Monday, June 25, 2007
Linux Process Control
Tools for working with processes
While logged in as root, type "ps -ax |more" or "ps -aux |more". You will get a list of all processes running on your computer. You will see the process id (PID), process status (STAT) various statistics, and the command name. You can kill a process by typing "kill" and the PID number right afterwards similar to the line below.
kill 1721
You can also stop and restart processes by sending them various signals as in the below examples:
The examples in this section use the "yes" command as an easy method for an example of a program that runs continually. The "yes" command outputs the string "y" until it is killed or stopped. When the output is ported to the /dev/null (null device or bit bucket), the output is basically dumped. Therefore this command is harmless, but is a good demonstration. To put the process in the background, append an "&" character to the end of the command as shown below.
yes > /dev/null &
The system will respond with a job number and process ID or PID similar to:
[1] 10419
Either number can be used to refer to the job. The "jobs" command can be used to check the job. When the command is entered the system will respond with a list of running jobs similar to the following:
[1]+ Running yes >/dev/null &
The job can be killed using the process ID or the job number. Either
kill %1
or:
kill 10419
Stopping and restarting jobs
Another way to put a job into the background is to
In Linux, processes have a priority number between -20 and 19. The value of -20 is the highest, and 19 is the lowest priority. Process priority can be set with the nice(1) command and changed using the renice(8) command. To set a process to have the highest priority find the process ID number using the ps command. If your process name is "myprog" type:
ps -ax |grep myprog
You should get something like:
756 tty1 S 0:00 myprog
The first number on the line is your process ID. Enter the command:
renice -20 756
This will set your process (PID=756) to priority of -20. Modify the process ID number for that of your program running on your system. You can use the nice command to determine the default priority of new processes by typing "nice" on the command line. If you want to start a process with a specific priority, use the nice(1) command when you invoke the process.
Setting limits on the number of processes that can run
The command "ulimit" is used to limit the number of processes users can run along with available system resources. All processes which will be started from the shell (bash in many cases), will have the same resource limits. See the bash manual page for more information. To set the limits for daemons which are running at boot time add ulimit command to boot scripts.
The command "ulimit -a" reports the current limits.
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- accton - Turns process accounting on and off. Uses the file /var/log/pacct. To turn it on type "accton /var/log/pacct". Use the command with no arguments to turn it off.
- kill - Kill a process by number
- killall - Send a signal to a process by name
- lastcomm (1) - Display information about previous commands in reverse order. Works only if process accounting is on.
- nice - Set process priority of new processes.
- ps(1) - Used to report the status of one or more processes.
- pstree(1) - Display the tree of running processes.
- renice(8) - Can be used to change the process priority of a currently running process.
- sa(8) - Generates a summary of information about users' processes that are stored in the /var/log/pacct file.
- skill - Report process status.
- snice - Report process status.
- top - Displays the processes that are using the most CPU resources.
While logged in as root, type "ps -ax |more" or "ps -aux |more". You will get a list of all processes running on your computer. You will see the process id (PID), process status (STAT) various statistics, and the command name. You can kill a process by typing "kill" and the PID number right afterwards similar to the line below.
kill 1721
You can also stop and restart processes by sending them various signals as in the below examples:
- kill -STOP 1721
Stops (suspends) process 1721 by sending the STOP signal to the process. This process will still be on the task list. The process can't catch or ignore the STOP signal. - kill -CONT 1721
Continue process 1721 causing it to resume. The CONT signal is sent to the process. - kill -TERM 1721
Terminates process 1721 by sending the TERM signal to the process. This process will no longer show up on the task list if it is actually terminated. Process terminated cannot be continued. The TERM signal can be caught so TERM is not guaranteed to kill the process. - kill -HUP 1721
Stops, then restarts process 1721. This is usually done when a process is not working properly or the configuration files for that process have been changed. This command sends the HUP signal to the process which means hangup. This signal can be caught by the process. - killall -HUP myprint
Restarts any process with the name "myprint". - kill -TERM myprint
Terminates any process with the name "myprint".
The examples in this section use the "yes" command as an easy method for an example of a program that runs continually. The "yes" command outputs the string "y" until it is killed or stopped. When the output is ported to the /dev/null (null device or bit bucket), the output is basically dumped. Therefore this command is harmless, but is a good demonstration. To put the process in the background, append an "&" character to the end of the command as shown below.
yes > /dev/null &
The system will respond with a job number and process ID or PID similar to:
[1] 10419
Either number can be used to refer to the job. The "jobs" command can be used to check the job. When the command is entered the system will respond with a list of running jobs similar to the following:
[1]+ Running yes >/dev/null &
The job can be killed using the process ID or the job number. Either
kill %1
or:
kill 10419
Stopping and restarting jobs
Another way to put a job into the background is to
- Start the job normally like:
yes > /dev/null
The prompt does not come back. - Use the CTRL-Z key to stop the job.
- Use the command "bg" or "bg %1" where 1 is the job number to put the process in the background. The system reports the job number when you stop the job.
Before the last step, the job was suspended. The "fg" command could have been used to bring the job into the foreground rather than using the "bg" command to put it in the background. If the job is running in the foreground, you can type CTRL-C to terminate the process.
- killall -1 inetd
Restarts inetd by sending signal number 1 which is the hangup signal. - killall -HUP inetd
Causes the daemon to reload its config file by sending the hangup signal. The difference between this example and the previous one is the signal is called by name here rather than number.
- Reconfigure /etc/inetd.conf
- Restart inetd by sending it the hangup signal
- Find the file for the service, you want to start. For example find the file for the print daemon "lpd". These files should typically be in the directory "/etc/rc.d/init.d". The file name in this case is "lpd". (Note this is a script file, that starts the daemon, not the actual binary daemon file).
- Go to that subdirectory "cd /etc/rc.d/init.d" and type "./lpd restart".
- You should get output to the screen that indicates this service has been shut down and then started.
In Linux, processes have a priority number between -20 and 19. The value of -20 is the highest, and 19 is the lowest priority. Process priority can be set with the nice(1) command and changed using the renice(8) command. To set a process to have the highest priority find the process ID number using the ps command. If your process name is "myprog" type:
ps -ax |grep myprog
You should get something like:
756 tty1 S 0:00 myprog
The first number on the line is your process ID. Enter the command:
renice -20 756
This will set your process (PID=756) to priority of -20. Modify the process ID number for that of your program running on your system. You can use the nice command to determine the default priority of new processes by typing "nice" on the command line. If you want to start a process with a specific priority, use the nice(1) command when you invoke the process.
Setting limits on the number of processes that can run
The command "ulimit" is used to limit the number of processes users can run along with available system resources. All processes which will be started from the shell (bash in many cases), will have the same resource limits. See the bash manual page for more information. To set the limits for daemons which are running at boot time add ulimit command to boot scripts.
The command "ulimit -a" reports the current limits.
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Linux Iptables block outgoing access to selected or specific ip address
You would like to block outgoing access to particular remote host/ip for all or selected service/port.
Following rule will block ip address 202.54.1.22 from making any outgoing connection:
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 202.54.1.22 -j DROP
This way you can block chat server ip address or site having dangerous contains such as viruses. It is also possible to block specific port. For example to you can block tcp 5050 port as follows:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -dport 5050 -j DROP
OR block 5050 for IP address 192.168.1.2 only:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d 192.168.1.2 -dport 5050 -j DROP
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Following rule will block ip address 202.54.1.22 from making any outgoing connection:
iptables -A OUTPUT -d 202.54.1.22 -j DROP
This way you can block chat server ip address or site having dangerous contains such as viruses. It is also possible to block specific port. For example to you can block tcp 5050 port as follows:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -dport 5050 -j DROP
OR block 5050 for IP address 192.168.1.2 only:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d 192.168.1.2 -dport 5050 -j DROP
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007
How To Borrow Money From Your Bank
By:Peter Kenny
If you need some extra money, then borrowing from your bank might be the answer. If you use a bank simply for savings and a current account, then perhaps it is time to look at other financial products that your bank can offer. If you want to borrow from your bank, here are some of the possible options and benefits.
Why borrow money?
People borrow money for all sorts of reasons, and in all different ways. If you are finding it hard to make ends meet at the moment then getting a credit card or loan may help you out over the next few months. Also, if you need to make a large purchase but you need to spread the cost, then borrowing from your bank is a good option.
Credit cards
Perhaps the most common way to borrow from your bank is to get a credit card. A credit card gives you a certain amount of money or credit that you can spend, which you have to pay back with interest. Bills are paid monthly and you can choose to pay the full amount or just the minimum payment each month. Borrowing money on a credit card is expensive, but for short-term purchases they can be great if you pay the balance back in full each month.
Loans
Loans are another common way to borrow from your bank. Your bank is likely to have a variety of loans on offer, ranging from small personal loans to much larger loans for business or home improvements. If you need to pay off high interest debts or make a large purchase and pay it back slowly, then loans might be the right option for you.
Mortgages
Many banks also offer mortgages, which are probably the biggest amount of money you will ever borrow. Mortgages are used to buy property, and have low interest rates. If you are looking to buy a home then your bank might be able to help you with your mortgage.
Advantages of using your bank
The main advantage of using your bank to borrow money is that they know what sort of spending patterns you have, and if you have built a rapport with them they are likely to be more generous than other lending institutions. It may also be convenient to use the same bank that you do now, as all your accounts are in one place and you can manage your money more easily.
Disadvantages
There are also a number of disadvantages to using your own bank. Although your bank may give you a good deal, it may not be the best deal you can possibly find. Although speaking to your own bank is a good idea, you should shop around and look at other lenders in order to get the best possible terms. You should also make sure that borrowing money is right for you, and that you can make any repayments that are required.
If you need some extra money, then borrowing from your bank might be the answer. If you use a bank simply for savings and a current account, then perhaps it is time to look at other financial products that your bank can offer. If you want to borrow from your bank, here are some of the possible options and benefits.
Why borrow money?
People borrow money for all sorts of reasons, and in all different ways. If you are finding it hard to make ends meet at the moment then getting a credit card or loan may help you out over the next few months. Also, if you need to make a large purchase but you need to spread the cost, then borrowing from your bank is a good option.
Credit cards
Perhaps the most common way to borrow from your bank is to get a credit card. A credit card gives you a certain amount of money or credit that you can spend, which you have to pay back with interest. Bills are paid monthly and you can choose to pay the full amount or just the minimum payment each month. Borrowing money on a credit card is expensive, but for short-term purchases they can be great if you pay the balance back in full each month.
Loans
Loans are another common way to borrow from your bank. Your bank is likely to have a variety of loans on offer, ranging from small personal loans to much larger loans for business or home improvements. If you need to pay off high interest debts or make a large purchase and pay it back slowly, then loans might be the right option for you.
Mortgages
Many banks also offer mortgages, which are probably the biggest amount of money you will ever borrow. Mortgages are used to buy property, and have low interest rates. If you are looking to buy a home then your bank might be able to help you with your mortgage.
