Cost Effective and Easily Configurable

The LP-E Series is our multiplex transmission Full-2Way remote lighting control system. The LP-E series uses just two ±24 V signal wires for all the switches on a network, and controls lighting using pulse signals. This reduces the number of wires needed compared to conventional remote control wiring. With the LP-E Series Full-2Way multiple transmission, load addresses comprised of channel and load numbers are set up in advance, and the signal is transmitted to the designated addresses that correspond to remote controlled HID relays when switches are operated. The LP-E Series Full-2Way remote control has the cut-in signal circuit method that can control relay at high speed and indicate on the On/Off status.

The LP-E Series lighting control panel is a cost-effective and easily-configurable lighting control system with programming and accessories specifically optimized for office building, factory, school/gymnasium and restaurant applications. The LP-E Series contains centralized monitoring and control of lighting that can handle up to 256 circuits per system. It is logically capable of turning up to 127 groups of lights on and off in an entire section of any application area. The LP-E Series can be programmed up to 72 control patterns to match work schedules or habits, allowing you to effectively use the necessary lights for low energy and cost savings.

The LP-E Series timer control can easily be configured to match a daily schedule for lights to be automatically turned on and off. Passive infrared sensor control is also offered with the system to detect occupancy movement that will enable the lights to turn on and off and can be programmed after a certain period when room light is no longer needed. In addition to the timer control and passive infrared, labor-savings and energy conservation are achieved using daylight sensors that respond to the brightness of their environment.

Custom Thermal Imagers

PhantomIR by ELCAN is a rugged lightweight infrared biocular system that uses the latest in low-power, compact, un-cooled thermal technology.

PhantomIR xr can recognize a man-sized moving target at greater than 2,000 meters. The PhantomIR xr is ideal for: military combat operations, border security, surveillance and targeting applications.

Unlike image intensification night-vision devices that only magnify existing light, thermal imaging cuts through the darkest night and easily separates heat-emitting targets from background clutter. It sees in total darkness, through smoke, dust and most fogs. It cannot be defeated by artificial light or adverse visible conditions. Despite its advanced technology, PhantomIR is surprisingly affordable for large-scale deployment.

ELCAN wins $180 million USD Marine contract to supply PhantomIR xr

Chronic Fatigue Treatment

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also known as CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immunodeficiency syndrome), is a condition that has become widespread in the United States . Viruses such as Epstein Barr, Cytomegalovirus, mononucleosis, and herpes have often been associated with chronic fatigue. Some people feel that massive immunization campaigns, which are designed to eradicate communicable diseases, have weakened the immune system in some individuals rather than strengthen it, making it easier for viruses to cause diseases. Other causes may be the fungus Candida albicans, chronic mercury poisoning from dental amalgam fillings, heavy metals (e.g., lead, arsenic, and cadmium) from the environment, anemia, hypoglycemia, hypothyroidism, and sleep problems. All of these conditions can stress the immune system and lower your resistance to disease.

Some symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome are fever, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, night sweats, intestinal problems, anxiety, depression, mood swings, sleep disturbances, memory loss, inability to concentrate, headaches, and muscle and joint pains. CFS is not always easy to diagnose correctly because its symptoms resemble flu and other viral symptoms. Officially, a patient is considered to have CFS if fatigue persists for six months and is accompanied by eleven other chronic or recurrent symptoms. If you have elevated viral antibodies then an underlying viral component is suspected. In this case, antibiotics will not help.
Recommendations for prevention and treatment

1. void processed foods (e.g., as white flour), refined foods (e.g., as white sugar), and stimulants such as coffee, tea, and tobacco as these can all depress your immune system.

2. Make an effort to increase your consumption of water. Attempt to drink eight glasses of purified or reverse osmosis water daily.

3. Ensure that your bowels move at least once daily by increasing your fiber consumption in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables. Oat bran and psyllium husk are also good sources of fiber. Coffee enemas can be very helpful here, as well as for stimulating liver detoxification via bile production.

4. Check your thyroid function by measuring your basal body temperature. This is done by placing a thermometer under your arm for 10 minutes before arising from bed on two consecutive days. For menstruating women, this is best done at the beginning of the menstrual cycle. The average basal body temperature should be greater than 97.8 degrees. If not, a trial of natural thyroid should be considered.

5. Consider an evaluation for free radical damage from environmental pollutants such as lead, aluminum, cadmium, and mercury. If elevated, heavy metal detoxification therapy is indicated.

6. Supplement with antioxidants such as vitamins A, C, E, Bioflavonoids, and Coenzyme Q10, B-vitamins, magnesium, free-form amino acids, thymus gland, and acidophilus. Consider also using Proteolytic enzymes, DMG, and vitamin B12 injections. Chlorophyll in tablet or liquid (such as barley or wheat grass) is also helpful.

7. Herbal preparations from burdock root, dandelion, echinacea, goldenseal and pau d’arco all promote healing. These can be made in teas and combined or alternated daily.

8. Homeopathic nosode preparations, such as those made from viruses themselves, are particularly helpful. However, these must be obtained by prescription from a homeopathic physician. Other homeopathic remedies known to be helpful in fatigue include Carbo Vegetabilis, Cocculus, Ferrum Phosphoricum, and Phosphoric Acidum. Combination remedies can also be helpful, especially if they contain the substance (e.g, virus) identified as the possible source of infection and/or fatigue. Isode therapy (e.g., preparations made from the patient themselves) can also be very beneficial here.

9. Take sublingual fermented lactobacillus three times daily for immune stimulation.

10. Gentle skin detoxification through a medical spa with steam sauna, infrared sauna, and/or contrast shower.

11. In severe cases, get intravenous solutions for better and more complete response. There should include either vitamin C or amino acids or combinations of both.

12. Intramuscular injections can be helpful for the delivery of energy medicines (e.g., B5, B12, AMP, NADH). These can be given 1-2 times weekly.

13. Subcutaneous energy injections can be administered daily and can include not only some of the products mentioned in #12 above, but homeopathic preparations as well.

Index to vendors/resellers

Acer
Altima,Altura Computers (defunct)
AMS
Aqualine (defunct)
ARM
AST
Astro Research
AT&ampT
Austin
BSI/Broadax
Canon
Chembook
Compaq
Dauphin Technology (defunct)
Dell
DFI
Discount Laptops
Dolch Computer Systems
Dual
EPS
Elite Computer Systems
Ergo Computing
FOSA Computers
Future Technologies
Gateway
Grid
Hewlett Packard
HyperData
IBM
Identity Systems
Impulse Computers
Itronix
Lightspeed Technology
Maximus Computers
MegaImage
Micon Computer
Micron/Zeos
MicroStar
Micro Express
Midwest Micro
MPC
NEC
Olivetti
PC Portable Manufacturer
ProStar
MicroStar
Polywell Computers
Radio Shack
Sager Midern
Samsung
Sceptre Technologies
Swan Technologies
Tandy
Texas Instruments
Toshiba
TwinHead
Unisys
Wedge Technologies
WinBook
Zeos

14.1" Rugged Laptop with Core Duo CPU JNB-1401

Processor: Intel Core Duo 1.66 GHz LV processor
Chipset: Intel 945GME, ICH7-M, 667 MHz FSB, 2M cache
Memory: 512MB or above, max. 1G+512M
Onboard Video: Intel GMA950
Display Size: 14.1" XGA (1024 x 768), Sunlight Readable (optional)
Network: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 a/b/g, 1 x GbE, 1 x RJ11
Storage: 80GB or above (SATA Interface)
Media Bay: DVD Combo, 2nd battery pack (optional)
KB/ MS: Waterproof membrane, Waterproof rubber backlight (optional) ;
Touch pad (capacitance type)
Audio: Azalia 32-bits audio digital controller, Speaker-out (2W x 2), 1 x
MIC-in, 1 x Line-out
I/O Interface: 1 x PCMCIA Type II, 1 x Express Card Type II, 4IN1
MS/XD/SD/MMC Card Reader, 2 x serial port, 3 x USB 2.0, 1 x External
VGA, 1 x IEEE 1394B (Mini), Docking port (POGO)
Security: Kensington lock, TCM 1.2 (optional), FingerPrint (USB I/F. for selection)
Power Supply: DC in, Adapter (90W, 100-240V, 50/60Hz), Li-Ion Smart
battery 7200mAh
Dimensions: 328mm x 272mm x 46mm
Weight: 4.25kg
Operating Temperature: -20°C ~55°C
Storage Temperature: -40°C ~70°C
Operating Humidity: 45%~95% RH, non-condensing

FastStone Image Viewer 3.8 Beta

FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. It supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF and DNG).

