This is going to be one of the big stories of the year, three huge companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of bankruptcy. The big question is why are they on the brink and why aren't other companies asking for the same thing. I haven't heard of Honda and Toyota looking to the Japanese government for a bailout and yet they are no doubt having similar issues with sales. So what is the real problem with the American Automakers?

Some people will go on about the huge SUV's that were built instead of focusing on smaller more fuel efficient cars. Reliability issues have plagued American cars over the years as well. So are these the only issues and are they really issues anymore? First off General Motors now has some of the most fuel efficient vehicles in at least three market segments and for the last 8 years the reliability issues from what I have read are gone. I personally own a Full Size GM pickup truck, it is the most fuel efficient full size truck on the planet and after 60,000 miles I have had no issues at all with it. I am not here to tell you how great General Motors is, I am not brand loyal and as soon as someone makes a better pickup truck that is more fuel efficient and has better features than the GM I will buy that one. My point is many of these comments just aren't true.

The fact is General Motors sells more cars than every auto maker on the planet except Toyota, so the sales are pretty darn good. Selling cars in this economy as I said before is bad for everyone, the largest Lamborghini dealership on the world which happens to be in California closed its doors last month and filed for bankruptcy. The reality is people aren't buying expensive cars right now.

So if every car maker is feeling the pinch and people are still proportionally buying American cars why are these three huge auto makers on the brink of bankruptcy?

The answer is complicated but there is one area that is so clearly obvious as the main culprit. In both Canada and the United States where a large amount of American cars are built the people that work in these factories on both sides of the border are a part of unions. These unions are incredibly powerful and over the years have made it so that some of these workers are earning $90,000 a year to work on an assembly line. On top of this both the Canadian and American auto unions have managed to get their members unbelievable pension packages. These pensions allow most workers to take retirement at the age of 55 and they are paid huge percentages of their income for the rest of their lives.

This to me is one of the biggest reasons the presidents of these three companies are begging for bailout money and why you don't hear the Japanese or German car companies doing the same? Just this morning the big three went to the unions to ask if they would reduce their pay in order to make the bailout happen, their response was 'never'! Just imagine how sick these people are that they would refuse a pay cut and if they don't accept one they'll most likely be out of jobs.

The requirement for a bailout has less to do with big ugly gas guzzling and unreliable SUV's and more to do with greedy unions that don't look at the big picture!

What is in a Domain Name?

2009-01-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

A domain name -- Shakespeare once asked a simple question: "What's in a name?" This article will attempt to answer the above question as far as your website is concerned. You will discover that quite a lot is at stake when it comes to a name.

A domain name is the name (usually in English) which your site will go by on the internet. This name is associated with an IP address as well, since computers and network infrastructure use these numeric addresses to locate your site -- the domain name primarily purpose is to help humans to find your site.

Surprise! Do you know that having a domain name for your website is not a requirement? In contrary having an IP address is a necessity, since that's how computers will find you on the web. Having only an IP address for your site can make it difficult (to say the least) for web surfers to find your site, however.

During the early development of the internet, domain names were chosen with the goal of making it easier for people to remember the name of your site, because it was important for users to be able to type that name into their web browser. Nowadays thought with search engines, bookmarking and social media being much more useful, it is becoming less important for surfer to memorize a name.

Let me be quick to point out that however, from the standpoint of marketing it is still a good idea to have a memorable domain name for your site, for instance, greatmaps.com is better than fantasticcarstographicofrepresentationandgeographicalfact.com. While they are both descriptive of your business, it's without reasonable doubt that one is far easier to remember than the other.

Remember also that the name you decide on for your site can have a big impact on how much traffic you'll receive and how long this will take to begin. If you have a great website or great products and/or services, the word will get around eventually. Having a good name will make things much easier for you for instance like them or not, Google chose well for their name.

Given that there are literally millions of websites out there, you may not be able to get your first choice for a domain name. You might have to try a few names to find one which you want. Since there are simply so many websites, it is unlikely that you will get your first choice of domain names; but domains do expire, so you may be able to obtain the name you want at a later date if it is not available now.

You can also choose an expired domain names service or software that will search for and alert you whenever a good name becomes available. All you simply do is ask for the domain name you want and when this name becomes available you will be notified and given the opportunity to purchase it. Always remember though that it's good to have a good name but don't fret too much if it's taken.

Here is something to think about, suppose Google as we know it today as a top notch search engine was not performing well, their name would still be short and memorable, but who cares about a non performer and run down company? A good name matters a lot but to be effective the name must be backed up with something remarkable.

Are Used Cars Cheaper to Insure?

2009-01-11T02:22:00.000-08:00

It is no secret that car insurance rates are nothing less than exorbitant these days, and the price seems to be going up every day. There are many different factors which contribute to these prices. There are, in fact, a number of factors which contribute to how much you have to pay as well. Getting to know these qualifying factors is important.

After all, if you plan to drive, then you have to have car insurance no matter what. The price of car insurance can greatly differ depending on what kind of car you buy as well. It costs more to insure a sports car than it does to insure a standard sedan. Similarly, it costs more to insure a brand new car than it does to insure a used car.

Studies and surveys have even shown that it costs significantly less to insure your vehicle when it is either an older model or a used one. New cars are so expensive to insure that it borders on ridiculous. Given the current state of the economy, not many people can afford such a luxury. The premiums for newer cars can seriously do you in financially. This is because of the safety record for new cars, and even how much replacement parts for new models cost.

In fact, these factors - replacement parts, safety records, the car's power, its top speed, et cetera - are what ultimately cause a car to be place in its appropriate insurance group. Usually, you are told the category in which your car classifies when you go to buy it. That is why younger and first time drivers often ultimately purchase smaller cars. They are notoriously cheaper to insure.

A top car manufacturer recently put out a press release outlining how one of their newer models somehow made it into a cheaper insurance group. This can be attributed to that particular car's safety record and because the parts it uses are significantly more affordable. In this case, the cheaper insurance premiums also means that the people who buy and drive this car may not have to deal with the upcoming changes in road taxes.

Face it, just about everyone wants cheap car insurance. We want insurance which is affordable but effective. The good news on this front is that many insurance companies are now offering more affordable premiums. You simply need to know where to look - and which cars best qualify for cheap insurance.

That is part of the reason so many people are turning to used cars these days. Not only do they cost less to buy, but the insurance premiums are much cheaper as well. In the end, they make for a better investment. Plus, you do not run the risk of losing much money if you later want to upgrade to a newer model.

The History Of Sun Microsystems

2008-12-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

The history of Sun Microsystems reveals how important innovation and flexibility are to the success of a company. Innovation allowed Sun to build a company capable of taking the lead in its marker within the first few years of its incorporation and continue to grow dramatically. More importantly, Sun's flexibility and a willingness to adapt to changing environments enabled them to survive the bursting of the dot-com bubble that bankrupted so many tech companies. And both these traits - innovation and flexibility - allowed them to bounce back and recapture an influential presence in computer world.

Sun was incorporated in February 1982 with only four employees. For the next ten years, the company was mainly a hardware vendor selling workstations, but they did that single task quite well. They sold 68000 processor-based workstations running the Unix operating system, and using TCP/IP (now known as the Internet Protocol) at a relatively low cost. Five years later, they were winning the Workstation Wars of the 1980s and took the lead in the market. They maintained this lead into the early 1990s, when they expanded to servers.

The dot-com bubble of the 1990s led to booming business and dramatic growth for Sun Microsystems. New dot-com companies were starting up everywhere, creating a demand for expensive Sun-based server systems to handle high levels of web traffic. When the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, however, it hit Sun hard. Sales for hardware, Sun's primary market, dropped dramatically. No new dot-com companies were starting up and needing new equipment. Existing startup companies didn't need to upgrade their servers - when web traffic failed to meet their expectations, their existing high-end Sun servers could handle the existing load quite well. And as the dot-coms began to go out of business, their equipment was auctioned off, and suddenly companies needing high-end Sun servers could acquire them at a much lower cost than Sun was offering. Finally, Sun was also facing competition from a new server farm strategy that used larger numbers of small, cheap servers running open-source operating systems (primarily Linux) instead of the traditional strategy of small number of expensive, high-end servers like the ones Sun produced. As a result of all these factors, Sun experienced several quarters of steady losses, their stock fell to less than a tenth of its peak value, and Sun was forced to close manufacturing plants and lay off employees.

In addition to massive cost-reduction efforts, Sun managed to weather the recession through flexibility, adopting its competitor's strategies and diversification of it products. Sun developed a powerful but low-cost 64-bit system to compete in the low-end server market. They began to compete in the open-source world by donating 1,600 patents to the global open source community in 2005. Currently, Sun offers an open-source office suite (StarOffice and OpenOffice), an open-source version of Solaris (OpenSolaris), and turned their powerful platform Java system into an open-source project. Finally, they began to diversify their business away from mainly hardware and are competing in the 'Software as a Service' Market. In 2005, they expanded their 3000-CPU server farm used for research and development, and made it available for commercial use, selling processing hours and storage at affordable prices.

Today, Sun Microsystems retains an influential presence in the computing world. Their history demonstrates the importance of innovation and flexibility to a company. Innovation allowed Sun to grow quickly and dominates their market. Their flexibility with their products and willingness to adapt to a changing economic environment allowed them to survive a recession. And both qualities allowed them to bounce back and stay ahead of the volatile and ever-changing tech market.

Top 10 Most Popular Pedigreed Cat Breeds

2008-11-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Pedigreed cats are a source of joy and pride for their owners. Besides their gorgeous coats, beautiful lines, and great disposition, these animals offer companionship and entertainment to those who love them. Choosing a pedigreed cat is not easy, but knowing the most popular breeds of pedigreed cats may help.

1. Persian

Persian cats are known for they beautiful long coats and open faces. They supposedly originated in Iran and were transported to the rest of the world along with exotic spices and fine jewels. Cat breeders and owners of Persian cats enjoy their gentle dispositions and quiet voices
Persian cats are best suited to living indoors because of their long coats. The coat of a Persian cat requires considerable maintenance, but this breed is extremely hardy and long-lived.

2. Maine Coon

The origin of the Maine Coon cat is something of a marvel. Less a product of the work of cat breeders than the result of natural selection, the Maine Coon originated in North America and is known for its superb mousing ability.

Also known for its loving disposition and keen intelligence, the Maine Coon is a beautiful long-haired breed. These cats are wonderful with children and good with dogs as well.

3. Exotic

The Exotic is a variant on the Persian breed. Exotic cat breeders strive to meet the standards of the Persian cat in all areas except coat. Here, the Exotic differs from its higher-maintenance cousin. Exotic cats have a short, easy-to-care-for coat.

Quiet, with a soft, gentle voice, these cats make excellent pets. They are not demanding but are playful and sweet. Exotics are also clean and mature later than other cat breeds. These cats physically resemble a teddy bear or other stuffed animal and make wonderful family pets.

4. Abyssinian

Resembling the sculptures of cats in Ancient Egypt, the Abyssinian has a beautiful, arched neck, slanted eyes, prominent ears, and a powerfully-muscled body. The extremely short hair of this breed makes it distinctive and easy to care for.

Besides their appearance, the Abyssinian has a personality that is unique and easily identified by a cat breeder or educated enthusiast. Abyssinians are known for their remarkable intelligence, amazing sensitivity, and personable attitude.

5. Siamese

Originally from Thialand, Siamese cats are easily identified by their distinctive coats and markings. The color contrast on their coats is remarkable, and the structure of their bodies is also unique. Cat breeders strive to produce a animal with a wedge-shaped head, long, muscular body, and a long neck and tail.

The coat on Siamese cats is very short easy to take care of, making this breed a low-maintenance pet. They are first-rate communicators with a distinctive voice and clear body language. Siamese cats love people and become extremely attached to their doting owners.

6. Ragdoll

A large cat with a relaxed disposition, the Ragdoll has long hair and striking blue eyes. When breeding Ragdolls, a cat breeder is focused on producing animals with specatular, pointed coats, affectionate personalities, and a large body. These animals love people and usually want to be close to their owners.

The coat of a Ragdoll cat requires regular maintenance, but otherwise, these animals do not require any special care. They were developed in the 1960s as cat breeders bred domestic longhaired cats and other free-roaming felines.

7. Sphynx

The result of a 1966 natural genetic mutation, the Sphynx is a cat breed that is sometimes entirely without hair. Cat breeders have worked hard to create a breed that is extremely hardy and has few health problems.

Sometimes there is fine downy hair present on the nose, tail, or body of this cat. The Sphynx has a friendly personality, and is very curious and attention-oriented. Due to the lack of hair on this breed, it requires bathing. However, some people with cat allergies find that they can tolerate a Sphynx.

8. Birman

Orignally from Burma, where it was held as a sacred animal, the Birman is a large, stocky animal with long hair. The coat of the Birman is not prone to matting, making it easier to care for than some other breeds.

The personality of the Birman is considered nearly ideal by many cat owners and cat breeders: at once sweet, quiet, playful, and energetic. The long coat is tipped and is generally a light color with a golden glow. The eyes of this breed are very round and blue.

9. American Shorthair

Known for their spectacular disposition, the American Shorthair is a breed that makes a wonderful companion. This breed is also extremely healthy, long-lived, quiet, and good looking.

Records show that the American Shorthair, originally called the "Domestic Shorthair," came to America on the Mayflower. Cat breeders have worked for years to ensure that these animals have the desired qualities for the breed, despite their physical similarities to ordinary, non-pedigreed animals.

10. Oriental

Devoted to their owners and interested in being a part of all daily activities, Orientals make great pets. They are bred to be curious and intelligent, as well as to have colorful, distinctive coats and long thin tails.

Cat breeders have been able to produce over 300 different patterns and colors of Orientals, making the selection of these animals extremely diverse. They are also noted for their large, open ears and almond-shaped eyes.
About the Author

Cat breeder directory features free and premium listings for cat breeders and other pet related websites. When looking for quality information on cat breeders, refer to Cattery Index.

Nothing Can Keep Us Together (Gossip Girl)

2008-10-31T19:50:00.000-07:00

Cecily vonZiegesar launched a set of bestsellers with the publication of Gossip Girl—a fictionally light look into the world of New York City’s richest, most beautiful teens. Each book in the series is an instant hit upon publication. The eighth installment is aptly titled, “Nothing Can Keep Us Together.” Graduation is around the corner. Lifelong friendships were tested in Nobody does It Better. What does the future hold?

The author tempts and teases readers with two love triangles. Blair must deal with the fling between her former best friend Serena and ex boyfriend Nate. Popular oddball Vanessa also juggles romps with Aaron and Dan
Jenny the freshman, who stole the spotlight in #7 with her party girl antics, has several scenes in this book as well. She’s shopping boarding schools after being kicked out of Constance Ballard prep school. Jenny fans will be happy to know she’s now the It Girl in her own series by vonZiegesar.

Nothing Can Keep Us Together is one of the better books in the Gossip Girl series. Senior year is winding down and the individual fates of our favorite characters are unknown. Some are heading off to college; others want to experience life outside of school. VonZiegesar leaves readers with plenty of questions and (thankfully) the promise of a ninth Gossip Girl book.

A Free Adsense Site Builder To Increase Your Adsense Revenues Faster

2008-10-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

When it comes to build websites for Adsense, webmasters know that you need to build many of them in order to create a virtual real estate empire that will bring in residual Adsense income each and every month.

Some people prefer to build a handful of very large Adsense sites, other prefer to build dozens upon dozens of smaller niche Adsense sites. It's ok, everyone has their own strategy to make a living online. After all, HOW you do it does not really matter, what really matters is the end result!

So, how can a free website builder help you grow your Adsense revenues faster? It will allow you to build more sites in less time.

If you select the good piece of software like HyperVRE (they are not all created equal!), building new Adsense sites is as easy as 1-2-3 because the software includes templates that are ready to receive your Adsense codes and your optimized articles.

Combine this with a monthly membership to good Adsense optimized articles and you can build many new Adsense sites each month. And if you do this for a few months in a row, you will end the year with a virtual real estate empire!

Wireless Security GSM, LAN and Wi-Fi Networks

2008-10-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

GSM phones use encrypted technology that enables secure voice and data transfer during calls. GSM technology uses an algorithm to ensure the authenticity of the caller and the integrity of the channel, even when you are roaming in a foreign country.

The most interesting, and potentially contentious area of wireless security is that concerning wireless LANs or Wi-Fi networks, these are fast becoming the connection method of choice. Wireless signals do not recognize corporate or geographical boundaries and are only limited by the propagation configuration of the network. Even in an office environment you will find small areas or “blind spots” where the coverage is very weak or non-existent. So, it is possible for the random surfer to “happen upon” on someone else’s network. How can one protect against this happening?

Wireless local area networks use spread-spectrum technology - a technique that makes the radio signals difficult to intercept. Most Wi-Fi systems also include a form of user logon and password protection. Of course, the spread spectrum signals can be intercepted with a relatively simple wireless card and many networks do not properly set up the password feature and will allow ready access to anyone. The fact that “employees” have to go through some form of physical security before they can access the network only adds to the notion that wireless networks may not be as secure as equipment manufacturers would have us believe.

The problem with wireless security is essentially a technical issue with the way the signals are encrypted. The original wireless LANs (WLANs) used the Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP). This was then replaced in late 2002 with the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). Essentially, WPA offered improved data encryption through the use of temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP). The TKIP feature scrambles the keys using a hashing algorithm and ensures that the keys have not been tampered with. WEP only uses a static key that is seldom changed by users. This cryptographic weakness caused many of the security breaches in WLANs because intruders could, with relative ease, generate an encryption key and access a wireless network.

While WPA offers enhanced security features over WEP, not all industry observers are completely satisfied. A recent problem was highlighted with WPA concerning the use of poorly chosen passwords for a network. Criminals intent on compromising a WLAN can use simple dictionary software to overcome the system password. In fairness, this weakness only manifests itself when short, text-based keys are used and does not signify a fault in the WPA protocol. WLAN manufacturers can circumvent this problem by incorporating the ability to generate random keys across the network and putting in place user requirements concerning the length and style of passwords.

Microsoft responded to this potential threat by providing a Windows XP download that alters the way the operating systems communicates with the Wi-Fi network - using separately generated keys for each system user rather than one, albeit encrypted, key for the network connection.

How to Choose the Best Student Laptops

2008-10-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

Sourcing the best student laptops is important, because all over the internet, in the newspapers and even at your local stores, people are talking about the importance of having a laptop while attending school. Laptops can be very beneficial to any student but unfortunately the truth is that there are many laptops that are just too expensive for the student’s budget. Luckily the good news is that there are relatively cheap student laptops available for you to purchase but you need to know some facts first before you go out and buy.

For starters, let’s take a moment to look at all of these cheap student laptops available at the major electronics chain-stores all over the nation. You see their advertisements for cheap high-end name brand laptop with so many instant and mail-in rebates on them that the whole computer only costs a couple of hundred dollars. You think to yourself for a moment and then you realize, this is more expensive then if you were to just pay cash. I know how that sounds, but here is how it works out. Most of these rebates are only given when you sign up for services, software or even extras like a printer. In the case of the services, you are signing in to a contract that locks you in for a specific amount of time, usually 12 months. Even if it is something as simple as internet access, that rebate can end up costing you well over $250 in the first year; more if you break the contract.

How messed up is that? A $100 instant rebate can cost you more than double in fees over the next year. Now just imagine all of the other rebates that come along with these and you will start to understand why when it comes to purchasing cheap student laptops, the last thing you should be looking for is for the name brand computers at the large chain-stores.

What you need to do is take a look on the internet as well as checking out the local computer shops in your city. You will soon start seeing names that you have heard of before, but not directly associated with laptop manufacturing. These might include companies who make parts for laptops like motherboards and hard drives. There is quite literally thousands of small companies as well as big names that qualify under the second tier; just below the name brands. Each and every one of these are also known for their quality and great prices.

When you see a laptop that has everything you need but you question the quality, look it up on-line. It does not get any simpler than that. You would be amazed as to how many people have already purchased that exact same model and are more then willing to say what is good and bad about it. It is by far the best ways to find cheap student laptops that meet all your requirements.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ray_E_Baker

How Do I Remove a Virus From My Computer

2008-10-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

During the Trojan war, Greek soldiers hid inside a wooden horse to gain access to the city of Troy. In much the same way, trojan horse viruses gain access to your computer by masquerading as harmless programs and applications. But how do I remove a virus from my computer?

The goal of the trojan horse virus is to break down all of the safety nets and security measures that are placed on a computer. This can prove to be just as dangerous to your system as the real horse was to the city of troy.

The scary part is you can end up with a computer virus through no fault of your own. What appears to be a joke from your friends appears in your inbox. Open that attachment and you could end up with a computer virus. Or you could innocently download a music file or video from a website only to realize that you have let in a virus.

No you've given up control of your computer, and everything on it. The person who created the virus now has access to your entire system. Scary, isn't it? These people can easily learn all of your passwords, your banking information, your credit card information, and anything else on your system or utilized online.

Thanks to these hackers and identity thieves, you need to learn how do I remove a virus from my computer. The sooner you realize that the virus has infected your computer, the faster you can take the steps necessary to destroy it and then prevent it from ever returning again.

Always remember the golden rule when it comes to all computer viruses- an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Always be careful and mindful of what you choose to download. Be extremely picky. Only get files from family members, friends and others whom you know that you can trust. If you follow these very basic rules then the ounce of prevention will be all that you will need.

If you reach the point where you must asking "how do I remove a virus from my computer" then you have already fallen behind in your security efforts. The best solution is a complete re-installation and a complete cleaning of your hard drive. This can be a long, drawn out process but it will do the trick nicely.

Another option is to buy anti-virus software that will find a way to attack the Trojan horse on your computer without the hassle of the re-install. It is important however to get software that specifically states that it can find and destroy the Trojan horse virus. Not all anti-virus software programs are created equal. Buy the one you need for the problem you are encountering.

How do I remove a virus from my computer you ask? Remember the ounce of prevention rule and follow it as best you can. If on the other hand your computer gets bitten by the virus, do what needs to be done.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_T_Hope

What Steal This Wi-Fi

2008-09-15T21:18:00.000-07:00

Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people -- and attracts the most criticism -- is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There's no password. There's no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet.

To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea. But to some observers, it's both wrong and dangerous.

I'm told that uninvited strangers may sit in their cars in front of my house, and use my network to send spam, eavesdrop on my passwords, and upload and download everything from pirated movies to child pornography. As a result, I risk all sorts of bad things happening to me, from seeing my IP address blacklisted to having the police crash through my door.

While this is technically true, I don't think it's much of a risk. I can count five open wireless networks in coffee shops within a mile of my house, and any potential spammer is far more likely to sit in a warm room with a cup of coffee and a scone than in a cold car outside my house. And yes, if someone did commit a crime using my network the police might visit, but what better defense is there than the fact that I have an open wireless network? If I enabled wireless security on my network and someone hacked it, I would have a far harder time proving my innocence.

This is not to say that the new wireless security protocol, WPA, isn't very good. It is. But there are going to be security flaws in it; there always are.

I spoke to several lawyers about this, and in their lawyerly way they outlined several other risks with leaving your network open.

While none thought you could be successfully prosecuted just because someone else used your network to commit a crime, any investigation could be time-consuming and expensive. You might have your computer equipment seized, and if you have any contraband of your own on your machine, it could be a delicate situation. Also, prosecutors aren't always the most technically savvy bunch, and you might end up being charged despite your innocence. The lawyers I spoke with say most defense attorneys will advise you to reach a plea agreement rather than risk going to trial on child-pornography charges.

In a less far-fetched scenario, the Recording Industry Association of America is known to sue copyright infringers based on nothing more than an IP address. The accused's chance of winning is higher than in a criminal case, because in civil litigation the burden of proof is lower. And again, lawyers argue that even if you win it's not worth the risk or expense, and that you should settle and pay a few thousand dollars.

I remain unconvinced of this threat, though. The RIAA has conducted about 26,000 lawsuits, and there are more than 15 million music downloaders. Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research said it best: "If you're a file sharer, you know that the likelihood of you being caught is very similar to that of being hit by an asteroid."

I'm also unmoved by those who say I'm putting my own data at risk, because hackers might park in front of my house, log on to my open network and eavesdrop on my internet traffic or break into my computers. This is true, but my computers are much more at risk when I use them on wireless networks in airports, coffee shops and other public places. If I configure my computer to be secure regardless of the network it's on, then it simply doesn't matter. And if my computer isn't secure on a public network, securing my own network isn't going to reduce my risk very much.

