PC Tips, Tricks & Solutions

Optimization Tips for Adsense

2009-08-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

My regular readers know I am a big fan of ignoring prevailing wisdom and choose to experiment constantly in order to find my own answers. If there is one area where this approach has paid off nicely it's with Adsense. I have read numerous articles and comments from others who offer advice on this topic and quite frankly most of what you read is either wrong or misunderstood. To make money with Adsense you have to do two things; optimize your blog and each page on your site for a single keyword and then drive targeted traffic to that page. That second requirement would be better stated as "ONLY" drive targeted traffic to that page.I want to take care of an Adsense myth right from the start."If you have a low CTR (click through rate) then you are probably smart priced."This is absolutely wrong.

For those who don't understand smart pricing here is the basic gist.If your Adsense ads don't convert well for the advertiser then the advertiser is only charged a fraction of the amount he or she bid for the ad placement. We are only talking about content ads here - the ads that show up on publisher's blogs and websites.If you are running ads on your blog that an advertiser has bid $0.50 per click on and your traffic clicks the ads and doesn't convert well for the advertiser then Google will not pay you the usual $0.25 per click. They will likely give you $0.01 to $0.05 per click. This means you have been smart priced. This will also mean that you will receive lower payouts on every site you have Adsense on - not just the poorly converting site. This is a penalty because you are not optimizing your Adsense pages in order to give the advertiser the most bang for his or her buck.Give the advertiser the most bang for their buck!That simple statement is the key to making good money with Adsense. People have assumed that a low CTR is responsible for smart pricing. It isn't responsible for smart pricing but rather it can be a symptom of a poorly optimized page or poorly optimized traffic. Poor conversions are responsible for smart pricing - low CTR is just a side effect. There are many times though that a low CTR is just a matter of ad placement - your sidebar will have a poor CTR but your main ad block will have a high CTR. Both ad blocks still pay out a decent CPC regardless of number of clicks.Let me use an example to explain this.Let's compare two blogs writing about the same topic. Both use the same keywords.Blog A is called everythingaboutwidgetsdotcom and Blog B is called bluewidgetsdotcom.Blog A has several posts on the home page each with a snippet of text and a "more" tag - the "click here for further reading" link that will take the reader to the page with the full text.Blog A has several snippet headers on the front page. Each snippet header is about a different widget."All about Blue Widgets""All about Green Widgets""All about Red Widgets"The Adsense bot will read the page and conclude (correctly) that the page is about 1) Widgets in general, 2)Blue, Green and Red Widgets.It will call for ads about widgets in general and ads for blue, green and red widgets.Now Blog B only has 1 post on the home page. It is about Blue Widgets. In fact every post on the blog is about Blue widgets and nothing else. The Adsense bot will give Blog B ads about Blue widgets.On the face of it both blogs are optimized fairly well. Blog A is definitely optimized for widgets in general and Blog B is optimized for Blue widgets.Now let's assume they know how to SEO and both blogs get ranked high in the serp's.Blog A gets ranked for "Widgets".Blog B gets ranked for "Blue widgets".Google sends both blogs traffic. The traffic for Blog A is looking for "widgets" and some of the visitors are likely to click an Adsense ad. Some will click on the "widget" ad, some will click on "blue widgets", some on "green" and some on "red".The Blog will get paid decent for those clicking on "widget" ads but not very well for the colored widget ads. Why? Because the traffic was looking for widgets and not "blue widgets" and will be less likely to convert for the advertisers of the colored widgets. Will the blog be smart priced? No - not likely, as the traffic will still convert OK - just not great. The blog will just make less than it could if it were better optimized. The blog will not get the best Adsense ads. It will get the cheaper CPC (cost per click) ads and the poorer performing ads.Blog B on the other hand only gets Google traffic from people searching for "Blue Widgets" and all of its Adsense ads will be for "Blue Widgets" and everyone who clicks the ad will be more likely to convert and the blog will get the best payouts. The Blog will also get the best performing ads.What are "The best performing ads"?The best performing ads are not necessarily the highest paying ads.Huh?Very few people understand this so let me use another example. Would you prefer to get an ad that pays you $1 per click but only gets 10 clicks a day or would you rather have an ad that pays you $0.40 per click but gets 100 clicks a day? Note: Google knows which ads get the most clicks - regardless of cost - some ads are just better written and draw people in better.If you did the math then you will realize that the $0.40 per click ad is more desirable and is the "best performing ad".If you are using Adsense then you need to understand how Adwords works.The advertiser bids on keywords. If the advertiser's keyword is perfectly optimized for their landing page then Google will charge the Advertiser less for both the serp listing and for the content ad placements. If the advertiser's landing page is not well optimized for the keyword then they will have to pay more for the ads - sometimes a lot more. Let's use the term "make money online". If Advertiser A bids on this term and the landing page is perfectly optimized for "making money online" then they will be charged less than Advertiser B who's landing page is about "Forex" but he wants traffic looking for the term "make money online". Google will charge the "Forex" advertiser a lot more money for the ad and place the ad on lots of crappy "make money online" blogs. Crappy in the sense that these blogs will not be perfectly optimized for "make money online" or "Forex" - most likely on blogs that have an affiliate page about Forex. The publisher won't convert much because the traffic clicked a make money ad and landed on a Forex page and the advertiser will pay a lot for this worthless click. The publisher will however get a good CPC out of the deal - just not many clicks because they have little traffic.Advertiser A on the other hand gets rewarded by Google for its high quality score (its keyword and landing page are perfectly optimized - this equals a high quality score) and besides being charged less Google will only put the ad on the "best performing" blogs. The best performing blogs are those that, like the advertisers landing page, are the best optimized for the keyword and have the most targeted traffic for the keyword.This is a bit confusing so lets look at an example.The blog you are reading is extremely well optimized for the term "make money online". The easiest way to know this is by looking at this blogs serp rankings. It ranks highly for most of the "make money" keywords. Now, even if it wasn't ranking well for the keywords the blog and posts are still optimized for the keywords. If the majority of your pages get the same ads regardless of the individual post topics then you have successfully optimized your entire blog for a certain keyword. If every page on your blog gets different ads then your blog isn't optimized for one topic. If you want the best performing ads for your main keyword then you have to optimize your entire blog for them and not just a few pages.As a publisher you want Google to place the best performing ads on your site. To get the best performing ads you have to be just as optimized as the advertiser. If you are reading this and you live in Canada or the United States then you see the best performing "make money online" adsense ad up top (above the fold) on this blog. If you live anywhere else then you see different ads - probably a block of four ads. This is because the advertiser has picked the location he wishes to advertise to. Only people with Canadian or American ISP's will see the ad. The advertiser does not want anyone else clicking the ad. This is the ad (below) that Canadians and Americans see.This ad appears on my site day after day and it converts well. I banned it from my blog a week ago in order to see how well it performed. The ads that replaced it paid just as much or more per click as this ad but I received 60% less clicks. Meaning I made much less money by not having this ad on my blog. In case you are interested the ads on my sidebar pay more per click than the top ad but don't get a fraction of the clicks. When I banned this ad it was replaced with an ad block containing multiple ads. Out of curiosity I checked the Adsense ads on my main competitors sites just to see what kind of ads they were getting. They all show multiple ads in their ad blocks. My ad blocks are usually only a single ad. Guess which gets a better conversion? The ads my competitors get are the ads I got when I banned the Gerber Ad. They don't produce anywhere near the same income.Needless to say - I unbanned the Gerber ad and my revenue returned to normal.So what does this mean?It means that Google will give the best performing ads to the best performing publishers. The advertiser gets charged less and gets his ad placed on the best blogs for the keyword. The publisher gets less CPC but gets a lot more clicks. It's a win/win for both parties.Targeted Traffic.I said at the beginning of this post that you only had to do two things to make good money with adsense; perfectly optimize your blog for a single keyword and then drive targeted traffic to it.If we go back to the widget example let's look at what happens when the two blogs don't get the right type of traffic. As they currently stand I said both were ranking well in the serp's and neither would be smart priced. Blog A will do OK with adsense but not great. Blog B will do much better as the blog is better optimized for the traffic from the serp's.Now imagine that neither blog gets serp traffic for their respective keywords or very little compared to other types of traffic.If you are a proponent of using social media to get traffic to your blog then pay attention. Let's say most of your traffic comes from stumblers and entrecard and RSS subscribers and Digg etc. If you have Adsense on your blog you run the risk of being smart priced. Most of these social visitors will never click an ad - and that's a good thing. Unfortunately a few will click an ad from time to time. When they do Google knows where they came from and knows that they aren't targeted traffic looking for widgets. They are just casual browsers and if you get too many of these casual browsers clicking your ads then Google will discount the hell out of the CPC in order to compensate the advertiser who is getting really crappy traffic from your site. Google will smart price you until you provide quality traffic. Social traffic is not quality traffic and if you get a lot of it then you had best not have Adsense on your site. Period.Because you have a lot of social traffic that rarely clicks ads you will have a very low CTR - hence the misconception that low CTR means you are smart priced. You aren't smart priced because you have a low CTR, you are smart priced because your traffic is crappy and not targeted for the ads. You get a low CTR just because most of your traffic doesn't click ads.My sidebar ads are all low CTR - under 1% and yet they bring in up to $5 a click. They aren't smart priced - they just don't get a lot of clicks. The top ad block gets the bulk of the clicks.How to tell if you are doing things right.For the most part, the first visitors I get to my site each day come from Asia and Australia. This is because they get up first. Then later Europeans and Africans start showing up and finally North and South Americans. The sad fact is that most advertisers using Adsense are North Americans and as such they basically only want traffic from North Americans. (Most only have products available in the US or Canada) The best paying ads and highest converting products tend to be by and for Americans and Canadians. This isn't fair, it sucks and in the end comes down to the reality that European and Asian businesses have yet to take advantage of the internet to the same degree as North American businesses. If your traffic comes from mostly US and Canadian visitors then you will get better Adsense Ads. If your traffic is mostly from elsewhere you will get poorer paying ads and also run the risk of getting smart priced. The first clicks I get each day are from Asia and Australia - my CPC always starts off low. Later in the day my CPC increases, sometimes quite dramatically. This is because the clicks are now coming from the US and Canada - the people my best ads are targeting. If you see the same trend then you are doing things right. If you start off with higher CPC and see your CPC drop over the course of the day then you are not doing things right. It means you are getting more less desirable traffic than desirable.This happens when the bulk of your traffic comes from countries other than the US and Canada. This also happens when the bulk of your traffic comes from sources other than the search engines. In both cases you are getting the wrong traffic. If this is the case remove the Adsense ads from your site and start optimizing it for the search engines.It all comes down to conversions for the advertiser. The only way you will get good converting traffic for the advertiser is by providing them with people looking for what they are selling.The only way to guarantee that your traffic will convert is by ranking well for the keyword the advertiser is chasing. My best advertiser is looking for people looking to "make money online". The ad says "Make Easy Money Online". Most of my traffic - about 75% find my blog searching on Google for the term "make money online" or a long tail version of that term. If one of my visitors clicks on the ad they are most likely looking for what the advertiser has to offer and even if they don't buy, Google can charge the advertiser full price because the visitor left a "make money online" trail. They found me using the term and they found the advertiser because of the term. That is as targeted as traffic can get and Google can charge the advertiser full price. If all my traffic came from stumble upon and clicked the ads then the advertiser wont get many conversions and Google can see where the traffic originated, knows it isn't targeted and will penalize me and give the advertiser a rebate.That folks is how Adsense works.In Summary.To make money with Adsense;You have to target a specific keyword - not a general one.You have to optimize your entire blog for the keyword - not just a page for this and a page for that. (This can be done but until you know how - don't!)Only ONE post per page - yes I mean the home page too. Most people will get sent to your homepage and if you have a bunch of snippets for different keywords you will have a bunch of different ads showing. This means the person who found you for the "blue widget" keyword may click on the "green widget" ad. This isn't targeted. You will never get the best performing ads if your blog is not perfectly optimized for the ad. You can't be perfectly optimized if you blog about different topics.If your site is about widgets then you had better only get widget ads. If you are about blue widgets then you only want blue widget ads.The only traffic you want to your site is targeted. This means search engine. You never want social traffic. You can target specific forum traffic if it is centered around your keyword but be aware that the CTR will be low. This in a nutshell is my system. Yes there is a different method you can use and quite frankly it is the more common form. Many practitioners choose to go with quantity over quality - they basically create hundreds or thousands of pages on many sites all poorly optimized and smart priced but still make a decent buck just because of the volume of clicks. The danger is that they use Adsense tricks to get people to click ads and the sites are clearly built for Adsense and contain little useful info. This is a violation of the Adsense TOS and if caught they risk getting banned. Note: I didn't buy Joel Comm's Adsense Secrets book but I did check out some of his blogs that have Adsense on them. I don't know what his book is about but it only took a few minutes to realize that his sites were poorly optimized and smart priced so I assume if he makes money with Adsense then he is a practitioner of quantity over quality. His sites had little content - lots of Adsense (typical made for adsense sites) and the blocks were showing ads for Bowel Cleanser and Family Vacations in the same ad block. (A sure sign of smart pricing) I, however don't recommend this as you have to do a lot more work and run the risk of losing your adsense account. It may work but not as well as my system and it is a lot more risky.I have less sites using Adsense but they are all highly optimized for my keywords, they all have a lot of useful content, they all get the best performing ads and they all get the bulk of their traffic from Google's search engine for the keywords they are optimized for. This is a system that is both safe and effective and it will continue to work for as long as Adsense exists. An optimized blog plus targeted traffic equals a healthy Adsense paycheck.