Mini Keyboard Model 9004 Full-Function & Touchpad

Electrone offers an extensive range of full-function mini keyboards available with assorted connectors, features and colors. The small footprint and full functionality of the Model 9004 Mini Keyboard makes it a popular choice in business as well as for personal use.
Only 10.25 inches wide (260mm)
5.75 inches in height (145mm)
1 inch depth at tallest point (26mm)
85/86 silent tactile keys with comfortable 17mm key spacing
12 function keys and an embedded numeric pad
Integral two button touchpad for mouse emulation
USB connection
Foreign language layouts available
FCC /CE certification
RoHS Compliant
Plastic protective keyskins available

Carlson Explorer

Carlson Explorer™ is a low cost, handheld computer with a customized keyboard that optimizes the performance of Carlson SurvCE data collection software. The Carlson Explorer is provided as a bundled option with the powerful Carlson SurvCE data collection softwar.
**Rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride battery or 6 AA alkaline batteries.
**Touch screen.
**Humidity: 5-95% Non-condensing.
**SDRAM: 64MB.
**Internal Compact Flash: 128MB.
**Compact flash card slot.

**320x240 QVGA-TFT color display RS232 serial communications port

Stress Management

Stress affects the mental and physical. It can stem from cold, heat, chemical pollution and noise pollution, or from nervous system responses to pain, emotional demands and more. These stress responses fire neurotransmitters that send signals from the brain to the body's motor centers. The results are seen in many illnesses, including hypertension. Managing stress requires nutrients to help the body maintain and replenish resources when needed most. A number of herbs, vitamins and other compounds help. You'll find them here, ready to combat and neutralize stress-related responses and the physical symptoms that arise from them.

BTC Wireless Multimedia Keyboard w/Trackball (Black/Gray)

Wireless freedom and multimedia functionality can be yours with this BTC Wireless Media Control keyboard. This BTC keyboard features a built-in 1000 dpi Laser Trackball with precision cursor movement and an MCE start button with one button to quickly launch Media Center PC functions. WIth the integrated trackball and built-in mouse pointer working on spreadsheets and surfing the Internet has never been easier! Work without wires at up to 30 feet with an ergonomic design that lets you work in comfort! Use the hot keys to access multimedia applications!
Features/Specifications:
BTC Wireless Media Control Keyboard with Trackball
General Features:
Wireless
Integrated mouse and remote
2.4 GHz RF Technology
Ergonomic design
2.4 GHz RF mini receiver with USB connector with range of up to 30 feet
16 Hot Keys for controlling MCE and multimedia functions
Built-in 1000 dpi Laser Trackball with precision cursor movement
MCE Start Button: one button to quickly launch Media Center PC functions
RoHS compliant
Certified for Windows Vista
Hot Keys:
Play
Pause
Stop
Rew
Fwd
Previous
Next
Live TV
Guide
DVD Menu
Volume +
Volume -
Mute
Back
More
Record
Regulatory Approvals:
FCC
CE
Package Includes:
BTC Wireless Media Control Keyboard with Trackball
Quick Installation Guide
USB Wireless Receiver
Four (4) AA batteries
Additional Information:
Notes:
Model: BTC 9039URF III
UPC: 7 53622 04703 7
EAN: 4 712364 932830
Hot Keys will only work with Windows Vista
Requirements:
Available USB port

Vista Codec Package 5.1.5

With Vista Codec Package installed you will be able to use any media player (limited only by the players capabilities) to play DVD's, movies and video clips of any format. Streaming video (real and quicktime) is supported in web browsers. Visit the homepage to get a 64bit Addon which enables xvid, divx and DVD playback in Vista's MediaCenter.Vista Codec Package does not contain a media player and it does not associate file-types. With this package installed you will be able to use any media player, limited only by the players' capabilities, to play all movies and video clips. Streaming video is supported in several formats in all popular web browsers. Users of VCP have the ability to choose what is installed and where to install it using the public redistributable. After installation you can select to remove specific portions without removing the entire package. You can also re-add the removed items at any time.

Magic DVD Copier 4.9.2 Beta/ Magic DVD Copier 4.9.1 - Final

Magic DVD Copier is a very easy and powerful DVD copy software, which can copy any DVD movie to blank DVD without any loss of quality, or compress a DVD9 movie to fit on a 4.7 GB DVD. You need only insert your DVD movie and a blank DVD then press Go, everything will happen automatically and complete within 20-60 minutes. You can then enjoy the new DVD on any PC or Home DVD Player. Magic DVD Copier can also copy DVD movies to hard drive without any loss of quality. You can then enjoy them anytime without DVD discs. * Copy DVD movie to blank DVD in 1:1 mode* Compress a DVD9 movie to a 4.7 GB blank DVD* Split a DVD9 movie to two 4.7 GB blank DVDs without any loss of quality

Forums

The town square of the wired age - with lively discussions going on at all hours, and on topics ranging from philosophy and politics to pets and people. Check out all the buzz with the most all-inclusive sites for finding forums and messageboards on the Net.
Google Groups - The complete A-Z list of Usenet discussion forums on every conceivable topic.
Yahoo Groups - Thousands of groups to join, or start a group of your own.
ezboard - Boasting the largest message board network with millions of members in thousands of forums, searchable by topic.
Boardserver - A huge list of community forums searchable by keyword or categories including arts and humanities, hobbies, computer and Internet, religion and culture, travel, and lots more.
Voyforums - Another extensive collection searchable by category including education, politics, science, health, culture, art and more.
Delphi Forums - A top site for any forum community and on every topic imaginable.
MSN Groups - Something for everyone with literally thousands of groups and discussions boards worldwide.
allForums - Popular posts on politics, news, humor, religion, science, entertainment and more.
CNET Community Forums Directory - Hundreds of discussions, ranging from computer troubleshooting to technical product help and how-tos.

the top 10 web products of the year

In 2008 we saw the Semantic Web gain traction, giving us plenty of choice when selecting the 10 best Semantic Web products of 2008.
This is the first in a series of posts we'll publish over December, listing our choices for the top web products of the year. Then at the end of December, we'll post a Top 100 list - which we'll be promoting over 2009 and opening up at some point for public voting. Without further ado, let's jump into the top 10 Semantic Web products of 2008.
Earlier this month we posted an update to 10 Semantic Web applications that we have been tracking for a year now. Some of those make this list, as well as some from our follow-up post 10 More Semantic Apps to Watch. We also have a couple of other products in this list, which for one reason or another didn't get mentioned in our watch-lists.
You may disagree with our selections, so do tell us in the comments what you think.
Note: the products listed below are in no particular order
Yahoo! SearchMonkey

