Basic Problem in a PC

Basic Computer PROBLEMS

I have a p3 500MHz PC with 128MB RAM, 10.2 GB HDD Sony CD ROM 48x with window ME edition operating system. I have a problem- when I insert my audio cd, it shows the error message: “window cannot access the specified device path or file. You may not have appropriate permission the access the item.” Please tell me the solution of this error how can we configure the Yahoo! Account in outlook express. What is the pop mail and SMTP address of the Yahoo! Mail?

Dr Birbals: do you get this problem only in the case of audio CDs only or is it an every time phenomenon. If this problem is specific to audio CDs, then you must first check your sound card drivers and the compatibility of the player you are using to play audio CDs. Regarding configuration of Yahoo! Account in the outlook express, the procedure is simple. If this is your first account in outlook express, then on starting outlook express it will automatically start configuring an e-mail account for you, which could be your Yahoo! account also. However, if you are using outlook express already and would like to set another account i.e. Yahoo! Then you should add identity and start configuring the account as normally you would do by the following simple steps. However, when you are asked to enter the POP address, then use pop.mail.yahoo.com. In case of SMTP address, please use the address smtp.mail.yahoo.com. Enter the user name, which would be the first part of your yahoo e-mail ID. Then complete the rest of the step and this will finish the configuration.

I have assembled computer with Celeron 333MHz, Yamaha sound card, 32MB RAM and 4.3GB hard disk. I am using window’98 as OS. My problem is that whenever I make a call to the USA, the voice from the other side comes but my voice doesn’t go. What is the reason and how to solve the problem? My vendor advised me to add another sound card to solve the problem. Is it right? Guide me which card suitable for the same. I used Yahoo! Messenger for making a call.

Dr Birbals: in your case there is a good possibility that you are using a half-duplex sound card in your system. In the half-duplex sound card, the sound travels in only one channel, which means that if you are speaking then the sound of other person could not be transmitted, unless you stop speaking. However, in case of full-duplex sound cards, the sound travels in both channels, thus facilitating proper two-way communication. Therefore you must check, if your sound card is half-duplex, then you may need another full-duplex sound card, otherwise you do not need new sound card.

I have p3 (550 MHz) 810 motherboard, assembled computer. My PC speaker 480 w of dolphin makes a noise when I play a song, movie or any other program requiring sound output whether I play song in winamp, media player or anywhere.

Dr. Birbals: since you have not mentioned what kind of noise you are getting, so it is difficult to pinpoint your problem. However, generally the problem of noise is associated with the some kind of short-circuit or loose connection. So get your PC checked for any such problem. Also please check the earthing of your electricity connection, as improper earthing could also result in some kind of noise with other problem in your PC.

I am having p3 550MHz Intel processor with 810 Vinton motherboard, 20GB HDD, 52xCDD, Motorola 56 KBPS modems with WIN ME as operating system. Recently I installed win 2000 professional but can’t be able to install the driver of modem. I tried installing the driver from the original Motorola CD but got the message “your driver may get clash with win 2000 version because the driver is not having digital signatures.” Please guide me what should I do to install the driver of the modem.

Dr. Birbals: digital signature an encryption and decryption process allowing both the positive identification of the author of an electronic message (who wrote the message) and verification of integrity of the message. Since this is a modem security measure, thus it has become a standard in modern operating system like windows 2000. There for you require drivers, which are compatible with windows 2000. There could be a possibility that the driver you are trying to install is not for windows 2000. Therefore in order to solve this problem, you should install the version specific to Windows NT or windows 2000. However as far as Motorola internal modems are connected, windows 2000 automatically detects it and install the correct version of driver from its database and thus it does not require you to install the driver manually. Thus, in light of this fact, it is better to let the windows 2000 detect the correct driver and install the same.

Q. No.1

I want to know that what do satellites in a PC speaker system do.

Q. No.2

Do they act as tweeters or just normal speakers so that the sound comes from all around the room?

Q. No.3

I have a creative sound blaster live sound card, it has support for satellites so I want to buy jetway artis speakers (with 4 satellite and sub-woofer included).will the satellite create Dolby surround sound or will they just sound as four speakers placed at the vertices of the room?

Q. No.4

Is a 33.6kbps external modem slower than a 56kbps internal modem?

Q. No.5

Does having more RAM in your graphic card, mean better performance?

Dr. Birbals: basically, satellite nothing to do with PC speakers; it’s only the satellite speakers, which are related to PC’s. The satellite speakers are magnetically shielded speakers, which are meant for use with video monitors. It delivers powerful audio playback from multiple piece system, normally three pieces. The use of this technology brings about dramatic improvement normal speakers that come bundled with your PC. They do not act as tweeters, however, but has its own technology to improve the sound quality. It is not just limited to Dolby surround sound, because it features are much advanced. Regarding your query for modems. It is a matter of fact that the 56kbps modems are faster than the 33.6kbps modems. It is irrespective of the fact whether it is an external modems or internal modem. However at places, where the downloading speed is very slow, the difference between 56kbps modem and 33.6 modem will not be much. Regarding your query related to higher video memory, it is indeed true that the higher video memory means better performance.

I am using internet connection from the VSNL. My problem is that while I am online, the telephone automatically gets disconnected and I have to redial. Again after few minutes of being online, I am disconnected. I have got two phone lines. This problem is with one phone line while no such problem occurs with other phone line. Win’98 is my OS and my computer is p2 with 333MHz.

Dr. Birbals: it is clearly evident from your mail that the problem in your case lies in your telephone line rather than your computer hardware. You must get your telephone line checked for any kind of phone joints, cuts, and improper extensions. Normally, it is happens because of these factors only. However, if you are satisfied of these factors, then you may opt to change the line of your telephone right from the nearest DOT point to your PC. I am sure these things will help you in getting this problem corrected. However, in order to avoid too frequent disconnection, you may also add the string S10=50 in the advanced option in your modem configuration. But, this in itself will not be able to solve your problem, if there is a defect in your telephone line.

I have Celeron 533with 1-0GB hard disk and 64 MB RAM. I have windows ME operating system. I have a problem that when I want to connect to the net, my system hangs. Please tell me how I can solve this problem.

Dr. Birbals: the problem of system hanging could be due to several reasons; please write back at what stage of connection dose your system hangs. Whether it hanging on dialing, or it hangs while hard shaking with the ISP server or at the time of logging on to the windows. This information would be essential to answer your question correctly.

I want to know how to get m Yahoo! Mail in my outlook express. I entered pop.mail, yahoo.com as many incoming server and smtp.mail.Yahoo.com as my outgoing server. When I press send and receive I get “outgoing mail failed.” For incoming it asks me my password. I entered it correctly 3 times yet could not get the mail.

Dr. Birbals: while entering the pop and SMTP server please take care that it is enter correctly and there are no space in it. In the setting of outlook express, you can save your password, which will save you from the botheration of entering your password again and will also not return this error. However, in case of sending mail through outlook express using Yahoo! Services; it sometime gives this problem, which is specific to Yahoo services only.

I have p3 computer. I have a problem while working on net. Whenever I try to open any site, mantra online opens as a default. Please tell me why does it open as a default and how can I get of rid on it

Dr. Birbals: this is actually not a problem and can be corrected easily by some simple changes in your browser settings. If you are using internet explorer, then simply open the internet explorer and check on the tool menu. Now click on the internet options and in the home page address box, either choose site of your choice or choose about blank. This will help you get rid of this problem. Similarly in case you are using Netscape communicator, then to change the default page, click on edit menu and then click preferences. In homepage location box, either enter the site address of your choice or leave it blank. This simple measure will help you get red of your problem.

