People Continue To Object To Facebook Beacon Settlement, Despite Zuckerberg's Claims That They Don't Care About Privacy

                

In February of 2008 Facebook member Ginger McCall added Season 5 of the TV show "X-Files" to the roster of discs she wanted to rent from Blockbuster.



The Maryland resident knew of Facebook's Beacon program, which told Facebook members about their friends' activity at retail sites, but says she thought she had disabled the feature. Nonetheless, by the afternoon of Feb. 5, a friend had noted the activity on McCall's wall: "I see that you have added the X-Files, Season 5, to your Blockbuster queue," the friend wrote, according to new court papers.



Now McCall is objecting to the proposed settlement of a privacy lawsuit stemming from the Beacon program. McCall works as an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which filed separate criticisms of the settlement, but she is opposing the deal as an individual consumer.



The proposed resolution calls on Facebook to permanently shut down Beacon and contribute $9.5 million to a settlement fund. Around two-thirds of that sum will be used to launch a new privacy foundation, while the remainder will go toward attorneys' fees.



McCall alleges that this deal falls short for several reasons, including that Facebook will have too much control over the foundation. "Under the proposed settlement, the only 'relief' for the class would be a privacy foundation established by Facebook -- an organization whose founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, believes that people no longer care about personal privacy," she argues, referring to Zuckerberg's recent justification for new privacy settings that make a host of information available by default.



The new foundation's initial co-presidents will be Facebook's director of public policy Tim Sparapani and Berkeley Center for Law & Technology's Chris Jay Hoofnagle. Journalist and Internet safety advocate Larry Magid will serve as chief financial officer and secretary.



McCall argues that the foundation is unnecessary because other organizations already advocate for online privacy and because Facebook "retains unwarranted influence" over it.



A Facebook spokesperson said last week that the new foundation "will proactively improve the experience of all Internet users."



McCall also objects to the potential settlement because it does not provide monetary compensation for Facebook members other than the 19 named in the original complaint (who are slated to receive between $1,000 and $15,000 each). McCall says in her motion papers that the program shared information about her Blockbuster queue on at least two occasions. In addition to the February incident, Facebook in January of 2008 allegedly informed her friends that the movie "Untraceable" had been added to her queue.



A federal law, the Video Privacy Protection Act, prohibits companies from sharing information about movie rentals and provides for damages of $2,500 per violation.



"The absence of any monetary relief for class members is telling evidence that the settlement is unfair, unreasonable, and inadequate," she argues in papers filed on her behalf by Philip Friedman, the law firm Chavez & Gertler, and the Public Citizen Litigation Group. (Public Citizen is representing MediaPost in an unrelated matter.)



A separate group of Texas consumers said last year that they objected to the settlement and unsuccessfully moved to intervene in the lawsuit. Lawyers representing those consumers had independently sued Blockbuster for participating in the program.



Facebook launched the Beacon program in November of 2007 on an opt-out basis. Several weeks later, the company changed the program to opt-in and also introduced a feature to allow members to permanently turn Beacon off.



The attorneys who negotiated the potential settlement are expected to file papers defending it by the end of next week.   By Wendy Davis from: On line Media
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Big News- Bing and Yahoo made a Deal

  After much talk and a fair deal of decision making, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft signed a deal with Yahoo’s Carol Bartz: A deal that will evolve Microsoft into the world’s 2nd largest search company and turn Yahoo into a media powered advertising broker. Yahoo is all set to hand over searching to Microsoft, who will in turn pay them a share of future revenue.

Here is the deal broken-down and analyzed by the key players:

Microsoft

What it obtains is far greater search market share in a single day than it could have hoped to gain from organic Bing growth irrespective of how much people may like it. The availability of Yahoo’s search technology to Microsoft will enable them to choose what it might want to make use of on Bing.

Microsoft was able to avoid having to make an upfront payment in order to take control of Yahoo search, as had been rumored for months and hinted at by Bartz herself: She claimed that “boatloads of money” would be required to lure Yahoo search away from the company.
However, the downside of this deal for Microsoft are that it may have to bare the loss of relationships with advertisers on search ads, although it preserves its display ad sales operation at least for the time being. Apart from this it seems that Microsoft has emerged from this deal rather clean.
What’s next? Intense competition with Google. This only means that the 2 superpowers have even more reason to detest each other
Yahoo
For an outsourced search engine, Yahoo is paying below market rate. It will receive 88 percent of future search revenue from Microsoft- A better ongoing deal than expected as per IDC. It also receives a guaranteed amount of search revenue for one and a half year and gets to market all the search ads on both Yahoo and Microsoft properties. Plus, it gets to save money- One of the main priorities for Bartz and new Yahoo CFO Tim Morse. The company estimated a $200 million saving in capital expenditures and see an overall benefit of $500 million in operating income
But what Yahoo loses is the ability to control its own fate when it comes to search which still is the most profitable division of online advertising by a large margin. Yahoo’s search revenue is now dependent on the performance of Bing for a decade which is considered an eternity in the Internet world! Moreover, 88 percent of something is not 100 percent of something.
What the future holds is probably another reorganization and a large number of departures as talented search engineers view their options among Microsoft, Google, Ask.com, and start-ups.