Get MAX Traffic From Buzz Profits To Make Big Money Online

2009-08-05T08:25:00.001-07:00

Recently, I interviewed Dean Hunt Dean Hunt. If you liked what Dean had to say and want to learn more from him, you should sign up for his course. “Buzz Profits” teaches you the same Buzz Marketing techniques that Dean has used to become an internet rock star.

If you’re not sure what Buzz Profits is all about or just aren’t sure you’re really ready to take the plunge, then sign up for Max Traffic, a free 7 day traffic blueprint that gives you a taste of what Buzz Profits is all about.

You’ll learn viral traffic techniques, including how to get your competitors to promote you and getting others to spread viral videos for you. It’s free, so you don’t have anything to lose. And if you go through Max Traffic and still want more, then sign up for the full program.

Click here to sign up for Dean’s free e-course MAX Traffic.
Let me know if you use any of his techniques and how it works out for you.

Make Extra Money With A Blog Without Spending A Dime

2009-08-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

Blog or weblog is simply a website with frequent updates on a particular subject or topic. You can write a comment, review, suggestion or tip on a subject on your blog. You can also provide educational resources and advice if you are an expert at something. For instance, If your blog is about sport cars. You can post the latest annoucements from sport cars manufacturers such as BMW, Ferrari and so on, discuss about the latest models of sport cars and the best components used for producing sport cars.

Blogger.com allows anyone to create a free blog (free domain name and hosting) without any technical knowledge. Creating a blog with Blogger.com is easy and you can have you blog published within an hours.

There are several ways you can make money with a blog:

Become a Google AdSense publisher
You can join Google AdSense program and start earning advertising revenue from your blog. It is not difficult to set up you AdSense campaign as Blogger.com also provides Adsense tool and guidances to help you start an AdSense campaign. This can be a great source of revenue, though of course the amount of income you can expect from your AdSense ads will depend on the amount of traffic (visitors) to your blog.

Sell Other People's Stuff
You can promote your affiliate programs by placing the affiliate links and banners on your blog and earn commission whenever someone clicks through an affiliate link or banner to your merchant's website made a purchase.

Sell Your Own Product
Blog can be used to promote and sell your own products too. You can write about your products' features and benefits on the blog.

Drive Visitors to You Blog
To make money you need to drive visitors or traffic to your blog. The more traffic you're getting the higher your earning will be. There are several free ways of getting traffic to your blog. Here's how ......
1) Introduce your blog to your family and friends.
2) Submit your blog to directories. You can find a list of blog directories by going to Google and entering the search term 'submit blog url'.
3) Write an article or more with a link to your blog and submit them to article directories. You can find a list of article directories by going to Google and entering the search term 'article directory'.
4) Post messages on community forums with a link to your blog on the signature of each message posted.There are other ways (free and paid) to increase traffic for your blog. You can find a lot of free information and resources about blog promotion from search engines.

4 Steps to Creating A Website Specifically to Earn AdSense Revenue

2009-08-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

Building a website to earn Google AdSense advertising revenue has become a popular way to make extra money online nowadays. It is easier to earn AdSense income versus generating sales by selling products or services online. However it does involve works, time and money before you start earning from Adsense program. Below are the steps to creating a content website for earning AdSense revenue.

Step 1
Decide the content of your website. You can write a topic or subject related to your interest, hobbies or experience. You can also provide educational information and advice on your website if you are expert at something.

Step 2
Use a website builder to create your website. One of the easy-to-use website builders that can help you build a website is Bluevoda website builder. Bluevoda site builder allows users to build a website without technical knowledge. You don’t need to build your site from scratch. The trick is to use a free professional template provided by the site builder and then start adding your text and links to your website. You can add some graphics and pictures to make your site look nicer. After completing your website project, your next step is register a domain name and sign up for a hosting account to publish your website on the Internet.

Step 3
Join Google AdSense program. It will usually take several days for Google AdSense team to review and approve your site. If Google accepts your application. You can start learning how to generate AdSense code for inserting to your website to generate Adsense revenue. If your site rejected by Google, don’t get upset easily. Google will let you know the reasons of the rejection. You can fix the problems and reapply again.

Step 4
You need to drive targeted Visitors/Traffic to your website to generate Adsense revenue. The higher your website’s traffic the greater your Adsense earning will be. Below are some of the ways that can help you drive some traffic to your website in short period of time.
1) Use Per-per-click (PPC) advertising. The two most popular PPC search engines are Google and Yahoo. Google and Yahoo can deliver instant traffic to your website but it is costly to advertise on Google and Yahoo. There are other alternatives like Bidvertise.com and Clicksor.com which are cheaper to advertise with.
2) Introduce your site to your family and friends.
3) Write several articles with a link to your website on the resource box and submit them to article directories. You can find a list of article directories by going to Google and entering the search term 'article directory'.
4) Post messages on community forums with a link to your site on the signature of each message posted.

Free E-book That Can Help You Start Making Money Online

2009-08-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

You don't need to buy Internet Marketing e-books to help you start an online business. Here's a free e-book names "Dotcomology - The Science of Making Money Online" you can download.

This e-book is written by Stone Evans, a home biz guy. It tells everything you need to know in order to get started making money online.

You will learn:
> How to make a e-commerce website from scratch.
> How to structure your website so that it becomes attractive, interesting, engaging and interactive.
> Discover which businesses are succeeding and why.
> PPC advertising and SEO techniques for getting your website to high ranking which will bring you free target traffic everyday.
> How to start you own affiliate program that can help you make more money.
> How to build a massive opt-in mailing list and profit from it like crazy.
> How to launch your own blog absolutely free and make easy money blogging online.
> And Much more......

Make Money Online - What to Sell on ebay

2009-08-05T08:06:00.002-07:00

There are more than one million people visit ebay every day. These people come to eBay not just visiting, they are looking for something and ready to buy when they found the items they are looking for. If you have something to sell online, eBay obviously is the best place for selling your stuff. You can sell almost anything you can imagine on eBay. Here are some tips and ideas that can help you start making money from eBay.

Sell High Demand Products To find out what products hot in eBay, you can study eBay Hot Categories report at http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/hotitems.pdf which can help you decide what kinds of hot items you want to sell. After deciding what items to sell your next question is where to buy these items for reselling on eBay. You can buy your stocks from wholesalers, but you usually need to order in bulks. Thus it will cost you several hundreds to thousands dollar to buy the stocks at the beginning. One way to start your eBay business with minimum cost is deal with drop ship wholesalers. Drop ship wholesalers allow you to list their products for sale on eBay and other auction sites without paying upfront to stock products. You only pay to the drop ship wholesaler when an item is sold and the drop ship wholesaler will ship the item on your name to your customer. You don't store any inventory; package and ship merchandise.

Garage Sales and Flea Markets
You can find inexpensive items for reselling on eBay from garage sale and flea markets. Take some time to shop around for the items you wish to resell on eBay.

Sell Returned Items
Another way to get things to sell on eBay is buy returned items from stores and retailers. Usually the retailers will not resell returned items again so they have to do something with those returned goods. You can try to approach store managers and ask them whether they can sell the items to you at below cost.

Trade Shows
Trade shows are another way to find products for reselling on ebay. Lots of merchants gather in one place to look for resellers. You can find trade shows in a particular industry by contacting trade associations and industry publications.

Make Money online - Get Paid to Blog

2009-08-05T08:06:00.001-07:00

Many people have earned AdSense revenue from their own blog. There are now some ways to generate more AdSense income by blogging online. There are several webblogs' owners looking for people to contribute or write for their blog and in return they will share 50% of their AdSense income with the contributors.
Blog.worldvillage.com
This blog gets about 3,000 visitors every single day. Anyone can join and contribute articles. Your Adsense Ads will be rotated (50% of time) on all the articles your have published.

Bloggerparty.com and Soulcast.com
The concept is similar to Worldwidevillage.com's blog except you don't need to write articles, you just need to post a few of short blog post.

Learn How to Make Money with AdSense

2009-08-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

Joel Comm, a successful internet marketer which earn 5 figures monthly AdSense revenue has published a new book calls The AdSense Code in May has ranks #3 in Amazon.com. And now the book is a New Yorks Times Paperback Best Seller, reaching #6 on the charts. This has proven that Google AdSense is now a popular way of making money with a websites and there are many people interested in learning how to make money with AdSense.Making money with AdSense is definitely easier versus generating online sales but it does involve time, money and effort before you start earning any money from AdSense program.If you are interested to learn how to start making money with AdSense this book will sure help you.

Here the link to get the book.
http://www.theadsensecode.com

A lot of Joel's readers have been able to increase their AdSense figure after reading The AdSense Code.

Ways to Make Money Online

2009-08-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

Here's how you can make money online:

Make Money Online With A Free Blog

Blog or weblog is simply a website with continuous updates on a particular subject or topic and the latest post will stay on the top. For instance, If your blog is about motorcycle. You can post the latest news and announcements from motorcycle manufacturers, discuss about the latest models of motorcycles and the best components used for producing motorcycles. You can create a blog absolutely free by joing Blogger.com. Creating a blog with Blogger.com is easy as you don't need any technical knowledge and you can have your blog published within an hours.

There are several ways you can make money with a blog:

Place revenue generating Ads on your blogYou can join Google AdSense program and start earning advertising revenue from your blog.
Sell Other People's StuffYou can promote your affiliate programs by placing the affiliate links and banners on your blog and earn commission whenever someone clicks through an affiliate link or banner to your merchant's website made a purchase.
Sell Your Own ProductBlog can be used to promote and sell your own products too. You can write about your products' features and benefits on the blog.

Sell Products or Services Online

You can set up an online store to sell a wide variety of products. However, it will cost you few thousands dollars to start an e-store. One way to start an online business with minimum capital is deal with drop ship wholesalers.

So how drop shipping works?
- A drop ship distributor is a wholesale company that will ship one product directly to your customer.
- You don't need to pay for an item unless it is sold.
- You don't store any inventory.
- You don't package and ship merchandise.
- Your customer pays the retail price for the product to you and you pay the cost of the product to the drop ship distributor. The difference is your profit.Drop shipping system makes it affordable for anyone to start an online business due to the benefits it offers. EBay is the best place for you to start selling your products with drop shipping system. One strategy you can try is sell the similar items to the one that have attracted several bids in eBay. For instance, say you have opened an account with a cell phone drop ship dealer and ready to sell cell phone on eBay. You found that a Nokia 8810 cell phone have attracted 7 bids, so what you can try to do is list the similar item immediately with lowest price possible. Of course, there is no guarantee that you will make any money with this strategy. There are many more auction selling ideas you can find from the Internet which can help you make a steady income on eBay.

Be a Freelancer

There are many freelance job sites consist of a long list of freelance job contracts. These freelance sites usually offer the following jobs:1) IT jobs (web-design, Jawa, PHP, script-installation, programming, graphic design and so on)2) Writing & Editing Jobs3) Administrative support (Data entry) & accounting services.You may join several freelance sites for free and start bidding for the projects and contracts that are right for you. You can also make extra money writing articles and essays. There are places and websites where you can sell your articles and essays for a price anywhere between $5 to 25 per article. Furthermore, there are forums and blogs offer to pay anyone who post message and article to their websites.

Be an Affiliate

Affiliate makes money online by selling other people's stuff. An affiliate earns commission whenever someone sent by him/her to his/her merchant's website makes a purchase. Clickbank is one of the best places you can find an affiliate program to join because it is the largest e-book store and contains a ton of merchants looking for people to sell their e-books. The main task of affiliates is promote and advertise their merchants' websites (affiliate links). One method to promote affiliate program is advertise on Google. To advertise on Google you'll first need to open a Google AdWords account. You can start advertise on Google immediately after paying $5 account activation fee. Your cost of advertising is calculated in pay-per-click (PPC) basis. This means that Google will only charge you whenever someone clicks your text ad.

Paid Survey

Taking online paid survey at home is an easy way to make money online as you don't need any special skills and knowledge to complete paid survey job. In order to increase the money you can earn, you need to join as many market research and survey companies as possible. However you can't expect how much money you will make monthly because you have no idea when a paid survey invitation will send to your mail box. Thus it is not an ideal way to make a wage but a great way to make some extra income for paying your monthly bills.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM GOOGLE ADSENSE

2009-07-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

(Note: Today, I earn much more than the amount on that check. The reason I do not have a more recent check to display is Google pays me by direct deposit now.)