In May this year Yahoo! launched an open developer platform for search called SearchMonkey. Yahoo hasn't had the happiest of years, but its willingness to innovate in search is to be commended. As we reported at the Web 2.0 Expo in April, SearchMonkey is a component of a major overhaul at Yahoo! across all of its properties to "rewire" for the social graph and data portability. SearchMonkey allows developers to build applications on top of Yahoo! search, including allowing site owners to share structured data with Yahoo!, using semantic markup (microformats, RDF), standardized XML feeds, APIs (OpenSearch or other web services), and page extraction.
We think this is the best use of Semantic Web by an Internet bigco this year. So for that reason SearchMonkey makes our top 10 list. Related: The Story of SearchMonkey.
Powerset (acquired by Microsoft in '08)
Powerset (see our initial coverage here and here) is a natural language search engine. It's fair to say that Powerset has had a great 2008, having been acquired by Microsoft in July this year.
At the time of the acquisition, Powerset said that it needed a bigger partner to expand its product beyond its current state of only searching Wikipedia - something we had speculated about when the rumors of the acquisition first appeared. In its own statement, Microsoft stressed how useful Powerset's technology will be for improving Microsoft's own search products and to "take Search to the next level." In our analysis of the deal, we noted that it was a "bold play requiring exact execution" by Microsoft.
Open Calais (Thomson Reuters)
At the end of 2007, ClearForest had been recently acquired by Reuters and at that point it had a Web Service and a Firefox extension. What a change a year brings! ClearForest went on to release Calais, a toolkit of products that enable users to incorporate semantic functionality within their blog, content management system, website or application.
Since launching the Open Calais API early this year, over 6,000 developers have registered with it and the service is doing more than 1 million transactions a day. Version 3.0 was released earlier this month and version 4 is expected by January 09.
Dapper MashupAds
In November we wrote about the recent improvement in Dapper MashupAds, a product we first spotted over a year ago. The idea is that publishers can tell Dapper: this is the place on my web page where the title of a movie will appear, now serve up a banner ad that's related to whatever movie this page happens to be about. That could be movies, books, travel destinations - anything. We remarked that the UI for this has grown much more sophisticated in the past year.
The company believes that its new ad network will provide monetary incentive for publishers to have their websites marked up semantically. We think this has plenty of promise, so it makes our year-end list.
Hakia
Hakia is a search engine focusing on natural language processing methods to try and deliver 'meaningful' search results. Hakia attempts to analyze the concept of a search query, in particular by doing sentence analysis. Over the past year Hakia has been busy extending its reach - licensing its proprietary OntoSem technology to other companies in March and announcing a Semantic API in June. It was also one of the first companies to utilize Yahoo! BOSS, by integrating their semantic parsing with the Yahoo! search index.
We think Hakia has made good progress getting its technology into the hands of third parties and making use of Yahoo's broader index, so for that reason it's among our top 10 for the year.

TripIt
Tripit is an app that manages your travel planning. With TripIt, you forward incoming bookings to plans@tripit.com and the system manages the rest.
Over the past year TripIt has continued to iterate on its feature set - introducing LinkedIn integration, better mobile functionality, more social networking features, and other goodies. In short, it's user experience continues to rock!
BooRah
BooRah is a restaurant review site that we first reviewed earlier this year and has come on in leaps and bounds over 2008. BooRah uses semantic analysis and natural language processing to aggregate reviews from food blogs. Because of this, BooRah can recognize praise and criticism in these reviews and then rates restaurants accordingly. BooRah also gathers reviews from Citysearch, Tripadvisor and other large review sites.
BooRah also announced last month the availability of an API that will allow other web sites and businesses to offer online reviews and ratings from BooRah to their customers. The API will surface most of BooRah's data about a given restaurant, including ratings, menus, discounts, and coupons.
BlueOrganizer (AdaptiveBlue)
Disclosure: AdaptiveBlue's founder Alex Iskold is a feature writer at RWW.
AdaptiveBlue are makers of the Firefox plugin, BlueOrganizer. As we wrote in January this year, the basic idea behind BlueOrganizer is that it gives you added information about webpages you visit and offers useful links based on the subject matter.
Over the past year the company has been working on a new product, called Glue. Launched last month, Glue is a more social networking oriented version of BlueOrganizer - it connects you to your friends based around things like books, music, movies, stars, artists, stocks, wine, restaurants, and more. We think the company has diversified smartly in 2008, by integrating social networking and mobile functionality into its products.
Zemanta
Zemanta is a blogging tool which harnesses semantic technology to add relevant content to your posts. While it didn't make either of our 'Semantic Apps to Watch' lists in November, a number of commenters pointed it out as something they use. In September we covered a major upgrade to Zemanta's service, allowing users to specify the sources they want to see in the suggestions list that Zemanta provides. Users can now incorporate their own social networks, RSS feeds, and photos into their blog posts. As we noted, this makes Zemanta a lot more appealing to established bloggers who are in less need of suggestions and more in need of automation.
Zemanta's API is also being used by startups, including semantic bookmarking service Faviki - which we mentioned in our second Watch-list. So all up, we think Zemanta has done enough this year to be included in our top 10 list.
UpTake
Semantic search startup UpTake (formerly Kango) aims to make the process of booking travel online easier. In our review in May, we explained that UpTake is a vertical search engine that has assembled what it says is the largest database of US hotels and activities - over 400,000 of them - from more than 1,000 different travel sites. Using a top-down approach, UpTake looks at its database of over 20 million reviews, opinions, and descriptions of hotels and activities in the US and semantically extracts information about those destinations.
And now please let us know in the comments what you think of our selections. Do you think we've picked the best 10 Semantic Web products of the year?

Your Business Data - Back It Up or Lose It

Is running your email backup one of those tasks on your to do list that keeps getting postponed until tomorrow? Does backing up your computer on a regular basis seem like more trouble than it is worth?
Computers are a mainstay of most modern businesses. Client contacts and financial records are easy to store and find on your office system. You may think of your computer as the most reliable assistant in the office, and you would be right. However, even the most secure and well designed systems can get viruses, succumb to power surges or just crash. It's a little too late to make a backup after your system loses all of your files!
"That won't happen to me" is how many of us think about a computer catastrophe that could wipe out all of our business information. But you don't need to have a computer crash to lose all of your files, folders, programs, and emails. You could lose them because of a natural disaster, power shortage, errors in transferring files to another computer, or a partial shutdown.
Do you have your business information insured?
Most smart business owners have insurance against financial loss. Even though you don't expect to need it, you take out a policy to protect your assets just in case a catastrophe occurs. Backing up your computer is the most affordable insurance a business owner can invest in. Just a few minutes of your time makes sure that in case of any disaster, your business can be up and running again because the data you need to operate was saved.
How much is your time worth?
How long would it take you to re-create that list of clients' phone numbers, addresses, actions, results that you keep on your PC? How long would it take you to re-create articles you've written, marketing sources you've been saving, your list of newsletters and subscribers? And how long would it take you to hunt for, find, and download all those ebooks, reports, and programs you downloaded before?
Some data you simply can't recreate
For example, when you lose your email folders, you can't re-create the content of those folders even if you had saved the email addresses. It's all gone. Think about all the financial information and tax records that are safely stored away on your computer. How hard would it be to gather all of that information again? Business names and contact lists, personal information about clients, pictures, phone numbers, deadline reminders ...
Is it starting to make sense why you should have it saved somewhere else? The extra few minutes it takes you to back-up your data is an investment worth a fortune because you simply cannot re-create or retrieve all files, folders, programs that you currently have on your computer.
What you need to backup your computer
Backing up your data (all files, folders, programs), means you'll need to save your data to a disk, CD or location other than your hard drive. For example, you can save your data to:
1) Zip disk - You'll need a zip drive.
2) CD or DVD - You'll need a CD or DVD burner.
3) External hard drive - These are less expensive now than they used to be. Compact flash drives are now available that can hold a few backups with room to spare.
4) Secure, Web-based file storage service - These are online services where you can save your data. The benefit here is that your data is stored in a physically remote place so floods and fire or other catastrophes in your office area won't affect them.
But the most important thing you'll need is a willingness to change your habits. Most people I know back up their data once per week, often on a Friday. If your business depends on the data you store, you may want to do a backup more often. Many Web site owners and newsletter publishers do it daily. Given all the marketing, coaching, newsletter lists and all the software I download, daily back-up makes more sense for me.
Backing up email folders
I don't back up my emails folders to a CD but prefer using a program to do that. There are many nifty little programs that work miracles with backing up email addresses and all email folders. The process is quick and easy ... and you'll be very happy to have the information saved if a disaster ocurrs.
Don't put it off!
Backing-up your files may seem like just another addition to your busy schedule. But remember that you've worked hard to build your client or newsletter list ... and your practice. Take just a few minutes each week to protect that investment.
About the Author...Joann Javons

