Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

What Is An Internet Phone, What is VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), And Are They The Same Thing?

April 29th, 2013 |

If you’re over the age of 30, all these new high-tech gizmos can be a little confusing sometimes. That’s why people often write in and ask me, “What is an Internet phone, what is VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) , and are they the same thing?”. To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at both the Internet phone and VoIP.

What Is VOIP?

VoIP, also known as Voice Over Internet Protocol, is a type of technology which allows you to use a broadband connection to place telephone calls in place of a standard phone line. Many VoIP services utilize your computer to make the calls, while some use a normal phone hooked to a VoIP adapter or a special VoIP phone.

In many cases, you’ll be able to call international numbers, cell phone numbers, local numbers and long distance numbers. Other VoIP services, however, will limit the caller only to communicating with people using the same service.

VoIP works by converting your voice into a digital signal and sending it over the Internet. If you’re calling another computer, it will stay a digital signal. If you’re calling someone on their regular telephone, the digital signal will eventually be converted into an analog signal.

There are a few disadvantages to VoIP service, though. For example, you may not be able to get white page listings with all VoIP services, some VoIP services don’t connect you directly to 9-1-1, and many VoIP services will not function during power outages.

What Is An Internet Phone?

If you’re still asking, “What is an Internet phone, what is VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) , and are they the same thing?”, then this next section may shed some additional light on your question. In it, we’ll be talking about Internet phones.

voip-internet-phone Many Internet phones look and perform just like a traditional telephone. The difference is that they allow your voice signal to be sent across a broadband connection and received by someone else using a VoIP service.

While the network for an Internet phone may be different, the device functions in the same way. Just pick up the receiver and dial the desired number. Within seconds, you’ll either hear ringing or a busy signal.

The clarity of calls is usually pretty reliable on an Internet phone. During periods of heavy Internet traffic, signals can be a bit choppy, but this only lasts for a short time. Since the service does rely on electricity, your Internet phone will be unusable during power outages (although this can be countered by using a universal power supply).

Are VoIP And Internet Phones The Same?

Finally, we have our last answer to, “What is an Internet phone, what is VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) , and are they the same thing?”. VoIP and Internet phones are NOT the same thing.

The VoIP is the service which allows you to place online calls, and an Internet phone is the actual device which you use to do so. While they are both crucial to placing online calls, they are NOT the same thing.

How Old Do You Have to Be to Have a Facebook Account?

March 24th, 2013 |

How Old Do You Have to Be to Have a Facebook Account?

Let’s face it — Facebook is ubiquitous. It is the most popular social networking site by far, so much so that major life events don’t seem real until they’re posted as a Facebook status update. Whether or not you like Facebook, approve of social networking, or think Facebook has a good or bad influence on people, it is here to stay.

Because Facebook is everywhere and “everyone has a Facebook account”, most kids want to join. Facebook was once meant for college students and professionals but the scope has expanded to include most people. So is there an age restriction for Facebook?

Facebook’s Age Restriction

Facebook’s terms of service are very clear on this subject. In plain English, the site advises that “this site is intended solely for users who are thirteen (13) years of age or older, and users of the Site under 18 who are currently in secondary school or college. Any registration by, use of or access to the site by anyone under 13, or by anyone who is under 18 and not in secondary school or college, is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of (Facebook’s) Terms of Use.”

That’s quite a mouthful. What it says is :

You must be at least 13 years old to join Facebook
If you are under 18, you must be enrolled in secondary school (high school) or college

Most people probably don’t realize that this age restriction exists. Also — isn’t it interesting that Facebook won’t accept people under 18 if they’re not in school? Seems like a random restriction to me, but who knows . .

Penalties for Lying About Your Age

Nothing serious is going to happen to an underage person if they register for the site and lie about their age. The worst that can happen is that they’ll be banned from the site. It says in Facebook’s “policies” section that “By using the service or the site, you represent and warrant that you are 13 or older and in secondary school or college, or else that you are 18 or older, and that you agree to and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.”

No, you’re not gonna get arrested if you register for Facebook illicitly, but if the site finds out about it, they will ban you.

Facebook Alternatives for Kids

It is important that your kid learn how to use the Internet properly. The Internet is a major part of my life, and it is sure to be a big part of your children’s future. Learning to use a social network responsibly is much like learning to write a check — you don’t want them doing it now, but you know they’ll be doing it in the future and they should learn to do it right.

Kids don’t have to miss out on all the social networking fun — but they should be doing it at a “kid specific” site. You don’t want your ten year old kid on the same social network as most of my friends, let me tell you. Here’s a few kid-friendly social networking alternatives to Facebook.

ClubPenguin.com — with over 25 million members (none older than 13) this is an up and coming big hitter in kid’s social networking. Lots of innocent fun and plenty of monitoring by adults.

KidSwirl.com — vaguely Facebook-like but heavily moderated.

WhyVille.net — more like a “Sims” style game. Kids pick avatars and chat under the usual heavy moderation.

What Is Wireless Internet Access?

March 22nd, 2013 |

What Is Wireless Internet Access?

The ability to access the Internet wirelessly is provided by a local area network, or LAN. This network allows Internet access using radio waves rather than wires. Traditionally, the Internet was accessible only through phone lines or cable — but wireless Internet access is fast becoming the standard.

Wireless Internet access starts with a central hub that contains a hard-wired Internet connection. This hub, usually found attached to the main computer system or server in a network, broadcasts radio waves that bring the Internet to specific computers which are part of the same wireless network. How do you become part of a wireless network? If you are in range of the LAN’s radio waves and your computer is equipped with a wireless card, you can access the Internet wirelessly. Generally, these networks are password protected.

Wireless Internet Access in the Home

In a residential setting, wireless Internet will broadcast anywhere from 100 to 250 feet around the central hub. This means that anyone in the home (even on the front porch or upstairs) with a laptop or desktop and a wireless card can connect to the Internet using the home’s wireless network. Sometimes, your close neighbors can access your LAN and use your wireless connection — wireless Internet technology is improving and the size of wireless networks is expanding. This is a big reason why your wireless LAN should be set up with a password. You don’t want people outside your home using your wireless to do something unwholesome.

Wireless Internet Access at Work

What Is Wireless Internet Access? Millions of people enjoy the convenience of wireless Internet at home, but wireless Internet is a big part of the commercial world as well. An old school wired network is difficult and expensive to install all over your building, and your office setup is set in stone once you’ve hard-wired offices for the Internet. It is difficult to rearrange an office when your Internet access is limited to one spot. Don’t forget that installing new Internet access points with Ethernet cables means tearing up the walls, ceilings, and floors of the office space you’re in. The reasons many businesses were hesitant to switch to wireless Internet are the same reasons most people were hesitant — Ethernet cables provided a greater level of security and faster data speeds. Once wireless technology caught up with (and then began to outperform) traditional wired access, commercial properties began using wireless connections. They’re simply cheaper, more convenient, more secure, and faster.

Wireless LANs can be installed in a few minutes by anyone with a bare minimum of computer savvy. Compared to Ethernet LANs, wireless networks using WPA2 encryption are far more secure than Ethernet connection. All traffic on a wireless network secured by WPA2 is encrypted, not just “sensitive” traffic like that to financial partners or email accounts.

Wireless LAN Technology is still improving. When installing a new wireless network, be sure to purchase tools that support the latest protocols and security features for wireless networks — buy network cards, hubs, and wireless modems that are built to the highest standard.

This article is part of a series we’re doing on computer basics. The other posts in this series are:

For more information about Internet access and Internet services, visit Cheap Internet Deals.

Internet Questions & Answers

March 16th, 2013 |

The introduction of the internet launched a technology boom that has unveiled numerous advances in telecomunications, advertising, web hosting, broabad, and voice over ip (VOIP) just to name a few.

In this “Internet Questions & Answers” section we will provide internet tips and general internet advice. We plan to do more than just touch the surface of these topics devling deeply to inform you about not only how internet related prodcuts and technologies work but how you can make the best use of them.

To learn more about affordable internet product, visit Cheap Internet Deals.

If you would to submit a question please send an email to questions [at] askdeb.com.

Internet Advice

The purpose of the internet advice found in this section is to help you learn about different internet technologies, how they work and how to use them.

Recent Internet Related Blog Posts

The following are recent internet related blog post we feel are relevant to our readers.

internet-computing-questions

What Is a T1 Line?

A T1 line is a dedicated digital communication link from the phone company that offers as much as 1.544 megabits per second of bandwidth. This speed of communication is most often used for carrying lots of traffic to and from private business networks and Internet service providers.

What is an “Online Fax Machine”?

An online fax machine is an online fax service that lets you send, receive and record faxes without the need of paper fax machines or any kind of paper records at all.

How Can I Check My Husband’s MSN Messenger Chat History At Work?

So you don’t quite trust your husband or maybe you do but you’d like to keep an eye on him. It is probably just as well. We men are notorious for getting ourselves into trouble.

How Do I Make My Own Website?

What is Google?

What is Google? A better question might be what isn’t it? This corporation has grown from a small startup to the most influential company on the Internet.

How Do You Make Your Blog More Interesting?

These days just about everyone, from your neighbor across the street to your sweet Aunt Pearl, has a blog. They can post about all sorts of subjects from the weird to the completely mundane.

What is the Conficker Worm and the Doomsday Virus?

A number of readers have written in and asked, “What is the Conficker Worm and the Doomsday Virus?” Fortunately, these annoying and destructive computer viruses are the same thing, so you only have one nuisance to worry about.

What is the April Fools Worm and How do I Protect My Computer from It?

Following a recent report from 60 Minutes, we’ve been flooded with emails asking, “What is the April Fools Worm, and how do I protect my computer from it?” Luckily for PC owners, the solution to the problem is easier than one might think; it’s discovering the problem that’s the hard part.

What Are Social Media Sites?

How Do I Become A Blogger?

Blogs, or “weblogs”, are not just the latest fad — they are an entire new form of media and expression enjoyed by literally billions of viewers around the world.

How Do I Protect My Computer From Hackers On The Internet?

Computer hacking may seem like a cool thing to do. They’ve made movies where a hacker is the good guy so it must be true, right? WRONG.

How Do I Prevent Spyware On My Computer?

How Do I Prevent Viruses On My Computer?

Have you ever opened up an email attachment, even from someone you know and trust, and suddenly Bam! You’ve got a virus.

How Do I Make My Computer Run Faster?

Don’t you love the way a new computer flies through applications and programs? It seems to do a task as soon as you click the mouse. But computers don’t run at that speed forever.

How Do I Use The Internet To Run A Criminal Background Check?

What Is An Internet Phone, What is VOIP, And Are They The Same Thing?

Who is Qwest Internet?

Qwest Internet provides video, voice and data services in many states throughout America. They initially offered telephone service, but they have since grown to also include Verizon Wireless products, broadband phone service, Internet connections and DIRECTV.

Who is RCN Internet?

RCN Internet is a provider of high-speed Internet, digital cable and phone bundles. In business since 1996, they utilize fiber-optic cables to service the following areas: Chicago, Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.

How To Find Cheap T1 Internet Services?

Finding cheap T1 internet service is a heck of a lot easier than finding quotes on T3 internet services. Just about any individual who uses high speed internet connections use a T1 set-up.

What is a T1 Internet Connection?

In Japan, North America and South Korea, the T1 Internet connection has become the standard telecommunications method for transferring data (via a network router) and voices (via a telephone system) from device to device.

How To Find Cheap T3 Internet Services?

Finding cheap T3 internet services can be a real hassle, because there seem to be a million online T3 service providers and it’s hard to tell which ones are better than others.

What is a T3 Internet connection?

T3 Internet connections work at incredible speeds (45 million bits per second). As such, they are primarily used by organizations with high traffic (such as companies and universities).

Where Can I Find Cheap High Speed Internet?

You can find cheap high speed internet with just a little bit of online research. These days, there are hundreds of high speed internet providers.

How to Get Cheap Internet?

Knowing how to get cheap Internet service can make a big difference when it comes time to pay your bills each month. This is true whether you’re shopping for dial-up Internet service, DSL internet service, satellite Internet service or T1 Internet service.

How Much Does High Speed Internet Service Cost?

These days, high speed internet doesn’t cost that much. You can find a good high speed internet hookup for a cost of $10 a month. This might not be the highest-performing internet service provider on the market, but you won’t notice much of a difference in your internet speed.

What is High Speed Internet?

High speed Internet, also known as “broadband Internet,” is a type of Internet access which allows for a high data rate. It is much faster than the standard dial-up connection (which is normally only capable of 56 kilobits per second), and the user may retain full use of their phone line.

How Does High Speed Internet Work?

When answering the question, “How does high speed Internet work?”, we need to individually examine the three most common types of high speed Internet services: DSL, cable and satellite.

What Internet Packages Are Available?

As the Internet continues to grow, subscribers are constantly asking the question, “What Internet packages are available?”. It’s a simple enough question, but the answer can be quite overwhelming considering the amount of available packages and bundles.

Who Provides the Best Internet Packages?

Who is the Best Internet Hosting Company?

When it comes time to find a host for their website, many people ask the same question: “Who is the best Internet hosting company?”

What is Internet Web Hosting?

Simply put, Internet web hosting allows a person or company to have their own website. The web host owns space on a server, and they allow their clients to use part of this space for websites.

How Does Wireless Internet Work?

If you’re in the market for wireless Internet access or wireless Internet service, you may have asked yourself the question, “How does wireless Internet work?”.

How Does VOIP Work?

VOIP, also known as Voice Over Internet Protocol, allows users to talk over their computers just like they were making a regular phone call. Audio signals are collected, turned into digital signals, and then transmitted over the Internet.

How to make Internet phone calls?

As technology advances, learning how to make Internet phone calls becomes increasingly important. In the future, this could very well become the most common method of person-to-person communication.

How To Get Internet On Your Phone?

If you find yourself in an area that doesn’t support a standard Internet connection, it’s helpful to know how to get Internet on your phone.

How Do I Advertise on the Internet?

Advertising on the Internet is the best way to make people aware of your goods and services in the digital world. People all over the globe log on every day, so Internet advertising brings with it the possibility of millions of clients.

How Does Internet Advertising Work?

What is Internet Advertising?

Internet advertising is a way of marketing services or products on the World Wide Web. This can be done through search engine optimization, banner ads, affiliate marketing, email marketing, SEM marketing and Web 2.0 strategies.

Does Internet Advertising Work?

Internet Tips

For your convenience we’ve put together this list of internet tips. If you’d like to see more post your questions in our community forum.

How can I add streaming audio (mp3s) to my website?

There are several programs out there, but the best one I’ve found is the Wimpy Player.

Can you have two anti-virus programs on your computer at the same time?

It is NOT a good idea to have more than one anti-virus program on your computer because it can cause configuration conflicts.
Important things to know about computer viruses.

You can get a virus from email attachments
It is not ok to open email attachments
Run a virus checker on any programs you download off the internet or receive as an attachment to e-mail

How can I find if a domain name (dot com) is available?

Use the searchbox below:

Can you recommend affordable and reliable internet access?

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Who is Majordomo and why is he returning my e-mail?

He is “master of the house” designed to copy and distribute e-mail to everyone who has subscribed to a particular mailing list. He is not a real person and has a very limited “vocabulary” and can only respond to a handful of commands (like subscribe – help – list). The commands must be in the body of the e-mail and in perfect syntax. Majordomo will ignore anything placed on the subject line on your e-mail. If you still need help getting majordomo to work for you, let me know and I’ll help you.

How Do I Use The Internet To Run A Criminal Background Check?

February 26th, 2013 |

These days, a criminal background check is a requirement for many jobs. It is important to know the people that you are dealing with before giving them access to you and others in any office or place of employment. If it turns out that someone has an extensive criminal record, you need to know this in order to protect yourself and your interests. If anyone were to conduct criminal activities using your property, you could be financially and legally liable. Even if someone is honest and upfront about having a criminal record, it is always a good idea to double check.

Years ago, the only way to run a criminal check was to contact the state and county that the person resides in and look up any records on the person. Another way was to have access to a state or nation-wide database like police and FBI use and do a search. However, with today’s technology and wide-spread system of communications, you can use the Internet to run a criminal background check. If you have never had to do a background check before you may wonder “how do I use the Internet to run a criminal background check”? The answer is there are many site that offer free background checks for various things such as driving records, credit history, and criminal records.

Why Do You Need To Run A Background Check

There are many reasons why you would want to run an online background check. You need to know if someone has a criminal record if you are going to hire them for the workplace, childcare, government jobs, neighborhood watches, and personal interest.

Workplace – If you are an employer considering hiring a potential new employee, you need to know if that person has a history of violence in the workplace. A violent outburst in the office can be devastating to everyone and you could end up with a lot of people hurt. Another reason to be careful about who you hire is that you don’t want that person carrying on any illegal activities while at work or by sing any of the businesses property. Negligent hiring procedures can leave your company liable for damages caused by the individual with the record.

Childcare – Whether it is a daycare or a private nanny, you need to check their background and make sure the person is not a danger to children. Any convictions of child molestation or sex offenses will be on their record.

Government Jobs – All government job applicants, either for state or federal positions, must go through a background check. Government contractor in particular must screen all applicants. They do not want anyone with felony convictions because they do not want to jeopardize national security.

Neighborhood Watches – Neighborhood watch groups are particular about keeping their neighborhoods safe from criminal activities. Many of these groups will run a criminal background check on new members to the neighborhood in order to protect the safety of the other members.

Personal Interests – Online dating is very popular. Millions of people every day email and chat with other people to establish a relationship. Most online dating sites claim to run a background check but the truth is, you can never be sure who it is you are really talking to, if the person is genuine or it is all an act. Online predators are common and prey on the unwary. Doing a criminal background check is just a safe way to ensure your own protection against internet dating scams.

What You Need In Order To Run A Criminal Background Check

To run a criminal background check using the Internet, you need a couple of things. Naturally, you need to know the person’s name (although their full name would be better). You also need to know their social security number, their age, birth date, and the state and county that they reside in. Sometimes you may not know their social security number or date of birth but just knowing their name, age, race, and state and county residence might be enough.

Where Can You Look Online To Run A Criminal Background Check

There are many sites online where you can run a criminal background check. One of the easiest is to do a Google or Yahoo search using the person’s name and just see what comes up. Chances are you won’t find anything really useful but since it is free, it is always worth a shot.

There are many sites where you pay a membership fee to be able to use their databases. Most of these sites are fairly current in their records and the membership fee is usually fairly cheap. However, there are some websites that cater to large businesses that charge more for their services. There are also some free sites that do not charge anything. All you do is enter the person’s name, age, and state where they live and you can get results in just a few minutes. Some of these free sites may not have the most current records but it won’t cost you anything.

One site that is of immense value is the National Sex Offender Registry which is linked to the Department of Justice webpage. This database lists all convicted sex offenders within the United States. This list can be easily viewed online and is invaluable to employers, neighborhood watches, and people seeking to hire someone for childcare.

If you want to find a site to do a criminal background check, just do an online search and look up the site that seems right for your needs.

How to Manage Email

January 21st, 2013 |

How to Manage Email Effectively

When you learn how to manage email accounts, you’re learning how to manage time and building your communication skills. If you’re like me, you get a lot of emails coming to you any given day, from friendly e-mails, business notes, spam, solicitations, advertisements, blog replies, your favorite hobby updates, and from countless other sources. Eventually, your email inbox becomes a monster. Some email systems require you to constantly manage your inbox, so messages don’t start bouncing off a full e-mailbox.

If this sounds like your life, follow the tips below to better manage your email situation. None of the email management tips are hard to do, and they’ll make your life easier and your work more efficient.

E-Mail Overload Tips

Get a Gmail Account

How to Manage Email Effectively You probably already know this, but “gmail” is the Google email resource. Gmail claims to have unlimited email space, so packrats don’t have to worry about deleting valuable emails. Gmail also allows you to create labels and task folders to help you organize your emails. Gmail allow you to “star” rate emails, so your most important miscellaneous emails stand out on your screen, and can be accessed alone. Your email address also has its own internal search engine, so you can search your email by keyword or key phrases, if an important email goes missing.

Gmail also lets you save files from your computer or sent to you through email to “Google Documents”, so you can access documents and other files from your computer, or terminals anywhere else in the world. Saving to Google docs takes one click and gives another level of organization you don’t have in most email systems. Gmail also allows for chats, so you can communicate when you’re online with other Gmail users, though you can also sign out of chat or go invisible, if you need to get work done.

Some people with slow connections and dial-ups connections (there’s one or two of those still left) complain that their Gmail’s homepage takes too long to come up, since there is so much information likely to be contained inside. If this becomes a problem, you can change to “Older Version” or “Basic HTML” mode, which are found at the bottom of your personal Gmail homepage.

Gmail Labels and Folders

Once you’re on Gmail, you can create labels to help categorize your emails. You can make broad folders for broad categories like “Work“, “Girlfriend“, “To Do“, “Parents“, “Hobbies“, or you can make folders for specific situation like “San Jose Project“, “Vacation Plans“, “Facebook” and “Fantasy Baseball“. When you get an email you want to put in one of these categories, you just click on “Move To” at the top of your inbox and select the label you want to move the email into.

To get emails out of your inbox, but still retrievable, you can also “Archive” them. This gets the seemingly needless emails out of your face, but allows the inner pack rat to maintain a huge backlog of emails, in case one of them turns out to be important. For obvious spams and scams, you can set up spam blockers, and use the check-and-click “Delete” option to quickly get rid of emails that offend you.

Email Processing Times

Now that you’re getting emails your email situation organized, you should organize your email time, as well. Have set times you read and reply to emails throughout the day, instead of reading and replying as they come in. Most of us know that we can get email alerts to our various electronic gadgets, but these don’t really make our communication system more efficient.

When you stop your work or play to respond immediately to every email, you’re actually hurting your productivity, because there’s are studies that show it takes a full 2 minutes to be back to your previous level of concentration, when you stop concentrating on the task at hand. Two minutes here and there throughout the day adds up to a lot of time.

Also, when you answer emails in real time, there are going to be a number you’ll say “I’ll reply to that one later”. But if it’s already marked “read” or been opened, you’re just as likely to forget the message entirely. This means a lot of important email messages go unreplied to.