Anyone who owns or is thinking about creating a website would be crazy to ignore this.I am happy to say that making money with your site, no matter the topic, has become easier than it’s ever been before - and it’s 100% legitimate.If AdSense had been available in 2000, I would have NEVER shut down my soap opera fan site that received 200 hits per day. I would have been able to earn money from that traffic and probably turned a small profit.Untold Facts About AdSense you need to know in order to succeed with the program!Yes, the money can be great, but if you don’t learn how to build a site that attracts targeted traffic then you won’t make much from AdSense.Don’t pay a cent for these

“Get Rich Quick” books on AdSense. Many of them are all hype. Learn all you need to know for free.Right click and “Save As” to download this book.What is AdSense?Google.com earns most of its revenue by allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages. All this is managed through a program they call AdWords.Now you can earn a share of the revenue that Google earns from AdWords by placing these same text ads on your site. In other words, you’re helping Google advertise and they pay you a percentage of what they earn.This program is called AdSense.Every website owner should be involved in this. It’s just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Even if your site is just for information purposes, you can still participate and make decent money with AdSense — or at least enough to fund your website.So if you are one of those people that don’t like the idea of paying for a site, this is an excellent way to earn your money back and then some.Even if you earned as little as $10 in a month, it would more than likely cover some or all of the costs for your web site. Perhaps you are simply looking for ways to add additional revenue to your website, then it’s perfect for that situation too.This program is getting so popular, people are creating websites just to display the ads and profit from Google’s AdSense alone.I don’t usually like to use the term “easy money” because there really is no such thing. You still have to create your own website and learn how to bring in traffic in order to make good money with this program.I certainly don’t want to make it sound like you get something for doing absolutely nothing. There’s no such thing.However, I’ve got to say that AdSense is probably the closest you’ll ever come to fast money on the Internet — especially if you already have a website that gets a good amount of traffic.What’s even better…the program is completely free. You can also use it on multiple websites and there is no limit to the amount you can earn.How AdSense WorksDon’t like to read a lot of text? Watch my 4-minute video on how AdSense works.And now for the text version of how AdSense works…If you go to Google.com and do a search for almost any keyword phrase, you’ll notice some “Sponsored Links” that appear on the right side of the screen that are relevant to the keywords you just searched for.Website owners pay Google to display these ads and are charged a predetermined amount every time their ad gets clicked by a web surfer. With the AdSense program, you will display these same text ads on your site just like Google and get paid for it as well.All you do is copy and paste some provided HTML code into your pages and Voila! the ads will show up. Every time an ad is clicked on your site, you will receive a certain percentage of what Google receives from the advertiser.Once your account reaches $100, you’ll receive a check in the mail.

“Is Google Crazy?”
I know what you’re probably thinking…“What’s the catch here? Why would Google just give away money advertisers are paying them?”The answer…Because Google is very smart.Now that I understand how AdSense works, I can see that it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved, and the bottom line benefits Google. Let me explain…Since the advertiser’s ads are now being displayed on more web sites all over the internet (instead of just Google’s site), they are getting much more exposure. More exposure means more clicks and even more traffic for their site over a shorter period of time.This is good news for Google because the more traffic the advertisers receive, the faster their advertising funds are used up.Remember, they get charged every time their site gets a visit; and of course, it is Google’s hope that they’ll continue to keep funneling more money into their account for more ad exposure.What an ingenious way for Google to increase the amount of money they earn from advertisers while building loyalty with website owners (like us) who are now getting paid to help them advertise.Of course, I’d expect nothing less from the most popular search engine on the web. :)My Personal AdSense StoryI have been receiving monthly checks from Google since 2003, and I’ve read numerous success stories of websites earning 5 digit incomes per month with AdSense.Now, I will admit, a 5-digit commission in a single month is probably not the norm for most participants.I promote AdSense on three of my websites and my checks have been as high as $4,500.The more information you have, the greater chance you have of attracting free search engine traffic. That’s why it’s so very important you choose a topic you have an interest in so you can keep building and building.My checks weren’t always that large. I think my first month’s earnings in 2003 totaled less than $20. However, I kept getting more and more search engine traffic by adding more content and the checks slowly began to increase. I had no idea it would grow to anything like this.

COPYCATS BEWARE!
I read an article about a lazy person that copied someone else’s content word for word and pasted on their own site. They tried to join AdSense and they were rejected for unauthentic content. I don’t know how Google found out their site was a duplicate of someone else’s but they did.Not to mention, the search engines are now ignoring pages with duplicate content. So all the thieves out there that are too lazy to come up with their own content are now finding that they cannot get their site ranked in Google, Yahoo and MSN simply because they’ve copied someone else’s work.It’s not worth the risk. Not to mention, it’s illegal to republish someone else’s work without permission. That’s why you should choose a topic you know a lot about or at least have a great interest in.There’s no reason to copy off someone else’s site. Be original. Laziness always comes to bite you in the long-run.

“How Much Can I Earn With AdSense?”
Google does not disclose exactly how much you’ll earn per ad that is clicked.The commission you receive per click depends on how much advertisers are paying Google for the particular ad. You will earn a share of that amount. I’ve heard of earnings anywhere from 2 cents to $15 per click.So it is logical to believe that keyword phrases like debt free, employment, make money, mp3, sex, etc. will earn you more per click since these are highly competitive keywords that are searched for quite a bit on the web.Advertisers generally pay more for popular terms because they are searched for more.Even though Google will not reveal how much you are earning for each ad that is clicked from your site, you can still login to your account at any time and see the total amount of revenue you’ve generated that day, week, month, year, etc.For example, if you see that you’ve made $12.60 today from 9 clicks then you can calculate that your average click-thru commission was $1.40 per click. That’s as detailed as their stats will get. Also remember, that’s only an average. You won’t know how much each specific ad brought in.The amount you’ll earn also depends largely on the amount of targeted traffic you receive to your own site, how well the ads match your audience’s interests, the placement of the ads on your pages, and of course the amount you receive per click.Ideally, you should create a site on a topic you know a lot about. That way you’ll have a much easier time creating a generous amount of content on that subject.How Google Matches the Ads to Your Site’s ContentOne of the main reasons this program is so successful is because the ads that are displayed closely match the content of your website. This increases the chances that someone will click on the ads.Here’s how Google accomplishes the content match…“…We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on an algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page.”So let’s say you have an information website about yoga. Once you join AdSense and paste their ad code into your site, Google’s technology will determine the topic of the pages by scanning for keyword repeats, page title, etc.If successful, you will see ads that relate to yoga displayed on your web pages. Of course, the more related the ads are to your site’s content, the better the click-thru.Keep in mind, the ads may not be an exact match because it depends on the ads inside Google’s database. So instead of seeing yoga ads, you may see more generic ads like exercise, healthy eating, etc. This is not a bad thing because these are topics your visitors will likely be interested in as well.Why I Believe AdSense Works So WellFor years, website owners have tried to make money from their sites by putting up banner ads in hopes of visitors clicking them. The problem with banner ads is that the Internet audience is so immune to them, people do not click on them anymore.When’s the last time you clicked a banner ad?…Exactly!Second, in order for the web site owner to earn money from that banner ad, usually the web surfer that clicks has to purchase something. With AdSense, your visitors just have to click the ads. They don’t have to purchase a single thing.Third, most people that use banner ads do not do a good job of matching the ads to the website’s content so the click thru percentages are dismal.With Google’s AdSense, not only are you displaying text ads, (which tend to receive a much higher click-thru rate than banner ads), but you are displaying contextual ads that match your website’s content….thanks to Google’s advanced technology.Lots of times people think the ads are part of your site’s content so they click because the information is relevant to your site. Whereas with banner ads, they often have little relevance and people tend to ignore them no matter how much they flash and fly across the page.Creating Your Website for AdSenseBefore you even begin your site, make sure you’ve come up with a topic that you feel you know plenty about. That way it will be easiest to write a lot of content.The more content you have, the better chance you have getting accepted into the program. Also, the more content, the greater the earning potential. AdSense is nothing but a numbers game. If you want to make a lot of money, prepare to write a lot of content.Now let’s talk about building your website.

There are two ways you can approach this:

1) Do it Yourself (DIY) from scratch2) Use Site Build It! (SBI!)The Do It Yourself MethodI’ve actually used both methods for building my site and there are advantages and disadvantages to both.If you use the DIY method, you will have to go and register a domain name (yoursite.com) and then sign up for a web host and build your pages. You can either learn HTML or buy some kind of web editor like Microsoft FrontPage to build your pages. That’s the method I used to build this site.Averaging between $7 and $15 per month, the DIY method is usually the most cost friendly of the two but you are mostly on your own in terms of learning how to create your web pages and adding the AdSense code to your site.Web hosts are generally there to house your site. They don’t specialize in helping you market and optimize your site for the search engines to help you get traffic. So don’t expect a lot from them in terms of helping you market your site.This is not necessarily a bad thing. I had to learn how to build this site on my own and it wasn’t very difficult.I bought Microsoft FrontPage and in about a day or two my site was up and running. So if you don’t mind learning, it’s definitely doable. In fact, most people use the DIY method to build their websites. The 2nd method below is fairly new in comparison.Use Site Build It! - A Web Host Made for AdSenseThis is a revolutionary web host like no other. I use it for my site, www.flat-stomach-exercises.com, and after only 11 months the site was earning over $700 per month for AdSense alone.Two years after launch, the total monthly earnings shot up to $2,000 to $2,500.Today, the site continues to earn money from AdSense yet I have no products to sell. I’m simply offering information on a topic I know a lot about and SBI showed me how to rank high in the search engines for various keyword phrases. Over 90% of traffic comes from the free search engines.The reason SBI is different from the other do-it-yourself hosts is that first it provides all the web page building and marketing help all in one place. Your domain registration, web hosting and marketing help come with the price.Super Easy Web Page BuilderCreating your pages is as simple as entering text into form fields and using the user-friendly editor to add text, create links, add pictures and more. No software is needed to install or download. You simply select a template you want to use and your site is built in seconds…literally.I took a screenshot of the SBI! interface…Free GuidesWhat’s even better is that you will have access to tons of free guides that show you how to optimize your site for the popular search engines so you can get as much free traffic as possible.Remember, without traffic, you won’t make any money with AdSense. That’s why having a host like SBI is so important. Keep in mind, a regular DIY host does NOT help you with search engine rankings and traffic.Brainstorming ToolSite Build It also comes with a powerful brainstorming tool. So for all of you sitting there wondering about a topic, this tool literally scours the net and helps you decide on the best topic by showing demand and supply (i.e. number of sites on X topic and roughly how feasible it will be to bring in traffic for that particular subject). It is amazing.The creator of Site Build It even built a micro site that describes how to maximize your AdSense earnings. And since Site Build It’s main goal is to show you how to build income through content…it’s almost as if AdSense was designed specifically for a web host like SBI.See the SiteSell AdSense site here.I highly recommend using SBI — especially if you plan on building a site specifically to earn money from AdSense. It is the kind of host that stands for everything AdSense is about — rewarding website owners for building an abundance of useful content.Even though the two companies are not related, it really is the perfect marriage between a great concept like AdSense and a web host that is dedicated to showing you how to make money by simply providing information.Successful SBI WebsitesBe sure to also take a peek at all the successful SBI websites created by mostly beginners who have never created a site before. Every site listed on this page is in the top 3% in terms of amount of traffic received on the web - thanks to the SBI search engine help.How to Join AdSenseAfter you have created your website, click the button on the right to join. Most sites are either accepted or rejected within 24 to 48 hours, so you shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out if your application has been approved.Once you’ve been accepted, simply copy and paste the provided HTML code into any page that you’d like to show the ads. If you’ve done a good job of defining the content on your web pages, the ads that show should be relevant to the content of your page…increasing the chances of click-thrus by your visitors.You can either display the ads vertically along side the page like Google does or in a banner-like formation horizontally across your pages. The placement is up to you. You can even customize the colors to match your site’s theme. If Your Site Is Rejected by Google…If you receive that email from Google stating that your site has not been accepted, the first thing you should remember is that as an AdSense member, you become a partner and are representing Google, Inc. They have to make sure the websites that display these ads are up to par or they could run the risk of losing advertisers. Imagine if you were paying Google to display your ad and you found it showing up on a poorly developed, junky website.Of course, if your site is rejected, it doesn’t mean it is poorly developed.

