Blogs are a means of communication in which people can exchange information, ideas and insights toward things. An individual can write a blog post that tells a story about a travel experience, and share the article to other Internet users. A business entrepreneur can write a blog post about marketing tips for small and medium businesses, and promote the article to other business entrepreneurs. More and more individuals and businesses are creating weblogs to get their companies known to the customers. Here are a few tips in writing creative blog posts for personal or business purposes.
Use Simple Words – A key to an effective communication is simplicity in writing. Use simple words to make people understand the article’s point. Don’t make things complicated by using long, unfamiliar terms in your articles. Every individual who wants to write an effective blog post must consider that the choice of words is important.
Use Examples – Citing examples can help a writer elaborate his or her point. Blog posts can be more understood if writers provide examples to make their points clearer.
Use Images and Photos – Insert images and photos on the blogs to make the articles appealing and attractive to the eyes of target readers. Moreover a visual form of communication can be more effective than plain texts. For example, an article for UPrinting blog can include photos of business card designs. Online companies can make use of images and photos in making their blogs more attractive and professional to the target niche market.
Break Paragraphs – Break paragraphs and divide an article into several sections so that a blog post can look nice and neat. For example a paragraph can be written for introduction, then three separate paragraphs for three different points, and a separate paragraph for the conclusion. It is also recommended to use headings to emphasize the main points of an article.
Giving Emphasis to Words – Writers can emphasize their article titles, headings and subheadings by changing the font type, size and color. Headings can be set in boldface or italic face for emphasis.
These helpful tips can let individuals to write blog posts that have the potential to communicate with readers. Moreover, writers can be able to create blog posts that can be perceived as valuable source of information.
Kat Nocom | articlesbase
Showing posts with label Tips and Tutorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tips and Tutorial. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
5 ways to save money, boost IT value with PC power management
U.S. organizations waste approximately $2.8 billion annually and emit 20 million tons of carbon dioxide by not powering down idle PCs, according to the PC Energy Report 2009, issued by the Alliance to Save Energy, together with 1E, an energy management software company. For a company with 1,000 PCs, it means wasting $26,000 yearly, whereas an enterprise with 10,000 PCs would waste $260,000 and emit 1,871 tons of CO2 annually.
PC power management software can reduce the energy consumption of PCs as well as attached monitors during periods of inactivity. Using this software, IT can manage PC power settings over a network to drastically reduce power consumption, energy costs and carbon dioxide emissions.
Consider the following five business and technology best practices to slash your desktop power bill for greater operational efficiency and environmental impact:
1. Understand the business case.
“The first step is to create a business case and understand how much money you are spending,” says Doug Washburn, an analyst with Forrester Research. He recommends running scenarios by using Microsoft® Excel and performing simple modeling to determine potential cost savings.
Available tools include Forrester’s Online Green IT Baseline Calculator
and EnergyStar’s online calculator.
2. Understand your users.
“Users won’t tolerate downtime,” says Washburn. “It’s important to be smart about when to enforce power management.”
A successful program incorporates people and processes as well as technology. Map power management savings to user business requirements and the amount of downtime the specific business function requires. For instance, during the workday, power management may not be suitable for front-line employees, whereas in back-office locations, turning off monitors or placing PCs in standby mode after 30 minutes of inactivity may not be a problem.
3. Implement EnergyStar-standard Windows and Macintosh OS power management features.
Today’s desktops and notebooks incorporate many built-in power-saving capabilities such as “sleep” and “hibernate” modes that can significantly reduce the amount of energy consumed during inactive states.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends placing monitors and computers into a low-power “sleep mode” after a period of inactivity. Simply touching the mouse or keyboard awakens the computer and monitor in seconds. Activating sleep features saves energy and money and helps protect the environment.
To maximize power savings, the EPA recommends setting computers to enter system standby or hibernate after 30 to 60 minutes of inactivity. The lower the setting, the more energy is saved: Set monitors to enter “sleep mode” after 5 to 20 minutes of inactivity; on laptops, activate these settings in the AC power profile, not just the DC (battery power) profile.
The average desktop PC wastes half of the energy it consumes,” says Pat Tiernan, executive director of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. “By turning on a single computer’s energy-saving features, you can save up to $75 per year in energy costs and reduce your CO2 emissions by nearly half a ton.”
4. Evaluate PC power management software.
Evaluate power management software from vendors such as 1E, Symantec’s Altiris, BigFix, Avocent’s LANDesk, ScriptLogic and Verdiem. Determine pricing structure, features and functionality, including administration, reporting functionality and support for advanced power management such as “scheduled” or “always on.”
5. Communicate to the business.
A well-designed PC power management program provides an opportunity for IT to showcase its value to the business. Because 55 percent of IT energy consumption comes from outside of the data center, enterprise IT organizations are expected to turn to PC power management software, according to Forrester Research findings. [Source: Doug Washburn, “TechRadar for I&O Professionals: Green IT 1.0 Technologies,” Q2 2009, Forrester Research, June 12, 2009]
By Paula Jacobs
[via accelerateresults]
PC power management software can reduce the energy consumption of PCs as well as attached monitors during periods of inactivity. Using this software, IT can manage PC power settings over a network to drastically reduce power consumption, energy costs and carbon dioxide emissions.
Consider the following five business and technology best practices to slash your desktop power bill for greater operational efficiency and environmental impact:
1. Understand the business case.
“The first step is to create a business case and understand how much money you are spending,” says Doug Washburn, an analyst with Forrester Research. He recommends running scenarios by using Microsoft® Excel and performing simple modeling to determine potential cost savings.
Available tools include Forrester’s Online Green IT Baseline Calculator
and EnergyStar’s online calculator.
2. Understand your users.
“Users won’t tolerate downtime,” says Washburn. “It’s important to be smart about when to enforce power management.”
A successful program incorporates people and processes as well as technology. Map power management savings to user business requirements and the amount of downtime the specific business function requires. For instance, during the workday, power management may not be suitable for front-line employees, whereas in back-office locations, turning off monitors or placing PCs in standby mode after 30 minutes of inactivity may not be a problem.
3. Implement EnergyStar-standard Windows and Macintosh OS power management features.
Today’s desktops and notebooks incorporate many built-in power-saving capabilities such as “sleep” and “hibernate” modes that can significantly reduce the amount of energy consumed during inactive states.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends placing monitors and computers into a low-power “sleep mode” after a period of inactivity. Simply touching the mouse or keyboard awakens the computer and monitor in seconds. Activating sleep features saves energy and money and helps protect the environment.
To maximize power savings, the EPA recommends setting computers to enter system standby or hibernate after 30 to 60 minutes of inactivity. The lower the setting, the more energy is saved: Set monitors to enter “sleep mode” after 5 to 20 minutes of inactivity; on laptops, activate these settings in the AC power profile, not just the DC (battery power) profile.
The average desktop PC wastes half of the energy it consumes,” says Pat Tiernan, executive director of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. “By turning on a single computer’s energy-saving features, you can save up to $75 per year in energy costs and reduce your CO2 emissions by nearly half a ton.”
4. Evaluate PC power management software.
Evaluate power management software from vendors such as 1E, Symantec’s Altiris, BigFix, Avocent’s LANDesk, ScriptLogic and Verdiem. Determine pricing structure, features and functionality, including administration, reporting functionality and support for advanced power management such as “scheduled” or “always on.”
5. Communicate to the business.
A well-designed PC power management program provides an opportunity for IT to showcase its value to the business. Because 55 percent of IT energy consumption comes from outside of the data center, enterprise IT organizations are expected to turn to PC power management software, according to Forrester Research findings. [Source: Doug Washburn, “TechRadar for I&O Professionals: Green IT 1.0 Technologies,” Q2 2009, Forrester Research, June 12, 2009]
By Paula Jacobs
[via accelerateresults]
Friday, May 29, 2009
How To Achieve Top Google Rankings
For years, it has been well known that Google’s search algorithm is driven by the number and quality of links pointing to a particular URL. And as a result, it was all the rage for some time to buy links on web pages that had a high Google PageRank (PR).
But in March of 2007, Google’s mouthpiece Matt Cutts declared that Google was going to fight back against Paid Links. Google put a shot across the bow of many online marketers, letting them know that the days of easily buying links from high PageRank pages in order to influence a website’s ranking in Google were over.
The Shot Heard Around The World
With Matt Cutts declaration, a world full of online marketers began to cry foul. It was said that “They can’t do that!”
But the truth was and is that the Google Search Algorithm is Google’s intellectual property, and therefore, Google can do anything they want within their algorithms - no matter who those changes might hurt or help.
By the end of the Summer of 2007, the people crying foul had quieted down a bit and got back to the business of trying to find new ways to manipulate their website’s rankings inside of the Google search results. That is the way it has always been and always will be.
The summer of 2007 was just such an oddity… For me, it has always been exciting to challenge the brains at Google to get my websites to rank well within Google’s search algorithms. But for some reason, at that moment in time, many of those who held the top rankings in Google felt as if it was their God-given right to be at the top of Google’s search results, and how dare Google oppose God’s decree in this matter.