More attractive earning calls are expected where Bartz can pin point to the cost savings from the deal, and the formation of a long-term plan for the company that avoids dropping businesses.
Google
What Google gets is time. This deal is scheduled to take months, probably even years, to complete and it will be a complicated process of integration. It is highly likely that Google sales representatives called and reminded all of their major clients of the uncertainty that shadows this integration process and the fact that their ad money may be better invested with the more stable property. Google also gets to counter some of the antitrust scrutiny that has been sent its way by detecting and stating that a combined Yahoo-Microsoft search operation has a fair share of the market
On the other hand, it forfeits the ability to play Yahoo and Microsoft search off each other. The fractured competition meant it would have been much more difficult for either company to create noteworthy inroads against Google individually. It also transforms Microsoft into a credible technology threat with Microsoft’s right to select the best of Yahoo’s search technology developments and blend them with Bing, which is pretty well-receive
What’s to come: For now at least, business looks to carry on as usual. Google never intended to cede its search lead prior to the declaration of this deal, and there is certainly more pressure to keep up to that promise now, over the following several years. It’s not something that was not expected in broad View.
Consumers
The only benefit receivable to consumers is ‘Powered by Bing’ search results on Yahoo pages. To be precise, consolidation is viewed as a negative for consumers, as it limits one’s choice
At this point, with multiple details left to be hammered out, the consumer impact of this deal is certainly not obvious. Many would like to argue that if Yahoo was not really committed to search, consumers would view better search results with time on Yahoo pages that are powered by Bing. To add to this, indirect benefits to consumers are part of the package of having advertisers that are not chained to a single search engine. But this is more about setting Yahoo free to concentrate attention on its other businesses and providing Microsoft with more market share in order to force Google into playing cautious on search, which could reduce some of the pressure Google is piling on Microsoft with projects like Google Apps, Android, etc
The impact of these decisions will take a considerable period of time to come down to the level of the consumer with the assumption that the government embraces the deal.
Advertiser
Assuming ad spending becomes a trend again taking into consideration the current economic conditions, advertisers will get a credible 2nd option for their ad spending. A renewed pitch on the benefits of Internet display advertising is also in store for them. This probably still does not revolve on Madison Avenue but may one day begin to make sense for the Internet advertiser.
The negative points of the deal from the advertisers perspective are that there are high chances that the relationships between advertisers and the 2 companies will become highly complicated over the next few months as those who used to work with certain representatives transfer their business to new ones. Although, these issues are not of prime importance, they can be frustrating.


In the future however, if the ad market ever returns, there will be a renewed competition in search advertising for keywords, placement, and reach. Source: Tech Frog and Tech News.....
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What is Bing? Using Bing Search Engine

        One of the most important tools for blogger is search engine. It is really very important for each of blogger. There are so many efforts that Bloggers do to get into first page in Search Engine Result Page (SERP) for targeted keywords. And luckily, this most important thing could be optimized by free. Right now, the biggest search engine in internet world is still Google, then followed by Bing (Microsoft) search engine in second place, and in third place is Yahoo search engine. Blogger usually only use these three search engine for their blog traffic source.
My assumption above may be wrong but that is what I do for my blog regarding to search engine at least. Of course I already use these entire three search engine as tolls for this Online Knowledge blog but I will only share what I do in Bing (Microsoft) search engine in this article. There are three things that I already do in Bing (Microsoft) search engine for this blog, which are:


Submit Blog URL into Bing
It is first step that I do for faster blog indexing in Bing (Microsoft) search engine. I go to Bing site submit page and submit my blog URL in submit form. It is more likely to introduce this Blog with Bing (Microsoft) search engine, so Bing (Microsoft) search engine can include this blog in index list. It is really easy. I only need to fill my URL blog and then click “Submit URL” button.


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Get paid to Tweet with Twtad

You enjoy Tweeting with your friends, but wouldn't it be great to make extra cash on the site while you post on twitter? Twtad has the solution . We give you links to post on your Twitter account and you earn money each time someone clicks your link. Get paid to tweet could not be easier...
The twtAd referral program is a great way to spread the word of this great service and to earn even more money with your Twitter account! Refer friends! Just send them the link below, post it on your Twitter, post it on your website, http://twtad.com/?id=5255

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How to Twitter and get Followers

I understand this topic has been discussed over and over again. There is probably very little you can’t find on other blogs. I also don’t claim to be a “social media expert” as so many do. I just want to help new people understand how twitter works and how you can make the most out of your twitter experience. I want to show you the tools I use, as well as how I build friendships on twitter.
Twitter Tools
TweetDeck - Probably the best twitter client for your desktop. It allows you to take control of your twitter feed by having different groups. The groups are helpful when you start to follow more and more people. Another key feature is the search filter. With it you can follow topics that interest you, and find new users to follow.
TweetBurner - If you post a lot of links into twitter. You want to be able to follow how many people click on it, and when. This is the ultimate tool to do this with. At the writing of this article however, they are having some problems with users signing up, but they still show you how many clicks your links are getting.
Twitter Grader - A interesting tool that calculates a score for you based on number of followers, numbers you follow, and number of tweets. Then you can compare yourself to other twitter users in your area. I find this tool to be a nice way to find other twitter users around your area.
Quitter - This tool follows your followers. Lets you know when someone stops following you, and what your last tweet was before they stopped. Can be helpful to see if your doing/saying something a lot of people don’t agree with.
Friend or Follow - Here you can type in your twitter name. In return they will tell you who are your friends, who are just following you, or who you are just following. Can be used to weed out people that you don’t need to have on your friend list.
For a list of almost every twitter app there is on the market. Go to: Mashable.com
Social Twitter
# - This tool is underused on twitter in my humble opinion. When you are writing a twitter with a link to a video, do #video, or a link to something funny do #funny. The # is what twitter uses to group similar tweets together. I use this as much as possible, because I know there are people out there listening to #video with twitter search. Since they are watching it, they will see my post and possibly find it interesting, in return following me.
RT - You have probably seen people write this, or Re-Tweet. This is a very popular thing to do on twitter. It helps people with links or message get seen by a bigger group of people. So if you RT @USERNAME, there is a bigger chance that this user will do the same back to you if you post something if value. This propels your name to a new group of users, that in return might follow you because of the link.
#FollowFriday - A fun community tool that people use to let their followers know about people they find funny, cool, whatever. If you work hard and are continually submitting valuable information, its likely that people will include you on their #FollowFriday. So in return, if you find someone interesting, do a #FollowFriday for them as well.
Ask Questions - Ask your followers questions. Get them to think about topic. Basically get a back and forth exchange going.
Share - Share information with your followers. Try to give them valuable resources, or tricks of the trade.
Reply - Try to do a @ reply as much as possible. If someone is asking for information and you know the anwser, reply and help them out. This is the best way to get others to notice you.
Source: GinSims Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