BT-87-TP

iKey introduces the first Bluetooth®-compatible, wireless industrial keyboard with an integrated touchpad - the BT-87-TP. This fully-sealed keyboard meets NEMA 4X specifications, meaning it is resistant to dirt, dust, water, ice and corrosives. Built with an industrial silicone rubber keypad and a rugged ABS polycarbonate case, the BT-87-TP is submersible and easy to clean with disinfectants. The compact design and internal Bluetooth® module make the BT-87-TP highly portable. It is an ideal fit for mobile, material handling, food and beverage processing, medical, and other environments where rugged flexibility is a necessity. The BT-87-TP requires 2 AA batteries for power and does not require a USB dongle if your computer has an internal Bluetooth® radio.

Notepad++ 5.3 RC/ Notepad++ 5.2

Notepad++ is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment. It also gives the extra functionality to define a user's own language for the syntax folding and syntax highlighting. You can print your source code in color. It allows a user to edit the different document in the same time, and even to edit the same document synchronizely in 2 different views. It supports full drag and drop.The programming languages supported by Notepad++ are:ASP, Ada, ASCII art, Assembly, AutoIt, BAT, C, C#, C++, Caml, CSS, doxygen, FORTRAN, HTML, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, KiXtart, Lisp, Lua, makefile, Matlab, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, PHP, PostScript, Python, Ruby, Scheme, Unix Shell Script, Smalltalk, SQL, Tcl, TeX, Verilog, VHDL, VB/VBScript, XML

Download it here:

http://w17.easy-share.com/1701888805.html

Microsoft Confirms IE8 Can be Removed from Windows 7

Microsoft's Windows 7 development team yesterday confirmed that users will be able to remove Internet Explorer 8, as well as several other Microsoft applications, from Windows 7.
This appears to be a major step by the company in addressing the long standing anti-trust complaints of bundling their applications with Windows, and may account in part for the recent scaling back by the European Union in its monitoring of the software giant.
Following the recent findings by Chris Holmes and Bryant Zadegan that IE8 can be removed from Windows 7 build 7048, Jack Mayo, group program manager at Microsoft, confirmed that Windows 7 has expanded the number of Microsoft applications which can be turned off.
In a post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog Friday, Mayo explained: "In addition to the features that were already available to turn on or off in Windows Vista, we've added the following features to the list in Windows 7:"
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Center
Windows DVD Maker
Internet Explorer 8
Windows Search
Handwriting Recognition (through the Tablet PC Components option)
Windows Gadget Platform
Fax and Scan
XPS Viewer and Services (including the Virtual Print Driver)
Important to recognize is that while these applications can be turned off, meaning they are not loaded by the operating system or available for use, the files remain present on the hard disk in a staging area so that they can be easily turned back on again without the need to use installation media. This ability to turn applications on and off is available at both setup and post setup.
As we pointed out earlier this year, IE8 is definitely an important milestone, and this new policy of allowing their bundled applications to be turned off seems to be the right step by Microsoft in creating a more level playing field for third parties on the Windows platform

DivX Video Anytime, Anywhere

DivX® is a digital video format that offers a high-quality viewing experience on any device or platform — from your PC to your phone to your living room TV. Over 100 million devices that support DivX video have shipped worldwide from major manufactures, including DVD players, gaming consoles, mobile phones and more. Look for the DivX logo when you buy your next device to ensure that you can enjoy your videos anywhere you choose.

Download HD Video (DivX Plus™ format)

Aimersoft DVD Studio Pack 2.1.1.0

Aimersoft DVD Studio Pack is one of the best multimedia conversion tool that includes FOUR outstanding multimedia applications: Aimersoft DVD Ripper, Aimersoft Video Converter, Aimersoft DVD Creator and Aimersoft Audio Converter. It can perfectly help you rip DVD, convert all video and audio files and burn these files to DVD discs. This superb pack allow you to easily rip DVD to all common video and audio formats (MP4, AVI, MPG, MPEG, VOB, WMV, XviD, MOV, DAT, VOB, IFO, 3GP, 3GPP, ASF, FLV, WMA, M4A, MP3, AC3, WAV, limewire and YouTube etc.) and finish the conversion among them. So you can enjoy your favorite movie or music on iPod, Zune, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, Xbox 360, PS3, Archos, iRiver, Creative Zen, PMP, Pocket PC, PDA, Mobile Phone (Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, iPhone, Samsung, LG, Smart Phone, etc. ) MP4/MP3 Player and so on. Any application of the pack allow you to crop, trim and adjust the effect of movie, and you can burn your favorite movie to DVD video slideshows with fascinating transitions and resources to create a DVD menu of your own.

DVDFab Platinum 5.3.0.6 Beta

DVDFab Platinum is the most powerful and flexible DVD copying/burning software. With 8 copy modes, you can back up any DVD to DVDR in just a few clicks. DVDFab Platinum is brand new, is completely rewritten, is based on more than 6 years of DVD copy software development. DVDFab is simply the easiest way to copy a DVD movie. Just insert the movie and a blank DVD then press Start. Your entire movie - including menus, trailers and special features - is copied to a single DVD with just one click, and everything happens automatically. Backup your entire DVD - including menus, trailers, and special features - onto one or multiple discs. 1. 8 DVD to DVD copy modes available: Full Disc, Main Movie, Split, Customize, Customize Split, Clone, Merge and Write Data.2. Full Disc: All movies, menus and trailers, is copied to a DVD with just one click.3. Main Movie: Just copy the movie, with specific audio/subpicture.

simple social networking strategies to increase traffic to your site

One essential aspect of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is social marketing. In simple terms, social marketing is an approach that makes use of ‘philosophy’ to pay attention to the specific needs of the target. This is done by gathering people with common interests, making it possible to create an interactive community. Through website technology including forums, blogs, outbound and inbound links, and social networking sites (Myspace, Facebook, Digg, etc.), social marketing becomes a convenient way to increase company gains.
In order to start right out in integrating social marketing strategies with SEO, a plan must be developed first. Moreover, there should be detailed research regarding the target’s needs, most especially since the approach is customer-oriented. It may also be helpful to consult with firms specializing in Internet Marketing. These firms will provide invaluable information and insights on how different approaches work together in maximizing company results. Once you have a better understanding of the various strategies, you can now employ the ones suitable for your needs.