Yes, computer security is hard. But if your computers leave your house, you have to solve it anyway. And any solution will apply to your desktop machines as well.

Finally, critics say someone might steal bandwidth from me. Despite isolated court rulings that this is illegal, my feeling is that they're welcome to it. I really don't mind if neighbors use my wireless network when they need it, and I've heard several stories of people who have been rescued from connectivity emergencies by open wireless networks in the neighborhood.

Similarly, I appreciate an open network when I am otherwise without bandwidth. If someone were using my network to the point that it affected my own traffic or if some neighbor kid was dinking around, I might want to do something about it; but as long as we're all polite, why should this concern me? Pay it forward, I say.

Certainly this does concern ISPs. Running an open wireless network will often violate your terms of service. But despite the occasional cease-and-desist letter and providers getting pissy at people who exceed some secret bandwidth limit, this isn't a big risk either. The worst that will happen to you is that you'll have to find a new ISP.

A company called Fon has an interesting approach to this problem. Fon wireless access points have two wireless networks: a secure one for you, and an open one for everyone else. You can configure your open network in either "Bill" or "Linus" mode: In the former, people pay you to use your network, and you have to pay to use any other Fon wireless network. In Linus mode, anyone can use your network, and you can use any other Fon wireless network for free. It's a really clever idea.

Security is always a trade-off. I know people who rarely lock their front door, who drive in the rain (and, while using a cellphone) and who talk to strangers. In my opinion, securing my wireless network isn't worth it. And I appreciate everyone else who keeps an open wireless network, including all the coffee shops, bars and libraries I have visited in the past, the Dayton International Airport where I started writing this and the Four Points Sheraton where I finished. You all make the world a better place.

Ted Schredd had almost too much fun writing about having fun

2008-09-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy
There's a fine line between happiness and fun, a line Ted Schredd leaps over, back and forth, with almost too much glee. Mama Knows the F Word is about fun. (What did you think the "F" stands for?) Well, OK, some of the language Schredd uses is a bit coarse, so keep the book away from those with the most tender ears, but generally the book is about feeling positive and enjoying life.

If you are one of those people who reads only the beginning of a book, gets distracted, puts it down, forgets about it and never picks it up to read about it again, this book is about happiness – a topic I am very familiar with from my happiness self-help book.

In fact, many of the themes Schredd addresses in the first few chapters are themes from my book (I would like to think he had read my book and was so inspired by it that he went out and wrote his own, but that may just be the optimism of a happy person thinking.)

If you are the type of person who actually reads past the first third of the book, you will find that the book is not really about happiness, but about fun. Yes, the F word. Ted has chapters on laughing, silliness, sex, chilling out, fun at home and other fun themes.

The cover sets the tone, featuring a granny in cheerleader regalia. Ted's no-nonsense writing style definitely carries that mood through the book, which is further enhanced by his own illustrations – oops, I mean his own silly illustrations. Peppered throughout the book are famous and not-so-famous quotations, which tend to be much more serious than anything else in the book.

Whenever I review a book, I look for some lasting legacy the author might leave behind, in the event that the book becomes a top seller. Ted Schredd's legacy would be "mind poo", a term his grandmother coined. Mind poo is a generic term for all the negative thinking that keeps us from having fun.

There are many books that could be considered "fun", such as books about games, comic books and humor books, but few about fun as a topic. In fact, this is the first book specifically on fun that I have ever read, and it is unquestionably the best.

Pick up Gramma Knows the F Word and have some fun.

Submit Edge Paving the Way

2008-09-07T03:37:00.000-07:00

TX, USA ( Goarticles ) â€" September 5, 2008 â€" There are all kinds of submission services around today, but when you take a closer look at the services they offer and how they conduct business most of these companies may not help the average person at all in getting their website listed throughout various directories and websites.

SubmitEdge is not only a submission service but a SEO firm as well. What does SEO have to do with getting websites listed with quality links in the proper industry? To understand what the search engines desire on any website is the key to hiring ranking and unique links. The only way to achieve such success is with a company that knows the ins and outs of link building and is up to date on the latest search engine optimization skills.

SubmitEdge is that company. This company provides SEO Submission Services with submissions such as directories, articles, search engines, social bookmarking, DMOZ listing, blog reviews, link baiting, and guaranteed Google indexing. Along with these submission services SubmitEdge offers other SEO services such as keyword research, search engine optimization for all the pages of a website, XHTML validation, rank tracking, and PPC managing.

The importance of link building is an essential ingredient for anyone wanting to attract visitors, have their website noticed, and of course, bringing in unique visitors that desire the information or product the website has to offer. Relevant links are the only way in which to accomplish this feat.

SubmitEdge has features that are not available with other similar companies such as manually submissions. This one feature is at the top of the list to ensure the submission is not thrown off to the way side and considered to be spam. Whether you believe this or not, many companies use software programs instead of human interaction, the search engines, and websites notice this and the information is destroyed.

Not only does SubmitEdge offer personal and manual submissions, but also the staff ensures that all links you receive are one-way permanent links for the website. Their clientele receives a full report on submission along with an excellent customer service center to attend to your needs at any time 24 hours per day 7 days a week.

SubmitEdge is at the forefront paving the way for webmasters to improve link building with relevant links that will bring in unique visitors, thus more revenue for products or services.

A complete package is the only way to have a website on the internet if it is for business. A complete package is one that begins with SEO Web Design, SEO Content Writing, and SEO optimization for all aspects of the website and ends with SEO submission services. The full package is the way to invest money wisely in any business adventure. At Submit Edge, all of these services are offered so all clientele can achieve success.

SubmitEdge has a variety of packages including 100-directory submission service package to SEO Friendly 3500 Directory Submission Service. The prices are very affordable when compared to other companies especially when the services and features are examined.

Customers of SubmitEdge have been very appreciative with such comments as, â€œSubmitEdge has helped me with placement of my key phrases to show up on the first page of Googleâ€�, and â€œThank You guys, after just a few short months of using your services. My traffic ranking went from 10 million something down to a traffic rank of: 4,589,514.â€�

With satisfied customers and a highly motivated and trained staff, SubmitEdge is definitely paving the way for other SEO companies to get in the game. Knowledge, content, and link building are king on the internet and without all three, websites will unquestionably be found on one of the back pages of search results instead of at the top.

CONTACT INFORMATION Rishi Modi Kush Infosystems Pvt Ltd S Office Address (Marketing): Submit Edge, Kush Infosys Pvt. Ltd., 5715 Will Clayton #5393 Humble, TX 77338 USA. Toll Free US /Canada : +1 (866) 503-2556 Toll Free Fax : +1 (800) 871-9044 Web Site : http://www.submitedge.com

Design your Website the SEO way

2008-09-07T03:36:00.000-07:00

Using the Web, a researcher can be able to get some valuable information. The Web also becomes a well-liked source of information and knowledge; it helps the user to get an access to the different site to get some information. This set of information comes in any kinds of format.

Web designing is an important process that helps the reader in having that kind of information. Through web designing a user can be able to see the multi media image that helps the readers/users. Aside from this readers can also read the text content of the web with the use of web designing. Music, videos and animated clippings, and digital atmosphere can also be experienced through the help of the web design.

The main theory of web design is to be able to a server to have an access in a fast and accurate manner. In the performance, however large companies of computer system designs are generally using great software to run their systems designs. In this regard the using powerful software for their designs will not anymore cause a hindrance against the delay of the information that the users need.

Web designing nowadays become a good trade of business-to-business communication. Some of the Web designs have the ability to permit a certain company to use their possessed "tags". Say for instance, a group of Book Company will circulate or identify the title, publication dates, author, editor and the copyright of their item, and any other information about their stuffs, the best thing that they can do is to select the "tag" they want to use. In web designs it is called a HTML or XML format.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a method that is like a "link building", it is basically a kind of computer software that accumulates the list of documents most particularly those on the World Wide Web, and the information content of those documents. A web design affects the search engines process. Other forms of search engines occur apart from the web and most of the search engines are depending and answers in a data being entered by the user.

There are very small number of SEO industries and SEO specialist that knows and recognize the significance of carrying the "link building and SEO" service work together. Many companies are now dealing on how they will make the service more accurate and concise. A number of them having a high quality of page rank were the center of their concentration. SEO is a service that support on the result, with no the results no services can be distributed. By the utilizing of SEO in can be able to raise the search engines rankings. SEO Corporation should be able to exercise decent search engine machinery spotting the means only to be able to advance search engines tune-up.

Several of the SEO Websites are business sites. It offers a glossed directory of different kinds search engines that covers a many subjects for the user/client to choose. Some of the companies use blogs in order to help the clients finding their subjects/topic. It is also a helpful topic in optimizing search engines. By this way conversation and topic about a certain subject can bring up a new thought or suggestion which can be helpful to the users.

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Horror, Gaming, Anime & Comic Conventions - They Are Not All The Same

2008-09-02T00:54:00.000-07:00

by: June Williams

A very large number of people who have never attended a Sci-Fi convention have the idea that they are all about people standing in line to get autographs of actors while wearing Klingon makeup and costumes or pointed ears. I’m not saying that those stereotypes don’t exist but the Convention experience is much richer and diverse than you may have been led to believe. To get the best experience it is important first consider your interests and then match them to what conventions are available.

Conventions come in two primary flavors. Professional and fan run. Professional conventions should have actors who have appeared in genre television and films ready to sign autographs and have their photos taken with fans. Some of these conventions include the costs of autographs and photo sessions in the cost of admission others operate in more of an a la carte fashion.

Often genre conventions have previews of new shows and films, and usually an extensive dealer’s room where you can buy anything from jewelry, ornaments, t-shirts and action figures to full scale replicas and costumes...and more. While there are a number of professional promoters the best known and run are Chiller Theatre Expo, Creation Entertainment, Fed Con ( Germany ), Starland and Vulcon. Do expect things to be as advertised and run on time. Do not expect warm and fuzzy.

Warm and fuzzy is more the field of fan run conventions. Fans who get together to run conventions have a great deal of enthusiasm, but usually are run with a volunteer staff and can be a bit “bumpy” with organization of the activities. What you can expect? A movie room, anime room, gaming room, art show, dealer’s room, and various special interest group rooms and tables. It is a rare con that doesn’t have a dance and a masquerade. Many fan run conventions also have guests ranging from actors, authors, cartoonists, illustrators, scientists etc. You may also find workshops for writing, acting, art, costuming, make-up and special effects. It all varies from convention to convention and year to year. Older fan run conventions such as Aggie Con, Balticon, Bay Con, CONvergence, Dragon Con, ICON, Shore Leave, United Fan Con, Toronto Trek to name a few.

The following sections may help you in selecting the kind of convention you would enjoy the most. Don’t be afraid to try other sorts once you’ve sampled those that are in your comfort zone. Exploration can be fun:

• LITERARY CONVENTIONS

Love to read speculative fiction? Do you have an interest in attending workshops on writing and publishing? Would you like to mingle with like-minded fans and meet professionals in the field such as authors, editors, illustrators and publishers? Then a literary convention would be the place you might enjoy most. Conventions such as World Science Fiction Convention (which is where the Hugo awards are announced), the World Fantasy Convention, World Horror Convention, Balticon, Philcon, Lunacon, Boskone, Readercon, Wiscon and Capclave are all reader friendly and while you may find the occasional filking group, men in kilts, swords and women in medieval garb I doubt that you’ll see many people dressed like the attendees of the convention seen in the movie Galaxy Quest. OK maybe one or two but they are a tiny minority.

• MEDIA CONVENTIONS

Media conventions are very much about television and film. Science Fiction & Fantasy or Horror & Paranormal guests abound. You may meet and hear behind the scenes stories of actors and illustrators, SFX experts and make-up artists and a host of media professionals. Many of the attendees may be wearing costumes. Depending on whether you are going to a “pro” con or a fan run con the rest will vary greatly. Parties are expected and encouraged. At a pro convention this will take the form of a banquet with the guests at a fee and/or a dance or cocktail party all for various prices. Fan run convention also may have a price attached to a banquet or “private” gathering with a particular celebrity or celebrities but they will also have fee free dances, masquerades, art shows, filking, sword demonstrations etc. Toronto Trek, Celebration, BotCon, Dragon Con , Comic-Con ( both Dragon Con and Comicon will appear under many categories)

• GAMING CONVENTIONS

Gamers come in all shapes, sizes, ages, colors and ethnic backgrounds but they all have something in common. A love of games. Role playing, live, pen and paper, MMOG as well as video gamers and board gamers all have a lot of interactive fun at gaming conventions. You can meet game designers, try out new games that have yet to hit the general market, and play in tournaments for glory and prizes. Once an almost male-only pursuit, gaming now has a growing number of female enthusiasts Gaming has become so pervasive that it is now nearly socially acceptable to the mainstream public. Nearly.

There are giant conventions like GENCON and ORIGINS, where it is so crowded you may have trouble negotiating the exhibition halls due to the crowds. The upside is the great diversity and FREEBIES as there are so many gaming companies competing for your attention. Then there are the more intimate play intensive ones like Archon, CastleCon, Dragonflight Dreikonigsnacht (Twelfth Night), Festival of Dreams, HexaCon, KublaCon, MACE, MarsCon, Marmalade Dog, ShaunCon, Strategicon, The Once and Future Con, and many many more.

Keep in mind that many conventions other than pure gaming conventions have gaming tracks. If you like to game but want to do more than only game during the weekend you might look into some of the other cons with a strong gaming element.

• ANIME CONVENTIONS

For the older generation anime seems so foreign, even unreachable. It shouldn’t be. Yes, anime and its siblings manga and ahem *cough* hentai are of Japanese origin but the striking visual styles and beauty, the characters and stories connect with westerners as well as audiences in the east. Because they are animations they can either be sub-titled or dubbed in the language of the country where it is being broadcast. In anime the stars are the illustrators, authors, and voice actors. At conventions you will find many of these sorts of guests as well as companies promoting their projects. You will also find some of the most imaginative of costumes created and worn by fans. At larger conventions you may find multiple rooms running films day and night. At smaller ones perhaps just one room will be devoted to showing their favorites. There are often panels discussing aspects of cosplay, fan fiction, video games, favorite voice actors, anime series or movies. As in literary conventions there are often workshops. These workshops are mostly how to draw manga, make computer animation, or how to become a voice actor. The dealers room will be filled with DVDs , software, graphic novel manga, art books, apparel, toys and exotic ( for us ) foods.

While the U.S. and Canada have the largest SF conventions in the world the largest Anime conventions are Lucca Comics & Games in Lucca Italy ( 85,000 ) , Japan Expo in Paris France ( 83,000 ) Salon del Manga in Barcelona Spain ( 63,000 ) and Romics in Rome Italy ( 50,000 ). The big guys in North America are Anime Expo Los Angeles California (41,000), Otakon Baltimore Maryland (23,000) and A-Kon Dallas Texas (14,500). Hey, size isn’t everything and some of the smallest might be the way to start if you have never been to a con before!!

• HORROR CONVENTIONS

What a perfect place to let it all hang out (dating myself but who cares). Horror conventions revel in going over the top. Long live Elvira, Freddy Krueger, Jason, Dracula, Zacherley, Even the names of these conventions and expos are meant to be graphic illustrations of what you will find there. Chiller Theatre, Fangoria, Fright Night Film and Fantasy Fest, HorrorFind, HorrorHound Weekend, Spooky Empire. Nothing to subtle here. No sparing of the gore. It’s like the rollercoaster of genre conventions. If you have a strong stomach and a dark sense of humor you will have tons of fun. The dealer’s room, art show, video rooms all are in sync with the horror theme. Guests that reach back decades up to the present. Once again there is a chance to meet actors, artists and authors for autographs, photo shoots, and anecdotes. Attendees go wild with costumes and you can do so too even without a ton of money or a pile of cash. Try out your best monsterish clothes and make-up or come asa victim…or not. Costumes aren’t required, they are just fun. There is usually a monster mash even if that isn’t the name given. Some horror conventions invite guests that more about nostalgia than horror. Chiller Con is a good example of this. Some of their guests are Micky Dolenz from the Monkees, Ernest Borgnine , Lindsay Wagner, Brigitte Nielson, Katey Sagal (Married with Children), Stephen Baldwin, Daniel Baldwin, Barry Bostwick, Erin Murphy (Tabitha of Bewitched), Avery Brooks, Armin Shimmerman, Robert Picardo, Geri Reischel (Jan from The Brady Bunch), Susan Olsen (Cindy from The Brady Bunch),Joe Pantoliano,Richard Kiel ("Jaws" Moonraker), Lou Ferrigno, William B Davies (X-Files-Cancer Man), Stella Stevens, Frank Stallone, Ron Bumblefoot ( Guns N Roses ) and a host of others.

• COMIC CONVENTION

When you think of a comic book convention you will probably think of a sea of old comic books, toys, Star Wars stuff, Star Trek stuff, action figures, collectible card games and magazines for sale and you would be right but that is only a part and an increasingly small part of the experience. You will find illustrators, authors, publishers and very often interesting workshops and panels that deal with every aspect of the industry past, present and future. There are the costume contingents that always show up at the larger conventions and some are so good that you could almost believe you were seeing superheroes and villains walk out of the pages and off the screen to meet you and be photographed. Some cons such as Dragon Con and Comic-Con began solely as comic conventions but grew to tremendous size, scope and diversity that they have transcended the genre that gave rise to them. Even those such as HEROES which remains focused on comics manages to have a number of other aspects and should be able to keep the whole family amused for the weekend. Comic conventions often have a lot of pop culture and nostalgia guests. So if you would like to see people like Creature, Parthenon and Fat Mama from Who wants to be a Superhero or maybe even Stan Lee himself, you might get your chance. How about James & Oliver Phelps who played the Weasley Twins in the Harry Potter movies ? Or perhaps Sean Astin or Billy Boyd and even Elijah Wood . From Heroes Hayden Paniterre and Masi Oka, or Ice-T…yes I said Ice-T AND his swimsuit-model wife Coco.

For a walk down memory lane there is Erik Estrada, Betsy Palmer, Soupy Sales, Richard Hatch, John Saxon, Adam West and Burt Ward ( Batman and Robin) , Julie Newmar, Peter Mayhew, Eddie Byrnes (77 Sunset Strip), Erin Gray (Buck Rodgers), Gary Coleman, Lou Ferrigno and on and on. Some are from your childhood others are from your parents childhoods. I can tell you that when I unexpectedly got to meet the very ladylike and gracious Betsy Palmer it was a thrill.

The bottom line is conventions are places where adults can go and play and slough off the average workday week . Have fun !!

Libraries step into the age of iPod

2008-08-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

By Paul Thomasch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It may be about time to dig out that old library card. Hoping to draw back readers, libraries have vastly expanded their lists of digital books, music, and movies that can be downloaded by their patrons to a computer or MP3 player -- and it doesn't cost a cent, unlike, say, media from Apple Inc'siTunes or Amazon.com Inc.

In Phoenix, for instance, branches have banded together to create a digital library that currently has about 50,000 titles of e-books, audiobooks, music and videos that can be "checked out" from anywhere.

Once discovered, says Tom Gemberling, the electronic resources librarian for the Phoenix Public Library, the program often proves wildly popular.

Not long ago, Gemberling visited a local trailer park to speak about the program to 100 or so seniors -- who regularly travel the roads touring in their recreational vehicles.

"They were cheering and screaming by the end," he said. "They were so excited. They're RVers, so they can go anywhere on the road, find a computer, go into the Phoenix Public Library catalogue, download a book and play it while they drive down the highway."

Available in thousands of libraries across the country, the programs work like this: First you need a library card, access to the web, and some easily downloadable software -- the Adobe Digital Editions, the Mobipocket Reader or the OverDrive Media Console.

At that point, just browse around the library's website, select some titles, add them to a digital book bag and click the download button. If the title isn't available, it can be placed on hold for downloading later.

Depending on the library and title, the item remains on your computer for one to three weeks before disappearing, meaning you don't have to bother with returning a book, CD or DVD to the actual library

What to Look For Before You Buy - Xbox 360 Repair Guides

2008-08-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

I hit personally old the Xbox 360 "General Hardware Failure" or what is meliorate famous as the Red Ring of Death. So, I hit a pretty beatific intent what you are opinion correct most now. In addition, I hit utilised Xbox 360 bushel guides to mend numerous consoles. The mass itemize was matured from undergo and is cursive to preclude you from symptom your money.

What should you countenance for in a Xbox 360 bushel guide? Here is my peak itemize of demands, and I do stingy demands! I, absolutely, would hit to hit these things before I bought an Xbox 360 bushel pass and I strongly declare that you not resolve for anything inferior either.

1. First, I essay to intend an communication most the authors. I countenance to wager if whoever place this abstract unitedly knows what they are conversation about. Are they an expert? Have they actually restored an Xbox 360 successfully? So my sort digit criteria is that the communicator needs to be an experienced, successful, expert.

2. Does the Xbox 360 bushel pass earmark detailed, cursive travel by travel manual with pictures? I am the identify of mortal who doesn't poverty to yield anything up to chance. If you are feat to inform me how to do anything, you requirement to vindicate apiece travel carefully. Also, I poverty as some pictures as possible. And not meet lots of pictures, but broad calibre careful pictures. So, the pass you acquire needs to earmark broad quality, detailed, written, travel by travel manual with lots of pictures.

3. Does the pass earmark videos? I am a seeable individual and videos rattling hold me. If the Xbox 360 bushel pass contains videos, this is a incentive for me. But the videos could hit been effort with a radiophone phone. So, the discourse rattling is, does it hit broad calibre videos? The pass you superior needs to earmark broad calibre videos that exhibit every travel understandably and kudos the cursive instructions.

4. What if I hit questions? Does the pass become with support? The Xbox 360's concern spans more than a pair of eld today and not every Xbox 360 is the same. So, I poverty to be healthy to communicate somebody a discourse if I intend stuck. You requirement some category of support. It could be chat, email, whatever, but, you requirement to be healthy to speech to someone and communicate them a question.

5. How is the pass available? I requirement it today so I crapper mend my Xbox 360 correct now! The most fast method would be downbound loadable pdf manual with admittance to the videos on line. The pass you acquire has to earmark for fast admittance directly after you striking downbound your cash.

6. Is there a guarantee? What if it doesn't work? Can I intend my money back. I hit to be healthy to intend my money backwards for some reason. You requirement a 100% total money backwards guarantee. Do not resolve for less!

7. Incentives. If I acquire this pass are there some extras? Does the pass wage for a forum? Any money back? Coupons? I poverty the most I crapper intend for my money. I don't hit to hit this one, so I surmisal it isn't a demand, but it sure would hold me to attain my decision. If every things are coequal and digit pass has a meliorate bonus, I would go with the bonus. Look for a bonus.

So, there you hit it, six, mayhap heptad criteria that are the bleak peak requirements you should resolve for in an Xbox 360 bushel guide. There are quite a some bushel guides on the mart so essay to do a lateral by lateral comparability of every the features that they proclaim. Make the most conversant selection that you can. I undergo you are in a hurry, but verify a lowercase instance and comparability shop. You module be pleased you did. Good phenomenon and I wish you intend backwards to recreation soon.

CD Replication and Printing, DVD Duplication and Printing For Independent Artists and Software Designers

2008-08-24T01:26:00.000-07:00

CD replication and printing, DVD duplication and printing for Independent Artists and Software Designers

Whether it is software, music or movies that you want to replicate, there are companies out their that can replicate material for you. The business of replicating discs has expanded significantly over the years.

One factor that has played an instrumental role in this industry’s growth is the factor of technology. There are more people capable of mass producing replicated discs and there is also a whopping number of independent artists in need of companies to replicate their materials. The relationship between artists in need of the service and the companies who can supply them with replicated discs has grown significantly. Many artists still wish to replicate discs on their own and while it is less expensive, it is a mundane thus arduous task. If you are an independent artist and feel that you cannot spend money to have your music replicated, you may want to consider other aspects of the venture, it might change your mind.

The idea of CD replication is to present your music in a professional manner so that people will take you seriously. Sometimes, having your CD professionally replicated or doing it yourself can be the dividing force of success and failure. For example, you may be the best country singer in your area and want to market yourself independently but as a customer I may be reluctant to purchase your music because it is a home burned disc wrapped in a ten cent sleeve with Magic Marker writing on top reading “ My Country Album.”