I use my computer mostly for audio-CAD work, which is precise; precious I store the whole data on my hard disk. Other members of the family also use the same computer. From the safety point of view, I want to have some reliable backup arrangement that can be updated for additional work from time to time. At present there are about 2500 files that I want to store in the back-up also. Floppy disk are of low capacity, CD drive requires CD-writer and is expensive. So kindly advise suitable mode for backup.

Dr. Birbals: these days the hard disks normally have a large capacity so the easiest solution is to dedicate a specific partition of your hard disk for backing up your files. You can protect them with password and can even hide it so that it is not accessible to anybody. The second solution could be Zip drive, where you can keep your data in large capacity floppies and can even carry them with you. This option is a bit expensive, as you will have to additionally buy external Zip drive. However, the option of CD-writer is the best as you can store a large amount of data on your CD. Besides that the data on a CD is safest.

I have a p3, 667 MHz (based 100 MHz SD RAM) with 64 RAM on HP pavilion. My operating system is windowa’98 SE on 10.2 GB ultra DMA ATA 66 hard drive (about 7GB free space). I have an internet connection from the BSNL. I face a problem--- the system sometime freezes and then neither keyboard nor mouse work. I have to turn the power off. Please guide me whether increasing RAM to 128 will solve my problem?

Dr. Birbals: you must run scandisk first in thorough mode in order to check any problems in your hard disk. if the scan disk does not work properly in windows, then you must run it in DOS mode. If there is any problem, then scan disk will report about it. Moreover, you must also check the result for any bad sector in your hard disk as this could be one of the reasons for your problem. However, if everything is reported fine by scan disk, then the needle of suspicion would go to motherboard of your computer. This you will have to get checked from your hardware vendor. Your problem has nothing to do with increasing the RAM and thus increasing it to 128 MB will not actually solve your problem.

I have p3 500MHz processor, 64 MB RAM, win’98 SE internal modem (Motorola SM56PCI speakerphone). Usually when I try to connect to the internet, I get an error 678 showing the message “dialup network was unable to complete the connection. Double click the connect icon to connect again” and after sometime I am able to connect. Somebody told me that this problem is due to internal modem and if I use an external modem, I may be able to connect the very first time. You have mentioned some techniques to improve the modem. I tried to check my phone line using HyperTerminal, but when I selected direct to com x in “connect to windows”, I did not get the com x properties. I got a blank window instead. When I enter the said terms (ATZ, AT&FDT ISP’s number) it dials using tone dialing that I don’t have. So please tell me what to do with my internal modem to avoid that error and also how I can check my telephone line using HyperTerminal.

Dr. Birbals: this is very common confusion in the minds of many persons that the internal modems are not efficient and gives error. However this is not correct. Though undoubtedly external modems are better in terms of overall performance and ease of use yet the internal modems give identical result as far as the net speed is concerned. Whether it is internal modem or external modem, what is more important is chip set of the modem. If the internal modem good chipset like Rockwell, then there is no problem in it. The problem mentioned by you is not linked to the internet modem and there could be many reasons for such kind of error. Now the technique you are talking about is to check the line conditions and not the modem. So it will really not help you in analysng your modem. However for a precise solution to your problem, please write in detail including the message you get.

Whenever I start my computer I get message: “NO ISDN devices were found. Please install an ISDN device and run the configuration wizard”. I neither had ever installed nor wish to install ISDN device. Kindly advise how to get rid on this message to avoid clicking “OK” ach time.

Dr. Birbals: although for solving your problem information about your operating system and system configuration is necessary. However, it appears that while configuration your internet connection, you had opted for ISDN connection. I think of because of this reason you get the warning for ISDN device. As a solution of this problem either remove the ISDN connection wizard or reconfigure your dial-up networking.

I have windows ME installed on my computer. I want to configure my outlook express to get my mail from my account on rediff.com but I don’t know how to configure. Please tell me what to write in the incoming mail server and the outgoing mail server fields.

Dr. Birbals: rediff mail is a web-based e-mail services, so its pop and SMTP server names are not available. However, for configuring an e-mail account in your e-mail client, the information about these two servers is quite essential. So, practically it is difficult to configure rediff mail account in outlook express.

I have problem with playing the VCDs. It hangs the system, then it play for 4 to 5 seconds and hang again. The HDD and CD ROM drive’s LED glows continuously with full light when it hangs. All other CDs (program and audio) run well. I tried everything I know. I have installed right drivers for the device. My system is p200 MMX, 32 MB RAM, cirrus 5446 VGA with 2MB RAM, creative CD ROM drive and OS is win’95.

Dr. Birbals: this problem is normally occurs in case of low memory. So in order to get rid of this problem you need to increase your memory if possible a better VGA card with higher VRAM. Moreover, you also need to increase the size of the panging file size. Also you should keep a good space on your hard disk free. So the first thing you should try to do is free up some hard disk space. As a rule of thumb you should always keep at least 10 percent of your hard disk capacity always free, though higher is better. If this solves your problem, its well and good, else you would be required to increase the memory.

Web Designing Tips by: Pawan Bangar Web Design Tips: Easy That’s how you’d like life to be, right? Especially when you’re creating a website on yo

Web Design Tips:

Easy That’s how you’d like life to be, right? Especially when you’re creating a website on your own. But that doesn’t mean you want the site to look severe and just functional. you want it to be pretty , smart and also respond and move when you interact with it, while saying all that you want to say to its visitors . There are little tips and Features incorporated into software just for people like you.

Love what Flash can do but don’t know how to use it ? Macromedia thought of you and built a feature into Dream weaver that lets you create cool animated Flash buttons just by entering parameters. Want to have button respond to a mouse-over but have no idea or patience to create one with graphics software? You can make a quick and easy mouse-over button right from within FrontPage. What do you do if you need to optimize 150 images within an hour? No need to panic, image ready can help you out with a little droplet. Check out the different tips that make life easier or better for you as a Web designer.

• Animated Flash Button & Macromedia Dream weaver:

Dream weaver lets you create some custom vector graphics from within the software. You can make Flash and embed them into your Web pages. There are different kinds of style that you can choose for these from the available set-play back type of buttons .Arrow shaped button, shopping cart button And so on, or make some of your own.

Making a smart interactive button is simple in Dream weaver, select insert-interactive Image-Flash Button. Form the window that opens select different button style by looking at the preview image below. Customize the button the way you want it by adding the name of the button, the Font color and font size , then specify the URL that the button has to link to . The button is saved with SWF extension you can preview the button in your browser to see if it looks the way you want.

• Easy Mouse-Over Buttons :

Mouse-over and Front Page? Oh Yes. The software has quit a few convenient features up its sleeve, one of which is “Hover buttons.” Granted, these buttons don’t have snazzy graphics they look like typical button blocks, but they react to mouse-over and you can archive it very simply. Here’s how.

Select Insert –Web component. in the window that opens , select Dynamic Effect in the component type and select the Hover Button effect on the right . Type in the text that should appear on the button, choose a font for the text, specify the URL to link to on clicking, and select the size and color of the button. In the drop-down menu for Effect, Glow is the default selection. Try it – you can select the color of the glow-check the button in preview mode-the button light up when you move your mouse over it. There are several other effects available that are worth checking out, especially the bevels quite neat!