New and beautiful themes and Blogger Templates

While surfing the net I came across these beautiful themes and blogger templates that you all should take a look at and think about gdtting a Fresh new look for your blogs. You can see more of these blogger templates at http://mashable.com they have lots more for you to chose from and even if your not ready to change your tmeplate I know you will still enjoy looking at these beautiful works of art, as much as I did. It was a real treat for me looking over at all these different blogger templates. DotBlogger is of course bringing you all the latest in blogging and surfing the net for you and bringing it all here to you . Enjoy.....
You can never have a too wide choice of templates for your blog, especially if you’re the experimenting type. Therefore, we started another round up of Blogger themes, this time focusing on fresh and modern designs, and came up with about 70 of them.
Please note that many of the template authors’ sites are not in English and you might want to run a Google Translate on them. Some of them might also require a free registration to download the templates.
Don’t forget our originals, 50 More Beautiful Blogger Templates and BLOGGER.COM TOOLBOX: 30+ Templates & Tools for Blogger.
Advanced Tech - A nice blogger template with header tabs, orange color post headers, and post calendar icons.
Altruism - A clean minimalistic template with a white background and bright green sidebar.
Aspire - A rustic look and calendar in the sidebar make this blog template perfect for history bloggers and traditional food bloggers.
Bella - Pink and very feminine. A nice template floral designs on the header and calendar icons on the posts.
BlueMarine - A clean design with nice RSS buttons, and lots of header space.
Butterfly 2 - This is a nicely done template with two red strips running on the sides of the blog and butterflies in the header and sidebar.
Cat - Glossy, shiny; great for a web 2.0 centric blog.
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How can I create expandable post summaries?

The Quick Answer
Add tags to your posts to mark which parts you want hidden in the summary version.
Add CSS declarations to your template to hide those sections on the index and archive pages, but not on post pages.
With this trick, you can choose to display an arbitrary amount of text from the beginning of each post, as a teaser for the whole thing. Then users who want to read the rest of the post can click a link to see the full text. THis is handy if you have lots of long articles all on one page. Note that you'll need to have post enabled in order to make this feature work.

There are three ingredients that go into this feature: conditional CSS, a "read more" link for each post, and a modification for the posts that use this feature. You an find the links and tags and codes, and modifications for this at google help.

VOTE for me at Bloginterviewer

Vote for me at Bloginterviewer. Make the Holidays a Happy one by showing your support and voting for Dogcents at Bloginterviewer. Click on the TEXT Link here VOTE FOR ME CLICK HERE >
VOTE for me by clicking on the TEXT LINK here. Show your support and please give a small donation to help by food and give shelter to these poor dogs. A few dollars can make a difference. GIve thanks to what you have this thanksgiving but share and give to those who have nothing. Share and give a small donation, to DOGCENTS. VOTE FOR ME CLICK HERE > Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Vista on Screen Keyboard

How many of you remember talking about an on screen keyboard for Windows XP awhile back? Come on, don't be shy, raise those hands! Well, recently, several of you have been asking about that very same thing for Windows Vista. I don't know if a bunch of you just upgraded to Vista or if you just now remembered about the on screen keyboard option, but I can tell you're dying to know more about the Vista version! So, I guess the least I can do is put your inquiring minds at ease. Here we go!

First of all, to get to the on screen keyboard in Vista, go to Start, Control Panel and click on the Ease of Access link. Next, click on the Ease of Access Center link and you will then see all of the accessibility options Vista has to offer, including a Magnifier, On Screen Keyboard, Narrator and High Contrast. For this tip, we're just going to focus on the keyboard, but feel free to browse through those other choices later on! To begin, click on the On Screen Keyboard link and wait for it to pop up. Once it's up on your screen, you can start using it however you wish. You can use it to type an e-mail, to work on a Word document or whatever you may be doing. Just use your mouse to click on the letters and they will show up just like you were using a real keyboard. Awesome!

There are also some additional options you can choose from when using the on screen keyboard in Vista. Under the Keyboard menu, you can choose between an enhanced or standard keyboard (it just changes the way the keyboard looks), a regular or block layout and you can choose how many keys you want your keyboard to have (either 101, 102 or 106). Under the Settings menu, you can opt to have a clicking sound when you're typing, you can decide which typing mode works best for you and you can even change the way the font looks. There's even a Help menu if you need further assistance. The on screen keyboard is just something you can use to give your typing fingers a little rest. I love it and I'm sure you will too. Give it a try on your Vista computer today! Source: Steve at Worldstart.com

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Attention: I'm Back- Hurricane hit Houston Hard