Advantages of using your bank
The main advantage of using your bank to borrow money is that they know what sort of spending patterns you have, and if you have built a rapport with them they are likely to be more generous than other lending institutions. It may also be convenient to use the same bank that you do now, as all your accounts are in one place and you can manage your money more easily.
Disadvantages
There are also a number of disadvantages to using your own bank. Although your bank may give you a good deal, it may not be the best deal you can possibly find. Although speaking to your own bank is a good idea, you should shop around and look at other lenders in order to get the best possible terms. You should also make sure that borrowing money is right for you, and that you can make any repayments that are required.
Article Source: http://www.redsofts.com/articles/
Peter Kenny is a writer for creditcards-gb.co.uk.
For additional articles and an extensive resource for everything about credit cards, please visit us at Credit Cards and UK Credit Cards
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If you need some extra money, then borrowing from your bank might be the answer. If you use a bank simply for savings and a current account, then perhaps it is time to look at other financial products that your bank can offer. If you want to borrow from your bank, here are some of the possible options and benefits.
Why borrow money?
People borrow money for all sorts of reasons, and in all different ways. If you are finding it hard to make ends meet at the moment then getting a credit card or loan may help you out over the next few months. Also, if you need to make a large purchase but you need to spread the cost, then borrowing from your bank is a good option.
Credit cards
Perhaps the most common way to borrow from your bank is to get a credit card. A credit card gives you a certain amount of money or credit that you can spend, which you have to pay back with interest. Bills are paid monthly and you can choose to pay the full amount or just the minimum payment each month. Borrowing money on a credit card is expensive, but for short-term purchases they can be great if you pay the balance back in full each month.
Loans
Loans are another common way to borrow from your bank. Your bank is likely to have a variety of loans on offer, ranging from small personal loans to much larger loans for business or home improvements. If you need to pay off high interest debts or make a large purchase and pay it back slowly, then loans might be the right option for you.
Mortgages
Many banks also offer mortgages, which are probably the biggest amount of money you will ever borrow. Mortgages are used to buy property, and have low interest rates. If you are looking to buy a home then your bank might be able to help you with your mortgage.
Advantages of using your bank
The main advantage of using your bank to borrow money is that they know what sort of spending patterns you have, and if you have built a rapport with them they are likely to be more generous than other lending institutions. It may also be convenient to use the same bank that you do now, as all your accounts are in one place and you can manage your money more easily.
Disadvantages
There are also a number of disadvantages to using your own bank. Although your bank may give you a good deal, it may not be the best deal you can possibly find. Although speaking to your own bank is a good idea, you should shop around and look at other lenders in order to get the best possible terms. You should also make sure that borrowing money is right for you, and that you can make any repayments that are required.
If you need some extra money, then borrowing from your bank might be the answer. If you use a bank simply for savings and a current account, then perhaps it is time to look at other financial products that your bank can offer. If you want to borrow from your bank, here are some of the possible options and benefits.
Why borrow money?
People borrow money for all sorts of reasons, and in all different ways. If you are finding it hard to make ends meet at the moment then getting a credit card or loan may help you out over the next few months. Also, if you need to make a large purchase but you need to spread the cost, then borrowing from your bank is a good option.
Credit cards
Perhaps the most common way to borrow from your bank is to get a credit card. A credit card gives you a certain amount of money or credit that you can spend, which you have to pay back with interest. Bills are paid monthly and you can choose to pay the full amount or just the minimum payment each month. Borrowing money on a credit card is expensive, but for short-term purchases they can be great if you pay the balance back in full each month.
Loans
Loans are another common way to borrow from your bank. Your bank is likely to have a variety of loans on offer, ranging from small personal loans to much larger loans for business or home improvements. If you need to pay off high interest debts or make a large purchase and pay it back slowly, then loans might be the right option for you.
Mortgages
Many banks also offer mortgages, which are probably the biggest amount of money you will ever borrow. Mortgages are used to buy property, and have low interest rates. If you are looking to buy a home then your bank might be able to help you with your mortgage.
Advantages of using your bank
The main advantage of using your bank to borrow money is that they know what sort of spending patterns you have, and if you have built a rapport with them they are likely to be more generous than other lending institutions. It may also be convenient to use the same bank that you do now, as all your accounts are in one place and you can manage your money more easily.
Disadvantages
There are also a number of disadvantages to using your own bank. Although your bank may give you a good deal, it may not be the best deal you can possibly find. Although speaking to your own bank is a good idea, you should shop around and look at other lenders in order to get the best possible terms. You should also make sure that borrowing money is right for you, and that you can make any repayments that are required.
Article Source: http://www.redsofts.com/articles/
Peter Kenny is a writer for creditcards-gb.co.uk.
For additional articles and an extensive resource for everything about credit cards, please visit us at Credit Cards and UK Credit Cards
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Sunday, June 17, 2007
Wide Angle Digital Camera
Zoom digital camera lenses can be found in short or long zoom proportions according to the manufactured version of a particular camera or the specific preferences of a consumer. There are also several other types of lenses available on today's market including wide angle digital camera lenses. Wide angle lenses can be a bit trickier to purchase and maneuver for the amateur photographer because of the proportionality that must be maintained for good photos. Stretching and distorting are common problems with improper use of wide angled lenses which makes it necessary to understand how to purchase and use this piece of photographic equipment.
Lenses help to focus a prospective photo to the liking of the photographer and many consumers use various types of lenses to enhance their picture taking abilities. Scenes can be enlarged, resized or filtered with different types of lenses which make many consumers want to own as many variations as possible. Many cameras come with attached zoom digital camera lens that are made to adjust automatically to a particular photo setting. For many people, this is the best option because they are not proficient in photographic manipulation to be able to focus without help from an automatic source. Other cameras offer detachable lens options that can be purchased extra such as wide angle digital camera lens or telephoto lens that offer a huge array of photo options for the more ambitious or professional photographer.
Any typical lens that is purchased with a camera will generally do the job that most consumers want done in respect to photo quality. Whether the lens is attached or is a detachable option, most produce good quality photographs for indoor and outdoor scenery or portraits. Much of what is perceived as good or poor quality is based on the photography ability of the consumer rather than the lens itself. However, there are lens options such as wide angle digital camera lenses that can add extra focus and quality to any photo for those who know to use them. This type of lens will include a broader area of the scene and even though the focal point may be smaller, the surroundings will be more visible. Many photographers appreciate the added depth that this lens brings to photographs and opt to always have one on hand no matter where they are.
Another type of lens that is extremely popular with professional or avid photographers is a telephoto lens. Telephoto lenses are used to focus in on a specified target and draw the image in closer to allow a clear photo of the subject or target. Many professional photographers use this sort of equipment rather than the typical zoom digital camera lens because of the enhanced detail that can be gleaned from scenes and subjects that otherwise would be missed in the 'big picture' of things. Telephoto lenses are used to capture a drop of nectar from a hummingbirds bill that otherwise would never be seen by any other method. "I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works." (Psalm 9:1) Of course, high speed photo functions are important as well in this endeavor, but small points of interest can more easily be captured through telephoto capabilities.
A very popular type of lens available that provides a broad range of capabilities, ease of use and quality output is the zoom lens. A zoom lens offers a way to be camera-ready for just about anything that any typical consumer will have need of. These types of lenses provide the best of both telephoto and wide angle digital camera lens options because they can be adjusted according to the moments requirement. This lens will remain in a normal photo position until needed for wide or zoom angles. The lens can be pulled or turned into place and will then produce photos with more detail and scenery involved. They are called short or long zoom according to the use that they are put to. Short zoom is when wide angle is used and the long zoom digital camera functions allow a telephoto lens to be used.
This type of lens is basically the best of all worlds when it comes to lenses and many consumers are satisfied with the features and quality that is offered. There are many types of cameras available today that provide prepackaged zoom digital camera lens and add on lens options. Point and shoot, professional and prosumer cameras are the basic types available to consumers and can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand dollars for a professional model. The growing popularity of prosumer cameras is propelling this version to the forefront of consumer demand because of higher resolution and creative focusing capabilities. Prosumers costs a bit more than the small pocket sized photographic equipment, but it leaps forward in quality, usability and value.
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Lenses help to focus a prospective photo to the liking of the photographer and many consumers use various types of lenses to enhance their picture taking abilities. Scenes can be enlarged, resized or filtered with different types of lenses which make many consumers want to own as many variations as possible. Many cameras come with attached zoom digital camera lens that are made to adjust automatically to a particular photo setting. For many people, this is the best option because they are not proficient in photographic manipulation to be able to focus without help from an automatic source. Other cameras offer detachable lens options that can be purchased extra such as wide angle digital camera lens or telephoto lens that offer a huge array of photo options for the more ambitious or professional photographer.
Any typical lens that is purchased with a camera will generally do the job that most consumers want done in respect to photo quality. Whether the lens is attached or is a detachable option, most produce good quality photographs for indoor and outdoor scenery or portraits. Much of what is perceived as good or poor quality is based on the photography ability of the consumer rather than the lens itself. However, there are lens options such as wide angle digital camera lenses that can add extra focus and quality to any photo for those who know to use them. This type of lens will include a broader area of the scene and even though the focal point may be smaller, the surroundings will be more visible. Many photographers appreciate the added depth that this lens brings to photographs and opt to always have one on hand no matter where they are.
Another type of lens that is extremely popular with professional or avid photographers is a telephoto lens. Telephoto lenses are used to focus in on a specified target and draw the image in closer to allow a clear photo of the subject or target. Many professional photographers use this sort of equipment rather than the typical zoom digital camera lens because of the enhanced detail that can be gleaned from scenes and subjects that otherwise would be missed in the 'big picture' of things. Telephoto lenses are used to capture a drop of nectar from a hummingbirds bill that otherwise would never be seen by any other method. "I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works." (Psalm 9:1) Of course, high speed photo functions are important as well in this endeavor, but small points of interest can more easily be captured through telephoto capabilities.
A very popular type of lens available that provides a broad range of capabilities, ease of use and quality output is the zoom lens. A zoom lens offers a way to be camera-ready for just about anything that any typical consumer will have need of. These types of lenses provide the best of both telephoto and wide angle digital camera lens options because they can be adjusted according to the moments requirement. This lens will remain in a normal photo position until needed for wide or zoom angles. The lens can be pulled or turned into place and will then produce photos with more detail and scenery involved. They are called short or long zoom according to the use that they are put to. Short zoom is when wide angle is used and the long zoom digital camera functions allow a telephoto lens to be used.
This type of lens is basically the best of all worlds when it comes to lenses and many consumers are satisfied with the features and quality that is offered. There are many types of cameras available today that provide prepackaged zoom digital camera lens and add on lens options. Point and shoot, professional and prosumer cameras are the basic types available to consumers and can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand dollars for a professional model. The growing popularity of prosumer cameras is propelling this version to the forefront of consumer demand because of higher resolution and creative focusing capabilities. Prosumers costs a bit more than the small pocket sized photographic equipment, but it leaps forward in quality, usability and value.