Yep, I know I am going to catch flak for that statement - comparing a few webmasters to religious zealots - but that is how I roll sometimes.
For me, Matt Cutts was telling people to work harder to actually “earn” what they have been given. For me, it was a chance to re-dedicate myself to the goal of ranking well in Google for competitive keywords. I did not have to change anything I was already doing, because I have never gained a single ranking in Google by paying for a link from any web page. (wink)
Google’s Search Engineers Are Not Foolish
Matt Cutts has said time and again that Google does not want to attack any problem in their search algorithms by manually deleting any participant in the Google search ranking game.
Instead, Google in every case wants to program a solution to address a particular bad practice.
I guess it might be easier for me to understand since I am also a computer programmer. It is a hobby I really enjoy, and I exercise my mind with computer programming anytime I want to improve my own websites or to build a new website. I keep my brain sharp by solving problems in computer code.
So, whenever I see Google making moves in one direction or another, I try to visualize how I would solve their algorithm problems in computer code.
In my mind, solving the paid links issue was a super-easy solution. Just look at the pages linking to a particular website, and then do a cross-comparison of the PageRank of all of those linking pages. If all of the pages linking to a particular URL have a PageRank of Four or higher, then chances are that those links were artificially created, through some kind of paid linking system.
Let me explain this in an example, where all of the sample web pages have 100 inbound links each:
If Site A has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank of 4 or higher, then that is unnatural and therefore suspect.
If Site B has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank of 0, then those links offer no value to the Internet community as a whole, and therefore Site B should not measured as a quality search result.
If Site C has a mix of PageRank 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 links, then that is more natural in its structure and it also shows that some of the links are considered to have value in the Internet community as a whole. Therefore, Site C has proven itself worthy above Site A and Site B in Google’s search results.
This example should show in no uncertain terms how easy it was for Google to properly address the issue of paid links and to put a stop to people using paid links to manipulate their websites’ ranking in Google’s search algorithms.
Publication Standards
A couple years back, I wrote another article discussing this concept in relationship to article marketing. You can read that article with third-party commentary from Chris McElroy, aka NameCritic, on the Article Content Provider Blog.
In a nutshell, I was discussing the role of article directories in the article marketing industry. Again, this solution came to me from my programming mind. The simple way for Google to have dealt with all of the junk articles that have been written for the purpose of building links to a website is to look at the article in the context of where that article is published.
The article marketing carpet bombers send their articles to hundreds of article directories to get hundreds of links pointing to their website. But the role of the article directory has always been to be a repository where newsletter publishers and webmasters could go to find articles that they would like to reprint in their own newsletters and on their own websites.
Some article directory managers bring a commitment to providing publishers with only quality articles. Other article directory managers approve anything and everything sent to them.
Through computer programming, it is relatively easy to identify which websites are article directories and which ones are not.
If an article is of good quality, then niche website publishers will find the article and put it on their own website. If the article is a crap article, then the only websites that will accept it are those article directories that publish anything and everything given to them.
As a result, it is easy for Google to look at the Linking Portfolio (list of publishing websites) of a single article and to see which articles were considered worthy of reprint by human reviewers. If the article only exists on article directory websites, then the article must not provide any real value to other people. But if the article is of good quality, the article will be able to be located on article directories AND on niche websites.
This concept very elegantly feeds into Google’s overall strategy of determining which web pages people recommend to others. After all, if you look at Google’s PageRank, it is very simply a system which measures how many people have voted on the quality or value of a particular web page.
Expanding On Google’s PageRank Formula
Google loves any system that they can conceive to measure how much value the overall Internet community gives to a particular web page.
Google naturally treats links found in the Yahoo! Business Directory and the Open Directory as higher value links, because the search engineers at Google understand that links in these directories are all approved by a human being.
Google also gives extra value to social bookmarking websites, because the concept behind social bookmarking is that individuals “bookmark” a web page when they find that web page to offer good value to its readers.
Google openly dislikes paid links and can easily identify those paid links, without having to jump through too many hoops. (This should not be confused with paying for a service that will help you increase your rankings in Google. Paying a service provider to provide services to you is very different than just paying for links on high PageRank web pages.)
Google also appreciates reprint articles that have a Linking Portfolio beyond the article directories. Once again, Google appreciates reprint articles that are shown to provide real value to individuals in the greater Internet community.
When you take a close look at the original premise of Google’s PageRank, it has always been about creating systems that measure the value of a web pages to find which web pages will best answer a searcher’s question. Rightfully so, Google believes that the best way to ensure that they are able to give their users good quality search results is to look at what web pages others have already deemed useful.
Herein rests the secret to ranking well in Google’s search results. If you can create content that people will find useful, interesting, and valuable to others, then Google’s search algorithms will look favorably upon your website.
source : Bill Platt - immediavisi.com
But in March of 2007, Google’s mouthpiece Matt Cutts declared that Google was going to fight back against Paid Links. Google put a shot across the bow of many online marketers, letting them know that the days of easily buying links from high PageRank pages in order to influence a website’s ranking in Google were over.
The Shot Heard Around The World
With Matt Cutts declaration, a world full of online marketers began to cry foul. It was said that “They can’t do that!”
But the truth was and is that the Google Search Algorithm is Google’s intellectual property, and therefore, Google can do anything they want within their algorithms - no matter who those changes might hurt or help.
By the end of the Summer of 2007, the people crying foul had quieted down a bit and got back to the business of trying to find new ways to manipulate their website’s rankings inside of the Google search results. That is the way it has always been and always will be.
The summer of 2007 was just such an oddity… For me, it has always been exciting to challenge the brains at Google to get my websites to rank well within Google’s search algorithms. But for some reason, at that moment in time, many of those who held the top rankings in Google felt as if it was their God-given right to be at the top of Google’s search results, and how dare Google oppose God’s decree in this matter.
Yep, I know I am going to catch flak for that statement - comparing a few webmasters to religious zealots - but that is how I roll sometimes.
For me, Matt Cutts was telling people to work harder to actually “earn” what they have been given. For me, it was a chance to re-dedicate myself to the goal of ranking well in Google for competitive keywords. I did not have to change anything I was already doing, because I have never gained a single ranking in Google by paying for a link from any web page. (wink)
Google’s Search Engineers Are Not Foolish
Matt Cutts has said time and again that Google does not want to attack any problem in their search algorithms by manually deleting any participant in the Google search ranking game.
Instead, Google in every case wants to program a solution to address a particular bad practice.
I guess it might be easier for me to understand since I am also a computer programmer. It is a hobby I really enjoy, and I exercise my mind with computer programming anytime I want to improve my own websites or to build a new website. I keep my brain sharp by solving problems in computer code.
So, whenever I see Google making moves in one direction or another, I try to visualize how I would solve their algorithm problems in computer code.
In my mind, solving the paid links issue was a super-easy solution. Just look at the pages linking to a particular website, and then do a cross-comparison of the PageRank of all of those linking pages. If all of the pages linking to a particular URL have a PageRank of Four or higher, then chances are that those links were artificially created, through some kind of paid linking system.
Let me explain this in an example, where all of the sample web pages have 100 inbound links each:
If Site A has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank of 4 or higher, then that is unnatural and therefore suspect.
If Site B has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank of 0, then those links offer no value to the Internet community as a whole, and therefore Site B should not measured as a quality search result.
If Site C has a mix of PageRank 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 links, then that is more natural in its structure and it also shows that some of the links are considered to have value in the Internet community as a whole. Therefore, Site C has proven itself worthy above Site A and Site B in Google’s search results.
This example should show in no uncertain terms how easy it was for Google to properly address the issue of paid links and to put a stop to people using paid links to manipulate their websites’ ranking in Google’s search algorithms.
Publication Standards
A couple years back, I wrote another article discussing this concept in relationship to article marketing. You can read that article with third-party commentary from Chris McElroy, aka NameCritic, on the Article Content Provider Blog.
In a nutshell, I was discussing the role of article directories in the article marketing industry. Again, this solution came to me from my programming mind. The simple way for Google to have dealt with all of the junk articles that have been written for the purpose of building links to a website is to look at the article in the context of where that article is published.
The article marketing carpet bombers send their articles to hundreds of article directories to get hundreds of links pointing to their website. But the role of the article directory has always been to be a repository where newsletter publishers and webmasters could go to find articles that they would like to reprint in their own newsletters and on their own websites.
Some article directory managers bring a commitment to providing publishers with only quality articles. Other article directory managers approve anything and everything sent to them.
Through computer programming, it is relatively easy to identify which websites are article directories and which ones are not.
If an article is of good quality, then niche website publishers will find the article and put it on their own website. If the article is a crap article, then the only websites that will accept it are those article directories that publish anything and everything given to them.