There may be other reasons:

1) Is your site an “About Me” page?Google does not usually accept these kinds of personal sites because most of them do not have a specific topic or theme. They are usually just random facts about the website owner or their hobbies, pictures, etc.It would be difficult for Google’s technology to display targeted ads on these kinds of pages because the topics vary from subject to subject.They are looking for “themed” sites that contain a generous amount of information on a specific topic. It could be anything from sewing tips to sports. Just make sure there is an obvious theme with adequate information.
2) Is your site organized?Be sure your site has a neat and clean navigation that’s easy to follow. Also ensure all the links work and that there are no typos. Keep the colors to a minimum and make sure each page has a consistent layout.
3) How many pages are on your site?Even though Google doesn’t specify a page number requirement, many believe they are looking for web sites with a certain amount of content. Again, it’s not likely a two-page site will get accepted. Try to strive for at least 15 pages.
4) Is your content solid?Don’t just submit a website with a bunch of links to other sites. Be sure you have a themed/niche site with enough original content of your own.
5) Is your site an exact carbon copy of someone else’s?Some believe Google can find out if your site is original or not. Don’t risk it and steal from someone else. It will come back to haunt you.If you’re stuck, write a few articles of your own and then go to sites like www.articlecity.com and sprinkle a few of their articles around your site to beef it up.
6) Be sure to read their program policy and procedures carefully and make sure your site hasn’t violated any of the terms.Tips on Succeeding With AdSenseHere are some tips for achieving success with AdSense.1. Create a website with your (YourSite.com). Don’t try to use a free web host because your site will likely have banners and pop-ups and get rejected because it looks unprofessional. Not to mention, a free web host will give you a website address like this:

http://thefreewebhost.com/yoursite/member1234/home.html

instead of… http://www.yoursite.com See how much more clean, concise and professional that last link is?If paying for a website causes you to frown, remember the money you earn from AdSense could more than pay for the web hosting fees you’ll incur.Look at it as an investment instead of a cost. I never dreamed I’d have this much success with this program. My AdSense earnings clearly outweigh the few dollars I pay every month to maintain my sites.2. If you don’t know web programming or have no desire to learn it, get a beginner’s design editor like Dreamweaver (what I use) or CoffeeCup. You can publish your content directly to the web from the software.Keep in mind you can’t use the software alone. You must have a web host that will allow you to publish your site to the Internet. (More on web hosting in a sec.)3. If the main goal of your site is to make money with AdSense, be sure to choose a topic that you know a lot about so you can write lots and lots of content.4. Get traffic. Once your site is up and running you’ll need to learn how to get your site listed in the major search engines.Getting into Google is completely free and can bring in hundreds or even thousands of visitors per day. All you have to do is submit your site to them and wait patiently while Google ads it to the index. It can take a few months. Patience is key with Google. Then do the same with Yahoo, MSN, etc.Read up on how the search engines rank pages here.And while you’re waiting it’s important you build up as much unique content around your theme as possible. Google loves large sites with useful content centered around a specific theme.Don’t create a hodgepodge site with topics on everything under the sun. Stay focused and make sure your site has an obvious theme.5. Partner up with other related sites and participate in link swaps. This means that you place a link to another person’s site on your own site and they do the same for you in return. This is a great way to get even more free traffic.Sign up for AdSense.Why Most People Fail With AdSenseI want you to succeed with AdSense, but unfortunately the majority of the people that join never see much money at all. Watch my video below so you can avoid common pitfalls made by many new Webmasters.

How to convert and reformat a Mac hard drive to Windows

2009-07-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

This morning I experienced a dilemma where I could literally break every Apple product I have ever owned. Let’s start from the beginning. I gave my 500GB external hard drive to my girlfriend since she was running out of space. She was using an iMac so of course the external hard drive was formatted for a Mac. She need more space so I had to give her my 1TB external (we basically swapped). Upon receiving back my 500gb external, I realized I could not use it yet until I reformat it. I went through the basic steps but apparently, Apple had put in a security where it’s a “GPT Protective Partition.” I was furious and had to Google for half an hour to figure out how to solve my issue. So here it is. Credit goes to Paul Gu for his easy to follow procedures.
1) Go to Start > Run (Windows Vista and 7: type in “run“)
2) Type in “cmd”
3) Type in “DiskPart”
4) Type in “List Disk” to display all the disks on the machine. Figure out which hard drive number is corresponding to your external hard drive (Ex - mine was 1)
5) Type in “Select Disk Number” (Replace “Number” with actual number corresponding to your drive. i.e. mine would be “select disk 1“)
5) Use “clean” command to remove GPT disk from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors.
Now your hard drive is ready to be reformatted.
6) Right click on “My Computer” and go down to “Manage”
7) Under “Storage,” Click on “Disk Management” on the left side.
Right click on the disk info and choose “Initialize Disk”
9) Once that is done, you can go to eHow for easy step by step instructions to reformat your hard drive.

Windows says it's "Dangerously Low on System Resources"

2009-07-20T07:17:00.001-07:00

The way Windows 9x/Me handles a small area of memory called System Resources is one of the biggest shortcomings of the Windows 9x/Me architecture. Understanding the concept of System Resources is key to reducing system crashes and helping to maintain your sanity in an average workday. Every time you open an application, it loads all of its visual components, such as windows, menus, text boxes, buttons, checkboxes, and lists, into memory. Windows keeps track of the visual components of all the applications so that, for example, when you drag a window across the screen, it knows what was behind the window and is able to redraw it. These visual components are stored in System Resources. Regardless of the amount of physical memory installed in your computer and regardless of the number of open windows, the amount of memory allotted to System Resources never increases.
What’s more, not all of the System Resources an application uses are released when the application is closed. So, you could open and close an application several times and actually run out of System Resources. That’s why Windows may complain that you’re out of memory, even when you have only two or three applications open.
The symptoms of low System Resources include slow performance, error messages when starting programs, application windows not updating properly, applications hanging, and the entire system crashing. The fix, at least as far as we lowly users are concerned, is to restart Windows. When Windows is restarted, the System Resources are cleared, and everything returns to normal.
This aspect of Windows, as well as many other troubleshooting tips, are discussed in detail in the book, Windows Me Annoyances.
The long-term solution is to upgrade to a version of Windows that doesn't have this problem. Both Windows 2000 and Windows XP are based on the Windows NT architecture, which has a much more sophisticated method of dealing with system resources. Both of these products will fix any "Out of memory" or "System Resources" problems you might be experiencing with Windows 95, 98, or Me.

Resolving Hardware Conflicts

2009-07-20T07:15:00.001-07:00

A hardware conflict occurs when two devices try to use the same hardwrae resource, such as an IRQ or memory address. The telltale signs of a conflict is either a particular device not working, or your system hanging or crashing every time you try to use a specific device. Nearly all devices made since 1996 are Plug-&-Play (PnP), meaning that they adjust these settings automatically to avoid conflicts. The more PnP devices you have, the less likely you are to experience a conflict. (For non-PnP devices, resources are assigned by setting jumpers or switches on the device itself, or by using special drivers or software.) So, what remains is trying to resolve conflicts between non-PnP (Legacy) devices; here is a general attack strategy for this type of problem:
1.) Open the Device Manager, select System from the top of the list, and click Properties. Windows tries to list all your resources, and which ones are being used by which devices.
2.) From here, you should be able to determine if there is a conflict, and which devices are causing it. Now, it's only a matter of reconfiguring one or more of the devices so that the conflict is eliminated (refer to the specific device's manual for information on changing its settings). If you can't find the cause of the problem here, continue to step 3.
3.) Remove or disconnect all unnecessary devices (sound cards, CD-ROMs) from your computer, except for the one that isn't working (if applicable). If the device still doesn't work, either it's broken, it's a driver problem (see below), or the conflict is with a key piece of hardware (such as the motherboard or video card).
4.) If the problem seems to have been fixed, start adding devices one-by-one, until the problem reappears. You've now isolated the culprit, and it's now only a matter of reconfiguring that device so that the conflict is eliminated (refer to the specific device's manual for information on changing its settings).
5.) Note that drivers can cause problems, too. See the next section for more information.

What to do about error messages during Windows startup

2009-07-20T07:14:00.001-07:00

You may have seen a strange message when Windows is loading. If it only happens once, don't worry about it. If, on the other hand, it is recurring, it can be caused by many different things. Here are the usual culprits: A file can't be found: A driver or progam is configured to load when Windows starts, but the file is either corrupt or missing. Usually this means that you need to reinstall the driver or application, or remove the reference (if the respective device or application has been removed). A driver won't load: This could either be that the driver is corrupted, or the device which the driver controls isn't functioning properly. Virus: Viruses can cause this type of problem, and malfunctioning viruses can as well! Scan your system with updated anti-virus software.
The following are places that files or drivers can be specified to load when Windows starts. Often simply removing the reference to the file solves the problem - at the very least, locating the driver will help determine the culprit.
Look in your Startup folder (usually found in your Start Menu folder) for outdated or unwanted shortcuts. Older programs might still install themselves in your WIN.INI file (on the same line that starts with "LOAD="). Use Notepad to edit this file. (Windows 95, 98, and Me only) Search your Registry for the filename; try looking in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run for a place to start. Programs notorious for putting things in these places include backup utilities that automatically load their useless scheduler programs, and the software that comes with older versions of Micrsoft mice and keyboards.

What to do about a Page-fault, Illegal operation, or Fatal exception Error

2009-07-20T07:13:00.001-07:00

These errors are usually caused by a bug in software, where two applications (or drivers) try to use the same part of your memory. For the most part, these are intermittent errors, and aside from the annoyance, they can be ignored. If, however, this is happening frequenty, it can be caused by anything, including bad RAM, buggy drivers, and disk errors (run SCANDISK to correct). The best strategy is to try to figure out how to reproduce the problem, and then contact the manufacturer of the offending product. Write the message down, but keep in mind that all of those numbers (memory addresses) are absolutely useless to you; don't bother recording them unless a technician specifically asks you to do so. See Resolving Hardware Conflicts is you have reason to believe it's hardware related, or check out disk and file corruption for yet another direction.

Identifying the programs that Windows runs at boot

2009-07-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

There are several places that programs are listed to be run automatically at boot. The most obvious is your Startup folder in your Start menu - by looking at the properties of the icons in your Startup folder, you should be able to easily figure out what each one does. To stop a program from loading at boot, simply remove it's icon from the Startup folder.
The less obvious places for these programs to hide include the following:
In your Registry, at the following locations:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ RunServices Some of these may or may not be present, depending on your version of Windows
Listed in your WIN.INI file, under the LOAD= and RUN= lines (rarely used anymore) - Windows 95/98 only.
Many of the items in the registry can be difficult to identify, although some of them can be self explanatory. There are two parts to every listing (listed in the right pane) - the value name (in the left column) and the value data (in the right column). The name doesn't do anything, but can be descriptive - "SystemTray" operates the tray notification area (containing the clock and the volume control by default). The value data is what contains the filename of the program to run - in the case of the "SystemTray" listing, "SysTray.Exe" is run when it's encountered. Note that any application can place a program to run here - look at the description and the folder name for a clue. Some of the other common items that may be found include:
COMSMDEXE: 3Com networking component HP JetDiscovery: HP network printing component HPSCANMonitor: HP scanning component LoadPowerProfile: Microsoft power management profile loader ScanRegistry: Microsoft Registry Checker StillImageMonitor: Microsoft component for scanners and cameras SystemTray: Battery Meter for portable computers TaskMonitor: Microsoft component for keeping Explorer from crashing (ha-ha) Tweak UI: Portion of Microsoft Tweak UI that performs certain operations at boot, such as clearing the Run history.

Making Sure the Correct HAL is Installed

2009-07-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

The HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) is a set of drivers, upon which the Windows NT kernel is based. If the installed HAL is incorrect, you may have a problem ranging from certain settings not working (such as APM) to Windows not starting at all. Note that the concept of a HAL doesn't apply to Windows 95, 98, and Me. To see which HAL is currently installed, open Device Manager, and expand the Computer branch. The entry that appears in this branch corresponds to the currently installed HAL.
Although Windows will allow you to specify a new HAL here by double-clicking, selecting the Driver tab, and clicking Update Driver, DON'T DO IT. Instead, to install a new HAL, you need to reinstall Windows:
Boot off your Windows 2000 or XP CD. When asked if you want to install or repair your current installation, choose Install. Then, follow the steps to upgrade Windows (even though you're not technically upgrading, you are updating your HAL).

Turn off Indexing to speed up your PC

2009-07-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then I suggest turnning this feature off:
1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. Services
4. Disable Indexing Services

How to remove start-up items?

2009-07-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

Having programs run when windows loads slows down your start.
There are two ways do disable programs that may be in your startup (like icq, messanger,)
The easiest is to do the following:1. start --> run --> msconfig2. Click on the "startup" tab (furthest right)\3. Unclick any items you don't want to load when windows starts.
The second is by deleting registry entrys, this can be done the following way:1. Start --> run --> regedit2. Navigate to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run3. Delete any entry's that you don't want to load up
NOTE:Deleting keys from the registry will not allow you to set them to startup again if you change your mind.
Editor's note: Since you always create backup files, when editing the registry, (don't you?), you can restore these, in case you change your mind.

Disable Prefetch for low memory systems to help boast system performance

2009-07-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

The Windows XP Prefetch can take a lot of this up by preloading programs at boot as well as preloading programs you often use thus sucking away your available RAM.
Note: This tweak worked for this user and their system configuration but disabling prefetch on other systems may have a bad effect as it might free up ram but it also could increase program start up time.
Here's how to disable Prefetch.
1. run "regedit";2. goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher];3. Set the value to either 0-Disable. 4. reboot.

How to convert FAT32 To NTFS?