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Saturday, June 16, 2007
Proper Use Of Meta Tags For A High Google Ranking
by Rick Rouse
Google is currently the web's most popular search engine. Getting a high Google ranking is a must if you want your website to succeed! In addition to being the most used search engine in its own right, Google also provides the search results for other mega-sites, including America Online. By following a few simple guidelines, you can watch your site climb up the Google ladder and your traffic will climb right along with it. This article will show you how to make effective use of meta tags to help your website climb that ladder!
It's imperative to use "Google friendly" meta tags. Meta tags give a web browser important information about your website. Here are the most important meta tags for achieving a top ranking on Google:
1 - Title Tag - The title tag is the most important meta tag on your web page. Be sure to use a few of your primary keywords in your title tag. For example, the title tag on my homepage is:
As you can see, my title tag contains 8 very important keywords and 2 key phrases: handcrafted, Appalachian, bird houses, and bird feeders. This is what is known as "spider food". When Google's spider crawls my homepage, it finds these keywords in the title tag. It also finds these same keywords sprinkled throughout the text (content) on the page. This effectively "links" the keywords in the title meta tag to the content on the page. This "linking" provides a high level of "relevance" for my site when someone goes to Google and does a search on one of my keywords, helping my site rank high in the search results for those keywords or key phrases.
2 - Description Tag - Another important meta tag is the "description" tag. My description tag looks like this:
As you can see, my description meta tag contains several of my keywords and key phrases. This is important because it ties in with the title meta tag and the page content. When other websites link to yours (also very important for a high Google ranking), they link to you using link "anchor text". The anchor text is the "clickable" part of the link. By providing the other webmaster with very specific anchor text (which includes your keywords), that anchor text will tie in with your site's meta tags and keyword-rich content. This makes for a very well optimized web page for Google ranking purposes. Proper meta tags and effective linking strategies form the backbone of a good site optimization plan for Google.
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Google is currently the web's most popular search engine. Getting a high Google ranking is a must if you want your website to succeed! In addition to being the most used search engine in its own right, Google also provides the search results for other mega-sites, including America Online. By following a few simple guidelines, you can watch your site climb up the Google ladder and your traffic will climb right along with it. This article will show you how to make effective use of meta tags to help your website climb that ladder!
It's imperative to use "Google friendly" meta tags. Meta tags give a web browser important information about your website. Here are the most important meta tags for achieving a top ranking on Google:
1 - Title Tag - The title tag is the most important meta tag on your web page. Be sure to use a few of your primary keywords in your title tag. For example, the title tag on my homepage is:
As you can see, my title tag contains 8 very important keywords and 2 key phrases: handcrafted, Appalachian, bird houses, and bird feeders. This is what is known as "spider food". When Google's spider crawls my homepage, it finds these keywords in the title tag. It also finds these same keywords sprinkled throughout the text (content) on the page. This effectively "links" the keywords in the title meta tag to the content on the page. This "linking" provides a high level of "relevance" for my site when someone goes to Google and does a search on one of my keywords, helping my site rank high in the search results for those keywords or key phrases.
2 - Description Tag - Another important meta tag is the "description" tag. My description tag looks like this:
As you can see, my description meta tag contains several of my keywords and key phrases. This is important because it ties in with the title meta tag and the page content. When other websites link to yours (also very important for a high Google ranking), they link to you using link "anchor text". The anchor text is the "clickable" part of the link. By providing the other webmaster with very specific anchor text (which includes your keywords), that anchor text will tie in with your site's meta tags and keyword-rich content. This makes for a very well optimized web page for Google ranking purposes. Proper meta tags and effective linking strategies form the backbone of a good site optimization plan for Google.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007
Crushing Credit Card Debt
by David Berky
How much do YOU owe on your credit cards?
The average American family is now over $7000 in debt just on their credit cards. That debt generates an interest charge of over $105 each month if your card charges the average 18%. If you have missed a payment or made a late payment (even by one day!), you may be paying up to 27% interest or over $157 each month.
Most credit card companies require a modest payment towards the card balance. Modest meaning from $10 to $20 a month. To pay off a $7000 debt at $20 a month you will not pay off this debt for 29 years.
And what about those interest charges? Paying off a $7000 credit card debt charging an interest rate of 18% and paying $20 a month towards the debt, you will pay over $18,400, more than TWICE the original debt, just in interest.
What if you have more than one card? What if your debt is over $7000? What can you do? How can you get out of this hole?
There are some techniques that can help you pay off your debt and do not require expensive loans, invasive credit checks, or expensive financial planners and accountants. You can also save on interest charges by paying off your debts in a certain order.
The most effective technique is sometimes called the "snowball" method. The snowball method suggests that when you pay off one debt you apply that payment amount to the next debt. Thus the amount you pay on a debt grows like a snowball rolling down a hill.
For example, you have three credit cards with debts of $5000, $4000, and $3000 which are charging you 18%, 27%, and 12%, respectively, and you are paying $150, $125 and $100 each month. By paying these required monthly amounts you will pay off your $3000 credit card first.
Now that the $3000 card is paid off you have an extra $100 a month. Put that extra $100 toward paying off your next credit card debt. Now you are paying $225 a month on the $4000 card and the $150 on the $5000 card. With this accelerated payment on the $4000 card you will pay off the card earlier and save some money on interest charges.
Then apply the $225 payment to the $5000 card for a monthly payment total of $375. Soon this card will be paid off and you will have $375 extra each month to pay off other debts or better yet, INVEST!
So, which debts should get paid off first?
Generally, you want to pay off the debts that are charging you the highest interest rates first. In the above example you could have added the $100 payment to the $5000 credit card rather than the $4000 credit card. But the $4000 credit card is charging you 27% where the $5000 credit card is charging 18%. By paying off the card charging the higher interest rate first, you will save some money on interest charges.
If this sounds too confusing, you can enlist your computer. You can search the Internet for the keywords "debt reduction calculator" or you can visit http://www.simplejoe.com/debteraser/index2.htm and review a product named Simple Joe's Debt Eraser.
Simple Joe's Debt Eraser helps you create a Rapid Debt Reduction Plan that is customized to your debts and your situation. Just enter your debts and the amount you can afford to pay each month. The software will create a plan telling you how much to pay towards each debt each month until they are all paid off.
You CAN pay off your debts. The trick is to stop charging purchases to your credit cards and develop a debt reduction plan. Your plan should include "snowballing" your payments and prioritizing the debts by high interest rate.
© Simple Joe, Inc.
David Berky is president of Simple Joe, Inc. which sells the Simple Joe's Debt Eraser PC software. Debt Eraser can help anyone get out of debt quickly and inexpensively by creating a Rapid Debt Reduction Plan. This article may be freely distributed as long as the copyright, author's information and an active link (where possible) are included.
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How much do YOU owe on your credit cards?
The average American family is now over $7000 in debt just on their credit cards. That debt generates an interest charge of over $105 each month if your card charges the average 18%. If you have missed a payment or made a late payment (even by one day!), you may be paying up to 27% interest or over $157 each month.
Most credit card companies require a modest payment towards the card balance. Modest meaning from $10 to $20 a month. To pay off a $7000 debt at $20 a month you will not pay off this debt for 29 years.
And what about those interest charges? Paying off a $7000 credit card debt charging an interest rate of 18% and paying $20 a month towards the debt, you will pay over $18,400, more than TWICE the original debt, just in interest.
What if you have more than one card? What if your debt is over $7000? What can you do? How can you get out of this hole?
There are some techniques that can help you pay off your debt and do not require expensive loans, invasive credit checks, or expensive financial planners and accountants. You can also save on interest charges by paying off your debts in a certain order.
The most effective technique is sometimes called the "snowball" method. The snowball method suggests that when you pay off one debt you apply that payment amount to the next debt. Thus the amount you pay on a debt grows like a snowball rolling down a hill.
For example, you have three credit cards with debts of $5000, $4000, and $3000 which are charging you 18%, 27%, and 12%, respectively, and you are paying $150, $125 and $100 each month. By paying these required monthly amounts you will pay off your $3000 credit card first.
Now that the $3000 card is paid off you have an extra $100 a month. Put that extra $100 toward paying off your next credit card debt. Now you are paying $225 a month on the $4000 card and the $150 on the $5000 card. With this accelerated payment on the $4000 card you will pay off the card earlier and save some money on interest charges.
Then apply the $225 payment to the $5000 card for a monthly payment total of $375. Soon this card will be paid off and you will have $375 extra each month to pay off other debts or better yet, INVEST!
So, which debts should get paid off first?
Generally, you want to pay off the debts that are charging you the highest interest rates first. In the above example you could have added the $100 payment to the $5000 credit card rather than the $4000 credit card. But the $4000 credit card is charging you 27% where the $5000 credit card is charging 18%. By paying off the card charging the higher interest rate first, you will save some money on interest charges.
If this sounds too confusing, you can enlist your computer. You can search the Internet for the keywords "debt reduction calculator" or you can visit http://www.simplejoe.com/debteraser/index2.htm and review a product named Simple Joe's Debt Eraser.
Simple Joe's Debt Eraser helps you create a Rapid Debt Reduction Plan that is customized to your debts and your situation. Just enter your debts and the amount you can afford to pay each month. The software will create a plan telling you how much to pay towards each debt each month until they are all paid off.
You CAN pay off your debts. The trick is to stop charging purchases to your credit cards and develop a debt reduction plan. Your plan should include "snowballing" your payments and prioritizing the debts by high interest rate.
© Simple Joe, Inc.
David Berky is president of Simple Joe, Inc. which sells the Simple Joe's Debt Eraser PC software. Debt Eraser can help anyone get out of debt quickly and inexpensively by creating a Rapid Debt Reduction Plan. This article may be freely distributed as long as the copyright, author's information and an active link (where possible) are included.
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How to: Escape Google's Supplemental Index
Unfortunately, the Google Sandbox now has two levels. Yes, you still need a lot of trust to get your pages ranking. But before you start worrying about that, you need to worry about getting your pages indexed in the first place.
Because, of course, you're not really indexed if most of your pages have gone supplemental!
What happened? Well apparently the Google Indexer got tired of her nickname "Loose Louise", she's born again and now very choosy thankyouverymuch about who she lets enter. Rumor has it she's only interested in trusted sites that are after a whitehat, long term commitment.
"What exactly is that supplemental index again?"
I won't parrot the quasi-official Google answer here. (In fact, I can promise that I will never give you the "official Google answer" on Tropical SEO.) Take your pick:
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Because, of course, you're not really indexed if most of your pages have gone supplemental!
What happened? Well apparently the Google Indexer got tired of her nickname "Loose Louise", she's born again and now very choosy thankyouverymuch about who she lets enter. Rumor has it she's only interested in trusted sites that are after a whitehat, long term commitment.
"What exactly is that supplemental index again?"