In order to be successful in such a competitive industry you must be innovative and that applies to all aspects of what you do. CD replication is not just for independent musicians, it is for aspiring film stars who make their own movies and want to be able to mass distribute them. When the time comes for people to see your masterpiece, that should be able to receive it in a professional and stylish manner. Many CD replication companies also replicate DVD’s.

They provide you will many creative ways to present your product such as colorful and personalized DVD sleeves, cardboard box sets and many other wonderful ideas for presentation. Again, do you want to spend a large budget on making a film and then sell the movies with shabby aesthetic to them. If you are a software designer and have a new product you can also use these CD replication companies to make mass copies of your product. Some of these companies are so advanced that they can even make bar codes for your merchandise.

Another amazing thing that these companies can do for you is CD printing. They can print professional grade labels for your CD’s that have pictures, text and other cool designs on them. By commissioning someone to replicate your CD’s you are not just giving them your money, you are securing your longevity in the competitive industry of entertainment.

From: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=286297&ca=Computers+and+Technology

Making Free IPods Pay Off

2008-08-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Unless you're extremely gullible, the promise of getting a free iPod from FreeiPods.com looks extremely dubious.

But surprisingly, the site appears to be legitimate. The program almost certainly isn't a dodgy pyramid scheme; it's a new form of online marketing supported by companies like eBay, AOL and Columbia House.

And while lots of happy customers are popping up all over the internet brandishing new iPods, analysts are skeptical of the economics.

Here's how it works: FreeiPods.com promises an iPod or a $250 gift certificate to anyone who signs up for various online promotions and persuades five other people to participate.

Subscribers are given a choice of 10 different offers, including a 45-day trial of AOL and a two-week trial of Ancestry.com's genealogy service. Typically, the offers are free and easily canceled.

Once the trials are over -- for both the main subscriber and the referrals -- the free iPod is dispatched.

"Of course I was skeptical, but I didn't see any harm in trying," said Collin Grady, 22, from Salem, Oregon, who received his free iPod earlier this month and wrote about it on his blog.

"They never once asked for a credit card number and I didn't have to pay shipping," he said. "I just told them where to send it.... All in all, a very painless process."

Indeed, some customers are so delighted that they've set up affiliate websites, called "conga lines," to persuade others the program isn't a swindle.

"So many people on the web think FreeiPods.com is a scam; I just wanted to prove them wrong," said John Sauer, a 19-year-old student at Boston's Berklee College of Music, who runs Free iPods and FlatScreens .com.

Another site, 17-year-old Tyler Derheim's FreeiPodGuide, features pictures of the delivery truck outside his house, his receipt and, of course, his new iPod.

FreeiPods is one of several websites run by Gratis Internet, a Washington, D.C., "customer acquisition" company owned by Peter Martin and Rob Jewell.

"I can definitely understand the skepticism," said Martin. "A lot of people believe there's no free lunch, but it's definitely not a scam. It's 100 percent legitimate. We're shipping (iPods) every day."

In a joint interview, Martin and Jewell denied the site is a pyramid scheme, like the myriad matrix schemes advertised on eBay, which also promise free iPods.

Instead, they explained, Gratis Internet is paid a bounty for sending potential customers to sites like AOL, eBay or RealNetworks.

"We're a marketing firm," said Jewell. "We're sending these people to our advertisers. We cringe when we hear 'pyramid' or 'scheme.' We're more closely associated with viral marketing, with the subservient chicken, than Amway."

They declined to specify the bounty, and said the firm doesn't deal directly with the companies involved. Rather, Gratis Internet is commissioned by third-party marketing agencies, such as San Francisco's Adteractive.

For the last four years, Gratis Internet has operated customer-acquisition programs through FreeCDs.com, FreeDVDs.com, FreeVideoGames.com and FreeCondoms.com.

The company has sent out more than $3 million worth of free merchandise, Martin said, including 5 million to 6 million condoms.

Since the launch of FreeiPods.com in June, the site has dispatched more than 2,500 iPods, Martin said, worth more than $1 million.

But in the last few weeks traffic has exploded. Martin claimed nearly 1 million people have recently enrolled in the program, though he said the majority are using phony names and/or addresses.

Martin said about 200,000 are using "confirmed identities," and are in the process of receiving their free iPods. The process takes between six and eight weeks, Martin said. If all are redeemed, the company will be giving away $50 million worth of iPods.

Jewell insisted FreeiPods.com would be able to keep up with demand.

"Its really important people trust us and get their iPods," Jewell said. "We want people to get their iPods because it helps our legitimacy. We count on our users to validate us."

Diego Canoso, Adteractive's vice president of sales, said FreeiPods.com is a lawful and well-run customer-acquisition program.

"We've been working with these guys for more than three years," said Canoso. "They are very good at what they do."

Canoso also declined to specify the advertisers' bounties, but said they can range between $25 and $90, depending on the program and the kind of customer it attracts.

"The money we give these guys (Gratis Internet) is enough to fulfill the promise that the customers come in for," Canoso said.

Canoso said while $90 seems like a lot, it is peanuts compared to the millions spent on TV and magazine ads, which don't guarantee new customers.

"Companies like Columbia House (and) credit card companies, they're happy to pay for customers," Canoso said. "They're happy to send out iPods because they're getting customers in return. Capture is expensive, and they're paying after they've acquired the customer."

And while a lot of customers cancel after the free trial, enough don't to make it worthwhile, Canoso said.

Gary Stein, an analyst with Jupiter Research who follows online marketing, said he was skeptical of the program's economics.

"It seems too good to be true," he said. "You can imagine getting a free CD, but a free iPod is a really big break."

However, Stein said the program is lent some legitimacy by the involvement of Adteractive.

"Adteractive is reputable, without a doubt," Stein said. "It would be a lot more questionable if they were working on their own."

Stein said affiliate marketing has typically been associated with "bottom feeders," but has become more respectable, and profitable, since eBay started paying bounties for new, registered users.

"Affiliate marketing is really taking off," Stein said. "EBay has given it legitimacy.... There's definitely still scoundrels ... but there's tens of thousands of people involved. It's backyard entrepreneurial."

Adteractive's Canoso said FreeiPods.com is at the forefront of performance-based marketing.

"The model is beautiful," he said. "(The companies) are paying for a specific customer after acquiring the customer. It's not branding. It's not non-responsive advertising.... It's low-risk marketing. It's a very efficient system."

There is a record of a resolved complaint against Gratis Internet at the Washington, D.C., Better Business Bureau.

The complaint doesn't specify the grievance, or grievances, and the bureau's director said she couldn't elaborate. Martin and Jewell said they had no idea what the issue was. It was likely a minor "glitch," they said.

FreeiPods.com is certified by Truste, which means the site adheres to the organization's privacy standards. It does not mean the site can be trusted to send out free iPods.

AOL and Ancestry.com didn't respond to requests for comment. The Federal Trade Commission said it doesn't talk about individual companies unless the company is being prosecuted.

The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years

2008-08-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

We're living in the golden age of the gadget. Don't believe it? Check your pockets. Odds are you're carrying a portable music player, an electronic organizer, a keychain-size storage device, a digital camera, or a cell phone that combines some or all of these functions. And you'd probably be hard-pressed to live without them.

At PC World, we'd be lost without these things. We don't merely test and write about digital gear, we live and breathe the stuff. In honor of this raging gizmo infatuation, we polled our editors and asked them to name the top 50 gadgets of the last 50 years. The rules? The devices had to be relatively small (no cars or big-screen TVs, for example), and we considered only those items whose digital descendants are covered in PC World (cameras, yes; blenders, no). We rated each gadget on its usefulness, design, degree of innovation, and influence on subsequent gadgets, as well as the ineffable quality we called the "cool factor." Then we tallied the results.

After a lot of Web surfing, spreadsheet wrangling, and some near fistfights, we emerged with the following list. Some items in our Top 50 are innovative devices that appeared briefly and then were quickly consigned to museums and future appearances on eBay, but whose influence spread widely. Others are products we use every day--or wish we could.

So join us as we visit with the ghosts of gadgets past and present.

from: PCWORLD

Marketing Service Online

2008-08-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

With these easy power-strategies, you will be able to accomplish your next marketing campaign aggressively. Even if your marketing campaign has managed to become more successful than imaginable, you can still try to work on making it better by tweaking any of the components mentioned earlier. Even if your marketing campaign has managed to become more successful than conceivable, you can still try to work on making it better by tweaking any of the components mentioned earlier.

An agency can provide expert guidance and the necessary overview if you’re planning to mount a communications campaign that involves print, radio, or TV advertising; collateral development; e-mail marketing; and web messaging, as well as the creation of signage for billboards, buses, and downtown banners. In order to start an adequate viral marketing campaign, you need to provide people with a reason for passing your information around.

Internet marketing

Banner advertising can be a very cost convincing marketing solution and can help you to gain access to millions of internet users. Search engine rankings are absolutely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Anyone who has ever surfed on a traffic exchange can attest to the fact that new internet marketing systems are as prevalent as the ever-evolving variants of the flu virus.

The Internet and related technology have taken networking to the next level, expanding each individual’s reach and exposure through online marketing.

Email marketing

This is nothing that a accomplished HTML designer can’t handle, so check that the email marketing organization has one on their books. Other examples include email newsletters, complimentary consultations, brochures, speaking engagements, strategically-placed advertising, grassroots marketing, publicity, and networking. Email marketing is a abundantly possible option, but statistics have consistently proven a low response rate to such an advertising medium.

You may spend ridiculous hours perusing online shopping networks rather than developing your marketing campaign. A couple of things to keep in mind from an email marketing perspective is that your own list (of emails collected via your web site) will essentially always perform better than a purchased list.

Micro marketing

Micro-marketing is the act of activities that seek to accomplish an organization’s objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of need-satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client. On a micro level, managers are often blighted by the amount of time they spend fire-fighting, whilst the more creative work of planning, developing people, marketing and more are left way behind. The most successful affiliate marketers can calculate their ROI attributed to their online marketing efforts on the micro level.

However, just as the micro management that is advantageous in building a business suffocates its eventual growth, entrepreneurial marketing will derail the attempt to harness its momentum in a corporate culture.

Marketing systems

Export marketing is being explored and more advanced management systems are being put into place. Just as marketing is the cornerstone of business success, systems are the foundation of effective marketing. To develop systems that’ll underpin the marketing success ask for awareness of the necessary elements, an implementation plan, an action plan, a means to monitor effectiveness, a continuous improvement process, and perseverance.

Direct marketing

There are enough network marketing and direct sales companies out there to find a good one. Direct mail marketing is not adequate if the envelope doesn’t appear nice. Smart direct marketing people are using more and more sophisticated ways to reach their target market.

KC Jackson- World Trade Marketing wtmsecured@mail2world.com USA http://www.wtm-income.net/home-based

The Best Keyword Research Tool

2008-08-18T03:10:00.000-07:00

Digital Point membuat free tool yang merupakan kombinasi dari Overture tool dengan versi gratis dari WordTracker. Saya merekomendasikan menggunakan free tool dulu sebelum memakai WordTracker tool yang membayar. Digital Point tool dapat mengestimasi localized keyword traffic di tiap Negara.

Keyword Software yang dapat di download
Biasanya saya tidak merekomendasikan tool software yg didownload, tapi Good Keyword ini free dan menawarkan beberapa tool bagus. Software ini dapat membantu Anda meriset keyword dan dapat berguna dalam riset keyword dasar.

Mengecek Kompetisi Keyword
Banyak orang akan melihat jumlah halaman yang mengurutkan frase dengan anggapan bahwa hal tersebut sebagai estimasi cukup fair untuk tingkatan kompetisi. Sebenarnya bukan jumlah halaman yang dipakai sebagai acuan. Karena acuan ini hanya dipakai untuk mengetahui seberapa banyak page yang mengandung kata tersebut baik di dalam content ataupun linknya yang langsung pointing ke page mereka.

Penilaian kompetisi yang makin baik dapat digunakan untuk mencari keyword A keyword B, yang setidaknya memberikan sejumlah page yang mengandung frase tertentu didalamnya. Anda juga dapat melakukan estimasi kompetisi dengan menggunakan allintitle dan allinanchor berfungsi sebagai pencari. Page yang memiliki keyword frase kita didalam titlenya bisa teroptimasi, dan page yang memilikinya dalam inbound link akan memiliki kesempatan lebih bagus lagi untuk teroptimasi dengan baik. Cara terbaik untuk mengetahui tingkat kompetisi apakah cukup tinggi atau tidak hanya dengan melihat hasil pencarian. Awalnya mungkin sedikit susah untuk membacanya, tapi selanjutnya jika dipelajari terus akan mudah melihat bagaimana mereka teroptimasi.

Beberapa tanda marketplace yang kompetitif adalah ketika beberapa tipe website besar, website yang lebih kalem, atau website berbiaya tinggi berada pada posisi top di pay per click search engine. Kita juga dapat perkiraan kasar akan nilai dari top listing dalam search engine utama untuk sebuah keyword dengan mencarinya dalam top listing menggunakan Overture view bid tool dan mencari frekuensi pencarian melalui WordTracker.

Ekor Pencarian
Kebanyakan orang merasa perlu merangking untuk banyaknya waktu secara umum dan optimis untuk waktu tersebut.

Make Money with Affiliate Marketing: Avoid Affiliate Market Saturation

2008-08-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

The words 'affiliate markets saturation’ is a bad news to you if are earning online income through affiliate marketing. Nowadays, affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular ways to make money online. The people who enter into this industry are growing steadily from time to time causing affiliate markets saturation.

What is affiliate market saturation?

Affiliate market saturation occurs when too many affiliates compete in a niche market. The product demand of a niche market is always similar but if more and more affiliates want to sell the same product to that niche market, it will soon lead to market saturation.

Another reason of market saturation is due to the decrease of product demand and customer interest. When people buy less for an affiliate product, the market for that affiliate product becomes smaller and the existing affiliates will be competing in a smaller market which could lead to affiliate market saturation.

How to avoid affiliate market saturation?

There are a lot of profitable niche markets for affiliate marketing but many of them are saturated. Getting into a niche market that is seriously saturated will probably waste your time, effort and money. So, to avoid affiliate marketing opportunities that won’t offer the result you intended, you need to carefully consider a few factors.

Identify the Product Potential and Customer Interest
The first step to success in affiliate marketing is to find a lucrative affiliate marketing opportunity. What consider being a lucrative affiliate marketing opportunity? Well, first of all, the affiliate product you choose to sell must have a good demand. There should be a targeted group of people who are consistently interested to buy the product.

The Product You Choose Shouldn’t be in Extremely High Competitions
After making sure that the affiliate product you choose has a consistent amount of demand, you will then need to study the competition of the product. A high demand product can seem to be very profitable to you, but if the competition is too tough, it could block your way to success.

You may start analyzing the competition by going to Google and key in the related keywords to find out how many websites appear on the result. If the result shows more than 100 million websites, it could mean the competition is fierce and you might need to look for another product.

Promote New Affiliate Product may be a Good Choice
New products keep on launching on the Internet especially digital products. What you can do is look for a new product that potentially has a huge market. As the product is too new, there will be not many people signing up for the affiliate program to promote the product. You can take advantage of this low competition situation by working hard to market the product to potential buyers. If the product has real potential, you can expect to earn great affiliate commission.

Konfigurasi Linux sebagai Gateway Internet

2008-06-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

Di tutorial jaringan komputer kali ini saya akan menjelaskan proses installasi linux yang nantinya akan dijadikan sebagai gateway internet.

Btw, gateway itu
sendiri memiliki definisi sebuah komputer yang melayani konversi protokol antara beberapa tipe yang berbeda dari suatu network atau program aplikasi. Sebagai contoh, sebuah gateway dapat meng-convert sebuah paket TCP/IP menjadi paket NetWare IPX atau dari Apple Talk menjadi DECnet, dan lain-lain. ( Andino-Kamus TI – Ilmukomputer.com )

Gateway inilah yang nantinya akan menghubungkan jaringan local dalam hal ini LAN dengan jaringan public yaitu internet.

Sebagai catatan dalam percobaan ini penulis menggunakan Redhat Linux 9, dan Fedora Core 4. Menggunakan koneksi ADSL speedy dengan IP Static ( penulis pun bingung, karena baru pertama kali ini penulis diberikan koneksi ADSL speedy dengan IP Static. :D . Ini nyata.)

Sebelumnya paket yang kita butuhkan adalah :

rp-pppoe-3.5-27.i386.rpm

Tapi setahu penulis paket tersebut sudah terinstall dalam distro tersebut, untuk mengetahui
apakah pake tersebut sudah terinstall didalamnya login sebagai root :

root@alk.root#rpm -qa | grep pppoe

rp-pppoe-3.5-27

Perlu diketahui komputer yang akan dijadikan sebagai gateway nanti membutuhkan 2 ethernet card nantinya.

Yupz, langsung aja kita menuju pokok pembahasannya.

Langkah awal yang harus dilakukan adalah memeriksa apakah kedua ethernet card tersebut sudah terdetek dengan baik:

root@alk.root#ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:EE:71:11

inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0

inet6 addr:

fe80::20c:29ff:feee:7111/64 Scope:Link

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500

Metric:1

RX packets:61 errors:0 dropped:0

overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:85 errors:0 dropped:0

overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:6938 (6.7 KiB) TX bytes:10092 (9.8 KiB)

Interrupt:10 Base address:0x1080

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:EE:71:1B

inet addr:192.168.100.1 Bcast:192.168.100.255 Mask:255.255.255.0

inet6 addr:

fe80::20c:29ff:feee:711b/64 Scope:Link

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500

Metric:1

RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0

overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:21 errors:0 dropped:0

overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:1796 (1.7 KiB)

Interrupt:9 Base address:0x1400

lo Link encap:Local Loopback

inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0

inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436

Metric:1

RX packets:35 errors:0 dropped:0

overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:35 errors:0 dropped:0

overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

RX bytes:2190 (2.1 KiB) TX bytes:2190 (2.1 KiB)

Yup, jika anda mendapatkan komentar seperti itu silahkan menuju ke tahap selanjutnya. Jika
tidak ? Silahkan googling .

Langkah berikutnya adalah mengkonfigurasi ethernet card tersebut. Agar nantinya konfigurasi tersebut dapat dijalankan secara otomatis ketika boot. File konfigurasi ethernet dalam linux memiliki penamaan ethx, x ini menandakan pengurutan, jika terdapat 2 ethernet card dalam komputer anda maka, file konfigurasinya adalah eth0 dan eth1. Letak file konfigurasi secara default terdapat dalam :

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethx

Karena nantinya kita akan menggunakan 2 lancard tersebut, maka file yang akan kita konfigurasi adalah :

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 dan /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1

Sebagai contoh, konfigurasi eth0 yang penulis gunakan adalah sebagai berikut :

DEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=static

BROADCAST=192.168.1.255

HWADDR=00:0C:29:EE:71:11

IPADDR=192.168.1.1

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

NETWORK=192.168.1.0

ONBOOT=yes

TYPE=Ethernet

DEVICE : merupakan ethernet apa yang akan dikonfigurasi.

BOOTPROTO : status dari penggunaan ip address, apakah bersifat dynamic ( DHCP ) atau
static.

BROADCAST : alamat broadcast jaringan yang digunakan.

HWADDR : alamat fisik dari ethernet card tersebut, biasa disebut Mac Address.

IPADDR : alamat ip yang nanti akan digunakan oleh gateway linux. Alamat ini yang nantinya akan berhubungan langsung dengan protol tcp/ip.

NETMASK : subnet mask yang digunakan oleh device eth0. subnet mask ini digunakan untuk membagi jaringan menjadi lebih kecil.

ONBOOT : apakah nanti akan diproses ketika BOOT ??

Dan konfigurasi eth1 yang digunakan oleh penulis :

DEVICE=eth1

BOOTPROTO=static

BROADCAST=192.168.100.255

HWADDR=00:0C:29:EE:71:1B

IPADDR=192.168.100.1

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

NETWORK=192.168.100.0

ONBOOT=yes

TYPE=Ethernet

Kemudian restart service network.

root@alk.root#/etc/init.d/network restart

Sebelum ke langkah selanjutnya, perlu diketahui bahwa, anda diharuskan untuk mengaktifkan
mode bridge pada modem adsl.

Langkah selanjutnya adalah konfigurasi ADSL-nya :

root@alk.root#adsl-setup

# pertama kali akan ditanyakan username yang telah diberikan oleh pihak ISP anda

LOGIN NAME
Enter your Login
Name: 121303xxxxxx@telkom.net
#device yang berhubungan langsung dengan modem adsl anda, dalam hal ini eth1

INTERFACE Enter the Ethernet interface connected to the ADSL modem

For Solaris, this is likely to be something like /dev/hme0.

For Linux, it will be ethX, where 'X' is a number.

(default eth0):eth1

# kalo yang ini pilih no aja, karena ketika demand diaktifkan maka anda tidak bisa

# menggunakan IP yang dynamic

Enter the demand value (default no): no
# DNS yang digunakan, bagian ini bisa diisi nanti. Lewat saja.
# password yang diberikan oleh ISP anda, berbarengan dengan diberikannya username tadi

PASSWORD
Please enter your Password:xxxxxxxx

# pemberian akses kepada user
untuk menjalankan/mematikan adsl

USERCTRL
Please enter 'yes' (three letters, lower-case.) if you want to allow normal user to start or stop DSL connection (default yes):yes

# langkah berikutnya adalah berkenaan dengan firewall disini penulis memilih no 2 The firewall choices are:
0 - NONE: This script will not set any firewall rules. You are responsible for ensuring the security of your machine. You are STRONGLY recommended to use some kind of firewall rules.
1 - STANDALONE: Appropriate for a basic stand-alone web-surfing workstation 2 - MASQUERADE: Appropriate for a machine acting as an Internet gateway

for a LAN

Choose a type of firewall (0-2):2

# apakah
akan dijalankan secara otomatis ketika boot ?

Start this connection at boot time Do you want to start this connection at boot time?

Please enter no or yes (default no):yes

Dan selanjutnya ketik y saja untuk mensave konfigurasi diatas.

Ada beberapa konfigurasi yang perlu dilakukan. Penulis memberikan sedikit konfigurasi tambahan yang diletakkan pada file /etc/rc.local

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

iptables -A POSTROUTING -j MASQUERADE -t nat -s
192.168.1.0/24 -o ppp0

konfigurasi tersebut digunakan untuk meneruskan paket ip dan melakukan masquerade. Masquerade sendiri merupakan proses membagi bandwith, karena pada dasarnya isp hanya memberikan satu koneksi dengan satu ip, maka agar dapat digunakan secara beramai-ramai
maka perlu dilakukan masquerade.

Selanjutnya anda tinggal menambahkan dns server yang diberikan oleh telkom pada file konfigurasi /etc/resolv.conf, yang penulis gunakan adalah 202.134.0.155.

root@alk.root#echo nameserver 202.134.0.155 >
/etc/resolv.conf

root@alk.root#cat /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver
202.134.0.155

Selanjutnya anda tinggal menjalankan adsl-start.

by : Al-k
alkemail@gmail.com
http://www.ilmuwebsite.com

Tutorial Jaringan Komputer
Sumber dari situs Ilmu Website dalam kategori jaringan dengan judul Konfigurasi Linux sebagai Gateway Internet

Membuat Status YM

2008-06-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

Menampilkan status YM (yahoo Messanger) di website kita sangatlah penting, terutama bagi website-website yang bergerak dalam bidang bisnis, gunanya ya sebagai CS (Customer Support), kalau untuk website community ya.. bisa sebagai tempat ngobrol dsb.

Cara membuat status YM di website kita sangatlah mudah sekali kita tinggal lah menambahkan tag HTML berikut:

<a href="ymsgr:sendIM?b_scorpio_ilmuwebsite"><img src="http://opi.yahoo.com/online?u=b_scorpio_ilmuwebsite&m=g&t=1" border=0></a>

Dimana: "b_scorpio_ilmuwebsite" adalah ID Yahoo kamu, ID Yahoo dapat diperoleh jika anda mempunyai email di yahoo, jika tidak ... ya segera bikin saja email yahoo..
Ex: jika email yahoo kamu adi_ganteng@yahoo.com, maka ID YM kamu adalah: adi_ganteng

Gimana mudah bukan ?
Artikel ini sudah kami kirimkan pada email2 anda (tentunya jika anda sudah langganan).

Terimakasih :)

Sumber dari situs Ilmu Website dalam kategori html dengan judul Membuat Status YM

Save the Marriage Alone: Where Do You Begin?