• Cool Effects With DHTML :

DHTML or Dynamic HTML offers some cool effects that could make your Web pages stand out click? Or your page to load with a transition Effect? DHTML will do this for you along with other little tricks. After you’ve built your Web page, from the menu bar, select Format-Dynamic HTML Effect. A tool bar appears in the work area. Choose an event from the first drop down list. This could be on ‘click’ double-click.’ Mouse over or page load. Depending on the event selected here, the next Drop-Down list offers the possible effect that can be achieved , This could be a change in the color and style of the font if it is text, a border added around it , or in case of an image , you can replace the image with another one by a swap .

Most of the effect toggle Meaning if there was a font change on click, another click will change the font back to what it was before. However, some effects are one-time like the disappearing act of an image or button .you select ‘fly out’ from the effects list for this . On ‘page load’ you could have the selected text drop in word by word, or hop in, spiral in, zoom out, and so on. This is especially useful for advertisements or parts of the page that you want to draw the user’s attention to.

• Animation In Reverse :

You’ve made an animation using image Ready-may be a tween of position, opacity or effects or a manually placed and manipulated animation backwards? No need to re-tween or manually place the frames backwards; simply click on the little arrow in the animated palette and select Reverse Frames. You can also create a rubber band effect by copying the forward sequence (small arrow > copy Frames), pasting it at the end of sequence (small arrow > Paste Frames > ‘Paste after selection ‘) and then, by selecting the newly pasted sequence and applying Reverse Frames on this.

• All It Takes Is A Droplet :

Want to optimize several images with the same settings? Create a “droplet “and save time.

Open the optimize palette in Image Ready with your image open. Set the optimization to what you want-file type (JPG, GIF or PNG), quality (low, medium, high), lousiness, dither and so on while previewing the result in the “optimized” tab of the main in the Optimize palette. This creates what is called a “droplet” that contains your optimization settings. Save this droplet anywhere you want, say on your desktop.

Now drag the folder containing the images to be optimized onto this droplet. All the images in the folder will get optimized the way you specified. This may take a while depending on the number and size of the images in the folder. You can also drop images one at a time onto the droplet.

• Precise Hot Spots :

Want to link different parts of an image to various URLs? You can do this by slicing the image and assigning links to the relevant slices, but the disadvantage of this is the lack of precision: slice is necessarily rectangular. Also, slices are pieces of the image.

Say you’re working on a Web page for children about the different parts of ancient castles. You would like the parts-dungeons; moat, guard towers, and so on-to have precise rollovers and links so that the information is conveyed correctly. Rather than slices such an images and allot links, use image maps, select the polygon Image Map tool in Image Ready and outline the part you want to talk about precisely . Even circular image maps work fairly well in some areas. You can adjust points of the map edge after finishing the shape, too .in the image map palette, you can specify the URL to link to along with ALT text. To preview your work, save Optimized as a HTML file and check it in a browser.

• Optimize Your Web Graphics Easily :

Despite the cable Internet connections and high-speed modems, Web graphics are still limited speed-wise. The sites that load fastest and work most efficient have well-optimized graphics .GIF images are generally good for line drawings and illustrations while JPG ones are best suited for photographs. Besides file format, there are various factor that affect the optimized image like the ‘lousiness’-the amount of data in the image that you’re willing to sacrifice for smaller file size-the number of colors you need minimum, whether you can have dithering or not, so on .

In Photoshop, to try out different optimization settings, click Save for Web . A window opens up showing the current image along with various options and menus on the right . in the image window itself, you can see two tabs: 2-up tab to see two versions-the original and the optimized-for comparison along with time needed to load the image according to various modem speeds . The 4-upshows you 3 versions against the original. These previews are useful and convenient, rather than having to manually save the image repeatedly in different ways and comparing each of them.

• Making A Banner Ad:

We’re all familiar with banner ads that we see all over the Web: a strip with an image and text that changes into another and another conveying some information. Clicking on this ad takes you to the site that the company is advertising for. You don’t have to use GIF Builder or any other graphics software to animate such an ad. You can make it easily using Front Page. Select Insert-Web component-banner ad manger. In the window that opens, specify the size of the ad, the transition effect, the number of seconds to display each image, the URL to link the ad to and add the images you’ve prepared. That’s it.

This feature could also be used you want to share a few photographs coiled also be used when you want to share a few photographs or images but don’t want the images to be save-able on the cline’s side; right-click will not work on these images. Although the images may be found in the cache, at least they won’t be able to be copied directly.

Your Business At Stake

We do believe in healthy sense of paranoia. Not the paranoia, which makes us feverishly try to distinguish ourselves from our competitors, but the paranoia, which makes us feel the iron hand of competition and gives us the stimulus to constantly develop and improve.

It is difficult to survive in the media, where everybody claims he is the best and where somebody is indeed better than you. It prompted us the idea of carrying out a kind of analysis of the products offered on the Web, similar to Esvon Classifieds. In no shape of form, we are going to judge or criticize the web applications, listed below.

The search engine has brought us to the following software products:

http://www.interactivetools.com/products/realtymanager/

The first impression is that Realty Manager is quite a professional solution. Scanning the pages, and studying this product more carefully we learn that the script is realized using Perl and text files and its functionality is really worth being paid for. PHP/MySQL and Perl/text files solutions don’t have any distinction in kind when it comes to their functionality. But PHP code is more consistent and modular and it runs faster. The advantage of PHP is also the ubiquity of web server platforms supporting PHP and MySQL. Fact: Over 25% of the internet's web sites are running PHP and nearly 63% of the internet's web sites are running the Apache web server, so give it a thought.

Those, who have encountered the problem of a script running slowly, probably know, that the faster grows your database of users, the slower your script works. In the end, it just breaks. (it happens because it is based on text files). Thus, such solution can be used only when the web site you are going to build is simple.

Moreover, with their license you are not allowed to edit scripts; it can be a disaster for you when you want to customize your solution.

The web site itself is very informative; it seems to give the overall description of the application. In general, this software script is enough if your web portal needs don’t go far. Yet, it is quite simple and friendly but has much fewer functions than Esvon Classfieds does.

http://www.mojoscripts.com/products/mojoestate/index.shtml

The web site layout and the product presentation resemble a bit the previous one. The application is Perl/MySQL solution, which however costs less. The price, as we have already indicated, is not a No.1 factor for making decision. But $199 seems nevertheless too little for a powerful script with “tons of features”.

MojoEstate includes a lot of features: internal mailbox system, saved search system, multimedia file gallery, advanced admin and member panels, powerful search facility, detailed who-is-online display, auto-generated thumbnails for uploaded images, etc.

We won’t enumerate all the product features, described at the web site. When a visitor reads the content, it is often enough for him to know what is described. But developers and more competent users know that it’s just a surface. When it comes to the product in action, they might face with the problem of handling extreme amounts of traffic the database queries, which can bring your server down. Some customers just may skip this peculiarity.

The product is also presented in a well-structured manner and seems to be a good cost-effective solution for budget-minded people.

http://www.smartisoft.com/products.php?product=phpBazar

We see that the script manufacturers have preferred PHP code in this case. As we have already mentioned, we also consider it to be better for such kind of applications in view of its open source technology and the fact that it is firmly implanted in the LAMP family (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) of open source web development platform technologies.