Happy to say Im back online after close to three weeks without no lights or water its been hell. The Hurricane hit us here in Houston very hard, trees were down all over the place. On streets on the roofs of houses on the telephone poles and the streets well you could not get through some of them for all the trees on the roads and some of the streets near the freeways looked like lakes thats how bad they were flooded. I had not seen such a Hurricane like this in years and hope never to see one again. I was miserable without any light, all we had were candles or flashlights or lanterns and did I ever miss my computer and t.v. We all had to get water from places that were donating soldiers rations and bottled water and ice and you were lucky if you could get some ice. I used a small ice chest and kept a few sodas and lunch meat in the chest and luckkkkkkky I was able to find some bread before it was all sold out, also got a few bags of dog food.. If you wanted a Hot cup of coffee youd better have a barbeque grill or propane stove or some kind of burner you could use to heat up your water for your coffee. We also had a curfew put into place and youd better not be on the streets after dark or you go to jail this was because we had alot of looting all over the city. But today finally after three weeks its finally over a little while ago we got the lights back on Hellaluia I never realized how much I missed the lights and my computer and the t.v But now Im back and its back to DOGCENTS and you all know after a Hurricane like this bad one their are alot of abandoned dogs suffering who need food and shelter and medicines, I have several dogs of my own and they also are not eating like they used to because I cant afford it right now altho they are not starving. I asked spca and paws for help but they barely have enough food for the dogs they have so many dogs were left there or their owners left town because of the hurricane and their homes were destroyed or damaged and they can no longer afford to take care of their dogs which is real sad but many lost their homes and have no place to keep their dogs. I myself have sustained damages a tree fell through the front room and there is a huge hole in the roof that I hope someone will help me repair. Fema I hope will help me out. BUt it will only help with certain things and I need help in order to buy some food for the dogs and get them in some type of shelters, and get them some medicines they also need, especially one that has a huge knot right next to his pee pee and that is also swolln as big as a large hot dog I mean its so swollen it looks like a large sausage so come on people dont be so cold hearted please I ask you to please give me a helping hand to save these poor helpless dogs who cannot speak for themselves . I give all I can give but I cannot do it alone I need your help and support what else can I say to you all to help us out besides imagine and picture what it looks like after a bad Hurricane all the destruction, all the large old trees knocked down to the earth like if they were toothpicks and picture all these little dogs with dazed cold eyes wandering around scrouncing for scraps of food to eat trembling with cold and shiverimg with fear, lost alone, until I find them and bring as many as I can home and I try to find them a home but like I said I need your help you can make a difference . I need you to open your hearts up and to have compassion . Help me to be able to continue to help them. Thank you and God Bless you all. Lilyruth
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Some of the Blogging Tools you will need

RSS Readers and ResourcesFeedBlitz........................................................................................... Feedburner........................................................................................................................................ Feedpass............................................................................................................................................... FeedReader......................................................................................................................................... Google Reader..................................................................................................................................... JetBrains............................................................................................................................ .My AOL........................................................................................................................................................... My Yahoo............................................................................................................................................. NetNewsWire...................................................................................................................................... NewsFire.............................................................................................................................................. News Gator.................................................................................................. NewsGator Outlook Edition.................................................................................... PageFlakes............................................................................................................... RocketInfo............................................................................................................. Rojo...................................................................................................................... RSSOwl.................................................................................................. ............. RSS FeedReader.............................................................................................................. RSSReader................................................................................................................ Sharpreader.......................................................................................................... ShrookYeahReaderToolsGoogle Analytics.................................................................................................................................. Site Meter.................................................................................................................... OneStat................................................................................................................... StatCounter........................................................................................................... GoStats.................................................................................................................. ........................ MindViz Tracker.................................................................................................. ShinyStat................................................................................................................ Web-Stat................................................................................................................ FreeStats.................................................................................................................... W3Counter............................................................................................................. Blogging Platforms............................................................................................... Blogger..................................................................................................................... Drupal........................................................................................................................ EggBlog................................................................................................................... FlatPress......................................................................................................... LifeType.............................................................................................................. LoudBlog............................................................................................................. Movable Type...................................................................................................... Serendipity............................................................................................................ TextPattern........................................................................................................ Typepad............................................................................................................... Xanga........................................................................................................................ Wordpress...............................................................................................................

Making Money from Blogging

I thought you all would find this post interesting it shows how PayPerPost is real picky and has lots of rules about blogs and if they have to many ads they will not accept you this is why I still say Smorty Post is the best one to sign up and write articles for they pay you good money and even give you several days after you choose which ad you want to write about to think abut what you want to write and you choose the ads that pay the most its great> Smorety POst is easy to get into and does not have all those ;picky rules I advise all of you to go and click on the banner below and check it out and this is if you want to earn some fast easy cash just for writing about as ad you chose. I joined and you also get a chance to write several posts after you finished one. SO go now after you read this and click on the Smorty banner underneath this post. Now You all can read this Post written by Mommy Mia about PayPer POst................."Well, I started this blog with the intentions of trying to make some money. I have signed up with PayPerPost to do some paid posting and have gotten one whole opportunity to blog about. But then I just started and it takes time to get things going!! Most pay to post sites require your blog to be open for 90 days with consistent posting to qualify. PayPerPost only requires that your blog be open for 30 days. As we speak, PPP is going through and auditing blogs to see if they contain quality content. No one that I have talked to understands what they mean by "quality" content. Are they looking at the posts or the overall appearance of the blog? Several of my friends seem to be removing all of their ads and widgets from their pages because several of the removed blogs had quality posts and a lot of other widgets and such on their pages. I am not going to do remove mine as I feel like it is my blog and I am trying to make a few dollars and if I remove my ads-then what is left when I have only gotten one post from PPP? I know a lot of others have been with PPP for a while and have made pretty good money from them. But if PPP is removing bloggers due to too many ads on their pages and not removing them for poor post content then the advertisers are going to wonder where PPP's priorities are. If I were an advertiser-I would want quality posts as opposed to a naked blog with nothing on it. If PPP removes blogs due to other advertisements and the widgets that someone elects to put on their pages-then it would appear to me that PPP is monopolizing the blog for their own monetary gain. I may get removed from PPP for posting this-but I am just posting an opinion which is what blogging is all about. I plan to sign up for more companies as I go along as I am a stay at home mom and have to get some income from somewhere. Anyways, just thought I would share my thoughts on this subject. If someone from PPP reads this-I would welcome some feedback as to what is considered a "quality" blog and what criteria you require in order to keep a blog in your system.

Edited to add: I have since seen the criteria they are looking for and I wholeheartedly agree with the way they are doing things. They are trying to remove the blogs that are too cluttered with too many widgets and ads, background music (which is annoying to me too) and they are looking at the consistency of the posts-are they regularly posting, keeping sponsored posts separated by other posts so that it is not just one sponsored post after another, whether the posts are actual posts and not just nonsense, etc. Way to go PPP-get rid if some of the junk blogs!!


Posted by Mommy Mia >
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How does Web-Hosting Work ?

Dedicated web hosting is basically renting a whole server solely for your use (dedicated). It is much like having your own server but the biggest difference is you do not need a large initial investment to set it up. Dedicated web hosting comes in two forms. Managed and unmanaged.