Instead, have a few times in the day that you read your emails and reply to them in bulk. This means you only stop down to check emails a few times in your work day, so you aren’t stopping and starting and dividing your attention throughout your work time. When you do decide to reply, choose to make your replies one-by-one all at once, and never “leave one for later”. This leads to more thoroughness in your communications.

Make Short, Efficient Replies

This is one I have to remind myself about all the time. Short, pithy replies are better than long-winded, rambling replies. That sounds simple, but you often want to over-explain what it is you’re explain, and it ends up sounding like a big ramble or rant. If that describes you, take care to be concise.

Don’t use unnecessary sentences or words. Address the essential questions and topics in the original email. Know what needs a response and what doesn’t.

Also, make your replies readable. Use paragraph breaks often. This makes your reply easier to read. If you have a block of sentences 15-20 lines long, whatever you say in line 10 is likely to be lost in the jumble. Don’t be surprised when the person on the other end misses something important.

Be a Good Communicator

Another part of being a good communicator is making a connection to the reader. Address your email friend by name, and sign off by name. This changes the tone of the email from impersonal to friendly and personal. The time it takes to make this change is a split second, too.

Proofread and Make Necessary Changes

Before you dash off an email, re-read it once, edit typos and make sure the writing is clear. If you have trouble reading over the email (knowing what you’re saying), your audience is going to have a doubly-tough time. Also, it’s bad form to have typos, misspellings and grammar errors.

Typos and misspellings are easy to correct, since everyone has spell check. Gmail has a great spell check function that takes a second and underlines in red every questionable word usage. Bad grammar is harder to spot, if you haven’t sat in an English class in 20 years, but read over the note and see if it sounds right. If a sentence doesn’t sound right when read aloud, it probably isn’t. If you want to be real conscientious, you can keep a handy grammar book at your side.

Proofreading makes you sound more professional, better informed and smarter (frankly). Proofreading your email replies just once sends a better impression, and makes you a better communicator.

Send a Bridging Email

When you are solicited by people you don’t consider spammers, send a short reply email to them, even if you don’t have the time or ability to fashion a full answer or reply at that moment. Simply let them know you got the message and you want to replay, and then give them a time frame when you think you’ll be able to answer their question.

You’ve no doubt sent emails out to people and never received a reply, and that probably chapped your hide. When you don’t reply to thoughtful emails, you do the same thing to other people. Sending out a short bridging emails gives them a positive impression of you. Besides, it’s the polite thing to do.

Add a Dedicated Signature

A dedicated signature is a personalized sig line at the end of your emails which automatically includes a blog link, website address, or other link to something you want to promote. If you have something you want people to see, make sure they have an easy way to see your work.

Collect an Address Book

Finally, Gmail also lets you collect an ever-growing logbook of email addresses you can organize, helping you to get the most out of your networking instincts. You can do this with the people who send you emails, adding them automatically into your contacts. But you can also easily cut-and-paste and label your growing email list as you go.

All of us tend to forget a cool website the second we navigate away from it – or we forget about 20 seconds after we navigate away, due to the way short term memory works. But you don’t have to forget, once you start saving your favorite addresses on Gmail.

Managing Email Overload

There are other methods for how to manage email contacts and correspondence, but Gmail is the best one I’ve found. Even if you hate Google for some reason, follow the rest of the advice I give you and it will make you a better organized, more efficient and more polite email user.

For more information related to how to manage email, see some of the following:

What Is Google Squared?

January 17th, 2013 |

What is Google Squared?

There is a new frontier in the world of web searches. Gone are the days when searching giants like Google and Yahoo could depend on the use of “keyword searches” for the best and most accurate search results. The web is all abuzz with the news of new search programs in development, like Wolfram Alpha which will attempt to approach web searches in a new and different way.

The problem is data. The internet is crammed full of data that can’t be easily searched for simply through the use of “keywords”. The new frontiers in the world of web searching is a web search program’s abilty to take all of the unstructured data spread all over the Web and treat it as though it were in fact structured or organized in a database for ease of access.

It is easier for a search to get answers out of this kind of database — one where every bit of data is labeled, categorized, or neatly presented. Unfortunately, as the volume of info on the web continues to growing, the old standby of the web (the “keyword search”) is approaching its eventual breaking point. What is that breaking point?

The best estimate for the current number of websites is somewhere around 100 million — that’s a huge number of active sources of info for a simple keyword search to mine. Think of web searching as the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack, where the needle shrinks in size as the haystack continues to grow. It isn’t just a problem of too much info to mine, either. The internet has evolved over time, and will no doubt continue to do so. With the advent of the so called “social web” in the last few years, web searching grew even more complicated. “Tagging” and other social tools made certain kinds of web searches infinitely complex. If you haven’t run a simple keyword search in a little while, give it a go. You’ll likely find the results garbled at best, and the sheer scope of the search results will limit your access to the kinds of answers you’re looking for.

Complicating things even further is the fact that the internet will soon become more dependent upon “semantic searching”, where search engines will have to develop a sense of “reasoning”. How do semantic searches controlled by a device with artificial reasoning benefit web users? To put it simply, users of the internet are growing in sophistication, and their search demands are growing right along with them. The recent appearance of Google’s “News Timeline” is a small example of this. Using “Google News Timeline”, web browsers have access to a wide range of information alongside their generic search, including events in history, related results, and content from print magazines and other periodicals. In layman’s terms, web searches must become more intuitive, or risk becoming outmoded.

Adding structure to the Web is one way to make sense of all the data clogging up our Google searchs, and Google knows this. The programming wizards at Google are starting the tackle this problem through a Google Labs project named “Google Squared”. Google Squared is a program that extracts data from Web pages and presents the search results via an online spreadsheet. For example — a search for “House cats” will returns a spreadsheet featuring names, descriptions, weights, and other information about the various kinds of house cats in neat columns and rows. It may not be the “sexiest” app that Google has ever developed, but it does show Google’s commitment to creating solutions for problems that may pop up in the future. Call it “future problem solving”.

Google Squared looks for data structures on the web that contain factual information and processes it in a spreadsheet. This may seem like a simple function, but according to Google, it takes a tremendous amount of power to create such a spreadsheet, and the very nature of Google searches must be altered. Rather than looking for keywords, Google Squared looks for keywords AND attaches a significance to them that is more akin to what a human would be looking for. Google Squared attempts to understand WHY you’d be searching for “House cats”, and presents what it “thinks” is relevant information.

This new technology has many applications for a wide range of user initiated keyword searches, including searches for products, scientific data, health-related information, etc. Google is not alone in their quest to make a search engine that is “semantic” — there are literally dozens of startups trying to impose the same kind of structure on the web. As mentioned before, Wolfram Alpha is one of these high profile startups, set to launch in the next week. Wolfram Alpha approaches semantic searches in a different way than Google — Alpha simply digs through massive amounts of information it has already added to its own database, allowing for a mine of info that the search engine can dig through in the blink of an eye. In that this kind of search is a new way of thinking about information on the web, there is a much hyped rivalry occuring between Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha — and we all know that competition can drive rival companies to new heights of success. Let’s hope the friendly tug of war between these two new search motifs will come up with something incredible, a new era of web searching.

A video of a test run of Google Squared has made its way on the web. In this video, a search for “spaceships” returns some interesting if completely irrelevant results. Shown in the search return are a Corvette automobile, and a Naval missile carrier. Clearly, Google has some work to do before they release Google Squared to the general public, outside of the comfortable realm of Google Labs.

How Does Wireless Internet Work?

January 10th, 2013 |

If you’re in the market for wireless Internet access or wireless Internet service, you may have asked yourself the question, “How does wireless Internet work?”. When you eliminate all the technological mumbo jumbo, the answer to that question is fairly simple.

In the following text, we’ll answer the question, “How does wireless Internet work?”. Besides explaining it in simple terms, we’ll also look at the advantages and disadvantages of wireless Internet.

Wireless Internet Service Provider

For starters, a communication tower owned by a wireless Internet service provider sends out a signal to its subscribers. On average, the range for such a tower is around 40 miles, although rapidly-advancing technology is now allowing for even greater distances.

It should be noted, however, that some wireless Internet service providers may have a cap on their service department. If you experience technical problems, and you live outside the radius, you may simply be out of luck. If this is the case, you might be better off going with a satellite Internet connection.

Once the signal is beamed from the tower, it’s collected by a dish-like receiver (often located on top of the client‘s house). Subscribers with wireless Internet access will also be provided with a dedicated wireless Internet receiver. This receiver will receive the captured data via a cable line and then transmit it to your computer over an 802.11b connection.

The receiver will need to have a direct path to the wireless tower. Buildings or trees can eliminate wireless Internet access or greatly reduce it. If you do have a clear path, however, you’ll find download times and online gaming functionality to be surprisingly fast.

While customers will have to share bandwidth with other subscribers, this is rarely a problem. At times of low Internet usage, customers can even find their connection speed working at faster-than-normal rates.

Wireless Internet Advantages

how-wireless-internet Now that I’ve answered, “How does wireless Internet work?”, let’s take a look at the advantages of wireless Internet service.

At speeds of 2 megabytes per second (or faster), wireless Internet offers excellent response time to its customers. This speed is also expected to continue to grow in the coming years.
Wireless Internet is readily available in most urban areas, and it’s becoming more common for rural subscribers. New towers are being constructed by wireless Internet service providers all the time.
Compared to satellite broadband, wireless Internet is much more affordable.
A wide variety of devices are available for wireless users. From wireless headphone and microphones to wireless keyboards and computers, the world is rapidly becoming a very wireless place.

Wireless Internet Disadvantages

Unfortunately, wireless Internet isn’t perfect. In the following section, we’ll take a look at some of the disadvantages associated with a wireless Internet service.

Compared to other types of Internet service, the level of power consumption is high. This can lead to devices becoming hot and the increased need for batteries.
Wireless connections can be hacked into, although security and firewall software should help eliminate this problem.
Wi-Fi networks often have a limited range. Indoors, this may be in the 150 foot range. Outdoors, it may be as high as 300 feet.

How Do I Make My Own Website?

January 10th, 2013 |

Learning how to build your own website can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. There are websites available to host your site and provide simple interfaces to help you design your site. These are great for simple everyday blogs and family websites but if you are looking to create a website for your business, there is going to be a bit more to it.

Building a Business Site

First, let us look at why the free services are not always the best option for businesses. Because there are so many questionable materials on the Internet, it is important that you build a sense of trust with Internet readers. Free website builders host the site you create under a sub domain. This means the website name will look something like this: yourbusiness.freewebsitebuilder.com. Sites with straightforward names like www.yourbusiness.com do much better in establishing credibility. Readers know you are serious, not some unreliable, fly-by-night operation.

how-build-website Flexibility is another issue with free website builders. There are often limitations for how much memory you can use and what types of content you can include on the site. For this reason, businesses will generally do better with a paid service. This means you have many options. There are some basic platforms that are very popular for building websites.

Joomla is a popular website building tool that lets you use flash animation and other slick Internet tools to create a truly eye-popping site. The downside is that Joomla is not the easiest program to learn. Once you understand the code, there are few limits placed on your creativity.

Kompozer is an incredibly easy to use website building software. It is a WYSIWYG editor, meaning “what you see is what you get”. What could be simpler? This program takes the programming out of web design and it is free, courtesy of Mozilla. These same folks brought you the popular FireFox web browser. If you have the funds, you can purchase Adobe’s Dreamweaver CS4 or or Microsoft Expression. While a little pricey, you are likely to get what you paid for in flexibility and style for your site.

If your site is going to have a blog presence, WordPress is generally the platform of choice. Blogs do well because they are frequently updated, which earns them points with search engines. This gets you more traffic and hopefully, more customers. The hardest parts are choosing a template to work with and learning how to optimize your site for search engines.

Choosing a webhosting provider is also very important when setting up a business website. Be careful to investigate the different providers carefully by services before you even think about pricing. Choose dedicated hosting, which means you do not share hosting with other sites. Otherwise, some site heavy with video can slow down your speed.

Weebly is an up and coming site that is incredibly easy to use by all accounts. The site offers cheap paid hosting for a very reasonable fee along with website building software. The drawback is a small Weebly ad at the bottom of your site. It may be an excellent option for a smaller business that wants a web presence quickly and cheaply. Weebly places no restrictions of the amount of memory or webpages they will host for you and is rich in features. The site allows you to transfer an existing domain and get it hosted free. The catch probably comes up when it comes time to renew your domain, although there is no clear indication of this on the site.

Finally, businesses can pay a marketing agency to set up a professional website. These services can be well worth the cost, offering artistic direction, marketing advice and hosting services. While this is certainly the easiest way to go, it is not cheap. Choose your marketing agency wisely.

Building a Personal Site

Now we move onto the website builders that offer free hosting for basic websites. The options are many and varied. The sites will contain your sub domain name, with the site’s extension but you will not pay for the domain name.

Blogger is one of the most popular free website builders. You can easily set up a blog and ad “widgets” which are small side programs that provide extras. Widgets will sit in the “side bar”, or column along the side of the page. Blogger is owned by Google, so it is easy to set up and keep track of with your existing Google account. If you do not have a Google user ID, you will have to establish one in order to use Blogger.

WordPress also lets you set up for free and offers more flexibility than Blogger. TypePad and Moveable Type are other popular platforms that work in much the same way. Microsoft, Yahoo and Google all offer website builders as well, but some will cost you. Of course, Weebly is another option, and users are saying good things about the Weebly site builder.

Many other webhosting companies also offer site building programs, but none are so popular as the programs mentioned here. If going with a free editor with a webhost, be sure you check out the features of the hosting and the site builder. You want the easiest to use program you can get to save you time and effort.

If you wish you can always pay for hosting independently of your website building software. After choosing a host, you can use Kompozer to design the site. This is a good option for those of us who are a little more picky about having a unique design.

How Does VOIP Work?

January 10th, 2013 |

Not only is making a VOIP call fun, it also doesn’t carry with it the charges of a cell phone or land line. If all your friends have a computer and compatible software, you can essentially make free telephone calls (even to the other side of the planet).

This will have a major effect on the way calls are made in the future, and it‘s not outrageous to assume that VOIP calling may one day be the industry norm. The FCC is currently taking a close look at VOIP technology, and phone companies such as Vonage and AT&T are starting to get in on the action by setting up calling plans.

Three Types of VOIP Calls

So how does VOIP work? To fully answer that question, we need to examine the three ways in which a VOIP call can be placed.

IP Phones – The IP phone looks much like a standard phone; it has buttons, a handset, and even a cradle. The difference is in its connectors, as it uses a RJ-45 Ethernet connector instead of the standard RJ-11 phone connector. The IP phone is hooked to the router on your computer. If you have a wireless connection, you can even purchase a Wi-Fi version of the phone which will allow you to make calls from any wireless “hot spot.”
Computer to Computer – This type of VOIP has numerous free and reasonably priced software available. By calling from computer to computer, you eliminate long distance charges.

Besides the required software, you’ll also need the following to make a computer-to-computer call: microphone, speakers, sound card, high speed Internet connection. The better the quality of these items, the better the quality of your phone call will be.

Keep in mind that the person on the other computer must have software which is compatible with your own. If it’s not, then you’ll be unable to place a computer-to-computer call. This shouldn’t be a problem, however, as free software is available online and can be set up in under 10 minutes.

ATA – The ATA is also known as an Analog Telephone Adaptor. A simple device, the ATA allows you to connect a regular telephone to your computer for the purpose of making calls. The analog signal from the phone is converted by the ATA into a digital signal and then transmitted.

The Mechanics of VOIP

how-voip-work If you’re still wondering, “How does VOIP work?”, then this section should answer any remaining questions that you might have. Afterwards, you’ll be ready to get your own VOIP system and make some free Internet phone calls.

Once two computers have installed compatible software, they will be able to make computer-to-computer calls. This is accomplished by speaking into the microphone (or telephone receiver) and allowing your analog signal (voice) to be converted to a digital signal.

In order to keep these digital voice signals from taking up too much bandwidth, your computer will compress them. The method of compression is known as CODEC. This compression improves the quality of transmitted voices, but it also eliminates sounds outside the range of human speech (which would greatly increase bandwidth requirements).

When the voice has been compressed, it is placed into data packets and sent across the IP network. A standard IP packet contains anywhere from 10 to 30 milliseconds of audio. This process has come to be known as “packetization.”

If a packet doesn’t reach its destination, the system has the ability to fill in the gaps and reconstruct the missing signal based on the packets received before and after. With the current growth of technology, most VOIP conversations are now as reliable as speaking directly over a telephone line.

What is a T3 Internet Connection?

January 10th, 2013 |

T3 Internet connections work at incredible speeds (45 million bits per second). As such, they are primarily used by organizations with high traffic (such as companies and universities). With the T3 line, numerous computers can be connected to the Internet at the same time with no noticeable effect.

A T3, also known as a DS3, is a dedicated line which provides the equivalent of 28 T1 lines. This equals 672 sixty-four Kbit/s of voice or data channels. These channels use optical fiber (as opposed to infrared, copper, fiber or wireless) due to the large amounts of bandwidth being transferred. Digital signals can be transmitted at 44.736 megabits per second, and it will readily support the transfer of large databases or real-time videos.

An important element of the T3 line is the ability to multiplex. This means that data and voice information is compressed without the original information being altered. Multiplexing allows large volumes of information to travel together at the same time, and the multiplexer device is placed on the premises of the subscriber, local carrier companies or long distance companies.

T3 Clients

Most T3 clients fall into one of the following categories:

Medical centers
Call centers
Government offices
Universities
Large web hosting companies
High-traffic web sites

The above users have high data demands such as video conferencing and customers logging in to access updated versions of a product. When a user outgrows the T1 or NxT1 service, the next step is to advance to the T3 Internet connection.

Price of a T3 Internet Connection

t3-internet Now that we know the answer to, “What is a T3 Internet connection?”, let’s take a look at the price. A very expensive option, the T3 can cost as much as $2,000 per month.

This price may drop, however, as demands for the T3 increase and more competition is introduced. In most cases, providers do not list the cost of a T3 connection; instead, you must contact the company for a price quote.

If you want the power of a T3 connection without the high price, you can also elect to share the bandwidth with others through a burstable connection. This means that other companies and organizations can draw upon the T3 bandwidth at the same time as you. In most cases, the drop in speed should be unnoticeable and will afford you cheap t3 internet service.

Fractional T3

For customers wanting a portion of the power of the T3 at a lower price, the fractional T3 is also available. This option allows a subscriber to purchase a fraction of the T3’s bandwidth at a reduced price.

T3 Internet Connection Synopsis

Normally used by large companies and government facilities, the T3 Internet connection allows vast amounts of data to be transferred quickly. For an individual, the high cost is prohibitive, but some options exist which allow a consumer to purchase a fraction of the T3’s power at a reduced price. Users can also choose to share the T3 bandwidth with others and save money.

How to Find Cheap T3 Internet Services?

January 10th, 2013 |

Finding cheap T3 internet services can be a real hassle, because there seem to be a million online T3 service providers and it’s hard to tell which ones are better than others. In fact, you have to sift through a lot of sales pitches for T3 or Ds3 connections, and a large number make it difficult to ever get a quote price. So hopefully I can help you sift through the landfill full of T3 internet service providers on the internet and help you find a cheap provider that’s good for you.

We might start, though, with what the heck a T3 internet service provider is and how it differs from T1 internet service.

What is T3 Internet Service?

“T3″ is largely synonymous with “Ds3″, “T-CXR” and “T-carrier”. A T-carrier is the generic term for multiplexed telecommunications carrier systems. Multiplexing or muxing refers to multiple digital date streams or analog message signals which are shared over a single medium.

T3 Internet service generally is used by large corporation who need more bandwidth, more connections and more flexibility than your standard T1 high speed connection, which is what most individuals use. A T3 connection has 28 times the bandwidth of a single T1

T3 connections are sometimes referred to as “dedicated private t3 circuits” or simply “DS-3″ connections. Because of its biggest bandwidth, T3 connections are quicker than standard T1 connections. Anyone who needs multiple computers networked or needs to serve a large number of computer terminals is going to purchase a T3 connection. Not only do large companies use t3 services, but organizations of all sorts, including larger universities, will buy T3 service. Depending on the internet needs of the corporation or organization, T3 services can cost thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year.

Often, though, the price for a month of T3 connective service is $2,000. Of course, if you’re reading this page, you’re not looking for average prices, but cheap T3 connections.

How To Find Cheap T3 Internet Services Online

cheap-t3-internet The best place is to look online, since this offers the best chance of research. You’ll notice dozens of T1 service and T3 service providers who promise the least expensive services. It becomes quite difficult to figure out which ones really are the bargain high speed internet providers and which ones are the inferior products and scam artists. But even before you jump ahead to buy cheap internet service, let’s cover one or two other factors to consider.

Keep in mind that you have to buy a lot of hardware before you ever get T3 service. Besides the computers, keyboards and monitors, you’ll need special equipment to network your computers with the T3 connectors. You can sometimes find T3 equipment on wholesale on the internet, so I would Google something like “t3 connection equipment wholesale” to find the best deals on T3 equipment. If that doesn’t work, use words like “cheap”, “cheapest”, “inexpensive” and “sale” in the place of “wholesale”.

You might look at a website like http://www.t3quotes.com/dsl.html, where people can place links to good deals on T3 services. These are obviously self-serving offers and you’ll have to fight through some lousy offers to find the good t3 services. The key word is “research”. Don’t believe just one review of an internet service provider.

Stay away from internet service providers who don’t quote a price up front. In my experience, if companies won’t be up-front with you, they probably have something to hide. If you can’t find a price quote within two links of their site’s homepage, move on to the next T3 internet service provider. There are plenty to choose from, so don’t waste your time on a t3 online service provider who gives you the run-around.

Cheap T3 Internet Service Companies

Here’s a short list of cheap t3 internet service companies who offer prices without a big hassle. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are trustworthy, but they are straightforward.