The given page describes the product features. It is a long and detailed five-scroll list. The demo is actually well presented, yet has an erotic shadow. If you are looking for a PHP script to build exactly this kind of web portal, then you are all set. But if you are in search for a program, say, for a real estate site, such demo confuses a bit… Driven by common sense you get back and click “I am not over 18”. I was a bit taken aback when I was redirected to a disney web site.

http://www.e-classifieds.net/products/index.html

We should surmise that this solution looks professional. The abundant choice of editions is a good prove to it. Still, the researches show, that the bigger the selection is, the more difficult it is to make a decision. And it is really so. Say, you decide that you need one solution and proceed to the following edition to make sure you did not skip the features that are necessary to your online business. And it turns out that you did. You change the decision. While you proceed to the third one, you might discover that it has the features of the second edition, but lacks for the features of the first. You feel frustrated.

Yet, you can see the demo of every edition directly without filling in any web form before it. It contributes to the web site popularity and makes the product more available.

The script is also realized using Perl and text files and the customer support of the manufacturer costs $75 - $100 per hour. Maybe this rate is the confirmation that the company really guarantees an irreproachable performance of their product, and you won’t have to refer to them too often; but support is required more often than you might think, since the situations differ.

http://www.esvon.com/products/cl/

Of course, we do pay attention to what the program looks like, but its internal mechanism does play a great role. The Esvon specialists have seen to this. You can’t see it, but you can be sure Esvon Classifieds script runs well and allows you to avoid the typical problems, the web applications owners might encounter.

The well thought out and powerful script, its modularity and flexibility are the best qualities distinguished by our customers. It is difficult, however, to judge ourselves, thus, we will enumerate the features, which were marked by our customers as practically unique in comparison to other similar solutions:

* Static HTML pages generation allows you to have the fast web site, indexed in search engines by more keywords and much more accessible to web surfers.

* The script allows you to handle much more site traffic/visitors queries, then other existing applications; the fast running PHP code is also marked as an important peculiarity of the program. Just as an example, Esvon Classifieds has unique category tree building engine: it is very fast, with only 2 SQL queries to build an unlimited-level category tree with ads amount per category calculation; it will ensure you that your server won’t be brought down by amount of database queries executed!

While we were preparing this article, we received one more email from our customer, where he compares our product with GeoClassifieds (http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm), and marks the following features as award winning in Esvon Classifieds: template system, Gd or imagemagick thumbnail images, very good support, reviews writing and voting, blocks engine, absolutely custom database fields settings.

http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm

GeoDesic product features are very attractive. Here it is: the case, when you should go deeper. A typical user can claim that it doesn’t matter, what’s inside; it just should work and do what he expects from it. But the deeper approach reveals, that the script is not able to process properly growing database queries, its templates are not very flexible, it runs slow and it is unable to generate static content.

Using such script you take risk to be very soon removed from the shared web server, since your traffic might exceed the maximum allowed server load limit very quickly.

Thus, be meticulous while choosing the script fro your online business.

We hope, that this analysis has contributed to your knowledge of what you are looking for on the Web. In the end, you decide, we just help you to see deeper; we hope that we do.

Are You Well Protected?

Winter…the official start of the cold and flu season. Though, technically speaking, things got started a little early. Close to a million computers, mostly home PC users, have been infected.

For many of us our computers are our business. We keep in contact with customers and clients via email, do extensive internet research, and transmit important files electronically.

We know what to do to protect our bodies from viruses. There are some simple strategies, and even free precautions we can take to protect our businesses by keeping our PCs virus free.

Adopting the following six checkpoints will help keep your computer healthy and your business uninterrupted.

Use a Firewall

At its most basic level a firewall is a software security system that acts as a barrier between your computer and the outside world (the internet) by monitoring all incoming network traffic. A more advanced firewall will also monitor outgoing traffic. How you use your computer will determine whether basic or advanced firewall protection is needed.

What a firewall does is make your computer invisible while on the Internet. If hackers can't see you, they cannot attack you.

Windows XP has this software installed; however, it may need to be enabled. If you have XP and would like to enable the firewall, directions are on the Microsoft website.

For non XP users, firewall software can be purchased. McAfee and Zone Alarm are two very popular products. Zone Alarm has a free downloadable firewall, basic version, available on their website, www.zonealarm.com.

Before installing a firewall, you may be interested in learning your computer’s vulnerability. This is something that can be checked for free and in just a few minutes. Visit the website of Gibson Research Corporation, www.grc.com, and under Hot Spots, click on Shields UP. It takes a little bit of scrolling to get to but is well worth the extra seconds. In minutes your PC is scanned and its vulnerability rated.

Antivirus Software

Antivirus software is the "shot" after the epidemic. This software protects your computer from known threats. Many PCs come with antivirus software already installed. Some of the more popular versions are Norton, PCCillin and McAfee.

If you have it pre installed or have purchased it, great. Please be sure to keep it constantly updated with the latest virus definitions. This is important because these definitions are formed in response to the latest viruses. If you don't have this protection, please consider getting it.

Once this software is installed on your computer, you will be automatically notified when new virus definitions are available. Then it is just a matter of a few clicks to download the new definitions.

Likewise you will be notified when your antivirus software is about to expire. The software needs to be updated annually. The initial purchase, renewal, updates and installation can all be done online.

Spyware Eliminator

Why am I getting all of these pop ups? Certain websites that you visit or free software (shareware) that you download, and, in some cases, hardware purchased from major manufacturers will also install tracking devices on your computer (spyware). Spyware is annoying but not illegal.

An internet search will reveal the many choices available for spyware elimination software. The important thing is to get one and use it consistently. Spybot and PestPatrol are popular choices.

I really like Spybot Search and Destroy. Besides the fact that it is free, once spyware is identified, the software will provide a detailed description of just what it is. This is helpful just in case it identifies something that you don't want to get rid of.

Backup, Backup, Backup

How often do you backup? What files/programs do you backup? What media do you backup to?

We all know the importance of backing up our information yet so many of us don’t do it. There may be a ton of reasons why it's not done but the one reason it should be done on a regular basis is that it can be a timesaver, possibly a business saver if your computer system is corrupted for any reason.

If you happen to be using Windows XP Professional, the backup procedure is quite simple. For users of XP Home Edition, it is a bit more involved. Complete instructions, however, are on the Microsoft website.

Typically, data files are what most people need to back up and having well organized files will certainly simplify the process.

Whether you backup to disk, zip disk, DVD, writeable CDs, external file drive or utilize one of the online services, it is important to get into the habit of backing up on a regular basis.

Weekly Updates of Windows

Windows users are automatically notified of current updates for the Windows operating system when your computer is turned on. With just a few clicks your operating system is updated.

However, when certain patches become available for your particular applications software (XP, 2000, NT, etc), as was/is the case with the recent worm viruses, a visit to Microsoft's website is necessary.

Once there, Microsoft will scan your computer, tell you what updates are available, and you then have the option of installing them on your system. In some cases, you will need your installation CDs to complete the download.

With the recent run of viruses and with more expected, it is imperative to check for these updates weekly on the Microsoft website as well as do the automatic updates.

Be Careful of Email Attachments

Email is such a widely accepted method of communication, and this has not gone unnoticed by hackers who use email as a means of mass virus spread.

For this final checkpoint, your due diligence is the only software required.

Always delete any email from unknown senders and be very careful of any attachments you are not expecting from any known senders. As we have seen, hackers can quite easily access Outlook address books to spread viruses.