Commonly, unmanaged hosting plans include hardware, operating system, web server and Internet connection. Managed plans however include the basics and pretty much everything else that the only thing you need to worry about is your web site and content.

Knowing this, you should carefully review your organization’s setup to see if you have the financial & physical resources to manage your servers. For most organizations, the higher monthly cost of a managed plan works out to be more cost effective overall. There would be occasion an unmanaged plan works best. In these scenarios the organizations already have a good support department but would rather not have hardware and certain software maintenance concerns.

Without needing to share space & resources you gain many benefits. Your web page will run better and faster because resources are used to serve only your web site and you can optimize the server and database for your web site. Another benefit of server customization is you get to install and run the programs that your web site needs, not re-programming your web site to fit the server.

You also have full access to storage, which is certainly a perk for a growing web site. Managed dedicated hosting customers also generally enjoy a better level of service. Many web hosts assign a personal representative who also supports a handful of other accounts. Managed plan customers get the freedom to build the web site the way they want it without having hardware, operating system, certain software, middleware, security, Internet connection, backup, power backup, staff, casualties & loss prevention even insurance responsibilities.

Part 2

Hardware & Connection

As with choosing the operating system or software, hardware requirements depend a lot on your web site’s current and future needs. We’ll give you some good basics to look for.


Processor Type

Intel is recommended for large web sites because it’s emits less heat. You should choose Celeron for small web sites and Pentium 4 for medium web sites. Dual Xeons are highly recommended for high traffic web sites to give you the processing power; more so if your web site uses a lot of server side scripting. On the average, processor speeds of 2 to 2.4 GHz are good choices.


Memory

Your server should have at least 512MB of memory for serving up your pages in a reasonable time. If your web site makes heavy use of server side programming languages (PHP, CGI, ASP) we highly recommend a 1024 MB minimum and high traffic web sites should have 2048 MB and thereabouts.


Hard Drive

Between IDE and SCSI hard drives, most would like to have a SCSI drive. They are very robust, and use little if no processor power making them very fast; an ideal situation for anyone but the cost is prohibitive. If budgets permit, an 18 GB SCSI hard drive is very sufficient for most. If you choose IDE, choose a 7200-RPM drive with about 40GB of storage. You might wonder why you need so much since your shared hosting plan only has a fraction of that and you still have left over space. Do not forget, with a dedicated server, you need space for software to run your web site. In a shared environment that software space is owned by the web host and not added towards your hosting plan.

Part 3

Estimating Bandwidth

Web hosts calculate your usage using one of these three methods. Per use, capped, or 95% use. Each one is quite different so be sure you understand your requirements versus the method used in the plan. You’ll need to first understand the basics. Data transfer is measured in bits or bytes. Here’s a simple equivalents chart:

8 bits (b) = 1 byte (B)
1024 byte = 1 kilobyte (kb)
1024 kilobytes = 1 Megabyte (MB)
1024 Megabyte = 1 Gigabyte (GB)


Data transfer is the measure of bits or bytes traveling over time. So, if you are told 1 Mbps it means 1 Megabyte is being transferred in one second. If your hosting plan has 600 GB per month you can transfer as much as 600 GB of data in one month.

To calculate usage, your host relies on usage reports such as Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG). The report shows your web site’s average incoming and outgoing traffic. The following formula is then applied:

( Monthly Average incoming + Monthly average outgoing data ) /8 x 60sec x 60min x 24 hrs x 30.5 days = Total month’s bandwidth

Per Use Method

In this method, a web host calculates your usage in a month and bill you the price per Gigabyte, Megabyte or Kilobytes. Some web hosts charge in blocks of 10 or 100.

Capped Method

Using this method, your web host will allocate a certain amount of transfer a month. If you exceed it, your web site will either be inaccessible or is considerably delayed. While this sounds like a bad option, most use this method because it’s a fixed cost. You should get the plan with a little more transfer than you expect to use.

95% Method

In this method, your web host looks at your total bandwidth usage for the month. The top 5% of use is discarded. The remaining 95% of will be used to calculate your usage. If you have occasional usage spikes, this might be a good method for you because the peaks will not be calculated.

Knowing this, you need to go back to your current web host’s control panel to find out what your average use is. Add on a certain percent for growth you expect, and then look for a plan matching those requirements.

Part 4

Choosing A Dedicated Web Host

Having a dedicated server is expensive and not as easy to migrate as a shared server environment. So making sure the host is right is ever more important. Some of the utmost concerns you should have when choosing a dedicated web host is of course the company reliability and support. You should expect better, more responsive support than a shared web host. You shouldn’t settle for anything less than 24 x 7 telephone support preferably toll free. Find out how quickly the average response is in the event of hardware, connection or certain software failure. If they never had a failure, do they have a contingency plan in place? Check their network reliability. Verify information, as best you can; don’t take the web host’s word at face value. Take your time, ask around and talk to their customers.

If purchasing a managed plan, ensure server monitoring is included and your web host stays on top of security patches. Try to stay away from long term contracts and choose a month to month option at least until you know how satisfactory the web host is going to be.

Ask this pertinent information about your plan before signing up:


What it costs for additional storage space or transfer
What it costs for additional IP addresses. How many does it come with
What it costs for memory upgrades
Is there an uptime guarantee
What method is used to calculate bandwidth
Is there a money back guarantee

Dedicated hosting and other high-end plans are more profitable for the web hosts; so web hosts have the tendency to accommodate you. Negotiate and you might end up getting additional IP addresses or setup at no cost. Source: Askwebhosting.com


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What is Web-Hosting

You have to own a piece of space in cyberspace.

Web hosting empowers you and anyone with a computer and internet connection to own a piece of cyberspace. In your space, you can have news, bulletins, documents, data, files (your web site) and your own post office (mail server) to accept mail, all in the context of you or your business. This is your space and to get this space you either have to own a piece of the physical internet with a network connection to the internet backbone and computer(s) operating as server(s) offering access to your files and post office, for people on the internet to view your web site or send and receive email with you.