As a result, it is easy for Google to look at the Linking Portfolio (list of publishing websites) of a single article and to see which articles were considered worthy of reprint by human reviewers. If the article only exists on article directory websites, then the article must not provide any real value to other people. But if the article is of good quality, the article will be able to be located on article directories AND on niche websites.
This concept very elegantly feeds into Google’s overall strategy of determining which web pages people recommend to others. After all, if you look at Google’s PageRank, it is very simply a system which measures how many people have voted on the quality or value of a particular web page.
Expanding On Google’s PageRank Formula
Google loves any system that they can conceive to measure how much value the overall Internet community gives to a particular web page.
Google naturally treats links found in the Yahoo! Business Directory and the Open Directory as higher value links, because the search engineers at Google understand that links in these directories are all approved by a human being.
Google also gives extra value to social bookmarking websites, because the concept behind social bookmarking is that individuals “bookmark” a web page when they find that web page to offer good value to its readers.
Google openly dislikes paid links and can easily identify those paid links, without having to jump through too many hoops. (This should not be confused with paying for a service that will help you increase your rankings in Google. Paying a service provider to provide services to you is very different than just paying for links on high PageRank web pages.)
Google also appreciates reprint articles that have a Linking Portfolio beyond the article directories. Once again, Google appreciates reprint articles that are shown to provide real value to individuals in the greater Internet community.
When you take a close look at the original premise of Google’s PageRank, it has always been about creating systems that measure the value of a web pages to find which web pages will best answer a searcher’s question. Rightfully so, Google believes that the best way to ensure that they are able to give their users good quality search results is to look at what web pages others have already deemed useful.
Herein rests the secret to ranking well in Google’s search results. If you can create content that people will find useful, interesting, and valuable to others, then Google’s search algorithms will look favorably upon your website.
source : Bill Platt - immediavisi.com
Friday, May 22, 2009
10 Tips to Protect Your Checking Account
It is much simpler to take some time to safeguard yourself before the criminals get you and your sneaked out identity is manipulated to commit a fraud. The rationale to avoid such a circumstance is to follow the tips to secure your checking accounts.
The tips for protecting your checking account are:
1. Never give the personal account number and bank routing number to anyone whom you are not familiar with. Reason being, these two key numbers are the essence which are required to create an electronic draft against a personal account. A good rule of thumb is to by no means hand out the above mentioned information if not one knows the corporation or concern asking for it or unless the account holder is the one who is initiating the transaction.
2. Avoid putting the home phone number on the cheques. One can put a mobile phone number to make sure that an alien person does not get account holder's home listing.
3.The very common type of cheque fraud is the usage of bank cheques by some other unknown person. One should keep track of the dispatched cheques and never leave out blank ones with signatures on it. There are some individuals who can steal blank cheques to exercise for their vested interests.
4. One should review his monthly bank statement. An individual has a limited time frame to report errors and omissions, on unauthorized debits on checking account to the respective bank, normally, 90 days. If someone does not receive his bank statement of a particular month, immediately contact the concerned person or representative of that bank for the issuance.
5. It is very important to notify the bank about any trouble as soon as possible. The earlier one let his bank knows that something is wide of the mark going on, the better it will be for him. One should be well versed with all the relevant documentation including the bank statements and other important notes of conversations for the perusal.
6. Furthermore, If an account holder thinks that somebody has gained way in to his or her account, it is crucial to tell the bank and in return follow their instructions
7. It's not the criminals all the time, sometimes the account holders themselves create problems for themselves. If an account holder does not have enough money in his or her bank account, it is important that he or she should not write cheques or permits the debit. It is due to the law of 'check 21' that enables banks to convert cheques into electronic items for processing. Cheques are frequently being cleared on a much faster pace than they used to, usually as quick as a debit card transaction.
8. Another thing that is important for an account holder is that he or she should know the basic rights under the consumer protection laws.
9. While using online banking tools, at all times delete the personal user ID and passwords and then log out from the accounts once the work is complete. Never save personal information on the web page or ask the computer to remember the login ID or password. If one fails to pay attention to this advice, he or she can be left in a fix or a vulnerable situation.
10. Over drafting is also an issue that create problems. When there is a joint account and all the account holders use the debit/credit cards for buying and cash advances, with a lack of communication then this can create an overdraft in an account. One should know what the others are doing.
By Humaira Asad
source : ezinearticles
The tips for protecting your checking account are:
1. Never give the personal account number and bank routing number to anyone whom you are not familiar with. Reason being, these two key numbers are the essence which are required to create an electronic draft against a personal account. A good rule of thumb is to by no means hand out the above mentioned information if not one knows the corporation or concern asking for it or unless the account holder is the one who is initiating the transaction.
2. Avoid putting the home phone number on the cheques. One can put a mobile phone number to make sure that an alien person does not get account holder's home listing.
3.The very common type of cheque fraud is the usage of bank cheques by some other unknown person. One should keep track of the dispatched cheques and never leave out blank ones with signatures on it. There are some individuals who can steal blank cheques to exercise for their vested interests.
4. One should review his monthly bank statement. An individual has a limited time frame to report errors and omissions, on unauthorized debits on checking account to the respective bank, normally, 90 days. If someone does not receive his bank statement of a particular month, immediately contact the concerned person or representative of that bank for the issuance.
5. It is very important to notify the bank about any trouble as soon as possible. The earlier one let his bank knows that something is wide of the mark going on, the better it will be for him. One should be well versed with all the relevant documentation including the bank statements and other important notes of conversations for the perusal.
6. Furthermore, If an account holder thinks that somebody has gained way in to his or her account, it is crucial to tell the bank and in return follow their instructions
7. It's not the criminals all the time, sometimes the account holders themselves create problems for themselves. If an account holder does not have enough money in his or her bank account, it is important that he or she should not write cheques or permits the debit. It is due to the law of 'check 21' that enables banks to convert cheques into electronic items for processing. Cheques are frequently being cleared on a much faster pace than they used to, usually as quick as a debit card transaction.
8. Another thing that is important for an account holder is that he or she should know the basic rights under the consumer protection laws.
9. While using online banking tools, at all times delete the personal user ID and passwords and then log out from the accounts once the work is complete. Never save personal information on the web page or ask the computer to remember the login ID or password. If one fails to pay attention to this advice, he or she can be left in a fix or a vulnerable situation.
10. Over drafting is also an issue that create problems. When there is a joint account and all the account holders use the debit/credit cards for buying and cash advances, with a lack of communication then this can create an overdraft in an account. One should know what the others are doing.
By Humaira Asad
source : ezinearticles
5 Free Ways To Promote Your Website
You have a website, now what? You do a search for your website but it does not appear in any search engine. It is not in Google, Yahoo! or any other directory. There are a lot of services that can help but they cost money. Social networking is a good way to promote your site but you do not have the time for that. What can be done to help promote your website without spending a whole lot of time and money? And I know you are wanting free, fast and easy.
These are tough requirements but I’m always up for a challenge. So here are “5 Free Ways To Promote Your Website” - starting with Google.
source : makeuseof
These are tough requirements but I’m always up for a challenge. So here are “5 Free Ways To Promote Your Website” - starting with Google.
1. The Best Free Search Engine
It is no secret, Google is the most popular search engine. From the novice to the expert; young and old; millions of people use Google to find what they are looking for. So getting your website indexed is very important. The best part, submitting to Google is free, fast and easy. However, before you submit you should search Google to find out if your website is already in Google’s index. To do this:
- Go to Google.com and enter your domain name into the search box.
- When entering the domain name type it exactly as it was registered. For example, if you wanted to find out if MakeUseOf was indexed in Google you would type www.makeuseof.com
- If your site was indexed the first result will be your domain name. In this case you do not need to resubmit.
- If you site was not indexed, submit using the form above. It may take up to 3 weeks for your site to get indexed. Don’t keep resubmitting during that time. If your site is not indexed after 3 weeks, resubmit it.
2. The Best Free Directory
The next place to promote your website is Yahoo! Although it is not as popular as Google, Yahoo! is the best directory. It is also free, easy and fast to submit your site to Yahoo!.
Just like in Google, you should check to see if your website is already in the Yahoo! index. If your site is listed you do not need to resubmit. However, if your site is not found make sure to add your site to Yahoo!, rechecking in a few weeks to make sure it has been indexed.
3. Email Signature
At the bottom of your email, add a signature that includes your domain name. Just in case you need help with adding an email signature I’ve added some information for the most popular applications:
- Adding an email signature to gmail
- Adding an email signature to outlook express
- Adding an email signature to outlook
- Adding an email signature to entourage
- Adding a HTML signature to Mac’s Mail
4. Yellow Pages Directory
Yellowpages.com has a free listing that will remain active for 12 months. This is a good place to promote your site - and it is free, fast and easy.
5. Google Local Business
Last, but definitely not least - Google Local Business. When you submit your website to Google Local Business, it is eligible to rank in the local business section. The section is displayed before the organic search results, toward the top of Google. For example, I did a search for: dentist in dana point ca. Local business search is displayed just below the sponsored link section, with a map inserted to the left of the listings.