I won't parrot the quasi-official Google answer here. (In fact, I can promise that I will never give you the "official Google answer" on Tropical SEO.) Take your pick:
- The Google Supplemental index is the Siberian work camp for web pages.
- The Google Supplemental index is to the normal index, as Scoreboard Media is to Tropical SEO.
- The Google Supplemental index is where they put web pages with little trust.
- The Google Supplemental index is where they put web pages that aren't going to rank for anything important.
Got it? Cool.
Now, assuming your site is supplemental, here are five tips to get it out of Supplemental Hell.
1. Give each page a unique title. This is so basic it kills me but sometimes people still aren't doing it. There is absolutely no reason not to do this, as a unique title also helps SEO-wise, it helps accessibility-wise, gets higher clickthroughs in the SERPs, etc.
2. Give each page a unique META DESCRIPTION. Remember when we all thought META tags were dead? Well, Google's gotten funny about that. Let's not waste time wondering why. Just give every page a unique META DESCRIPTION, even if it just matches the title tag.
3. Make sure each page has a good amount of unique content. This problem can rear its ugly head in a few different ways. Most commonly, a particular piece of content is being served at multiple URLs. This is usually a CMS or shopping cart issue, and the fix will be unique to whatever system you use. Also pretty common is the existence of very thin pages (a lot of large, hollow/empty web directories have this problem). My rule of thumb (and it's not authoritative, just what I go by), is that a page should have at least 100 words of unique content at a minimum.
4. Get some more trusted links. Link building is all about trust these days. A few links from older, already-ranking domains will do wonders towards convincing Google a newer site deserves to be trusted. I also like to get a few higher-PageRank links in there (sitewide? even better). Yes, I know that tip is going to bring out the haters (insert "PageRank is dead!" comment here). But it appears that "overall link weight" seems to matter again in Google, if not in terms of rankings, at least in terms of indexing.
5. Get some links to internal pages. This is all about convincing Google your site doesn't have "hollow shell syndrome"-when a site has, say, 20 pages, and a few dozen backlinks, but 100% of those backlinks are pointing to the homepage. Most often, the homepage of the site is in the normal index but all of the internal pages have gone supplemental. I usually go "brute force" at one internal page and get 3 or 4 links to it (giving this one internal page so much link weight that Google pretty much has to index it); normally, GoogleBot revisits the entire site and re-crawls and indexes the other internal pages, too (up to a point: if the site has hundreds or thousands of pages, you'll need to rinse+repeat this a few times).
That about covers it. Usually the bottleneck & hardest part is building the trusted links: for help with that, see my link baiting guide.
Source: http://tropicalseo.com/2007/how-to-escape-googles-supplemental-index/
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Perfect your webcam picture
Photography blog Strobist breaks down how to get the best webcam shot using simple techniques.
Adjusting your light source, turning down the monitor brightness, softening your desk lamp light, wearing a white shirt and even setting up a background you can make a huge difference in how you come across on your webcam. Check out the image above for a before and after shot, and head over to Strobist for the details on how to get yourself looking that good on the cam. - Gina Trapani
How to Improve Your Cheapo Webcam's Picture Quality [Strobist]
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The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
By Nikola Govorko
Chapter 7 bankruptcy, also often called straight bankruptcy is basically a liquidation process. You as a debtor must hand over all your property (except the exempt one) to the trustee who is appointed by the court. Trustee then sells of or changes that property in cash that is returned back to your creditors.
You as a debtor are going to be discharged within a period of up to four months.
Why is Chapter 7 so popular?
If you have no property to lose, Chapter 7 bankruptcy will provide you with an opportunity for a fresh start. Or so it was before the 2005 bankruptcy law changes.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy is without a doubt the most usual type of bankruptcy filed in the US. It is usually filed for by either an individual or a business (business file usually for Chapter 11) when his debts become unbearable. You may choose to file for it by yourself or that decision may be forced upon you by the court.
If you are a business, you will be required to sell all of your assets, return money gained by the sell of to the creditors and close down your operation. For individuals filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy the process is similar with only difference being that you have nothing to close down.
Be aware that under the new bankruptcy law some kind of debts can no longer be discharged.
So what are the advantages of filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy?
1. Any debt amount can be completely cleared, and once you are discharged, you are 100% clear of debts.
2. There is also no minimum amount of debt needed in order to file for it.
3. Creditors no longer have any claim on you. Your wages and possessions bought after the discharge are your own and nobody, except you, has any claim over them.
4. It is very fast, you stand a very good chance of your claim being discharged in the next 4 6 months.
And the disadvantages are?
1.You can loose all your property.
2. Not all debts can be discharged.
3. Your home loan co-signers can end up paying for your loans (unless they seek similar protection)
4. You can only file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy once every 6 years.
5. Your credit rating will be shattered (but there are ways to improve it). In addition, you will find it much harder to get a loan of any kind.
6. If you are a young person, it will be very difficult for you to buy home and start a family with Chapter 7 around your neck, and if you are already married, you should know that divorce very often accompanies bankruptcy.
7. Withdrawing your claim for Chapter 7 is extremely difficult if not impossible.
So there you have it, make sure to get a good bankruptcy lawyer and consult with her/him whether you should or should not file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
www.Debt-Free-Family.com is dedicated to help you live and debt free life. Visit us and learn all you need to know about Bankruptcy Law Chapter 7.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nikola_Govorko
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Chapter 7 bankruptcy, also often called straight bankruptcy is basically a liquidation process. You as a debtor must hand over all your property (except the exempt one) to the trustee who is appointed by the court. Trustee then sells of or changes that property in cash that is returned back to your creditors.
You as a debtor are going to be discharged within a period of up to four months.
Why is Chapter 7 so popular?
If you have no property to lose, Chapter 7 bankruptcy will provide you with an opportunity for a fresh start. Or so it was before the 2005 bankruptcy law changes.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy is without a doubt the most usual type of bankruptcy filed in the US. It is usually filed for by either an individual or a business (business file usually for Chapter 11) when his debts become unbearable. You may choose to file for it by yourself or that decision may be forced upon you by the court.
If you are a business, you will be required to sell all of your assets, return money gained by the sell of to the creditors and close down your operation. For individuals filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy the process is similar with only difference being that you have nothing to close down.
Be aware that under the new bankruptcy law some kind of debts can no longer be discharged.
So what are the advantages of filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy?
1. Any debt amount can be completely cleared, and once you are discharged, you are 100% clear of debts.
2. There is also no minimum amount of debt needed in order to file for it.
3. Creditors no longer have any claim on you. Your wages and possessions bought after the discharge are your own and nobody, except you, has any claim over them.
4. It is very fast, you stand a very good chance of your claim being discharged in the next 4 6 months.
And the disadvantages are?
1.You can loose all your property.
2. Not all debts can be discharged.
3. Your home loan co-signers can end up paying for your loans (unless they seek similar protection)
4. You can only file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy once every 6 years.
5. Your credit rating will be shattered (but there are ways to improve it). In addition, you will find it much harder to get a loan of any kind.
6. If you are a young person, it will be very difficult for you to buy home and start a family with Chapter 7 around your neck, and if you are already married, you should know that divorce very often accompanies bankruptcy.
7. Withdrawing your claim for Chapter 7 is extremely difficult if not impossible.
So there you have it, make sure to get a good bankruptcy lawyer and consult with her/him whether you should or should not file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
www.Debt-Free-Family.com is dedicated to help you live and debt free life. Visit us and learn all you need to know about Bankruptcy Law Chapter 7.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nikola_Govorko
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Automated Ignore Files with Subversion
We always have tons of garbage files lying around that we don't want going into version control. Subversion's svn:ignore property doesn't have the best documentation around. So, in order help out, here are two little scripts that work in tandem to ignore whatever you want.
The easiest way is to place .svnignore files in all of your directories that you wish to ignore files in. This file has a list of patterns or file names, one on each line, that should be ignored in this directory.
For example, to ignore foo.py and bar.py the file would have something like this:
Now, what if we have a set of files that we want to ignore across a project? The easiest way is to write scripts that automatically manage these .svnignore files.
In one project, we have template directories named 't' with compiled cheetah files that we do not want in subversion. However, we need the __init__.py files in those directories to be in subversion.
Here is a python script to manage those ignore files:
If a ignore file exists, we pull it in and update it with what we want to ignore. It's always important that scripts do not break any previous work. So if I manually put an entry in the .svnignore file, the script better not erase it.
Alright, so there we go. We now have ignore files everywhere. The other piece of the puzzle is a script that uses these ignore files and sets the svn properties on the directories.
So here is the last piece of the puzzle:
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The easiest way is to place .svnignore files in all of your directories that you wish to ignore files in. This file has a list of patterns or file names, one on each line, that should be ignored in this directory.
For example, to ignore foo.py and bar.py the file would have something like this:
foo.py
bar.py
Now, what if we have a set of files that we want to ignore across a project? The easiest way is to write scripts that automatically manage these .svnignore files.
In one project, we have template directories named 't' with compiled cheetah files that we do not want in subversion. However, we need the __init__.py files in those directories to be in subversion.
Here is a python script to manage those ignore files:
#!/usr/bin/env python
""" Adds all python files in directories named t except
for __init__.py to the .svnignore files in those
directories recursively from the current directory.
"""
import os
import glob
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(os.curdir):
if os.path.basename(root) <> 't':
continue
files = glob.glob("%s/*.py" % root)
files = [os.path.basename(f) for f in files]
files = [f for f in files if f <> '__init__.py']
ignore_path = os.path.join(root, '.svnignore')
if os.path.exists(ignore_path):
igh = open(ignore_path)
ignores = dict([(f.strip(), True) for f in igh])
igh.close()
else:
ignores = {}
ignores.update(dict([(f, True) for f in files]))
igh = open(ignore_path, 'w')
for ignore in ignores.keys():
igh.write("%s\n" % ignore)
igh.close()
If a ignore file exists, we pull it in and update it with what we want to ignore. It's always important that scripts do not break any previous work. So if I manually put an entry in the .svnignore file, the script better not erase it.
Alright, so there we go. We now have ignore files everywhere. The other piece of the puzzle is a script that uses these ignore files and sets the svn properties on the directories.
So here is the last piece of the puzzle:
#!/usr/bin/env python
""" Sets the contents of all .svnignore files to svn:ignore properties
recursively in the current directory. Also attemps to add the
.svnignore file to subversion.
"""
import os
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(os.curdir):
if '.svnignore' not in files:
continue
path = os.path.join(root, '.svnignore')
os.system('svn propset svn:ignore -F "%s" "%s"' % (path, root))
os.system('svn add "%s"' % path)
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Kitchen Exhaust Fans and Makeup Air!
By Bill Prudehome
Most people purchase kitchen exhaust fans to remove odors created when cooking and for their aesthetic appeal. The size of the exhaust fan is usually based on the adage that bigger is better. Kitchen layout specialists and cabinetmakers staff the vast majority of kitchen design companies, very few, if any, have a mechanical engineer on staff that has the training and experience in calculating ventilation systems and the requirements necessary to install a kitchen exhaust system so that it is safe and does the job it was designed to do.