Social marketing involves creating a community where people with shared interests come together to state opinions and ask questions. This can be done by setting up forums or discussion boards on your website. The key here is to generate interaction among the members of your target audience. A vast majority of consumers do online research before making any purchases; forums are helpful in providing information regarding customer inquiries.
Also consider setting up a blog that contains relevant posts that discuss the services and products that your company offers. The information that you will provide may be very well appreciated by your readers. Place links to other websites and blogs that relate to your blog content. Social networking sites including Facebook, Myspace, Digg, and many others might also have useful and interesting content that you can link to. Feature and subscribe to appropriate RSS feeds, so that your readers have a reason to frequently visit your site.
Moreover, it is necessary to keep the forum and blog posts updated and fascinating for people to read. Also remember to use optimized keywords or phrases naturally in your content and titles. Do not let your online community become sedentary; encourage readers to engage in discussions and exchange of fresh ideas and opinions. This way, search engines are more likely to index your site’s content, thus, increasing traffic.With an effective plan and strategies in place, integrating SEO and social marketing is not a difficult task.

Online Auctions: A Scam or a Bargain?

Make Sure You Get What You Pay For .
Shoppers love a bargain and online auctions just might be the perfect place to find one... but are they safe?
Fraud at auctions exists. When shoppers are looking for a bargain, there will always be someone to take advantage. The good news is that you can make your auction shopping safe.
Last year, the week of Thanksgiving opened the holiday shopping season with a big green bang. Guess where the online shoppers were clicking their orders away? Nielsen//NetRatings reported that the auction sites at eBay, Amazon and Yahoo Shopping led the pack — eBay alone drew nearly 12 million unique visitors in that one week.
Not everyone was a satisfied customer. If you want to know about the safety of auction shopping, take a look at some staistics.
Jennifer Mulrean reported on CNBC that "For the first six months of 2003, auctions were the source of 94% of all Internet-related fraud complaints to the league, compared with 87% for the same period last year." Auctions are becoming safer, but auction scammers are getting better at their craft.
Mulrean added, "The total number of fraud complaints filed with NCL this year so far is 22,336. Of that number, 20,436 complaints indicate lost money totaling $8.9 million -- slightly more than the $7.2 million reported lost in the same period last year and on pace to beat the 2002 total of $14.6 million."
There's no reason to believe that the auction mania will die down anytime soon. Or that auctions will become safe for the uneducated shopper.
True, there are some bad apples at every auction site, but they can't seem to spoil the fun of getting a bargain.
To make sure your holiday - or everyday - shopping at online auctions is safe and rewarding there are a few simple things to keep in mind.
Before you start bidding on any items, do a search online to find out what the prices are like in retail outlets.
If the item is priced unbelievably low... be extremely careful. Unbelievable is probably exactly the right word to use.
Many auction shoppers get carried away and wind up bidding more than the item is worth. If the bidding gets too high, drop out.
Make sure that the person selling the item has a good reputation. Most online auction sites will let you see the sellers history and any complaints that have been made about the merchandise they delivered - or failed to deliver.
Get familiar with the policies of the auction - Amazon has guarantees to make sure you get refunds for bad deals, but many other online auctions leave it up to you to take precautions.
There are some good articles and sites to check before you start bidding.
Ten tips to avoid being scammed offers some advice from an online law encyclopedia. The US Federal Trade Commission also has a site to help you avoid problems - and to get help if something does go wrong.
Don't let the scary stories stop you from shopping at the auctions.
Millions of satisfied customers will tell you what a great experience it was. There are some incredible bargains and some collectibles that are impossible to find anywhere else. It can be fun and rewarding — as long as you know what to watch out for.
More to Know About Auction Scams around the Net:eBay Security Center

OEM keyboard with pointing device - 5K-OEM

The 5K-OEM combines a 113-key keyboard with HulaPoint IITM, an upgraded pointing device that offers improved sensitivity and increased durability, for a single, fully integrated unit.
Each kit is comprised of an industrial silicone keypad, switch matrix board, keyboard controller and cables.
Features:
AT/Serial, PS/2 and USB or configurations available
OEM Kit: PCB, rubber overlay, and cable
15.00" x 6.50" x 0.42" (w-h-d)

Software

Whether you use your computer for business or fun, you depend on software to be there when you need it. From word processing and database management to marketing, billing and accounting, the software in your computer keeps your business working.
Programs for games, fixing your photos and making cards or other printables for home and family are the hidden helpers that go to work when you turn on your PC. Educational software for kids and for adults can turn your computer into an online tutor to help with algebra or learning a foreign language.
Where do you get computer software?
Many computers come "loaded" with what most people will need when you buy the PC. That's fine, but what if you need something that isn't included in your system when you bring it home? You can go shopping in you local computer store or you can shop online for programs designed to do what you need to get done.
What software programs are available online?
The software applications you can find online cover the full range of anything you could ask from your computer... and probably more than you will ever need. You can find fully developed, downloadable "boxed sets" of the same software that the stores stock or you can look at "open source" programs that geeks have been working on for years.
Prices vary and so does the ability of the software product to deliver on what it promises. You need to do a little research before you start to download any product just to find out if it will deliver the functions you need.
All computer software programs are not equal
There are plenty of sites online that offer software. The problem is finding out which are the programs you want... and which ones will have you swearing, crying and wishing you'd backed up everything before you started downloading your new tool.
Learn the difference between legal, licensed, freeware, shareware, trial and demo versions of software packages, OEM copies and counterfeit or illegal copies. Understand the benefits and liabilities of each of these forms of software.
Find the best matching software products for your business, educational and personal use, together with the latest news and reviews, plus the best sites for downloading freeware and shareware
...and always, always, always...backup before you start to install any new program!

How Exactly Does Ecommerce Work?