If you are going to submit to Google Local Business you will need either a business phone number or a business mailing address. Toward the end of the submission process you will be given a PIN number. You will need to use this PIN to complete the submission. If you opt for a postcard, the PIN will be mailed. However, choosing the phone option, the PIN will be displayed and an automated phone call will be made. Importantly, if the number is not a “business line” you will have to take the postcard route. Either way, it is free, fast and easy.
source : makeuseof
Monday, May 11, 2009
Increasing Your Website Revenue from Affiliate Programs
So you signed up for an affiliate program, and dreamt of untold riches that comes simply with having a website. Until you got your first cheque, that is.
Earning an income from advertising on your website is often proclaimed as The Dream To End All Dreams where you earn even while you sleep (which is true). All you have to do is to set up a website and the money starts flowing in, right? As many new web designers have found out, it doesn't work quite so smoothly. Very often, the reality check comes when you get your first month's cheque.
Here are some tips to help you increase your takings from your advertisements.
1. Time
Before you jump out of that window, you have to realise that, like many things, these things take time. In general, for many webmasters starting out with their first affiliate program, their first month's income is usually rather pithy. This is normal. The income improves as you fine-tune your site and the advertisements and banners you use.
2.Targeting Your Advertisements
There's really no short cut to this. Unless you signed up for one of those programs that will rotate ads on your site automatically, you should try to fit the banners and links you display on your site to the audience that you expect your site to attract.
For example, if your site is about education, put up advertisements and banners that would interest people who come to your site. Think about it -- education sites would interest at least three types of people: kids, educators (teachers) and parents. Choose advertisements that would interest them. Note that this does not mean that you exclude all other types of advertisements. Some ads are general enough to appeal to many types of audience.
I know I mentioned this in my other article, "How to Make Money from Your Website" at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/makemoney.shtml but taking the effort to do this can really make the difference between the success of your advertising and a miserable income each month. The trick of course is to figure out what your target audience will like. It's not as easy as it might seem.
3.Ads About Free Stuff Do Better
Let's face it. When we go to a physical shop to get something, we expect to pay money for the goods we obtain. But when we go to a website, we bring with us a different mindset. We expect information, goods and services free of charge.
Because of this, advertisements about things that your visitors can obtain free will usually fare better than those about things that they have to pay money for.
If your affiliate program has free stuff on offer, try them out on your site to see how it performs.
4.Traffic is Everything
No visitors, no money. To have people clicking on your banners and taking up the offers given there, you need to work on the traffic going through your site. There's no substitute for this. No amount of fine-tuning of your advertisements is going to help you if you have only a few visitors going to your site each day.
Remember that not every visitor is going to click on your banner. (When was the last time you clicked on a banner on another site?) So to earn any income at all, you must generate enough traffic.
If you want to learn more about promoting your site, you can check out my other articles on website promotion for more information.
5.Content is King
I have seen many sites whose webmasters obviously decided that they'll make a quick buck by loading up their site with affiliate program links. Their site contains nothing but advertising links, along with comments that these are "fantastic offers", "great offers", "best" and whatnot. I'm sure you've seen those sites too.
If your site is like this, you should be aware that aggressive promotion may get you many visitors, but those visitors are unlikely to bookmark your site and return for more. There will be some (if not more) that will be so fed up that they won't even look at what you have to say.
My suggestion - your website must have genuine content. Unending lists of advertising links may fool some people, but not for long.
6.Credibility
Some advertisers tell you that you should personally recommend their products, and if you do so, the advertising link will do much better. True. But unless you yourself have used their product or service, and also agree that it is what *you* claim it to be, putting such a link can be counterproductive. There is a relationship of trust between you and your visitors. People start off generally believing what you say until you demonstrate that you're just a salesperson trying to make a quick buck. My recommendation is that if you don't really know much about a product, or have not tried it, do not pretend otherwise. Of course if you're using it yourself and think the world of it, by all means, recommend it.
Basically, just be honest. Believe it or not, honesty is the best business policy.
7.Text Links Vs Banners
You'll read on some sites that nowadays, text links fare better than banner links. Other sites claim that banners are coming into vogue again. I think that such blanket claims have to be qualified somewhat.
My experience is that text links that are part of the content of your site will generally do better than banners or other text links.
I used to think that text links that are not part of your site content need to be short and sharp in order to do well. However, I have seen some sites that have an elaborate long advertising copy for its link. The webmasters of such sites have apparently found that long stories like these work well for their type of audience. You may wish to do some testing on your own site to see which type of text advertising work for your audience.
As for banners, whether they work or not depends largely on the type of website you have, your audience and the design of the banners. Like all things, you'll just have to test them out on your site and examine the results after a few months.
8.Rotation and Weeding
If you don't use an advertising program that automatically puts the most relevant ads on your website, you will need to manually manage the advertisements that appear on your website.
Do this by monitoring your advertising statistics. If an advertisement does well initially, and its performance slowly drops over time, it is probably time to rotate that banner or button. If it remains too long on the page, people tend to stop seeing it. Sometimes you can prolong the life of the advertisement by simply using a different banner from the same advertiser (assuming they provide more than one banner).
Likewise, if an advertisement seldom has any takers, remove it. There are at least a couple of common reasons for this: the picture doesn't attract anyone to click on it (banners that are too wordy often have this deterrent effect); or your site's target audience is not interested in this type of service or product. Don't keep it around just because it has a high payout rate - what's the point of a high payout rate if no one ever takes it?
Above all, be patient. Keep working on improving your traffic and fine-tuning the ads that appear on your pages. After all, Rome was not built in a day
source : Christopher Heng - thesitewizard.com
Earning an income from advertising on your website is often proclaimed as The Dream To End All Dreams where you earn even while you sleep (which is true). All you have to do is to set up a website and the money starts flowing in, right? As many new web designers have found out, it doesn't work quite so smoothly. Very often, the reality check comes when you get your first month's cheque.
Here are some tips to help you increase your takings from your advertisements.
1. Time
Before you jump out of that window, you have to realise that, like many things, these things take time. In general, for many webmasters starting out with their first affiliate program, their first month's income is usually rather pithy. This is normal. The income improves as you fine-tune your site and the advertisements and banners you use.
2.Targeting Your Advertisements
There's really no short cut to this. Unless you signed up for one of those programs that will rotate ads on your site automatically, you should try to fit the banners and links you display on your site to the audience that you expect your site to attract.
For example, if your site is about education, put up advertisements and banners that would interest people who come to your site. Think about it -- education sites would interest at least three types of people: kids, educators (teachers) and parents. Choose advertisements that would interest them. Note that this does not mean that you exclude all other types of advertisements. Some ads are general enough to appeal to many types of audience.
I know I mentioned this in my other article, "How to Make Money from Your Website" at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/makemoney.shtml but taking the effort to do this can really make the difference between the success of your advertising and a miserable income each month. The trick of course is to figure out what your target audience will like. It's not as easy as it might seem.
3.Ads About Free Stuff Do Better
Let's face it. When we go to a physical shop to get something, we expect to pay money for the goods we obtain. But when we go to a website, we bring with us a different mindset. We expect information, goods and services free of charge.
Because of this, advertisements about things that your visitors can obtain free will usually fare better than those about things that they have to pay money for.
If your affiliate program has free stuff on offer, try them out on your site to see how it performs.
4.Traffic is Everything
No visitors, no money. To have people clicking on your banners and taking up the offers given there, you need to work on the traffic going through your site. There's no substitute for this. No amount of fine-tuning of your advertisements is going to help you if you have only a few visitors going to your site each day.
Remember that not every visitor is going to click on your banner. (When was the last time you clicked on a banner on another site?) So to earn any income at all, you must generate enough traffic.
If you want to learn more about promoting your site, you can check out my other articles on website promotion for more information.
5.Content is King
I have seen many sites whose webmasters obviously decided that they'll make a quick buck by loading up their site with affiliate program links. Their site contains nothing but advertising links, along with comments that these are "fantastic offers", "great offers", "best" and whatnot. I'm sure you've seen those sites too.
If your site is like this, you should be aware that aggressive promotion may get you many visitors, but those visitors are unlikely to bookmark your site and return for more. There will be some (if not more) that will be so fed up that they won't even look at what you have to say.
My suggestion - your website must have genuine content. Unending lists of advertising links may fool some people, but not for long.
6.Credibility
Some advertisers tell you that you should personally recommend their products, and if you do so, the advertising link will do much better. True. But unless you yourself have used their product or service, and also agree that it is what *you* claim it to be, putting such a link can be counterproductive. There is a relationship of trust between you and your visitors. People start off generally believing what you say until you demonstrate that you're just a salesperson trying to make a quick buck. My recommendation is that if you don't really know much about a product, or have not tried it, do not pretend otherwise. Of course if you're using it yourself and think the world of it, by all means, recommend it.
Basically, just be honest. Believe it or not, honesty is the best business policy.