By the way, including a fake email address in your address book will not prevent your PC from spreading viruses. This is an urban legend. If you’re interested in the full story, check out this link: www.snopes.com/computer/virus/quickfix.htm

When it comes to the health of our computers, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Effective prevention software along with plain old common sense, used consistently, can keep you protected.

Tools for the ‘Sucstressed’

Tools for the ‘Sucstressed’
by: Roxie Hickman


‘Sucstressed’. That's the word I came up with as I was trying to find just the right words to describe my ideal client. Who are the ‘sucstressed’? They are successful business owners that are working solo.

It's a term, I think, that describes many small/home office business owners, micro business owners as well as professionals that are constantly on the go.

When you are busy with your business, it can be daunting to stay on top of all the details…it’s daunting to even think about the details. Throw in a computer that won’t do what you want it to do, the inevitable technical issues, and a system that lacks organization and you’ve got the makings of a stressful situation.

Working solo does not have to be synonymous with stress.

I'm a micro business owner, and my only interest is success…so I'd like to share some tools I use that help me to not be 'sucstressed'. Oh, by the way, they are all free.

The Newbie Club

Are you and your computer good friends or just mere acquaintances?

It’s fair to say that my computer is a key component in my business, and I think that’s pretty much consistent with other solo business owners. It can be frustrating to not know your way around a piece of equipment that you rely on to get things accomplished.

The Newbie Club, www.newbieclub.com, is an ezine (I know, not another ezine) whose motto is “…you’re a newbie not a dummy”.

One of the few I read entirely, the Newbie Club’s ezine contains about four or five tutorials, written in plain English. The articles de-mystify your computer. Whether you want an explanation on file extensions, a smoother download process, or simply grab some graphics off the web to wallpaper your desktop, this ezine will walk you through it step by step.

The tutorials help me to become more comfortable with my computer because it helps me to understand, in plain English, the why behind what and how.

Tek-Tips

The Newbie Club is great at providing general information. There will be times, though, when we need more specific information on a particular application...times when we need technical support.

I belong to a great online community of my professional peers and help is never more than just a click away. Here’s an example, I was tweaking my website and needed some HTML code. After checking various other resources and not quickly finding what I wanted, I posted a question to my virtual assistant email list and within minutes, I had my answer and was able to do what I needed to do with my website.

For many of us working solo, a free technical support resource is simply not available. If that’s your situation, Tek-Tips, www.tek-tips.com, could be the solution. Tek-Tips is an online, technical support forum where you can find or get answers to your technical challenges.

A couple of the features I really like about Tek-Tips are the list of experts and email notification when an answer to your question has been posted. So if, for example, you are having a problem with an Excel application, you can go straight to a Tek-Tips Excel expert, post your question, and be notified by email when an answer is available or search the forums…possibly your question has already been answered.

Membership to Tek-Tips is free for now. The site is easy to get around in because it is so well organized.

Turbo Notes

Effective organization is key for any business, even more so for small and micro businesses. We have a ton of things on our to do lists, (personal and business) notes jotted down on scraps of paper, or a running list in our heads.

Whatever system you currently work with…pencil and paper, Outlook’s calendar and task lists, or the mental thing, Turbo Notes, www.turbonote.com, would be a great addition.

These notes are the electronic version of Post-Its. They sit right on your desktop and can be used as reminders for things you simply must do and don’t want to forget. Like the paper version, they have a variety of colors (yellow, red, violet and green). So if you are into color coding your tasks, these work well.

Unlike the paper version, with Turbo Notes, you can set an alarm on your notes. Instant messages can be sent to other Turbo Note users, and you can set up a hot-link to your often accessed files. Need to do some math? Turbo-Note also has a calculator function. I’ve only been using Turbo Notes a short time and already this little program has made a big impact.

I'm sure there are other uses I haven't discovered yet. What I do know is that Turbo-Note is easy to install, easy to use, and there is a free trial version.

Trax Time

There are solo business owners, believe it or not, that get so busy they lose track of time spent on billable work. The direct result is a loss of money. That’s not good business.

Early on in my business I was introduced to this piece of software, Trax Time. Trax Time, www.traxtime.com, is your computer’s own personal punch clock.

With Trax Time each client is entered as a project. Then it is a matter of punching in and out as you work with that particular client/project throughout the day.

Trax Time has the ability to run a variety of reports. The reports can then be copied and pasted into other documents. For example, my statements are sent out via email. A report for the month is created, and three clicks later it’s pasted and on it’s way via email. I have my statement and the client has an accurate accounting of the time spent on his/her projects.

Trax Time has many more useful features. The bottom line, time is money and for the solo professional Trax Time, or a similar software program, is a must.

Smooth Operation

Our businesses can operate smoothly and relatively stress free with economical and effective resources at our fingertips. All of the free resources in this article are just a mouse click away.

About The Author

Roxie Hickman, Virtual Assistant (VA), is the owner of The Virtual Connection. The Virtual Connection (www.thevirtualconnection.net) specializes in working with the ‘sucstressed’ (successful professionals who are stressed because they’ve been doing it alone). The Virtual Connection provides offsite executive, administrative, and personal assistance (virtual assistance).
roxie@thevirtualconnection.net

This article was posted on December 21, 2003

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Acres of Gold

A few years ago I stumbled upon a goldmine.Now this precious commodity was not something that you could touch, but rather one to look at.This goldmine has made more successes out of the average man than any other vessel in history.

This goldmine is so obvious many of us miss it or take it for granted.What could it be ? The internet !

With a good computer, an internet connection and your creativity you can do so much. There are countless ways in which you can display your talents for the world to see.

Their have been countless life changing inventions throughout history. The net deserves to be among the most innovative. Anyone from a ten year old to your Grandpa can use it to their advantage.

It is changing lives. The Internet can be like a drug, it may not “hook you” the first time. But as you start to use it regularly, you can't seem to live without it (that's me alright!).

And what's best about it is that it belongs to everyone. Not the government, nor corporations or secret societies. It is for us all to have.

We should be careful what purposes we use it for though.It can be used to educate, inform and communicate to improve people's lives. Don't use it for wrongful purposes. Why create a shortcut when you can blaze a trail ?

Go ahead and discover that goldmine under your nose.It may not glitter but it is certainly not fool's gold.

Humanize the Sales Process

Q & A
Amy Fox, Accelerated Business Results
“Humanize the Sales Experience”

Q. Sometimes when I’m presenting to clients, I sense that the customer tunes out. Is there a better way to communicate with a customer or engage them?

A. Salespeople get caught up in the hype of their own product and lose touch with their client’s reality sometimes. You may be an expert in your field, but you have to assume the client is not. Most clients do not speak tech-ese, so you have to couch the conversation in language that is familiar.

Q. In high tech sales situations, what are some ways of obtaining better results on sales calls?

A. Start by shifting the focus from you to your client. Instead of presenting information to a client on your first sales call, try asking the client what expectations they have for the meeting. You can build a list of desired results from their answer. Try using questions that put the client in the driver’s seat. For example, “What would you like to learn more about?” or “How can I help resolve these issues?”

Q. Are clients actually put off by technical language?

A. It depends, because there are instances when it is appropriate. If you’re speaking to a technical person who expects you to inform them about these aspects, go ahead. In many cases, the decision maker is not technical, so speaking in terms the client does not understand wastes their time. Even worse, they feel uncomfortable. Do you know anyone who would buy under these circumstances? There is no easier way to lose a sale then alienating a client.