2009-07-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

To change from FAT 32 to NTFS file system for more stability, security and less fragmentation, open the command prompt and type:
Convert C: /FS:NTFS
"C" being the drive you wish to convert. Make sure there is a space between the C: and the foward slash (/). Once you press enter it will ask you for confirmation and press Y. Then press Y and enter once more to reboot.This also works for windows XP Home.

Correcting System Hang at Startup

2009-07-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

If your system hangs about 2 or 3 minutes at startup, where you can't access the Start button or the Taskbar, it may be due to one specific service (Background Intelligent Transfer) running in the background. Microsoft put out a patch for this but it didn't work for me. Here's what you do:
1.Click on Start/Run, type 'msconfig', then click 'OK'.
2. Go to the 'Services' tab, find the 'Background Intelligent Transfer' service, disable it, apply the changes & reboot.
This problem with the Background Intelligent Transfer Service should have been corrected in Windows update Q 314862, part of Service Pack 1.

How to restore the missing Show Desktop icon in the Quick Launch bar?

2009-07-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

There are 2 methods you can do:
Method 1:
Click Start, Run and type the command regsvr32 /n /i:U shell32(The Show Desktop SCF file should now be available)
Method 2: Manually create the Show Desktop file
Click Start, Run, and type Notepad.
Type the following contents into the document.
[Shell]Command=2IconFile=explorer.exe,3[Taskbar]Command=ToggleDesktop
Save the file as "ShowDesktop.SCF" [beware of double-extensions. Always use double-quotes]Drag the file to the QuickLaunch bar.
How to Re-create the Show Desktop Icon on Quick Launch Toolbar:http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=190355

How to Bypass BIOS Passwords?

2009-07-20T06:43:00.000-07:00

Before attempting to bypass the BIOS password on a computer, please take a minute to contact the hardware manufacturer support staff directly and ask for their recommended methods of bypassing the BIOS security. In the event the manufacturer cannot (or will not) help you, there are a number of methods that can be used to bypass or reset the BIOS password yourself. They include:
Using a manufacturers backdoor password to access the BIOS
Use password cracking software
Reset the CMOS using the jumpers or solder beads.
Removing the CMOS battery for at least 10 minutes
Overloading the keyboard buffer
Using a professional service
Please remember that most BIOS passwords do not protect the hard drive, so if you need to recover the data, simply remove the hard drive and install it in an identical system, or configure it as a slave drive in an existing system. The exception to this are laptops, especially IBM Thinkpads, which silently lock the hard drive if the supervisor password is enabled. If the supervisor password is reset without resetting the and hard drive as well, you will be unable to access the data on the drive.

Dell [USBD] Boot Error

2009-06-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

You boot your Dell computer and it proceeds past the Dell splash screen but then returns a black DOS type screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner. After rebooting several times you then get a message that says: Previous attempts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [USBD]If you let the computer sit long enough (about a half hour) then it will load Windows.
There are 2 steps you can do to fix the problem
1. Change the USB Emulation Setting in the BIOS
NOTE: It is recommended to disconnect any USB devices before performing the following steps.
Restart the system.
Wait until the Dell Logo appears.
At the Dell Logo screen, press F2 right away to enter the System Setup.
The System Setup screen will appear.
Press the down arrow key to highlight Integrated Devices (LegacySelect Options).
Press Enter.
A small box with a list of devices appears in the middle of the screen.
Press the down arrow key to highlight USB Emulation.
The default setting is On.
Press the Space Bar on your keyboard to change the setting to No Boot.
Press the Esc key.
The small box disappears.
Press the Esc key again.
A small box with list of options appears in the middle of the screen.
Make sure that Save Changes and Exit is highlighted in blue.
Press Enter.
The system will then restart.
The recommended changes have now been made to the BIOS.

2. Reset the Dell Dimension desktop System Setup (BIOS) to factory defaults.
Restart the system.
The Dell logo screen appears.
Press F2 to enter the System Setup (BIOS).
The System Setup screen appears.
Press the ALT + F key combination.
Press the Esc key to Save and Exit.
Press Enter to Save changes and exit now.
The BIOS is now set to the default settings.

Windows Installer Could Not Be Accessed Error (Windows XP)

2009-06-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

When you are trying to install, uninstall or repair a program, you may receive an error that says Windows Installer could not be accessed and that the Windows Installer files are missing damaged or have become unregistered.

Here are couple of things to try:

Re-register the Windows Installer components.

1. Open My Computer or Windows Explorer
2. Browse to the Windows\System32 folder and make sure that the application file msiexec.exe is there.
3. Start the Registry Editor. Click on Start, Run, type in regedit and click Ok.
4. Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSIServer.
5. Select MSIServer, then make sure the value ImagePath contains C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe /V
6. Restart your computer in Safe Mode. Click on Start, then Run and type msiexec /regserver and click Ok.
7. Restart the computer.

If that doesn’t work then you can try to reinstall the Windows Installer.

Download and install the latest version of the Windows Installer.

Common PC Error Messages

2009-06-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

Fatal exception error:
Fatal exception errors are codes that are returned by a program in the following cases:
• Access to an illegal instruction has been encountered
• Invalid data or code has been accessed
• The privilege level of an operation is invalid When any of these cases occurs, the processor returns an exception to the operating system, which in turn is handled as a fatal exception error. In many cases the exception is non-recoverable and the system must either be restarted or shut down, depending upon the severity of the error.

Illegal operation error:
An application has experienced instability due to some type of error. This could also be caused by some other application interacting with the error producing program.

Registry/configuration error Choose Command prompt only and run scan reg:
To restore the registry Windows 98:
1. Click Start and then click Shut Down.
2. Click Restart in MS-DOS mode, and then click Yes.
3. At the Ms-Dos prompt type scanreg/restore

Not enough memory to render page:
This error appears when a document you sent to the printer is too big for the printer’s buffer memory.

Data Error Reading/Writing Drive C (or other drive)
The error messages given indicate hard drive failure or serious data corruption.
This error can be caused by:
Hard drive not setup properly in CMOS.
Hard drive not connected.
Bad hard drive.

This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, contact the program vendor:
Some type of software tried to communicate with the computer’s CPU, which didn’t understand the request or the request was an invalid action.

There is not enough free memory to run this program. Quit one or more programs, and then try again:
You do not have enough memory (RAM) to run all the programs you want to open

There was an internal error, and one of the windows you were using will be closed. It is recommended that you save your work, close all programs, and then restart your computer:
You most often see this when you open several windows from the same application, such as many open browser windows or several text documents running in separate windows. When one of the open windows experiences errors and crashes, this message pops up

Invalid system disk Replace the disk, and then press any key:
That message means that your hard drive is no longer bootable. Likely causes are a defective drive, corrupted files, or a virus.

Not enough memory to render page:
The printer driver may have determined the amount of printer memory incorrectly. This behavior can also occur if the printer does not have enough memory to render the page.

Stop 0x0000000A or IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL:
This behavior can occur if there is incompatible hardware or an incompatible device driver on your computer. Try and restore your configuration using the Last Known Good Configuration option from Safe Mode. Remove any newly installed hardware.

Invalid Page Fault:
An unexpected event has occurred in Windows. A program has requested data that is not currently in virtual memory, and Windows attempts to retrieve the data from a storage device and load it into RAM. An invalid page fault error message can occur when Windows cannot locate the data. The virtual memory system has become unstable because of a shortage of RAM or hard drive space. A program is attempting to access data that is being modified by another program that is running.

Windows Protection Error:
This behavior can occur when a when your computer loads or unloads a virtual device driver (VxD)

Non-system disk or disk error Replace and press any key when ready
You may see this message if your start device/disk (floppy disk drive, hard disk drive, or CD-ROM drive) does not contain boot files

Fatal error: An error has been encountered that prevents setup from continuing.One of the components that Windows needs to continue setup could not be installed.
You may see this message if your hard disk is damaged or corrupted. You receive the error messages because the Setup program is trying to repair the problem on your hard disk.

System has recovered from a serious error:
This problem occurs because after a Minidump file is written, the paging file continues to have a flag set that indicates that a Minidump file must be written.

The system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file:
This issue may occur if there is not sufficient memory on the computer, and when the current virtual memory settings are not set high enough.

This application requires the Windows Installer to run:
The Windows Installer is missing or damaged.

Internet Explorer. A runtime error has occurred. Do you wish to debug:
Internet Explorer is displaying this message because it has encountered this error when trying to run some JavaScript on the page.This message may appear when the Visual InterDev PageNavbar control tries to open a Web page whose name contains an apostrophe (').

The margins of section X are set outside the printable area of the page. Do you want to continue?
Your margins are set closer to the edge of the paper than your printer is capable of printing.

File is Missing or Corrupt: C:\Winnt\System32\Drivers\Pci.sys Error

2009-06-18T23:48:00.000-07:00

When you start Windows, you receive an error similar to:
File is missing or corrupt: C:\Winnt\System32\Drivers\Pci.sys
When this happens you should restore the file using the Recovery Console or perform a repair installation of Windows.

To restore the file do the following:
1. Start the Recovery Console.
2. Select the installation you wish to access.
3. Type the administrator password.
4. Type MAP to determine the drive letter assigned to the CD-ROM.
5. Type Expand \i386\pci.sy_ c:\Winnt\System32\drivers /y. You should receive a message that says:
pci.sys
1 file(s) expanded.

6. Type exit and reboot.
*NOTE: c:\winnt should be replaced with the location of your Windows installation.

Missing Folder Options Item From Tools or View Menu

2009-06-18T23:44:00.000-07:00

If you open My Computer or Windows Explorer there is a menu item called Folder Options under the Tools menu. You may find that you do not have this option or did have it and it disappeared. There are a few methods you can try to get it back.

Edit the registry to get the folder options back.Go to Start, Run then type in regedit and click Ok. Browse to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ExplorerFind the NoFolderOptions key and change the vaule to 0 assuming you have this registry key.Restart your computer.

Check your computer's policy to make sure its not disabled. Click on Start, Run and type in gpedit.msc and navigate to the following location:User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer. On the right side, set Remove the Folder Options menu item from the Tools menu to Not Configured by double clicking it and setting the appropriate option.

Import a registry tweak\edit.Download and import this registry tweak that will change settings in your registry.Download the file.Double click it and then click Run and then Yes when it asks if you want to import the file into the registry.

Internet Explorer Error - A Runtime Error Has Occured, Do You Wish to Debug?

2009-06-18T23:42:00.000-07:00

You may come across this error when you are trying to load a particular webpage.
A Runtime Error has occurred. Do you wish to Debug?
Or
Internet Explorer Script Error. An error has occurred in the script on line 1. Do you wish to continue running scripts on this page?

There is a certain change you can make to your Internet Explorer settings to avoid seeing this message. It involves disabling runtime and script errors.

To make the change do the following:

1.Open Internet Explorer.
2.Click on Tools and then Options.
3.Click on the Advanced tab.
4.Check the boxes next to Disable script debugging (Internet Explorer) and (Other)
5.Remove the check in the box for Display a notification about every script error
6.Click Ok

New Windows in Internet Explorer Open Partially Off the Screen

2009-06-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

You may come across a time where you click on a link on a web page in Internet Explorer and it opens the new page with part of it off the screen. Then you are not able to get to the close or maximize buttons on the top right. If this happens you can click the top right of the IE windows or right click the IE title bar in the task bar for the same options.

Internet Explorer is supposed to remember your window settings when you close them. Sometimes is doesn’t want to remember them and you may need to reset them. There are a couple of ways to do this depending on your configuration.

Method 1
If your taskbar is set to Autohide, turn the setting off and then maximize the IE window. With the window maximized, increase the height of your taskbar to two rows by clicking and dragging it up. You may have to unlock your taskbar first if it’s locked. To do this right click your taskbar and uncheck Lock the Taskbar. The maximized window should resize itself to fit into the smaller area available with the taller taskbar. Next, return the taskbar to a single row and allow the maximized window to resize itself. This will make Windows readjust window size and boundaries and overwrite the registry keys that store this information.

Method 2
If the new window is partially off screen and you cant see the Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons then you can try to edit the registry to restore the default settings.
Open the registry editor by clicking on Start, Run and typing in regedit and clicking Ok. Navigate to the following registry keys and delete them. Do not delete the entire key, just the last part of the key on the right side (In bold below)HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\window_placementHKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\OldWorkAreas\OldWorkAreaRects

Reboot your computer and try the webpage again.

Performing a Clean Boot in Windows XP

2009-06-18T23:21:00.001-07:00

If your computer does not want to start normally or is giving you errors that you cannot diagnose then Windows XP has a feature to help troubleshoot these issues when you start your computer. This process is known as clean booting. This will start the computer with a minimum amount of processes to allow you to better troubleshoot your problem.
Be warned that after you follow the instructions for a clean boot, you may lose some functionality of your computer. When you restore the settings, you will restore the functionality, but you may receive the same error message or encounter the same problem.

Here are the steps to perform a clean boot in Windows XP
Make sure you are logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group.

1. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig, and click Ok.
2. On the General tab, click Selective Startup, and then clear the Process System.ini File, Process Win.ini File, and Load Startup Items check boxes. You won’t be able to clear the Use Original Boot.ini check box.
3. On the Services tab, select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All.
4. Click OK, and then click Restart to restart your computer.
5. After Windows starts, check to see if you still have the same problem or error.

Run msconfig again and check the General tab to make sure that the check boxes that you cleared are still cleared. Continue to step 6 if none of the check boxes are selected. If the Load System Services check box is the only disabled check box, your computer is not clean booted. If additional check boxes are disabled and the issue is not resolved, you may require help from the manufacturer of the program that places a check mark back in Msconfig.

If none of the check boxes are selected, and the issue is not resolved, you may have to repeat steps 1 through 5, but you may also have to clear the Load System Services check box on the General tab. This temporarily disables Microsoft services and permanently deletes all system restore points. Do not do this if you want to retain your restore points for System Restore or if you must use a Microsoft service to test the issue.

6. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig and then click Ok.
7. On the General tab, select the Process System.ini File check box, click Ok, and then click Restart to reboot your computer. If the issue continues, the issue is with an entry in your System.ini file. If the issue does not continue, repeat this step for the Process Win.ini File, Load Startup Items, and Load System Services check boxes until the issue occurs. After the issue occurs, the last item that you selected is the item where the issue is occurring.

Note :Microsoft strongly recommends that you do not use System Configuration Utility to modify the Boot.ini file on your computer. Doing so may make your computer unusable.

Manual steps to start the Windows Installer service if needed

The Windows Installer service does not start if you disable Load System Services. To use Windows Installer in this case, you need to start the Windows Installer service manually.
1. Click Start, Run and then type services.msc and click Ok.
2. Right click Windows Installer, and then click Start. If you run a Setup program without manually starting the Windows Installer, you may receive the following error message: The Windows Installer service could not be accessed. Contact your support personnel to verify that the windows Installer service is properly registered.

Manual steps to return from a clean boot state
1. Click on Start, Run and type msconfig and then click Ok.
2. On the General tab, click Normal Startup - load all device drivers and services.
3. Click OK, and then click Restart when you are prompted to restart your computer.

Data Execution Prevention Error Message

2009-06-18T23:18:00.000-07:00

When you run a program in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) you may receive an error message that is similar to the following:

Data Execution Prevention –
Microsoft WindowsTo help protect your computer, Windows has closed this program. Name: program namePublisher: program publisher.

This is most likely occurring because you are using the Data Execution Prevention feature of Windows XP. You may get this error if the program you are using is not compatible with Data Execution Prevention

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) helps prevent damage from viruses and other security threats that attack by running (executing) malicious code from memory locations that only Windows and other programs should use. This type of threat causes damage by taking over one or more memory locations in use by a program.

Resolution 1
1. When you receive the error message that is mentioned in the "Symptoms" section, click Change Settings. 2. Click to select the check box next to the program, and then click Apply. 3. When you are prompted to restart your computer, click OK two times, and then restart your system.

Resolution 2
1. Right click My Computer and select Properties 2. Click the Advanced tab, then click Performance, and then Settings. 3. In Performance Options, click the Data Execution Prevention tab, and then click Add. To enable the Add button you may have to check the radio button that says Turn on DEP for all programs and services except for those I select.4. In the Open dialog box, locate and then click the program. 5. Click Open, click Apply, and then click OK.6. Click Ok to restart your computer.

.NET Installation Cleanup Utility

2009-06-18T23:12:00.000-07:00

The .NET Installation Cleanup Utility is designed to allow you to manually remove .NET software from your computer in the event of a failed installation or un-installation. You may have experienced problems with Windows Updates failing on .NET installations or service packs or even with manual installations.

On occasion it is possible for Windows Installer to become damaged if installing or uninstalling a specific piece of software or an update consistently fails on your computer and you want to remove any leftover files and settings before trying again. It is also possible for your computer's registry becomes corrupt for various reasons. Corruption can also happen if someone inadvertently changes a registry setting used by the Windows Installer. Another cause can be if you are installing software that uses Windows Installer (for example, .NET Framework 1.0, 1.1 or 2.0) and it gets interrupted during the installation.

When you download the Installation Cleanup Utility, simply run the cleanup_tool.exe file. It does not need to be installed. When you run it you will see a dialog box that lists all programs that can be cleaned up with this version of the Installation Cleanup Utility. Keep in mind that you will have to reinstall any versions of the .NET framework that you have the utility remove.

When you select a product and click Cleanup Now, the Installation Cleanup Utility will remove all file, registry, and Windows Installer information associated with the selected programs, including the entries for the programs in Add/Remove Programs. The information that will be removed is listed in the accompanying file cleanup.ini. If you remove the settings for a product that is currently installed on your computer, you must reinstall the product in order to use it again.

This version of the Installation Cleanup Utility will work properly on all 32-bit Windows operating systems beginning with Windows 95. In order to clean up Windows Installer-based products, you must have a version of Windows Installer installed on your computer.

Click here to download the .NET Installation Cleanup Utility. Note that onlinecomputertips.com cannot guarantee the safety of this software so use this it as well as any other software you download online at your own risk.

Your System Administrator Disabled the Display Control Panel Message

2009-06-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

You may encounter problems trying to change your display settings if you have a certain policy set to prevent you from doing so. If you try and run the display control panel applet either by right clicking on the desktop and selecting properties or clicking on Display from Control Panel you may receive the following message or something very similar.

Your System Administrator disabled the Display Control Panel

To fix this problem you can perform a simple registry fix.
Start the registry editor by clicking on Start, Run and then type in regedit and click Ok.
Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
If you have an entry for NoDispCPL, double click it to open it
If not you can create it by going to the Edit menu and selecting New and then DWORD value
Enter a name of NoDispCPL and press enter
Once you have this entry you should double click it and set the value to 0

Close the registry editor. The change will take effect immediately.

How to block any installed application from lunching on your computer?

2009-06-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

Today tip will help you to block any windows built-in applications or other third party programs from being executed on a target computer. If you want to restrict an application from running your family members and co-workers then AppLocker provides a simple solution to do so. However this tip is very useful for you, if you are sharing your computer with others or you do not want that other persons run all installed applications. This trick will work in nearly all of the windows versions like windows 2000, XP, 2003 and 2008.

AppLocker provides us a complete solution to block any programs from being executed on a target computer. You can download this tool for any windows version using AppLocker link. Download it and run the easy setup.

After installation, double click on AppLocker icon on your desktop to start the Application Locker software. Now this application will display the list of computer software programs like Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer and many others.

Here click on any application checkbox and then click on Save button to block any software. For example, if you want to block Internet Explorer then select the checkbox of internet explorer and now after saving the change click on Internet Explorer to start it. Here you will get following message:

Internet Explorer "C:\program files\Internet Explorer\Iexplore.exe" is locked. Please contact your Administrator.

Now here you can add other application other than the default lock application list, you can lock other programs by clicking the “Configure” button to open the configuration window. Type the caption you want displayed on the ‘Lock application list’. Then, type the programs executable file name and click the ‘Add’ button to add new applications.

How to backup of your computer installed drivers?

2009-06-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

You can easily create the backup of your computer installed drivers (just the particular or all drivers) and use it to troubleshoot any driver problems. This backup will be very useful when you will format your computer window due to any reason. There is no need to search the drivers from internet or drivers CD, just import the driver backup and within five minute, you will complete the driver installation process. You can move this backup from one computer to other computer for installation.

To complete the all process, we will use a simple tool called DriverMax. Using this tool, we can easily export the backup of any specific or all drivers and then import it for reinstallation later or elsewhere. You can free download (with free registration code) this tool for windows XP and Vista also. Download it and run the easy setup.

After Installation launch DriverMax, the first screen you will get with title "DriverMax - Version" and options "Export drivers, Import drivers and Installed drivers report"। Just click on "Export Driver" option to start backup process.

Now after welcome screen, system will take few seconds to create the list of all installed drivers and then show you all installed drivers list.

Here you can select any specific device driver or click on "Select all" button to create the backup of entire installed drivers.

Press the Next button and in next screen you can select the export type (simple backup or in zip format) and then choose the backup location (always choose drive other than C drive).

Again press the Next and system will take some time (depend upon the size of your drivers) to finish exporting the selected drivers.

Click the "Open extraction folder button" to view the backup files or press Close button to finish it.

Now you can use this backup files (using import option) to restore drivers backup or move to any other computer. Copy the Following link to download it.

Setting up a Profitable E-Business Effectively to Make Money Online

2009-05-01T07:03:00.001-07:00

The Internet is a good place to start a profitable business. Many people want to participate into the available online business opportunities so that they can build up their own Internet business and make a great deal of money online from time to time just like those successfully e-entrepreneurs.

However When it comes to setting up an online business, there is always concern about how much it costs to start the business, what are the tools required and what are the things that you must set up to make sure the business will run smoothly when it is live.

Basically starting an online business involves these steps:

1) Find and Research Your Niche Market
This is the very first step of set up a business online. You have to decide what to sell on the Internet. It can be a product, a service or a digital product (e-books, video, audio, software tools, etc). You can develop you own product or choose to sell other people products (affiliate marketing) or get the right wholesalers that can supply you the product constantly.

And then you got to do research to determine if there is a niche market or demand on what you intend to sell. You are not going to sell something that no one wants to buy. And then there is also market competitions you have to analyze. These are the things you must do to make sure you are starting a money making business.

2) Getting all the Tools you Need
A standard online business often has a website, a shopping cart, an auto-responder system and an auto-order processing system. Setting up each of these things takes time and work. Even though there are web designers you can hire to help you out on these technical stuff, but you do need to learn about them so that you are familiar with the process. When there is a small change need to be made, you can do it yourself.

3) Website Optimization
You are not going to make money online if your website doesn't convert traffic into leads or sales. So website optimization is very important. This is another area you have to learn.

Your website has to be optimize well - this will include changing the design, writing attention-grabbing title with good color and text formatting, placing image and graphic on the right locations, putting a form on the site to invite visitors to join your newsletter, adding video presentation and etc. Doing all these is necessary to improve your website conversion rate.

And then there is also search engine optimization (SEO) you have to take care of. The visitors from search engines like Google and Yahoo are often potential buyers. So, you definitely don't want to miss these targeted search engine traffic. You should make sure your website is optimized with the right keywords. This is called on-page optimization; it is the first part of SEO. It has to be done correctly to ensure you will get targeted traffic once you have also put in hard work on the second part of SEO which is off-page optimization.

These are the necessary steps to take in order to start a profitable business on the Internet. If you are new on the online business industry, setting up an online business with these steps could be difficult and confusing. There are load of free info that can help you, but you might find it too much to learn. One way to start an online business easier and effectively; and by pass part of the hard works is using a ecommerce consultant.

A professional firm that provides this specialized service is FitforCommerce. It is firm that really can help you whether you are trying to build new online business or improve an existing e-business. They will figure out what your really need and let you know where to find it from conducting market research to choosing ecommerce technology for your business and from designing site navigation to giving suggestions on website optimization.

These are just part of the services FitforCommerce offers, if you want to know how they can help you more on building a e-business to effectively make money online, you got to check out their site at http://www.fitforcommerce.com.

Why can't I delete a file in Windows Windows XP?

2009-04-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

There are a number of reason that a user or administrator can't delete a file:
1. The user or administrator does NOT have permission to delete the file.
You can try to use CACLS.EXE:
CALCS FileName /G Administrators:F
The above command will remove all ACLs on the file and grant the Administrators group Full Control.
2. The file is in use.
Close the file. You can use procexp.exe to determine the process that has the file open.
3. The file system is corrupts.
Run CHKDSK /F /R to detect and fix the corruption. CHKDSK may have to run at the next startup.
4. The path to the file is too long.
Use the 8.3 short name, unless it has been disabled. Type dir /x . If the 8.3 path is too long, start renaming parent folders until the path is short enough.
5. The file name / path contains a reserved named.
Use del "\\?\\path_to_file.extension" to delete the file.
6. The file name contains a trailing space.
Use del "\\?\\path_to_file.extension " to delete the file.

How do I disable Windows XP Error Reporting?

2009-04-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

When a program abnormally terminates, Windows XP offers to send an error report to Microsoft.
You can control this behavior via the registry:
1.Use the Registry Editor to Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting.
2.Edit the DoReport Value Name, a REG_DWORD data type, and set the data value to 0 to disable sending. A data value of 1, the default, enables sending.

I get this error message "Unmountable Boot Volume".

2009-04-02T07:26:00.001-07:00

When booting up to Windows XP you may get an error that reads: "Unmountable Boot Volume".

This is probably because your boot.ini file is messed up. Here is a possible remedy:

You can boot to the XP cd and when you see the "Welcome to setup" message, press the letter R.
You will then get a DOS prompt.
Then type: chkdsk /p [enter]
When that is done type: fixboot [enter]
Type: Y at the next prompt [enter]
Then type: exit [enter]
The system will now reboot into Windows.