7.Text Links Vs Banners
You'll read on some sites that nowadays, text links fare better than banner links. Other sites claim that banners are coming into vogue again. I think that such blanket claims have to be qualified somewhat.
My experience is that text links that are part of the content of your site will generally do better than banners or other text links.
I used to think that text links that are not part of your site content need to be short and sharp in order to do well. However, I have seen some sites that have an elaborate long advertising copy for its link. The webmasters of such sites have apparently found that long stories like these work well for their type of audience. You may wish to do some testing on your own site to see which type of text advertising work for your audience.
As for banners, whether they work or not depends largely on the type of website you have, your audience and the design of the banners. Like all things, you'll just have to test them out on your site and examine the results after a few months.
8.Rotation and Weeding
If you don't use an advertising program that automatically puts the most relevant ads on your website, you will need to manually manage the advertisements that appear on your website.
Do this by monitoring your advertising statistics. If an advertisement does well initially, and its performance slowly drops over time, it is probably time to rotate that banner or button. If it remains too long on the page, people tend to stop seeing it. Sometimes you can prolong the life of the advertisement by simply using a different banner from the same advertiser (assuming they provide more than one banner).
Likewise, if an advertisement seldom has any takers, remove it. There are at least a couple of common reasons for this: the picture doesn't attract anyone to click on it (banners that are too wordy often have this deterrent effect); or your site's target audience is not interested in this type of service or product. Don't keep it around just because it has a high payout rate - what's the point of a high payout rate if no one ever takes it?
Above all, be patient. Keep working on improving your traffic and fine-tuning the ads that appear on your pages. After all, Rome was not built in a day
source : Christopher Heng - thesitewizard.com
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Use Image Placeholders to Display Documents Faster in Word
Sometimes when we get Microsoft Word documents with several or large images it can take an annoying amount of time to open. Here we will look at how to display the document text quickly, then get the images to display later.
While the images contained in the document may be an important aspect in the information, sometimes it is just nice to quickly get to the text.
source : blogs.howtogeek.com
While the images contained in the document may be an important aspect in the information, sometimes it is just nice to quickly get to the text.
First click on the Office button and go to Word Options.
Next, click on Advanced and scroll down to Show document content. Now place a check next to the box “Show picture placeholders” then OK to close out of Word Options.
Now when Word documents are opened there will be a placeholder where the image would be. This allows the documents to be opened and scrolled through much faster.
To get the images you can go back into advanced options and uncheck “Show picture placeholders” or another option is simply click the View tab then select Full Screen Reading. This will enable the images and allow you to keep the original Placeholders.
This quick tip definitely comes in handy on older machines with less power.
source : blogs.howtogeek.com
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
10 Tips to Extend Your iPod’s Battery Life
Listening to music on the go is an important aspect for anybody with a commute longer than 20 minutes, and you just can’t beat listening to a podcast while in queue at the supermarket. But what do you do when the battery runs out? Failure is not an option, so here are 10 useful tips that are guaranteed to extend your iPod battery.
. Backlight Timer: The backlight is one of the biggest battery drains, some estimating that it consumes around 30% of the battery. Minimize the time it takes to turn off the light from:
Settings -> Backlight Timer (not available on iPod Touch/iPhone)
2. Brightness: The analogy for this aspect would be a light bulb. The higher the rating (40W compared to 100W), the higher energy consumption and brightness. Turn the brightness to the minimum when you can. This will for sure extend iPod’s battery life.
Settings -> Brightness
3. Clicker: If you’ve got used to the touch screen interface or the click wheel, you no longer need the audible feedback to confirm your actions. Turn the little speaker inside of the iPod off to reduce power consumption.
Settings -> Clicker –> Off or Settings –> General –> Sounds (iPod Touch/iPhone)
4. Hold Switch: Use the hold switch to make the iPod ignore accidental input.
5. Pause: Don’t just leave the iPod spinning for no reason. If you are not going to be listening for a bit, pause it!
6. Avoid Track Change: Skipping forward or backwards causes the iPod to access the hard drive inefficiently. Use playlists effectively to prevent skipping. This is not the case however for newer SSD-based iPods like the Touch or the iPhone.
7. Equalizer: The Equalizer needs to calculate and modify the music on the go, which drains the battery substantially. Turn the EQ and Sound Check off from:
Settings -> EQ –> OFF or Settings -> Music
8. Use Compression: Efficiently encoded music will save battery life. MP3’s are easier to reproduce than lossless AAC, and they spin off the hard drive less because of their reduced file size.
9. Battery Health: Batteries lose their storage potential due to two common mistakes. Excess temperature changes the properties of the battery and may change how much energy it can hold. Don’t leave the iPod battery completely discharged for long periods of time.
10. Software Updates: Often times, the coders and developers fix mistake and improve the software that your iPod is running. Better code means improved battery life, so make sure you update your iPod every time there’s a new version.
By Stefan Neagu
source : makeuseof.com
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Choose a Good Email Marketing
Many companies use email marketing to communicate with existing customers. They use it for purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business. Lately there are many email marketting company that offer their service. One of them is iContact. iContact is an easy to use email marketing, surveying, autoresponder, and blogging tool that allows small businesses, non-profits, and associations to easily communicate online with their customers, prospects, and members.
iContact is the best option out there for anyone who wants to send out email newsletters. They have great inbox deliverability, an extremely easy to use interface, great prices that start at $9.95 per month, lots of templates, and also include surveying, autoresponder, and blogging capability from the same application at no additional charge. They take care of managing bounces and unsubscribes for you. They also take care of making sure your message gets to the inbox of your recipients through their ISP relations, feedback loops, and whitelist status. If you are currently running into deliverability issues with your existing newsletter sending method, iContact will be very helpful and ensure inbox delivery of your messages. 15 day free trial of iContact is available here.
source : trik-tips.blogspot.com
iContact is the best option out there for anyone who wants to send out email newsletters. They have great inbox deliverability, an extremely easy to use interface, great prices that start at $9.95 per month, lots of templates, and also include surveying, autoresponder, and blogging capability from the same application at no additional charge. They take care of managing bounces and unsubscribes for you. They also take care of making sure your message gets to the inbox of your recipients through their ISP relations, feedback loops, and whitelist status. If you are currently running into deliverability issues with your existing newsletter sending method, iContact will be very helpful and ensure inbox delivery of your messages. 15 day free trial of iContact is available here.
source : trik-tips.blogspot.com
How To Use RSS Feeds To Download Torrents Automatically
There is a lot of content available on BitTorrent these days. Normally you would go to a torrent site, look for the torrent you want to download, download the torrent file and then add it to your torrent client for download. You can automate this process by using RSS and µTorrent (or any other torrent client with RSS support).
So, how to download torrents automatically:
First and foremost you will need µTorrent. You can download it from here.
RSS if you still don’t know is a way to keep track of when your favorite site has been updated with new content. Using something called a feedreader you can get these updates delivered to you. Now whenever a new torrent is added, the torrent sites would update listing it and thus the new torrent would appear in the RSS feed. We can use this RSS feed to view/download interesting torrents automatically
Get the right Feed
So how can you find a feed listing only the torrents you want to download? After all the torrent sites would show every new torrent file in its feed and you couldn’t be downloading them all. Well as it turns out, a lot of torrent sites provide several RSS feeds and ability to create your own feeds as well.
Lets look at mininova for example. Apart from separate feeds for different categories you can also get feeds for your searches. Let’s say you are looking for releases by aXXo, so you search for aXXo and then click on the RSS button that appears on the top and there you have your RSS feed. You might want to refine your search to get the results you want. Now whenever there is a new aXXo release, you will get notified and/or can start download automatically. You can use the same approach to get feeds for TV Torrents. Also check out tvRSS for the same.
Setup µTorrent
Now its time to set up µTorrent to take the feed you have created/searched and do its thing! Follow these steps to setup µTorrent the way you want:
- Grab the feed url and open µTorrent
- Click on Add RSS feed and paste the put in the feed URL. You can choose to automatically download all the torrents that appear in the feed or just view them and then decide which ones to download and which ones to skip.
- Make sure you have the sidebar visible else you will not be able to view the feeds.
- There you have µTorrent setup for downloading via RSS, you can stop here or you can take it one step further by adding filters to download only specific files that specify a set criteria.
- Right Click on the feed and choose RSS Downloader, Click on add and then specify the filter options. You can specify all kinds of options here including download folder, labels, specify episode numbers to download, the priority to start the download with, the acceptable filetypes and much more.
- You can also right click on a feed entry that and choose “Add to Favorites” so that you can then filter entries similar to it and tweak the settings if you would like a bit of finetuning.
You might be wondering why not just use something like Miro or TED to download torrents automatically? That’s because I am a huge fan of µTorrent and would recommend it highly. Lightweight, feature rich, an awesome web interface for remotely starting downloads, set out to do one thing - “BitTorrent” and does it best. Your views may differ, make them heard! Shoot them in the comments section!