Networkit-Solutions.com – Starts at $3,000 a month
Pulse.com – Starts at $6,000 a month ($1,000 to deliver service) – This company also does installations to make your company compatible with T3 internet.
Ds3bandwidth.net – Fractional DS3 services range from $5,809.40 (3 years for 3M x 3M) to $8,456.04 (2 years for 42Mbps x 42 Mbps).
Earthlinks.biz – $359 a month for full 1.5 MB T1 line.
RealLinx.com – Burstable Ds3 starting at $99 per month – $2,800 for full port.

Note that “burstable” is a smaller line with the flexibility to be expanded as your business grows. So burstable is usually for smaller businesses which expect to grow into a full T3 connection.

So if you ask me how to find cheap T3 internet services, I’ll say it’s not an easy process. Every business has different internet needs and you’ll need to tailor your internet expenses for your online reality. For those looking for smaller business solutions, a company like Real Linx gets you into Ds3 for service for $99 a month, with the possibility of expansion later. I feel for you, if your job is to find cheap T3 internet service.

What is a T1 Internet Connection?

January 10th, 2013 |

Originally developed by Bell Labs in the 1960s, the T1 Internet connection is also known as a Digital Signal 1, DS-1 or DS1. On average, a T1 circuit delivers 1.5 Mbit/s of data.

If you‘ve ever asked yourself, “What is a T1 Internet connection?”, you might also be interested to know that it’s made up of 24 eight-bit channels, and each channel is 64 kbit/s. The circuit can send and receive 1.544 Mbit/s at the same time, so it qualifies as a full-duplex circuit.

Prior to the 1990s, the T1 was used mainly by the telephone companies to transport voice traffic between central offices. They have also been used for years by cell phone carriers to connect central office switches with various cellular sites throughout a city. Today, most companies use the T1 for Internet connections.

The T1 Router

Even if you have a T1 circuit, you’ll still need to have a way to interface it with your office network. A router is most often used for this task.

A router normally has a single circuit interface which allows for a T1 or E1 connection. It also has a single network interface (an Ethernet port, in most cases).

Most routers also include a number of other capabilities. These include the ability to create secure connections to other offices (VPN or site-to-site tunneling) and block access to your office network (firewalls).

T1 Versus DSL

t1-internet A T1 line is dedicated (assuming you pay extra for this option), while a DSL line may contain hundreds of subscribers (thus limiting bandwidth based on the amount of traffic). This makes a T1 connection more consistent., but it’s also more expensive. But not to worry, we have some tips to help you find cheap T1 internet services.

In addition, customer service for the T1 connection tends to yield better (and quicker) results. If you experience problems with your connection, you should regain service in a much faster time than DSL subscribers.

A DSL connection is more limited when it comes to distance. In most cases, it functions at a range of around 18,000 feet. A T1 line, by way of comparison, can often function at a range of between 20 to 50 miles. This makes the T1 connection ideally suited for Internet customers living in a rural area.

T1 Connection Services

For the consumer looking to purchase a T1 connection, a number of packages are available. The two most common are the “dedicated” line and the “burstable” line. The dedicated line offers a 1:1 ratio of bandwidth, while the burstable line allows you to share the bandwidth with a limited number of other users. As you might expect, the dedicated line is much more expensive.

T1 Internet Connection Summary

So what is a T1 Internet connection? It can be summarized as a reliable method of transferring both data and voices. If your Internet connection is a T1, you can expect faster download times, a consistent connection, and superior customer service. The only substantial drawback is the higher price of obtaining a T1 connection.

What Is a T1 Line?

January 10th, 2013 |

More on T1 Lines

You may not be familiar with T1, since it is mostly for commercial applications, but you are familiar with a normal business or residential phone provided by the phone company. A normal phone line is usually delivered via a pair of copper wires that code and then transmit your voice as an analog signal. Pretty cool, right? When you use a normal modem on a phone line like this, that line can transmit data at maybe about 30 kilobits per second — that’s 30,000 bits per second for those of you keeping score at home.

The phone company transmits almost all of its voice traffic as a digital rather than an analog signal. As strange as it seems, your analog line gets converted to a digital signal before being transmitted. This is done by a process called “sampling” whereby your analog signal is transmitted 8,000 times per second at something like 8-bit resolution — that’s 64,000 bits per second. Still with me? Understand also that almost all of the digital data in the world is now moving across fiber optic lines laid in the last decade by phone companies, and that phone company uses different technical designations to refer to the maximum capacity of a fiber optic line.

Fiber Optic and Copper Lines

If your business has a T1 line installed, that means that the phone company you work with has hooked up either a fiber optic line or a copper line directly to your office.

A T1 line is able to carry as many as twenty four separate digitized voice channels, or the same line can carry data at a rate of 1.544 megabits per second. If the T1 line is being used only for telephone conversations, it plugs directly into the office’s phone system. By the same token, if the T1 line is carrying data it plugs into the office’s network router.

A T1 line is capable of handling 192,000 bytes per second — that’s sixty times more data capacity than a standard residential modem. You can see why businesses and high end personal servers prefer T1 service.

T1 is also known for being really reliable in terms of user overload. A T1 line is capable of handling a large service load. For general browsing needs, hundreds of users can share the same T1 line comfortably. If you have a server overload situation where a ton of users are downloading files or using high end applications at the same time, you may run into some problems, but for general use, T1 is super reliable.

Cost

This is where T1 service gets a bit problematic. A T1 line could cost you between $1,000 and $2,000 per month depending on your T1 provider and the area of service.

The other end of your T1 line has to be connected to a web server, and the total cost of a T1 line is then some combination of the fee the phone company charges and the fee that the ISP you use charges.

T1 Alternatives

t1-line A large company with many many network users will need to use a line that is a bit more powerful than T1. Here’s a list of other common line designations and their strengths.

DS0 – 64 kilobits per second
ISDN – Two DS0 lines plus web signaling at 16 kilobytes per second — that’s 128 kilobits per second
T1 – 1.544 megabits per second (24 DS0 lines)
T3 – 43.232 megabits per second (28 T1s)
OC3 – 155 megabits per second (84 T1s)
OC12 – 622 megabits per second (4 OC3s)
OC48 – 2.5 gigabits per seconds (4 OC12s)
OC192 – 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s)

T1 versus Cable or EoC

T1 lines are not necessarily the wave of the future that people once thought they would be. Cable applications or Ethernet over Coax or EoC is now seen as the wave of the future. EoC is currently being developed mostly more for home or personal networking purposes, though there is some hope in the industry that EoC will surpass T1 soon for commercial purposes.

Fractional T1 Lines

Another option for businesses looking for a fast and large connection is available. High volume web customers can now install what is known as a “fractional T1 line”, which is only part of a standard T1 line.

A fractional T1 line limits the number of channels on a T1 line that you can use at a given time, saving the provider money. That provider then passes the savings on to the customer. Remember that a T1 line uses 24 channels — not all of which are always needed.

You could think of a fractional T1 line as a kind of T1 line rental — if a business wants to use the speed of a T1 connection but only needs a fraction of the 24 channels available, a fractional T1 line is the answer. T1 technology is known for its speed and ease of security.

Even though a fractional T1 line uses only a few channels of the two dozen available, these lines performance does not suffer from slower or less smooth data transmission speeds.

Fractional T1 Line Cost

As you can probably guess from the name, the fractional T1 line costs just a small fraction of the full T1 line price. Fractional T1 providers usually charge customers for each channel used, and fractional T1 costs are equal to the fraction of the full T1 line that a customer is renting.

Another benefit of fractional T1 line is you can use the security features of a T1 line (your connection with a T1 line goes directly to an ISP) and thus a fractional T1 line is way more secure than any other kind of web connection.

A fractional T1 line is still sixty times faster than a standard modem connection. This guaranteed T1 speed is possible because T1 is proprietary technology — unlike ISDN, cable, or DSL, the T1 and fractional T1 lines are specifically dedicated Internet transmission means. No one is able to “piggyback” or steal your bandwidth.

T1 lines have more than a few obvious benefits, but their high cost mean that most people who need a T1 connection simply can’t afford it.

How to Find Cheap T1 Internet Services?

January 10th, 2013 |

Finding cheap T1 internet service is a heck of a lot easier than finding quotes on T3 internet services. Just about any individual who uses high speed internet connections use a T1 set-up. T3 internet connections are usually used by large corporations, universities and organizations to service large numbers of computer users. So there are more T1 internet service providers out there, and it’s a whole lot easier to switch from a provider which isn’t living up to its promises.

Guide To Cheap T1 Internet Service

I’ve tried to find quotes for some of the biggest internet service providers in the American online industry. You might find companies which offer better internet service rates, but this gives you an idea of what standard rates look like. Some give better deals than other, which is the purpose of this comparison. Shop and choose the T1 internet services in the more obscure corners of the internet if you want, but I don’t want to give bad advice on a little-known ISP.

Large T1 Internet Service Providers

NetZero offers a $4.95 startup rate for the first 3 months. This means you can check out NetZero’s T1 internet service for three months at a crazy low rate. There will be an automatic rollover once that 3 months is over, so remember to cancel the service if you don’t like it, for some reason. Otherwise, you get charged every month, no matter whether you use the online service or not.

Also, AOL’s prices might not be as low as the quoted $9.95 price. Depending on your circumstances, your bill might be upwards of $25. So don’t naturally assume that AOL has the cheapest T1 internet services of the companies on this list.

T1 ISP	AOL	EarthLink	PeoplePC	MSN	NetZero
Per Month Price	$9.95	$21.95	$10.95	$21.95	$9.95 or $14.95
Email Storage	Unlimited	100 MB	100 MB	2,000 MB	1,000 MB

PeoplePC Warning

cheap-t1-internet Finally, I’m glad that People PC is on this list. This company was running a scam several years ago that I got caught up in, and they kept charging my credit card for months after I stopped using their service. Let me explain.

Back in the late-1990′s, I signed up for internet service with a Houston-based company named EV1 or Everyones Internet. They offered (dial-up) internet service for $10 a month, and I used their service for years. I was always satisfied with EV1, though their email capacity was a little limited for my tastes.

Eventually, I got high-speed wireless internet service and ended up switching service providers in the change-over. In the meantime, EV1 underwent their own changeover. EV1 sold its ISP services to PeoplePC, which I didn’t know at the time. Assuming I was still dealing with the same company I signed up with, I cancelled my services.

Months go by and I realized that EV1/PeoplePC was still charging my credit card. I called and talked to their people, but they gave me the run-around. Eventually, they told me they would discontinue my account. Another month passed, and they were still charging my credit card. When I called again, their support staff got surly with me and point blank refused to stop charging me. My credit card company had to eventually take up the issue with them, to keep People PC from charging me $10 every month — for no service at all. They charged me for 7 months without any internet service, or bilked me for $70 — however you want to look at it.

Anyway, that was several years ago. Maybe PeoplePC has their act together now. At the time, you could look them up online and see that I was not the only person this had happened to. Maybe their reputation got so bad that it hurt their business. Or maybe they still use the same business practices. Either way, I can’t in good conscience recommend anyone use their T1 internet service; in fact, I would recommend you don’t. Enjoy your $70, you jerks.

How To Find Cheap T1 Internet Services Online

Since you’re online searching for cheap T1 or Ds1 internet services, let me suggest you look around for the cheapest prices. You’ll be able to find good prices for around $10 a month from big name, established companies. You can probably find a smaller company which gives lower prices. Shop around. Cancel a service if it’s not to your liking. The prices are low enough and the change-over is small enough that you can use trial-and-error.

Just watch out for the company that gives you hassles when you try to cancel your t1 internet service. You might consider getting a Visa gift card or American Express gift card when trying out a new internet service provider. You can buy these cards for $25 or $50 amounts. If a company decides they are going to charge your credit card automatically, you can have the last laugh by giving them a card they can only charge you $25. Once you realize they won’t scam you, you can switch to your permanent card. That might be a little more hassle in itself — switching to a new credit or debit card — but it’s less trouble than fighting a company’s complaints department, or calling your credit card company to cancel services yourself.

What Are Social Media Sites?

January 10th, 2013 |

“Social media sites” are user-generated content websites where readers interact with the site with their computers or mobile communications devices to post word content, audio, pictures or video content. “Social media” websites attempt to foster virtual communications and interactions between site users, and there are a number of electronic formats used to foster online discussions. Social media sites might be blog, forums, message boards, social networking sites, wikis, photo sharing site, video sharing sites, music file sharing sites, or even online gaming sites.

“Social media” are interactive in nature, where traditional media like television, film and newspapers generally are not interactive. Traditional media (formally called “industrial media”) use broadcasting tools or printing presses to disseminate information, and these methods typically require the kind of resources that only private corporations with some government support (like government spectrum licenses or broadcast frequencies) to produce content. On the other hand, many social media websites can be started (and often maintained) by one individual. This does not preclude certain social media sites becoming major economic forces or owned by corporations.

What Are Some Examples of Social Media Websites?

Below is a list of some of the most famous and successful social media sites online. You’ll notice the scope and variety of these social websites and see why the “social media” has made such of an impact on the way the world media is presented in the information age, and why so many traditional or industrial media organizations have had trouble with circulation or viewership in recent years. Many savvy traditional media sites have built their own name brand online and some of the bigger corporations have bought successful social media websites, but most of the trendy new social media sites that get famous online tend to be started by innovative internet entrepreneurs who have an idea that gains popularity.

Wikipedia.org
YouTube
MySpace
Twitter
World of Warcraft
Digg
Flickr
Blogger
Facebook
Orkut
deviantART
Second Life
Skype

As you can see, social media sites comprise some of the most popular websites on the internet. In one way or another, these sites encourage customers and users to interact with their website, and the interactive social media site tends to encourage user loyalty. For example, a “wiki” like Wikipedia, which allows anyone to edit pages, encourages people to take ownership of the site, because they produce the content. In the case of Wikipedia, articles in their online encyclopedia are edited by anyone who takes the time to register, and who is willing to follow the rules of the site.

Youtube has another model. Youtube allows users to post their own videos on their website, allowing anyone else in the world to see these videos. People can see everything from clips of old television programs or movie trailers to peoples’ personal home videos. A person can watch their favorite band’s latest music video or a shred (dub-over) of the very same video. And if the people watching believe it’s worth their time to improve or spoof any of the aforementioned video items, they go on Youtube and add their own social media content. Some videos go “viral” and gives the person who posted them a certain amount of notoriety, if not fame.

Is Social Media The Future of Information?

The newspaper industry is having serious problems, because it’s more expensive for a newspaper to produce and distribute content than it is for a websites to post content – much less a website where costumers produce their own content. Print media is held to different standards (journalist standards) than blog and news websites, and it’s expensive to hire investigative journalists to dig into a story. Many newspaper will have to learn to adapt to the new information environment or go out of business.

Meanwhile, television broadcasting has been greatly influenced by the social media sites. Cable news networks and sports news networks not only need to fill up 24 hour news cycles these days, but they often have to decide whether to run a story from a less-than-trustworthy social news site. Many believe that print and news journalism has suffered in the age of e-journalism, as their is more information to cover and often fewer resources to cover that information. Meanwhile, politicians and celebrities who see the heat from the often tabloid journalistic standards feel the need to “win” shortened new cycles, and traditional journalists see themselves covering the stories made or broken by bloggers and online newsites who can print pretty much anything they want.

Movies, on the other hand, are least affected, because the amount of money it requires to make feature length movies and distribute them is simply beyond the resources of social media members. Still, television producers and film distributors have had to concern themselves with the loss of viewers to the internet, where people may be as content to find entertainment online as they are to find their news online.

We’ll eventually reach an equilibrium where social media sites and industrial media entities will find their own niche, though I’m not sure what these niches will look like. I imagine many of the ideas for file sharing have been filled up, since just about any kind of information (words, photos, audio, video) are now being shared online. Until a new technology comes along that revolutionizes how we access information, there will probably always be a room for social media sites and traditional media producers. Whatever the case, social media websites appear to be here to stay.

Who is RCN Internet?

January 10th, 2013 |

History of RCN Internet

RCN first appeared on the scene by offering triple-play service to the Boston area in 1996. By 1998, they had expanded by purchasing numerous cable and Internet companies.

By 2005, RCN had focused almost exclusively on the Chicago and Northeast Corridor markets. To better accomplish this, they sold all West Coast holdings, as well as the largest cable company in Mexico.

The company acquired a fiber-optics network by purchasing Consolidated Edison, Inc. in 2006. In that same year, they also made a total conversion to a digital network.

In 2007, they continued their growth by purchasing NEON Communications and their expansive fiber-optic network. The following year, RCN began to move to an all-digital video platform. This upgrade has since allowed RCN to offer a larger menu of programming.

Service Areas for RCN Internet

rcn-internet Unless you live in one of the following areas, you shouldn’t concern yourself with questions such as “who is RCN Internet?” Anyone outside of these areas can’t receive service from RCN Internet.

Boston (includes areas such as Boston, Burlington, Dedham, Dorchester, Somerville, Hyde Park and Waltham)
D.C. Metro Area (towns and areas such as Shaw, Chinatown, Silver Spring, Van Ness, Chevy Chase, Takoma Park and Friendship Park)
New York City (areas such as Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside, Bronx, Trump Village in Brooklyn, Middle Village, Upper West, Upper East, Lower West and Lower East sides of Manhattan.)
Philadelphia (service areas include places such as Lansdowne, Upper Darby, Rutledge, Morton, Yeadon, Folcroft and Eddystone)
Chicago (includes areas such as Andersonville, Skokie, Wrigleyville, Edgewater, Lakeview, River North, Lincolnwood and East Rogers Park)
The Lehigh Valley (areas such as Bath Borough, East Bangor Borough, Pen Argyl Borough, City of Allentown, East Allen Township, Whitehall Township and Northampton Borough)

RCN Internet Plans

Besides asking “Who is RCN Internet?“, you might also ask, “Which Internet plans do they offer?“. The following Internet service plans are currently available from RCN:

1.5 Mbps - This plan is suited for those who occasionally use the Internet. Costs $18 per month.
5 Mbps – Costs $28 per year. Allows uploading of large files and music.
10 Mbps – $38 per month. A good choice for families and large offices. Allows for smooth running during online games and Flash movies.
20 Mbps – Costs $58 per month and provides the customer with downloads within seconds. For serious computer users, this plan allows ultra-smooth graphics during online games.

Each RCN Internet plan comes with the following services for no extra charge:

Webmail (up to four accounts)
Video Mail
Exclusive Online Entertainment (customers can watch ESPN, ABC and Disney online for free)
Personal webpage (numerous styles and templates are available)
Home Networking (includes 24/7 technical support)
Online Music and Games

Who is Qwest Internet?

January 10th, 2013 |

The company has been in business for more than a century, and Qwest currently employs more than 35,000 people. Qwest is also known for its charity work, as employees and retirees combine each year to volunteer more than one million hours (with a focus on education).

Qwest Internet is available in the following states: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Idaho, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Internet Plans Offered By Qwest

Now that you know the answer to the question, “Who is Qwest Internet?”, let’s look at the Internet plans they currently offer. Keep in mind that Qwest Internet normally requires a two-year commitment, with a $200 early termination penalty. As part of the agreement, Qwest guarantees not to raise the rate for the life of your contract.

Medium Speed Plan – This plan offers connection speeds which are five to fourteen times faster than a dial-up connection (256Kbps to 768 Kbps). Normally costing $19.99, this plan is ideal for those who occasionally surf the Internet.

Fast Speed Plan – Offering connection speeds 25 times faster than dial-up (1.5 Mbps), this plan costs $26.99 per month. It’s perfect for downloading medium-sized files and viewing videos of low quality.

Faster Speed Plan – The faster speed plan offers speeds 50 times faster than those of a dial-up connection (3 Mbps). This is perfect for customers constantly on the Internet, and it’s easy to view high-quality videos and download music.

Lightning Speed Plan – The fastest plan available, lighting speed is 125 times faster than a dial-up connection. It costs $36.99 per month, and the plan is perfectly suited for advanced web surfing, watching high-quality videos, online gaming and downloading movies. It’s also perfect for allowing multiple computers to be connected at the same time.

Contacting Qwest Internet

qwest-internet There are two ways to contact Qwest Internet. They are:

1-800-244-1111 (this number is for residential customers)

1-800-603-6000 (this number is for business customers)

You can also visit Qwest Solutions Centers located in participating Wal-Mart and Best Buy stores. At these locations, you’ll be able to pay your bill, sign up for service, get assistance from professionals, and receive a free account review. You can even ask an employee, “Who is Qwest Internet?” (although there’s no telling what answer they’ll give you).

Qwest Internet Lawsuits

Over the years, Qwest has been involved in a number of lawsuits and legal actions. Some of these include:

In 2002, Qwest was fined $20 million for switching customer’s long-distance service without permission (also known as “slamming”).
In 2002, Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection filed a suit against Qwest accusing them of engaging in deceptive sales practices and lying to customers.
In 2003, Qwest began paying refunds to customers in Arizona. This was a result of a 2001 lawsuit accusing Qwest of placing unauthorized charges on customer’s bills.
In 2003, Qwest was fined $26 million by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for making illegal agreements with certain phone companies to hurt their competition. They were also ordered to give discounts to their competitors.

How to Get Internet on Your Phone?

January 10th, 2013 |

If you find yourself in an area that doesn’t support a standard Internet connection, it’s helpful to know how to get Internet on your phone (which is different from an internet phone). This technological innovation (also known as “cellular broadband”) allows Internet service via a normal cell phone network, and it’s currently offered by carriers such as Alltel Wireless Internet, Sprint Mobile Broadband, Verizon Broadband Access and AT&T Laptop Connect.

The available service areas are also growing. Sprint Mobile broadband, for example, was offered in over 200 towns as of this writing. Expect those number to increase dramatically over the next several years.

Prices have fallen thanks to steady competition among these carriers. While initial prices were somewhat steep, broadband junkies can now access the Internet on their cell phone for as little as $50 per month. Fortunately, those prices should continue to drop as more and more competitors enter the marketplace.

If you want to know how to get Internet on your phone, just take a look at the following tips. They should provide a basic idea of how cellular broadband works and its advantages for the consumer.

Select a Cellular Broadband Carrier

When choosing a cellular broadband carrier, you should find out which ones offer service in your area. Next, it’s a good idea to learn what upload and download speeds to expect from each carrier.