2008-05-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

Divorce used to be viewed as a sign that you had "failed" at marriage. But in today's society for many people, they see divorce as a sign of freedom. Even those who would consider themselves to be religious and see divorce as being "unholy", are now getting a divorce because it has become more socially acceptible than ever before.

The next generation of children are growing up in broken homes. Instead of dealing with normal issues like puberty and other social issues, children are now faced with parents who start a new life and even a new family of their own.

But most couples don't know any better.

We are all raised to believe that it's simply "tradition" to have a big wedding with lots of people, go on a luxurious honeymoon and then go on your merry way being..well..married.

Many couples actually feel pressured from their very own family members to have a big wedding. Then once the wedding and honeymoon are over, the couple is faced with a large amount of debt from their elaborate celebration.

The first couple years of marriage are usually relatively painless, but as time goes on, the couple starts to get back into their normal routines and eventually they stop meeting each other's "Ultimate Expectations".

Why? Simply because they didn't realize they were meeting them in the first place! The downward spiral that leads to divorce begins when one spouse becomes more discontent than the other. And that's when resentment sets in...along with that "little voice inside your head".

You know the one.

It's the one that says, "Why should I have dinner ready when he gets home, what has he done for ME lately? He comes home, flips on the TV and that's it...no quality time like we used to have!"

...or...

"Why can't she just leave me alone sometimes! I just want to come home and just relax! But all she wants to do is talk, talk talk. I need some peace and quiet for once!"

The big problem is that couples don't realize they're on the "Secret Path to Divorce" until it's too late...usually when one spouse brings up the "D" word or says, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you".

And that's when I get the call...or in most cases..the email. Most people want to know if their spouse has reached the "Point of No Return". They desperately need to know if there is any hope left for their marriage.

And I don't blame them! When you're struggling with uncertainty, hanging on just a thread of hope, divorce may start sounding appealing for the mere fact that you won't have to worry anymore!

But I don't want you to give up hope just yet.

I've pulled marriages out of divorce court as a judge put a hold on the proceedings insisting that the couple get some help first before they go on with the divorce.

The couples end up tearing up their divorce papers.

I say this to you, not as a promise, but as an indication that anything can happen while the "divorce machine grinds up it's marriages".

So what now?

Well, since it's nearly impossible for me to give you useful advice to help you save your marriage. You can visit http://www.marriage-success-secrets.com get free marriage advice and read a wide variety of articles on marriage to help you understand what went wrong in your marriage and what you can do about it.

Many couples ask me what the first step is in healing a marriage.

While many books and self help authors have led you to believe that you need to "do good...and then you'll feel good."

(An example of this would be establish some sort of "touch" with your spouse to try to obtain a physical connection between the two of you. This may mean holding their hand or rubbing their back.)

In reality, there is one huge, gaping hole in this theory.

In one word...contempt.

That's right.

All couples struggling in their marriage experience contempt in one form or another. Hurtful things are said that only add to the resentment and anger already present in the marriage.

Chances are, if you were to attempt to hold your spouses' hand, they would view it as an insincere gesture.

At this point, your spouse is thinking, "too little, too late. If you wanted to hold my hand, you would've done it a long time ago. You've haven't fulfilled my needs for a long time and now it's too late."

So what is the first step you ask?

Marriage Problems: Common, But Never Simple

2008-05-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

You may think the common problem is because he leaves the toothpaste cap half on or that she keeps on coming back with a new dent on the car.

It is a scary thought – the idea that maybe tomorrow one of you will just come up to the other and say, "I think don’t want to be married to you anymore."One may think they’re ready for it, but the truth is, they never are. They see it coming from a distance, but unfortunately, they were too preoccupied with the problem, they forgot to look for a solution.

And that is what is commonly happening with married couples today. There is so much anticipation on looking out for the telltale marriage trouble signs that once the problem is in your face, hardly anything is done about it.

What are these "common marriage problems" that are being talked about so often? A lot will tell you these problems fall in any of these three categories: career and finances, fidelity and personality.

Strained marriages are rocked by problems from all of these categories but the marriages that survive do so because they addressed the problem properly and looked for a solution – together.

So just how do you actually do that? It is both simple and complex.

It is simple because it just requires you to admit to yourself and to your spouse that you have a problem. On the other hand, it is complex because both of you may not agree on what exactly the problem is and the solution for it.

For both of you to reach an agreement, you must be able to both listen and articulate. Listen first to what your spouse thinks is the problem that’s driving you apart.

After he/she has said her part, then carefully tell her what’s on your mind. This act of listening and communicating then brings to both your attentions the problems with your relationship and the causes for it.

However, the both of you need to take the next step by finding a solution to the problem. This is the tricky part for it will undoubtedly require adjustment from both sides. However, simply making the necessary adjustments alone will not address the problem.

You need to find the reason why you are making these sacrifices. And that reason should be because you love your spouse and want to build on the relationship making it stronger with time.

Whether it is a problem with spending, or with who gets to hold the remote control, marriage problems can be weathered when faced together and worked on together. In time, an open toothpaste tube, or another fender bender won’t have an effect at all on the relationship.

Problems getting your posts onto Technorati's tag pages?

2008-05-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

When I first tried tagging, I was sure I'd done everything right (these tags ain't exactly rocket science); I tried pinging them direct and also later (in desperation) through Pingomatic too - and yet, though the pings seemed to be successful, none of my posts showed on their tag pages, even after raising the matter with Technorati support and chasing them a few days later... until last night, when the whole lot suddenly appeared at once on Technorati's tag pages, mysteriously all dated the same date (of yesterday). So it took a whole week, and going to Technorati support, for my posts to show up on their tag pages. I think that for some reason they'd just not been indexing my blog. I'm still looking into why - too many posts with tags on one single blog page, for instance? I'll post further as and when I find out.

[Added 14 June 2005:] I've now got as much info out of Technorati as I've been able to, and summarised why sometimes your posts don't appear on Technorati's tag pages, even though posts before and after them may appear - for an explanation of what's behind these problems and possible solutions, see this post including this comment by Niall Kennedy of Technorati regarding validating your blog. Note that the problems continue - sometimes certain posts don't get picked up on the tag pages even though you can find them on Technorati by searching. For days or weeks at time, you may find that none of your posts get picked up at all - I've had at least 3 spells of my posts not getting fully indexed by Technorati for tag purposes; the last time, they had to tweak something behind the scenes to get their crawler to start recognising my tags again. I can only suggest that you make it a habit to regularly check that your posts are appearing on Technorati's tag pages, and if not, get on to Technorati support immediately and try to keep the "missing" posts visible on the main page of your blog (not slipping into an archive) until they've sorted it, or else they will never get recognised on their tag pages.

[Updated March 2006:] The last time I had problems, in February 2006, I decided to test what it was about the post that Technorati's system didn't like. I've posted my findings, and David Sifry Technorati's CEO says they're puzzled too, but they're on it. If you suffer problems with certain of your tagged posts not appearing on Technorati's tag pages (but appearing on say Icerocket's), you should report the bug to Technorati, giving them a link to the problem post's permalink, which should help them work out what's going wrong. I sure hope they sort it out soon!

[Added 13 August 2006:] I have since had an issue again with two posts where some tags did not get indexed. Technorati told me that it seems that they did pick up the tags, but then due to an index glitch the tags were dropped mid-way through. Thus the posts fell into the last category mentioned in the previous section (if a post has been indexed before and the tags indexed before, then if changing the tags, deleting or adding tags to the post, the changes do not get indexed). So the tags were treated as "previously-indexed" (because they were - they just got lost in Technorati's system) - and they could not be indexed again after I updated my posts and the posts stayed on my main blog page. I raised the problem with Technorati who tried to override that in the back end and have the tags indexed, but they were unsuccessful. I don't know if it's related to the bug that I've mentioned before, but I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Technorati tags: an introduction

2008-05-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

his is a introductory guide to "tags" on Technorati, the blogosphere search engine, which started using them in mid-January 2005. It's a practical introduction rather than a tutorial (ending with some personal thoughts about tags), but I'll summarise the basics about Technorati tags and how to use them in your own blog posts - stuff I've learned from digging around, playing around and, as you'll see later, much tearing out of hair. I do assume knowledge of basic HTML (for which see e.g. this or this), but if anything needs to be made clearer or expanded upon, please post a comment and I'll try to help.
What's a Technorati tag anyway?
A Technorati tag is a keyword or category used to describe the subject matter or topic of a blog post. For instance, I've labelled my post about ID cards with the tags Identity Cards, ID Cards, Government, Politics, Society, Privacy, Human Rights, Identity Theft, Crime, Hackers, Terrorism; whereas for my post on the rather rude interpretation one-track minds can give to ambiguously-worded Google Groups FAQs, I've used the tags Humor, Humour, Funny, and Dirty.

So, Technorati tags are like the tags with which people label their photos at Flickr, the free photo management/sharing site (e.g. using the tag "Cat" for a photo of a cat). Or like the tags used to categorise bookmarked Webpages at Del.icio.us and Furl, the services (also free) which enable you to bookmark Web pages, organise/tag them and search your bookmarked Webpages from any computer (Furl even saves a copy of the Webpage on their servers). In fact, due to a hookup with those sites, when you go to Technorati and view their page for a particular tag, you'll see not just blog posts using that tag (e.g. "Funny"), but also any pics and links to Webpages which have been given the same tag by users on Flickr, Del.icio.us or Furl.

You can tag (i.e. keyword) a post with anything you like. You can even make up a tag which didn't exist before anywhere (such as my "Gnashing of Teeth" tag for one of my earlier posts) - and, theoretically, they'll still index it and display it on their tag pages. (I say "theoretically" because I had real problems getting any Technorati tags to work - see this post and this post - but fortunately David Sifry the Technorati boss picked up on it (see his comment at the end of my previous post), and, miraculously, Technorati tags are now working for my blog - as of last night. It's odd because it's been about a week since I posted or tagged those posts - why did it take so long for them to show up on the Technorati tag pages, when the Technorati's info page on tags says that, after pinging them, "Your post should appear on the page in a few minutes (up to an hour during periods of intense activity)"?)
How do you view a Technorati tag page?
To see what blog posts, pics or Webpages have been tagged with the keyword of, say, "Privacy", just go to the URL "http://technorati.com/tag/Privacy". (Or go to Technorati first, and in the search box search for "tag:Privacy" - don't include any quote marks, or any space after the colon). This works for any keyword you like; for "Privacy" just substitute, for example, "Politics" (or indeed "Latex", if you prefer, and who can blame you). Be warned (and be patient): Technorati tag pages can sometimes take an age to load, even on my 1MB ADSL connection.

Note: tags on Technorati are not case-sensitive, so either capital letters or lower case letters are OK. The format above is recommended on Technorati's site for use when tagging your blog posts (the method is explained below). But when you're searching for a tag, at least, it doesn't seem to matter if you use a "www" in the URL or not, or if you use "tag" or "tags" in the URL - the results are still the same. So I believe that when tagging posts also, it doesn't matter - I've seen blogs on Technorati tag pages which have been tagged using "www" and "tags", and obviously they've still been indexed.

To see a list of the major tags on Technorati, go to their general tag page. This only shows the most popular tags. The bigger the fontsize of the tag word, the more posts, photos etc which have been tagged with it. That page is worth a look see to figure out which tags are the most common, and which the most popular (so you can adopt them in your own posts to get more visitors - assuming that the tag is relevant to your post, of course. People wouldn't be very happy with you if you tagged a post with "Game" and it was about your Morris dancing proclivities). There are, it seems, over 300,000 more tags that aren't listed on that page. And counting.

What's the point of using Technorati tags in your blog?
Well, first, to get your blog posts onto Technorati's tag pages in an organised, structured way - and also the tag pages of other blogosphere search engines that recognise tags, like Icerocket. That means people searching or browsing through those tag pages will be able to find your blog posts - more exposure, more traffic, hopefully more readers for your blog.

Also, these tag pages often get indexed on Google, and Technorati tag pages commonly appear quite high in Google search results lists due to the high number of blog posts pointing to those tag pages. So, if your blog is linked to from a tag page, someone searching Google is again more likely to come across your posts.

For other possible uses of Technorati tags, see below.
How do you use Technorati tags in your blog?
That's the 64 million euro question. If your blog platform already supports categories and RSS/Atom (e.g. WordPress, Movable Type or TypePad), just assign categories to your posts and publish via RSS/Atom, and you're laughing - Technorati will automatically use those categories from your feed for its tags. (Though note that Technorati tags are more flexible than the broad "categories" used in many blogs - they can be anything from general categories to very specific individual keywords.) UPDATE: in Blogger Beta, which made its debut in late 2006 and is now out of beta as New Blogger, Blogger introduced a new feature called "Labels". Labels essentially operate in the same way as categories on Wordpress etc, so you no longer need separate tools to use categories and, more importantly, Technorati tags, see this post.

If you want to include tags manually on your blog, you're still laughing, because you should be able to make up any tags you like, use them in your posts, and Technorati should include them on its tag pages.

How do you do that, then? Well, according to the Technorati help page on tags, all you have to do is insert this sort of markup into your post (using the privacy example):

Privacy

The important bits to include are those I've put in bold - the "rel="tag"", and the "/privacy" at the end of the URL, in order to get the post (1) recognised by Technorati as tagged in the first place, and (2) filed under "Privacy" on their tag pages.

The "href" URL could in fact be for any site at all, not just Technorati's, as long as the URL ends in a backslash followed by the name of the tag you want (though, if nothing else is suitable, then the Technorati page for that tag may be the easiest choice). To adapt one example Technorati themselves gave, you could use

iPod Stuff

for a post to be tagged with "iPod" and show up on their iPod tag page (but it will NOT be tagged "iPod Stuff"). In other words, you don't have to link to Technorati for your tagged post to show up on Technorati's tag pages.

Tip: if you want to use a tag which consists of more than one word, like "Customer Service", Technorati say to use a "+" symbol between those words in the "a href" bit (although I've found that a simple space works just as well, check out the contrast between my first two tags at the end of this post - both should work, but "+" is safest). Example:
Customer Service
You can have more than one tag for a post. In my case I've listed the tags with that code at the very end of each post, see e.g. the end of the ID card post example. I've deliberately included both singular and plural versions of tags and similar terms to try to help people looking for this kind of information find my post, for reasons I go into further below - and you might consider doing that too.

The tag markup could be included in the main part of the post instead, it shouldn't matter, as long as it's in the body of the post (and not, e.g., your blog's sidebar); I just find it easier to keep all my tags together at the end of the post.

How to speed up Internet Explorer 7 more

2008-05-27T19:24:00.000-07:00

I've already blogged some tips on how to speed up Internet Explorer 7 in Windows XP with some registry tweaks you can do by just clicking a couple of reg files (also seems to work on Internet Explorer 6, Windows 98 etc). The first hack is the most well known, and works by increasing the number of simultaneous connections IE makes to a Web server, which speeds up downloading a web page and its accoutrements i.e. images etc. (For those who've not tried them: get the tweaks.)

But IE7 was still too slow for me, especially in opening new tabs. And unlike my fave browser Firefox (Get Firefox with Google Toolbar), if you try to open a new tab in IE another annoyance is that you can't keep working in the existing tab in the meantime - the concept of multitasking seems alien to IE, everything you're doing in the current browser tab like scrolling, clicking a link etc grinds to a halt till the new tab has finished opening. How to open new tabs in Internet Explorer 7 more quickly became my next quest.

Well now I've found some further IE7 hacks, from Reliance PC - and they really work to speed up opening new tabs, yay! They involve a combo of things: disabling the phishing filter, feed checking, ClearType in IE (which by the way I have turned on generally and it really helps visibility and reading) and the SSVHelper Class plugin, none of which tricks I'd heard of, and then doing the same popular max connections tweak I'd mentioned before and had already done so didn't try again.

Try these tips yourself: Tuning IE7 for Better Performance; plus registry tweaks (You then need to close down and restart IE7.)

I don't know which one did the trick, it's probably the combo, but they sure worked for me. New tabs open and do their startup thang on average about twice as quickly as they used to. Which to impatient me makes a helluva difference.

Many of us hopefully know enough to avoid falling for phishing scams anyway (and it's a bonus that info on sites you're visiting stops being sent to Microsoft if you turn off the phishing filter). If you like reading RSS feeds you're better off getting a separate free feed reader anyway, rather than doing it through IE 7. And obviously if you need ClearType in IE don't do that particular hack, but most of us shouldn't notice much difference.

I'd add that while I was at it, I also decided to disable some other Internet Explorer 7 add-ons or plugins. I figured if I wasn't using a particular addon it was better to turn it off and that might speed things up further, so I did. So far nothing's complained about missing plug ins but I can always re-enable an add on if necessary.

If these tricks worked for you too I'd be glad to hear about it. And if anyone has further tips for even more speed speed speed, please let me know. Faster, IE7! Go! Go!

KAMPUNGLUMUT.COM: Kenaikan BBM

2008-05-21T22:40:00.000-07:00

KAMPUNGLUMUT.COM: Kenaikan BBM

Easy Profits Using PPC In Your Affiliate Marketing Business

2008-05-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

PPC is one of the four basic types of Search Engines. PPC is also one of the most cost-effective ways of targeted internet advertising. According to Forbes magazine, PPC or...

PPC is one of the four basic types of Search Engines. PPC is also one of the most cost-effective ways of targeted internet advertising. According to Forbes magazine, PPC or Pay Per Click, accounts to 2 billion dollars a year and is expected to increase to around 8 billion dollars by the year 2008.

Let us take a quick look at how PPC Search Engines work.

These engines create listings and rate them based on a bid amount the website owner is willing to pay for each click from that search engine. Advertisers bid against each other to receive higher ranking for a specific keyword or phrase.

The highest bidder for a certain keyword or phrase will then have the site ranked as number 1 in the PPC Search Engines followed by the second and third highest bidder, up to the last number that have placed a bid on the same keyword or phrase. Your ads then will appear prominently on the results pages based on the dollar amount bid you will agree to pay per click.

How do you make money by using PPC into your affiliate marketing business?

Most affiliate programs only pay when a sale is made or a lead delivered after a visitor has clickthrough your site. Your earnings will not always be the same as they will be dependent on the web site content and the traffic market.

The reason why you should incorporate PPC into your affiliate marketing program is that earnings are easier to make than in any other kind of affiliate program not using PPC. This way, you will be making profit based from the clickthroughs that your visitor will make on the advertiser’s site. Unlike some programs, you are not paid per sale or action.

PPC can be very resourceful of your website. With PPC Search Engines incorporated into your affiliate program, you will be able to profit from the visitor’s who are not interested in your products or services. The same ones who leave your site and never comes back.

You will not only get commissions not only from those who are just searching the web and finding the products and services that they wanted but you will be able to build your site’s recognition as a valuable resource. The visitors who have found what they needed from you site are likely to come back and review what you are offering more closely. Then they will eventually come back to search the web for other products.

This kind of affiliate program is also an easy way for you to generate some more additional revenues. For example, when a visitor on your site does a search in the PPC Search Engine and clicks on the advertiser bided listings, the advertisers’ account will then be deducted because of that click. With this, you will be compensated 30% to 80% of the advertisers’ bid amount.

PPC is not only a source of generating easy profits; it can also help you promote your own site. Most of the programs allow the commissions received to be spent for advertising with them instantly and with no minimum earning requirement. This is one of the more effective ways to exchange your raw visitors for targeted surfers who has more tendencies to purchase your products and services.

What will happen if you when you integrate PPC into your affiliate program?

PPC usually have ready-to-use affiliate tools that can be easily integrated into your website. The most common tools are search boxes, banners, text links and some 404-error pages. Most search engines utilize custom solutions and can provide you with a white-label affiliate program. This enables you, using only a few lines of code, to integrate remotely-hosted co-branded search engine into your website.

The key benefits? Not only more money generated but also some extra money on the side. Plus a lifetime commissions once you have referred some webmaster friends to the engine.

Think about it. Where can you get all these benefits while already generating some income for your site? Knowing some of the more useful tools you can use for your affiliate program is not a waste of time. They are rather a means of earning within an earning.

Best know more about how you can use PPC search engines into your affiliate program than miss out on a great opportunity to earn more profits.

Domain Names-Protect Yours From Drop Catchers

2008-05-16T23:00:00.001-07:00

This happens every day because of a perfectly legitimate process known as "drop catching," where people quickly snag the domain names owners have let expire and try to resell them or use the links associated with the names, which could be extensive, to create Web sites loaded with advertisements. You can easily avoid becoming a victim of a drop catcher by better understanding how the domain registration system works to protect your domain name.

Your Web site, with all the content you have so painstakingly added, sits on a computer with a unique address called an IP address, which is simply a series of numbers. A domain name is an address forwarding service that directs visitors to the site using this IP address. Domain names are used instead of numbers because most people find it easier to remember a name rather than a bunch of numbers. It's as if you could dial your friend's name into the telephone instead of his phone number.

You can purchase a domain name by registering it with a provider of domain services such as GoDaddy.com , the largest on the Web, or any number of other registrars. The name can be registered for just one year, for about $10, or for as long as ten years, for around $80. Many register for only one year because it's cheaper, or they only want the site for a limited time.

At the end of the year, the registrar usually sends an email renewal notice to the owner. If the owner doesn't respond to the renewal notice, the domain name will eventually be made available for purchase by someone else. Roughly 20,000 domain names become available every day because the owners allowed them to expire, or the owners didn't realize that their domain name was up for renewal

According to the rules established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN), domain registrars have 45 days after the expiration date to notify the owner that their domain name is going to be dropped from the registry. If the name is dropped, the guidelines then call for a 30-day grace period during which the owner can still claim the name. After this grace period and then another five-day holding period, the name is dropped from the registry and anyone can claim it.

Since 2004, however, a number of domain service providers, starting with SnapName.com, have created an auction process for expired names which bypasses the original drop process and makes the names available in as little as thirty days. GoDaddy.com begins the auction process even before the names have officially expired, although it does warn the auction participants that the owner could still claim their name.

These providers of domain services each have tools on their sites to make it easier to grab expired names. They provide constantly updated lists of expired names, various auction services, search engines, and other free tools for anyone to quickly and easily find available domain names. Some sites also offer software for sale that further simplifies the search for expired and soon to be expired names.

With the surge in online advertising, drop catchers will continue to seek out domain names from sites with good traffic, anxious to exploit the established links. Protect your site and your business by checking the expiration date of your domain name. Relying on the registrar to send a renewal notice that could easily be sent to an old email address or get lost in the spam catcher, could cost you years of hard work.

Website Content Writing

2008-05-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

Web Design, as design in general, is subject to changes and trend influences. Words like "fresh, modern, innovative' seem to conquer the world of design while artists strive to discover new directions. As websites are different, the profitability of a site is shaped by its objectives, resources and users. For a site to be successful, designers need to go ahead of the rules. Breaking the rules is not a problem. The inability to find something on a website is.

Contrary to many beliefs, a user-friendly website design is not easy. There are several factors shaping the web layout and the architecture of a site; some see them as rules, others believe there are no rules at all. Yet, as far as business websites are concerned, certain guidelines do exist.

About Us and Contact Us

The role of a business website is to represent a company and its products on the web, describing the company's objectives and providing enough information for the users about who they are dealing with. The "about us" area should include general information about the management team, company history and company philosophy. It is also advisable to display photos of the team and the managers here. The simple reason behind this advice is that pictures enhance credibility, as people believe that you are not trying to hide.

Some websites use the "about us" category to show maps and addresses for the company, while others employ a "contact us" area where they display contact forms, phone and fax numbers or department emails. For some users there is nothing more annoying than being forced to fill in long contact formularies or registrations. Try to avoid such practices by being flexible and providing options. Let your users decide if they want to fill in all the details or if they'd rather save some time and fill in a short form.

Products and Services

Depending on what a company has to offer, the "products" and "services" areas are devoted to goods or services that are either sold on the website or advertised there in order to be sold somewhere else. The categories should be clearly structured, the descriptions simple and relevant, illustrated by related pictures or graphics, if necessary. Avoid overloading the section with too many images, because they will distract users from the content.

News

The section should answer these simple questions: what's new about your company or products and services? Do you have any recent awards or events worth a web presentation? Write a text and publish it in this category. Keep it simple and try to use as many business related keywords as possible. See the rules for writing press releases. More: distribute your news and press releases on relevant web outlets and drive traffic to your site.

Try to get testimonials from your clients and display them online. Sometimes even a critique shown online can bring you positive reactions. People will appreciate your honesty, and will trust you more than they trust companies which praise their own success too much. Be realistic, careful and show concern for the users, not for yourself.