By Varun Kashyap
source : makeuseof.com
Saturday, April 25, 2009
How to Invest Money for the Best Return
It's extremely easy to invest money. In fact, nearly everyone invests money in one way or another throughout the course of their life--whether through a bank account, 401(k) plan or business venture. What is much more difficult than simply investing is the act of investing money for optimal return. Not only does doing so require a person to determine what it is, exactly, that optimal return means to them, but in order to invest for the best return you need to really become acquainted with all of the intricacies of investing.
Instructions
Step1
Determine what it is, precisely, that "best return" really means to you. Is it completely safe, dependable return on your investment or is it riskier, potentially higher-yield return? These two conditions are mutually exclusive and you need to determine which you're really after before you can begin to invest your money.
Step2
Invest as much money as you safely can to optimize your return. Obviously, the more money you invest, the more money you stand to gain as a result. Part of investing for the best possible return is the act of saving as much money as you can in your day-to-day life in order to have more money to invest with.
Step3
Diversify your investment types as well as your portfolio. Most investors know that it's a good idea to diversify any stock holding they have, but fewer realize that it's an even better idea to diversify one's holdings amongst many different types of investments. Invest your money wisely in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate holdings, business ventures and other investment tools to really make sure that your money is constantly in a position to provide you with the best possible return--regardless of market conditions.
Step4
Learn to garner the best return possible on your invested money even in a bad market. One of the chief methods of doing so is to alter your investments to safer ventures and holdings during harsh financial times, or to use means such as selling stock short to make money while everyone else is losing it.
Step5
Find the balance between risk aversion and risk seeking. The best investors--those who consistently gain the best possible return from their investments--are those who learn to carefully balance their investing strategy between the extremely risky and the extremely conservative. Growth and income mutual funds are fine tools, but they won't make you anywhere near optimal returns on your money because they're too conservative. It's also a bad idea to invest all of your money in micro-cap stocks, despite the fact that they have a potential for quick and explosive growth, because they're so risky that you stand a fair chance of losing everything.
By Geoffrey Weed
source : ehow.com
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Install Windows 7 Beta from a USB Key
So after reading our hands-on impressions of Windows 7, you’re ready to take the plunge and try out the public Beta. You’ve followed our instructions on acquiring a Beta key and downloaded the sizable ISO file. But unfortunately, you don’t have a DVD burner, or worst yet, you want to install Windows 7 on a crippled netbook with no optical drive whatsoever.
1. Format Your USB Key
by Norman Chan
source : maximumpc
Fortunately, you’re not out of luck, because Windows 7 (and Vista, for that matter) can be installed from a USB storage key. Not only does installing from a USB key circumvent the DVD burning process, the install time is also greatly reduced – we shaved off minutes from the total install time. Our step-by-step guide will have you swimming with Betta in no time!
Note: This guide will only work within Windows Vista.
1. Format Your USB Key
Plug in your USB key and back up any existing data stored on it. You’ll need to format the key before you can make it a bootable device.
Open up a Command Prompt as an Administrator. You can do this by finding the cmd.exe in yoru Windows/System32 folder, right-clicking the executable, and selecting “Run as Administrator”. Alternatively, type CMD in the Start Menu search field and activate the Command Prompt using Ctrl + Shift + Enter.
You should be under c:\Windows\system32 (assuming your Vista partition is the C drive). Type “diskpart” in the command line to enter the Disk Partition command line tool, which lets you format and create partitions on active disks.
Type “list disk” to reveal a list of all your active disks, each of which is associated with a number. Make a note of which one is your USB key, based on the capacity. In our screenshot below, our USB drive is Disk 6 (8GB).
Next, type the following commands, one at a time:
Select Disk # (Where # is the number of your USB disk. We typed “Select Disk 6”)
Clean (removes any existing partitions from the USB disk, including any hidden sectors)
Create Partition Primary (Creates a new primary partition with default parameters)
Select Partition 1 (Focus on the newly created partition)
Active (Sets the in-focus partition to active, informing the disk firmware that this is a valid system partition)
Format FS=NTFS (Formats the partition with the NTFS file system. This may take several minutes to complete, depending on the size of your USB key.)
Assign (Gives the USB drive a Windows volume and next available drive letter, which you should write down. In our case, drive “L” was assigned.)
Exit (Quits the DiskPart tool)
2. Turn the USB Key into a Bootable Device
Download and Install winRAR, which lets extract files from the install DVD image without burning or mounting it first. Open the utility and navigate to the direction where you downloaded your Windows 7 Beta ISO. Double click the ISO file to examine its contents. Extract all of the files here to a folder on your Desktop. We put the ISO contents in a folder named “Windows 7 Beta”
Go back to your command prompt, running it as an Administrator. Using the “CD” command, find your way to the folder where you extracted the ISO files. Your command line path should look something like “C:\Users\USERNAMEHERE\Desktop\Windows 7 Beta\”.
Type the following commands:
CD Boot (This gets you into the “boot” directory)
Bootsect.exe /nt60 L: (where ‘L’ is the drive letter assigned to your USB key from the previous step)
Bootsect infuses boot manager compatible code into your USB key to make it a bootable device.
IMPORTANT: If you’re currently running Windows Vista 32-bit, Bootsect will only work if you downloaded the 32-bit ISO for Windows 7 Beta. The Bootsect executable from the 64-bit version of the beta will not run in 32-bit Vista.
3. Load the USB Key Up with the Install Files
Copy all of the extracted ISO files into the USB drive. You don’t need to do this from the command prompt. Just drag and drop the files from the “Windows 7 Beta” folder into the drive using Windows Explorer.
Your USB key is now all ready to go! Plug it into your target system and make sure you enter the BIOS (typically with F2 or F12) to temporarily change the boot order to allow booting from the USB key before your primary hard drive or optical drive. On the next restart, your system should automatically begin speedily loading setup files off of the USB key and entering Windows 7 installation.
by Norman Chan
source : maximumpc
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Making Extra Money From Home in 3 Easy Steps
It's never been so easy to be making extra money from home. In fact with so many options out there these days, it's almost to hard to choose one and stick with it.
But with the current climate, most people are wanting to be conservative with their money, so I'm going to tell you about a tried and tested way to be making extra money from home, with out any investment, just your time, the Internet and your computer.
If you haven't heard about article marketing, then in a nutshell it sending traffic to a product that you recommend via giving people useful information regarding that product. If the person reading the article is then interested, they buy the product you recommend and you get a commission. Simple really.
Here is how you can commence article marketing in 3 easy steps:
Step 1 - Register yourself as an author of a popular article directory such as GoArticles.com, Articlebase.com, Squidoo.com, Hubpages.com. Their free and will allow you to publish quality content to promote your chosen product.
Step 2 - Go find a product to promote, and that will pay you well. Usually something that will pay you a higher commission if you sell is a good bet. One of the most popular spots to go for products is Clickbank.com. Once you register with Clickbank you'll find that is mainly has products that will solve problems in peoples lives (i.e. lose weight, make money, rid computer viruses, etc).
Step 3 - Get you affiliate link ( the link that will allow you to track the sales that have come from you) from your product vendor and start writing quality content and articles regarding the product. Also giving people tips and advice solving problems and then recommending a product is a great way to make sales.
Making extra money from home is really that easy. Now there are some other things you should learn about before you start, such as what to include in your article to start getting traffic to them.Get the book now : Making $40,000 per Month in Extra Income: A Step-by-Step Guide in Building Wealth through Various Income Streams
By Roger Ruzzier
source : ezinearticles.com
But with the current climate, most people are wanting to be conservative with their money, so I'm going to tell you about a tried and tested way to be making extra money from home, with out any investment, just your time, the Internet and your computer.
If you haven't heard about article marketing, then in a nutshell it sending traffic to a product that you recommend via giving people useful information regarding that product. If the person reading the article is then interested, they buy the product you recommend and you get a commission. Simple really.
Here is how you can commence article marketing in 3 easy steps:
Step 1 - Register yourself as an author of a popular article directory such as GoArticles.com, Articlebase.com, Squidoo.com, Hubpages.com. Their free and will allow you to publish quality content to promote your chosen product.
Step 2 - Go find a product to promote, and that will pay you well. Usually something that will pay you a higher commission if you sell is a good bet. One of the most popular spots to go for products is Clickbank.com. Once you register with Clickbank you'll find that is mainly has products that will solve problems in peoples lives (i.e. lose weight, make money, rid computer viruses, etc).
Step 3 - Get you affiliate link ( the link that will allow you to track the sales that have come from you) from your product vendor and start writing quality content and articles regarding the product. Also giving people tips and advice solving problems and then recommending a product is a great way to make sales.