"Safe", you may say to yourself? How can a kitchen exhaust fan system not be safe? The basic problem that is not considered, when exhaust systems specified and installed is that what goes out must come in! In commercial kitchens, the Uniform Mechanical Code has a detailed specification for makeup air. Makeup air is the air that replaces the air that has been exhausted. Today’s construction methods are making homes tighter in order to afford energy reduction. They are built specifically to keep outside air from entering the home and the tighter the home the worse the problem.
If you install an exhaust fan that moves 600 CFM (cubic feet per minute) of air from your home, you have to replace that air. In theory, if the fan was powerful enough, which it isn’t, it would suck the air out of the home and the walls and ceiling would collapse in on themselves.
Although the walls and ceiling will not collapse in your home, things that are as bad or maybe even worse may happen. In order for your home to replace the air that has been exhausted, it will look for any opening to the outside. Items that are vented to the outside of your home include gas water heaters, clothes dryers and furnaces, oil fired furnaces and wood or gas fireplaces. An exhaust fan that is fighting for makeup air can and will create a back-draft, in other words instead of the air moving upwards from your fireplace and out the chimney it will actual cause the air to flow down the chimney and through the fireplace hearth and into the home. The same situation applies to heating appliances such as water heaters and furnaces. Instead of exhaust gases going up their chimney, fresh air will be sucked down the pipes and into the home.
This can be extremely dangerous as those items are exhausting hazardous gases including carbon monoxide.
Do not confuse makeup air with combustion air. Combustion air is needed to provide oxygen to appliances, such as gas water heaters and stoves that use a flame to operate.
Installing an exhaust fan without makeup air is not only dangerous but can create some very uncomfortable moments. You have a houseful of guests and in the great room; there is a beautiful fire in the fireplace. You turn the kitchen exhaust fan on to remove the cooking odors created from warming the hors d'oeuvres and before you can get back to your guests in the great room it is inundated with smoke and cold air. Your guests will remember your party for years to come.
Secondarily, the less makeup air available, the harder the fan must work. A fan that is rated at 600 CFM expects to have that amount of air available to exhaust. If it doesn’t it will work harder to obtain it, motors will overheat and you will not get enough air exhausted to eliminate the odors, humidity and other contaminants that you wanted expelled in the first place.
There are numerous ways to overcome or at least reduce the potential problems of lack of makeup air.
An exhaust fan rated at 400 CFM, a common rating for kitchen exhaust fans, can cause a back draft to occur.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bill_Prudehome
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Most people purchase kitchen exhaust fans to remove odors created when cooking and for their aesthetic appeal. The size of the exhaust fan is usually based on the adage that bigger is better. Kitchen layout specialists and cabinetmakers staff the vast majority of kitchen design companies, very few, if any, have a mechanical engineer on staff that has the training and experience in calculating ventilation systems and the requirements necessary to install a kitchen exhaust system so that it is safe and does the job it was designed to do.
"Safe", you may say to yourself? How can a kitchen exhaust fan system not be safe? The basic problem that is not considered, when exhaust systems specified and installed is that what goes out must come in! In commercial kitchens, the Uniform Mechanical Code has a detailed specification for makeup air. Makeup air is the air that replaces the air that has been exhausted. Today’s construction methods are making homes tighter in order to afford energy reduction. They are built specifically to keep outside air from entering the home and the tighter the home the worse the problem.
If you install an exhaust fan that moves 600 CFM (cubic feet per minute) of air from your home, you have to replace that air. In theory, if the fan was powerful enough, which it isn’t, it would suck the air out of the home and the walls and ceiling would collapse in on themselves.
Although the walls and ceiling will not collapse in your home, things that are as bad or maybe even worse may happen. In order for your home to replace the air that has been exhausted, it will look for any opening to the outside. Items that are vented to the outside of your home include gas water heaters, clothes dryers and furnaces, oil fired furnaces and wood or gas fireplaces. An exhaust fan that is fighting for makeup air can and will create a back-draft, in other words instead of the air moving upwards from your fireplace and out the chimney it will actual cause the air to flow down the chimney and through the fireplace hearth and into the home. The same situation applies to heating appliances such as water heaters and furnaces. Instead of exhaust gases going up their chimney, fresh air will be sucked down the pipes and into the home.
This can be extremely dangerous as those items are exhausting hazardous gases including carbon monoxide.
Do not confuse makeup air with combustion air. Combustion air is needed to provide oxygen to appliances, such as gas water heaters and stoves that use a flame to operate.
Installing an exhaust fan without makeup air is not only dangerous but can create some very uncomfortable moments. You have a houseful of guests and in the great room; there is a beautiful fire in the fireplace. You turn the kitchen exhaust fan on to remove the cooking odors created from warming the hors d'oeuvres and before you can get back to your guests in the great room it is inundated with smoke and cold air. Your guests will remember your party for years to come.
Secondarily, the less makeup air available, the harder the fan must work. A fan that is rated at 600 CFM expects to have that amount of air available to exhaust. If it doesn’t it will work harder to obtain it, motors will overheat and you will not get enough air exhausted to eliminate the odors, humidity and other contaminants that you wanted expelled in the first place.
There are numerous ways to overcome or at least reduce the potential problems of lack of makeup air.
- Do not oversize the exhaust fan. All reputable exhaust fan manufacturers will supply a chart of room size versus the suggested quantity of exhausted air. Follow their recommendations.
- Ensure that when operating the exhaust fan that there is someway for makeup air to enter the home that is not going to create a potential safety hazard. This can be done by cracking open a kitchen window or door.
- If your budget can accept the additional cost, have a vent pipe to the outside installed with an electrically controlled damper. When the kitchen exhaust fan is turned on, the electrically controlled damper opens and allows makeup air to enter the home.
An exhaust fan rated at 400 CFM, a common rating for kitchen exhaust fans, can cause a back draft to occur.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bill_Prudehome
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Sunday, June 10, 2007
Microsoft Fits New Version of Live Meeting Under the UC Umbrella
Microsoft moved ahead on its commitment to deliver unified communications (UC) solutions when it announced the latest version of its Web-conferencing service, Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, this week at Tech Ed 2007. The new release emphasizes multiple areas of improvement: simplifying the user experience, enabling “engaged” attendees at meetings, supporting different types of meetings, and “bringing all the information together in one place by providing integrated, rich media that pulls together audio and video content into one console,” said Roger Murff, Microsoft’s director of unified communications marketing. (To view a video of Roger's comments, click here.)
The goal of the new Live Meeting, says Murff, “is to enable a face-to-face experience” in Web meetings through features such as rich media presentation, offering a choice between two-way regular phone VoIP audio, and support for live Webcam video and 360-degree panoramic video. The latter feature is possible with the new Microsoft Roundtable, a hardware/software product that includes a 360-degree Web camera and will be available this fall.
The new Live Meeting is based on the same technology as Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007, now in beta and also due to be released this fall. Murff said that the releases support Microsoft’s software-plus-services strategy, which makes solutions available as both a hosted service, as Live Meeting is, and software that’s run and managed onsite (e.g., OCS), to give customers a choice.
The product is a step toward true UC; it offers various audio and video options but isn’t integrated with Exchange Server 2007, for example. (OCS 2007 offers some degree of integration with Exchange 2007, however). Nonetheless, the upcoming release is significant for how much it will improve the quality of the Web and videoconference experience for participants.
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The goal of the new Live Meeting, says Murff, “is to enable a face-to-face experience” in Web meetings through features such as rich media presentation, offering a choice between two-way regular phone VoIP audio, and support for live Webcam video and 360-degree panoramic video. The latter feature is possible with the new Microsoft Roundtable, a hardware/software product that includes a 360-degree Web camera and will be available this fall.
The new Live Meeting is based on the same technology as Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007, now in beta and also due to be released this fall. Murff said that the releases support Microsoft’s software-plus-services strategy, which makes solutions available as both a hosted service, as Live Meeting is, and software that’s run and managed onsite (e.g., OCS), to give customers a choice.
The product is a step toward true UC; it offers various audio and video options but isn’t integrated with Exchange Server 2007, for example. (OCS 2007 offers some degree of integration with Exchange 2007, however). Nonetheless, the upcoming release is significant for how much it will improve the quality of the Web and videoconference experience for participants.
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AGLOCO launches - will pay you to surf the Web
AGLOCO is a controversial new Stanford-based start-up that wants to pay you to surf the Web, in return for access to your online surfing information. It launches later today (Monday).
It was discovered two weeks ago by Gigaom, which blasted it as a pyramid scheme. It is, Gigaom reported, a reincarnation of the bubble-era AllAdvantage, which PC World at the time said was one the worst sites on the Internet. AllAdvantage folded in 2001, when Web advertising dried up. (Here’s a good description of AllAdvantage.)
Gigaom's report was based on leaked materials. AGLOCO says Gigaom misunderstood some of its intentions. Its founders sat down with VentureBeat, and explained how its model is different from AllAdvantage.
In short, AGLOCO, which stands for "A Global Community" (the company uses caps to refer to itself, despite its lowercase logo) is really a big AllAdvantage sheep in wolf’s clothing.
First, the similarities between the two: The AGLOCO team includes some of the same leaders of AllAdvantage. The model is pretty much the same, too: As with AllAdvantage, the user of AGLOCO signs up with the site, and volunteers detailed personal information, including name, email address, age, city, state, country and postal code. AGLOCO promises it won’t be transferred to a third party. The user agrees to surrender information about their traffic patterns to the site. Like AllAdvantage, AGLOCO offers a Viewbar, a browser-based bar at the bottom of your screen. The Viewbar (see below) displays targeted advertisements based on on content you’re viewing and your traffic patterns. Moreover, the user gets shares in the company for surfing the Web, and for referring others — and benefits go up the more that referee uses the Internet. The referral network goes five degrees (you refer a, a refers b, b refers c, c refers d, d refers e). This applies for any users, not just early adopters, and so the company argues this is not a "pyramid scheme."
This targeting aspect is where AGLOCO’s latest incarnation could prove more powerful than last time (which, we note, was significant; people forget that AllAdvantage ranked among the top twenty Web sites, according to Nielsen/Netratings; it had ten million members). Better targeting technology exists today, and affiliate models are more established. Take a hypothetical example: You’re about to buy a book at Barnes & Nobles. AGLOCO will flash a note that you can get a better price at Amazon.com. That’s because AGLOCO has signed an affiliate relationship with Amazon, giving AGLOC an 8.5 percent discount on purchases. Since you’re a member, AGLOCO will pass on say, at 4.25 percentage points of that discount to you.