Q. What’s the best way to speak about a technical product to a non-technical person?

A. Refrain from using acronyms and technical jargon. Some common words that are not generally understood are IPSEC, T-1s, WIFI, Routers. Concentrate on the problem they need to fix or the result they want to achieve. If the client needs a technical description, they’ll ask for it. Otherwise, avoid using these words.

Q. What are some other key ways I can improve the sales experience for my clients?

A. You need to humanize the sales experience. Once you learn to communicate in ways that relate to and reach they client, you regain your most distinguishing feature – yourself. Shorten your presentations by focusing on the capabilities and solutions you can provide in the client’s unique business environment. Learn to listen closely, catch key phrases, and hone in on their needs, not your own sales agenda. Incorporate business terms that are meaningful to the client in your dialogue.

Q. Do you think the first meeting with a prospective client should be a fact-finding interview?

A. That is one way of thinking about it. Keep in mind clients don’t consider your products and services just for the heck of it. They either have a problem they need to fix or a result that must be achieved. The salesperson’s job is to use questions to uncover their business challenges and concerns. The goal in the first meeting is to set the foundation to build a relationship.

Q. When I’m presenting my high tech solution, how do I position it to come across persuasively so that the customer wants to purchase it?

A. Don’t simply explain what your product does and how it works. Present the value it brings to their business. For example, most salespeople would sell a high-speed internet connection that claims to be x times faster, rather than selling a solution that allows the client to process orders at a higher rate resulting in increased revenues. Demonstrate the benefits by linking back to how it will solve problems and achieve results.

Why Journal Writing On The Web? Blogs Are Journals Giving Anyone An Identity, And An Awesome Forum For Sharing Thoughts And Ideas With Others Of Simil

Journal writing used to be a private, personal experience done late at night, scribbling hardly legible thoughts and daily occurrences down on paper amidst the haze of a barely lit room. When read over on a later date one could find connections and coincidences that sometimes brought deeper insights into the meaning of life. Also, old ideas could be rekindled that otherwise may have been forgotten forever.

In the 21st century a strange new type of journal writing is becoming prevalent in contemporary society. Called Blogs, these are journals used by the masses. Why are people sharing their thoughts instead of keeping them private like the days of old? These journals are found on the World Wide Web and can be used for a number of purposes. The Web is a public sphere and human souls are realizing that sharing their ideas and beliefs can have that same epiphany type of effect on others as the old type of journal had on the personal writer. People are also feeling that they have an identity, and putting it on the Web is a great way of expressing themselves. Anyone can do it, and besides words, visuals can also be integrated into the journal, often making the Blogs very appealing to readers/ viewers.

Blogs are becoming an excellent way of sharing information on any and every subject. Instead of searching Google for general sites about surfing, or 60’s music, one can go straight to a Blog on the subject in question and read daily thoughts and ideas by others with the same interest as well as expert points of view. If you own a business, you can see what entrepreneurs already based in your proposed field feel about the industry. As it’s a journal structure, the reader can see how certain individual’s beliefs have changed over time.

As the world around us is constantly in transition, humans have always looked for better ways of living and growing as a species. The Information Age has helped our society in innumerable ways. On-line journals are becoming the next step in giving voice to every person who has access to a computer and the Net. As well as putting one’s identity ‘out there’ with the masses, people are hearing the inner workings of minds with similar interests. Blogs are a phenomenon helping to create a more interconnected, socially aware global community.

Having a Domain Name And Web Site Gives Your Business The Key To The Door

Just like all things in life, the ways to run a business are rapidly changing and evolving. The potential involved with having a domain name/web site is staggering to say the least. A web site gives the consumer a ‘shop front’ that is not only open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but is also situated right on their desktop. Instead of being locked into only the immediate area, the whole world’s marketplace becomes your sphere of interaction.

Customers can access information on all your products, no more salesperson with limited knowledge trying to explain something they no little about. No more waiting in lines for help, all people have access immediately.

The domain name of the website gives great freedom to the business process. Having your own name is like having an address, then infinite emails can be added to the name so different departments within the company can be reached without having to wait at reception. For example, sales@ Mary’s Plants.com will put the shopper in direct contact with Mary’s sales section.

As a business, the domain name adds professional authenticity, as your address is not affiliated with other companies. In the area of communication, the email system opens up many avenues. Instead of having to put clients on hold because of limited personnel, innumerable emails can arrive at once, even when there’s no one in the office. Then you can pick and choose which one’s to reply to first (the most urgent), while people browsing can wait till later. First come, first serve becomes obsolete as necessary customers automatically reach the front of the line.

Getting a website and domain name is an easy, simple, cost-effective process. You can register your name through web domain registrars like DomReg-M6.Net for as low as $15.00 U.S. per year. That is definitely a very limited risk compared to opening a store, renting a location, and the thousands of dollars involved in overhead costs. How can this be true? A key to the door for anyone who wants to enter a mega-mall that is as big as the Earth. Let’s hope you’ve got something special to share and trade with the global community!

Where on Earth is your Websitee?

You've just finished congratulating your marketing team. After six months of concentrated effort you can now actually find your own company web site within the search engines. Everyone is busy handshaking and back patting when a voice from the back of the room rises above the din. "Yeah this is great! Can't wait until we can find ourselves on wireless devices."

All conversation comes to an abrupt halt. Eyes widen. Everyone turns to the fresh-faced intern standing in the corner with a can of V8 juice in one hand and a PALM device in the other. You, being the Department Manager, barely managing to control your voice not to mention your temper, ask the now nearly frozen with panic intern, "What do you mean find ourselves on wireless? We just spent thousands on our web site visibility campaign!" "Well... Explains the sheepish intern, "There is no GPS or GIS locational data within our source code. Without it, most wireless appliances won't be able to access our site."

Guess what? The intern is absolutely correct. Anyone interested in selling goods and services via the Internet will soon be required to have some form Geographic Location data coded into your web pages. There are approximately 200 satellites currently orbiting the Earth. (even Nasa won't confirm the exact number) Some are in geosynchronous or geostationary orbit 27,000 miles above your head. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the name given to the mechanism of providing satellite ephemerides ("orbits") data to the general public, under the auspices of the International Earth Rotation Service Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF). Sounds like Star Wars doesn't it? It's pretty close. The NAVSTAR GPS system is a satellite-based radio-navigation system developed and operated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

The NAVSTAR system permits land, sea, and airborne users to determine their three-dimensional position, velocity, 24 hours a day, in all weather, anywhere in the world, with amazing precision. http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/

Wireless devices, WAP, Cellular, SATphones and a whole host of newly emerging appliances and indeed, new software applications, will all utilize some form of GPS or more likely GIS data retrieval. GIS stand for Geographic Information System and relies on exact Latitude and Longitude coordinates for location purposes.

Several car manufacturers currently utilize GPS for on-board driver assistance and the Marine and Trucking Industries have been using it for years. Obviously your web site is a stable beast. It sits on a server somewhere and doesn't move much, so at first glance it seems quite unplausible you'll need GIS Locational Data within your source code. On the contrary. One aspect your web site represents is your business's physical location(s) and if people are going to try to find your services and products, shouldn't you at the very least, tell them where it is and how to get there?

Let's look at it from the other end of the spectrum. The end user approach. Let's say you're vacationing in a new city for the first time. Once you get settled into your Hotel room, what's the first thing you want to find? Restaurants? Bank machines? Stores? So you pull out your hand-held, wireless, device, log onto the web and search for "Italian Food in San Francisco." Five Hundred results come back so you click the new "location" feature on your hand-held (which knows exactly where you are) and ten Italian restaurants, who were smart enough to code their web sites with GIS data, light up on the screen. Guess which restaurants didn't get selected? The other four hundred and ninety. Starting to get the picture?