If for some reason that didn't work, you can boot to the recovery console (example above).
Type: "chkdsk /r" [enter]
When done type: exit [enter].
This takes a bit longer, but the system should boot back into Windows.

Corrupted or Missing \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG

2009-04-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

If you get the error:
Windows could not start because the following files is missing or corrupt
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM or \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE

Follow these eight steps:

1.Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.

2.At the first R=Repair option, press the R key

3.Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.

Typically this will be #1

4.Enter in the administrator password when requested

5.cd \windows\system32\config

6.Depending on which section was corrupted:
ren software software.bad or ren system system.bad

7.Depending on which section was corrupted
copy \windows\repair\system
copy \windows\repair\software

8.Take out the CD ROM and type exit

How do I disable Windows XP Error Reporting?

2009-04-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

When a program abnormally terminates, Windows XP offers to send an error report to Microsoft.

You can control this behavior via the registry:

1.Use the Registry Editor to Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting.

2.Edit the DoReport Value Name, a REG_DWORD data type, and set the data value to 0 to disable sending. A data value of 1, the default, enables sending.

How Do I disable the Indexing Service in Windows Vista?

2009-04-02T07:20:00.003-07:00

Disabling the Indexing services boost performance.

Here are the steps to disabled the indexing services:

1. Click the Windows button.

2. Type "services" in the search field.

3. Right click the Search service and select Properties from the resulting menu.

4. Select "Disabled" from the drop down menu next to "Startup type".

5. Next, right click the Indexing Service and select "Stop".

Problem Running Adobe Flash Plug-in

2009-04-02T07:20:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the reasons why the flash plug-in failed to load:

1. The flash plug-in hasn't been properly installed due to security software interfering the installation process.

2. Active-X is not properly registered in the system or the security level of IE is set to high that prevents the plug-in to install.

3. The flash plug-in could be corrupted and is preventing installation of the flash player.

How to enable/adisable clear type in Windows Vista?

2009-04-02T07:19:00.001-07:00

ClearType is a technology used in Windows XP and Vista which smooths screen fonts to make them appear better on flat-screen monitors.

1. Push Start , then Control Panel, then Personalisation.

2. Click the Windows Color and Appearance link

3. Click the link for “Open classic appearance properties”.

4. Press the Effects button, then tick the box to enable ClearType, or untick the box to disable it. Make sure you select ClearType from the drop down menu option.

5. Click OK, OK then close the Personalisation window

How to map a drive in Windows Vista to a remote FTP server?

2009-04-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

1. Go to Start, then Computer.

2. Click on Map Network Drive at the top menu bar.

3. Select the Connect to a website that you can use to store your documents and pictures link.

4. Click the Next button when the new wizard appears.

5. Select Choose a custom network location then select Next.

6. Enter in the FTP address of your server, in the form of ftp:// then select Next.

7. Uncheck the box that says Log on anonymously, then enter in your username for your FTP server, then hit Next.

8. Enter in a name for the server which will appear in Computer, then select Next.

9. Click Finish.

Fixes For Missing Windows System Files

2009-04-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

There are several common file errors that you may encounter when trying to start your Windows 2000 or XP computer। Here are a few of the more common errors.

NTOSKRNL not found
This could be a problem with your boot.ini file being configured incorrectly but is most likely because of a missing or corrupt ntoskrnl.exe file. Try these steps to fix the problem.

1. Boot from your Windows XP CD.
2. When it asks if you want to repair your Windows installation at the first R=Repair option, press the R key
3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair. There will most likely be only one option unless you have a dual boot setup.
4. Enter in the administrator password when requested (If it is blank just press enter)
5. Change to the drive letter for your CDROM.
6. Type CD i386
7. Type expand ntkrnlmp.ex_ C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe
If Windows is installed in a different location besides C:\Windows, type in the correct path.
8. Take out the CD and type exit to reboot your computer.

HAL.DLL Missing or Corrupt
If you get an error regarding a missing or corrupt hal.dll file, it might simply be the BOOT.INI file on the root of the C: drive that is misconfigured. The hal.dll file is a Windows NT file that is used by windows when communicating with your computer's hardware. Try these steps to fix the problem.

1. Insert and boot from your Windows XP CD.
2. At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
4. Type bootcfg /list to show the current entries in the BOOT.INI file
5. Type bootcfg /rebuild to repair it
6. Take out the CD and type exit

If that doesn’t work your can try to replace your hal.dll with another copy.
Repeat the above steps to return to the Recovery Console.
At the command prompt type: expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll. (Where d: is the drive letter of your CD and c:\windows is the location for your Windows installation folder.)
If prompted for permission to overwrite an existing version of the hal.dll file select yes.
Take out the CD and type exit.

NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM Not Found
Short for NT Loader, NTLDR is a program loaded from the hard drive boot sector that displays the Windows startup menu and helps Windows load.

Ntdetect.com is invoked by NTLDR, and returns the information it gathers to NTLDR when finished, so that it can then be passed on to Ntoskrnl.exe, the Windows kernel.

Try these steps to fix the problem.

FAT32 partition instructions
Boot with a Windows 98 floppy disk and copy the NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM files
from the i386 directory of your Windows XP CD to the root of the C:\ drive.

NTFS partition instructions
1. Boot from your Windows XP CD.
2. When it asks if you want to repair your Windows installation at the first R=Repair option, press the R key
3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair. There will most likely be only one option unless you have a dual boot setup.
4. Enter in the administrator password when requested (If it is blank just press enter)
5. Type in the following commands (Replace X by the drive letter that is assigned to the CD ROM drive.
COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C\: (Enter)
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:\ (Enter)
6. Take out the CD and type exit to reboot your computer.

File is Missing or Corrupt: C:\Winnt\System32\Drivers\Pci.sys Error

2009-04-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

When you start Windows, you receive an error similar to:

File is missing or corrupt: C:\Winnt\System32\Drivers\Pci.sys

When this happens you should restore the file using the Recovery Console or perform a repair installation of Windows।

To restore the file do the following:

1. Start the Recovery Console.

2. Select the installation you wish to access.

3. Type the administrator password.

4. Type MAP to determine the drive letter assigned to the CD-ROM.

5. Type Expand \i386\pci.sy_ c:\Winnt\System32\drivers /y. You should receive a message that says:

pci.sys

1 file(s) expanded.

6. Type exit and reboot.

*NOTE: c:\winnt should be replaced with the location of your Windows installation.

Missing Folder Options Item From Tools or View Menu

2009-04-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

If you open My Computer or Windows Explorer there is a menu item called Folder Options under the Tools menu। You may find that you do not have this option or did have it and it disappeared. There are a few methods you can try to get it back.

Edit the registry to get the folder options back.
Go to Start, Run then type in regedit and click Ok.
Browse to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Find the NoFolderOptions key and change the vaule to 0 assuming you have this registry key.
Restart your computer.

Check your computer's policy to make sure its not disabled.
Click on Start, Run and type in gpedit.msc and navigate to the following location:
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer.
On the right side, set Remove the Folder Options menu item from the Tools menu to Not Configured by double clicking it and setting the appropriate option.

Import a registry tweak\edit.
Download and import this registry tweak that will change settings in your registry.
Download the file.
Double click it and then click Run and then Yes when it asks if you want to import the file into the registry.

How Do I fix the error "Access Denied" when saving files on Windows Vista?

2009-04-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

This is a permission issue on Vista.In order to give yourself permission to edit and save these files, follow the instructions below.

1.Go to Start
2.In the Search box, type: explorer
3.Right click "Windows Explorer"
4.Select "Run As Administrator"
5. Find the folder that contains the file or files that you wish to edit.
6. Right click the folder.
7. Select Properties.
8. Click the Security tab.
9. Select Edit>> Add
10. If you are the admin and do not wish to let other users modify these files, type your username and hit enter. Or, just type: "Users" and then press Enter.
11. Place a checkmark next to the entry titled: "Allow Full Control"
12. Click OK, then OK once again.

How to do a dual boot of Windows Vista and XP?

2009-04-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

I used Windows Vista's Drive Management tool to create and format a new partition in my home development PC. What I did first was to shrink the original partition to make room for Windows XP. Once the new partition is all set up, boot from your Windows XP CD and perform a clean installation to your newly created partition. Once the installation is complete, you can use a third party software lik EasyBCD to restore your Vista.

How to start windows programs quickly with Run Command?

2009-04-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

The run option of Start menu is used to run a program or to open a document directly. If you do not know the exact location of the program or document then click on Start button to open Run and type the programs shortcut name to open it directly.

Run Commands

appwiz.cpl -- Used to run Add/Remove wizard
Calc --Calculator
Cfgwiz32 --ISDN Configuration Wizard
Charmap --Character Map
Chkdisk --Repair damaged files
Cleanmgr --Cleans up hard drives
Clipbrd --Windows Clipboard viewer
Control --Displays Control Panel
Cmd --Opens a new Command Window
Control mouse --Used to control mouse प्रोपेर्तिएस

Dcomcnfg --DCOM user security

Debug --Assembly language programming tool

Defrag --Defragmentation tool

Drwatson --Records programs crash & snapshots

Dxdiag --DirectX Diagnostic Utility

Explorer --Windows Explorer

Fontview --Graphical font viewer

Fsmgmt.msc -- Used to open shared folders

Firewall.cpl -- Used to configure windows firewall

Ftp -ftp.exe program

Hostname --Returns Computer's name

Hdwwiz.cpl -- Used to run Add Hardware wizard

Ipconfig --Displays IP configuration for all network adapters

Logoff -- Used to logoff the computer

MMC --Microsoft Management Console

Msconfig --Configuration to edit startup files

Mstsc -- Used to access remote desktop

Mrc -- Malicious Software Removal Tool

Msinfo32 --Microsoft System Information Utility

Nbtstat --Displays stats and current connections using NetBIOS over TCP/IP

Netstat --Displays all active network connections

Nslookup--Returns your local DNS server

Osk ---Used to access on screen keyboard

Perfmon.msc -- Used to configure the performance of Monitor.

Ping --Sends data to a specified host/IP

Powercfg.cpl -- Used to configure power option

Regedit --Registry Editor

Regwiz -- Registration wizard

Sfc /scannow -- System File Checker

Sndrec32 --Sound Recorder

Shutdown -- Used to shutdown the windows

Spider -- Used to open spider solitaire card game

Sfc / scannow -- Used to run system file checker utility.

Sndvol32 --Volume control for soundcard

Sysedit -- Edit system startup files

Taskmgr --Task manager

Telephon.cpl -- Used to configure modem options.

Telnet --Telnet program

Tracert --Traces and displays all paths required to reach an internet host

Winchat -- Used to chat with Microsoft

Wmplayer -- Used to run Windows Media player

Wab -- Used to open Windows address Book.

WinWord -- Used to open Microsoft word

Winipcfg --Displays IP configuration

Winver -- Used to check Windows Version

Wupdmgr --Takes you to Microsoft Windows Update

Write -- Used to open WordPad

How to increase the Browsing and Downloading speed in Windows Vista?

2009-04-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

With windows Vista you have noticed the slow internet speed. The web browsing and downloading speed is very slow as compare to previous versions of windows. You can open the same sites in windows XP and server 2003 with the normal speed.

Follow the given steps to increase the Vista browsing speed:

First go to Advance tab in Internet Explorer and turn off the TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption option. Here to fix problem with some secure pages turn on the SSL 2.0 (Secure Sockets Layer) feature and click Ok button to close it.

Follow the major fix for this problem:

In windows Vista, the TCP autotuning feature is enabled by default. Some web servers do not respond properly to this feature, so it appears that some sites open with very slow speed.

To use this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

First click on Start button and type CMD in Run option then press Enter.

At Command Prompt, type the following command and press enter.

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel= disabled

This command will disable the TCP autotuning feature. Now close the command Prompt and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

You can easily restore these setting by typing the following command at Command Prompt.

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel= normal

Now close the command Prompt and again restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

How to enable the advance performance setting in windows vista?

2009-04-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

If you have noticed that the speed of your system is very slow with windows vista then today tip is very useful for you to increase the performance of windows vista. There is some default setting in vista which is used to manage the write caching on disk. By default windows enabled the write caching on disk but the advanced performance setting is disabled.

Follow the given steps to configure the advance performance setting in Windows Vista:

To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

First right click on My Computer icon then select the option Manage.

Here small windows will appear with title Computer Management, now select the Device Manager option, then locate the SATA Disk under the Disk Drives.

Here select the enable advanced performance sittings on the SATA disk.

Now click on Ok button to apply the setting and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

How to delete files that are used by other programs in windows XP/Vista?

2009-04-02T06:56:00.000-07:00

Today tip will help you to delete the files and folders that are being used by another programs and applications, for example a virus affected file. You have tried to delete such kind of files or folders and received the any following messages.

Cannot delete file: the file is in use by the other program

Cannot delete file: There has been a sharing violation

Cannot delete file: The file is in use by another program or user

Cannot delete file: Disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Cannot delete file: The source or destination file may be in use

Normally, a windows restart will allow you to delete such files or folders that are being used by other program, but if you want to manage it without restart your computer then simply you need to download a freeware tool called Unlocker.