You win in another way, too: The other 4.25 percentage points AGLOCO keeps for itself accrues to its bottom line. Since you own AGLOCO stock, you benefit. AGLOCO wants to give its members 100 percent ownership. It is not raising any venture capital like last time (AllAdvantage raised nearly $200 million from various VCs including Alloy Ventures, Partech International, Rustic Canyon, Softbank, Technology Partners and WaldenVC). It will take ten percent of the company’s revenue for a management fee. This is worth it, says Jim Jorgensen, one of AGLOCO’s founding team. He says a group of aggressive Stanford business school graduates are negotiating deals with Amazon and other partners on your behalf.
This AGLOCO team is intriguing. Eight Stanford MBAs have joined, which is unprecedented. Many Stanford MBAs join companies before they graduate, but not a grouping this big, and especially not at a time when VCs and other companies are poaching MBAs more than they have in the past. They’re bringing fresh, eager blood to their wise but chastened forefathers who launched AllAdvantage. Jorgensen was co-founder and chief executive of AllAdvantage and is one of 15 in AGLOCO’s founding team (a formal chief executive hasn’t been appointed yet, and the group is acting like a commune, refusing to appoint a leader, or even hand out “co-founder” titles). AGLOCO has named Ray Everett-Church its chief privacy officer, the same guy who was CPO at AllAdvantage (AllAdvantage was the first company to have a CPO).
But the guys who first conceived of AGLOCO are Carl Anderson, an AllAdvantage co-founder and now a hedge-fund manager, and Dave Pidwell, a venture partner at Alloy Partners and an early investor of AllAdvantage. Both have given seed funding to AGLOCO. Anderson posted a notice at the Stanford business school’s career center, saying he was looking for someone to start a company. MBA student Akshay Mavani responded, and helped recruit the others. Other seed investors include 4Info chief executive, Zaw Thet and several others.
Anderson and Pidwell also recruited Jorgensen, a tall slender gregarious character who is always quick with a good story. Have him tell you the one about the pre-IPO April 2000 extravaganza bash at his 5,000 square foot home on the Stanford campus. The fundraiser’s guests included President Bill Clinton, John Doerr, Frank Quattrone, all of whom joined Jorgensen at his private table. Even Clinton’s daughter Chelsea was there, with counter-snipers in the trees for security. Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal attended. (AllAdvantage was bigger than PayPal at the time. Bank of America reported that AllAdvantage cut more checks at the time than any other company, outside of the federal government. So Musk sat at a side table.) Eric Schmidt was there. Two members of the Grateful Dead played. A few days later, in mid-April, the stock market began its free-fall, and AllAdvantage never recovered. But Jorgensen says the event underscored how the company had gained legitimacy in Washington. (Update: To clarify, the event was a Democratic fundraiser, and was not paid for by AllAdvantage.) The uproar around the company had forced AllAdvantage to seek to explain itself on Capitol Hill, and senators ended up liking it. Senator John Kerry supported AllAdvantage’s privacy model, Jorgensen says.
Even so, AGLOCO will be different in key ways, Jorgensen says. Even though AllAdvantage was at the "forefront of privacy," Jorgensen explains, "we had no idea what we were doing." This time, AGLOCO is more conservative, making no promises on cash payment levels. In fact, Jorgensen says it was the VCs who had encouraged large cash payments by AllAdvantage (at 50 cents/hr), which had driven the company into the red. AllAdvantage paid out $100 million to its members; a few members were earning $10,000 to $15,000 a month.
For now, AGLOCO simply says it will give members a share of profits. While AllAdvantage hired 250 engineers, AGLOCO is streamlined. It is built on open source software, with developers in China — and AGLOCO will be launching with a Chinese version of the site too. The funky management structure may become a problem, in VentureBeat’s view, because there’s no single leader taking overall responsibility.
If it’s anything like its predecessor, though, AGLOCO will be a company to watch. At launch, AllAdvantage had aimed to sign up 30,000 members within four months. But it hit that number in two days. AllAdvantage’s IPO was going to value the company at $1.2 to $1.4 billion, but it never got there. This time, AGLOCO is already working to list on the London AIM stock exchange.
Is it evil? You decide. We’re betting many people will hold their nose, and take the cash ;)
Below is screen shot of how Viewbar rests at bottom of your page:
Share It: · · · · · · · More Bookmarks...
It was discovered two weeks ago by Gigaom, which blasted it as a pyramid scheme. It is, Gigaom reported, a reincarnation of the bubble-era AllAdvantage, which PC World at the time said was one the worst sites on the Internet. AllAdvantage folded in 2001, when Web advertising dried up. (Here’s a good description of AllAdvantage.)
Gigaom's report was based on leaked materials. AGLOCO says Gigaom misunderstood some of its intentions. Its founders sat down with VentureBeat, and explained how its model is different from AllAdvantage.
In short, AGLOCO, which stands for "A Global Community" (the company uses caps to refer to itself, despite its lowercase logo) is really a big AllAdvantage sheep in wolf’s clothing.
First, the similarities between the two: The AGLOCO team includes some of the same leaders of AllAdvantage. The model is pretty much the same, too: As with AllAdvantage, the user of AGLOCO signs up with the site, and volunteers detailed personal information, including name, email address, age, city, state, country and postal code. AGLOCO promises it won’t be transferred to a third party. The user agrees to surrender information about their traffic patterns to the site. Like AllAdvantage, AGLOCO offers a Viewbar, a browser-based bar at the bottom of your screen. The Viewbar (see below) displays targeted advertisements based on on content you’re viewing and your traffic patterns. Moreover, the user gets shares in the company for surfing the Web, and for referring others — and benefits go up the more that referee uses the Internet. The referral network goes five degrees (you refer a, a refers b, b refers c, c refers d, d refers e). This applies for any users, not just early adopters, and so the company argues this is not a "pyramid scheme."
This targeting aspect is where AGLOCO’s latest incarnation could prove more powerful than last time (which, we note, was significant; people forget that AllAdvantage ranked among the top twenty Web sites, according to Nielsen/Netratings; it had ten million members). Better targeting technology exists today, and affiliate models are more established. Take a hypothetical example: You’re about to buy a book at Barnes & Nobles. AGLOCO will flash a note that you can get a better price at Amazon.com. That’s because AGLOCO has signed an affiliate relationship with Amazon, giving AGLOC an 8.5 percent discount on purchases. Since you’re a member, AGLOCO will pass on say, at 4.25 percentage points of that discount to you.
You win in another way, too: The other 4.25 percentage points AGLOCO keeps for itself accrues to its bottom line. Since you own AGLOCO stock, you benefit. AGLOCO wants to give its members 100 percent ownership. It is not raising any venture capital like last time (AllAdvantage raised nearly $200 million from various VCs including Alloy Ventures, Partech International, Rustic Canyon, Softbank, Technology Partners and WaldenVC). It will take ten percent of the company’s revenue for a management fee. This is worth it, says Jim Jorgensen, one of AGLOCO’s founding team. He says a group of aggressive Stanford business school graduates are negotiating deals with Amazon and other partners on your behalf.
This AGLOCO team is intriguing. Eight Stanford MBAs have joined, which is unprecedented. Many Stanford MBAs join companies before they graduate, but not a grouping this big, and especially not at a time when VCs and other companies are poaching MBAs more than they have in the past. They’re bringing fresh, eager blood to their wise but chastened forefathers who launched AllAdvantage. Jorgensen was co-founder and chief executive of AllAdvantage and is one of 15 in AGLOCO’s founding team (a formal chief executive hasn’t been appointed yet, and the group is acting like a commune, refusing to appoint a leader, or even hand out “co-founder” titles). AGLOCO has named Ray Everett-Church its chief privacy officer, the same guy who was CPO at AllAdvantage (AllAdvantage was the first company to have a CPO).
But the guys who first conceived of AGLOCO are Carl Anderson, an AllAdvantage co-founder and now a hedge-fund manager, and Dave Pidwell, a venture partner at Alloy Partners and an early investor of AllAdvantage. Both have given seed funding to AGLOCO. Anderson posted a notice at the Stanford business school’s career center, saying he was looking for someone to start a company. MBA student Akshay Mavani responded, and helped recruit the others. Other seed investors include 4Info chief executive, Zaw Thet and several others.
Anderson and Pidwell also recruited Jorgensen, a tall slender gregarious character who is always quick with a good story. Have him tell you the one about the pre-IPO April 2000 extravaganza bash at his 5,000 square foot home on the Stanford campus. The fundraiser’s guests included President Bill Clinton, John Doerr, Frank Quattrone, all of whom joined Jorgensen at his private table. Even Clinton’s daughter Chelsea was there, with counter-snipers in the trees for security. Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal attended. (AllAdvantage was bigger than PayPal at the time. Bank of America reported that AllAdvantage cut more checks at the time than any other company, outside of the federal government. So Musk sat at a side table.) Eric Schmidt was there. Two members of the Grateful Dead played. A few days later, in mid-April, the stock market began its free-fall, and AllAdvantage never recovered. But Jorgensen says the event underscored how the company had gained legitimacy in Washington. (Update: To clarify, the event was a Democratic fundraiser, and was not paid for by AllAdvantage.) The uproar around the company had forced AllAdvantage to seek to explain itself on Capitol Hill, and senators ended up liking it. Senator John Kerry supported AllAdvantage’s privacy model, Jorgensen says.
Even so, AGLOCO will be different in key ways, Jorgensen says. Even though AllAdvantage was at the "forefront of privacy," Jorgensen explains, "we had no idea what we were doing." This time, AGLOCO is more conservative, making no promises on cash payment levels. In fact, Jorgensen says it was the VCs who had encouraged large cash payments by AllAdvantage (at 50 cents/hr), which had driven the company into the red. AllAdvantage paid out $100 million to its members; a few members were earning $10,000 to $15,000 a month.
For now, AGLOCO simply says it will give members a share of profits. While AllAdvantage hired 250 engineers, AGLOCO is streamlined. It is built on open source software, with developers in China — and AGLOCO will be launching with a Chinese version of the site too. The funky management structure may become a problem, in VentureBeat’s view, because there’s no single leader taking overall responsibility.
If it’s anything like its predecessor, though, AGLOCO will be a company to watch. At launch, AllAdvantage had aimed to sign up 30,000 members within four months. But it hit that number in two days. AllAdvantage’s IPO was going to value the company at $1.2 to $1.4 billion, but it never got there. This time, AGLOCO is already working to list on the London AIM stock exchange.
Is it evil? You decide. We’re betting many people will hold their nose, and take the cash ;)
Below is screen shot of how Viewbar rests at bottom of your page:
Share It:
· · · · · · · More Bookmarks...
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Move over MySpace, Gaia Online is here
Written by Wagner James Au
Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 2:00 PM PT
By the middle of last year, it was attracting half a million unique visitors monthly; fast forward to last month, and that number is two million. It’s not a traditional MMO like World of Warcraft; it’s not a social game like There; it doesn’t originate from Europe like Habbo Hotel or from Asia like Cyworld. You haven’t heard of it partly because the San Jose company has kept a low profile.
Another reason you’re still likely in the dark: it’s primarily designed for teens. But with online worlds all sizes and styles poised for an explosion, you’ll almost certainly hear a lot more about it soon.