How does this affect you and your web site marketing? GIS Latitude and Longitude co-ordinates will soon be a must have on every web site operators and web developer's list and an absolute necessity for anyone wishing to trade good and services via the Internet. This data may relate to the physical location of the web site or where the site is being served from (if applicable) or where the actual business represented by the site is physically located. There may be multiple web site locations and coding involved, if for example, you have a franchise with multiple locations, each location will probably need a page of it's own with the correct corresponding location data.

If you run a home-based business, I doubt if the co-ordinates to your living room are going to be necessary, but you should provide the latitude and longitude of the closest city or town. Large corporations such as banks may want to code the exact location of every automated teller machine across the country.

Industry standards and the methods of serving out this data are still in the development phases but it's a safe bet to assume there are plenty of people working on the solutions right now and given the speed of technology, implementation will probably be much sooner than later. Give yourself an edge. Find out where in the world your web site is...before your web site is nowhere to be found.

Short Live Telecoms' Monopoly

"Free will cannot be debated, but only experienced like a colour or the taste of potatoes."

My question: can we really experience it?

In a world in which everybody talks of nothing else than Democracy, is our wolrd slightly democratic?

Have we really come a long way through History?

Or are we just repeating the same mistakes all over, just changing the pattern of them?

" We go on discovering that we are this, that and other things and sometimes we have astounding experiences. We are unfinished, we are growing and changing.

Yet that future personality which we are to be in a year's timeis already there, only it is in the shadow.

These potentialities naturally belong to the dark side of the ego.

We are all aware of what we have been, but we are not aware of what we are going to be."

But do we really change and improve or we are just the same all over?

" In point of fact what is interesting about people is the mask that each one of them wears, not the reality that lies behind the mask.

It is a humiliating confession, but we are all of us made out of the same stuff.

Where we differ from each other is purely accidental:in dress, manner, tone of voice, religious opinions, personal appearance, tucks of the habit and the like.

The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear.

Sooner or later one comes to the dreadful unioversal thing called Human Nature."

For two thousand years or more man has been subjected to a systematic effort to transform him into an ascetic animal.

He remains a pleasure seeking animal.

And some are pleasure seeking animals at any cost.

Cheating, robbing, killing is nothing that a mean to achieve it.

The biggest the Corporation, the more polithically involved, the more cheating and crooking.

Look at the Politicians of today, at the big Monopoly corporations...

When will we wake up?

They try to shut our mouths and minds with any kind of stupid fullfilling devices, but still keeping the hand ( and the profit) in it.

Once they said man built his own pleasures, now they say he has to pay for them.

They also say it takes gut to be a dreamer and a visionary, I think on the contrary it comes naturally, either you are or you are not.

Either you see reality or you see what they want you to see.

The economy of means is founded on the richness of thought.

I have just started my personal peaceful war and I am looking for people who can share my dreams.

Short live the Telecom monopoly!

Meta Tags- What Are They and Which Search Engines Use Them?

Meta Tags- What Are They and Which Search Engines Use Them?
by: Richard Zwicky


Defining Meta Tags is much easier than explaining how they are used, and by which engines. The reason is very few engines clearly lay out what they do and do not look at, and how much emphasis they put on any one factor. So, we’ll start with the easy part

Meta Tags are lines of HTML code embedded into web pages that are used by search engines to store information about your site. These "tags" contain keywords, descriptions, copyright information, site titles and more. They are among the numerous things that the search engines look for, when trying to evaluate a web site.

Meta Tags are not "required" when you're creating web pages. Unfortunately, many web site operators who don’t use them are left wondering why the saying "If I build it they will come" didn’t apply to their site.

There’s also a few naysayers in the search engine optimization industry who claim that Meta Tags are useless. You can believe them if you like, but you would be wise not to. While not technically "required", Meta Tags are essential.

If you simply create a web site and register the URL with the search engines, their spiders will visit your site, and attempt to index it. Each search engine operates slightly differently, and each one weighs different elements of a web site according to their own proprietary algorithms. For example, Altavista places an emphasis on the description tag and Inktomi states on their web site that;

Inktomi "(...) indexes both the full text of the Web page you submit as well as the meta-tags within the site's HTML."

Other search engines like Exactseek are true meta tag search engines which clearly state their policy:

"Your site will not be added if it does not have Title and Meta Description tags."

They also use the keywords tag.

Of course, not all search engines work this way. Some place their emphasis on content. The search engines have over 100 individual factors they look at when reviewing a web site. Some of these factors deal with page structure. They check to see that all the 't's are crossed, and the 'i's dotted. They note sites that have omitted basic steps, like missing tags.

One reason so many engines de-emphasized the meta-keyword tag had to do with spam. There was a time when 'search engine promotion specialists' would cram keywords tags full of irrelevant information. The web site would be selling garbage cans, but the keywords tags were chock full of irrelevant terms like "mp3" or "Britney Spears". They figured that if enough people visited their site, some would buy.

So today, to avoid and penalize this kind of abuse, some search engines don’t specifically use the keywords tag as part of the scoring of a site, but they monitor the keywords to ensure they match the content in the site. The reasoning being that, if the tags are irrelevant, they must have an alternate purpose. Is it a spam site? When keywords tags are completely irrelevant to the content, some search engines, that don’t specifically use keywords tags, will penalize that web site.

Even for those engines that have downplayed the value of Meta Tags, there are situations where Meta Tags gain considerably in importance, e.g. sites with rich graphics, but poor textual content. Unfortunately, a picture is worth 1000 words to you and me, but zero to a search engine. If a site has poor textual content, the engines will be more dependent than ever on the Meta Tags to properly categorize it.

Even if you ensure you have completely relevant Meta Tags, some search engines will still ignore them. But better they ignore them, than they ignore your whole site because they suspect something is less than above board. Never hope that having Meta Tags will make the difference in all the search engines; nothing is a substitute for good content. But in cases where the engine depends on that content, it may be the only thing that does work for your site.

So How To Use The Meta Tags?

Meta tags should always be placed in the area of an HTML document. This starts just after the tag, and ends immediately before the tag. Here’s how the most basic set should look:

Search Engine Optimization Software - Metamend

Always make sure that your meta tags do not have any line breaks, otherwise the search engines will just see bad code and ignore them. You should also avoid use of capitals in your code (html5 standard) as well as repetition of terms within the keywords tag.

What Goes Into a Meta Tag?

For the Description tag: ; Many search engines will display this summary along with the title of your page in their search results. Keep this reasonably short, concise and to the point, but make sure that it’s an appropriate reflection of your site content.

For the keyword tag;

Keywords represent the key terms that someone might enter into a search engine. Choose only relevant keywords. If the terms are going to appear in your keywords tag, they must appear in the content of your site, or be a synonym to a term on your site. Most search engines compare your meta content with what is actually on your page, and if it doesn’t match, your web site can get penalized, and suffer in search results.

for the Robots tag ;Many web pages have this tag wrong. An example of the wrong usage is content="index, follow, all" - wrong because some spiders can't handle spaces between the words in the tag or the word "all". Most engines by default assume that you want a web page to be indexed and links followed, so using the wrong syntax can actually result in the spider coming to the wrong conclusion and penalizing, or worse, ignoring the page outright. If by chance you do not want your links followed, or the page not indexed, then you would substitute "noindex" and or "nofollow" into the tag.