In almost all cases, the company website will provide maps of their coverage areas. Just log on, find your geographical location, and you should have your answer in no time.

Necessary Hardware

how-internet-phone If you want to add cellular broadband, you’ll need to consider three pieces of technology:

Broadband-compatible cell phone or PDA. (if you want to have a broadband cell phone connection, you’re going to need a phone which can support these functions)
Internal PC card for your computer (many newer models come with this installed)
PC card which plugs into your computer’s PCMCIA slot. (these cards may be offered for free by your cell phone carrier if you sign a contract, but let the buyer beware. These free cards aren’t always of the highest quality, and users have reported problems such as lost signals, slow download speeds, and ever their cell phones completely locking up. Before taking the free PC card, you’ll need to take these possible problems into consideration)

Broadband Boosters

Before you shell out a lot of money for that PC card, you might also try a less expensive cellular broadband booster. These can take the form of an antennae, or they might be as simple as a sheet of metal which slides under your phone’s battery.

The expected boost in signal strength usually depends on the length of the antenna. Phones with the foil option usually experience only a minimal increase.

When making the purchase, also be sure that the booster’s antenna cable is compatible with the maker of your PC card and phone. With multiple companies now offering such products, many cables come with multi-pronged adapters for the customer’s convenience.

Mobile Broadband Summary

Still wondering how to get broadband Internet on your mobile phone? It’s simple, really. Just make sure to purchase the necessary equipment, select a carrier, and then install any needed software or components. After that, you’ll be able to access the Internet anytime you want, and your carrier will bill you on a monthly basis.

How to Make Internet Phone Calls?

January 10th, 2013 |

As technology advances, learning how to make Internet phone calls becomes increasingly important. In the future, this could very well become the most common method of person-to-person communication.

These calls are normally made between two people with computers, although the technology now exists to enable someone on a PC to call someone over their standard telephone. At the moment, it’s also cheaper than a regular phone call.

Before you can take advantage of this service, just make sure that you meet all the necessary hardware and software requirements. You don’t want to invest money only to find out that it’s impossible for you to make Internet phone calls.

Required Equipment for Internet Phone Calls

Before you start making Internet phone calls, you’ll need to make sure that you have the following equipment:

Broadband Internet Connection – Much faster than a dial-up connection, a broadband Internet connection is required in order to properly place Internet phone calls. If you live in an area where broadband isn’t readily available, you’ll be unable to take advantage of this service.
Keep in mind, however, that broadband is available almost everywhere on the planet. Even if a cable Internet connection isn’t offered in your area, you’ll still be able to purchase a satellite connection; just be prepared to pay more money for the service.
Sound Card – A sound card allows the input and output of audio signals on your computer. While almost all computers have sound capabilities built in, you’ll want to make sure that your computer has a sound card with at least 16 bits. Otherwise, the audio from your internet phone call may be unclear.
A full-duplex sound card is best. You’ll also want to make sure that your sound card can record audio.
Speakers – Even if you know how to make Internet phone calls, it won’t do you any good if you don’t have speakers to broadcast the sound. If you plan on making online calls all the time, it might be a good idea to invest in quality speakers which provide crisp, clear sound.
Microphone – Besides speakers, you’ll also need to invest in a microphone in order to send audio to your friend. The better quality the microphone, the better quality the resulting audio will be (especially if your friend invested in a superior speaker system).

Internet Telephone Software

internet-phone-calls Once you have all the necessary equipment, you’ll need to purchase Internet telephone software. This software can be obtained on a disc, or you can download it from the Internet. This is a must when it comes to how to make Internet phone calls.

Make sure you know what kind of software is being used by the people you plan on calling. Not all Internet telephony software is compatible with one another.

Downloading the software should be simple and take only a few minutes. Just follow the directions on the computer screen to install the software.

Making an Internet Phone Call

If you’re calling from computer to computer, you’ll need to make sure that your friend is near his computer. You can either arrange a time to call in advance, or you can check services like Gmail (assuming your friend has it) to see if they’re currently online.

To make the call, just follow the instructions provided by your telephony software. The process is relatively simple, and you’ll usually just be asked to access a server and then select from the names of users who are currently online.

Once you have your friend on the line, you’ll no longer need to ask how to make Internet phone calls, because you’re already doing it!

Who Provides The Best Internet Packages?

January 10th, 2013 |

When it comes time to select an Internet package or Internet bundle (a combination of Internet service, phone service and television service), one of the first questions on your mind should be, “Who provides the best Internet packages?”. While standard Internet services are all pretty comparable when it comes to cost, various companies can differ greatly on Internet packages.

By getting a bundle, you can literally save hundreds of dollars per year. And not only will it save time when you’re paying bills, but you’ll only need to remember one number to call in case of any technical problems. Now that’s what I call convenience!

Things To Consider On Internet Packages

Before getting to the question of who provides the best Internet packages, there are several factors which should be considered. When you’re looking for the perfect bundle to meet your needs, think about the following:

How much Internet do you use? If you’re on all the time, then you’ll definitely want a high speed internet connection. The same applies if you want to download large files or watch videos. If you rarely use the Internet, then maybe a dial-up connection would meet your needs and save you some money.
If you want to watch television in high-definition, then getting HD channels should be a priority. If you’re a sports nut, make sure to get a television plan which offers packages such as NFL Sunday Ticket.
What times of the day do you use the phone the most? Companies differ on pricing plans during different times of the day. Decide when you use the phone the most and look for a plan which provides the best rate.

Types Of Internet Packages

best-internet-packages These are some of the leading Internet packages or Internet bundles currently offered. Take a look and judge for yourself on who provides the best Internet packages available.

The Charter Bundle – This package currently costs $69.97 a month with a one-year commitment. You’ll also receive $150 cash back, plus a free wireless router and cable modem. This bundle includes Charter cable television, Charter high-speed Internet and Charter telephone.
Time Warner Bundle – This Internet package includes Time Warner Cable digital cable, Time Warner Cable digital telephone and Road Runner high-speed online. As part of their current offer, Time Warner will give a $300 voucher for groceries or gas to new subscribers. A one-year commitment is required, and the services normally cost $49.95 per month (for cable), $34.95 per month (for Internet) and $39.95 per month (for digital phone). The package deal is much cheaper, although you’ll need to enter your street and zip code to receive an exact quote.
Comcast Triple Play Package – This Internet package includes $300 cash back, free equipment and free Real Multimedia package. It includes Comcast high-speed cable, Comcast digital cable and Comcast digital voice phone service. For an exact price quote, you’ll be required to enter your street address and zip code. When searching for who provides the best Internet packages, keep in mind that many of these offers are only available for a limited time.
Qwest Internet Bundle – Includes Qwest Choice Home (with unlimited local calling), Qwest Connect Silver (up to 1.5 Mbps download speeds) and DIRECTV Choice Xtra (more than 200 channels). The total cost for this package is $85.97 per month.
AT&T Internet Package – Their top Internet package is available for $65 per month. This includes phone service with unlimited calling and 13 features, plus AT&T high-speed Internet Pro with download speeds up to 3.0 Mbps.

What Internet Packages Are Available?

January 10th, 2013 |

As the Internet continues to grow, subscribers are constantly asking the question, “What Internet packages are available?”. It’s a simple enough question, but the answer can be quite overwhelming considering the amount of available packages and bundles.

When selecting an Internet package, you should always be aware of the services offered and the monthly cost. Many broadband providers will want you to sign a 12-month contract. While you can avoid this, you’ll end up paying more for a shorter term of service.

What Is An Internet Package?

In order to know what Internet packages are available, it first helps to know what an Internet package is. Basically, an Internet package offers Internet service and other options such as cell phone or cable service. Sold together, these Internet packages have also come to be known as “Internet bundles” or simply “bundles.”

Types Of Internet Connections

Before we look at some of the available packages, let’s review the various types of Internet connections. Remember, not all types of Internet connection will be available in all areas.

Dial-up – The cheapest type of Internet connection, dial-up uses your phone line to connect to the Internet. It’s the slowest kind of connection, and you won’t be able to make or receive phone calls while surfing the Internet.
DSL Broadband – Faster than dial-up, DSL delivers broadband service over your phone line without interrupting your regular telephone service. Downloading information can be done more quickly than uploading, so this service can also be called ADSL Broadband.
Symmetric Broadband – Information is uploaded at the same speed that it’s downloaded. You’ll need an extra phone line for this type of service.
Cable Broadband – If you can receive cable television, you can also get cable broadband. This service uses cable to deliver a broadband signal to your PC. Just as quick as a DSL connection.
Satellite Broadband – A satellite receiver catches signals from an orbital satellite and transmits them to your computer. Very fast speeds, although severe weather can disrupt the service. An ISDN line provides an even higher rate for downloading and uploading.
Wireless Broadband – An antenna is installed in order for the client to receive signals from a tower. The client must have a clear line of sight to the tower.

Available Internet Packages

internet-packages-available Now it’s time to take a quick look at what Internet packages are available. This is a basic overview of available Internet packages. For greater information, visit the company’s website or one of their brick-and-mortar stores.

Charter Bundle (contains Charter cable TV, Charter high-speed Internet and Charter Telephone)
Time Warner Cable (contains Time Warner Cable digital cable, Road Runner high-speed Internet and Time Warner Cable digital phone)
Comcast Triple Play (includes Comcast high-speed Internet, Comcast digital cable and Comcast digital voice)
AT&T Bundle (includes AT&T phone service and AT&T high-speed Internet)
Verizon Bundles (all bundles include Verizon high-speed Internet and Verizon cellular service. Additional plans include DIRECTV)
Qwest Internet Package (all packages include Qwest cellular service and Qwest high-speed Internet. Some plans also include DIRECTV Choice Xtra)

How Can I Check My Husband’s MSN Messenger Chat History At Work?

January 10th, 2013 |

So you don’t quite trust your husband or maybe you do but you’d like to keep an eye on him. It is probably just as well. We men are notorious for getting ourselves into trouble. We need a guiding hand like a car needs a set of four good tires. It is easy to stray if you are not careful and the internet provides too many distractions. One such distraction is instant messaging programs such as MSN chat. You can talk to just about anyone from your computer using MSN and it is all completely harmless, right? Well, sometimes it is just a good idea to make sure. If you want to check your husband’s MSN chat history, here is how.

MSN Chat History

MSN Chat is an instant messaging program where you can chat live with virtually anyone in the world. There are several instant messenger programs which are all pretty popular. There are messaging programs for Google, Yahoo, AIM, and a few others. They all work the same and they all save the history of every online chat that you ever had. The history is saved on your computer’s hard drive where you can access it.

It is possible to delete chat histories or even save a new setting so that the computer will not save the history. If you are checking up on your spouse and they have done this, you won’t be able to find out who they have been talking to.

How To Access MSN Chat History

checking-msn-chat If you are checking up on a spouse who you are suspicious of straying, gaining access to their MSN chat history is easy. All you have to do is open MSN Messenger. On the far right of the bar that is below your profile photo, there should be a button that says “Show Menu”. Click on that button and a drop down menu will appear.

On the drop down menu, click on “Tools”. On the left, a window will open. Look for “Messages” and click on that. A window should open up with a box that you can check to save the chat history. If it is not already checked, go ahead and do that. Now you can keep an eye on it to see if your spouse will change it.

On the address bar will be a directory of chat addresses and contacts. You can click on any of those contacts and pull up a history of chat conversations with that contact.

Another way to do it is to go to your C: drive and go to My Documents. Unless the box to save all chat history is unchecked, MSN Messenger automatically saves all chat conversations on your computer in a folder, usually called “My Received Files”. Click on that folder and look for your (or in this case, your spouse’s) user name. Click on it and go to “History”.

The “History” folder will have all of the saved conversations from MSN chat. By clicking on the folder, you can access any of the conversations to find out exactly who they were talking to and when. To look at conversations with specific contacts, just click on their name and a chat history will open up in a new window.

Chat History Saved In A Different Folder

Women have rarely accused men of being overly intelligent but we can be cunning sometimes. It is possible, and very easy, to save chat history in a different folder than the computer’s default folder. Chat histories can be saved to a different location by going to Messenger and clicking “Show Menu”.

Go through “Tools” and “Options” and then click on “Messages”. When it comes to saving the messages, there should be a button that says “Change”. Click on that button and you can pick any folder to save the messages to or you can even create a new one.

Can You Gain Access Using Another Computer?

The best way to check the history on someone’s MSN Messenger is to do it on their computer. But sometimes this may not be an option. If not, there is not a whole lot else you can do.

Since MSN messages are stored locally on a computer’s hard drive, accessing them from another location is difficult if not impossible. It can be done but the computer where the files are stored needs to be networked to another computer that has, through the proper software, remote access to local files.

Usually only certain businesses are set up with this kind of network. Most computers, especially home computers, don’t have the software or hardware to do this.

What is Internet Web Hosting?

January 10th, 2013 |

Simply put, Internet web hosting allows a person or company to have their own website. The web host owns space on a server, and they allow their clients to use part of this space for websites.

A single webpage is the most basic example of web hosting. In many cases, small-scale pages will be offered for free by an Internet service provider. Site hosting for online businesses are more expensive and usually feature more complex designs and greater amounts of data.

Choosing Internet Web Hosting

When you sign up for Internet access, you may find that a simplified form of web hosting is included as part of the agreement. If you are looking for something more advanced, however, you will probably have to pay for it.

Providers usually use Linux-based web hosting, as it offers the widest array of software possibilities. Operating systems such as Mac OS X and Windows can also host websites.

A web content management system is usually included, allowing the user to ignore more in-depth technical matters. This is perfect for many clients, but more technical-oriented users may find this system limiting.

If you’re still unsure as to which web hosting service to use, you can search the Internet for information. Many forums and message boards specialize in this subject, and you can get reviews from customers who have already tried the service you’re considering.

Types of Internet Web Hosting

internet-web-hosting When answering the question, “What is Internet web hosting?”, it’s also important to know about the available types of web hosting. These include:

Shared Web Hosting – Your website is on the same server as many other sites.
Free Web Hosting – Doesn’t cost you anything, but its features will usually be limited. It may also include a number of advertisements to offset the cost of offering the site for nothing.
Virtual Dedicated Server – While customers share server space with others, this type of web hosting breaks servers into individual virtual components in an effort to make the customer feel as though they are on their own private server.
Reseller Web Hosting – The client is able to host websites. The client will have to provide technical support, and their services often mirror those of their initial provider. This can often be a very unreliable option.
Dedicated Hosting Service – The client has full control of their own web server. This is a popular and expensive option.
Clustered Hosting – Multiple servers host the same content.
Grid Hosting – A form of distributed hosting. The server is divided into multiple nodes.
Managed Hosting – The client has their own web server, but they do not have complete control over it.
Colocation Hosting – The most expensive and powerful type of web hosting. The colo server is owned by the client, while the host provides space and maintenance.

Web Hosting Scams

There are a number of scams out there which promise free domain names and free web hosting. While a few may be legitimate, it’s important for the consumer to be aware of the various web hosting scams floating around.

Free Web Space – Web space offered for free will often be limited, subject to unwanted advertisements and prone to down time.
Free Domain Names – In order to get a free domain, you’ll often have to add you name or business to the end of the URL. This makes it hard for people to remember the name of your website, and it will also have problems ranking on Internet search engines.
Simple Templates – The hosting site promises lots of simple templates to help you design your site. Once you pay, however, you’ll find the templates aren’t as simple as advertised. In many cases, the templates are the property of the hosts, so you can’t take the designs with you if you decide to change hosts.
Free Search Engine Submission – Search engine submissions to sites like Yahoo, Google and AOL are always free. Beware of anyone offering to give you search engine submissions at no extra charge.
No Number or Address – Stay away from any hosting company who doesn’t list a physical address or phone number.
Resellers – These scam artists buy lots of space from their host and then pretend to be hosts themselves. If the person is unavailable, however, there will be nobody to attend to your needs.

Internet Web Hosting Summary

So what is Internet web hosting? Well, it’s an online service which allows you to rent space and share your own website with the world. The more complicated your site, the more it may cost in time and money. Numerous types of web hosting are available, but potential customers also need to be aware of web hosting scams.

Who is the Best Internet Hosting Company?

January 10th, 2013 |

When it comes time to find a host for their website, many people ask the same question: “Who is the best Internet hosting company?” While you might expect the answer to be a simple one, the large range of choices available can prove confusing for even the most savvy Internet veteran.

Internet Hosting Companies

I hesitate to single out one organization as the best of the Internet hosting companies, but I can provide a list of five low-priced and reliable services. When is comes to hosting your website, you can’t go wrong with any of these options.

All of the Internet hosting services listed below are available for less than $10 per month. While it’s not free Internet hosting, it certainly falls into the category of cheap Internet hosting.

GoDaddy Internet Hosting

When many think of Go Daddy, they immediately think of their sexy Super Bowl ads. Well, you’ll be delighted to know that this Internet hosting service also provides domain services, email services, virtual servers, business solutions and shared hosting plans.

best-internet-hosting For less than $7 per month, you can enjoy 150 GB of disk space with 1500 GB of bandwidth. Whether you have a business website or personal website, this should be more than sufficient for your needs.

Customer service is available 24/7, although a toll free number is not available. Go Daddy offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, meaning that your site should almost always be available. Another big plus is the fact that GoDaddy actually owns their data centers, while many of their competitors choose to rent.

If you host your site at Go Daddy, you’ll receive up to 500 email accounts, at least 50 email forwards (with no upward limit), blog capabilities, forums, picture galleries and much more. They also guarantee that unwanted advertising won’t appear on your site.

Fat Cow Internet Hosting

If you’re looking for cheap Internet hosting, this New Mexico-based company may be what you’ve been searching for. Fat Cow has been in operation since 1998, and their goal is to make starting a website as simple as possible.

While many Internet hosting services offer a dizzying array of plans, Fat Cow simplifies it down to just one plan under $5 per month. For that price, you’ll get blogs, forums, unlimited gigs of monthly disk space, unlimited gigs of data transfer per month, an e-store builder and a free website builder (among others).

You’ll have the ability to host unlimited domains under one user account. If that isn’t enough, you can also choose from a number of add-on services.

A 30-day money-back guarantee is offered, and customer service can be reached through a toll-free number or live web chat.

Host Papa Internet Hosting

Run by green energy (including solar and wind power), Host Papa is one of the leading Internet hosting companies in business today. Their services can also be obtained for less than $5 per month.

Customers will enjoy unlimited bandwidth and storage, email, software support, website building tools and third-party website design.

HostPapa uses cPanel, the most popular control panel in the industry. It makes administrative tasks a snap, and other companies often charge extra for its use.

Customer support is always available, and you can contact them via email, toll-free number or live chat. Video tutorials and a faq section are also available to assist the customer.

Host Monster Internet Hosting

With a price less than $5 per month, HostMonster offers excellent customer service and technical support for an Internet hosting company.

You can host unlimited domains, and their service is especially suited for small business websites. You’ll receive numerous templates to choose from, as well as free site promotion, email support, e-commerce functions and autoresponders.

Host Monster (just like HostPapa) uses the cPanel control panel. When it comes to managing your website, it doesn’t get any easier.

A toll-free customer service hotline is available, and you can browse through an extensive menu of questions. Live chat features are also offered.

Just Host Internet Hosting

You site is placed on multiple servers, allowing uninterrupted operation in case of technical problems. You’ll also receive unlimited space and transfers, and you can host an unlimited number of domains.

The cost of their service is under $5 per month, and unlimited bandwidth and storage are included. A number of add-ons are offered, and their available script library includes osCommerce, Joomla and WordPress.

JustHost uses the cPanel interface, allowing site management to be handled in a very user-friendly fashion. Customers can use cPanel to view website statistics, administer the database and configure e-mail accounts.

If you encounter any problems, you can take advantage of Just Host’s 24/7 customer service department. This includes toll-free phone support, live chat and email. A knowledge base is also provided to cover many frequently asked questions.

Internet Hosting Summary

So who is the best Internet hosting company? When selecting one, you should be aware of price, content and customer service. The five that readily stand out are Just Host, Host Monster, Host Papa, Fat Cow and Go Daddy.

How Does High Speed Internet Work?

January 10th, 2013 |

When answering the question, “How does high speed Internet work?”, we need to individually examine the three most common types of high speed Internet services: DSL, cable and satellite. While each service allows data transmission at a faster rate than dial-up, they all work in slightly different ways.

In general, high speed Internet (also known as “broadband”) quickly transmits video, voice and data over long distances. Users can connect to the Internet immediately, and they can also use their telephone line while surfing the Net.

Some customers may not have access to all types of high speed connections. But between DSL Internet, cable Internet and satellite Internet connections, there’s a service available for almost everybody.

DSL – Digital Subscriber Line

high-speed-internet When dealing with the question of “How does high speed Internet work?”, we should first examine the workings of the DSL connection (also known as a Digital Subscriber Line). This is currently the most popular type of high speed Internet connection.

The DSL connection uses two copper wires, just like your telephone. The lines are split into two frequencies: one for data and one for voice. This splitting is what allows you to use your computer and phone line at the same time.

A DSL connection has download speeds ranging from 256 kilobits per second to 7 megabits per second. Upload speeds can vary from 16 megabits per second to only one per second. Since more bandwidth is reserved for receiving data than sending it, the DSL Internet connection is said to be “asymmetric.”

Benefits of a DSL connection include:

Use your computer and phone at the same time.
In many cases, the existing phone line can be used to run your connection. This eliminates further installation charges.
The closer you are to the central DSL office, the faster your connection speed should be.

Disadvantages of a DSL connection include:

If you don’t live close to the central DSL office, your connection speed won’t be as fast as someone who does (although the difference may be slight).
Uploading information takes longer than downloading.

Cable High Speed Internet

Still wondering, “How does high speed Internet work?” Well, let’s examine cable Internet service and how it functions.

With cable Internet service, the customer has two cable lines installed. The first line allows the subscriber to watch television. The second line provides high-speed cable Internet access.

Cable Internet typically allows for a faster connection speed than DSL. This can vary from computer to computer, however.