Disclaimer or Privacy Policy

This is not just a rule: it's a must! Companies deal with clients who wish their privacy to be protected. Unfortunately, sometimes sites can provide illegal or harmful information, so you should assure your visitors they will be safe. Wikipedia defines a disclaimer as follows: "A disclaimer is a legal statement which generally states that the person/group authoring the disclaimer is not responsible for any mishap in the event of using whatever object or information the disclaimer is attached to." The privacy policy is, according to the same source, a disclaimer as well: "A privacy policy is a disclaimer placed on a website informing users about how the website deals with a user's personal information."

Put simply, maintaining audience expectations and delivering usable content are the main factors influencing the success of a business website. But the website architecture has to be followed by a cutting edge design and reliable ways to increase users' loyalty.

Newsletters

If you are planning to have a lot of fresh content that changes often, you may offer users the option to sign up for eNewsletters. These should not be sent too often: studies show that too many reminders become an annoyance for many clients. As email newsletters feel more personal than websites, they will generate different, more positive, emotional reactions for the users. The subscribe and unsubscribe options allow companies to measure success by monitoring how many users are interested in receiving periodic information and how many lose their interest? The key to successful eNewsletter campaigns is simple: DO NOT SPAM! Let people go if they choose to unsubscribe. If your messages become annoying, the negative feelings from one client will easily go to another. "Verba Volant!"

Just like website design, the newsletter design should be uncomplicated and user friendly. That implies people should be able to find what they are looking for fast. Even the subscribe and unsubscribe processes should be fast: the longer the time needed to subscribe or unsubscribe, the higher the loss of customer satisfaction.

So keep the newsletters simple, useful and easy to deal with. Do not overload clients with information. Just tell them the basics and, if they are interested, they will certainly get back to you requesting more information. To succeed, write good subject lines that will help users distinguish the newsletter from spam. Each headline has to make sense and preferably be followed by a short abstract of the general content. Plain language is the best approach. People don't need to get the feeling they are teased or led on. For reference visit Pamil Visions and get the "Writing Newsletters" *.pdf document you can find in the downloads area.

Other Issues

Branding your business doesn't refer only to stationery and printed brochures. The website is an ideal means for promoting your business visual standards. Include your logo at the top left of all pages linking it with the home page. Respect your corporate color scheme to have a consistent look and feel in all your pages. Again, I encourage you to visit Pamil Visions or other branding and public relations related sites for advice in this matter.

Consistency is a powerful tool. When things stay the same form page to page, users know what to expect. They will not feel intimidated by new approaches or exasperated by unnecessary artifices. For example, Flash effects collected the bronze medal for annoyance. Leave them out. Why should you open your site with an intro most of the users will skip anyways? The same goes for pop-ups!

Make the site easy to read choosing the fonts and their colors carefully: not too big or too light. The most legible fonts are standard serif and sans-serif (Times, Arial; Verdana). The pictures and graphics should have small file sizes to avoid slow loading pages. They should also be optimized for the web and described in the HTML code of the pages to facilitate faster loading.

In general, the content you write for the web should be short, scannable and to the point. Some business sites are afraid that users will copy their valuable texts and use them somewhere else, getting commercial advantages, so they ask the designers to display texts as a picture. Wrong: have you ever heard of print screen? If someone wants to copy your work, they will do it anyway no matter if we talk about text or graphics. You'd just lose search engine points by avoiding texts. So, good luck in this responsible task of content writing!

ow to Find the Best Holiday Travel Deals Online?

2008-05-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

Here’s one thing you have to thank the internet for – now, you can easily search for the best holiday travel deals online. The internet has opened many possibilities like finding the best deals on flights, vacation packages, hotel rooms, and car rentals for business and pleasure travelers alike.

Getting a vacation package deal will give you lots of savings as compared to paying for it individually. It will also make your life less complicated because you will only track one confirmation number rather than several different ones

It’s easy to find the best holiday travel deals online through the ever reliable internet search engines. When you come across these sites, take note of the web addresses and the packages that they offer. Do not forget to get the prices for each package so you can compare them better.

What to Look Out for in Holiday Travel Deals Online

You can get great savings when you find the best holiday travel deals online. However, be sure to read all the pertinent information before paying. There may be some hidden charges that you would not want to be liable for.

It is also important to check cancellation policies as well as pointers in rescheduling a trip. Be aware too that there are travel deals that do not give any refunds. For example, say a family emergency occurs and you can’t make your trip, some providers will not issue a refund. For your peace of mind, check if any such restrictions apply.

In some cases, no refunds are given even if the customer showed up but was late for the flight. This may cause trouble or a misunderstanding in the future so better be clear with this from the very start.

It would also be wise to pay close attention to the time and process of getting to your destination. It may sound like a very good travel package money-wise but ask yourself, is the savings worth your time to have several connecting flights and layovers before you get to your holiday destination? It’s of course better to to use direct flights to get to your destination.

Some online holiday travel deals allow you to take advantage of their special offers and promotions when you sign up. This can be helpful because they can easily give you updates without you visiting their site for any inquiries in their rates.

Be flexible with your travel dates because you can save a lot by leaving a day earlier, or on those days that have really low rates. You can also leave in the evening than in the afternoon. Be prepared for a more expensive offer if you have specific travel arrangements.

It would really be a good thing to find the best holiday travel deal online. This will not just help you save money, time, and effort but finding one will also give you more reasons to relax knowing that good travel arrangements are perfectly in place.Here’s one thing you have to thank the internet for – now, you can easily search for the best holiday travel deals online. The internet has opened many possibilities like finding the best deals on flights, vacation packages, hotel rooms, and car rentals for business and pleasure travelers alike.

Getting a vacation package deal will give you lots of savings as compared to paying for it individually. It will also make your life less complicated because you will only track one confirmation number rather than several different ones.

It’s easy to find the best holiday travel deals online through the ever reliable internet search engines. When you come across these sites, take note of the web addresses and the packages that they offer. Do not forget to get the prices for each package so you can compare them better.

What to Look Out for in Holiday Travel Deals Online

You can get great savings when you find the best holiday travel deals online. However, be sure to read all the pertinent information before paying. There may be some hidden charges that you would not want to be liable for.

It is also important to check cancellation policies as well as pointers in rescheduling a trip. Be aware too that there are travel deals that do not give any refunds. For example, say a family emergency occurs and you can’t make your trip, some providers will not issue a refund. For your peace of mind, check if any such restrictions apply.

In some cases, no refunds are given even if the customer showed up but was late for the flight. This may cause trouble or a misunderstanding in the future so better be clear with this from the very start.

It would also be wise to pay close attention to the time and process of getting to your destination. It may sound like a very good travel package money-wise but ask yourself, is the savings worth your time to have several connecting flights and layovers before you get to your holiday destination? It’s of course better to to use direct flights to get to your destination.

Some online holiday travel deals allow you to take advantage of their special offers and promotions when you sign up. This can be helpful because they can easily give you updates without you visiting their site for any inquiries in their rates.

Be flexible with your travel dates because you can save a lot by leaving a day earlier, or on those days that have really low rates. You can also leave in the evening than in the afternoon. Be prepared for a more expensive offer if you have specific travel arrangements.

It would really be a good thing to find the best holiday travel deal online. This will not just help you save money, time, and effort but finding one will also give you more reasons to relax knowing that good travel arrangements are perfectly in place.

Article Source: http://www.travelarticlesexpress.com

What To Know About Lodging, Hotels, and Rentals Homes In Hawaii

2008-05-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

When planning a trip or stay in Hawaii one of the first things to consider is lodging. While most people would start looking at hotels, one should consider looking into rental properties. Rental properties are homes, condos, villas or land available for rent for a period of time. Most can be rented for days or even weeks at a time.

Once deciding you would like to stay in a rental property, you need to choose which type you would like to stay in. Deciding factors would include number of people traveling; amenities needed, and amount of privacy you would like. If you are traveling with family you might want to consider renting a home, but if you are traveling as a couple you might consider getting a condo. If you are traveling with a large group of people that would like separate places but would like to stay in the same facility or on the same property you should consider looking into villas or attached condos. There are rental properties available to fit everyone's needs

Once you decide what type of rental property you would like to stay in, you should then deicide which island you would like to stay on. Hawaii is made up of eight major islands including Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and Hawaii which is referred to as the big island. Who you are traveling with, and what activities you are planning on doing, should be considered while choosing which island to stay on. Each island has unique qualities and activities to do.

Another factor to considering when getting a rental property is deciding what month you would like to go in. The most popular times to go to Hawaii are mid-December to mid-April; during these times you will find prices to be a little higher due to large volumes of vacationers. The best weather in Hawaii can be found in April, May, September and October. Hurricane season is from June to November in Hawaii. These should be some factors in deciding when to plan your trip.

Once you have decided on what type of rental property you would like to stay in and what island you would like to stay on, and what month you are going, you then need to find your perfect rental property. Instead of going to your local travel agent, there are many sites available on the internet to book your perfect rental property.When planning a trip or stay in Hawaii one of the first things to consider is lodging. While most people would start looking at hotels, one should consider looking into rental properties. Rental properties are homes, condos, villas or land available for rent for a period of time. Most can be rented for days or even weeks at a time.

Once deciding you would like to stay in a rental property, you need to choose which type you would like to stay in. Deciding factors would include number of people traveling; amenities needed, and amount of privacy you would like. If you are traveling with family you might want to consider renting a home, but if you are traveling as a couple you might consider getting a condo. If you are traveling with a large group of people that would like separate places but would like to stay in the same facility or on the same property you should consider looking into villas or attached condos. There are rental properties available to fit everyone's needs.

Once you decide what type of rental property you would like to stay in, you should then deicide which island you would like to stay on. Hawaii is made up of eight major islands including Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and Hawaii which is referred to as the big island. Who you are traveling with, and what activities you are planning on doing, should be considered while choosing which island to stay on. Each island has unique qualities and activities to do.

Another factor to considering when getting a rental property is deciding what month you would like to go in. The most popular times to go to Hawaii are mid-December to mid-April; during these times you will find prices to be a little higher due to large volumes of vacationers. The best weather in Hawaii can be found in April, May, September and October. Hurricane season is from June to November in Hawaii. These should be some factors in deciding when to plan your trip.

Once you have decided on what type of rental property you would like to stay in and what island you would like to stay on, and what month you are going, you then need to find your perfect rental property. Instead of going to your local travel agent, there are many sites available on the internet to book your perfect rental property.

Article Source: http://www.travelarticlesexpress.com

Hawaii The Paradise Of The Pacific

2008-05-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

Hawaii is a state of United States comprising an archipelago of the Hawaiian Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. The erstwhile known as the Sandwich Islands, the Hawaiian Islands became the U.S. territory in 1900. The Hawaiian Islands include eight major islands including Nihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lânai, Kahoolawe, Maui and the Island of Hawaii and many islets.

A British explorer, Captain James Cook, discovered the Hawaiian Islands and named them as ‘the Sandwich Islands’. The Hawaiian Islands were united for the first time under a single ruler, King Kamehameha the Great.
Hawaii became the 50th state of United States in 1959. The state of hawaii is also known as “the Aloha State”. Aloha is acknowledgment that can be used as greeting. The state is the southernmost part of that country, situated 2500 miles from the mainland. HI is the abbreviation of Hawaii. Honolulu is the capital and the largest city of the state. Hawaiian and English are the official languages of the state.

Tourism is one of the cornerstones of Hawaiian economy. The tourism is the largest industry in Hawaii. Hawaii is sometimes called “the paradise of the Pacific” because of its exquisite beauty including abundant sunshine, lush green plants & gay flowers, palm-fringed, coral beaches with rolling white surf, and mesmerizing cloud-covered volcanic peaks rising to majestic heights.

The hawaii vacations, hawaii cruises and hawaii vacation packages are the hottest tourism deals. The hawaii beach vacation, hawaii honeymoon vacation, romantic hawaii vacation, hawaii family vacation and hawaii golf vacation are the most coveted vacation. The hawaii hotels are sheer manifestations of romantic luxuries.

The major attractions of hawaii include Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, Haleakala National Park, Haleakala Wilderness, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes Wilderness, Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, Honolulu Engineer District Pacific Regional Visitor Center (PRVC), James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, Kalaupapa National Historical Park, Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, Kona Historical Society, Lyman Museum and Mission House, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, Oahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, Pu`uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site, U S S Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Akaka Falls, Na Pali Coast, Satellite Image etc.Hawaii is a state of United States comprising an archipelago of the Hawaiian Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. The erstwhile known as the Sandwich Islands, the Hawaiian Islands became the U.S. territory in 1900. The Hawaiian Islands include eight major islands including Nihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lânai, Kahoolawe, Maui and the Island of Hawaii and many islets.

A British explorer, Captain James Cook, discovered the Hawaiian Islands and named them as ‘the Sandwich Islands’. The Hawaiian Islands were united for the first time under a single ruler, King Kamehameha the Great.
Hawaii became the 50th state of United States in 1959. The state of hawaii is also known as “the Aloha State”. Aloha is acknowledgment that can be used as greeting. The state is the southernmost part of that country, situated 2500 miles from the mainland. HI is the abbreviation of Hawaii. Honolulu is the capital and the largest city of the state. Hawaiian and English are the official languages of the state.

Tourism is one of the cornerstones of Hawaiian economy. The tourism is the largest industry in Hawaii. Hawaii is sometimes called “the paradise of the Pacific” because of its exquisite beauty including abundant sunshine, lush green plants & gay flowers, palm-fringed, coral beaches with rolling white surf, and mesmerizing cloud-covered volcanic peaks rising to majestic heights.

The hawaii vacations, hawaii cruises and hawaii vacation packages are the hottest tourism deals. The hawaii beach vacation, hawaii honeymoon vacation, romantic hawaii vacation, hawaii family vacation and hawaii golf vacation are the most coveted vacation. The hawaii hotels are sheer manifestations of romantic luxuries.

The major attractions of hawaii include Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, Haleakala National Park, Haleakala Wilderness, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes Wilderness, Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, Honolulu Engineer District Pacific Regional Visitor Center (PRVC), James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, Kalaupapa National Historical Park, Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, Kona Historical Society, Lyman Museum and Mission House, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, Oahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, Pu`uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site, U S S Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Akaka Falls, Na Pali Coast, Satellite Image etc.

Article Source: http://www.travelarticlesexpress.com

Affiliate Marketing Articles

2008-05-06T20:42:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Affiliate Marketing Articles. This site is all about Affiliate Marketing, it is our goal to help teach you the latest strategies, techniques and methods for earning some extra cash through affiliate marketing!

We've got many excellent affiliate marketing articles for you to read to help further your affiliate marketing education. Many of these articles were written by professional affiliate marketers that make their living promoting various types of affiliate programs. Visit our article directories often as we will be updating the articles here regularly.

Affiliate Marketing, is with out a doubt, the best opportunity you have to begin an online business that will grow and evolve to new levels at breakneck speeds! Right now is the absolute best time for you to get started with your affiliate marketing efforts!

Affiliate Marketing Articles was created to make certain that you get started off on the right foot in your affiliate marketing endeavors. As you learn more about affiliate marketing and begin to grow with your affiliate income, you'll discover new and better ways to work at home and continue to increase your income using less of your time.

With Affiliate Marketing Articles, you will learn all of the latest techniques and strategies that will allow you to get started and become extremely successful at earning money in the fast paced world of affiliate marketing.

Please sign up for our Affiliate Marketing Articles Newsletter to learn all of the tips, tricks and nuances you can begin using to earn very nice affiliate paychecks.

Be sure to bookmark this site, tell your affiliate marketing friends, and come back to visit often.

Sell Your Video On Demand at Google

2008-05-06T20:41:00.001-07:00

Apple started it with their iTunes Video Store where visitors can download thousands of music videos and TV Shows to their iPods for $1.99. Then Microsoft and Yahoo followed suit, each offering video hosting. Google Video has taken it a step farther by allowing users to post and sell their videos. Google also offers lots of free videos way outside the bounds of music video and TV shows. Here's an example of one of the free videos you can find at Google Video.

You can upload your videos and allow others to view them for free. At Google Video you will soon be able to sell your video as a download or a stream. Google will host your video, then when someone wants to download it, they can see a free sample and if they choose to buy it, then Google processes the credit card and keeps a small percentage, but to the producer there's no cost for hosting and indexing your video. At the moment Google is only offering this option to major producers, but this is sure to expand. To learn all about Google Video see Google Video Help Page

Google co-founder Larry Page spoke about it at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. He says "It lets anyone sell video. The content producers can decide what to charge." Mr Page also called for electronic gadget makers to agree on common standards so that devices would work with each other seamlessly and use a standard power supply.

Video is a battleground area for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Not only do these companies want to host video on the Internet, but to also offer their own software and services for the many new devices that play video such as cell phones, Ipods, PDAs, and media viewers. Who would have guessed 20 years ago that cell phones would carry TV shows and personal videos. But today, not only do cell phones display video, there are even ad agencies that specialize cell phone video commercials.

Just as newspapers are following their readers and moving content to the Internet so quickly, video and TV are also quickly moving to the Internet. Google's Ad Words Program has set the standard for advertising on the Internet. So Google seems a natural company to bring a successful revenue model to Internet video.

Video on the web has always included lots of silliness and Google video is no exception. You'll find lots of funny videos, many of which are in questionable taste.

When Google allows the open sale of video on the site, you will be charged a small percentage of the price you set if you choose to charge others to view your video. This makes it a very interesting model for video producers.

This looks to be a great opportunity for producers. Study it and take advantage of it. Let me know how it works for you. Share your experiences in our VideoUniversity Marketing and Business Forum

If you do a Google search for "video hosting" you will find thousands of results, many of them offering video hosting at no charge. Can they compete with Google Video? Time will tell.

Internet Franchises

2008-05-06T20:37:00.002-07:00

Internet franchises are probably the fastest growing venue in the burgeoning field of small business franchises. These range from forming your own company (of course with superb backing) that does medical billing to tourism travel related virtual touring. They are for the computer literate entrepreneur who has limitless ideas but does not want to make a huge investment. ATM management to troubleshooting screen freezes and computer crashes, these franchises are as diverse as the modern technology that is woven within our lives.

Internet technology oriented businesses offer the same rock solid advantages of traditional franchises. Internet franchises are not only for the advanced geek but also offer good, interesting opportunities for the competent computer novice. These internet based franchises are available throughout the US, and even offer opportunities to make your own independent living worldwide.

Internet franchises take the financial risk out of owning your own business. They are legitimate, often well-known and stable businesses that you buy into for a fraction of the price of independent start up costs. An internet franchise may also offer your customer a well-known name brand that he or she already knows and trusts. You are included in the broad advertising schema of the franchise and this minimizes your publicity budget.

Internet franchises offer global independence but include full technology education and business service backing from a successful company that has thoroughly explored its place in today's' fast paced internet market. With an investment that is a fraction of go-it-alone start up costs, you can buy your share of an established successful internet business. You will receive materials, software, and all the information, support and general know-how necessary to make your internet franchise a success.

First, you need to identify the types of franchise that interests you, - and you are not limited to IT services. Internet franchises include accountancy, tax preparation, retail and home services. You'll want to do some research to ensure that there are no serious competitors already existing in your area before you start. Then, get all the information possible from the franchise providers and search their websites and printed materials to determine if this is the business that really fits your lifestyle and ambition.

Internet franchises offer the best opportunity for establishing a business worldwide. Remember, your local service calls are outsourced to Ireland and India. Your internet franchise has few geographic boundaries and even fewer creative limits

Time Management Tips For a Stress-free Holiday

2008-05-06T20:37:00.001-07:00

1. Check it Out:

For starters, make a list of what needs to get done. Set priorities for what needs to be accomplished along with a timeline. This includes menu planning, gift selection, shopping, baking and cooking. Once you've written it down, it will be easier to keep it in mind and get it done.

2. Mark Your Calendar:

Set specific dates and deadlines for what you want done and when. Then stick to your schedule.

3. Spread the HolidayJoy:

Communicate with your family – it's easy to assume that your family knows your plans just because you've mentioned them in passing. Make a point of gathering your family together to talk about family get-togethers and outings, so that everyone is aware of the schedule.

4. Money Matters

Take a close look at your financial situation and create a holiday spending budget. This will help alleviate money woes and overspending, which will help cut down on a common source of holiday stress.

Six Ways to Beat Holiday Stress

2008-05-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

1. First Things First :

The secret to holiday happiness is to start planning NOW. Yes now, while the weather is still good and the yuletide crush has yet to hit the mall.

2. Plan Meals Ahead:

Looking for convenient, fast mealtime solutions? There are plenty of great resources on the Internet, such as the Louis Kemp Seafood recipe database (Dead link removed).

3. Delegate :

You can't do everything. So share the celebration and the joy – and the planning – with family and friends. Don't wait until it is snowy and cold to get the kids untangling the lights and finding the ornaments in storage.

4. Take Care of Your Body:

A person can only cram so many activities into their calendar. Over-commitment and lack of sleep can lead to major stress. Self-care and making sure to get enough sleep are especially important during the holidays.

5. Get a Handle on the HolidayHelpings:

According to a National Institutes of Health study, the weight people gain during the holiday season adds up year after year. Try not to overindulge this year. Allow yourself only a taste of rich foods during holiday parties and try creating healthier versions of holiday favorites with low calorie ingredients or fat-free products.

6. Keep Expectations Realistic:

Slow down, savor the moments and try not to rush so fast through the season that you miss the good stuff. Having a realistic attitude can go a long way toward making holidays less stressful and happier for all.

Maximizing Your Site With Adsense

2008-05-01T20:11:00.000-07:00

So You Wanna Make Money With Adsense! A few revealing facts:

1. There are older teens just starting college that are making a lot more money with Adsense than you are with a degree or fulltime job.

2. There are people just like you that are sitting home making more money online with Adsense than you by putting Adsense ads on their websites that are easy to keep up

This is just a sampling of many that are making large earnings. I am sure you have heard some stories about those making money online this way, some making millions, simply promoting Adsense sites.

It’s ageless, genderless, and anyone can do it. You can be a money grinding Adsense publisher if you do what it takes. How do you do this kind of Web Advertising?

Earning revenue from a website has become easier than ever with Google’s Adsense™. It will bring ads, and images matched well enough to websites content that the sites visitors actually click them. It also delivers targeted ads to the sites search results as well. The owner earns a lot of money, with minimal effort, and no cost from Adsense.

The articles on the site need to properly use keywords to optimize ads related to the content in the page. With this, the owner makes the revenue on the ads that get clicked, along with other features provided by Adsense.

Article writing for Adsense is the wave of the future. If you write good articles, with certain keywords that are optimal for Adsense on the right site, you will find a very profitable way of work that anyone can get into. Other than writing skills, there is really no experience or level of education required. With your own website, using these concepts, you can generate a steady stream of income. Otherwise, you are missing out on a lot of income potential.

As you may have noticed, the demand for writing of “original articles with quality content” has been seriously on the rise. You see more sites with good content with ad links that are related. You probably also notice more repeated words then you are used to. Some are better than others at mixing them in cleanly. Though in the end, they are often from those making excellent incomes through targeting traffic.

You might ask, “Why aren’t they writing and submitting?” After all, the articles are important…The straight forward answer is that it takes time to write, submit, and bring targeted traffic to the websites. That’s why they hire others to do this for them.

Back in school, did you enjoy writing? If so, you have a lot of what you need to get earning cash in the Adsense advertising business already. You can do this on he internet from the comforts of home.

The bang of the Adsense market brings the need for sites that desire new quality original content packed with keywords. With this, site owners may find a continuous flow of targeted ads
that bring them revenue, along with search engine rankings that move closer to the top.

To move in on this wave, you simply need to find those that want articles written for use with Adsense. They do need to be keyword rich, with links to your website in the resource box. While everyone should want to start earning money with Adsense, that doesn’t mean they will. That leaves you more opportunity to work with if you put your mind to it. It’s a win-win situation for more than one role in the bigger picture, for the writers, the site owners, and those with products for sale. And the search engines really help to keep it flowing. Many automatic features are in the formula that you hardly need to worry about, while living, sleeping, or doing anything else beyond your Adsense workings.

Increasing Your Adsense Cash

2008-05-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

As far as the affiliate marketing industry today, Google Adsense™ is making leaps and bounds. As a result, Ad networks are losing advertisers at a very rapid pace, and those affiliates that aren’t knowledgeable will lose out as well. If you aren’t winning in the current affiliation agreements you are in, this might be a great time to consider a change. You will really want to have a look at the Adsense marketing, and maybe find yourself making even more than before.