Making extra money from home is really that easy. Now there are some other things you should learn about before you start, such as what to include in your article to start getting traffic to them.Get the book now : Making $40,000 per Month in Extra Income: A Step-by-Step Guide in Building Wealth through Various Income Streams
By Roger Ruzzier
source : ezinearticles.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
How to Boost Up Your Adsense Revenue in 5 Steps
How do we increase adsense income? You do not need to worry, this will show me how to increase adsense income. According to Joanna, Self with 5 way, now you can adsense increase income.The following steps:
1) Make your Adsense ads blend in with your web page. The more they blend in and fit in with your website, the more often they will get clicked. Advertisements that look too much like advertisement or don't seem like they belong will be unsuccessful.
2) Text ads are more effective than image ads. People are more likely to click on text than images. In a way, text is seen as more a part of the online document and is more "clickable." Most links you click on the web are text, so people are more used to linking in that way.
3) Avoid using borders on your ads. Erase the borders of your Adsense ads and keep them consistent in color with your website's background. The better they blend in, the less invasive they will appear, and the more they will get clicked.
4) Do not put any other advertisements on your page. The first reason is to follow Google's Adsense rules. The second reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and provoke them to go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.
5) Content is king! Articles are one of the most effective ways of attracting traffic to your site. Search engines exist first and foremost to provide relevant content, so it is important to remember to give your site's visitors something of value. The better content you provide, the more people will visit your site, and the more people will come back to your site again. And, of course, this all leads to more clicks on your advertisements.
1) Make your Adsense ads blend in with your web page. The more they blend in and fit in with your website, the more often they will get clicked. Advertisements that look too much like advertisement or don't seem like they belong will be unsuccessful.
2) Text ads are more effective than image ads. People are more likely to click on text than images. In a way, text is seen as more a part of the online document and is more "clickable." Most links you click on the web are text, so people are more used to linking in that way.
3) Avoid using borders on your ads. Erase the borders of your Adsense ads and keep them consistent in color with your website's background. The better they blend in, the less invasive they will appear, and the more they will get clicked.
4) Do not put any other advertisements on your page. The first reason is to follow Google's Adsense rules. The second reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and provoke them to go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.
5) Content is king! Articles are one of the most effective ways of attracting traffic to your site. Search engines exist first and foremost to provide relevant content, so it is important to remember to give your site's visitors something of value. The better content you provide, the more people will visit your site, and the more people will come back to your site again. And, of course, this all leads to more clicks on your advertisements.
Boot from a VHD using Windows 7
How to Boot VHD`s using Windows 7
Information
Windows 7 PDC build 6801 includes support for creating, mounting and booting from VHD images but not many seem to know how to use this functionality to boot VHDs at boot time... I will detail the steps required to have another OS bootable using Windows 7...
WARNING
This only works with Vista and Windows 7 VHD images!
If you do not have a good knowledge of how to reset your VirtualOS configuration like HAL type and driver configuration then your VHD will fail to boot, It must be cleaned of VirtualOS configuration correctly before windows 7 can boot your VHD!!
Step 1: Begin by following this Tutorial to create a VHD: Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD
Step 2: Open a elevated command prompt.
Step 3: type this command: bcdedit /copy {current} /d "VHD_Boot"
If the command succeeds, BCDEdit displays a message similar to the following:
The entry was successfully copied to {CLSID_Number}
Take note of the CLSID number as you will need this during the next step
Step 4: Then type this command bcdedit /set {CLSID_Number} osdevice vhd=[C:]\disk1.vhd
Step 5: Thats it, You can now boot VHDs using Windows 7
To confirm the settings simply type bcdedit
If your VHD is configured correctly You can reboot and select the extra boot-option to boot from your VHD
WARNING
VirtualPC VHDs can not be used for booting with Windows 7 because VirtualPC uses a Pentium 3 HAL and this prevents them from being used as boot media, You can however use this Tutorial: Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD and create then mount a VHD for use with VMWare Workstation....
You simply set VMWare workstation to use a Physical Disk, you can then Install a separate OS onto this mounted VHD for use with Windows 7.
Tip
You Must reset your VHD VirtualOS configuration like HAL type and driver configuration or your VHD will fail to boot!!! It must be cleaned of VirtualOS configuration correctly before windows 7 can boot your VHD!!
NOTE
There are still many bugs associated with VHD booting with Windows 7 at this time, I suspect Microsoft will be releasing a new Version of VirtualPC that's able to manage this entire process of creating, installing and booting separate VHDs at boot-time easily and without so many problems
Other Article:
- How to Change the Windows 7 Default Control Panel View
- How to Customize the View in the Services Window in Windows 7
- Free Windows 7 Transformation Pack Download
- Free Windows 7 Themes For Vista and XP
- 20 New Features of Windows 7
- Free Download UxTheme Patch for Windows 7
by : steve
source : sevenforums.com
Information
Windows 7 PDC build 6801 includes support for creating, mounting and booting from VHD images but not many seem to know how to use this functionality to boot VHDs at boot time... I will detail the steps required to have another OS bootable using Windows 7...
WARNING
This only works with Vista and Windows 7 VHD images!
If you do not have a good knowledge of how to reset your VirtualOS configuration like HAL type and driver configuration then your VHD will fail to boot, It must be cleaned of VirtualOS configuration correctly before windows 7 can boot your VHD!!
Step 1: Begin by following this Tutorial to create a VHD: Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD
Step 2: Open a elevated command prompt.
Step 3: type this command: bcdedit /copy {current} /d "VHD_Boot"
If the command succeeds, BCDEdit displays a message similar to the following:
The entry was successfully copied to {CLSID_Number}
Take note of the CLSID number as you will need this during the next step
Step 4: Then type this command bcdedit /set {CLSID_Number} osdevice vhd=[C:]\disk1.vhd
Step 5: Thats it, You can now boot VHDs using Windows 7
To confirm the settings simply type bcdedit
If your VHD is configured correctly You can reboot and select the extra boot-option to boot from your VHD
WARNING
VirtualPC VHDs can not be used for booting with Windows 7 because VirtualPC uses a Pentium 3 HAL and this prevents them from being used as boot media, You can however use this Tutorial: Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD and create then mount a VHD for use with VMWare Workstation....
You simply set VMWare workstation to use a Physical Disk, you can then Install a separate OS onto this mounted VHD for use with Windows 7.
Tip
You Must reset your VHD VirtualOS configuration like HAL type and driver configuration or your VHD will fail to boot!!! It must be cleaned of VirtualOS configuration correctly before windows 7 can boot your VHD!!
NOTE
There are still many bugs associated with VHD booting with Windows 7 at this time, I suspect Microsoft will be releasing a new Version of VirtualPC that's able to manage this entire process of creating, installing and booting separate VHDs at boot-time easily and without so many problems
Other Article:
- How to Change the Windows 7 Default Control Panel View
- How to Customize the View in the Services Window in Windows 7
- Free Windows 7 Transformation Pack Download
- Free Windows 7 Themes For Vista and XP
- 20 New Features of Windows 7
- Free Download UxTheme Patch for Windows 7
by : steve
source : sevenforums.com
Unlock Regional Themes in Windows 7
Here are tips to Unlock Regional Themes in Windows 7 according to the Doctor Inferno.The stepsis as follows:
1. Navigate to C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT.
2. Open a MCT-(AU, CA, GB, US, or ZA) folder for the regional theme that you want.
NOTE: AU, CA and ZA regions all have the same themes though.
3. Open the Theme folder in the selected region folder.
4. Select the .theme file to use it.
NOTE: Once you select a .theme file, Windows 7 will save it so that you will be able to change or select this theme again from within the normal Personalization window location.
5. Hide the Windows 7 System and Protected Operating System files.
6. Enjoy your new regional themes!
Other Article:
- How to Change the Windows 7 Default Control Panel View
- How to Customize the View in the Services Window in Windows 7
- Free Windows 7 Transformation Pack Download
- Free Windows 7 Themes For Vista and XP
- 20 New Features of Windows 7
- Free Download UxTheme Patch for Windows 7
1. Navigate to C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT.
2. Open a MCT-(AU, CA, GB, US, or ZA) folder for the regional theme that you want.
NOTE: AU, CA and ZA regions all have the same themes though.
3. Open the Theme folder in the selected region folder.
4. Select the .theme file to use it.
NOTE: Once you select a .theme file, Windows 7 will save it so that you will be able to change or select this theme again from within the normal Personalization window location.
5. Hide the Windows 7 System and Protected Operating System files.
6. Enjoy your new regional themes!
Other Article:
- How to Change the Windows 7 Default Control Panel View
- How to Customize the View in the Services Window in Windows 7
- Free Windows 7 Transformation Pack Download
- Free Windows 7 Themes For Vista and XP
- 20 New Features of Windows 7
- Free Download UxTheme Patch for Windows 7
Monday, April 20, 2009
Create a Restore Point in Windows with Single Click
Single Click Restore Point (SCRP) is a free utility for Windows which can create a system restore point in just one click without having to go through any other process. It is always advisable to create a restore point if you are trying out some applications which can cause major change to Windows system files. This tool will help you create a restore point without go through the System restore Utility….
All you need is to download the utility and run it. It will automatically create a system restore point. The utility does not have any interface, it provides only the alert message when restore point is created.