It’s called Gaia Online, and as a guy on a giant crane behind us tore down the giant Web 2.0 conference banner in Moscone West, I had a chance to sit down with CEO Craig Sherman - formerly COO with Myfamily.com, and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Benchmark Capital, a main funder of Gaia for a furious round of questioning. How did Gaia grow so large so quickly so stealthily?
"The world’s fastest growing online world hangout for teens."
That’s the way Sherman and his team prefer to characterize Gaia, the brainchild of Studio XD, a comic art firm which gave the site its anime-influenced look. Gaia’s online world aspect (which launches in a separate Java-powered window) is a series of virtual towns where Gaian avatars can socialize (up to 100 in a single space), with apartments they can own, and treasures they can find. (No combat, however.) It’s just that 10% of total user activity takes place in the world itself.
Gaia’s Many Experience Channels
The world is just a conduit to the larger activity on Gaia, says Sherman: in addition, there are website arenas where users can upload and rate each other’s artwork and other content (7-10% total activity), or play multiplayer Flash mini-games with group chat (10-15% total activity.) The largest cohort of activity (wholly 30%) takes place in the Gaia forums, and here’s where the truly staggering numbers come in: Averaging a million posts a day and a billion posts so far, Gaia’s message boards (with topics running the gamut from pop culture to politics) is second only to Yahoo in popularity.
Gold for Activity
A unique innovation is the way the company distributes its virtual gold currency: instead of selling it for real money (as with There) or allowing its trade on the open market (as with Second Life), Gaians are automatically given gold for participation: You get gold for posting on the Forums, for riding events, for uploading content, for exploring the world. Subscribers are rewarded for engaging in Gaia, in other words and the reward incents them to engage in Gaia even more.
Gold for Auction
A unique innovation is the way the company distributes its virtual gold currency: instead of selling it for real money (as with There) or allowing its trade on the open market (as with Second Life), Gaians are automatically given gold for participation: You get gold for posting on the Forums, for riding events, for uploading content, for exploring the world. Subscribers are rewarded for engaging in Gaia, in other words and the reward incents them to engage in Gaia even more.
Gold for Auction
With the gold, Gaia subscribers can buy items, clothing, and accessories for their avatars, some sold by the company, but most of it sold via Gaian-to-Gaian auction. (They estimate some 52,000 auctions are completed every day.)
What pays in Gaia, however, stays in Gaia: the company strongly discourages real money trading, and works with Ebay to curtail it. That’s not to say Gaian treasures haven’t been sold online. "One item sold for $6000," says Sherman. "Wonderful to tell you, but bad for what we’re trying to accomplish."
Gold - for Gaia Interactive, Inc.
Instead of monthly subscriptions, Gaia Online sells "rare items" - treasures, fantastically cool fashion accessories for player avatars, and so on - two offered a month for $2.50 each. Subscribers buy them via credit card, Pay Pay, cellphone or cash on the barrel. ("We employ someone full time whose job is getting dollars and quarters" out of envelopes kids send them, Sherman notes.)
...but first, a world for our sponsors
The company’s other revenue source are ad campaigns created to run within the world of Gaia. Before launching these, Sherman says, they solicited subscriber feedback, to find out which potential advertisers they wanted to see in the world and which they didn’t. (Cool fashion brands got the majority nod; big American auto companies, however, didn’t.)
Staffers work with advertisers to create, not passive billboards, but an extended immersive experience. Gaia’s campaign for New Line Cinema’s fantasy adventure The Last Mimzy, for example, challenged their users to accomplish a series of tasks in order to get their own special Gaian-only Mimzy (a super-intelligent bunny). Hundreds of thousands of these Mimzyies were given out meaning some 10-20% of their total user base jumped through the hoops to win the advertiser’s prize. (By contrast, when Nissan began giving away virtual versions of their cars in Second Life, far less than 1% of Residents took them up on the offer.)
The Secret to Gaia’s Success
Craig Sherman has been thinking what the value-proposition of his site in the era of MySpace or Facebook. "In a world where teens are constantly branding and packaging themselves" on sites like those, he points out, "Gaia is where you get away from it all."
Whether that remains the case when the competition reaches full roil remains to be seen, but for now, the Gaia seems destined to keep growing.
The Gaia Numbers: Demographics and Usage Patterns as of April 2007
300,000 log in daily, according to the company; average unique visit is two hours a day.
Average concurrency: 64,000 users. Maximum: 86,738.
85% of users are based in the US
10% are English-speaking but non-US (with 5% a nebulous Other)
Breakdown by gender: 55% Girls - 45% Boys
About 20% of subscribers put up their real life photo in their avatar profile.
Number of Gaia gold "millionaires", as of last week: 1385
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Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 2:00 PM PT
By the middle of last year, it was attracting half a million unique visitors monthly; fast forward to last month, and that number is two million. It’s not a traditional MMO like World of Warcraft; it’s not a social game like There; it doesn’t originate from Europe like Habbo Hotel or from Asia like Cyworld. You haven’t heard of it partly because the San Jose company has kept a low profile.
Another reason you’re still likely in the dark: it’s primarily designed for teens. But with online worlds all sizes and styles poised for an explosion, you’ll almost certainly hear a lot more about it soon.
It’s called Gaia Online, and as a guy on a giant crane behind us tore down the giant Web 2.0 conference banner in Moscone West, I had a chance to sit down with CEO Craig Sherman - formerly COO with Myfamily.com, and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Benchmark Capital, a main funder of Gaia for a furious round of questioning. How did Gaia grow so large so quickly so stealthily?
"The world’s fastest growing online world hangout for teens."
That’s the way Sherman and his team prefer to characterize Gaia, the brainchild of Studio XD, a comic art firm which gave the site its anime-influenced look. Gaia’s online world aspect (which launches in a separate Java-powered window) is a series of virtual towns where Gaian avatars can socialize (up to 100 in a single space), with apartments they can own, and treasures they can find. (No combat, however.) It’s just that 10% of total user activity takes place in the world itself.
Gaia’s Many Experience Channels
The world is just a conduit to the larger activity on Gaia, says Sherman: in addition, there are website arenas where users can upload and rate each other’s artwork and other content (7-10% total activity), or play multiplayer Flash mini-games with group chat (10-15% total activity.) The largest cohort of activity (wholly 30%) takes place in the Gaia forums, and here’s where the truly staggering numbers come in: Averaging a million posts a day and a billion posts so far, Gaia’s message boards (with topics running the gamut from pop culture to politics) is second only to Yahoo in popularity.
Gold for Activity
A unique innovation is the way the company distributes its virtual gold currency: instead of selling it for real money (as with There) or allowing its trade on the open market (as with Second Life), Gaians are automatically given gold for participation: You get gold for posting on the Forums, for riding events, for uploading content, for exploring the world. Subscribers are rewarded for engaging in Gaia, in other words and the reward incents them to engage in Gaia even more.
Gold for Auction
A unique innovation is the way the company distributes its virtual gold currency: instead of selling it for real money (as with There) or allowing its trade on the open market (as with Second Life), Gaians are automatically given gold for participation: You get gold for posting on the Forums, for riding events, for uploading content, for exploring the world. Subscribers are rewarded for engaging in Gaia, in other words and the reward incents them to engage in Gaia even more.
Gold for Auction
With the gold, Gaia subscribers can buy items, clothing, and accessories for their avatars, some sold by the company, but most of it sold via Gaian-to-Gaian auction. (They estimate some 52,000 auctions are completed every day.)
What pays in Gaia, however, stays in Gaia: the company strongly discourages real money trading, and works with Ebay to curtail it. That’s not to say Gaian treasures haven’t been sold online. "One item sold for $6000," says Sherman. "Wonderful to tell you, but bad for what we’re trying to accomplish."
Gold - for Gaia Interactive, Inc.
Instead of monthly subscriptions, Gaia Online sells "rare items" - treasures, fantastically cool fashion accessories for player avatars, and so on - two offered a month for $2.50 each. Subscribers buy them via credit card, Pay Pay, cellphone or cash on the barrel. ("We employ someone full time whose job is getting dollars and quarters" out of envelopes kids send them, Sherman notes.)
...but first, a world for our sponsors
The company’s other revenue source are ad campaigns created to run within the world of Gaia. Before launching these, Sherman says, they solicited subscriber feedback, to find out which potential advertisers they wanted to see in the world and which they didn’t. (Cool fashion brands got the majority nod; big American auto companies, however, didn’t.)
Staffers work with advertisers to create, not passive billboards, but an extended immersive experience. Gaia’s campaign for New Line Cinema’s fantasy adventure The Last Mimzy, for example, challenged their users to accomplish a series of tasks in order to get their own special Gaian-only Mimzy (a super-intelligent bunny). Hundreds of thousands of these Mimzyies were given out meaning some 10-20% of their total user base jumped through the hoops to win the advertiser’s prize. (By contrast, when Nissan began giving away virtual versions of their cars in Second Life, far less than 1% of Residents took them up on the offer.)
The Secret to Gaia’s Success
Craig Sherman has been thinking what the value-proposition of his site in the era of MySpace or Facebook. "In a world where teens are constantly branding and packaging themselves" on sites like those, he points out, "Gaia is where you get away from it all."
Whether that remains the case when the competition reaches full roil remains to be seen, but for now, the Gaia seems destined to keep growing.
The Gaia Numbers: Demographics and Usage Patterns as of April 2007
300,000 log in daily, according to the company; average unique visit is two hours a day.
Average concurrency: 64,000 users. Maximum: 86,738.
85% of users are based in the US
10% are English-speaking but non-US (with 5% a nebulous Other)
Breakdown by gender: 55% Girls - 45% Boys
About 20% of subscribers put up their real life photo in their avatar profile.
Number of Gaia gold "millionaires", as of last week: 1385
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Friday, June 8, 2007
Why buy HDTV?
By: Reginald Diamond
When HDTV or high-definition tv was first released, sports lovers, movie fans and gadget freaks were speechless because this new technology will allow them to watch tv with amazing resolution and superb 5.1 surround sound. Moreover, an HDTV will allow a viewers to watch movies without the annoying letter box effect that usually accompanies various DVD formats. Due to the fact, HDTV presents viewers with the pleasure of seeing your choice of programming in the widescreen format it was originally shot. Predictably given the extent of the marketing hype surrounding it's launch, the HDTV became and remains the most sought-after gadget for tv viewing purposes. Unfortunately, since high definition TV technology is plagued with confusing and technological accronyms and jargon, purchasing the most appropriate HDTV can be a complicated experience.
If you don’t want to end up with a tv with ordinary visual and audio, then you need to understand the differences between analog, digital and HDTV formats to determine if you really need an upgrade for your watching enjoyment.
Advantages from High-Definition tv
Technically, a HDTV has a higher screen resolution. Meaning, it can easily present you with vastly superior visual clarity whether you are watching Superbowl or enjoying a good DVD movie. A major advantage of a high-definition tv is its ability to view in wide screen. Compared to the earlier analog TV that only plays cropped movies, with high definition your movies can now have wider pictures that are similar to the images on the screen of movie theaters. You can therefore watch your favorite show, film or event with a crisper and finer visual display.