Google gives you nice and relevant ads that concur with the content of your web pages. Rather than looking for them on your own, the search engine will do the searching for you from other people’s products.

Further, you wont need to be bothered spending lots of time deciding what ads to choose for your different pages, and no mess of JavaScript code to keep them all happy. All comes back centrally to Google with a simpler and more consistent interface.

Instead of the old job of digging around for banners at more than one affiliate program, and getting the code right in your pages, now you can focus on making your site simply better. The
most important thing is quality, keyword rich site content. The search engines will find the best Ads for your pages, and different for each.

Even if you maintain your existing affiliate agreements and maintain them on your site, you can also use Adsense ads. However, you can’t put them in the same look and feel as Google ads. This is due to Google’s license on the Adsense technology’s look and feel. As far as preventing ads to URLs that don’t agree with you, you can filter up to 200 of them. This makes it possible to keep
people from getting to your competition from your site.

Small site owners can easily add a little bit of code to their sites web pages, and just as fast have relevant text ads that fit well with their page content. Those that run many sites need only apply once. One account handles all. The income can differ dramatically over your old affiliate agreements. The amount you make is based on the amount advertisers are paying per click to advertise thru Google AdWords. This is the source of the Adsense ads. It can range from a nickel a click, and on up from there. You earn a share of what Google earns in the process.

Neatening up your pages with quality content and less clutter can really help you to allow your sites browsers to catch the ads more, and of course click them. This is where you profit. AdWords customers can also pick and choose whose sites their ads appear on. This allows them to keep their ads in a more controlled environment. That’s up to them though, as they are paying. Beware that if your content isn’t ideal for those that get into it often, they might start specifically blocking you.

Keep your content good, clean, and on topic

To see better if your site content is ideal for Adsense; look for sites that have similar content and keywords to yours. Look at their Adsense ads and see what they get, especially the sites high in the search engine rankings. Another important aspect to pay attention to is you can’t choose certain categories only. Doing this will cause the search engine to not place Adsense ads in your pages, and you will miss the ability to get clicks for them. This could cost you hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars. It’s a good idea to check other peoples work with Adsense, and learn from it. It will save you time and likely bring you better results faster.

Staying out of adult entertainment, gambling, firearms, ammunition, tobacco, drugs, and likely alcohol are very wise decisions as it’s as good as watching your account get canceled in the search engines.It’s all about turning your content into someone else’s sales.

With that you make a commission of the sort, and can make out well. Unlike the affiliate programs of the past though, there is a lot less work involved in the program, and a lot more involved in just making your site and pages the best it can be.

Bring the opportunity for your site visitors to see other site’s products, and you will find your self earning more revenue than ever.

Maximizing Your Site With Adsense Is Profitable!

2008-05-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

With Adsense ads on the web pages in your site, you can earn some money every time your site visitors click on them. Hordes of website owners are now making good money from this way of marketing. Simple math will show how much extra you will make based on the ads your visitors are clicking.

Google Adsense™ is an exciting, speedy, and easy way for website owners of all sizes to have very relevant text Google ads within their quality content pages. And the best part of it, you make money at it! The ads your visitors see are on the topic of what they are reading and what they are looking for on your site. This is why you should maximize your site, and increase your profits using Adsense.

The amounts you make will vary based on how much the particular advertisers are paying. Each will differ. It also depends on keywords the advertisers choose. They have to pay more for the keywords that are more frequently used (and you make more when those ads are clicked). Lesser keywords make you just pennies per click on the other end.

The 5 steps to make profits from your website using Google Adsense™

1. Sign up for a Adsense account. It takes a few minutes to do, and starts here. 2. With approval, you will receive a section of HTML code to include in your sites pages. As it is included, the ads will show right away. Take time to include it where it will be seen while visitors navigate and read your content.

3. You will earn from a few cents up to dollars per click as visitors click on the AdWords found on the web pages that contain them. Earning income by repeatedly clicking them is a bad idea. It can get you in trouble, or even cost you if you are found to be abusing the system.

4. Check your tracking statistics. You can log into your account on the Adsense site at any time and see these. As soon as your account is functional, you will want to analyze and duplicate more of what the sites out there are doing that are making a lot more money yet at it. There are aspects that affect how your site will do and how much income it will provide.

5. It’s normal to want to make more money than what you are now. You will experience this repeatedly if your income is on the increase, though often it will take trial and error to tune your content and Adsense words. Important site techniques that you can use over time.

How do you maximize your Adsense earnings?

1. Stick to one topic on each page in your site. Write its content based on keywords or a short targeted phrase. Adsense will serve ads that are based on that topic and keywords and will be more relevant in respect to your content. When the visitors see ads related to what they are reading, they are more likely to click through to them. This is the name of the game!

2. Keeping some space around your ad in the page will make it stick out. This can help more people to click them. Playing with colors and seeing visitors habits in respect to that will help you to fine tune it to get more click through. Keeping the color in tune with the colors of your site can help prevent clashes as well.

3. Always watch how users use your site and the clicks they result in. Maybe move things around and see how it changes your statistics. A good starting point though is the vertical navigation as it’s more likely the best. Though try horizontal later on too if you want and compare.

4. Write many more quality content web pages that are keyword rich. Extend the focus of your site by developing new pages that use different keyword phrases. This will optimize the pages for the search engines, make more relevant AdWords, bring more visitors, and ultimately make you more money!

5. There are many web providers out there that have site building tools that will make it easier to do all of this. If you are new, utilizing them might be a good idea.

Florida: Come and See the Sunshine State

2008-04-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

As one of the top five largest countries in the world, it’s probably no surprise that the United States of America is also one of the most visited countries in the world.

Of course, the USA’s influence on western culture is probably immeasurable. Whether it’s Hollywood for movies, Las Vegas for gambling or McDonalds for eating, there is little doubt that America is the big brother everybody looks up to. But surely this doesn’t entirely explain why over fifty million people visit the USA every year?

Perhaps the biggest reason why so many people flock to the USA is the sheer diversity of what’s on offer. From the sun-kissed islands of Hawaii, to the snow-covered slopes of Colorado; every way of life imaginable exists in the USA.

This diversity is perhaps best exemplified by the sub-tropical, part-peninsula state of Florida. Of course, everybody knows about Disney World and the wonderful beaches on offer in ‘The Sunshine State’, but Florida is a massive state and it would be unfair to limit the praise to recreational resorts and sun-bathing.

Geographically, Florida is actually a lot closer to Cuba than it is to, say, New York, and this Latin American influence is very evident here. In Miami, for example, more than 65% of the population speak Spanish as their first language; and there is even a ‘Little Havana’ district, which is home to many Cuban immigrants. The cuisine, entertainment and general way of life all have a distinct Hispanic flavour, making for a truly fascinating experience.

And away from the big cities, perhaps the most distinguishing and intriguing aspect of the Sunshine State, is the Florida Keys; an archipelago of around 1700 islands beginning about 15 miles south of Miami, and the southernmost tip being a mere 94 miles from Cuba. The ‘Keys’ are essentially the exposed sections of an ancient coral reef, meaning the sea-life in the area is both diverse and abundant in equal measures. Needless to say, the scuba diving in the region is outstanding, but like any coral reef in the world, great care must be taken so not to damage an already fragile eco-system.

One of the chief reasons why Florida continues to be such a major holiday-hotspot is its accessibility. Flights to Florida take around 9 hours, and there are direct flights from London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports. There are also connecting flights available from many other UK cities including Glasgow, Manchester and Belfast, ensuring nobody has to miss out on the fun.

So, for an accessible, culturally diverse, sub-tropical haven, Florida is the place to be. From snorkelling in the ‘Keys’, to ‘Living la Vida Loca’ in Little Havana, there is sure to be something for everyone.

Finding Your Market in the Business World

2008-04-29T21:50:00.000-07:00

It is very difficult to pass a test if you are not familiar with the material covered on the test. In business, it is very hard to succeed (if not impossible) if you are not familiar with your customers. You must be intimately familiar with your target market in order to become a successful entrepreneur.

To know your target market, you have to have an open mind. Many entrepreneurs do a great job of researching their market, but they don’t go into it with an open mind. They go into it thinking that their plan is right and that it will work. When they encountered obstacles, and see information that should tell them that their plan is flawed, they either ignore it or explain it away. Both of which can be deadly to your business.

Let’s go over how to plan your product and get to know your market.

Determine who your market is

When you develop a product or service, you are doing so with the idea that your product or service is needed on the market. For instance, say you have developed a software program that performs a task that previously had to be done by the user. It seems like there is a natural need for that program, right? But you have to investigate more thoroughly before you launch your product.

Ask yourself as many questions about your product as possible. Who will use this product? Why would they use it? Would they continue to use it? How much would they be willing to pay for it?

Once you think you know the answers to theses questions, it is time to verify them with some hard-core research.

Researching your market

The research phase, for many companies, is the make or break point. A well-planned research effort might show you that your product really isn’t needed on the market, at least not right now. Even though that result would be disappointing, it would potentially save you bundles of money in wasted time and production. On the other hand, a poorly executed research effort will not give you the answers you need, which probably will result in wasted time and money.

When conducting your research, whether you do it yourself or you pay someone to do it, you want to again ask those questions that you asked before. Only this time, you are asking your customers, not yourself. Ask the people that you think would use your product if they would, indeed, have a need for it. If so, ask them why they would use it, and how much they would be willing to pay for it.

Here is where having an open mind is so important. As I said, you might learn during the research phase that there really is not a need for your product. If that is what your research is telling you, listen to it. Either scrap the plan or adjust it to meet a current need. Do not ignore the results of the research simply because they are not what you wanted to hear.

Follow up on your research

If your research does reveal a need for your product, and a sizable market for it, then you are on your way to success. But you still have to follow through by delivering a quality product at a reasonable price, and you have to direct it towards your target market.

Use the results of your research to guide your advertising strategy. Design your color printing ads and radio or television ads with your market in mind. Do everything in a way that targets the people that you have identified as your potential customers.

How to boost your AdSense revenue

2008-04-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

AdSense often easier than affiliate programs

Google's AdSense is a superb revenue generating opportunity for small, medium and large web sites. Some webmasters are designing brand new sites specifically for serving AdSense text ads. (It's against the AdSense rules to design a site purely for AdSense, so you'll want to include a few affiliate links or sell your own product, too.)

AdSense allows you to serve text-based Google AdWords on your web site and receive a share of the pay-per-click payment. AdSense ads are similar to the AdWords ads you see on the right-hand side at Google when you do a search here.

AdSense is having a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry. It's often much easier to generate revenue from AdSense than from an affiliate program. Weak affiliate merchants will die faster than ever. If you're a merchant running a lousy affiliate program, now's the time to improve it FAST

AdSense's advantages

AdSense is simple to join. It's easy to paste a bit of code into your pages.It's free to join. You don't have to spend time finding advertisers.

Google provides well written, highly relevant ads - chosen to closely match the content on your pages.

You don't have to waste time choosing different ads for different pages.

You don't have to mess around with different code for various affiliate programs.

You're free to concentrate on providing good content and Google does the work of finding the best ads for your pages from 100,000 AdWords advertisers.

It's suitable for beginners or marketing veterans.

AdSense provides simple, easy-to-understand stats.

If you have affiliate links on your site, you ARE allowed to add AdSense ads. However, with your affiliate links, you must not mimic the look and feel of the Google ads.

You can filter up to 200 URLs, so you can block ads for sites that don't meet your standards. You can also block strong competitors.

Inevitably, AdSense is competing strongly for space on web sites with all other revenue sharing opportunities.

If you own a small web site you can plug a bit of AdSense code into your site and almost instantly relevant text ads that are likely to appeal to your visitors will appear on your pages.

If you own several sites, you need apply only once. This makes AdSense much simpler than joining a bunch of affiliate programs.

As you can see, I'm really keen on this revenue sharing service.

Disadvantages

One problem is inappropriate ads. You don't want spammy junk advertised on your site. Google's standards probably aren't as high as yours. You can filter out 200 URLs, but in some industries that won't be enough.

The stats Google supplies are inadequate. They're easy to understand at a glance. However, they don't tell you exactly which ads people are clicking on, or which keywords are involved. That's frustrating. Also, I'd like to be able to identify and block ads that have very low payout rates, without doing a lot of sleuthing and messing around.

The ad panels say "Ads by Google" - free advertising for Google. You don't earn anything if someone clicks on that link. The minimum payout is $100, which is regarded as too high by sites which don't receive much traffic. That won't worry experienced webmasters.

Also, sites that want to display AdSense ads may not include "other content-targeted and/or text-based ads on the pages displaying AdWords ads." However, human beings review the sites. Rejected sites have been able to appeal successfully.

Another disadvantage is that Google doesn't allow you to share your stats with other webmasters. The AdSense Terms and Conditions say:

"Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. 'Google Confidential Information' includes without limitation: ... (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to you by Google..."

That's really weird. Web site owners need to be able to share such information and discuss successes and failures.

A big disadvantage of the service is that Google doesn't say how much its AdSense partners will receive. You'll just receive an unknown share of the revenue.

Only a company with the goodwill and respect Google has earned could get away with such a cheeky offer.

Google says:

"How much will I earn through this program? The AdWords ads you are able to display on your content pages are cost-per-click (CPC) ads. This means that advertisers pay only when users click on ads. You'll receive a portion of the amount paid for clicks on AdWords ads on your website. Although we don't disclose the exact revenue share, our goal is to enable publishers to make as much or more than they could with other advertising networks."

So the only way to know how much you'll earn is to try it and see. If you want to bail out, all you have to do is remove the code from your site.

Don't put all your eggs in the AdSense basket. If Google discovers fraudulent clicks on ads appearing on your pages, it can dump your site from the service, and refuse to pay you all revenue owed. Some webmasters who claim total innocence have had this happen to them.

Google has made several changes to its AdSense FAQ, clarifying varying things. For example, it IS possible to apply for separate accounts for separate web sites. I've done so, and checked with Google that it's OK in my case. Read the rules - they look ambiguous to me. If in doubt, ask first!

Some time after the launch of AdSense, Google added "channels" which improve the tracking. I strongly recommend that you experiment with these.

Sites with "excessive advertising" are being rejected

ClickBank Affiliate Program

2008-04-25T01:21:00.000-07:00

by: Ross Dalangin

ClickBank has a remarkable affiliate program. ClickBank is both a payment processor and an affiliate network. ClickBank is an affiliate program manager as well, and it is very easy to sign up as an affiliate with them. All you need is to register with ClickBank, it does not cost one penny, and is open to websites located in any part if the world.
Affiliates can earn anywhere from 5% to 50% commission on sales of products. This is dependent upon what they link to. There are hundred of merchants to choose from with over 10,000 products and services. There are definitely niche merchants within ClickBank.
Linking to a ClickBank merchant has it advantages; such as you know you will be credited for all sales that go through the ClickBank network as the tracking is automated as part of the payment processing. One benefit of linking to ClickBank is that you will receive credit if the customer doesn’t buy immediately. What this means is that if the customer comes from your link and decides not to buy, but changes his mind later and purchases, you will receive the credit on the commission, no matter how he got back to the site. This is controlled by cookies, which are maintained for 90 days after the initial click-through.
Once you join you will select a nickname, after that part is complete you will browse through the ClickBank Marketplace to select products to sell as an affiliate. ClickBank will provide you with the URL for each program using your nickname.
The other option is to use ClickBank as a merchant.

As a merchant (vendor or seller) you can set up an account for a one-time fee. ClickBank let’s you set up a sales and thank-you page and list that in their database. After they have approved your pages, you can set a price and presto … you’ve got an affiliate program running. ClickBank checks and pays your affiliate sales. And they will list you in their Market Place.

ClickBank affiliate program is not limited to people within the United States, however, payment are issued in US dollars and mailed every two weeks. You will also receive an email every time a payment is made through your referral. Real-time sales reports are available for your review 24 hours a day. You will not need a merchant account for this program. ClickBank tracks all visitors from your link, and then the commission is credited once an order is placed and accepted.

ClickBank has a lot of products you can sell as an affiliate, and you should be able to make a lucrative income from it. Remember you will need to put forth some effort if you expect any type of results.
The best way to maximize your profit at Clickbank’s products is to create your own Clickbank Mall to CBJunction.Com because CBJunction automatically retrieve data from Clickbank Marketplace and you can automatically use all of the products into one website CBJunction.Com for FREE or purchase it

How to Make Money Online with Affiliate Programs!

2008-04-25T01:20:00.000-07:00

by: Ross Dalangin

While there are many different paths you can take to making money with Affiliate Programs online, it is not as easy as the so-called professionals say it is, but it can be done. Infact, many people are doing it and making a large impact on their incomes.

Did you know that the largest mistake that people make with affiliate programs is that they join too many programs at one time. This is the number one reason why affiliates do not make enough money online. Be sure not to fall into the same category as those people.

Having studied affiliate marketing for some time now, one thing that is learned quickly si that promotion methods can and do change every day. We will provide you with a few things that you will and should learn to get the edge in the affiliate market:

· You will need to learn what programs to stay away from and how to choose an affiliate program that is right for you.

· Find out from others what works and what does not work, many times you will have to test things for yourself. Trial and error works, and when someone else has already done it, then this becomes easier for you.

· Find out from others in forums, which programs are high paying and are working the best.

· Do not waste your time on programs that are just starting out.

· It is not easy, you will have to work if you intend to make money.

· Find as many resources as possible and read and learn about what others are doing.

· Determine the amount of time that you can spend each day or week promoting your affiliate programs.

· If you have a job, it is recommended that you continue working until you are at a comfortable income level to quit.

With so many people getting into affiliate marketing, because there is usually no cost to join the program, eighty percent of the revenue made is by twenty percent of the affiliate marketers. With effort, persistence, determination and drive, you too can be one of the people making the money online in affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Millions: Make a Fortune using Search Marketing on Google and Beyond

2008-04-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

Affiliate Millions: Make a Fortune using Search Marketing on Google and Beyond Earn Money Form Affilate Program , Earn Money Form You Home , Earn Money Form Sport , Earn Money Form Your Parent , Earn Money Form Your Pay Out Ean Money Online , Earn Money Form Sale Product Earn Money Trip , Earn Money Form Adsense Google ,and then get money

Affiliate Millions For more than a decade, the Internet has allowed people to make substantial amounts of money on both a full-time and part-time basis. Today, with even more online opportunities available than ever before, you can achieve a level of financial success that most people only dream about-and in Affiliate Millions, author Anthony Borelli will show you how. With the help of coauthor Greg Holden, Borelli will show you how to make thousands, and eventually tens of thousands, of dollars each month through the process of paid search marketing and affiliate advertising. Along the way, they'll also share the secrets to mastering this often-overlooked strategy and provide you with the tools and techniques needed to maximize your potential returns. Since making one million dollars through paid search marketing and affiliate advertising in his first full year of operations, Anthony Borelli has never looked back. Now, he wants to help you do the same. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, Affiliate Millions will introduce you to this profitable endeavor and show you how to make it work for you.

Free Traffic and Back Links for blogs

2008-04-25T01:04:00.000-07:00

When a service is free to try you should always give it a try.When a service gives free traffic,back links to your blog and a share of their Adsense revenue, as a blogger you should definitely give it a try.Well Blogsvine offers all that and more. The blogsvine administrators are not shy to advertise this fact which is evident from the big blue box in the home page. You need an Adsense account since you need to enter your Adsense publisher id to start earning.

The home page is pretty similar to other social bookmarking sites in the web with the most popular stories in the front page. At the time of writing the home page is dominated with technology and blogging related posts so its safe to say the most frequent users are bloggers and web site owners. I couldn’t find a place to specify what category interest me the most so I don’t think the content of the home page changes according to the user. But the categories are clearly visible and the navigation is easy so the user experience doesn’t suffer. One change I think that can improve the user experience is moving the top blogs today widget so its just after the Adsense block. This way a user who visits the site once a day can easily find out the top posts of the day.Well if you want to be really picky you can question the placement of the Adsense block since a leader board block can perform better than a side bar block.

Blogsvine have plenty of facilities available for bloggers as well. Signing up for the service is pretty straight forward and they even have a Wordpress plug in so that you can add a vote me button in your blog posts.And submitting your blog post or any post for that matter is pretty easy. All you have to do is add a Bookmarklet to your book marks and your ready to submit your posts. Next time you come across a interesting post all you have to is press the book mark and the post submission form is opened up for you.I found it a very easy and an efficient way to submit a post.

All that is good , but what about the traffic ? Well you want be getting lots of traffic yet since Its still in beta stage and there are not many users. But it has potential to be a great source of traffic and since its free to try you should definitely give it a try. Like any other social bookmarking site growing your network , submitting the content at the correct time and writing spicy titles can increase your traffic significantly.

Making Money from Selling Advertising Space

2008-04-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

f you would observe the company that delivers the daily paper to your doorstep for a business case study, you will come to learn that the newspaper publisher hires reporters, writers and other important staff to create the contents and deliver the papers to their readers.

In addition to the above mention, the publisher has to invest regularly in heavy duty machineries and tons of papers in printing tons of newspapers on a daily basis.

And in order to ensure that the newspapers are delivered on time, the publisher appoints agents at every part of the covered territory.

So, how does the newspaper company make money? It is obvious that selling a copy of the papers at less than a dollar would not even be able to even fund the operations.

The answer? Selling advertising spaces! You have definitely seen lots of advertisements in the newspaper. The publisher simply sells advertising space in the papers to advertisers who want to leverage their advertising efforts on the paper’s high readership.

On the same analogy, you can make money the exact way from your newsletter: simply by selling advertising space to prospective advertisers! If your mailing list size exceeds 1,000 (5,000 is recommended) subscribers and beyond, you can start selling advertising space for say, $10.00 per sponsor ad.

In this manner, you turn every issue you send out to your subscribers into a profit-pulling device. And since there is virtually no end to the stream of advertisers as products, services and businesses are cropping every single day in every industry imaginable, so are your money making opportunities.

iPhone Price Cuts in Europe Lift Apple Shares

2008-04-22T22:56:00.000-07:00

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) shares rose Wednesday as a Piper Jaffray analyst predicted promotional iPhone price cuts in the United Kingdom and Germany will pave the way for the release of a new iPhone model with 3G technology in June.

Apple shares rose US$4.69, or 3.2 percent, to $153.07. In the past year, the stock has traded between $89.60 and $202.96.

Piper analyst Gene Munster said in a client note that starting Wednesday, Carphone Warehouse and wireless carrier O2, which sell the iPhone in the UK, cut prices on the 8-gigabyte iPhone to 169 Pounds ($333) from 269 Pounds ($530).

Munster also noted that near the start of the month T-Mobile cut the price it charges in Germany for the same model to 99 euros ($157) from 399 euros ($631), with qualifying cell phone plans.

'Draining the Channel'

Both promotions will stop at the end of June, the analyst said, and he thinks they mean demand for the product is light in Europe and that carriers are "draining the channel" in advance of a new iPhone model that includes 3G, or third-generation technology.

Munster also noted that recent checks of Apple stores in the U.S. showed a constrained amount of 8-gigabyte and 16-gigabyte iPhones. This makes him believe the company is probably "pacing its remaining supply of phones by trickling units into its retail channel until the new model is released."

"While limited availability of iPhones would put downward pressure on iPhone units in the June quarter, we believe it would be more than offset by the price cuts in Europe and the launch of a new model in June," Munster said.

Potential iPhone Buyers

The analyst thinks that a new iPhone would include 3G technology, as well as a redesigned facade and starting price of $349 to $399.

"The addition of 3G technology to the iPhone is a meaningful improvement to the current generation iPhone models, particularly in Europe, where 3G is more prevalent," he said.

Munster believes there is a sizable group of potential iPhone buyers that are waiting for a new model to be released, which could also help sales of the product.

Study: Enterprises Betting Heavily on Web 2.0

2008-04-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

Big business likely will be spending US$4.6 billion a year on Web. 2.0 technologies by 2013, according to a new study by Forrester Research.

Spending on Web-based enterprise technologies, including social networking, RSS (really simple syndication), blogs, wikis, mashups, podcasting and widgets, will grow by 43 percent each year within the next five years, Forrester reports, pointing to Web 2.0 technologies representing a fundamentally new way to connect with customers and prospects while harnessing the collaborative power of employees.

An Enormous Effect

There are challenges moving forward, as companies adopt this technology, Young commented. One is the companies' own IT personnel being apprehensive about technology that they may feel is less secure.