Satellite Broadband Internet

In order to receive the Internet via satellite, an antenna must be installed at your business or residence. The signal is then sent to an orbiting satellite and bounced down to the customer. The satellite antenna catches the signal and sends it to your computer.

The speed of a satellite Internet connection is incredibly fast, but severe weather can sometimes interfere with the signal from space and reduce performance. The biggest advantage is that satellite service is available to customers in rural areas, a group which often cannot receive DSL or cable Internet.

What is High Speed Internet?

January 10th, 2013 |

High speed Internet connections are becoming more common as technology advances, and numerous companies now offer broadband service. These include: Comcast high speed Internet, Cox high speed Internet, AT&T Yahoo! high speed Internet and SBC Yahoo! high speed Internet.

The data transfer rate for a high speed Internet connection typically ranges from 64 kilobits per second to 1 megabit per second. While many consider anything above 256 kbit/s to be broadband, the FCC recently defined a broadband connection as any which exceeds 768 kilobits per second.

The Reality of High Speed Internet

While many Internet service providers may advertise a certain bandwidth for their service, the truth can actually be quite different. This is an important fact to be aware of when asking, “What is high speed Internet?”.

Many ISPs will allow more subscribers than they can fully handle, relying on the fact that most customers won’t use the full connection capacity of their high speed Internet connection. While this is normally true, the practice can present connection speed problems from time to time (especially when users are connected to peer-to-peer file sharing programs with high bandwidth demands).

Types of High Speed Internet Access

what-high-speed-internet The following types of high speed Internet access are commonly available to consumers and businesses:

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) – Data is transmitted over copper wiring already available in homes and businesses. For residential customers who don’t receive much data, the most common form is known as the asymmetrical digital subscriber line. For businesses which use video conferencing, the most common form is the symmetrical digital subscriber line.
Cable Modem – This broadband service uses the same cables which deliver the signal for your television. Transmission speeds of 1.5 Mbps or greater are available. The speed of a cable modem is similar to that of the DSL connection.
Fiber – A more recent technology, fiber optics convert the electrical signals to light and send them through thin glass fibers. While this service is expanding, it is still limited compared to cable and DSL.
Satellite – A form of wireless broadband, this service depends on satellites orbiting the planet. Weather can affect the quality of the signal, but it’s ideal for customers living in isolated or rural areas. In some cases, DSL and cable connections offer faster service.
Wireless – A radio link is established between the customer’s location and the provider’s facility. An external antenna may be needed, but speeds are comparable to DSL and cable. This is another high speed Internet connection which is often available to people in rural settings.
BPL (broadband over powerlines) – A new technology, BPL delivers signals over the existing power lines near your home. Speeds are similar to DSL and cable, and it uses electrical outlets and connections which are already in place.

Synopsis of High Speed Internet

So what is high speed Internet? It’s a type of Internet access which offers a high rate of data transfer at an affordable price. Faster than dial-up, it continues to evolve with new innovations like BPL.

How Much Does High Speed Internet Cost?

January 10th, 2013 |

These days, high speed internet doesn’t cost that much. You can find a good high speed internet hookup for a cost of $10 a month.

This might not be the highest-performing internet service provider on the market, but you won’t notice much of a difference in your internet speed. But just because you can get a high speed internet provider for $10 a month, you might not be satisfied with this service. That’s because even “high speed internet” comes at different speeds. That speed is measured in “megabits per second” or “mbps”, which is how much information the system can handle in a second time.

Cable Companies High Speed Internet Cost

Most cable companies also offer their own high speed wireless routers, so you can pay your internet service bill right along with your cable service bill (assuming you don’t have a satellite dish). Even if you have the option of using your cable internet hookup, I would suggest you look at other options, at the very least.

Generally, cable companies will charge upwards of $30 for their standard version of high speed internet service, which handles somewhere in the 3 mbps or 4 mbps range. That’s what the average internet user needs, or what they think they need. Actually, people who seldom download, don’t watch internet videos and don’t play online games probably don’t need that speed of internet service. But since it’s easier to be billed on your phone bill or cable bill than to pay an extra bill every month, many internet users purchase their internet service in that way.

Cable companies and other such internet service providers depend on peoples’ apathy to the price you charge them, assuming the price of your internet will be submerged in the larger price for your cable television connection. But if cable charges $30 and an established internet service provider charges closer to $15 or $20, there’s no reason to stick with the cable company, because they aren’t likely to offer better services. This is moot, if you have a satellite dish, of course.

Broadband Internet Costs

high-speed-internet-cost Here is a rough estimate of what broadband internet might cost. This shows that when you ask “how much does broadband internet cost”, the answer is a little elusive. All of the following are considered “high speed dsl internet”.

You’ll be able to find better deals if you search. (For instance, I know of someone who gets 16 mbps for somewhere between $55 and $65.) You might already have a better deal if you’re lucky. There are a lot of people who are getting stiffed on their high speed internet cost. So just think of this as a rough estimate to go on, and not the end-all for high speed internet costs.

1 mbps (megabits per second) – $10 or $15
4 mbps – $30
6 mpbs – $45
12 mpbs – $75 per month

Who Needs High Speed Internet?

Those who download streaming videos or who play competitive online gaming like MMORPG gaming need a high-speed connection on the faster end of the spectrum. Those who use the internet the standard amount of time, checking their email, surfing the web, downloading the occasional pdf and watching a few Youtube videos every once in a while, you don’t need more than 3 or 4 mbps. This will cost significantly less — probably around $30.

Internet Service Costs and Email

In the old days, your primary email service came with your internet provider’s online service, and it was important to know how much storage capacity your Internet service provider offered. With services like Gmail these days, someone with Gmail really has no need to use their provider’s internet service, as long as they are on a high speed connection. (Gmail can be slow to load for dial-up computers, but we’re talking about high speed internet here.)

With that in mind, we mainly can worry about the cost of your high speed internet. Why don’t we compare high speed internet service providers to your default online service company: your local cable company. You may be surprised at which is the cheap internet service provider.

High Speed Internet Billed On Your Phone

Like I mentioned earlier, the average high speed internet bill is around $30. I know people who spend $14.95 or $19.95 a month on AT&T high speed DSL that is perfectly good for their internet needs. On the other hand, you can get Verizon high speed DSL at 54 mbps for $20. Unfortunately, these good rates depend on where you live in the country and when you signed up for your dsl or highspeed connections.

Where Can I Find Cheap High Speed Internet?

January 10th, 2013 |

You can find cheap high speed internet with just a little bit of online research. These days, there are hundreds of high speed internet providers. But if you are going to find the right cheap high speed DSL internet service for you, you’re going to have to determine what your internet needs are. You don’t want to buy cheap internet service that can’t handle your online needs, and therefore slows down your web functions. At the same time, you don’t want to overspend on high speed internet connections that you don’t need. So I’ll try to point out why different high speed internet costs different prices, so you’ll be able find cheap high speed internet and still be happy with your internet service provider.

Cheap High Speed Internet and Location

If you live in or near a major city, your options are better. If you live in rural areas, your options will be more limited. Many rural internet users get their local cable company and one or two other options — sometimes even satellite internet services. As satellite internet advances and becomes cheaper, people everywhere will have more options. From what I understand of friends who live in outlying areas of the country, satellite internet service in the country is outrageously high, and a little unreliable at the moment. Both of those criticisms undoubtedly won’t apply within a few years.

So when you ask “Where can I find cheap high speed internet?”, you need to first figure out how your location might affect your options. One of the options that many Americans have is AT&T, so I’m going to use it in my next example.

Cheap High Speed Internet and AT&T

cheap-high-speed-internet Let’s look at one of the biggest high speed DSL providers in the nation: AT&T High Speed Internet. I want to use AT&T as an example, because they have a nice multi-tiered plan which illustrates the various services you’ll be buying at different prices. There is a four-tiered plan for those wanting to buy AT&T internet service.

Type of AT&T Internet Service Price

Basic DSL – $14.99
Express DSL – $25.00
Pro DSL – $30.00
Elite DSL – $35.00

Basic DSL gets you on the internet and lets you perform the basic online functions for an internet user. AT&T basic high speed service is good for sending emails and downloading small files. You can watch videos on Youtube without problems, but anything much more involved might create slow down your computer and create “lag time”.

Express DSL mainly gives you the ability to download larger files. Your internet surfing will be a little faster and your email will open quicker. Photo files, videos and music files may take a while at this speed, but you can download even large text files (pdfs, etc) without a whole lot of trouble.

Pro DSL gives you the ability to download photos, music files and video files. While you can probably download most of those files with Express DSL, you’ll be able to download these files on “Pro DSL” highspeed internet at a much quicker pace. Essentially, if you want to download a bunch of video or music files and retain your sanity, spend the extra five bucks a month to purchase Pro DSL. If you can sit at a long traffic light and not lose your patience, it might be worth it to save money and buy the $25 Express DSL.

Elite DSL from AT&T is the fastest high speed connection you can get from AT&T. This means you can download full movies files without any trouble. Downloading the same file on Pro DSL or Express DSL might take half the night. Also, if you are into online gaming, you want the Elite DSL. Otherwise, you’ll experience serious lag time when playing World of Warcraft or City of Heroes or whatever is your game of choice. Online gaming even with a powerful computer can be a whipping, if you don’t invest in the high speed DSL with the highest mbps.

Where Can I Find Cheap High Speed Internet – Mbps

Here’s where I should discuss “Mbps”. Mbps stands for “megabytes per second”. The more megabites per second your internet connection can send and receive, the faster your computer will run when online. That’s because “mbps” is a measure of the amount of information your wireless can handle any given second. That’s also why one level of AT&T DSL costs $14.99 and another level of DSL costs $35. One simple handles more megabytes per second, so it can handles bigger assignments.

Cheap High Speed Internet and Security

Sometimes, cheaper high speed internet providers save money by having fewer safeguards on your internet security. This means that spyware, adware, pop-ups, hackers and identity thieves might have a better chance to harm your computer and harm your life. So when considering buying a cheaper high speed dsl or broadband internet service, make sure you have good anti-virus and spyware protections for the operating systems on all of your home computers. Find good internet bargains, but be careful.

Cheap Broadband Internet and Download Limits

Another way an internet provider can save enough money to provide cheaper broadband internet service is the “download limit”. This means that you get cheaper internet, but you can only download a certain number of items per month. Given that a highspeed internet connection on a new or fast computer runs quickly, you can exhaust all your downloads in one evening. If you download a lot, check to see if there’s a download limit on your internet service. If you never download from the internet, get the internet service connection with download limits; you’ll be giving up nothing.

Finding Cheap High Speed DSL Internet

Now that you know why high speed internet costs what it does, you can go about finding cheap high speed DSL internet all for yourself. Figure out your needs, look at the high speed internet packages which all the online service provider companies have to offer and find the right cheap high speed internet connection for you. The question should be “How cheap can my high speed internet be and still work right”?

What is Google?

January 10th, 2013 |

What is Google? A better question might be what isn’t it? This corporation has grown from a small startup to the most influential company on the Internet. It began as an idea in 1996 when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who met at college, formed the search engine BackRub for Stanford University. In 1997, they renamed their program “Google” as a play on the word Googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. Google describes the motivation for this name as a reflection of their mission to “organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.” Before their search engine came along, Internet searches turned up thousands of irrelevant results before users could find what they sought.

The company has become so popular since its inception that many now spell googol as Google. Almost everyone now knows this once obscure term. It’s not only a noun, it’s now a verb. Want to know who won the alpine downhill skiing gold medal in 2006? Just Google it. Looking for your long lost high school sweetheart? Just Google his name. The convenience of searching and finding just what you are looking for has led to Google’s enormous popularity. The search engine seems to deliver more relevant results than any other does, which is why it is so commonly used. It has the highest rating of any search engine, taking up nearly half the search market, followed by Yahoo, taking a 25% share of Internet searches.

The Google Science

what-is-google So how does Google do it? Initially, they simply set “page ranks” which ordered websites by how many other sites linked to them. These links are called back links, thus the initial name, BackRub. Later, they added algorithms to rate pages on other criteria. Some of these formulas well-kept secrets, but others are widely known. One algorithm looks at keyword density, which is how many times a search term appears on a web page. The pages rank is affected by how well that keyword, or search term, matches with titles, domain names, headers and other parts of the page to determine its relevancy to the search.

The Google Business

After unsuccessful attempts to sell the technology to existing search providers, Sun Microsystems handed Google founders a $100,000. They hadn’t even finished their pitch yet. In fact, they weren’t even an official company yet. Other venture capital checks started pouring in and Google amassed almost $30 million from investors by 1999. Then they stepped out into the real world with the Google website.

Early Google Revenue Model

When Google was no more than an intellectual pursuit, Brin and Page scoffed at the idea of making money through advertising. They could not imagine why anyone would pay to be listed in search results. Ironically, advertising revenue is now the bulk of Google’s business. When you search a term on their site, notice the highlighted “Sponsored Links” search results at the top and the column of sponsored links on the side. Each time there is a click on one of these links, Google hears the cha-ching of the cash register.

Early revenue models for search engine advertising under Google’s AdWords program were for fixed fees, charging advertisers by how many thousands of visitors went clicked on an ad. In 2000, the company changed its strategy to pay per click marketing, commonly known as PPC, where advertisers paid each time a user clicked on an advertisement. This model was already being used by Overture, once the most popular search engine. The company unsuccessfully sued Google for patent infringement after America Online dropped Overture for Google.

Microsoft Looms

By 2001, the dreaded Microsoft had Google in its sights. Company founders knew they needed to take action if they were to survive a Microsoft attack, so they hired CEO Eric Schmidt to lead the fight. Schmidt had battled Microsoft before while working for Sun Microsystems and Novell. Founders also took on a strategy of amassing revenue to fund acquisitions and build the company’s strength. It worked.

Since then, the company has devoured the most promising startups on the web. It has become the dream of Internet startup’s everywhere to be acquired by Google and retire young and happy in the Bahamas. You may be familiar with some of the companies Google has acquired. They are sites like Blogger, YouTube, Orkut, Postini and DoubleClick.

The company has also released many of their own “Google” programs like a toolbar, Image Search, Labs, News, Froogle Product Search, Grants, Book Search, and Local. Still other applications were formed from technology acquired through buying startups. One example of this is AdSense, based on technology from Applied Semantics.

Google Today

Google is now a global company with offices in Tokyo, Sydney, Dublin, Bangladore and other locations worldwide. At its IPO in August 2004, shares sold for $85 each. In the last five years alone, Google has emerged with new “Google” brand products like SMS, Desktop Search, Scholar, Maps, iGoogle, Blog Search, Reader, Gmail, Finance, Calendar, Trends, Checkout, and the list goes on. They also released a popular photo-sharing site called Picasa. Many of these technologies have also been released for mobile devices, like the popular Google Suggest, which debuted with the iPhone 3G. The company even developed a platform for mobile devices called Android and collaborated with T-mobile to create the phone, G1. They also launched their own web browser called Google Chrome.

Google acquired Keyhole, a company whose technology was used to establish Google Earth. They bought Urchin for its technology and created Google Analytics. The company Writely was acquired in order to create Google Docs. Google bought JotSpot for a wiki platform that became Google Sites. They also acquired companies dMarc, YouTubem, Postini and DoubleClick. The company accomplished all of this in just five years. Google is now every-present in the information age. Chances are, if there is a way people are communicating over the Internet, Google is a part of it.

What is an “Online Fax Machine”?

January 10th, 2013 |

An online fax machine is an online fax service that lets you send, receive and record faxes without the need of paper fax machines or any kind of paper records at all. Cutting out the paper needs of faxing lets you reduce yearly costs, while also allowing you to run a more environmentally friendly business. With online faxing, you can read your faxes anywhere you travel on virtually any telecommunications device, giving you more efficient fax communications and more mobility in your business life. Without being tied to an office fax machine or local fax business, you’ll never have to wait around for a fax again. And online fax machines are better than standard email, because there’s a third party fax service which keeps records of your virtual faxing. You’ll never wonder which employee took your all-important fax from the fax machine again, because your internet faxes will go straight to your email.

What Do Online Faxes Cost To Send?

When you want to send faxes online, go to an online fax service and become a member. Membership usually costs around $15 to $20 a month, as well as a nominal activation fee (usually around $10). This buys you the service, though outgoing faxes will often cost around 10 cents per fax. Incoming faxes may cost something like 15 cents per fax. Businesses with bulk rates of faxes may get discounted rates. Faxes sent outside the U.S. may cost higher for U.S. based companies.

How To Send Faxes Online

online-fax-machine When you get a membership at an online fax service like eFax, you’ll be assigned your own fax number. Incoming emails will be delivered directly to your email address, or the email address provided for your company. The email service is part of your fax service, so it is free. Reading your faxes is as easy as reading an email, so you can use your office PC or home PC, your Blackberry or your iPod to read your business faxes. Sending faxes with eFax is easy to send and to forward, and works similarly to email services. The only difference is, with paperless faxing, there is a third party record of your faxes that is easily accessed by both parties, so you never have to quibble over what was sent and what wasn’t sent.

In a basic efaxing membership package, you’ll get everything mentioned above with standard online faxing, which allows you to save money on the old-fashioned paper faxing, gives you more mobility as you attend your business around the city or country, gives you more privary, more security and frankly is faster and looks more professional than standing around a fax machine. Also, efaxing is the “green option”, because your company will save huge amounts of paper every year, so you leave a smaller carbon footprint.

Often, though, E-fax services often have different tiers to their services. I’ll go over a typical advanced internet faxing services membership packages as an example.

What Is an Online Fax Machine – The Advanced Package

With advanced faxing online, you get better options. These are usually for high volume fax users and larger companies. With this package, you get more savings and more storage for your faxes. You’ll also have greater mobility. Finally, you’ll often get the “free voicemail to email” option, which allows you to record voicemail and send them as online faxes to your business partners, clients, customers or employees.

What is the April Fools Worm and How do I Protect My Computer from It?

January 10th, 2013 |

The April Fools Worm is known by many names: Conficker Worm, Doomsday Virus, Kido, Downup, and Downadup. It affects any computer using a Windows-based system, which means Linux and Mac users can breathe a sigh of relief. What’s creating such a panic is that many expect the virus to kick into overdrive on April 1st, 2009, and really put a hurt on personal computers around the globe.

The April Fools Worm or Conficker Worm

In some computers, the April Fools Worm simply lies dormant. In others, it blocks systems from updating anti-virus software, and it may also gather personal information or install additional programs at a later date.

If you’re wondering, “What is the April Fools Worm and how do I protect my computer from it,” you might be interested to know that the virus is believed to have infected 10 million computers outside of the United States, and millions of American computers are also suffering from the effects of the Doomsday Virus. It was believed to have started in weak networks such as offices, airports, and coffee shops, but it has since spread at an alarming rate following its discovery in November of 2008.

The most commonly affected operating systems include: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2003. There are three distinct version of the Conficker Worm, and their designations are “A,” “B,” and “C.” The third version is the most powerful one yet.

April Fools Day

april-fools-worm The biggest worry is what will happen on April Fools Day. Infected computers could be linked directly to servers run by the hackers, and this could allow for additional instructions to be sent or even more malicious software to be downloaded to your computer.

While it might be nothing more than an April Fools Day hoax, others believe that infected computers might have every file deleted. There’s also the possibility that keystrokes might be monitored in order to capture sensitive information such as passwords and credit card information. PC users may also be bombarded with ads for fake products and software, as this was the result of the strain known as Conficker B.

Symantec, a leading anti-virus firm, does not believe any great calamity will befall PCs worldwide on April 1st. They have publicly stated that the most likely outcome is that the worm will simply receive additional instructions on how to make itself more secure against attacks. They do admit, however, that the Conficker C Worm will one day become active, and they have no idea what the end result will be.

So how do you know if you’re infected by the April Fools Worm? One major sign may be if your computer hasn’t downloaded any updates from Windows in the last month. The same goes for automatic updates from anti-virus programs.

Eliminating the April Fools Worm

While finding the April Fools Worm can be difficult, eliminating the April Fools Worm isn’t so hard. Windows has sent updates to eliminate it, although infected computers may not have received the updates to begin with. A patch is also available from Microsoft to repair the system weakness which allows the virus to infect computers in the first place.

A number of anti-virus programs, including Symantec’s Norton products, are available to fight the April Fools Worm. In many cases, these programs can also be downloaded on a trial basis, which means there’s no excuse for not arming yourself against this online nuisance.

If you happen to know who’s responsible for the worst PC infection in years, you’ll have the opportunity to make yourself a nice pile of cash. Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for any information which leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in creating or spreading the April Fools Worm.

How Do I Prevent Spyware On My Computer?

January 10th, 2013 |

Have you ever downloaded something and then suddenly your computer slows down and starts acting weird? Maybe your homepage on your web browser got changed or you suddenly get pop-up ads that appear on your screen. If anything like this has happened to you then you have probably picked up some spyware. There are, however, steps you can take to prevent spyware on your computer.

Spyware and its sister programs like adware are just another dangerous obstacle on the sea that is the internet. While they may not be quite as destructive to your system as a computer virus, they can still have harmful effects. When I got them on my computer it drove me nuts. I finally went down to the local computer center and asked “How do I prevent spyware on my computer?” Here are some tips that I learned.

What Is Spyware And How Did I Get It

Spyware is a software program that is similar to a virus. It can get you’re your computer system through a variety of means. Once it is downloaded, the program can search through your computer and collect and send back any personal information to another user. This information can be anything personal such as passwords, account numbers, internet tracking, and user names. This is where it gets the name ‘spyware’ from because someone out there is spying on you. Spyware is a common tool of people committing identity theft and can cause you serious harm. Spyware is also used by certain companies and businesses to send unsolicited advertisements through spam emails and pop-ups. Some of these such companies may even sell your email to another party for further advertising and spam lists.

Spyware can be received through careless downloading or by clicking on a link in an email. When you download a file, spyware can be attched to the program. It can be included in some freeware that is available on numerous sites. You can also get infected with spyware when you click on a link in an email, especially if it is spam email. Instead of sending you to a linked webpage, clicking the link actually automatically downloads the spyware to your computer.