Another benefit of HDTV’s is that they can easily connect to other analog video equipments, such as camcorders, DVD players, VCRs and gaming consoles. Additionally, with its impressive audio capabilities, playing games and watching movies can be given a new level of experience.
When buying a high-definition tv, make sure that the product has a resolution set at 1280 x 720 pixels or more. To further ensure that the tv set you choose gives the best results, look for a item with a fast response time and high contrasts. HDTV may come in many forms and with a number of add-ons or options for connecting other audio-visual equipments. Depending on your needs, the most practical choice is to go with a tv set with DVI (digital video interface) and HDMI (high-definition media interface), but you should list of any devices you want to connect to your HDTV before you buy.
Buying the most appropriate HDTV can be a complicated experience. However, with the right preperation, information and understanding of your preferred specifications, you can easily narrow down the high-definition tvs available in the market and arrive at the most appropriate HDTV for your budget and connect to your existant AV devices.
Article Source: http://www.free-article-directory.net
Reginald Diamond contributes HDTV Buyers Guide to hdtv.shoptechnology.com a site dedicated to providing consumers with the latest HDTV information.
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When HDTV or high-definition tv was first released, sports lovers, movie fans and gadget freaks were speechless because this new technology will allow them to watch tv with amazing resolution and superb 5.1 surround sound. Moreover, an HDTV will allow a viewers to watch movies without the annoying letter box effect that usually accompanies various DVD formats. Due to the fact, HDTV presents viewers with the pleasure of seeing your choice of programming in the widescreen format it was originally shot. Predictably given the extent of the marketing hype surrounding it's launch, the HDTV became and remains the most sought-after gadget for tv viewing purposes. Unfortunately, since high definition TV technology is plagued with confusing and technological accronyms and jargon, purchasing the most appropriate HDTV can be a complicated experience.
If you don’t want to end up with a tv with ordinary visual and audio, then you need to understand the differences between analog, digital and HDTV formats to determine if you really need an upgrade for your watching enjoyment.
Advantages from High-Definition tv
Technically, a HDTV has a higher screen resolution. Meaning, it can easily present you with vastly superior visual clarity whether you are watching Superbowl or enjoying a good DVD movie. A major advantage of a high-definition tv is its ability to view in wide screen. Compared to the earlier analog TV that only plays cropped movies, with high definition your movies can now have wider pictures that are similar to the images on the screen of movie theaters. You can therefore watch your favorite show, film or event with a crisper and finer visual display.
Another benefit of HDTV’s is that they can easily connect to other analog video equipments, such as camcorders, DVD players, VCRs and gaming consoles. Additionally, with its impressive audio capabilities, playing games and watching movies can be given a new level of experience.
When buying a high-definition tv, make sure that the product has a resolution set at 1280 x 720 pixels or more. To further ensure that the tv set you choose gives the best results, look for a item with a fast response time and high contrasts. HDTV may come in many forms and with a number of add-ons or options for connecting other audio-visual equipments. Depending on your needs, the most practical choice is to go with a tv set with DVI (digital video interface) and HDMI (high-definition media interface), but you should list of any devices you want to connect to your HDTV before you buy.
Buying the most appropriate HDTV can be a complicated experience. However, with the right preperation, information and understanding of your preferred specifications, you can easily narrow down the high-definition tvs available in the market and arrive at the most appropriate HDTV for your budget and connect to your existant AV devices.
Article Source: http://www.free-article-directory.net
Reginald Diamond contributes HDTV Buyers Guide to hdtv.shoptechnology.com a site dedicated to providing consumers with the latest HDTV information.
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Thursday, June 7, 2007
Wedding Stress…How did We Cope?
Wedding-planning, despite being the most joyous event of the lifetime, could be very stressful.
In addition to this stress, there could be work stress, family stress and many more.
I remembered I was totally stressed out during my wedding planning period last year that I almost broke down. I’m not sure if I’m entering depression stage but this was real to me.
I know some wedding couples could be stressed out too and they are not aware of it. To add more impact, they give each other more stress, hoping that each other can understand them.
A fair amount of stress is important to ensure your wedding plan is according to what you have planned. Too much pressure may cause you to end up as an unhappy bride or groom or even to the extent of calling the wedding off.
One of my readers emailed me pleading for help. She felt alone because the groom was in overseas and not supportive. She felt that she was the one planning the wedding. Moreover, the in-laws were setting many unrealistic expectations such as “forcing” her to carry out in the exact manner they wanted.
There was no say in the bride at all and she felt like calling off the wedding.
This was not the only one such email I received. There were a few more like this. Some brides managed to cope better after that. Others canceled their weddings.
So how did I cope with my stress while planning my wedding?
The first thing I did was blogged and told the whole world what I was feeling. My aunties were my loyal fans and were always closely following my posts. My cousins too. They emailed me and even posted in the comments telling me to sound out whenever I needed help.
I was very touched.
One of my aunties even told my mother about it. Partially, I was pleased that my mother was informed so that she understood what I was feeling at that time.
In Asian’s culture, we don’t share what we really felt. We speak the politically-correct content so that everyone, except us, is happy.
My wife was very helpful too. I’m not saying she had no stress. In fact, she had more than mine. Her mother was trying to control what we had planned. We were almost toppled upside down.
My friends were there to chip in now and then. I had a few friends who were not invited to my wedding but they helped me a lot. I’m really grateful to them.
My colleagues were very understanding too and they assisted me in anyways they could. Some made my wedding ang-pow box (but ended up I didn’t use at all.) My manager gave me emotional support because she understood how stressful wedding-planning could be.
In all, these are 5 ways to cope with stress:
What about you? How do you cope with your stress?
Source: http://www.romance-fire.com/2007/05/20/wedding-stresshow-did-we-cope/
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In addition to this stress, there could be work stress, family stress and many more.
I remembered I was totally stressed out during my wedding planning period last year that I almost broke down. I’m not sure if I’m entering depression stage but this was real to me.
I know some wedding couples could be stressed out too and they are not aware of it. To add more impact, they give each other more stress, hoping that each other can understand them.
A fair amount of stress is important to ensure your wedding plan is according to what you have planned. Too much pressure may cause you to end up as an unhappy bride or groom or even to the extent of calling the wedding off.
One of my readers emailed me pleading for help. She felt alone because the groom was in overseas and not supportive. She felt that she was the one planning the wedding. Moreover, the in-laws were setting many unrealistic expectations such as “forcing” her to carry out in the exact manner they wanted.
There was no say in the bride at all and she felt like calling off the wedding.
This was not the only one such email I received. There were a few more like this. Some brides managed to cope better after that. Others canceled their weddings.
So how did I cope with my stress while planning my wedding?
The first thing I did was blogged and told the whole world what I was feeling. My aunties were my loyal fans and were always closely following my posts. My cousins too. They emailed me and even posted in the comments telling me to sound out whenever I needed help.
I was very touched.
One of my aunties even told my mother about it. Partially, I was pleased that my mother was informed so that she understood what I was feeling at that time.
In Asian’s culture, we don’t share what we really felt. We speak the politically-correct content so that everyone, except us, is happy.
My wife was very helpful too. I’m not saying she had no stress. In fact, she had more than mine. Her mother was trying to control what we had planned. We were almost toppled upside down.
My friends were there to chip in now and then. I had a few friends who were not invited to my wedding but they helped me a lot. I’m really grateful to them.
My colleagues were very understanding too and they assisted me in anyways they could. Some made my wedding ang-pow box (but ended up I didn’t use at all.) My manager gave me emotional support because she understood how stressful wedding-planning could be.
In all, these are 5 ways to cope with stress:
- Share with your significant-other
- Share with your family members and relatives
- Share with best friends who understand you
- Share with colleagues so they can know what you are going through
- Continue with your hobby
What about you? How do you cope with your stress?
Source: http://www.romance-fire.com/2007/05/20/wedding-stresshow-did-we-cope/
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Meta Tags 'NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW'
The meta tags are in the header of a web page, that is, between the <head> tags. There are some webmasters out there that use the meta tag
The use of
Impact of this meta tags on link exchanges
A link on a web page using robots meta tag is not completely useless. If your link is on a web page that uses this robots meta tag, your link would not be counted towards your web site’s link popularity. However, visitors may still find your web site through this link.
Detecting meta “NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW”
Detecting this robots meta tags is quite simple. The meta tag can be clearly seen in the source code of the web page. Look within the <head> tags near the top of the source code.
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<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"> on their links page or directory. This means that search engine robots will not index (NOINDEX) or follow (NOFOLLOW) the links on that page.The use of
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"> is most commonly seen during link exchanges where webmasters try to retain their PageRank by instructing search engine robots not to index or follow their links pages or links directory.Impact of this meta tags on link exchanges
A link on a web page using robots meta tag is not completely useless. If your link is on a web page that uses this robots meta tag, your link would not be counted towards your web site’s link popularity. However, visitors may still find your web site through this link.
Detecting meta “NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW”
Detecting this robots meta tags is quite simple. The meta tag can be clearly seen in the source code of the web page. Look within the <head> tags near the top of the source code.
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Wednesday, June 6, 2007
What is the Difference Between an IP Camera, Network Camera and Internet Camera?
Learn what the difference is between IP Cameras, Network Cameras and Internet Cameras.
by Wes Fernley
A few people have asked me, what is the difference between an IP Camera, Network Camera and Internet Camera? Well the answer is quite easy – there is no difference. So why do these security cameras have different names? First, think about all the names. What do they all have in common? Each name refers to a device that can be connected to a network via IP and used over the Internet.
Axis Communications is the leader in IP Network Video. They use the name Network Camera for their IP enabled security cameras. The name Network Camera is one of the most common names for these products. The name simply describes how their products work by connecting to a computer network allowing all PC's and network devices to see the camera.
The name IP Camera is starting to become more common than the name Network Camera. Most manufacturers refer to their products as IP Cameras and because of this, most customers looking to buy these products refer to them as IP Cameras. Some people even mix the term IP Camera with Network Camera to call it
by Wes Fernley
A few people have asked me, what is the difference between an IP Camera, Network Camera and Internet Camera? Well the answer is quite easy – there is no difference. So why do these security cameras have different names? First, think about all the names. What do they all have in common? Each name refers to a device that can be connected to a network via IP and used over the Internet.
Axis Communications is the leader in IP Network Video. They use the name Network Camera for their IP enabled security cameras. The name Network Camera is one of the most common names for these products. The name simply describes how their products work by connecting to a computer network allowing all PC's and network devices to see the camera.
The name IP Camera is starting to become more common than the name Network Camera. Most manufacturers refer to their products as IP Cameras and because of this, most customers looking to buy these products refer to them as IP Cameras. Some people even mix the term IP Camera with Network Camera to call it