This has to be the most-frequently asked question I receive from 'newbie' clients. They know people are buying online and they know they have to accept credit cards if they want to stand a chance in all the net-based competition, but beyond that realization, most are clueless as to how it all works.
I can't blame them, really. It's a confusing online world out there and a lot of people who are trying to tell them how it works are really just trying to sell them their own solution. It's kinda hard to trust the validity of what they say when profit is a huge motivating force behind their persuasive suggestions.
And to be sure, there is profit in this Ecommerce game!
Money is to be made at many steps along the Ecommerce path.
With that in mind, let's take a walk along the path to Ecommerce, and take a look at the signs--or components--that are necessary to take part in the Ecommerce excitement and potential profits.
1. The Merchant Account:
This really is your first step towards Ecommerce, unless you have chosen to go through a payment facility and are willing to give up a rather large portion of your sales in fees. The up-front costs of a merchant account can be hefty for a small business, but the long-term savings can be substantial.
This is especially true if you are selling big ticket items. For instance, on the sale of a $300 product/service through a payment facility you could pay between $20-$45 dollars or more in fees. With your own merchant account it will probably cost you about $9. With the typical fees and equipment for a merchant account startup costing about$1,500, you can recoup that cost rather quickly.
A merchant account comes with a merchant identification number. That is about all it gets you. In order to process transactions you need either a terminal (the little box that you swipe your credit card through at retail outlets) or software that runs on your PC and will dial up the merchant via your modem, and then process the transaction and deposit the money into your bank account.
2. The Shopping Cart:
If you are selling just one or two items on your site you won't have much need for a shopping cart. A site with a variety of products should use the shopping cart system because it's the easiest way for your customers to shop. The easier it is to shop, the more they will spend, which is exactly the psychology supermarkets use, and exactly how shoppers are similar whether in a supermarket or scanning through your website. And the nice thing about electronic shopping carts is that the wheels never go square, and you don't have to send a clerk out after the store closes to round up all the carts that have been left scattered around the neighborhood. So shopping carts are good. But how will they work with your merchant account and the all-important ordering process?
If the orders placed on your site are to be processed with the customer's credit card as a sale through your PC or swipe/terminal, then there doesn't have to be any compatibility between your cart and your merchant account. The two will work completely independently, each doing their part of the job.
If, on the other hand, you would like all of your incoming orders to be automatically processed for you as the customer hits the submit button, you will need what is called "real time processing."
3. Real-Time Processing - Almost every website company I talk to would like to have their orders processed for them (the vision of the owner of a website company turning on the PC and then stretching out in a hammock, watching the orders get processed on the screen, comes to mind). However, most web company people, upon learning the cost involved, take my advice to wait until they have a steady flow of orders coming in before they use real-time processing. If you're on a tight budget the extra fees involved in real-time processing might be better used to aggressively advertise and drive customer traffic to your site. Processing a few orders per day doesn't take very long and until you find it to be more time-consuming to process the orders yourself than you like, you are probably better off processing suchorders manually.
If you are starting with a healthy budget and an aggressive promotion plan you will probably be better off implementing real-time processing right from the start. Changing order-processing methods can sometimes result in system hiccups and you don't want anything to slow down your momentum once you've started. You'll also save money, not having to set up your ordering system twice.
4. Web Hosting - The web host who is hosting your site can sometimes make a difference in how compatible your entire site and ordering system are with each other. I say "sometimes" because for those of us not using real-time processing, it doesn't matter who your host is or where your merchant account is located. They are independent of each other. Orders arrive and you process them. No interaction between the two is needed.
Problems can arise when you bring a shopping cart AND real-time processing into the picture. A shopping cart alone won't cause problems but the cart you choose to use must be compatible with your web host. Some carts are designed to run on certain types of servers, so when choosing one be cautious to make absolutely sure you can use it with your current host. Otherwise you had better be prepared to find a new one.
If you want a shopping cart AND real-time processing the three (cart, processing, and host) must work together well. Your shopping cart must be compatible with your host and the cart must be compatible with your payment processor. With all the different shopping carts, hosts and payment facilities out there, putting together the right team can be a real challenge. This is especially true for the newbie whodoesn't understand how it all works and how it all has to work together, or understands imperfectly but thinks he or she has it all under control when the decisions are finally made.
One Stop Shops -
The easiest way to find a compatible solution is to choose a provider who offers all you need under one roof. This is what I have done by partnering with Virtualis Systems. I am able to offer a great hosting solution along with a compatible shopping cart that works with almost any real time processor. I have even taken this a step further by partnering with a rock-solid merchant account provider, E-Commerce Exchange. Now I don't want to force MY "solution of choice" on you in this article so I have set up an autoresponder with details on the Ecommerce solution I recommend to all my clients. Please email our autoresponder at ecommerce@lrsmarketing.com for details.
Your Website Designer:
Asking your website designer to recommend a compatible solution is also a good idea. Most likely, he or she has successfully set up shopping carts and payment systems that have worked together for other clients and with that experience can confidently recommend one that will be right for your specific needs. There is also the added benefit that your designer is comfortable and familiar with the cartand payment processing configuration. This will result in less time spent setting up your site, thus saving you money in design costs.
Who to Choose
Choosing the right person for this task is perhaps the most important decision you can make (in Ecommerce, that is. Choosing a dentist, a pet, and which TV show to watch also rank high in importance). Nobody is an expert in all areas of Ecommerce because there are so many variables, depending on which configurations of hosts, carts, and merchants you choose. Find someone with whom you can talk to and who will listen to YOUR needs with understanding. A web designer who has created sites selling one product through mail order is NOT the best person to go to for Ecommerce advice. Just like a web designer trying to create a site that will sell and not just look good, with no marketing experience, a designer who doesn't know Ecommerce is going to be hard-pressed to juggle all the components that must fit together seamlessly and attractively to construct a truly effective Ecommerce site.
The Most Common Mistakes
I've had clients come to me who have been provided a shopping cart by their web host but who then have purchased another cart, not realizing they already have one. They've set themselves up with real time processing and then purchased a terminal even though they will never swipe one card. They've had SSL enabled on their web host server even though it's provided at their payment gateway. I have been on the sympathetic end of many, many more sad tales from earnest folks who have told me their own personal accounts of throwing hard-earned money away on these kinds of mistakes.
Why? Cutting through all the technical jargon, it's all because they simply didn't understand how each component can, should, and must work in conjunction with one another.
Ecommerce can appear simple (well, almost) once you understand how all the components work together. A merchant account allows you to accept credit cards, your web host shows your website to the world, your shopping cart helps your customers order easily and real-time processing processes the orders in real-time and approved transactions are credited to your merchant account. All are independent components but they all function together to make Ecommerce work. Find a designer or webmaster who can bring all these elements together on your site & watch Ecommerce work for you.
About the Author...Lisa Schmeckpeper

Common Cold

Anyone can get a cold. In fact, most people catch cold at least once or twice per year, and children may get a cold as many as 8 to 10 times a year.
Most colds are caused by airborne viruses known as rhinoviruses. Colds are contagious and can be spread rather easily. Symptoms usually appear 2 to 3 days after infection.
How to avoid colds
Colds are transmitted when a person inhales airborne particles that are dispersed when an infected person coughs or sneezes. A cold can also be transmitted by touching infected surfaces and then touching your face around the mouth or nose.
A weakened immune system may bring on symptoms, but contrary to popular belief going outside unprotected in cold weather is not a direct cause of the common cold.
Because colds are caused by an airborne virus, they are usually spread quickly and easily through households, schools and the workplace.
Avoiding contact with those who are sick is the best method of prevention. You can also take steps to prevent the spread of colds by washing your hands, keeping surfaces clean, and covering your nose and mouth when you sneeze and cough.
Bolstering the immune system during cold season can reduce the chance of catching a cold or flu. A balanced diet that incudes plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, increased intake of water or fruit juices, as well as supplements such as Vitamin C, echinacea and zinc can all help to ward off symptoms or reduce their severity if a cold does strike. Getting plenty of rest and avoiding stress also helps.
In addition, some studies show that cold viruses prefer warm, dry, indoor air during the winter months, so keeping a window open to let fresh air in, or using a room air humidifier may also decrease risk.
Cold symptoms
Symptoms of a cold usually include sneezing, coughing, runny and/or stuffy nose, sore throat. A cold may be accompanied by a fever and/or headache. A cold can also cause fatigue, muscle aches and make a person feel generally miserable, and may last anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks.
Cold comfort
There is no cure for the common cold which usually resolves on its own within 7 to 10 days, sometimes sooner. Over-the-counter pain relievers can help alleviate muscle aches and fever. Soup (especially chicken soup), hot tea or throat lozenges can soothe a sore irritated throat, and a decongestant can ease the discomfort of a stuffy nose.
It is wise to see a physician if symptoms do not improve or seem to get worse. The common cold could lead to other conditions such as strep throat, bronchitis, sinusitis or even pneumonia.
More information about cold prevention and remedies around the Web:
Cold remedies: What works, what doesn't, what can't hurt - Mayo Clinic guide to recognized medications, foods, and vitamin supplements including a discussion on doubtful remedies.
Out of Sick Days? Avoiding the Office Cold - Ways to prevent catching a cold at the workplace with advice on the germiest places and how to disinfect them.
Avoiding the Airplane Cold - Independent Traveler guide to causes and prevention.
Herbal remedies for cold - An extensive list of recommended teas, herbs, along with remedies from the kitchen cabinet, with recommended dosages.

This information is intended as reference and not as medical advice. All treatment decisions should be made by medical professionals.