The cost of owning a direct connection to the backbone and a server dedicated to a web site and email is out of reach for the average business and especially general members of the internet. Even running a web site and mail server on your own computer when it is connected to the internet requires a lot of technical ability and knowledge. The internet itself has to be your business for either of these options to be viable.

In our modern society, for every person in business or with a career in most industries today, it is imperative to have a place in cyberspace, not just to be competitive but to survive. Web hosting companies were born out of this great need to provide an environment for the masses to own a piece of cyberspace, to offer an environment where people could have their piece of cyberspace on the internet 24/7 without the great cost. Web hosting companies developed a model where they could split up areas on the servers connected to the backbone and ?rent? this space, cutting the costs across many people sharing the server and backbone connection to the internet.

In a web-hosting environment, you are offered a web site to place your files, data, documents, and bulletins for people to access with their web browser and an email server for you to send and receive email messages. The web host will also provide you a means to get an address for people to get to your web site with a web browser and post email to you.

To obtain space in a web hosting environment you become a member and agree to terms and conditions of renting the space ? just as if you were to rent a house or commercial premises for your business. Once you agree and become a member, you are given an access code, a key, to your piece of cyberspace. This key, in the form of a login and password, allows you to connect to the web hosting server and up-load (transfer to) your web site so it can be accessed on the internet. Your login and password is also used to connect to a mail server to create and administer mailboxes to send and receive email for you, your staff, or family members.

Just like when you rent a house or commercial premises for your business, you have so many rooms, bathrooms, and floor space to use. In a web-hosting environment, your area is defined as disk space and network transfer.

Disk space is measured in Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB). Megabyte roughly means 1,024,000 characters and Gigabyte roughly means 1,024 Million characters. Imagine a character as one key on your key board. These amounts determine how many files, documents, or data you can have on your web site.

Network Transfer is also measured in Megabytes or gigabytes which determines how much data (how many of your files, documents or data) can be downloaded (transferred to) people accessing your web site. The more people, or the more data each person accesses on your web site the more data is transferred on the network.

The more disk space and network transfer you use the greater percentage of the web-hosting environment you are using ? therefore the higher the rent.

Just as no office building and home is the same, neither is every web-hosting environment. Some offices have stairs, others have lifts, some houses have ensuites, swimming pools, and gardens, ? and others do not. Web-hosting environments are much the same, some offer bare structures to do just the basics and others offer an array of features and facilities to help you do just about everything you could ever need or want. Some of the features and facilities likely to be offered are ranges of software to use, components, databases, and server side script processing.

The similarity of renting an office or home to renting space in a web-hosting environment is even more similar. With some buildings a gardener and/or a guard is available to look after the gardening or provide security. In a web-hosting environment, you have support people to help you do what you need to do on your web site to make it grow and there are server administrators to protect and secure your web-hosting space.

When you rent a building there are key parts needed to work or live in the space, like rooms, offices, kitchens, toilets, and bathrooms. In your web-hosting environment, you will find equally important components that are required to make the space workable. The core components in a web-hosting environment are:

Web Server

The web server is a relatively simple piece of software that accepts requests over HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and delivers HTML pages and Image files.

FTP Server

FTP is the means of which a web master can transfer files to and from the server. To put your HTML and image files on a server you will generally use FTP to upload (transfer to) your files to the server running the web server.

Mail Server

The mail server consists of two parts POP (Post Office Protocol) and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). POP is where email is received into your mailbox and SMTP is what is used to send and receive email between mail servers.

Database Server

If you are using server side scripting on your web server (you use something like Microsoft Internet Information Server) then instead of providing ?static? data only on web pages you can provide data from a database allowing your users to search and view the data in different and dynamic way. Also, a Database server is used to gather data from visitors to your site; orders, feedback, discussions and the like.

Each one of the above components are software programs running on servers in the web-hosting environment. You can interact with each of these with special software programs you use on your computer. The main ones being:

Web Browser

When viewing the web you use a web browser like Internet Explorer. Many web hosting companies provide a ?Control Panel? to administer your web host account, which you use with your web browser. Most allow you to configure most aspects of your account using a simple web browser.

Web site/page editor

Today many web servers allow editing of WebPages over HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) based on Microsoft FrontPage technology. These special editors allow you to essentially look at your web site as if you were using a web browser and edit the pages directly as you see them using WYSWIG (What you see if what you get) technology. Most web hosting environments support this, and if you are starting out, make sure it is available. One tip: make sure the web host providing this really does understand this technology ? it is the main area of which many hacks and security intrusions occur.

FTP Client

This is a very simple piece of software that allows you to view the server folders and files in your web host account as if they were files and folders on your own computer. You can then drag and drop files between you computer and your web host account.

Email Client

If you are on the internet you would already be using an email client to send and receive your email. The most common are Outlook Express, Eudora and Web based mail clients like Hotmail.

Database Administration Client

The most common databases used with web servers are Microsoft SQL Server (available only on Windows) and MySQL (commonly found on Linux and UNIX but also available on Windows). SQL Server comes with it's own administration client where you can view your databases, edit them, backup data and do all the administration functions you need. MySQL has an active online community where there is a range of administration clients available.

Choosing a web host is, again, similar to choosing a house to live in or commercial premises to do business. You need to define what it is you require: how much space you need and what features and facilities you need.

If you have been reading this article because this is new to you, then it is likely at this stage you only need minimal space and basic facilities. Once you have worked with the basic facilities you will learn more and become aware of greater facilities and features and then you can simple move from one web ?hosting environment to another ? paying more or paying less. Moving in cyberspace is much easier, faster, and more seamless than physically moving house or commercial premises.

Initially you may use the web-hosting environment offered by your ISP (internet Service provider), the company you use to connect to the internet. But remember these companies main business is connecting many thousands of people to the internet ? not managing web hosting environments. You will generally find they offer less than basic facilities and minimal space.