"If we think about who implements technology with these enterprises, it's almost always IT, and IT guys can be very persnickety about what they consider safe and secure," he noted. "Making sure IT has brought in its own tools becomes a big part of it."

In addition, technology providers will be under price pressure, thanks to Web 2.0 tools that often are free to consumers. "The ability to get free, open source technology is going to have a big downward price pressure," Young added.

Another challenge is that enterprises will want to maintain control. "They want complete control and be able integrate some of it, while being able to decide which technology they want or don't want to use," he said.

By 2013, investment in customer-facing Web 2.0 technology will dwarf spending on internal collaboration software by nearly $1 billion.

"Social computing and Web 2.0 marketing are still in their infancy; and in general, the market is still in an experimentation phase," Young said. "In the long run, the effect of Web 2.0 will be enormous."

Google Announces Ad Manager

2008-04-21T00:14:00.000-07:00

Coinciding with Google closing the acquisition of rarely used ad network DoubleClick, today they announced the launch of a new Ad Manager service.

Google Ad Manager allows you to serve, rotate and target ads from AdSense, other ad networks and your own ads. It’s basically a cut down version of what Double Click offers larger publishers, giving you:

Inventory management
Yield optimization
Ad targeting
Trafficking, ad delivery, and order booking
Creatives and rich media management
Reporting
User interface navigation
Account administration

Unfortunately, I only have Google’s word for that, as it’s invite only at the moment. And the fact that the Ad Manager home page lists several “success stories” from apparently happy publishers is a bit odd too. It’s not even in public beta yet.

I do think that this will probably turn out to be a great solution for many bloggers (particularly those with 2 or more sites), but for now I’m going to stick with OpenAds (now OpenX) for the time being. I just don’t like the idea of putting all my eggs in one Google-shaped basket.

How to Make Money From Your Blog

2008-04-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

Some people have strong personal feelings with respect to making money from their blogs. If you think commercializing your blog is evil, immoral, unethical, uncool, lame, greedy, obnoxious, or anything along those lines, then don’t commercialize it.

If you have mixed feelings about monetizing your blog, then sort out those feelings first. If you think monetizing your site is wonderful, fine. If you think it’s evil, fine. But make up your mind before you seriously consider starting down this path. If you want to succeed, you must be congruent. Generating income from your blog is challenging enough — you don’t want to be dealing with self-sabotage at the same time. It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog — you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed. If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it. If, however, you find yourself full of doubts over whether this is the right path for you, you might find this article helpful: How Selfish Are You? It’s about balancing your needs with the needs of others

If you do decide to generate income from your blog, then don’t be shy about it. If you’re going to put up ads, then really put up ads. Don’t just stick a puny little ad square in a remote corner somewhere. If you’re going to request donations, then really request donations. Don’t put up a barely visible “Donate” link and pray for the best. If you’re going to sell products, then really sell them. Create or acquire the best quality products you can, and give your visitors compelling reasons to buy. If you’re going to do this, then fully commit to it. Don’t take a half-assed approach. Either be full-assed or no-assed.

You can reasonably expect that when you begin commercializing a free site, some people will complain, depending on how you do it. I launched this site in October 2004, and I began putting Google Adsense ads on the site in February 2005. There were some complaints, but I expected that — it was really no big deal. Less than 1 in 5,000 visitors actually sent me negative feedback. Most people who sent feedback were surprisingly supportive. Most of the complaints died off within a few weeks, and the site began generating income almost immediately, although it was pretty low — a whopping $53 the first month. If you’d like to see some month-by-month specifics, I posted my 2005 Adsense revenue figures earlier this year. Adsense is still my single best source of revenue for this site, although it’s certainly not my only source. More on that later…

Can you make a decent income online?

Yes, absolutely. At the very least, a high five-figure annual income is certainly an attainable goal for an individual working full-time from home. I’m making a healthy income from StevePavlina.com, and the site is only 19 months old… barely a toddler. If you have a day job, it will take longer to generate a livable income, but it can still be done part-time if you’re willing to devote a lot of your spare time to it. I’ve always done it full-time.

Can most people do it?

No, they can’t. I hope it doesn’t shock you to see a personal development web site use the dreaded C-word. But I happen to agree with those who say that 99% of people who try to generate serious income from their blogs will fail. The tagline for this site is “Personal Development for Smart People.” And unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook), smart people are a minority on this planet. So while most people can’t make a living this way, I would say that most smart people can. How do you know whether or not you qualify as smart? Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you have to ask the question, you aren’t.

If that last paragraph doesn’t flood my inbox with flames, I don’t know what will. OK, actually I do.

This kind of 99-1 ratio isn’t unique to blogging though. You’ll see it in any field with relatively low barriers to entry. What percentage of wannabe actors, musicians, or athletes ever make enough money from their passions to support themselves? It doesn’t take much effort to start a blog these days — almost anyone can do it. Talent counts for something, and the talent that matters in blogging is intelligence. But that just gets you in the door. You need to specifically apply your intelligence to one particular talent. And the best words I can think of to describe that particular talent are: web savvy.

If you are very web savvy, or if you can learn to become very web savvy, then you have an excellent shot of making enough money from your blog to cover all your living expenses… and then some. But if becoming truly web savvy is more than your gray matter can handle, then I’ll offer this advice: Don’t quit your day job.

Web savvy

What do I mean by web savvy? You don’t need to be a programmer, but you need a decent functional understanding of a variety of web technologies. What technologies are “key” will depend on the nature of your blog and your means of monetization. But generally speaking I’d list these elements as significant:

blog publishing software
HTML/CSS
blog comments (and comment spam)
RSS/syndication
feed aggregators
pings
trackbacks
full vs. partial feeds
blog carnivals (for kick-starting your blog’s traffic)
search engines
search engine optimization (SEO)
page rank
social bookmarking
tagging
contextual advertising
affiliate programs
traffic statistics
email

Optional: podcasting, instant messaging, PHP or other web scripting languages.

I’m sure I missed a few due to familiarity blindness. If scanning such a list makes your head spin, I wouldn’t recommend trying to make a full-time living from blogging just yet. Certainly you can still blog, but you’ll be at a serious disadvantage compared to someone who’s more web savvy, so don’t expect to achieve stellar results until you expand your knowledge base.

If you want to sell downloadable products such as ebooks, then you can add e-commerce, SSL, digital delivery, fraud prevention, and online databases to the list. Again, you don’t need to be a programmer; you just need a basic understanding of these technologies. Even if you hire someone else to handle the low-level implementation, it’s important to know what you’re getting into. You need to be able to trust your strategic decisions, and you won’t be able to do that if you’re a General who doesn’t know what a gun is.

A lack of understanding is a major cause of failure in the realm of online income generation. For example, if you’re clueless about search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll probably cripple your search engine rankings compared to someone who understands SEO well. But you can’t consider each technology in isolation. You need to understand the connections and trade-offs between them. Monetizing a blog is a balancing act. You may need to balance the needs of yourself, your visitors, search engines, those who link to you, social bookmarking sites, advertisers, affiliate programs, and others. Seemingly minor decisions like what to title a web page are significant. In coming up with the title of this article, I have to take all of these potential viewers into consideration. I want a title that is attractive to human visitors, drives reasonable search engine traffic, yields relevant contextual ads, fits the theme of the site, and encourages linking and social bookmarking. And most importantly I want each article to provide genuine value to my visitors. I do my best to create titles for my articles that balance these various needs. Often that means abandoning cutesy or clever titles in favor of direct and comprehensible ones. It’s little skills like these that help drive sustainable traffic growth month after month. Missing out on just this one skill is enough to cripple your traffic. And there are dozens of these types of skills that require web savvy to understand, respect, and apply.

This sort of knowledge is what separates the 1% from the 99%. Both groups may work just as hard, but the 1% is getting much better results for their efforts. It normally doesn’t take me more than 60 seconds to title an article, but a lot of experience goes into those 60 seconds. You really just have to learn these ideas once; after that you can apply them routinely.

Whenever you come across a significant web technology you don’t understand, look it up on Google or Wikipedia, and dive into it long enough to acquire a basic understanding of it. To make money from blogging it’s important to be something of a jack of all trades. Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” That may be true, but you don’t need to master any of these technologies — you just have to be good enough to use them. It’s the difference between being able to drive a car vs. becoming an auto mechanic. Strive to achieve functional knowledge, and then move on to something else. Even though I’m an experienced programmer, I don’t know how many web technologies actually work. I don’t really care. I can still use them to generate results. In the time it would take me to fully understand one new technology, I can achieve sufficient functional knowledge to apply several of them.

Thriving on change

Your greatest risk isn’t that you’ll make mistakes that will cost you. Your greatest risk is that you’ll miss opportunities. You need an entrepreneurial mindset, not an employee mindset. Don’t be too concerned with the risk of loss — be more concerned with the risk of missed gains. It’s what you don’t know and what you don’t do that will hurt you the worst. Blogging is cheap. Your expenses and financial risk should be minimal. Your real concern should be missing opportunities that would have made you money very easily. You need to develop antennae that can listen out for new opportunities. I highly recommend subscribing to Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog — Darren is great at uncovering new income-generating opportunities for bloggers.

The blogosphere changes rapidly, and change creates opportunity. It takes some brains to decipher these opportunities and to take advantage of them before they disappear. If you hesitate to capitalize on something new and exciting, you may simply miss out. Many opportunities are temporary. And every day you don’t implement them, you’re losing money you could have earned. And you’re also missing opportunities to build traffic, grow your audience, and benefit more people.

I used to get annoyed by the rapid rate of change of web technologies. It’s even more rapid than what I saw when I worked in the computer gaming industry. And the rate of change is accelerating. Almost every week now I learn about some fascinating new web service or idea that could potentially lead to big changes down the road. Making sense of them is a full-time job in itself. But I learned to love this insane pace. If I’m confused then everyone else is probably confused too. And people who only do this part-time will be very confused. If they aren’t confused, then they aren’t keeping up. So if I can be just a little bit faster and understand these technologies just a little bit sooner, then I can capitalize on some serious opportunities before the barriers to entry become too high. Even though confusion is uncomfortable, it’s really a good thing for a web entrepreneur. This is what creates the space for a college student to earn $1,000,000 online in just a few months with a clever idea. Remember this isn’t a zero-sum game. Don’t let someone else’s success make you feel diminished or jealous. Let it inspire you instead.

What’s your overall income-generation strategy?

I don’t want to insult anyone, but most people are utterly clueless when it comes to generating income from their blogs. They slap things together haphazardly with no rhyme or reason and hope to generate lots of money. While I’m a strong advocate of the ready-fire-aim approach, that strategy does require that you eventually aim. Ready-fire-fire-fire-fire will just create a mess.

Take a moment to articulate a basic income-generating strategy for your site. If you aren’t good at strategy, then just come up with a general philosophy for how you’re going to generate income. You don’t need a full business plan, just a description of how you plan to get from $0 per month to whatever your income goal is. An initial target goal I used when I first started this site was $3000 per month. It’s a somewhat arbitrary figure, but I knew if I could reach $3000 per month, I could certainly push it higher, and $3000 is enough income that it’s going to make a meaningful difference in my finances. I reached that level 15 months after launching the site (in December 2005). And since then it’s continued to increase nicely. Blogging income is actually quite easy to maintain. It’s a lot more secure than a regular job. No one can fire me, and if one source of income dries up, I can always add new ones. We’ll address multiple streams of income soon…

Are you going to generate income from advertising, affiliate commissions, product sales, donations, or something else? Maybe you want a combination of these things. However you decide to generate income, put your basic strategy down in writing. I took 15 minutes to create a half-page summary of my monetization strategy. I only update it about once a year and review it once a month. This isn’t difficult, but it helps me stay focused on where I’m headed. It also allows me to say no to opportunities that are inconsistent with my plan.

Refer to your monetization strategy (or philosophy) when you need to make design decisions for your web site. Although you may have multiple streams of income, decide which type of income will be your primary source, and design your site around that. Do you need to funnel people towards an order form, or will you place ads all over the site? Different monetization strategies suggest different design approaches. Think about what specific action you want your visitors to eventually take that will generate income for you, and design your site accordingly.

When devising your income strategy, feel free to cheat. Don’t re-invent the wheel. Copy someone else’s strategy that you’re convinced would work for you too. Do NOT copy anyone’s content or site layout (that’s copyright infringement), but take note of how they’re making money. I decided to monetize this site with advertising and affiliate income after researching how various successful bloggers generated income. Later I added donations as well. This is an effective combo.

Traffic, traffic, traffic

Assuming you feel qualified to take on the challenge of generating income from blogging (and I haven’t scared you away yet), the three most important things you need to monetize your blog are traffic, traffic, and traffic.

Just to throw out some figures, last month (April 2006), this site received over 1.1 million visitors and over 2.4 million page views. That’s almost triple what it was just six months ago.

Why is traffic so important? Because for most methods of online income generation, your income is a function of traffic. If you double your traffic, you’ll probably double your income (assuming your visitor demographics remain fairly consistent). You can screw almost everything else up, but if you can generate serious traffic, it’s really hard to fail. With sufficient traffic the realistic worst case is that you’ll eventually be able to monetize your web site via trial and error (as long as you keep those visitors coming).

When I first launched this blog, I knew that traffic building was going to be my biggest challenge. All of my plans hinged on my ability to build traffic. If I couldn’t build traffic, it was going to be very difficult to succeed. So I didn’t even try to monetize my site for the first several months. I just focused on traffic building. Even after 19 months, traffic building is still the most important part of my monetization plan. For my current traffic levels, I know I’m undermonetizing my site, but that’s OK. Right now it’s more important to me to keep growing the site, and I’m optimizing the income generation as I go along.

Traffic is the primary fuel of online income generation. More visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more donations, more consulting leads, and more of whatever else that generates income for you. And it also means you’re helping more and more people.

With respect to traffic, you should know that in many respects, the rich do get richer. High traffic leads to even more traffic-building opportunities that just aren’t accessible for low-traffic sites. On average at least 20 bloggers add new links to my site every day, my articles can easily surge to the top of social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and I’m getting more frequent requests for radio interviews. Earlier this year I was featured in USA Today and in Self Magazine, which collectively have millions of readers. Journalists are finding me by doing Google searches on topics I’ve written about. These opportunities were not available to me when I was first starting out. Popular sites have a serious advantage. The more traffic you have, the more you can attract.

If you’re intelligent and web savvy, you should also be able to eventually build a high-traffic web site. And you’ll be able to leverage that traffic to build even more traffic.

How to build traffic

Now if traffic is so crucial, how do you build it up to significant levels if you’re starting from rock bottom?

I’ve already written a lengthy article on this topic, so I’ll refer you there: How to Build a High Traffic Web Site (or Blog). If you don’t have time to read it now, feel free to bookmark it or print it out for later. That article covers my general philosophy of traffic-building, which centers on creating content that provides genuine value to your visitors. No games or gimmicks.

There is one other important traffic-building tip I’ll provide here though.

Blog Carnivals. Take full advantage of blog carnivals when you’re just starting out (click the previous link and read the FAQ there to learn what carnivals are if you don’t already know). Periodically submit your best blog posts to the appropriate carnivals for your niche. Carnivals are easy ways to get links and traffic, and best of all, they’re free. Submitting only takes minutes if you use a multi-carnvival submission form. Do NOT spam the carnivals with irrelevant material — only submit to the carnivals that are a match for your content.

In my early traffic-building days, I’d do carnivals submissions once a week, and it helped a great deal in going from nothing to about 50,000 visitors per month. You still have to produce great content, but carnivals give you a free shot at marketing your unknown blog. Free marketing is precisely the kind of opportunity you don’t want to miss. Carnivals are like an open-mic night at a comedy club — they give amateurs a chance to show off their stuff. I still submit to certain carnivals every once in a while, but now my traffic is so high that relatively speaking, they don’t make much difference anymore. Just to increase my traffic by 1% in a month, I need 11,000 new visitors, and even the best carnivals don’t push that much traffic. But you can pick up dozens or even hundreds of new subscribers from each round of carnival submissions, so it’s a great place to start. Plus it’s very easy.

If your traffic isn’t growing month after month, does it mean you’re doing something wrong? Most likely you aren’t doing enough things right. Again, making mistakes is not the issue. Missing opportunities is.

Will putting ads on your site hurt your traffic?

Here’s a common fear I hear from people who are considering monetizing their web sites:

Putting ads on my site will cripple my traffic. The ads will drive people away, and they’ll never come back.

Well, in my experience this is absolutely, positively, and otherwise completely and totally… FALSE. It’s just not true. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put ads on my site. Nothing. Guess what happened to my traffic when I put up more ads and donation links. Nothing. I could detect no net effect on my traffic whatsoever. Traffic continued increasing at the same rate it did before there were ads on my site. In fact, it might have even helped me a little, since some bloggers actually linked to my site just to point out that they didn’t like my ad layout. I’ll leave it up to you to form your own theories about this. It’s probably because there’s so much advertising online already that even though some people will complain when a free site puts up ads, if they value the content, they’ll still come back, regardless of what they say publicly.

Most mature people understand it’s reasonable for a blogger to earn income from his/her work. I think I’m lucky in that my audience tends to be very mature — immature people generally aren’t interested in personal development. To create an article like this takes serious effort, not to mention the hard-earned experience that’s required to write it. This article alone took me over 15 hours of writing and editing. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to earn an income from such work. If you get no value from it, you don’t pay anything. What could be more fair than that? The more income this blog generates, the more I can put into it. For example, I used some of the income to buy podcasting equipment and added a podcast to the site. I’ve recorded 13 episodes so far. The podcasts are all ad-free. I’m also planning to add some additional services to this site in the years ahead. More income = better service.

At the time of this writing, my site is very ad-heavy. Some people point this out to me as if I’m not aware of it: “You know, Steve. Your web site seems to contain an awful lot of ads.” Of course I’m aware of it. I’m the one who put the ads there. There’s a reason I have this configuration of ads. They’re effective! People keep clicking on them. If they weren’t effective, I’d remove them right away and try something else.

I do avoid putting up ads that I personally find annoying when I see them on other sites, including pop-ups and interstitials (stuff that flies across your screen). Even though they’d make me more money, in my opinion they degrade the visitor experience too much.

I also provide two ad-free outlets, so if you really don’t like ads, you can actually read my content without ads. First, I provide a full-text RSS feed, and at least for now it’s ad-free. I do, however, include a donation request in the bottom of my feeds.

If you want to see some actual traffic data, take a look at the 2005 traffic growth chart. I first put ads on the site in February 2005, and although the chart doesn’t cover pre-February traffic growth, the growth rate was very similar before then. For an independent source, you can also look at my traffic chart on Alexa. You can select different Range options to go further back in time.

Multiple streams of income

You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket. Think multiple streams of income. On this site I actually have six different streams of income. Can you count them all? Here’s a list:

Google Adsense ads (pay per click and pay per impression advertising)
Donations (via PayPal or snail mail — yes, some people do mail a check)
Text Link Ads (sold for a fixed amount per month)
Chitika eMiniMalls ads (pay per click)
Affiliate programs like Amazon and LinkShare (commission on products sold, mostly books)
Advertising sold to individual advertisers (three-month campaigns or longer)

Note: If you’re reading this article a while after its original publication date, then this list is likely to change. I frequently experiment with different streams.

Adsense is my biggest single source of income, but some of the others do pretty well too. Every stream generates more than $100/month.

My second biggest income stream is actually donations. My average donation is about $10, and I’ve received a number of $100 donations too. It only took me about an hour to set this up via PayPal. So even if your content is free like mine, give your visitors a means to voluntarily contribute if they wish. It’s win-win. I’m very grateful for the visitor support. It’s a nice form of feedback too, since I notice that certain articles produced a surge in donations — this tells me I’m hitting the mark and giving people genuine value.

These aren’t my only streams of income though. I’ve been earning income online since 1995. With my computer games business, I have direct sales, royalty income, some advertising income, affiliate income, and donations (from the free articles). And if you throw in my wife’s streams of income, it gets really ridiculous: advertising, direct book sales, book sales through distributors, web consulting, affiliate income, more Adsense income, and probably a few sources I forgot. Suffice it to say we receive a lot of paychecks. Some of them are small, but they add up. It’s also extremely low risk — if one source of income dries up, we just expand existing sources or create new ones. I encourage you to think of your blog as a potential outlet for multiple streams of income too.

Automated income

With the exception of #6, all of these income sources are fully automated. I don’t have to do anything to maintain them except deposit checks, and in most cases I don’t even have to do that because the money is automatically deposited to my bank account.

I love automated income. With this blog I currently have no sales, no employees, no products, no inventory, no credit card processing, no fraud, and no customers. And yet I’m still able to generate a reasonable (and growing) income.

Why get a regular job and trade your time for money when you can let technology do all that work for you? Imagine how it would feel to wake up each morning, go to your computer, and check how much money you made while you were sleeping. It’s a really nice situation to be in.

Blogging software and hardware

I use WordPress for this blog, and I highly recommend it. Wordpress has lots of features and a solid interface. And you can’t beat its price — free.

The rest of this site is custom-coded HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL. I’m a programmer, so I coded it all myself. I could have just as easily used an existing template, but I wanted a simple straightforward design for this site, and I wanted the look of the blog to match the rest of the site. Plus I use PHP and MySQL to do some creative things outside the blog, like the Million Dollar Experiment.

I don’t recommend using a hosted service like Blogger if you want to seriously monetize your blog. You don’t get enough control. If you don’t have your own URL, you’re tying yourself to a service you don’t own and building up someone else’s asset. You want to build page rank and links for your own URL, not someone else’s. Plus you want sufficient control over the layout and design of your site, so you can jump on any opportunities that require low-level changes. If you use a hosted blog, you’re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk. It’s a bit more work up front to self-host, but it’s less risky in the long run.

Web hosting is cheap, and there are plenty of good hosts to choose from. I recommend Pair.com for a starter hosting account. They aren’t the cheapest, but they’re very reliable and have decent support. I know many online businesses that host with them, and my wife refers most of her clients there.

As your traffic grows you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS). This web site is hosted by ServInt. I’ve hosted this site with them since day one, and they’ve been a truly awesome host. What I like most about them is that they have a smooth upgrade path as my traffic keeps growing. I’ve gone through several upgrades with them already, and all have been seamless. The nice thing about having your own server is that you can put as many sites on it as the server can handle. I have several sites running on my server, and it doesn’t cost me any additional hosting fees to add another site.

Comments or no comments

When I began this blog, I started out with comments enabled. As traffic grew, so did the level of commenting. Some days there were more than 100 comments. I noticed I was spending more and more time managing comments, and I began to question whether it was worth the effort. It became clear that with continued traffic growth, I was going to have to change my approach or die in comment hell. The personal development topics I write about can easily generate lots of questions and discussion. Just imagine how many follow-up questions an article like this could generate. With tens of thousands of readers, it would be insane. Also, nuking comment spam was chewing up more and more of my time as well.

But after looking through my stats, I soon realized that only a tiny fraction of visitors ever look at comments at all, and an even smaller fraction ever post a comment (well below 1% of total visitors). That made my decision a lot easier, and in October 2005, I turned blog comments off. In retrospect that was one of my best decisions. I wish I had done it sooner.

If you’d like to read the full details of how I came to this decision, I’ve written about it previously: Blog Comments and More on Blog Comments.

Do you need comments to build traffic? Obviously not. Just like when I put up ads, I saw no decline in traffic when I turned off comments. In fact, I think it actually helped me. Although I turned off comments, I kept trackbacks enabled, so I started getting more trackbacks. If people wanted to publicly comment on something I’d written, they had to do so on their own blogs and post a link. So turning off comments didn’t kill the discussion — it just took it off site. The volume of trackbacks is far more reasonable, and I can easily keep up with it. I even pop onto other people’s sites and post comments now and then, but I don’t feel obligated to participate because the discussion isn’t on my own site.

I realize people have very strong feelings about blog comments and community building. Many people hold the opinion that a blog without comments just isn’t a blog. Personally I think that’s utter nonsense — the data just doesn’t support it. The vast majority of blog readers neither read nor post comments. Only a very tiny and very vocal group even care about comments. Some bloggers say that having comments helps build traffic, but I saw no evidence of that. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. Managing comments detracts from writing new posts, and it’s far better to get a trackback and a link from someone else’s blog vs. a comment on your own blog. As long-term readers of my blog know, when faced with ambiguity, my preference is to try both alternatives and compare real results with real results. After doing that my conclusion is this: No comment.