The Secret To Building A Profitable Website

Whether you plan to start your Website to add a bit of extra income or to become a multimillionaire, when you put a lot of effort into a project you want the best returns.
The Web is the newest gold rush and like the prospectors of old, there are plenty of people who are making a fortune in online business. Everyone wants to get in on the windfall profits, but most wind up a bit poorer for their venture into the online commerce world. What's the secret to the sites that actually can claim an amazing success?
The reality is that an successful online business is a combination of luck and work. You've probably heard the old saying, "Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." That's the formula for making a good income from your web site. Millions of sites go live every day and only a few realize that it's a business. Online or off, running a profitable business is hard work.
Do Your ResearchThe Internet is a great big library. You don't have to actually sell anything to make a good income online. Many of the most successful sites are places where the only thing offered is good advice and it's given away for free. The sites make a good income from showing visitors ads that feature goods and service that others are selling.
Don't think that success is as easy as buying a domain name, putting up a site and running ads. Before you start, give some thought to the things you like to do.
Are you great in the kitchen? Think about starting a site that shares your cooking tips and recipes. Add a new tip or recipe every day whether anyone is coming to read them or not. Add a couple of links to sites that you like in every article.
Do you have kids? What about a spot online where parents can come for tips on kid's activities? Planning birthday parties and play dates takes an endless source of ideas - and you can help with that. Tips for getting kids to go to bed, eat their veggies or stop fighting with each other are great - even if they don't work so well for you. Look at how successful the TV show about Super Nanny is. Parent's are looking for good advice. Put up one small idea every day with links to sites that offer more information and watch as your advice starts to grow a following.
Is your lawn the picture of well groomed care? Do you think about it at least once a day? Planning the winter care, the best grass seeds, weed killers, fertilizer, water, pests... all of these are simple tips that anyone who has a lawn will be glad to read. Link to a few articles on each topic to add "expert" standing to your ideas and you'll earn the gratitude of countless homeowners.
This works for gardeners too. If you are into vegetable gardening and you preserve your own foods, you can combine the gardening and cooking recipes into a fantastic resource.
Is music your salvation? Make that the theme of your site. You can add a song a day - review it, add some info about the artist, tell people why it's good and where they can buy, dowload or listen to it. Link to a few other places that add more information and you'll see music lovers coming in to find out what you said today.
Are you into partying? How about a site based on what to wear, where to go and what to watch out for when you go clubbing. A daily dose of hot dances, music, fashions and insider advice is easy to put together. These are your strong points -- share them with the world. Add links to other sites that you find helpful and you've created a monster resource.
Get the idea? Start with what you know and love to talk about. Add one small piece of information every day. Add links to make your resource the best place to find out everything on your topic. Keep your site simple. Make it easy for your visitors to find things. Don't add tons of flashing lights and dancing graphics. Just fill it with one page a day, every day, and when you have hundreds of pages of great advice, you'll be the 'go to' site for your topic. The more good content you have, the more the search engines will feature your site and the more other sites will add your link to their vistors an extra resource.
When it gets to be easy to add a page a day... think about the next topic. You can do your simple one page a day on as many sites as you can handle. But always remember, it's like brushing your teeth. If you don't do it every day, your site will not stay healthy!
Start On A Free Site
If you've never run a site before. Start off easy. Just do a search for free web site hosting and find a place to set up your site that won't involve spending any money. It will take a few weeks of playing with your site before you have enough content and a good enough design to draw paying customers. While you get started, keep your expenses down. If you use a free site, all it costs is the time it takes you to add your daily article and find a few good links. Search engines don't usually list sites that are hosted on free servers, so once you have a good idea of what you are doing, go look for your own domain.
What's the Domain

The domain is the name of your site. In www.google.com, google.com is the domain name. In www.chiff.com, chiff.com is the domain name. In www.you-best-kept secret-to-success-on-the-net.com...well you see the pattern.
Keep the domain name you choose simple. In the last example, it will take forever for someone to type in your name to visit your site...if they even remember what it was. Use hyphens as little as possible. Try to keep your domain name to one word or two separated by a hyphen.
Make sure that your domain name reflects the subject. A name like mary-lou is cute, but it doesn't tell anyone looking for advice on lawns that they can find it. Something like perfect-lawn or beautiful-lawn is much more descriptive. This is important to the success of your site.
Stick to .com endings...that's what everyone looks for and if there is a .com with your name already live, you don't want to make your site an advertisement for them! If the name you really want is already taken, don't use the .net, .info or any other extentions. Just think of another name that is available. Look around for domain registrars. You can buy a domain name for under $10 for the year.
Make sure that you own the domain. Some of the inexpensive domain registration sites make up their money by charging you to host your site and if you don't like the service, you can get stuck paying hefty fees to get your own domain released to your so you can find another host. Read the fine print. Since you're in this for the long run, it's a good idea to buy the domain for at least three years - you may even want to pay for a ten year lock on the name. You'd hate to start doing well and find that you've skipped reregistering the domain --- and someone else has bought your name!
Hosting Is Important
Once you get your own domain, you'll need to find someone reliable to serve it to the world. The folks who maintain your site on their server are called your hosts. Most web site owners will start out with one host and if they have problems with the service shop around for another one. You can check forums for web masters to see what others have to say. Watch out for salespeople posing as webmasters to drive traffic to hosting services that pay for the referrals. They don't always provide the most objective information.
Search Engines Bring Visitors
That's true and you may see plenty of advice on lots of ways to get to the top of the heap fast. take most of the advice with a grain of salt... You are building a good resource that will have all of the elements that the search engines are looking for. You will provide lots of content, good solid links to reputable sites and a site that is updated frequently. You will need to learn about keywords and meta tags, but there are plenty of places online to give you quick tutorials on those. If you've locked your domain for 3 years or more, it will help with search engine rankings. A good, descriptive domain name also helps. When you write your articles, save the files with the same idea. An article about winter lawn care could be named winter-lawn-care.htm. A recipe for canned tomatoes might be called canned-tomato-recipe.htm. DOn't go crazy with the hyphens.Keep the file names to two or three words at the most.
If you're talking about kid's bedtimes make sure you use the keyword phrases "kid's bedtimes," "children's bedtimes, "putting the kid's to bed" and other key phrases often enough to let the search engines know that your article is about bedtime -- but not often enough to make your article sound wierd. Use the phrase in the title and at most twice in each paragraph once if it's a short paragraph. Make sure your first and last sentence has some variation of your keyword phrase in it.
Put Ads On Your Site
Go to the Google Adsense program once you get your own domain name and have a bit of content. It's easy to sign up and easy to add to your site. Don't make the ads the focus of your site - it's your content that people are coming to see. Welcoming visitors with ads instead of a good article will turn off your visitors and cost you the long term health of your site. Make you visitors feel happy to have found you and they'll come back often and tell their friends about your pages.
Don't expect to make a million immediately. It will take a while, maybe even a year or two, before the money gets serious.
If you stay with it, you'll be one of those overnight success stories...
Then you can write an e-book to let everyone know how easy it was to make your fortune overnight!
About the Author...The Chiff.com Editorial Team

What People Search For - Most Popular Keywords

Millions of searches are conducted each day on popular search engines by people all around the world. What are they looking for? A number of major search engines provide a way to glimpse into the web's query stream to discover the most popular search keywords or topics. These are:
AOL Hot Searches: Top current queries, or see those in the last hour, last day and within particular categories.
Ask IQ: See top searches at Ask.
Dogpile SearchSpy: Choose to see either a filtered or non-filtered sample of top, real-time search terms from this popular meta search service. Sister site MetaCrawler offers a similar MetaCrawler MetaSpy service.
Google Trends: Allows you to tap into Google's database of searches, to determine what's popular. View the volume of queries over time, by city, regions, languages and so on. Compare multiple terms, as well. See our review: Google Trends: Peer Into Google's Database Of Searches.
Google Zeitgeist: What people are searching for at Google and its associated specialty services in a variety of categories. There are versions for various countries, as well.
Lycos 50: Long-standing service showing top searches at Lycos each week.
MSN Search Insider: Top 200 queries on MSN Search (annoyingly in random order), top "movers" in TV, sports and music, and a "duels" feature pitting top queries in a race against each other.
Yahoo Buzz Index: Shows you what's hot and what's not in terms of search topics at Yahoo.