What Are Some Ways To Protect Against Spyware

prevent-spyware-computer Spyware is a common threat on the internet but there are some ways that you can minimize the threat. First and foremost is to get some anti-spyware software. Anti-spyware programs are capable of scanning your computer for any existing spyware and quarantining the threat for elimination. The programs can also scan all of your downloads and emails that you receive. There are many different brands on the market today and new ones are always popping up. They can be purchased either at a computer center or you can download a free version online. These free versions are usually only demo versions and rarely contain the entire program. The best ones will be those that you purchase.

Another good way to protect your computer against spyware is to read the disclosure agreements before downloading any files, particularly freeware. Most of these agreements will state that a spyware program is included in the package.

Think twice before clicking on any links, either in emails from unknown senders or on webpages. These links may be more than just a quick link to another page or site. These links may trigger an automatic download of spyware.

A pop-up blocker is handy to have. It may be included in your anti-spyware software or you may have to get it separately. Pop-up blockers do just what they say. They prevent pop-up windows from appearing on your screen.

Most spyware is included with other software and programs but some spyware can be inserted into your computer by remote from a hacker. To prevent this from happening, keep your firewall updated and activated. A firewall will prevent any intrusion from outside sources.

Be careful from where you download files to your computer. You should always be sure that the site is reliable and one that you trust. If the site appears to have been put together in a hurry and there is not a number of visitors per day (although that can be faked, too) then you should avoid any downloads.

And lastly, you should always keep your computer software updated. Update your spyware and anti-virus programs to keep them current. Operating systems such as Microsoft Windows should also be updated regularly. Make sure that you have Automatic Updates turned on for Windows so that your computer can download the latest in security updates.

What To Do If You Get Spyware On Your Computer

Chances are you have some spyware on your computer right now and you are not aware of it. Most people do in one form or another. Getting rid of spyware is easier than getting rid of something like a virus or a worm. All you need is a good spyware removal program. A couple of good ones are Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Spy Sweeper. Allof these programs work basically the same. They scan your computer’s disk, files, and documents, searching for any spyware or adware. Once it detects it, it quarantines the spyware. You can then go in an eliminate it completely and safely from your computer.

How Do I Protect My Computer From Hackers On The Internet?

January 10th, 2013 |

Computer hacking may seem like a cool thing to do. They’ve made movies where a hacker is the good guy so it must be true, right? WRONG. Computer hacking is a serious crime that violates other people’s privacy and can get you in loads of trouble if you are ever caught. Being the victim of a computer hacker is one of the worst feelings. It’s like coming home and finding out that someone has been prowling through your house. It leaves you feeling violated and unprotected. If it happened once, it can happen again. At some point you have to ask yourself “how do I protect my computer from hackers on the Internet”?

Statistically, most people will never be the victim of a computer hacker but if it ever does happen, you will never forget it. So why take the chance? You are really more likely to be attacked by a computer virus or spyware but these are malicious programs that hackers can also use to gain access to your personal information. The good news is there are some steps that you can take to protect your computer.

Set Up A Firewall

A firewall can prevent intruders from breaking into your computer via the Internet or a network. Hackers can break into your computer because computers on any kind of network can recognize, or ‘see’, another computer. Firewalls basically hide your computer and keep it from being seen. You can set up a firewall to be recognized by specific computers if needed. There are two different versions of firewalls. There is a software firewall and a hardware firewall. A software firewall is a program loaded onto your computer. It is easier to set up because the program does the work for you automatically. You can buy a firewall software or get a free firewall online. Since it is a program that constantly runs, it takes up RAM and can slow down a computer’s performance.

A hardware firewall is also called a router. This is a physical device attached to your computer and is probably the best kind of firewall to have. It can block all kinds of viruses and can either prevent or slow down a hacker trying to do a port scan to hack your computer. A high-end router can be expensive but because it is hardware, it doesn’t slow down your computer by taking up memory.

Use Anti-Virus Software

protect-computer-hackers Some hackers use viruses to try to crash your system. A virus is a harmful program that can cause all sorts of damage to your computer if it is unprotected. The best defense against viruses is an anti-virus program like Norton or McAfee. These programs detect and block viruses from infecting your system. A good anti-virus program can scan emails, attachments, and downloads for any number of viruses. The best programs also come with a virus scanner that runs in the background whenever your computer is on. It takes up little CPU usage because the scans are quick scans of individual files. Once these anti-virus programs detect an infectious program or code, they can quarantine the virus and delete it. Anti-Virus programs need to be constantly updated against new threats or else newer viruses can slip through the system.

Get An Anti-Spyware Program

Spyware is another malicious program similar to a virus. Spyware gets its name from the fact that it allows someone else to view your personal files, gain access to passwords, track your movements on the Internet, and allow some degree of control over your computer. Spyware is more common that viruses and hacking but computer hackers can use the spyware to steal your identity. The best solution to protect your computer against malicious spyware is to get an anti-spyware software such as SpyKiller or A2 Guard. These programs work much like anti-virus software. They run scans on incoming emails, attachments, and all downloads for hidden spyware. Once detected, the programs can quarantine and delete the spyware.

Use A Spam Filter

SPAM emails are incredibly annoying. Once someone that you don’t know gets a hold of your email address you can be guaranteed to be put on someone’s mailing list. The real danger of SPAM is that it is a tool often used by hackers to slip a virus, spyware, or other infectious code into your computer. You can prevent this by getting a SPAM filter for your email. Some systems will already contain a SPAM filter but if you don’t have one, you can buy a software package. SPAM filters can block emails suspected of being SPAM or they can flag certain emails as suspected SPAM and you can inspect them yourself.

For more information about how to protect your computer from hackers on the internet, see:

How to Get Cheap Internet?

January 10th, 2013 |

Internet service providers such as AOL and AT&T are among the biggest names in the business, but a number of ISPs exist which offer much lower prices. Just follow the tips below and you’ll be enjoying cheap Internet in no time.

Eliminate Your Phone Line

One way to get cheaper Internet service is by eliminating your phone line. If you have a cell phone, do you really need a phone line in the first place?

Instead, ask your phone company if they will turn off the phone line and just provide Internet service. While this tip doesn’t actually make your Internet cheaper, it will shave off some money each month by eliminating unnecessary costs.

Bundling

Companies such as Qwest will allow you to “bundle” your phone, Internet and satellite television charges. This will result in a lower monthly bill, and you can save several hundred dollars per year by bundling multiple services.

Know Your Options

cheap-internet In order to know how to get cheap Internet, you need to know which services are available in your area. You might be eligible for wireless and DSL, or you might only be able to get dial-up. Before you can save money, it’s imperative that you consider the availability of each service.

Consult The Internet

A number of websites document the lowest available Internet prices. All you have to do is enter your zip code, and you’ll be taken to a webpage where the best ISP deals are displayed.

Compare Prices for Internet

People who know how to get cheap Internet will tell you that it’s important to compare prices. The Internet is a valuable tool when it comes to comparative shopping, but there’s no substitute for calling the providers directly and seeing what kind of deals are currently available.

Watch out for scams while you’re doing this, though. If you find a site which looks promising, be sure to run a search on it to make sure it’s legitimate.

Check The Service Plan

When it comes to selecting an ISP, you’ll need to read the fine print. Often, this can be done by looking over the service plan. Items such as cost, security and number of available email addresses will be provided.

Cheap Internet Service Providers

While this list is hardly exhaustive, I’ve attempted to detail a few of the cheapest Internet service providers currently available.

Net Zero – Their platinum package is available for $6.95 per month. They offer some of the fastest connection speeds for dial-up customers.
Juno – Their platinum plan is available for $9.95, while the Speedband plan is $14.95 per month. Also available for the Mac.
People PC Online – For the first three months, subscribers will get Internet service for only half price. After that, they’ll pay $10.95 per month.
550 Access – Offering cheap dial-up service, 550 Access has plans ranging from $5.50 per month to $8.95. There are no pop-ups or banner ads, and free support is available.
TotalUSA – Offers cheap prices for 56k connections.
Turbo Standard
Toast.net
Copper.net
Basic ISP
arcZip
mFire

How Do I Become A Blogger?

January 10th, 2013 |

Blogs, or “weblogs”, are not just the latest fad — they are an entire new form of media and expression enjoyed by literally billions of viewers around the world.

The best estimate on the number of blogs in existence, provided by Technorati (sort of the Google for blogs), is just over 200 million. This is a huge number, representing hundreds of millions of people writing individualized and personalized content on information as diverse as Fantasy Football, the pharmaceutical industry, and various “insider” corporate information sites.

A blog is basically a website where an individual posts links, pictures, and articles about whatever they like. There are informative blogs, that attempt to teach people the ins and outs of certain industries (a personal favorite of mine is The Angry Pharmacist), personal blogs used to post information about a person’s life and family, and blogs for sports and gaming enthusiasts. When it comes to blogging, the possibilities for content are quite literally endless, and many bloggers have made a career of their writing — think Drudge Report, or the many softcore porn blogs frequented by the voyeur crowd.

Get Started Blogging

How do I get started blogging? Its really rather easy — what is a bit more difficult is turning your blog into a money making enterprise, and building a captive audience.

The first step would be to come up with a good name (and eventually a tagline) for your blog. A good name will attract more people than you think. How much more likely are you to read “Gathering in Light” than “Bob’s Blog” ? Hopefully you will put some thought into your blog title, and also your address name. Remember, people will only be able to remember your blog if it has a memorable name. You want something easy to say and type so that when you give out the address to other people, they won’t have any difficulty remembering it. You also want your title to be topic specific, to a degree — this is to help remind people what you’re blogging about.

Are you mainly writing about yourself and your daily activities? Find some kind of catchy name that helps draw people in — The Life and Times of John Smith is far better than just “My Blog”. Are you writing a blog about Christian theology? Well then you might want to consider a name that evokes that certain feeling, like “The World and the Kingdom of God” — a popular Christian blog written by Greg Bahnsen.

Designing Your Blog

how-become-blogger When designing your blog, you can easily bypass the technical design aspects of website creation by selecting a template — this is sort of like your blog’s visual “theme”. Try out multiple templates until you find one that works for your individual blog. You can go overboard — sometimes stuffing in all the bells and whistles available to you can take away from the message of your blog, and turn people off. I would suggest that most blog viewers quickly glance at your two most recent blog posts, and only if they are interested by your design and your topic will they continue to check out your other features. In other words, text and content are more important than gadgets and features. The more simple and aesthetically pleasing your blog, the more you will find people sticking around.

Another important decision — are you going to focus on a kind of “journal” or more content based blogging? You do need to have a focus one way or the other. Will you mainly stick to writing articles and blog posts that are intended to inform your readers about your specific topic, or will you mainly be writing about your daily adventures and letting people know what you’re up to and what your opinions are on all kinds of topics? In general, the first blog will be the more financially lucrative, as people will be drawn to your informative blog through web searches, while your friends and family will be more likely interested in a “journalling” blog. Its up to you — consider what you’re goal is, and make that blog.

An “about me” page is a crucial element in any blog — use your real name, let people know what you are into, what your interests are, what beer you like to drink, what music you play on your ipod, what you like to do on a Saturday afternoon, or whatever. The point of the “about” page is to inform your readers who they are reading and learning about.

This next step can be the best way to get traffic on your blog — you must like to other great blogs, who will then hopefully link back to you. Consider this a kind of free advertising. If you’re reading a book, and the back page of the book suggests the book you’re reading is similar to “The Life of Pi” or something like that, you’re very likely to go out and buy “The Life of Pi”. Besides, what better way to learn how to blog than to read other bloggers. You can find great blogs by searching google, Technorati, or by going to other specific blog search engines like Sphere. Especially if you are focusing on a content blog, it is crucial to find other bloggers who are writing about your topic. Its good to engage with people who both agree and disagree with your points of view.

Earn Incoming From Your Blog

Making money off your blog doesn’t mean selling directly to your audience. Advertising programs exist to help you earn income from your blog — some people make just enough to support their blogging habit, while still others make their entire living through ad revenue. Here are just a few options –

Google AdSense

This is a context driven advertising service. It offers advertisers the opportunity to receive inexpensive traffic, (which is done through Google’s AdWords service), and blog publishers the chance to make money by displaying on-site advertisements created by the advertisers. The ads can be tailored to fit your content, or not — your decision.

Yahoo! Publisher Network

This service, also known as YPN, is another contextual advertising method that mimics Google’s AdSense. It offers advertisers the opportunity to receive inexpensive traffic, and also gives publishers the chance to make money by displaying these advertisements on-site. If you’re looking for an alternative to Google, you can’t do wrong by YPN.

Kontera Contentlink

This is a rather unique service — yes it is another contextual advertising service, but unlike AdSense and YPN, ContentLink highlights keywords right on your blog page to make it appear like a link. When the reader hovers over one of these links, an in-page pop-up ad will appear, offering your visitors the opportunity to buy, and offering you a bit of dough in return.

These are just a few options for advertising on your new blog. Search out your options, and decide which is best for you.

How do you become a blogger? The fact that you want to be a blogger is a big first step, and with so many sites and programs on the web to help you develop your page, it is easier than ever to be a blogger.

Join the hundreds of millions of fellow bloggers today, and be a part of the new media. You may not make a ton of money, but you’ll have the satisfaction of sharing your life, your interests, and your insight to an unlimited supply of visitors.

How Do You Make Your Blog More Interesting?

January 10th, 2013 |

These days just about everyone, from your neighbor across the street to your sweet Aunt Pearl, has a blog. They can post about all sorts of subjects from the weird to the completely mundane. There are really too many blogs, to be honest. People can’t possibly keep up with too many of them. It is like trying to carry on a hundred conversations at once. So if you have a blog and you want people to read it, what do you do? You have to make your blog interesting. But again, with so many blogs to choose from, and a lot of them are interesting (maybe even your Aunt Pearl’s), how do you make your blog more interesting so that the traffic that comes through will come back again?

Making Your Blog More Intersting Tips

There are a lot of methods you can use to make your blog more interesting, or “sticky”. If you are using your blog as a revenue-earning business, you want to get as much traffic coming through as possible. If your blog isn’t interesting, people will not stay at your site very long and they won’t come back. If you already have a blog or are considering starting one, here are some tips on how to make your blog more interesting.

Have A Bold And Unique Design

When designing the look of your blog, you need something unique, eye-catching, and bold. You don’t want to go too simple or rip off someone else’s design. Plus, it is a crowded market out there. There are thousands of new blogs appearing online every day. By being different, you will attract more notice. You should also make everything about the design relate to what the blog is about. This is referred to as “branding”. Everything from colors to layout to font style should all correspond to your brand. If the design doesn’t go together very well, your site will end up looking awkward.

Try To Have More Than One Page

make-blog-interesting Most blogs are only one long page. This is boring and limits the number of articles you can display. To make your blog more interesting, create links to your previous posts, most popular posts, comments, “About Me” page, and forums (if you have them). By having these sections interlinked, you can keep readers on your blog longer as they switch back and forth reading different material.

Have A Section For Comments Or A Forum

You shouldn’t have a blog just to hear yourself talk. You need reader interaction. You can accomplish this by creating an option for readers to leave comments at the end of your posts. This gives you an opportunity to get some feedback on your writing and subject matter. Depending on the feedback, you can then judge whether your posts need any additional work to increase viewers. For instance, if everyone leaves comments that you are an idiot and don’t know what you are talking about, it is time to re-evaluate your posts.

Other than a section for comments, you can also have a forum for your readers so they can discuss relevant topics to your brand. You can divide your forum up into many different subcategories to give readers more options. Whether you put in a comments section, a forum, or both, interact and respond to comments as much as possible. This will let the readers feel that they have a more personal involvement in your blog.

Post As Often As Possible

If you have a blog, you should try to post as often as possible. Some of the blogs that have a huge number of readers post at least once a day and even several times a day. At the least, you should post something new a couple of times a day to keep readers interested. New posts draw in repeat readers. If you don’t post regularly, then readers will become discouraged and quit visiting your blog.

Offer A Newsletter

There are some tools you can use to create a blog newsletter to send out to your readers. Newsletters are a great way to keep your readers informed about new posts and new goings-on in your blog. By receiving a newsletter, it keeps attention on your blog and helps to increase the likelihood that these readers will come back to visit.

Think SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This means that when you create a blog and post articles, you do it in a way to draw in as much traffic from search engines such as Google and Yahoo. How you do this is when writing your posts, you want to use keywords and phrases that will be more likely to show up in search engine crawlers. You can use tools such as highlighting, underlining, using bold fonts for specific words, and such. But when you do this, do it in a way that is relevant to what you are writing. If you use too many keywords or phrases, you will get a lot more hits on the search engine results but your blog material will suffer.

Interact With Other Blogs

Having a strong online presence will likely increase your number of readers. The more people that know you will mean the more people will visit your blog. You can accomplish this by visiting other blogs and leaving comments and posting on their forums. If you become a regular at other sites, you can gain a bit of notoriety. Then you can link to your site and draw in some more traffic.

Have A Guest Over To Blog

Similar to the option above but in reverse. Occasionally have a guest blogger come in and post a few articles. If the guest is another well established blogger, he will have his own audience of readers that will visit your site just to read what he has to say.

The Little Extras

There are a number of little extra bells and whistles you can add to make your blog more interesting. You can add things like photos, audio clips, and streaming video clips. You can post tutorials, post comments that answers reader questions, do interviews with people that relates to your brand, and even invite some of your readers to post articles.

Does Internet Advertising Work?

January 10th, 2013 |

With Internet advertising, a company or person can promote their goods or services online by methods such as banner ads, pop-up ads, pay-per-click ads and ezine ads. But does Internet advertising work? We’ll examine that question in this article, as well as take a closer look at some of the various Internet advertising strategies.

Ways That Internet Advertising Works

In my opinion, Internet advertising does work, although many factors can contribute to its success or failure. Here are a few things to keep in mind when considering ways that Internet advertising works.

Objective – If the goal of an Internet ad was to increase brand awareness, then success or failure will be based on its ability to do so. If brand awareness is low, but a high click-through rate is achieved, then the online ad could still be said to be a partial failure.
Sometimes the numbers lie – One study conducted by a leading company showed that their online ads resulted in 11 percent of subsequent visits and 13 percent of incremental sales. Those who declined to click on the ads, however, eventually made up 90 percent of visitors to the site.
Based on the click-through numbers, the ad campaign might appear to be a failure. A closer look, however, shows that it wasn’t.
Display ads work – Display ads, like television commercials, serve to grab the consumers attention by giving them both audio and video to look at. Online videos can now achieve the same results at a low cost to the internet advertiser.
Helps offline sales – Even if an online ad doesn’t result in an immediate sale, it’s latent impact cannot be ignored. While some measure the effectiveness of an ad entirely on its click-through and conversion ratio, many companies have found that either latent sales or offline sales are greatly boosted by online advertising.

Types of Internet Advertising That Work

internet-advertising-works Now that we’ve looked at a few of the ways which Internet advertising works, let’s take a closer look at a few types of Internet advertising that work. Hopefully, this will bring us closer to answering the question, “Does Internet advertising work?”.

Pay-per-click – One of the most effective forms of Internet advertising, although it can prove frustrating for those new to it. Basically, you place a text ad with a link back to you on another website (usually a large site which generates lots of traffic). If a consumer clicks on the ad and visits your site for a period of time (usually only 5 or 10 seconds), you’ll be expected to pay a fee to the host site.

The thing that makes pay-per-click advertising so effective is its ability to target the specific interests of a consumer. If a pay-per-click ad for a kayak company is placed on a large site which specializes in kayaking or the outdoors, the ad is bound to attract interested parties.

And there’s also the ability to quickly gauge which pay-per-click ads are working and which aren’t. This allows the advertiser to constantly re-develop his advertising strategy and save money by eliminating pay-per-click ads which are ineffective.

Social Media Advertising

Advertising online through sites such as Facebook, MySpace and StumbleUpon has become a huge market. In the UK alone, over 100 million dollars were spent on social network advertising in 2008.

Social media advertising is ideal for promoting brand recognition, although click-through rates are not so strong. Still, there’s no doubt that advertising via social media sites is an effective way to increase your overall revenue stream.

Banner Ads

While display ads such as banner ads have fallen on hard times in recent years, their effectiveness has been demonstrated since the Internet began its boom in 1997. Of course, these ads tend to be more passive, so the conversion rate is low compared to more aggressive marketing schemes.

Still, their prices have dropped to a reasonable rate over the years. While pay-per-click ads and video ads may be more effective, banner ads are still a cost efficient way to increase brand recognition and drive traffic.

Internet Advertising Summary

So does Internet advertising work? In my opinion: yes it does. It’s not foolproof, but Internet marketing strategies have shown sufficient success to remain viable in the realm of advertising.

How Does Internet Advertising Work?

January 10th, 2013 |

Internet advertising allows a person or business to advertise their goods or services online. Many different options exist, allowing the advertiser to pick and choose from the options which they find most successful. While some Internet advertising options cost more than others, almost all have shown the ability to generate profits under optimum circumstances.

So how does Internet advertising work? The following explanation should provide you with a firm understanding of the subject.

History of Internet Advertising

When the Internet really took off in 1997, sites were basically divided into two types: content sites (offering words or pictures for the user) and E-commerce sites (offering goods and services for the user). At that time, banner ads were considered the industry norm for Internet advertising.

The cost of a banner ad was originally modeled on the cost of running an ad in a magazine or newspaper. Eventually, it was determined that the benefit of the banner ads did not match the cost of placing them. This eventually led sites to lower the price for banner advertisements and begin experimenting with alternate methods of online advertising.

Types of Internet Advertising

internet-advertising-work So how does Internet advertising work? To understand what makes Internet advertising as successful as it is, we need to take a look at the various forms of online ads.

Banner Ads

Banner ads traditionally serve one of two purposes: branding or direct sales. Branding means that the business just wants to get their name out there so that the consumer will remember it later. This is the same strategy as billboard advertising.

With direct sales, the banner ad is attempting to get the consumer to take an action. This might be as simple as clicking on the banner, or it might mean calling a phone number or visiting a physical sales location.