Now if you want to support comments for non-traffic-building reasons like socializing or making new contacts, I say go for it. Just don’t assume that comments are necessary or even helpful in building traffic unless you directly test this assumption yourself.

Build a complete web site, not just a blog

Don’t limit your web site to just a blog. Feel free to build it out. Although most of my traffic goes straight to this blog, there’s a whole site built around it. For example, the home page of this site presents an overview of all the sections of the site, including the blog, article section, audio content, etc. A lot of people still don’t know what a blog is, so if your whole site is your blog, those people may be a little confused.

Testing and optimization

In the beginning you won’t know which potential streams of income will work best for you. So try everything that’s reasonable for you. If you learn about a new potential income stream, test it for a month or two, and measure the results for yourself. Feel free to cut streams that just aren’t working for you, and put more effort into optimizing those streams that show real promise.

A few months ago, I signed up for an account with Text Link Ads. It took about 20 minutes. They sell small text ads on my site, split the revenue with me 50-50, and deposit my earnings directly into my PayPal account. This month I’ll make around $600 from them, possibly more if they sell some new ads during the month. And it’s totally passive. If I never tried this, I’d miss out on this easy extra income.

For many months I’ve been tweaking the Adsense ads on this site. I tried different colors, sizes, layouts, etc. I continue to experiment now and then, but I have a hard time beating the current layout. It works very well for me. Adsense doesn’t allow publishers to reveal specific CPM and CTR data, but mine are definitely above par. They started out in the gutter though. You can easily double or triple your Adsense revenue by converting a poor layout into a better one. This is the main reason why during my first year of income, my traffic grew at 20% per month, but my income grew at 50% per month. Frequent testing and optimization had a major positive impact. Many of my tests failed, and some even made my income go down, but I’m glad I did all that testing. If I didn’t then my Adsense income would only be a fraction of what it is now.

It’s cheap to experiment. Every new advertising or affiliate service I’ve tried so far has been free to sign up. Often I can add a new income stream in less than an hour and then wait a month to see how it does. If it flops then at least I learned something. If it does well, wonderful. As a blogger who wants to generate income, you should always be experimenting with new income streams. If you haven’t tried anything new in six months, you’re almost certainly missing some golden opportunities. Every blog is different, so you need to test things for yourself to see what works for you. Failure is impossible here — you either succeed, or you learn something.

Pick your niche, but make sure it isn’t too small

Pick a niche for your blog where you have some significant expertise, but make sure it’s a big enough niche that you can build significant traffic. My wife runs a popular vegan web site. She does pretty well within her niche, but it’s just not a very big niche. On the other hand, my topic of personal development has much broader appeal. Potentially anyone can be interested in improving themselves, and I have the flexibility to write about topics like productivity, self-discipline, relationships, spirituality, health, and more. It’s all relevant to personal development.

Pick a niche that you’re passionate about. I’ve written 400+ articles so far, and I still feel like I’m just getting started. I’m not feeling burnt out at all. I chose to build a personal development site because I’m very knowledgeable, experienced, and passionate about this subject. I couldn’t imagine a better topic for me to write about.

Don’t pick a niche just because you think it will make you money. I see many bloggers try to do that, and it’s almost invariably a recipe for failure. Think about what you love most, and then find a way to make your topic appealing to a massive global audience. Consider what will provide genuine value to your visitors. It’s all about what you can give.

A broad enough topic creates more potential advertising partners. If I keep writing on the same subtopic over and over, I may exhaust the supply of advertisers and hit an income ceiling. But by writing on many different topics under the same umbrella, I widen the field of potential advertisers. And I expand the appeal of my site at the same time.

Make it clear to your visitors what your blog/site is about. Often I visit a blog with a clever title and tagline that reveals nothing about the site’s contents. In that case I generally assume it’s just a personal journal and move on. I love to be clever too, but I’ve found that clarity yields better results than cleverness.

Posting frequency and length

Bloggers have different opinions about the right posting length and frequency. Some bloggers say it’s best to write short (250-750 word) entries and post 20x per week or more. I’ve seen that strategy work for some, but I decided to do pretty much the opposite. I usually aim for about 3-5 posts per week, but my posts are much longer (typically 1000-2000 words, sometimes longer than 5000 words, including the monster you’re reading right now). That’s because rather than throwing out lots of short tips, I prefer to write more exhaustive, in-depth articles. I find that deeper articles are better at generating links and referrals and building traffic. It’s true that fewer people will take the time to read them, but those that do will enjoy some serious take-away value. I don’t believe in creating disposable content just to increase page views and ad impressions. If I’m not truly helping my visitors, I’m wasting their time.

Expenses

Blogging is dirt cheap.

I don’t spend money on advertising or promotion, so my marketing expenses are nil. Essentially my content is my marketing. If you like this article, you’ll probably find many more gems in the archives.

My only real expenses for this site are the hosting (I currently pay $149/month for the web server and bandwidth) and the domain name renewal ($9/year). Nearly all of the income this site generates is profit. This trickles down to my personal income, so of course it’s subject to income tax. But the actual business expenses are minimal.

The reason I pay so much for hosting is simply due to my traffic. If my traffic were much lower, I could run this site on a cheap shared hosting account. A database-driven blog can be a real resource hog at high traffic levels. The same goes for online forums. As traffic continues to increase, my hosting bill will go up too, but it will still be a tiny fraction of total income.

Perks

Depending on the nature of your blog, you may be able to enjoy some nice perks as your traffic grows. Almost every week I get free personal development books in the mail (for potential review on this site). Sometimes the author will send it directly; other times the publisher will ship me a batch of books. I also receive CDs, DVDs, and other personal development products. It’s hard to keep up sometimes (I have a queue of about two dozen books right now), but I am a voracious consumer of such products, so I do plow through them as fast as I can. When something strikes me as worthy of mention, I do indeed write up a review to share it with my visitors. I have very high standards though, so I review less than 10% of what I receive. I’ve read over 700 books in this field and listened to dozens of audio programs, so I’m pretty good at filtering out the fluff. As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s a great deal of self-help fluff out there.

My criteria for reviewing a product on this site is that it has to be original, compelling, and profound. If it doesn’t meet these criteria, I don’t review it, even if there’s a generous affiliate program. I’m not going to risk abusing my relationship with my visitors just to make a quick buck. Making money is not my main motivation for running this site. My main motivation is to grow and to help others grow, so that always comes first.

Your blog can also gain you access to certain events. A high-traffic blog becomes a potential media outlet, so you can actually think of yourself as a member of the press, which indeed you are. In a few days, my wife and I will be attending a three-day seminar via a free press pass. The regular price for these tickets is $500 per person. I’ll be posting a full review of the seminar next week. I’ve been to this particular seminar in 2004, so I already have high expectations for it. Dr. Wayne Dyer will be the keynote speaker.

I’m also using the popularity of this blog to set up interviews with people I’ve always wanted to learn more about. This is beautifully win-win because it creates value for me, my audience, and the person being interviewed. Recently I posted an exclusive interview with multi-millionaire Marc Allen as well as a review of his latest book, and I’m lining up other interviews as well. It isn’t hard to convince someone to do an interview in exchange for so much free exposure.

Motivation

I don’t think you’ll get very far if money is your #1 motivation for blogging. You have to be driven by something much deeper. Money is just frosting. It’s the cake underneath that matters. My cake is that I absolutely love personal development – not the phony “fast and easy” junk you see on infomercials, but real growth that makes us better human beings. That’s my passion. Pouring money on top of it just adds more fuel to the fire, but the fire is still there with or without the money.

What’s your passion? What would you blog about if you were already set for life?

Blogging lifestyle

Perhaps the best part of generating income from blogging is the freedom it brings. I work from home and set my own hours. I write whenever I’m inspired to write (which for me is quite often). Plus I get to spend my time doing what I love most — working on personal growth and helping others do the same. There’s nothing I’d rather do than this.

Perhaps it’s true that 99 out of 100 people can’t make a decent living from blogging yet. But maybe you’re among the 1 in 100 who can.

articles from http://www.stevepavlina.com

Customize your Firefox browser with Personas

2008-04-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

f you like to customize your applications' appearance, then Firefox themes probably haven't impressed you. Although there are hundreds of themes available, typically all they allow users to do is change the icons and background color of your browser -- not too exciting. Personas for Firefox offers a new way to customize the browser. Though the project was quietly introduced last year, it recently moved into Mozilla Labs, where work has begun in earnest to give users more than just a way to change icons from blue to green. While right now Personas aren't much more than fancy skins, they're easy to change on the fly, and the prototype shows that Mozilla plans to give Firefox users more customization options than ever....

To start using Personas, you'll need to get the basic plugin. It installs as easily as any other plugin or extension, and requires a browser restart. Personas places a tiny icon in the lower left corner of your Firefox window that you can click to change the browser's look whenever the mood strikes.There are about 50 Personas to choose from, and more are being regularly added. Skins are grouped into four categories -- Most Popular, Recent, New, and All -- and the last category contains subgroups like Nature, Scenery, Sports, and Holidays.

Click on the skin of your choice and it appears instantly in the header and footer of your browser window, no restart necessary. The entire top section of the browser will be skinned, including the area behind the tabs, so if you use the Colorful Tabs or ColorTabs add-ons, some tabs may be difficult to see depending on what color Persona you choose.

Even more problematic is that Firefox's Forward and Back buttons tend to disappear with many of the skins. Since Personas don't replace your existing Firefox theme, the only workaround to this problem seems to be to find through trial and error a skin and theme combination that work well together. Both the source code and documentation on how to create your own Persona are available online. While it's not possible to upload your custom-made Persona yet (something Mozilla says is coming "very soon"), community members regularly show off .JPGs of their designs on a specially created thread on Mozilla Lab's message boards.

To create a Persona for your browser, start by creating header and footer images -- 3000x200 and 3000x100 pixels respectively -- and save them to your hard drive. Next, navigate to the Persona settings via about:config. Scroll down to extensions.persona.editor and change the setting from disabled to manual, then close the Firefox editor. Click on the Persona icon at the bottom of your Firefox browser window and select "Custom Persona Editor" from the menu. Navigate to the images you saved earlier, and watch your new Persona appear at the top of your browser window.

There's not much practical use for Firefox Personas at this point beyond adding a bit more eye candy to an otherwise drab browser window. But Personas does show that Mozilla is continuing to take steps toward a completely customizable browsing experience..

Understanding Web Design

2008-04-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

We get better design when we understand our medium. Yet even at this late cultural hour, many people don’t understand web design. Among them can be found some of our most distinguished business and cultural leaders, including a few who possess a profound grasp of design—except as it relates to the web.

Some who don’t understand web design nevertheless have the job of creating websites or supervising web designers and developers. Others who don’t understand web design are nevertheless professionally charged with evaluating it on behalf of the rest of us. Those who understand the least make the most noise. They are the ones leading charges, slamming doors, and throwing money—at all the wrong people and things.

If we want better sites, better work, and better-informed clients, the need to educate begins with us.

Preferring real estate to architecture

It’s hard to understand web design when you don’t understand the web. And it’s hard to understand the web when those who are paid to explain it either don’t get it themselves, or are obliged for commercial reasons to suppress some of what they know, emphasizing the Barnumesque over the brilliant.

The news media too often gets it wrong. Too much internet journalism follows the money; too little covers art and ideas. Driven by editors pressured by publishers worried about vanishing advertisers, even journalists who understand the web spend most of their time writing about deals and quoting dealmakers. Many do this even when the statement they’re quoting is patently self-serving and ludicrous—like Zuckerberg’s Law.

It’s not that Zuckerberg’s not news; and it’s not that business isn’t some journalists’ beat. But focusing on business to the exclusion of all else is like reporting on real estate deals while ignoring architecture.

And one tires of the news narrative’s one-dimensionalism. In 1994, the web was weird and wild, they told us. In ‘99 it was a kingmaker; in ‘01, a bust. In ‘02, news folk discovered blogs; in ‘04, perspiring guest bloggers on CNN explained how citizen journalists were reinventing news and democracy and would determine who won that year’s presidential election. I forget how that one turned out.

When absurd predictions die ridiculous deaths, nobody resigns from the newsroom, they just throw a new line into the water—like marketers replacing a slogan that tanked. After decades of news commoditization, what’s amazing is how many good reporters there still are, and how hard many try to lay accurate information before the public. Sometimes you can almost hear it beneath the roar of the grotesque and the exceptional.

The sustainable circle of self-regard

News media are not the only ones getting it wrong. Professional associations get it wrong every day, and commemorate their wrongness with an annual festival. Each year, advertising and design magazines and professional organizations hold contests for “new media design” judged by the winners of last year’s competitions. That they call it “new media design” tells them nothing and you and me everything.

Although there are exceptions, for the most part the creators of winning entries see the web as a vehicle for advertising and marketing campaigns in which the user passively experiences Flash and video content. For the active user, there is gaming—but what you and I think of as active web use is limited to clicking a “Digg this page” button.

The winning sites look fabulous as screen shots in glossy design annuals. When the winners become judges, they reward work like their own. Thus sites that behave like TV and look good between covers continue to be created, and a generation of clients and art directors thinks that stuff is the cream of web design.

Design critics get it wrong, too

People who are smart about print can be less bright about the web. Their critical faculties, honed to perfection during the Kerning Wars, smash to bits against the barricades of our profession.

The less sophisticated lament on our behalf that we are stuck with ugly fonts. They wonder aloud how we can enjoy working in a medium that offers us less than absolute control over every atom of the visual experience. What they are secretly asking is whether or not we are real designers. (They suspect that we are not.) But these are the juniors, the design students and future critics. Their opinions are chiefly of interest to their professors, and one prays they have good ones.

More sophisticated critics understand that the web is not print and that limitations are part of every design discipline. Yet even these eggheads will sometimes succumb to fallacious comparatives. (I’ve done it myself, although long ago and strictly for giggles.) Where are the masterpieces of web design, these critics cry. That Google Maps might be as representative of our age as the Mona Lisa was of Leonardo’s—and as brilliant, in its way—satisfies many of us as an answer, but might not satisfy the design critic in search of a direct parallel to, oh, I don’t know, let’s say Milton Glaser’s iconic Bob Dylan poster.

Typography, architecture, and web design

The trouble is, web design, although it employs elements of graphic design and illustration, does not map to them. If one must compare the web to other media, typography would be a better choice. For a web design, like a typeface, is an environment for someone else’s expression. Stick around and I’ll tell you which site design is like Helvetica.

Architecture (the kind that uses steel and glass and stone) is also an apt comparison—or at least, more apt than poster design. The architect creates planes and grids that facilitate the dynamic behavior of people. Having designed, the architect relinquishes control. Over time, the people who use the building bring out and add to the meaning of the architect’s design.

Of course, all comparisons are gnarly by nature. What is the “London Calling” of television? Who is the Jane Austen of automotive design? Madame Butterfly is not less beautiful for having no car chase sequence, peanut butter no less tasty because it cannot dance.

So what is web design?

Web design is not book design, it is not poster design, it is not illustration, and the highest achievements of those disciplines are not what web design aims for. Although websites can be delivery systems for games and videos, and although those delivery systems can be lovely to look at, such sites are exemplars of game design and video storytelling, not of web design. So what is web design?

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Let’s repeat that, with emphasis:

She walks in beauty

Great web designs are like great typefaces: some, like Rosewood, impose a personality on whatever content is applied to them. Others, like Helvetica, fade into the background (or try to), magically supporting whatever tone the content provides. (We can argue tomorrow whether Helvetica is really as neutral as water.)

Which web design is like that? For one, Douglas Bowman’s white “Minima” layout for Blogger, used by literally millions of writers—and it feels like it was designed for each of them individually. That is great design.

Great web designs are like great buildings. All office buildings, however distinctive, have lobbies and bathrooms and staircases. Websites, too, share commonalities.

Although a great site design is completely individual, it is also a great deal like other site designs that perform similar functions. The same is true of great magazine and newspaper layouts, which differ from banal magazine and newspaper layouts in a hundred subtle details. Few celebrate great magazine layouts, yet millions consciously or unconsciously appreciate them, and nobody laments that they are not posters.

The inexperienced or insufficiently thoughtful designer complains that too many websites use grids, too many sites use columns, too many sites are “boxy.” Efforts to avoid boxiness have been around since 1995; while occasionally successful, they have most often produced aesthetically wretched and needlessly unusable designs.

The experienced web designer, like the talented newspaper art director, accepts that many projects she works on will have headers and columns and footers. Her job is not to whine about emerging commonalities but to use them to create pages that are distinctive, natural, brand-appropriate, subtly memorable, and quietly but unmistakably engaging.

If she achieves all that and sweats the details, her work will be beautiful. If not everyone appreciates this beauty—if not everyone understands web design—then let us not cry for web design, but for those who cannot see.

llustration by Kevin Cornell

The website as a sales and marketing tool

2008-04-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

A website is a sales and marketing tool, and like any other form of advertising or marketing, there are considerations to be made when contemplating a new website. An important consideration is always money, but this may not be the most important aspect of your website. How important the cost of the website is may be decided by your specific requirements and goals. There are companies that provide inexpensive website design packages that fit most budgets. Other companies offer higher end, customized products. Which direction you go will be based on your requirements, budget, and goals.

This article lays out some of the considerations that must be made to build an effective and profitable website. Questions or comments? The affordable web design experts at Fast Web Site Solutions will be happy to answer any questions you have, free of charge!

1. What is the goal of your website?
Answering this question before the web design process begins is extremely important. Without a clear direction, your website will attempt to be everything to everybody instead of targeting your potential customers. The goals of your website may be extremely simple, and require only a small informational site that gives your local clients a place to locate information about your business, and maybe a map to your physical location.

Some firms wish to sell their products online, and this presents several follow up questions. How will the website be promoted? Is the fulfillment chain organized and ready to go? Who (in your company) will manage the day to day operations of the website?

What is important is that you have a clear and concise goal for your website. Without direction, your web design company can’t build you an accurate bid, and your website is destined for failure. A small business owner doesn’t need any technical knowledge to build her website plan. Simply sitting down with a pen and notepad and answering a couple questions should help solidify the web design site plan. Who are the targeted users? What information will be available on the website? How do you envision the website bringing in clients? What is your budget? What is your expected return on investment?

2. How do I choose a web development company?
Hiring the correct web design company is extremely important to the success of the project. There are many thousands of excellent design firms out there that could a good job for you. How do you sift through them all to get the perfect fit? Here are a couple general guidelines to follow:

A reputable web design company will have both phone number and email contact information on their website. Sometimes it’s best to use a local company that you can meet with face to face. Other time, you might need to use an outside firm that matches your requirements. However, if you can’t reach the web design company by phone, move along - they’re probably an outsourcing company that uses non-English labor to build your site.
Choose the website design development company that best meets your requirements. Some designers specialize in certain technologies, while others are more general. For example, if you have a custom accounting solution that you need to tie to your web store, a provider that sells services relating to your accounting package might be best. If you only need a small 3-5 page website, a discount design firm might be best.
Ask for references. A web design company should be able to provide you with at least 2 and up to 5 references. Then, call the references to make sure that they had a good experience with the design company. Next, research the design firm’s website and look for example sites they’ve created. Contact people at those companies to see if they had a good experience during their website design process.
Get examples of previous work. This will give you a good gauge of the web designer’s quality of work. Don’t use their own website as a gauge. Often, web design companies spend a lot of time on their own site.

3. How will I promote my website?

A website is useless unless it is properly promoted and is receiving targeted traffic (through search engine optimization). Initially, a business may start promoting its website using traditional methods like direct mail, business cards, etc. Some send out a bulk email to a client list letting them know about the website and what its benefits are to the client. Getting your website highly ranked nationwide or worldwide is a more complex and expensive process. After all, you’re competing with every similar website in the world! A less challenging goal is to get first page search results locally or regionally. Your web design professional can help you come up with a comprehensive online marketing plan.

Spice Up Your Live

2008-04-13T21:27:00.001-07:00

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death- by Anais Nin.

This quotation truly explains the sanctity of life. But life is not the same as it used to be. The economic and social changes are to be blamed for this rapid transition. Our level of satisfaction is now tainted. There is an expectation of variety in everything that we undertake. This could be as simple as assortment in the menus of restaurants or the equipments at the gym.

I was surprised with the outlook towards fitness that one has nowadays. Gone are the days when a jog in the park and stretches on the bench with the support of trees were considered ideal for a uniform and toned physique. But the current demand for hi-tech gadgets that target to a specific body part has taken over. There are machines designed just for pumping up biceps or back. People select gym memberships depending on the number of machines that a particular gym offers. The bonus expectations are free steam and sauna with the package.

This need for variety also affects what we do in our free time. Some play a sport, others prefer reading or surfing the internet. The habit of reading has taken a different route with the advent of the blog. Creative writing is much needed to gain acceptance in this blog community. Writing a blog is easy as many do get away with incorrect or casual language and jargons but the one with creativity always draws out a large fan following.

I personally enjoy reading a lifestyle blog. It covers a lot of information and caters to a larger audience. It revolves around various aspects of our life whether it is diet or wellbeing, grooming and maintenance of the body including mental fitness. It contains social messages, hobby ideas and personal stories that make us feel that there is someone out there like us. Trends in clothes or gadgets, all the information are collected under one roof. Such blogs when interactive, where visitors post their comments and provide solutions actually develop into a very strong community. It becomes a home in the cyber world. Its numerous chains of thought ultimately join into one continuous flow of knowledge. The information that grows from a tender sapling to a plant, then a tree bearing fruits of hard labor bringing satisfaction to the writer and the readers. This reminds me of the banyan tree maybe because it has the ability to survive and grow for centuries and is often compared to the shelter given by God to his devotees. In Hinduism this tree has a lot of significance. It symbolizes the personality of a benevolent ruler or head of family who nourishes and looks after all those under his care.
Human life is a gift from God. So with a sound body and mind, it is our responsibility to shape ourselves and utilize our capabilities to the optimum level. In this way, we nurture our soul. But with a wayward life, filled with vices, we only deter and lose Grace from God.

Funny Home Videos, Sit Back Have Laugh !

2008-04-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

Everyone loves watching videos filled with comedy that makes you laugh. Funny Videos are useful after a hard day to cope with difficult situations or people in the office. They always bring out the lighter side of your mood and alleviate the situation, like a good joke, they are always good for a nervous laugh. The best part, they are most of them are free and why there is a lot of websites that have a ton of video clips that are fun to watch. Images and clips of this type can be made by any easily by using your cell phone or video camera. Make funny video clips is so easy and exciting that almost everyone who makes them want to share online. If you are looking for video clips of a particular kind, it is better you look for a blog or two that specialize on the subject of your tastes, most of these blogs are updated constantly and picked Hand videos are added for visitors ‘convenience Unlike portals.

The real fun is when you disco ver that some of the smaller sites allow visitors to request videos and or leaving them vote for their favorites. Many sites are funny video shoots out old Crazy People Videos funny image of websites, whatever that may be, the avatar with video clips, they never fail to tickle your funny bone . What kind? People like to watch videos of pets such as cats, dogs, as they bring their wishes for what they would like to do for their pets, in some cases, they look at them for having inspired to dress their pets. However, there is no restriction on the types of short video clips, they can be from one day to questions from a football match, or almost everything.

What to look for when searching for web sites Funny Animals In fact, it is nothing more than being attentive to what they serve you, at least some of ‘these are known to install malicious scripts when you load sites Beware book marking. However, generally speaking, we must choose sites depending on your taste, a number of sites are under the masquerade tags videos funny but which are actually pushing or Funny Home Videos. Meaningful funny videos can be good to look into any situation and you can pass them to anyone without fear of annoying.

Ecommerce Web Applications

2008-04-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

Representing your company with a website has become one of the 101’s of running a business, however with the advancement of web technologies, having a static website with few functionalities doesn’t represent a good image of your company, dynamic websites are a necessity today.

AdvancedEmedia specializes in developing dynamic database driven applications, its recent product is the ECommerce Web Design Site Hosting package which comes in 3 different flavors, the 1st one enables you to manage your membership base, customize content among other things, the 2 more advanced packages meet the needs of mid sized companies in the fields iof retail, suppliers and distributors among other things.
Recent clients that purchased and use one of these packages include Designer and Manufacturer of rental luxury cars, limousines and convertibles which has been in the convertable car business for more than 20 years, another recent client is Human Resources HR Consulting & Senior Executive Search for Retail, IT, Health Care, Sales, Accounting which is a consulting firm in Southern California.