If you are just starting out with your first web site the first major choice you will be faced with is ?Unix? or ?Windows?. For a person just starting out on the internet, both are equally capable and will offer the facilities you need to have your place in cyberspace.

If you have a web designer or technical person to help you, you only need to consider how much space you really need. With this simple idea in mind, when you are just starting out, owning your piece of cyberspace will not cost anymore than $8 per month. Many web-hosting companies will offer what you need for as little as $3 per month (usually paid yearly).

If you are going alone and doing it all yourself you may want to consider an account with a web hosting company that offers and prides itself on it's support and customer service, 24/7 support access and the experience, knowledge and skill of it's server administrators. Be sure to leave your Comments!>

Google Launches Video for Business

Google has launched video for business with its google apps.
1.Share rich video information – Video sharing makes important communications like internal trainings and corporate announcements more personal, engaging and effective.
2.Keep videos secure and private – Employees can securely share videos with select coworkers or everyone at the company without making confidential information public.
3.No large files or complex infrastructure – Google securely hosts and streams your videos, so employees don't need to share videos over email, or burden IT for a video solution.
4.Everyone at your company can contribute – Employees can share videos instantly. Viewing and annotating doesn't require any special software, just a standard browser.


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What is Portal Feeder?

What is Portal Feeder? You have to check it out for yourself and see if its for you, I came across this on the web and thought it interesting and decided to post it to see if my readers are interested in something like this! Now what does Portal Feeder offers: It says:
A Website Template Designer: Superfast, Supersimple and Supergood. Build website templates automatically optimized to dominate the search engine search results for your keyword.
A web template pack, to allow you to update your web pages in the blink of an eye. No longer need you have these boring old web pages, but brand new specially designed websites to suit your niche.
Edit and update your websites to provide instant reaction to market changes and trends.
RSS and Sitemap Creator: Instantly place RSS feed onto your web pages, and create sitemaps to help your visitors navigate your site and also help the spiders to list every single page. RSS is a proven search engine optimization technique and will improve your search engine rankings immeasurably.
Set your website to automatically grow on autopilot at a rate chosen by you: add a page at a time by dribbling pages and content into your website. No longer make the search engines suspicious by suddenly creating a 2000 page website that never grows. Start it small and grow it automatically, but naturally, just as Google would expect.
No more static content that remains the same on page after page. Rotate, mix or randomize your content throughout all your website, not just between pages on the same site. Provide spider candy just as the search engines want you to by means of tens of thousands of articles ready to plug in drawing targeted traffic rather than just curious visitors.
Manage all this seamlessy from one Control Panel.
Also get:
Training and insider secrets: real secrets, not the secrets that are common knowledge. Website promotion and traffic generation secrets and search engine optimization secrets that have never been publicized online.
Tools, resources and think tanks to help you get the search engine marketing success that is bound to come.
Article Syndication and a massive blog network to generate as much targeted website traffic as you can handle.

You will dominate your niche like never before. This is a chance too good to miss. Most software has been played to death by the big boys before they release it to you, well after its ‘best-by date’. Not Portal Feeder. This has never been pre-released to be used-out for months before you see it, which is why you don’t see any big-name testimonials for Portal Feeder, just those from ordinary people who have benefited day in day out through quietly using it as it should be used.
This has been on offer for a limited period, and then the doors closed. They open very rarely, and places are like gold dust. Don’t miss your chance for a traffic building content rich portal empire that the spiders will be slavering over, and you could be in total domination of your niche with all the website traffic that you want.
If you don’t take this chance somebody else will, and your place in your niche will be only second best - if that! Portal Feeder is opening again soon: make sure that you are there by reserving your slot. To do that you should click here to register http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=676248and be informed as soon as Portal Feeder opens its doors. You won’t have long, so have to be registered to know when that portal door opens.

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7 Tips for Beginners for Building Blog Traffic

I have been blogging for a living for a little over a year. In that time I have learned a lot about what it takes to build blog traffic. This is one of the main challenges that a new blogger faces. What is the point of having a blog if no one is reading it? And for those bloggers who want to monetize their blogs, having decent traffic is mandatory.
I am confident that if you follow the steps below you WILL begin to see a quick improvement in your blog traffic:
1. Learn the Bells and Whistles
Whatever blogging platform you use, whether it be Blogger.Com, Moveable Type, Wordpress, or many of the others out there, before you can become an effective blogger I think you need to learn what makes that puppy operate at maximum efficiency. That doesn't mean you can't start blogging, but to me that would be like trying to ride a bicycle for the first time without training wheels. You are gonna fall, but keep working on it and you will quickly be sailing confidently. In other words, read the instructions and do some research. Wordpress is my blogging platform of choice due to the fact that they have so many plugins and applications that can help you have an easier and more productive blogging experience and also help you gain traffic.
2. Titles are Crucial
There are several reasons that the title of your post is so important. One is that readers will be drawn to what you have to say if your title piques their interest. The second reason is that you want your posts to be picked up by search engines. Sites like WordTracker will help you find keywords so that you can phrase your title for better search engine optimization.
3. Content is King
I started hearing this long before I started blogging. When I was writing freelance and hanging out on writer's message boards three years ago "content is king" was being said and it is is especially true for blogging. If you don't have anything interesting to say, who is going to read your blog? Blogging is a relationship between you and the reader, just as reading a book is a relationship between the reader and the author. Be yourself, be honest and genuine, create original content that is interesting and informative, use keywords for SEO, create posts with ordered lists, offer advice, write post that invite readers to join in a discussion, and you WILL begin to gain a loyal readership. And EDIT! Don't dare publish your posts with grammar, spelling or punctuation errors. Treat your blog with professionalism in this aspect and you will be viewed as a professional.
4. Comments are Queen
One of the most exciting things about blogging, in the beginning anyway, is when you start getting comments. Then you know that at least someone was interested enough in what you had to say to reply. Be sure to answer all comments and keep a tight rein on getting rid of spam. There are programs in the editor of your blog software that will help you with this, but spam inevitably finds its way into your comment section., so keep your eyes peeled for it.
Trackbacks rock! That means that someone thought enough of what you had to say to refer to it on their own blog. You are definitely on the right track when you start getting trackbacks.
5. Submit Your Blog to Search Engines and Directories
Submit your blog and/or RSS feed to the search engines of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This is free. And also list your blog is several big directories. One of best I have found is Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ but there are tons of free directories you can list your blog with. This is time consuming but it needs to be done. You don't have to go overboard, just make sure you have spent a good bit of time hitting the top directories.
6. Comment on Other Blogs and in Forums
I can't count the number of backlinks I have gotten simply by commenting on blogs or in forums. Now when I say that I don't mean go around spamming these sites. Find a couple of forums where you really are interested and want to be a regular contributor and put your blog link in your signature. Comment on blogs that are in your same niche or that you truly find interesting. The relationships you form here will become the meat and potatoes of most beginning bloggers' traffic.
7. Tagging and the Social Networking Sites
Sounds kind of like the name of some new alternative rock band, huh? By tagging, I am talking about using Technorati tags in your post. This will ping Technorati and help you gain readership with so little effort. There are many plugins for Wordpress that will automatically create tags for you. I am not sure about other blogging platforms because I don't use them. As far as social networking sites, jeez, there are more out there now than I could ever list. But Stumble Upon has been the most effective for me, along with Blog Catalog. Each blogger has their favorites. Some people love Digg, some folks swear by MyBlogLog or Technorati (I consider any site that has a bunch of bloggers sharing information "Social Networking" so don't sue me for putting Digg and Stumble Upon in the same class as Blog Catalog, Technorati and MyBlogLog, it's all traffic building.)