You can download this tool for any windows version using Unlocker link. Download it and run the easy setup.

After installation, right click on file or folder that you want to delete and select the option Unlocker.

If your requested file or folder is used or locked by other application then a small window listing of lockers will appear.

Here simply click on “Unlock All” button and now you can easily delete this file.

How to turn off UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista?

2009-04-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

1.Open GPEDIT.MSC and then disable everything beginning with "User Account Control" under Computer Configuration/Windows Settings/Security Settings/Local Policies/Security Options.
Or
Use Secpol.msc, which is the Local Polices section in the above Gpedit settings.

2.You can also turn off UAC in Control Panel, User Accounts. Click the link there that reads Change security settings, then, Turn User Account Control Off.

3.Or... Press the Windows + R keys > type msconfig > open the Tools pane.
Scroll down to Disable UAC and click once on that line. Click the Launch button.

How to Clean a Printer

2008-08-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

Does your printer have frequent paper jams? Does it put ink where ink shouldn't be? Is the outside of your printer dirty or covered with smudges? If so, it is time to clean your printer.

First, there are some general rules that apply to cleaning just about any electrical device. It is best to turn off the printer before cleaning it. Do not spray water or cleaner on or in the printer. Instead wet the rag with it and clean the printer with the rag.

Different types of printers require different cleaning methods. So if you can get your hands on cleaning instructions for your make and model of printer, do so and follow them. Unfortunately, many manufacturers only make that kind of information available to their licensed technicians. In that case, you are stuck with these instructions, so read on.

Open up your printer and take a look.

If you have an ink jet printer and there is an ink mess inside, clean it up with wet paper towels.

If you have a printer that uses toner either vacuum or blow it out. Some toner, especially color toner, can be harmful to you, so only use a vacuum with a micro-toner filter or blow and run. Figure out where the drum is (it is shiny and larger in diameter than the rollers) and do not touch or scratch it. If you do, the scratches will turn up as marks on every paper that you print and will require that you replace the drum (not a cheap option) to fix it.

Examine the path that the paper takes through the printer. Clean all of the rollers (but on a toner printer, not the drum or rollers near the drum and watch out for the rollers after the drum because they may be hot). It may take some disassembly and/or contorting of your arm to get to some of the rollers. Access is not always easy. The most important rollers to clean are the ones which pick up the paper from the paper bin and transfer it into the printer. If these rollers are dirty or bad, they will cause consistent paper jams.

The rollers are made of either hard plastic or rubber. All of the rollers can be cleaned with water or rubbing alcohol. If the rubber rollers have deposits that you can't get off, you can use harsher cleaners but be careful because those cleaners can damage the plastic rollers and parts.

To clean a roller, wipe across the roller with a wet rag, rotate the roller, and wipe again. Do this until you have worked your way all the way around the roller. Look at the rag. If it has been blackened by the roller, move to a clean part of the rag and clean the roller again.

How to clean your Mother Board

2008-08-12T22:53:00.002-07:00

If you have not done the inspection mentioned in the previous article - How to Clean your Case, now is the time to do so. Look at the blades of the fan in the back of the computer. Also look at any vents. Is there clusters of dust there? Is there grime caked on to it? If so, the inside needs to be cleaned. If the fan blades are clean but it has been several years since you have cleaned the motherboard or if the computer is around cigarette smoke, it probably should be cleaned anyway. Dust and particles in the air (like cigarette smoke) can build up on the circuitry of the motherboard and cause it to heat up and/or corrode.

The first thing that you need to do is unplug your computer. Then open up the case to get access to the motherboard. Cases open differently. If you don't know how to open your case, look on the back of your computer along the edge for some screws. These screws may hold on side panels or an upside down U shaped panel that covers the sides and top. Removing the screws will allow you to take off the cover. Other cases have the screws on the front of the computer. To get access to these screws, you must first remove the front panel by pressing a hidden latch. The cover is there to give easy access to the inside of your computer, so if you look hard enough, you should be able to figure out how to remove it.

Remember that if you touch anything on the motherboard, you should be grounded by either touching the metal frame of the computer with your other hand or by wearing a special grounding device.

The goal of cleaning the motherboard is to remove all dust and debris from the motherboard and all components inside of the case. This can be done using one of three methods.

The preferred method is to use a can of compressed air to blow it out. Always hold the can in an up-right position to prevent the propellent chemicals which can damage or corrode components from coming out. Dust and dirt should be blown away from the motherboard and out of the case.

Another way to remove dust is to use a vacuum. The common advice is to only use a battery operated vacuum because an AC powered vacuum causes static and static can ruin the motherboard. I have used an AC powered vacuum (before I knew that it was not recommended) to clean my motherboard many times and it has never caused any problems, but I may have just been lucky. When using the vacuum, keep the nozzle a couple of inches away from the motherboard or any other components so that it does not come in contact with them and so that any small parts are not sucked into the vacuum.

If you do not have a can of compressed air or a vacuum, you can use a dry cloth and brush to clean the motherboard. Be careful not to dislodge or break anything using this method.

While cleaning the motherboard, be careful not to unplug any cables or connections or to dislodge any loose components, such as, jumpers.

Methodically clean the whole inside of the case going over all of the motherboard from one end to the other and all other components. Don't forget to clean the fans and heat sinks. Do not open up the power supply box or stick anything in it beyond the fan. If you do, you could get a shocking surprise and ruin your computer.

If your computer does not work when you put it back together, something was obviously dislodged during the cleaning. Open the case back up and push all connections and cards into their slots. Look for anything that may have become disconnected.

Cleaning the motherboard is probably the most dangerous form of cleaning but it is necessary to prevent an early death of your computer.

Web 2.0 And Why You Shouldn't Fake Reviews

2008-08-12T22:53:00.001-07:00

The latest offering from Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares aired on Channel 4 last night, followed the somewhat disastrous adventures of ex-boxer Mike and his wife Caron Ciminera as they struggled to run the Fish & Anchor, a restaurant in Lampeter, West Wales. Whilst the couple's arguing appeared to better the food they were originally sending out (a mix of jarred sauces and home cook book trophy dishes) they did let slip on a fantastically poor bit of black hat optimisation, which I hope made all white hat SEOs laugh out loud.

If there was one lesson to take away from the show, it would be - Don't fake reviews!

In order to gauged the feeling of the local community for the failing restaurant come sports bar, Ramsay conducted a search on Google for the Fish & Anchor, to which he was presented with a range of reviews, two of which were rather suspiciously from a character calling himself Michael or Mike Burns.

On the Wales portal of the BBC website Burns had posted "Well i don't get excited about food too often, and having dined in Rick Stein's, and Gordon Ramsay's,I think i have found a better restaurant in West Wales". On the SugarVine website he also posted "what a fantastic restaurant for couples, and families. it seems to have everything, the food has to be the best i have eaten (home or abroad) this place will go far". Other online reviews echoed what has already been said, but with the dire state of the restaurant, its food, its reputation and its perception from both the local community and Ramsay itself, would it not be right to question who was telling the truth?

The restaurateur confessed to posting the reviews, his rational pointing to stimulating custom, however with any reactive strategy it requires a degree of foresight - and I am not sure he really thought through the wider ramification of posting these "inaccurate" reviews.

A Guide on RSS Tool

2008-08-12T22:52:00.002-07:00

RSS is an abbreviation that has evolved into the following, depending on their versions:

• RDF Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.9; the first version of RSS)
• Rich Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.91; a prototype)
• Really Simple Syndication (also known as RSS 2.0)

Today, RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication', and it has the following 7 existing formats or versions:

• 0.90
• 0.91
• 0.92
• 0.93
• 0.94
• 1.0
• 2.0

RSS tools refer to a group of file formats that are designed to share headlines and other web content (this may be a summary or simply 1 to 2 lines of the article), links to the full versions of the content (the full article or post), and even file attachments such as multimedia files. All of these data is delivered in the form of an XML file (XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language), which has the following common names:

• RSS feed
• Webfeed
• RSS stream
• RSS channel

They are typically shown on web pages as an orange rectangle that usually has the letters XML or RSS in it.

RSS feeds can be used to deliver any kind of information. Some of these 'feeds' include:

• Blogs feed - each blog entry is summarized as a feed item. This makes blog posts easier to scan, enabling 'visitors' to zoom in on their items of interest.

• Article feed - this alerts readers whenever there are new articles and web contents available.

• Forum feed - this allows users to receive forum posts and latest discussion topics.

• Schedule feed - this allows users (such as schools, clubs, and other organizations) to broadcast events and announce schedule changes or meeting agendas.

• Discounts or Special feed - this is used to enable users (such as retail and online stores) to 'deliver' latest specials and discounted offers.

• Ego or News Monitoring - this enables users to receive 'filtered' headlines or news that are based on a specific phrase or keyword.

• Industry-specific feed - used by technical professionals in order to market, promote, or communicate with current (and prospective) customers and clients within their specific industries.

RSS feeds enable people to track numerous blogs and news sources at the same time. To produce an RSS feed, all you need is the content or the article that you want to publicize and a validated RSS text file. Once your text file is registered at various aggregators (or 'news readers'), any external site can then capture and display your RSS feed, automatically updating them whenever you update your RSS file.

Symantec Norton Antibot The Latest In Norton Computer Protection Software

2008-08-12T22:52:00.001-07:00

It seems like every other month a new “program” comes along to make our lives that much easier. For example, first we could bookmark favorites, and then RSS feed them, and then came widgets and now “bots” which are robots that do a lot of our computer work for us in the background. Examples of friendly bots are weather bots, game playing bots, instant messaging and my favorites are those on AOL Instant Messenger which do all kinds of functions for me like shop, find movie times and even give updates on the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately not all bots were created “equal.” Some are friendly and some are not. The ones that are not friendly can be a form of malware that allows control of your computer to be released, providing hackers with the opportunity to access your information and spread harmful bots to others. This type of computer virus can then be used to spread spam and commit various types of identity theft and other online fraud.

So with new threats to our computers and information, new methods of protection are required. One of the oldest and most well known software protection designers has recently released a new protection program, Symantec Norton AntiBot. This is a software product designed to prevent the hijacking of one’s personal computer by bots and uses the bots on design programs against them, to located and destroy them.

Many people already employ some form of protection on their personal computer, such as increasing the protection level from internet information to “high.” But these cannot detect some of the most recent bot programs and may not be the most efficient means of information protection, especially with the Internet being used more and more frequently for online shopping, ticket purchases, travel and other “high risk” activities.

A more effective method of detecting and eliminating threats caused by bots is to install software designed specifically to detect, destroy and prevent bots from having access to your computer. With Symantec Norton AntiBot software, protection against bots is enhanced several times and the threat of bot attack is greatly diminished. It’s program protects against bots by blocking bots from entering your computer through downloads and e-mail attachments (two of the common ways bots enter a personal computer), checking for any unusual behavior on your personal computer and eliminating it, and detecting malicious bot software at all levels; keeping your personal, financial and credit card information safe and stopping identify theft before it can occur.

Because bots operate in the background and are not detectable by antivirus or antispyware programs, many computer users are completely unaware that their personal computer has become infected. Many problems caused by bots go undetected until it is too late. Warning signs that your computer may have been accessed include: slowness of computer speed and unusual or irrelevant error messages. However, many times com these symptoms are sporadic and computer users will take little notice. Many people will continue to use their personal computer, unaware that bots have hijacked their personal computer and are slowly at work; looking for credit card numbers, passwords, and logon information which can be used for identity theft and in committing other types of online crime. This program scans your personal computer on a continuous basis, closing the gaps that could allow bots to infect your personal computer and better ensuring that bots do not invade and gain control.

Web Development And The Big Time Out

2008-08-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

One of the great debilitators in online business is simply the perceived (or real) lack of time. Business owners are used to moving forward. An online web presence can make them feel tied to an office chair learning skills they aren’t sure they want to know.

It’s not uncommon for those who deal in full time web design to have individuals contact them for a site design, but have absolutely no idea what they want. Furthermore when the designer questions them the response might be, “I don’t know, just make it look nice.”

Let’s not forget the core values or mission of the business. Many business owners have no idea how to answer those kinds of questions. They may stare blankly for a moment or two and there’s no more time for further deep thought so they go back to action – without answers.

In many cases it is possible to answer some of the questions needed, but it may require taking time away from a familiar setting. It may also require more time than you think you want to give.

If you can get to a place of concentrated contemplation you are likely to find yourself stripping ideas to their core to find out what your business is trying to accomplish and what your ultimate goals might be.

As with almost any project you can turn frustration around if you will just take the time to come to terms with your vision.

Sometimes we spend so much time ‘doing’ we never stop to ask the question, “Why?”

This process can be a bit like taking a bus that drives around the park. You keep looking at the flowers and the park bench and long to sit in the quiet shade of a tree and just absorb the calming atmosphere. You know they will have a positive effect on you, but for some reason you just can’t seem to find the energy to get off the bus.