In either case, banner ads have been shown to have limited effectiveness (thus the reason for the drop in banner ad rates over the years). They are easier to ignore than a television commercial, so their impact in branding is not as great. Also, direct sales research has shown that for every 1,000 times a banner ad is viewed, only 2 to 5 people will actually click on it (and those clicks don‘t guarantee a sale).

Unicast Ads

These ads pop-up and display something akin to a miniature television commercial. The consumer can then click on the ad to learn more about the product or make a purchase. So far, Unicast ads have proven very effective, and they are currently able to charge rates approaching what banner ads used to.

Sidebar Ads

Sidebar ads are another answer to the question, “How does Internet advertising work?”. Also known as a “skyscraper ad,” these advertisements are positioned vertically on the computer screen.

Because of their vertical positioning, sidebar ads can be much larger than standard banner ads. They also have more effectiveness than a banner ad because they cannot be scrolled off the screen. As long as the consumer is on the page, he’ll have to contend with the presence of the sidebar ad. The click-through rate is around 2 to 3 times greater than with traditional banner ads.

Blogging

Creating a blog is simple and free. Once your blog is “live,” you’ll be able to post content and direct readers back to your primary site. It remains to be seen whether or not blogging is a passing fad, but it’s certainly popular as of this writing.

Pop-Up Ads

When you visit a page, a pop-up ad is one which literally “pops-up” in another window. Most people hate these ads, as they immediately obscure what you were looking for. However, they have proven more successful than banner ads, usually making the advertiser 4 to 10 times more revenue.

Search Engine Submission

This is done by simply submitting your site to search engines. This works best with smaller search engines, and getting your site ranked can make a major difference in the number of visitors.

Search Engine Optimization

Essentially, the SEO strategy revolves around getting your website ranked as high as possible on search engines like Yahoo! And Google. The closer to the top you can get, the more likely that someone will visit your page. This higher ranking is usually accomplished by getting links from other sites and providing lots of unique content.

Text Links

These are simply links that a user can click on to visit another site. Often, the owners of two different sites will agree to “swap links,” meaning that both install a link to the other’s site. While the effectiveness may not be as great as paid advertising, it is a free way to gain more exposure.

Floating Ads

When investigating the question, “How does Internet advertising work?,” we must also look at floating ads. When you visit a website, these ads will appear on the screen like a pop-up and then drift or float for anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds.

Floating ads have been successful largely because they obstruct the user’s view and force him to pay attention. While it can be annoying for the consumer, the results simply can’t be denied.

On average, a floating ad will generate 30 click-throughs for every 1,000 impressions. As a result, floating ads often charge as much as $30 for every 1,000 impressions.

What is Internet Advertising?

January 10th, 2013 |

Internet advertising allows a product or service to quickly reach a global audience. A major advantage is that Internet advertising is usually far cheaper than advertising through more traditional means such as newspapers, radio or television.

Types of Internet Advertising

To better answer the question, “What is Internet advertising?”, we need to first look at all the ways which it can take place.

Affiliate Marketing – This occurs when one website runs ads for another (usually larger) site. If a visitor to the site clicks on the ad, he’ll be taken to the other site to make a purchase. If a transaction occurs, the site hosting the ad (known as an affiliate) will receive a commission on the sale. This allows smaller sites to make money by associating with larger sites such as Netflix, AllPosters and Amazon.
Lead-based Websites – Sales leads are generated from a company’s website. The company then follows up (usually via phone) in order to make a sale.
E-commerce – The direct sale of goods to a consumer. Amazon would be an example of an online company that employs the e-commerce method.
Publishing – A website sells advertising space, much in the same way that a newspaper or magazine would do so.

Geo Marketing

what-internet-advertising Internet advertising has advanced so far that online businesses can even designate ads to appear based on the user’s state, city, zip code or IP address. This is known as geo marketing (or geo targeting).

In the distant future, one has to wonder if this form of marketing won’t be tailored specifically to the person logging on to the Internet. In some ways, this is already a reality, as many advertisements are designed to appear based on the keywords entered by the user into a search engine.

Specific Clientele

So what is Internet advertising? and how does internet advertising work? Well, besides allowing a company to specifically target a user based on search engine phrases and geographical location, Internet advertising can also allow a business to focus on a specific clientele.

For example, let’s say you own a company which sells tents. If you run a print or television advertisement, your message will be viewed by many people who have no interest in your product.

With the Internet, however, you can place ads on sites specifically geared towards your potential clients. Sites involving camping or the outdoors allow you to directly target those who might need to buy a tent. While it doesn’t guarantee a sale, Internet advertising does allow you to narrow your focus and get the most for your advertising dollar.

Continued Growth

Internet advertising can be tracked and tested in ways unavailable to regular methods of advertising. This allows the advertiser to immediately know what works and what doesn’t. For this reason, Internet advertising is the faster growing form of marketing.

Disadvantage of Internet Marketing

Many consumers like to be able to physically touch or see a product before they buy it. Others may have a dial-up connection and be unable to view all available advertising. Both of these are disadvantages of Internet marketing, although they will most likely disappear in the coming decades.

Security is also a concern for many consumers. Everyone has heard horror stories about people having their identities stolen after making a purchase on the Internet. While most of these stories are exaggerated, all major Internet businesses have responded by installing state-of-the-art encryption systems to protect sensitive customer information.

Summary of Internet Advertising

What is Internet advertising? It’s a way for retailers to advertise products and services online. Ads can target people with particular hobbies or interests, or they can even focus on customers in a specific country or state. The success of an Internet advertising campaign is easier to track, and numerous methods are available to businesses.

How Do I Advertise on the Internet?

January 10th, 2013 |

You might be asking yourself, “How do I advertise on the Internet?”. Well, just follow the guidelines below and you’ll be making money in no time.

Develop a Marketing Plan

Before you start advertising on the Internet, you need to be aware of the types of Internet advertising and which could suit your needs. The best way to do this is to form a marketing plan.

While this might sound complicated, it’s really nothing more than a basic plan about how you’ll market your goods and services to an online audience. In the physical world, a marketing plan might revolve around advertising in newspapers, advertising on television, or advertising through the mail.

A number of marketing strategies are available for the online businessman or woman. These include:

Search Engine Optimization

With search engine optimization (also known as SEO), your goal is to make sure that your website ranks highly in search engines like Google. When somebody searches for the item you’re offering, your website will appear towards the top of the list.

This is perhaps the best way to advertise on the Internet. It doesn’t cost anything, but it can often be frustratingly difficult. The SEO strategy can also take up a great deal of time.

There are a number of ways to achieve better page rankings through the SEO method. These include:

- Make sure your site can be easily navigated by web crawlers.

- Pay close attention to the title tag and description tag of each page.

- Provide lots of unique content for your site.

- Include one-way links from topical sites.

Pay Per Click

Also known as “search engine marketing,” this method allows you to take advantage of programs run by Yahoo!, Google and others. You place bids on terms that show up in search results. When those terms are searched for, your ad will be displayed. If someone clicks on your ad, then you must pay the amount that you bid. Hopefully, this cost will be offset by the customer clicking on your ad and eventually buying your product.

The main thing to be aware of is the conversion rate. If a word isn’t converting into cash for you, it’s best to get rid of it. Otherwise, you’ll be paying when people click on your ad, but you’ll be getting back nothing in return.

Article Marketing

Another answer to the question, “How do I advertise on the Internet?” is article marketing. With this method, you write articles about the products you offer and submit them to directories such as Associated Content and Ezinearticles. People will come across your articles, read them, and then hopefully visit your site and make a purchase.

Squidoo

Squidoo is a site where people can create a webpage about any imaginable subject. You can also create a page about the product or services you provide. If your page is popular and creative enough, you might see some extra traffic to your primary website. It’s also free, which is a big plus.

Marketing Through Email

When you start selling to customers, it doesn’t hurt to compile a list of their email addresses. Then, when you’re offering a new product or service, you can inform them via email. This is a cost effective way to advertise on the Internet, and its success has been proven time after time.

Video Advertising

By posting videos of your product or service, you can drive a large number of potential customers to your site. Videos are easy to make and upload, and sites like YouTube are viewed by a staggering number of people on a daily basis.

Sometimes a video can really capture the imagination of the Internet crowd, and you might even find yourself becoming an online celebrity. Just make sure your video isn’t boring.

Classified Advertising

If you’re still looking for answers to, “How do I advertise on the Internet?”, you might want to look into advertising through online classified ads. These are the same as ads placed in the newspaper, but the biggest difference is that they’re often free.

Some of the most popular classified ad sites include:

Craigslist
BizzWizz
Postaroo
USFreeAds
Inetgiant

Affiliate Advertising

If you decide to advertise through an affiliate, you basically create a special link which can be displayed by the affiliate. If someone visits their site, clicks on the provided link, and then ends up buying your product or service, you will pay an agreed upon fee to the affiliate. This advertising strategy is especially popular with larger sites such as Amazon and Netflix.

How to Unblock Websites

January 1st, 2013 |

How to Unblock Websites at School

If you use the Internet in some shared office, be it at your job, your school, the library, or any other public spot, you know that many of the more popular web addresses have been blocked. The most common complaints about blocked websites includes Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and any website that is a little bit on the “dirty” side. If you want to access the complete Internet on a computer that has blocks in place, the only way to do it is to “unblock” those web sites.

We’re not talking about “hacking” the admin password and literally unblocking the sites yourself — we’re talking about using loopholes in the Internet and on your computer to gain access to sites that are otherwise blocked from view. Want to know how web sites get blocked?

How to Unblock Websites at Work

Blocking web sites happens in one of three ways — for the most part, blocked computers are running software that works with a computer’s Internet browser to control access to certain parts of the Internet. The administrator of this software has the ability to adjust the block options, and to allow or block specific web addresses. Similar to this kind of blocking is the old standby, blocking websites by hand using a computer’s built in security settings. The final method for blocking websites really only applies to bigger networks of computers, like at a business office or in a school. In these situations, something called a “firewall” is to blame for a website being blocked. The firewall blocks specific web sites chosen by the organization administering the firewall.

It takes the click of a mouse for an admin to block a web site — unfortunately, unblocking a web address is not as easy. Here are some tips to help you unblock websites at your school or office computer. Using these tips, you should be able to access any blocked site you want.

Change the Settings On Your Computer

If you are working on a non-networked (or individual) computer that is setup to block websites, you can simply change your own computer settings to unblock certain sites. If the computer you want to unblock connects directly to the Internet (rather than across a network), then you can simply alter the settings and gain access to the site you want. This method does not tend to work for firewalled computers.

If a web site is blocked because of a piece of software that controls Internet traffic, you should be able to alter the settings or disable the blocking software on your own. Check the security settings on the web browser you’re using to see if the browser is blocking — if so, you can change the settings manually. If this doesn’t work, try using a different browser.

If you can’t get around the block by changing your browser settings, you’ll need to disable the software itself. Try deleting the software altogether, or keep the software from loading the next time you start up the computer. How do you do this? If you’re on a Windows machine, press the CTRL, ALT, and DEL keys simultaneously and find the name of the software in the list that pops up. Disable that software and you’re in business.

Access A Site’s IP Address Instead of URL

Some of the time, computers with blocked web sites can still access those sites if you connect to that site’s IP address instead of their URL address. A URL is a web address in plain English (like www.netflix.com) and the IP address is the actual number address of a site. Every web site has a unique IP address, and they look like a list of ten numbers seperated by dots. Some web blocking software does not go so far as to block the site’s IP address. In this case, find the IP address of a site you want to visit (you can use a Reverse DNS Lookup tool for free on the Internet) and plug those numbers into the URL bar at the top of your browswer.

Use Google Cache to “Unblock” Websites

You may not know it, but Google offers a ton of little tricks that can help web users access blocked web sites. There’s no web filter software that blocks the Google main page, so even if your company firewall keeps you from using a site’s IP address, you can probably still gain at least partial access to your favorite blocked sites.

Google has a cool feature called “cache” that is sort of like a photograph on a web page. When you search for a web site in Google, a little link pops up underneath the link that reads “cached”. Since these copies of a web site are from Google’s database and can’t possibly be listed in your web filter software’s block list, you can still see your favorite blocked site, or at least look at a slightly old version of it. The trouble with using a cached copy of a site is that you won’t be able to interact live via a cached link.

Proxy Servers

Getting out from behind a firewall is tricky business. Here’s a sneaky high tech way you can avoid your computer’s web block software.

Using a proxy server will allow you to outwit the filters on the computer and even get around the firewall. Proxy servers are physical computers located outside the range of your firewall that you can access over the Internet. Proxy servers have their own IP address that you can use to move around the web on your computer. It works like this — you connect to a proxy server and the proxy server acts as the computer that connects with the blocked site you want to access. After that, you can view the web site through the proxy server, even though that site may be blocked by your company or school’s firewall. Think of a proxy server as an anonymous third party doing your web business for you.

When you need to access a web site that is blocked on your work computer, don’t lose hope. There are so many ways to get around an Internet block, it is a marvel that people even bother blocking web sites anymore.

See also:

How to Manage Email
Social Networking Sites
Social Bookmarking Sites
Internet Questions and Answers
Ways to Protect Your Children on the Internet

What Is Google Wave?

December 29th, 2012 |

What is Google Wave?

The engineers at Google have been busy the last couple of years.

First we saw the introduction of the fabulous Google News Timeline program, a useful research tool that shows off just a shred of what the new Web will be like – semantic, interactive, and above all ubiquitous and useful.

Then came news of Google Squared, a semantic search engine being developed for what is known as Web 3.0 – the new era of the internet when search engines will become, well, “smart”.

Now we have Google Wave, introduced today, Thursday May 29, 2009, at the Google I/O conference. Google Wave is something most of us are just going to have to use in order to really understand how it works, what it is, and why it will succeed. In the simplest terms, Google Wave is a live chat room with a collection of document options, photo displays, videos, etc. Think of Google Wave as the next wave in chat technology, a kind of mashup of Twitter, Gmail, Google News, and video displays where you can reply to any part of any message or anything that’s shared, all in real time.

Google’s idea was to re ivent email and chat, as well as video technology and instant messaging, into “real time”. Google Wave is truly a collaborative environment, meant for project sharing. Google Wave, as has been said by bloggers all over the ‘net, might be the ultimate web service for those afflicted with ADD. Looking at Google Wave, I imagine a room full of employees standing around a desk or in a meeting room scattered with individual projects and news feeds – the difference is that using Google Wave, you’re able to work on any of the projects at the same time, while simultaneously passing notes or flirting with the cute co worker across the room.

You start a “Wave” with any message, link, photo, etc. — and you bring people into the discussion or project. Each of these people can bring other people in as well, until you’re ready to start blocking others out or even kicking your friends and coworkers out.

Google Wave can be as public or private as you want it to be. According to Google software engineer Lars Rasmussen, Google tried to answer the question “What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?” In a sense, Google Wave is designed to “redesign” our normal web communication and collaboration tools, such as email and IMing.

So how does Google Wave impact the current technology war between Google and Microsoft? You may remember that Microsoft is developing a new search engine in an attempt to compete with Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha. Surprise! There’s a new name (as predicted here at AskDeb last week and at other blogs web-wide) – Microsoft has settled on the friendly name Bing for their new service. And I assure you, there will be plenty written about Bing in the near future. Bing is meant to allow Microsoft to grab back some of Google’s market share and web advertising strengths. How successful will it be? That is yet to be seen. Unlike Wolfram Alpha and Google Squared, which are attempting to develop a new way of searching the web, Bing (so far) appears to be just another search engine.

Ironically, while Microsoft is busy playing catch up to Google, Yahoo, and the rest, even if there may be a few technological innovations in Bing, Google is constantly presenting their overwhelmingly powerful vision of the next big thing in web technology. Two major announcements from this week’s Google Developer Conference prove that the company is far ahead of Microsoft in its development.

Google first demonstrated their prowess in revealing how they plan to use HTML 5. HTML 5 is the new version of the familiar HTML web development language – version 5 is aimed at allowing the easy creation of browser based apps designed to be functional and easy to use. As the web trends more toward the kind of web that consumers and businesses want, it makes sense to develop your applications for a web browser rather than a hardware bound environment like Microsoft’s Windows. Simply put – developing apps for a browser is the wave of the future, while developing apps through old school hardware is so 2007.
Second, there came Google Wave.

Wave allows indie developers to build their apps for real time collaboration and interaction between multiple sources of input. Google says that Wave tries to mimic the way we naturally interact on a face to face level. Better still, Google Wave brings together every major internet and tech trend, from social media to wikis to advanced email apps and more, Google Wave’s got it. Ultimately, Google Wave has created a totally manageable, human oriented application that crams everything we already love about the web into a single compartment.

Obviously there has never been a piece of software that was developed with human interaction in mind — we have had to learn how to use a piece of software to interact naturally based on the standard tech restraints. I haven’t been excited about the emergence of a new search engine, apart from the rumors about Google Squared, ever.

Google Wave, on the other hand, is exciting. Its beautiful, it works, and it appears to fill a niche that hasn’t been filled before.

Google has finally developed a vision that doesn’t require complex computer networks or overpowered operating systems to be at its best. Heck, Google Wave doesn’t need any kidn of special software development environment, and completely bypasses the need for software apps. These things are the realm of Microsoft, and Google is attempting to circumvent this need entirely.

My favorite comment on Microsoft’s newly minted “Bing” program comes from a technoblog – “Microsoft is going Bing, but if it doesn’t open its eyes it might one day soon be going bang.”

It’s easy to see why Google would jump in with Wave at this time – “real time” is the way the new internet will work, and since the development of social networking (especially evident in the huge burst of popularity that Twitter has gotten in recent months) everybody’s been obsessed with real time tech. Not only does Wave highlight the conversational and social aspect of real time functions – Google is pushing for the development of apps that use Wave and run within Wave. In other words, Google is proving that any available web service is now only as good as far as it can work as a self contained platform.

Google, by releasing all of these innovations now, is attempting to drown out any “buzz” that Bing might draw. At least I think its still called Bing. Who knows what we’ll be calling the new Microsoft search engine next week – if you hear something, hit me up on Google Wave.

See also:

Who is Talk Fusion?

December 21st, 2012 |

Who Is Talk Fusion?

By now, if you’ve ever wondered how to send a video email to push your business, you’ve probably heard of Talk Fusion. Talk Fusion has a lot of buzz behind it as a new way of safely and easily inserting videos that customers actually click on and watch into emails. But where did it come from? For some folks, it’s not enough to merely enjoy a product; they want to know all the background details before they hitch their wagon to someone else’s.

A Little History…

Talk Fusion is a relatively new phenomenon, so there’s really not a lot to say about its history. It was created in 2004 when founder Bob Reina decided that he wanted to simply email a 10-second video to some of his friends. For a variety of reasons, he was told that it was not possible to do so in the form that he desired. Undeterred, Bob called upon an IT guru friend of his and one thing led to another. Soon enough, they had put some something together.

In 2007, Talk Fusion hit the marketplace. News quickly spread about this new form of video that allowed you to insert them directly into emails without the use of suspicious-looking links. Talk Fusion was an indisputable success.

About the Product

With the plethora of virus-filled spam out there everywhere online these days, most of us are loathe to click on just about any link we get in an email, unless it is from a very close friend or family member. So for the Internet marketer in particular, this presents a real problem. How are you supposed to get your customers to watch your video when they won’t click on your links?

The Talk Fusion solution to this problem is to remove the link altogether. Instead of a lengthy link that many users will assume leads to a virus or endless circle of spam, you can put a clickable still from your video directly into the email. When the receiver clicks on the still, the actual video opens up externally and plays.

Easy to Use

The good thing about Talk Fusion video email software is that it is easy to use. With the rise of YouTube and other social networking sites, just about everybody knows how to create and upload Internet videos. So there is no reason for Talk Fusion to be otherwise. You can use a simple flip camera or a webcam like you would for a YouTube video to create your Talk Fusion video and upload it. The still for your email is created automatically and smoothly inserted into the email.

Is It Worth It?

If you are looking at video email as a moneymaking tool, you are probably primarily concerned with the cost versus the payoff. This is completely understandable and expected. Let’s do a little comparison to put things in perspective.

To get everything you will need to get going, you’re probably going to spend about $197/month on various video email, video broadcasting and video sharing software. Talk Fusion, by comparison, has it all together and only costs $35/month. There is a $250 start-up fee, however.

Whichever path you take, video email is perfect for product demonstrations, testimonials, quotations, thank yous, unboxing presentations, personalized marketing, improving customer retention, increasing conversion rates, lead generation, and increasing revenues.

About the Author

Melissa Cameron and her husband needed to embark on a few home improvement projects to accommodate their growing family. Thanks to the fact that Melissa is an avid Internet surfer, she was able to navigate her way around to determine which tools would be most important for them to invest in. Due to Melissa’s consistent resourcefulness, her husband often refers to her as a walking infomercial.

See also:

Kindle For Mac

December 6th, 2012 |

With the March 2010 release of “Kindle for Mac“, Apple users can enjoy e-books downloaded from Amazon.com. The MacIntosh version of the Kindle e-book reader means that most every major computer, cellphone and mp3 player on the market is compatible with Amazon’s Kindle.

Amazon came out with the first generation Kindle e-reader in late 2007, the device sold out 5 & 1/2 hours, and wasn’t in stock for nearly 5 months. Demand for Kindle readers, as well as improvements to the original design, led Amazon to release the Kindle 2 in February of 2009, then Kindle DX, which was released in June of 2009.

Meanwhile, “Kindle for iPhone” was released in March 2009. With this partnership in marketing the Apple’s popular iPhone Kindle app, it was only a matter of time before a “Kindle for Mac” would become available. Users of iPod Touch, the Windows PC and Research in Mobile’s BlackBerry cellular phones also interface with Amazon’s Kindle books.

What is Kindle for Mac?

Kindle for Mac lets your MacIntosh desktop computers and laptops read Kindle e-books. This gives you the ability to download over 450,000 book titles from the Amazon website, including over 100 or the 110 or so New York Times best sellers.

How Much Does Kindle for Mac Cost?