DirectX 10

One of the most exciting developments in Windows Vista is the groundbreaking graphics technology. Many of the newest Windows games will take full advantage of the next-generation graphics technology in Windows Vista called DirectX® 10. DirectX® 10 will provide an incredibly detailed experience for gamers of every type, and will enable game creators to increase a game's level of realism, enhancing details and complexity in gaming worlds, apply effects like dynamic lighting and weather, and much more.

Corel Video Studio Pro X2 v12.0.98.0

Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 is an all-in-one video-editing software for creating high-quality HD and standard-definition movies, slide shows and DVDs. Edit video or photos quickly and easily using the Movie Wizard, or take full control with hands-on creative tools. Even paint, write or draw on your video. Burn your movies on DVDs, or high-definition AVCHD and Blu-ray discs. Share on PSP, iPod or iPhone, upload directly to YouTube. Watch your movies on set-top players or with the included Corel WinDVD.VideoStudio is easy-to-use video editing and disc authoring software for creating professional-looking videos and slide shows. Produce complete movies with the time-saving Movie Wizard or use easy editing tools. Share your creation in any format from DVD to mobile phones to the latest high-definition home theater systems. Even upload directly to YouTube to let the whole world in on the fun

Can 'Fellow African' Barack Obama tempt Libya's Colonel Gaddafi in from the cold?

For a start, their dark glasses, smart suits and slicked-back hair made them somewhat hard to distinguish from the secret police loitering at the airport. And despite their boasts of a new official policy of "openness", some things remained clearly off-limits to prying eyes.
"Stop filming!" barked a minder, as the heavily-guarded residence of their boss, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, loomed into view during an official drive around town. "OK you can start again," he said, as it retreated into the distance.
Welcome to Libya in 2009, where, nearly four decades after he first seized power, Col Gaddafi is yet again re-inventing himself. Having variously donned the roles of revolutionary leader, state sponsor of terrorism and saviour of Africa over the years, the man once dubbed "Mad Dog" by Ronald Reagan is now eager to don a new guise: friend and ally of US president Barack Obama, whose half-Kenyan ancestry marks him out - in the colonel's view, anyway - as a fellow African leader.
Col Gaddafi took over as the chairman of the African Union a month ago.
In theory, the colonel's good intentions are a chance for Libya to end its international isolation for good, bringing in much-needed human rights reform and foreign investment, and providing an example for other pariah states, like Syria, Iran and North Korea. And last month, as the foreign ministry issued The Sunday Telegraph with a rare press visa, officials insisted that the era of secrecy was over. "You can go where you like and report anything," a Libyan diplomat promised.
Old habits die hard, however. The foreign ministry minders were unfailingly polite and cheerful, but straying from their official itinerary proved all but impossible. And while portraits of Col Gaddafi - known simply as The Leader, or sometimes as Brother Gaddafi – are everywhere, asking questions about the Leader still produced a nervous reaction - even from seemingly loyal citizens. "He brought us freedom," said Osama Sharif, an English-speaking civil servant, who boasted that Libya had a "better form of democracy than you do in the West." But asked to translate the opinions of passers-by to see if they agreed, his confidence vanished. "Do you have permission?" he asked, before quickly disappearing. Likewise, a bank employee abruptly ended his otherwise cheerful account of life when the colonel's name came up. It was, he muttered, a "dangerous" subject for discussion. As Western diplomat based in Tripoli later put it: "There are still serious limits to freedom of speech and political activism here, and threats to the regime are dealt with severely."
Libya's latest faltering overtures to the outside world are part of a long, slow diplomatic thaw that started back in 2003, when Col Gaddafi, having seen the fate of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, gave up his secret nuclear programme and handed information to the West about al-Qaeda, which likewise opposed his dictatorial regime. Having previously devoted himself to supporting armed revolutionary movements - including the IRA and the PLO - he also shifted to the more peaceful cause of African development, channelling money for aid projects for Libya's poorer neighbours. Today, billboards in Tripoli depict adoring groups of black children looking up at him gratefully.
Last year, in another major gesture of goodwill, Libya paid $1.5 billion in compensation to the families of the 270 people who died in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which led to the reopening of the US Embassy three months ago. It had been shut since the mid 1980s, when America bombed Tripoli and killed Col Gaddafi's adopted daughter.
"The fact that they have returned to the family of nations is good," said Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the British victims of the bombing. "It is good for the people of Libya, and it reduces the chance of their government ever going back to supporting terrorism."
The showpiece of last week's visit, however, was the annual "people's congresses", Col Gaddafi's own version of democracy. In hundreds of committees across the country, thousands of citizens gather to debate the future of the country, although the Leader always sets the topics and terms for debate, giving them little real power. This year they are talking about his latest big idea – a bizarre plan to virtually abolish all government ministries and instead distribute the proceeds of Libya's £24 billion oil revenues direct to its six million people.
Many congress-goers back the move, which would, in theory, simply hand thousands of dollars directly to families to pay for their own healthcare and education. At a meeting in the dusty town of Zuara, on the Tunisian border, congresswoman Aysha Muftar's only question was why it hadn't been done already.
"There are people becoming richer and richer today, but I am a simple woman and I am not getting my share of the wealth," she declared. "This project should not be delayed."
Whether the Leader will definitely implement the plan, however, nobody knows. Much as Libya has been stifled by centralised bureaucracy over the decades, removing it at a stroke would cause chaos. Many suspect that the plan is simply a way of frightening corrupt and incompetent officials, who are blamed for squandering much of the nation's oil wealth. Although literacy rates are high and there is a good health service by African standards, much of Tripoli consists of shabby, hulking apartment blocks, with potholed streets where groups of jobless young men loiter. The efficiency of Col Gaddafi's intelligence services means that public opposition to his regime has been virtually non-existent for the last few decades, but there is satellite television, on which younger Libyans see the success of other Arab capitals, such as Dubai, with its smart office blocks and skyscrapers. In private at least, they are starting to ask why they do not enjoy the same kind of wealth.
Among those who might one day be expected to provide the answer is the Leader's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was educated at the London School of Economics and has been seen as the heir-apparent among Col Gaddafi's six sons. He has carved out a reputation as an environmentalist and political moderniser, raising hopes that he could guide Libya to full normality should his father, now 66, ever retire. In recent months, however, he has disappeared from public view, raising fears that Col Gaddafi has decided to slow down on reform, or changed his mind on it altogether.
It is similarly unclear just whether the Libyan leader will remain keen on Mr Obama. One reason that Col Gaddafi's hopes are so high for the new US leader is that in the 1988 version of his famous Green Book - his answer to Chairman Mao's Little Red Book - he predicted that "Black people will prevail in the world." But when Israel attacked Hamas in January, Col Gaddafi rounded on the then President-elect for failing to intervene, declaring in typically eccentric style: "We fear that Obama will feel that, because he is black with an inferiority complex, this will make him behave worse than the whites."
The uncertainty is reciprocated by Washington. Mr Obama, for all his enthusiasm for improving relations with the Muslim world after the Bush years, is believed to be wary about cosying up too closely to the Libyan regime, given its continued poor record on human rights and torture. And with the strategic threat from nuclear programmes and terrorism now largely gone, there is also little pressing need to. "Human rights issues will always be at the forefront of our foreign policy," said a US government spokesman, asked about policy towards Libya.
On the streets of Tripoli, though, there is predictably little room for the idea of anyone - even Barack Obama - turning down an offer from the Leader. "Our religion tells us to forgive and forget," said Said Abu Saufan, 62, whose backstreet shop is lined from floor to ceiling with Col Gaddafi portraits. "We are just glad those days are over. We want to be friends with the American people."