There is a LOT more to traffic building than what I have listed here. These are just the main things I have found to get you started as a beginning blogger. Once you have gotten your feet good and wet following the steps above, my advice would be to follow the lead of blogs like Dosh Dosh, ProBlogger, and many other A list bloggers who will lead you further down the primrose path of blog traffic building.
Good luck and happy blogging!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Denise_Grier
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Free E-Book just Subscribe to my Readers Feeds for Updates

Looking for some tips or solutions to impact your web design project? Or probably you have stuck for idea on how to create a more stylish, appealing and artistic website? Well, get some helps from this book:”The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques”. The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques is a useful Photoshop compendium for web designers. Now you have a chance to get this designer’s bible for FREE from site point. Sbscribe to my Readers Feeds and get this Free E-Book just click on this link http://feeds.feedburner.com/dotblogger.blogspot.com

What is RSS?

RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. It is a simple way for you to keep track of all of your favorite websites and blogs in one single place. Imagine if you are following say 15 websites including this blog, are you going to come to each of the 15 sites just to see what new post has been posted. It’s so inconvenient, well no longer!

Think of it like a bookmark. In the olden days, we bookmark our favorite sites from our browser and we have to manually check the site for updates. Gone are those days of browser-based bookmarking. With RSS, you could now subscribe to automatically feed all the sites updates into one single place usually into what we call RSS reader. So, RSS makes it possible for you to keep up with your favorite sites in an automated manner through RSS feed.

What is RSS Reader?
It is a piece of software whether web-based or desktop-based that checks your subscribed feeds automatically and download any updates into a single interface for easy viewing. Here I’ve listed a few RSS Readers you can opt to use.

Web-based (Recommended)
1. Google Reader
2. Bloglines

Desktop-based (Windows)
1. BlogExpress
2. FeedReader

and their are others.
Note: If you are using any of the desktop-based RSS Readers, you need to manually set it up with the site feed url, the feed url for this blog is http://feeds.feedburner.com/dotblogger.blogspot.com Note that I’m using a third-party service FeedBurner to help me better manage my feed subscription. Apart from other useful services, Feedburner provides me with the statistics of how many people subscribe to my blog. I wrote an article about Feedburner and if you missed it and care to go and read it just look it up in the older posts it also is a big help in knowing about how FeedBurner works for us.

How to Subscribe to RSS?
They are two ways you can subscribe to RSS.

1. From the browser address bar

If you look up on your browser now, you will see a small orange icon on the right side of your address bar. Click on it and it will bring you to a preview page with an option to subscribe using your choice of reader. It’s really that simple.

2. Right on the site

The other method is to locate the RSS icon or a link that says Subscribe To RSS on the site, usually on the top right, click on it and follow the simple instructions.



Don’t want RSS? Subscribe via Email
If you find that subscribing to RSS is quiet a task to you. You may opt for a more familiar method of subscribing to the updates via your email. Upon subscription, a summary of the latest feed content from your favorite sites will be sent right to your inbox as and when there is an update. All you need to do is to enter your email address to subscribe and you are good to go. Altho I prefer the other method, I do not like all that email in my inbox. I prefer to click on that Orange gaget.

So what now?
OK! If you have not subscribed to this blog, may I suggest the less-hassle & convenience way of keeping up-to-date to what’s new here by subscribing to my RSS just clcik on the readers feed gaget its that orange gaget and thats it.. alternatively you could subscribe via your email. Either way, it works. Thank you.


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Free Money

Free $25 From Blockbuster
I don’t talk so often about money making opportunities, even though free money is about the best freebie of all. I just don’t have time to take advantage of all of the offers but, this one is very simple.
Here is what you need to do get the $25:
1. Sign up for a two week free trial of Blockbuster Online
2. Select the plan you are interested in ($3.99 per month is the cheapest)
3. You must choose PayPal as the method of payment
4. You must stay a member for one billing cycle
See, that was easy. Just remember to cancel after the first billing cycle and your PayPal account will be $25.00 richer (profit of $21.01)! Sorry, this offer is only valid for new subscribers. Ends 8/31/08.

Posted in Free Money on July 24th, 2008
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