Now if you navigate to System restore function in Control Panel of Windows and try the option “Restore My Computer to an earlier time”, you can see the restore options. Here you can see the restore points created by tool and its named as “Created by SCRP Tool”
This is very useful utility for people who find it difficult to create the restore point using the option in Control panel.
Download Single Click Restore Point (SCRP)
Download Other Free Software :
Download More software
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
source : nirmaltv.com
All you need is to download the utility and run it. It will automatically create a system restore point. The utility does not have any interface, it provides only the alert message when restore point is created.
Now if you navigate to System restore function in Control Panel of Windows and try the option “Restore My Computer to an earlier time”, you can see the restore options. Here you can see the restore points created by tool and its named as “Created by SCRP Tool”
This is very useful utility for people who find it difficult to create the restore point using the option in Control panel.
Download Single Click Restore Point (SCRP)
Download Other Free Software :
Download More software
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
source : nirmaltv.com
Saturday, April 18, 2009
5 Tips to Make Your Web Site Load Quickly
By Francis Lui
When developing your Web site, it's important to make sure your site loads quickly. If it takes too long to load, your prospect may get impatient and leave.
When a new visitor arrives at your site, they'll typically only want to wait a few seconds. If they wait longer than that, they'll move on to the many other Web sites available.
So what are some ways to make sure your site loads fast? Here are 5 tips:
1. Get a fast web host. This one's important. Your web host can make all the difference. Depending on the web host you choose, it can greatly affect the speed of your site. Some can load web pages more quickly than others.
Be sure to do some research when finding a good web host. Read different reviews of them.
2. Use less Flash. Flash can make your site load slower. When someone visits your site, he'll have to download the Flash files (known as .SWF files). If you have a large Flash video on your site, your prospect will have to download the whole thing.
3. Use fewer images. Images have to be downloaded when the prospect visits your site. If you have a lot of them, it'll take longer for your site to load.
If you use images, make sure your images use a file type that has a smaller file size, such as .GIF and .JPG. Avoid using bitmap (.BMP) image files because they have a larger file size. Although .GIF and .JPG have a slightly lower quality, they look about as good as .BMP images -- and they download faster.
4. Avoid background music. Avoid playing background music on your Web site. If you have background music, your visitor will have to download the background music file to play it. Plus, playing background music may come across as unprofessional and annoy your visitor.
5. Use efficient web code. This is something your web developer can help you with. If your Web site uses web programming languages (such as PHP), make sure your code is efficient.
If you know programming, then you know that nested for loops is inefficient. If you don't know programming, then have someone help you to make sure your code is efficient.
So be sure your Web site loads quickly. Instead of driving prospects away with a slow site, your prospects will more likely stay and browse your site.
Francis Lui is a freelance web copywriter with web technical skills. For more FREE web copywriting and Internet marketing tips, sign up for his FREE newsletter, The Web Copy Letter, at http://www.francislui.com/.
source : ezinearticles.com
When developing your Web site, it's important to make sure your site loads quickly. If it takes too long to load, your prospect may get impatient and leave.
When a new visitor arrives at your site, they'll typically only want to wait a few seconds. If they wait longer than that, they'll move on to the many other Web sites available.
So what are some ways to make sure your site loads fast? Here are 5 tips:
1. Get a fast web host. This one's important. Your web host can make all the difference. Depending on the web host you choose, it can greatly affect the speed of your site. Some can load web pages more quickly than others.
Be sure to do some research when finding a good web host. Read different reviews of them.
2. Use less Flash. Flash can make your site load slower. When someone visits your site, he'll have to download the Flash files (known as .SWF files). If you have a large Flash video on your site, your prospect will have to download the whole thing.
3. Use fewer images. Images have to be downloaded when the prospect visits your site. If you have a lot of them, it'll take longer for your site to load.
If you use images, make sure your images use a file type that has a smaller file size, such as .GIF and .JPG. Avoid using bitmap (.BMP) image files because they have a larger file size. Although .GIF and .JPG have a slightly lower quality, they look about as good as .BMP images -- and they download faster.
4. Avoid background music. Avoid playing background music on your Web site. If you have background music, your visitor will have to download the background music file to play it. Plus, playing background music may come across as unprofessional and annoy your visitor.
5. Use efficient web code. This is something your web developer can help you with. If your Web site uses web programming languages (such as PHP), make sure your code is efficient.
If you know programming, then you know that nested for loops is inefficient. If you don't know programming, then have someone help you to make sure your code is efficient.
So be sure your Web site loads quickly. Instead of driving prospects away with a slow site, your prospects will more likely stay and browse your site.
Francis Lui is a freelance web copywriter with web technical skills. For more FREE web copywriting and Internet marketing tips, sign up for his FREE newsletter, The Web Copy Letter, at http://www.francislui.com/.
source : ezinearticles.com
Friday, April 17, 2009
Practical and Ethical Tips In Google Adsense
Today, making money online is a hot trend. In coming days I am sure you will see many working professional quit their day job and seats in the house in their pajamas writing some blog posts to make them live.
There are great opportunities to make money online. Currently Google Adsense is the best option for most publishers
But to get more revenue from adsense is not easy. For that reason I wrote this article.
This is only some of the ethical and practical tips to improve your Adsense earnings.
Before start, lets have some Google policy recap:
According to Adsense policy don’t do these things:
1) Do not click on your own Adsense ads by any way.
2) Do not increase Adsense ad impressions with some automating tools.
3) Don’t ask others to click on your ads.
4) Don’t alter the Adsense code other than fonts and colors.
5) Don’t put Adsnese code on adult or prohibited content.
Now you know the things that are against the Google Adsense policy.
Lets start to simple tips to optimize adsense ads :
1) Blend your ads. Match your Adsense colors with your site colors.
2) Do not use borders to your text ads.
4) Use link units near site navigation links.
5) Use section targeting to target ads relevant to your site or page content. You can learn here
6) Ad placement is important. Sample site that have clever placement ads you can see here.
7) Block low paying and irrelevant ads showing on your site. You can learn here.
8) Test, Test and Test to work it best!!!
Follow these simple Adsense optimization tips. Experiment for at least two weeks to see the results. Believe me I am not exaggerating because I am experimenting with Adsense on my different sites since long time and these are nothing but some practical and ethical tips to increase your Adsense revenue.
By vanudin
source : patromax
There are great opportunities to make money online. Currently Google Adsense is the best option for most publishers
But to get more revenue from adsense is not easy. For that reason I wrote this article.
This is only some of the ethical and practical tips to improve your Adsense earnings.
Before start, lets have some Google policy recap:
According to Adsense policy don’t do these things:
1) Do not click on your own Adsense ads by any way.
2) Do not increase Adsense ad impressions with some automating tools.
3) Don’t ask others to click on your ads.
4) Don’t alter the Adsense code other than fonts and colors.
5) Don’t put Adsnese code on adult or prohibited content.
Now you know the things that are against the Google Adsense policy.
Lets start to simple tips to optimize adsense ads :
1) Blend your ads. Match your Adsense colors with your site colors.
2) Do not use borders to your text ads.
4) Use link units near site navigation links.
5) Use section targeting to target ads relevant to your site or page content. You can learn here
6) Ad placement is important. Sample site that have clever placement ads you can see here.
7) Block low paying and irrelevant ads showing on your site. You can learn here.
8) Test, Test and Test to work it best!!!
Follow these simple Adsense optimization tips. Experiment for at least two weeks to see the results. Believe me I am not exaggerating because I am experimenting with Adsense on my different sites since long time and these are nothing but some practical and ethical tips to increase your Adsense revenue.
By vanudin
source : patromax
Windows 7 Tips and Tricks again
For those of you who have installed Windows 7 Beta, here are some tricks and tricks from lockergnome.com.
* In the case that something happens to your system, you can make yourself a system repair disc. Just search “system repair disc” in the start menu.
* You can get quicklaunch back by following these steps:
1. right-click the taskbar and Toolbars and then select New Toolbar
2. in the folder selection box that appears enter “%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch” without the quotation marks of course.
3. turn off “lock the taskbar” and right-click the divider. Make sure “show text” and “show title” are both disabled and that view is set to “small icons”
4. you can then rearrange the toolbar the way you like it and then lock it again.
* Mail and a few other features are missing on 7. You can get them back by downloading Windows Live Essentials to get Live Photo Gallery, Mail, Messenger, Movie Maker, and other features from here.
* If you have a disk image such as an .iso that you want to burn, just double click it and a burning tool should appear.
* If you like using ctrl+alt+del but want only the task manager to pop up, try ctrl+shift+esc. This should also work for Vista also.
Other Article:
- How to Change the Windows 7 Default Control Panel View
- How to Customize the View in the Services Window in Windows 7
- Free Windows 7 Transformation Pack Download
- Free Windows 7 Themes For Vista and XP
- 20 New Features of Windows 7
- Free Download UxTheme Patch for Windows 7
by Arun Venkatesan
source : crunchgear