Prices ranging from $9.99 for the best selling books, and considerably lower for less popular titles. Subscriptions to downloadable versions of national newspapers or magazines are also available, with a one-month subscription to the Wall Street Journal at $14.99, the New York Times at $13.99 and USA Today at $11.99. The monthly price for most of the big name magazines, like Newsweek, Time and Forbes, are $2.99 or less.

The price to buy different Kindle devices varies. When Amazon Kindle first debuted, the device cost in the $390 or so. The price for a Kindle 2 had come down to $299 in June of 2009, but currently retails at $259, as of October 2009. Prices may be higher on Kindle for Mac for a while, but you can expect prices to fall to that $260 level pretty quickly.

What Does a Kindle For Mac Do?

Instead of buying books, magazines and newspapers to read, you can buy one of these publication’s downloads instead. This means you don’t have books and papers stack up around your home or office, or have to be thrown away or stored in the attic to make room for more stuff. Instead, you’re able to leave these books on your Kindle and read them at your leisure.

Storage capacity stretches for the Kindle DX is around 3,500 non-illustrated books, while storage for the original Kindle was around 200 titles. Like a computer, you can buy an upgrade to your storage capacity that increases the memory on your Kindle device.

The Kindle books are electronic files, so the publishers aren’t out the expense to print and distribute their books, magazines and newspaper publications. This means you get e-books at a considerable discount from the price of a printed book, so those who like to read books can buy more books, once the savings on those purchases offset the $250 cost of the e-book reading device.

Is Kindle as Hard on the Eyes as Computer Screens?

No. Reading a book from a Kindle is much more like reading a paper book than it is reading off a computer monitor. Monitors have that bright light lighting the screen, so reading from a computer screen hurts a lot of people’s eyes.

On a Kindle, the words are formed by ink. The lighting is more subdued, so your eyes are bombarded by a bright white tone illuminated with a light background, but tones more akin to the off-white colors of most print books. The Kindle is about the size of the average book, so reading an Amazon Kindle is designed to be like reading a traditional book.

The idea is to enhance your book reading experience, making it cheaper and easier to purchase, while getting rid of the problems of storing your book archives, or dealing with the dust and allergens that are common to books and bookshelves.

Amazon Kindle isn’t perfect yet. For instance, some users have complained that they don’t “own” a Kindle e-book, like they would a book they took home from the book store, so downloading additional copies to a second device has sometimes required additional fees or purchases. A court case or two and policy changes by Amazon have eliminated some of these complaints.

I’m sure the market is going to evolve further, as the years go by, but I can only imagine Kindle becoming easier to use, and advances in technology making the practice of downloading ebooks simpler and cheaper. Having more Kindle readers on the market, like Kindle for Mac, should only help the customer, by giving them more options.

Buying Kindle For Mac

Kindle for Mac is expected to be available in stores on April 3, 2010, so if you have an Apple computer or laptop, and you’ve wanted to be able to download Kindle e-books to your reader, the time has come when you can do that.

For more information related to the Kindle in general, see the following pages:

What Is Google Voice?

November 27th, 2012 |

What is Google Voice?

Google Voice is Google’s telecommunications service for U.S. residents (and U.S. residents only) which allows for PC-to-PC communications anywhere in the world, for PC-to-phone calls within North America (north of the US-Mexico border), and between Google Voice users and those with a Video Chat browser plug-in.

The Google Voice service allows for low-price international phone calls, while domestic phone calls to the contiguous 48 states, Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada are free. Other features offered by Google Voice include voicemail, call screening, unwanted call blocks, call history, voicemail message-to-text “voice transcription”, and conference call support.

How Does Google Voice Work?

What Is Google Voice? How Does Google Voice Work? To receive incoming calls and activate your Google Voice phone number, you must have a U.S. telephone service. You then can make voice calls over your personal computer using the Google Voice interface, quite similar to what exists on Google’s famous Gmail service. There’s even an option for video service on the PC-only calls, getting the world one step closer to the communicators from science fiction programs like Star Trek.

How Many People Use Google Voice?

Due to an FCC report that was filed by mistake, we learned that Google Voice had 1,400,000 users as of October 2009. That number is likely to have increased significantly in the 15 months since, given that the service had only been on-line for about 6 months at the time. According to the same FCC report, roughly 570,000 of the Google Voice users used their service every day of the week.

How Long Has Google Voice Been Around?

Google Voice began as a service called GrandCentral in 2005. Google bought Grand Central in 2007, but seemed to stop supporting the service, leading to many complaints by old-time users about lack of customer support by Google.

In March 2009, Google relaunched Grand Central and renamed it “Google Voice”. A few months later, in mid-September 2009, Google announced Grand Central’s services were shut down, and asked everyone to move over permanently to Google Voice. Improvements were made and features added to the new service.

Google Voice and Egyptian Protests

The power of a computer-based telecommunications service has been put to the test in the recent Egyptian protests against the government of longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. As the Mubarak government blocked traditional journalistic sources of news, Google and Twitter led a collection of western Internet and social media companies in helping the Egyptian people get their word out to the world.

According to Professor Dina Ibrahim of San Francisco State University, Google Voice has been key: “”It’s very difficult to get a complete picture however, Google Voice and other services have been incredibly helpful in terms of providing alternatives for people to get their message out there,” said Professor Ibrahim.

How Google Voice Affected Egyptian Protests

Hosni Mubarak has been the president of Egypt since 1981, after Egyptian army officers assassinated Anwar al Sadat for signing the 1979 Egyptian-Isreali Peace Treaty. Over the years, Mubarak has adhered to provisions of the treaty and been a strong supporter of the United States in the Middle East, but he’s also been a repressive military figure who has squelched democracy movements in his own country. He also has failed to strengthen the Egyptian economy over his nearly 30 years in office.

With one of the best-educated populations in the Middle East, but with 9 out 10 people under the age of 30 out of work, the Egyptian people took to the streets in protest in early 2011. Western journalists flocked to Egypt to report the story, which embarrassed the Mubarak government. Eventually, the Egyptian government used an old tactic of paying mercenary thugs to attack people in the street, and these “Mubarak partisans” began attacking journalists and reporters with cameras. Within days, this eliminated traditional journalistic broadcasting.

That’s where Google, and especially Google Voice, came in.

Google and Twitter put out word to collect 1,000 Egyptian-English translators to help their service. With these translators and their new telecommunications infrastructure in place, Egyptians were able to take to their computers and get the word out about what’s going on in Cairo and other cities themselves. Western journalists used Google Voice to get the word out.

At present, Hosni Mubarak has announced he won’t run for office again. There’s a sizable chance he’ll have to step down from office in the coming days, weeks, and months, as the story goes on and international pressure mounts to see democratic institutions put in place in Egypt. Whatever happens, the power of Google Voice to get around central government power and military power has been evidenced.

See also:

Who Is Neda Agha Soltan?

November 18th, 2012 |

Who is Neda Agha Soltan?

It seems that every revolution or military conflict has a human face. Everyone is familiar with the video or still photograph from the Vietnam conflict showing a VC soldier shooting a civilian point blank in the back of his head, or the video of a single civilian standing up to a line of tanks at Tianenmen Square. Then there is the famous “Afghan girl” whose face was on the cover of National Geographic during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The current revolution in Iran now has its image, its video that represents all the pain and struggle in that country — in a very graphic way.

Neda Agha Soltan is a young girl whose grisly death was captured on video and immediately posted all over the internet. In the video, we see Neda (whose name means “Voice” or “Call” in Farsi) lying on the ground, dying from an alleged sniper’s gunshot which struck her in the heart. The video is graphic, so for the sake of our readers I’ll provide a link to CNN’s milder, censored version, found here — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4wSD04NU7k Other, more graphic videos can be easily found by searching the internet for “Neda Death Video”. Watch at your own risk.

Over the course of the short video, shot on a mobile phone and uploaded to the internet, we see Neda gasping for breath, clutching her wound, looking up at the camera, and eventually dying as blood pours from her mouth and nose. In the background, her father’s screams and desperate cries punctuate the horror of the moment. The video of the death of Neda Agha Soltan will no doubt be the image that most of us remember from the Green Revolution, and may be powerful enough to turn the world’s attention to the crisis in Iran.

What was Neda’s crime? Neda Soltan was a bystander, watching a peaceful pro-democracy protest in the ironically named Freedom Square in the center of Tehran.

Neda Salehi Agha Soltan, 26, has become a national symbol — posters of her face can be seen all over Tehran, and even here in America. Iranian authorities have gone as far as to order citizens to remove the posters — Iranian Revolutionary Guard soliders have even ordered Soltan’s family to take down traditional mourning posters. It is clear that the powers that be in Iran hope to stop Soltan from becoming a martyr, or a rallying figure for protestors already angry about the results of the recent presidential election.

In fact, the family of Soltan has already been forbidden from holding a public funeral or wake for Soltan and are not allowed to hold gatherings in her name. Even worse, the media in Iran (controlled by the government) have made no mention of her death. The government was concerned that any mourning posters would become a place of pilgramage for revolutionaries, and hope to prevent any further gathering of people presumed to be dissidents. To add insult to injury, the family of Neda Agha Soltan will not be allowed to hold a funeral service at a mosque.

Even though it is forbidden by the state, posters of Soltan are as common as green armbands.

We’re learning more about the circumstances surrounding the death of Soltan as her friends and family come forward to detail her last moments.

For instance, her friend and music teacher, a man named Hamid Panahi, spoke with several Western media sources, including the Los Angeles Times, to clear up the mystery of her death. According to Panahi, the car that he and Soltan were riding to Freedom Square in became stuck in traffic and they got out out of the car for some fresh air.

With moments, there was a loud crack, and Panahi saw Soltan collapse to the ground. One bullet, one shot to the chest, and Soltan was near death.

Bystanders claim to have seen the sniper, saying that he was a plainclothes militiaman known in Iran as a Basiji.

Mr. Panahi said that Neda’s last words before she closed her eyes and went unconscious were: “I’m burning! I’m burning!”

What do we know about Soltan? Neda was born in Tehran. She was the second of three children. Her father work for the government earning a modest salary, and her mother is a stay at home mom. Soltan studied Islamic philosophy at Azad university in Tehran before deciding to work in the tourism industry, even taking private lessons in Turkish in order to become a tour guide and lead tour groups abroad.

Friends of Soltan say she loved travelling, having visited Thailand, Dubai, and Turkey. A talented singer, she was a fan of Persian pop music and was taking piano lessons.

Neda Agha Soltan was in no way an activist, according to friends, but was angry about the result of the elections. Her anger drove her to the streets to watch Saturday’s protests in Freedom Square. Though her family begged her not to go, Soltan said she “was not afraid to die”. In fact, a quote from Soltan making the rounds of the internet, whether true or false, is chilling. She told her mother “Don’t worry, it’s just one bullet, and then it’s over.”

Her music teacher, Mr. Panahi, is quoted as saying that Soltan ” . . . couldn’t stand the injustice of it. All she wanted was the proper vote of the people to be counted. She wanted to show with her presence that, ‘I’m here, I also voted, and my vote wasn’t counted’. It was a very peaceful act of protest, without any violence.”

After Soltan was shot, a doctor who was standing nearby attempted to help, ordering Panahi to cover the wound with his hand and apply pressure. In the video, you can see Panahi doing just this, although almost as soon as he applied pressure, her blood begins to flow. A cab driver in the area pulled up and offered to take her to hospital in his car, but Soltan was dead before they could get to the hospital.

Because Soltan was denied any sort of public funeral or mourning, her mourners were forced to travel in groups to the cemetery where Neda was laid to rest on Sunday afternoon. Futher frustrating her friends and family, government officials were standing by to make sure the mourners didn’t “sing her praises loudly or mourn her loss”. To lose a daughter and a friend is one thing, but to be forced not to mourn her is simply wrong.

Mr. Panahi says he is not scared to speak to the media, saying that “they know where I am” and “when they want me, they’ll take me.” His final quote about Soltan speaks volumes about the revolution itself, and the people carrying it out –

“When they kill an innocent child, that is not justice. That is not religion. In no way is this acceptable.”

Are Jon and Kate Gosselin Already Split Up?

November 10th, 2012 |

Are Jon and Kate Gosselin already already split up?

This story just won’t die.

Jon and Kate Gosselin, stars of TLC’s popular reality show “Jon and Kate Plus 8”, have reportedly been living apart for as long as 6 months, according to some sources close to the couple.

The pressure has begun to mount for the popular TV couple, enough pressure that the infamously stern and unshakeable Kate Gosselin has “cracked”, according to People magazine, and is not only expressing doubts about her marriage, but is also behaving rather strangely, including posing for papparazi in her bikini after undergoing a tummy tuck. Kate Gosselin has also been saying negative things about her husband Jon and being very nasty towards his alleged mistress, a woman named Deanna Hummel.

Of course, what Kate isn’t talking about is her own alleged affair with a bodyguard hired after the TLC show began a few years ago.

According to Kate, “I don’t know that we’re in the same place anymore, that we want the same thing. I’ve been struggling with the question of ‘Who is this person?’ for a while. I remember where I was the first time I heard her name. It’s one of those things where you can try to make it go away, but there’s blaring, red flashing lights.”

Jon Gosselin has been spotted having dinner and driving around town with a much younger woman, and photos of the couple have appeared in gossip rags and major magazines.

Although Kate reportedly hasn’t given up all hope for her marriage, she has publicly considered a future without her husband, saying “You can’t imagine yourself in a certain position when all this first happens, but you can do it over some months.”

Meanwhile, coloumnists for US Magazine continue to claim that cheating is happening on both sides, and that the couple has been split “for some time now”. Allegedly, kate and her bodyguard Steve Neild have moved beyond a merely professional relationship.

An unnamed source, an employee at one of TLC’s promotional events for the show, told reporters that Kate and Steve Neild were “very physical, often touching each other ,“ going on to say that Kate was “ . . . gently poking him, giving him little love pats, totally unlike the slapping she does with Jon. She and Steve were joking around so much, I actually wondered if they were having an affair. There’s a lot of open affection between them.” Kate is infamously cold towards Jon, and many people are calling for TLC to pull the show until the heat is off the couple.

The rumors all started when Jon Gosselin allegedly told a woman in a bar that the Gosselins “ . . . might be getting a divorce.”

Star Magazine reported one witness’ account of Jon’s night out:

“He was dirty dancing with several of them, making out, kissing them on their necks and mouths. I thought it was rather surprising for a father with his wife and so many kids at home to be acting like this. He was all over one girl, a long-haired blonde who’s nearly 6 feet tall. He left with several of the girls, including her.”
All of these rumors have prompted Jon to issue a statement through his representation, an excerpt of which says:
“It is certainly hurtful for people to spread rumors and lies about us. It certainly makes me reluctant to live my life like the average person would. This has made it very clear that the simplest innocent gesture -— such as taking a picture with a fan, can be taken out of context.”

Jon and Kate are often seen arguing and bickering on camera, and the arguing has become simply part of the everyday activities on the show. Fans are used to seeing family outings, movie nights, grocery store trips, and dentist visits. Just as normal are fights between Jon and Kate. The couple even traveled to Hawaii to renew their wedding vows on the show.

Their children include 8-year-old twins Cara and Mady and 4-year-old sextuplets Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah and Joel. The children were the result of fertility treatments.

More reports surfaced this weekend in gossip coloumns that Jon and his alleged girlfriend Hummel have been having a few more romantic dates, including one at Ruby Tuesday restaurant and another at Paolo’s Restaurant & Bar.

Who Created the Internet?

November 4th, 2012 |

Why and When Was the Internet Built?

What did we used to do without it? How did we get directions, make bank transfers, or shop for Christmas gifts before the Internet?

Al Gore has been the butt of jokes for his comments on the creation of the Internet. For the record, Gore said he was instrumental in the creation of the Internet. And indeed, Al Gore provided early support for the use of the Internet among civilians.

So, who actually created the Internet? Here’s the condensed version of the story of the Internet’s creation.

The Internet is Born

The network of computers that we call the Internet was first put to use forty-two years ago. In 1969, the United States Defense Department networked a series of computers far apart in distance to aid computer research. This network was called ARPANET. It was the creation of a company called Bolt Beranek & Newman.

Who Invented The Internet

ARPANET was based on concepts first suggested by scientists J.C.R. Licklider and Leonard Kleinrock at MIT.

ARPANET was nothing like the Internet as you know it. No LOLcats, no Facebook, no graphical interface, and limited in size. ARPA comes from Advanced Research Programs Agency, the group that Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf (heads of the ARPANET project) were working for at the time of the invention. These two spent years (mostly in the 1970s) developing the transmission system ARPANET used to transfer data between different networks of computers during a time when there were a lot more incompatible operating systems being used by computer networks. Must have been a rough job.

The TCP/IP Breakthrough

The breakthrough that allowed ARPANET to one day become the Internet was the invention of TCP/IP as a transmission system for data over networked computers. It was the invention of Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf.

TCP/IP stands for for Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol, and it’s the same standard being used today.

Even after the invention of TCP/IP, the Internet was still just a tiny network of university and research computers. This system allowed them to share and transfer information across the country faster than by mail or other means. So is this the point when the Internet was born? Not quite.

When you think of the Internet, you think of some combination of your email and the World Wide Web. This combination of personal email and things like Google and online commerce could be called “the Internet”, and we’re still about twenty years out from this.

Electronic Mail

Now known as “email”, electronic mail was developed in the 1970s as a new way of sending simple text file messages between computers on the same network. At the beginning, you could only send emails to other computers on a single network–this was eventually changed to include the ability to send messages between two different networks.

How did it happen? A series of “gateways” were created among the various networks to allow people to send simple text files as email messages between computer networks. It took nearly twenty years for email as we know it to develop–it wasn’t until the early 1990s that all email took place on the Internet, and it wasn’t until then that the “@” symbol was used as an email standard. The guy who invented the “@” symbol and the first huge email program is named Ray Tomlinson, who is also an employee of BB&N, the company which developed ARPANET.

The Internet Explosion

The 1980s and early 1990s saw an explosion in the use of personal computers in the home. The computer was no longer a gigantic box that required a full-time staff of engineers to run. As soon as personal computers were available, private networks popped up. With names like Delphi, CompuServe, Prodigy, and Genie, these private networks offered a rudimentary version of the Internet. But these were still individual companies–nothing like the vast network of computers now connected to the Internet.

At this time, most Internet use was still at the college and research level. That’s where Al Gore comes in.

Al Gore Invents the Internet

What Gore did was to sponsor legislation that helped expand the baby Internet to more uses than just research or small network communications. Al Gore is on the record as sponsoring Internet-friendly bills as far back as 1986. At the time, Al Gore spoke of the need for “widespread” computing connected by networks. Mr. Gore even proposed legislation to expand the personal and home use of the Internet.

But that’s where his involvement stops. So no, Al Gore did not “invent” the Internet. Vinton Cerf, one of the many people who can actually make that claim, has this to say about Gore’s involvement: “I think the vice president is very deserving of credit for his active support for the Internet.”

So he’s got that going for him.

So Who Invented the Internet?

The simple answer to this question is: Tim Berners-Lee.

Berners-Lee was a computer programmer at the European Center for Particle Research. Berners-Lee is credited with inventing “links”. His idea of links was to create a system that would contain the information about the location of a file with just a piece of text, so that just by clicking a link that user could access that file.

Berners-Lee called this link system the World Wide Web, or WWW. He also invented the “http://” format and invented HTML, the first programming language for the Internet. Berners-Lee finalized this system in 1991.

The next time someone disses Al Gore for saying he invented the Internet, drop some knowledge on them. Many people contributed to the invention of what we call the Internet, and he was a big part of the expansion of the Internet.

See also:

How Does Hulu.com Work?
How Does Google Voice Work?
Data Entry Jobs on the Internet
Website Value Calculators
Internet DSL Packages
Plastic Jungle Reviews
3G Wireless Plans and Internet Providers

What Are PDA Computers?

November 3rd, 2012 |

What Are PDA Computers?

Calling a device a “PDA” seems a bit outmoded. The name is short for “Personal Digital Assistant” — there are no three words in the English language that remind me more of the 90s. We now call these devices “palmtops” or just refer to them by their brand name. You could argue that today’s “smart phones” are kind of like PDAs with a phone attached . . . and you wouldn’t be far off.

PDA computers are handheld electronic devices that can do what most laptop computers can do — basic computing with telephone and even fax capability as well as web-surfing and networking. A PDA computer works as a cellphone, fax machine, Internet device, and even personal organizer.

There are many different types of PDAs — most models work with either Palmtop software or a special version of Microsoft Windows known as Windows Mobile. All PDA models are meant to connect to your laptop or desktop computer, though you may have to buy some accessories to do that such as a cable or power cord. Synchronization between computer and PDA is one of the most popular features of this digital device, you can link up your email to your handheld device and do your work on the go.

A typical PDA computer has a pen or stylus-based input system. There are some PDAs that have tiny keyboards, but this isn’t the norm. Even the earliest PDAs were blessed with handwriting recognition — scribble in a word and the computer recognizes it and places it in a document.

Some more advanced PDA computers operate with voice input. You can get one of any of the above these days — some PDA computers use keyboard and stylus input, some use voice recognition or some combination of all three.

The first PDA computers came from Apple. You may remember the Newton MessagePad, considered the first PDA way back in 1993. It wasn’t a hugely popular item, though there is a population of Newton fans even today, some of whom are still using their beloved Newtons. Pretty soon after the Newton came out, a bunch of other companies developed similar products, so that today we still have new PDA computers appearing on the scene. Though major PDA computer manufacturer Palm (of Palm Pilot fame) just released some really bleak financial information and don’t appear to have a future in the business, there are plenty of other standout PDA computers being made.

Depending on the number of features you want and the model you select, a PDA computer will run you between $150 and multiple thousands of dollars. The sky’s kind of the limit, as new technology and fancy features are always popping up. A “middle of the road” PDA computer such as the HP iPAQ 210 costs about $400 depending on the retailer and has enough features to satisfy even the most gadget-crazed techie in your house.

A PDA computer is a useful tool for people on the go as well as the average computer user. Your PDA computer will replace your cell phone and grant you features like a calendar and organizer, a day planner, and all the computing power you need to get online. PDA computers are like little personal assistants, only you don’t have to buy your PDA flowers on Secretary’s Day.

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