With the Internet growing at a rate of over 8,000,000 new pages per day, and the search engines adding a fraction of that number, Meta Tags are a common standard which can reasonably ensure a measure of proper categorization for a web site. So, always ensure that you cover all the bases, and use completely relevant terms in properly structured Meta Tags. Using tags properly will pay dividends in the short and long term. After all, using them properly only helps the search engines, which means they will send you more qualified traffic - customers.

About The Author

Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software & Design Ltd., www.metamend.com, a Victoria B.C. based firm whose cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software is recognized as the world leader in its field. Employing a staff of 10, the firm's business comes from around the world, with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was recognized for their geo-locational, or GIS, along with their phraseological and context sensitive search technologies.
articles@metamend.com

This article was posted on November 25, 2003

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Search Engine Rankings for Beginners

Search Engine Ranking for Beginners

Search engine optimization is best left in the mystical land of the Intenet Marketing Guru right? Good Search engine rankings are tough to achieve. Understanding search engine marketing takes years of studying and only people with true insider knowledge and secret tools rank well in Google right? WRONG. Pure crap as a matter of fact.

Ranking well in the search engines is not difficult. In fact search engine optimization is relatively easy. What stops most people from ranking well in search engines is misinformation. Every week there's yet another quick fix to ranking well in search engines and people jump from one quick fix to the next hoping for that Top 10 position in Google and never achieving it.

There are 6 key areas of search engine optimization that you need to know about. These are the basics. Getting these right will help you achieve the Google rankings that you've always wanted.

Domain Name - The jury is still out on the how relevant a keyword rich domain name is. What I mean by keyword rich domain name is say for example your site was going to be about money making ideas then an idea domain name could be either www.moneymakingideas.com or www.money-making-ideas.com. My own personal preference is with the hyphenated approach e.g. www.money-making-ideas.com simply because I believe that search engines can read it more easily. To registed your domain name I would suggest using either 000Domains.com or GoDaddy.com

Content - Useful content. Not keyword stuffed, spammy pages. Write something useful for your visitors. If you can't write then you'll need to learn. Turn Words Into Traffic is a great resource for learning how to write content and is a resource that I use personally. Turn Words Into Traffic gives you an A-Z on article writing - from a writers perspective. If you don't want to learn how to write content then you could always use Create Website Content Fast to help you speed the process up.

Keywords - Keywords are the words or phrases that you expect people to search for your site/service/content with. There are two distinct factors to consider when choosing keywords for your site.

1. You need to target specific keywords. For example if you have a website about dating then you'll probably find it quite difficult to achieve high search engine rankings initially with that single term. However if you were to refine an area of your site to target say Gay & Lesbian Dating that's more specific. You could also regionalize your keywords or key phrases e.g. Gay & Lesbian dating in Toronto. This refining process is often referred to as niche (pronounced neech) marketing.

2. You need to choose the keywords that you want people to find your site with. Put yourself in your visitors shoes - think about what they might use to find you in the search engines. What keywords or key phrases would you type into a search engine to find your site? What keywords or key phrases would your potential visitor use to search for you? Always, always think like a typical websurfer.

If you're interested in seeing what people are searching for on the web and how profitable that might be for you I would recommened that you check out Good Keywords. It's free and does a wonderful job of helping you find good keywords :-)

I would also suggest that you try Wordtracker also. It's a brilliant service for tracking down specific, popular keywords.

Keyword density - This is how often your keyword is used on the the page itself. For example if you have 100 words of text on a single page and you mention your keyword 5 times then you have 5% keyword density.

Opinions vary on this but anywhere from 1% - 7% is considered ideal. If this doesn't make sense to you then it's ok. The simple rule is this: less is more. Do not alter the text on your webpages to include your keyword over and over again because.........well.... it looks stupid, won't instill any confidence in your prospective customer and might also get you penalized or removed from the search engines.

Page title - Your tag is critical to your page being ranked well. Stuffing your tag with keywords in the hope of ranking well is pointless. Your tag, once constructed properly, will see you moving up the search engine rankings quickly. Bear this simple fact in mind when building your websites and it will serve you well.

Links - Having good links pointing to your site and good links within your site (an often overlooked aspect of search engine optimization) is pretty important as far as search engine ranking goes. Having other sites linking to yours proves the importance of your site to the search engines i.e. if the content on your site is so valuable that other site owners want to link to it then it must be important.

META Tags - Meta tags are dead baby. Well not quite dead but they are only used as a point of reference for search engines. It's a shame to see websites that have their META tags still stuffed with keywords. It's pointless. Put your primary keywords in the Meta Keyword part of your webpage but apart from that don't lose any sleep or waste any energy on them.

There's not enough space in this article to explain all of the above in the detail that I'd love to. Also I'm not a search engine expert so some of the explanation is best left to those that I learned from (Sean Burns and Jay Stockwell take a bow please :-)

Having learned the basics of search engine optimization and submission I have achieved Top 10 Rankings for all of my websites. It's not hard to do this. It just takes work, a little patience and a little common sense.

Technical Writing for the Terrified

Introduction

Sometimes it may be beyond a companies or individuals budget to hire a professional writer to address their technical documentation. Although in an ideal world all technical documentation should be produced by a highly trained expert, unfortunately we do not live in an ideal. In the same way that many people will attempt to repair their own home appliances, many people will attempt to write quality technical documents. Just as fiddling with a toaster can result in electrocution, attempting to write technical documents from scratch without prior advice will ultimately result in failure. As a rough rule of thumb you should always seek to employ a specialist, but if for whatever reason you can't and you are the poor unfortunate that has had documentation duties foisted on them, don't despair. This brief guide outlines some of the core skills you will need to bring to your writing, technical conventions to be aware of, software packages you can consider, and definite things to avoid. Hopefully even if you have never written a sentence in your life about anything vaguely technical you will have at the very least, a broader picture of what technical writing entails.

What is Technical Writing?

Technical writing unsurprisingly enough, refers to writing that is technical. Although this may seem like a fallacious definition, it's an important one to remember. Too many technical authors make the mistake of creating documentation that is either too technical, or too 'literary'. A good technical author should be able to adjust the balance between the two to suit the end user of the documentation. Technical writing is a lot like fresh air, pervasive and yet pretty much invisible. In the weird wired world in which we find ourselves, technical writing is everywhere. Software manuals, user guides for home appliances, instructional leaflets, emails, letters, reports, technical news reports, statistics and biographies on television sports shows all are examples of technical writing to which people are exposed to on a daily basis. If you have ever tried to program the time settings on a home video recorder and flung the manual across the room in disgust, you threw a piece of technical writing (although obviously not a very good one!). Too many times technical literature is produced by writers with not a large enough grasp of technology, or technologists that lack an ability to write. As a prospective technical author you must tread the very delicate line of being technically knowledgeable in your specialist field(s) as well as being a 'good' writer (as opposed to 'bad' writers who can usually be found mugging sweet old ladies or something). Technical documentation is usually produced for two distinct user groups, namely expert level users, and naive users. As a technical author one of your first tasks is to sort out what audience you are writing for, which brings me deftly to:

Know thy foe

As the old cliché goes, everyone's a critic. This is particularly true of most sane people's reaction when faced with technical writing. As was highlighted in the example of the video recorder above, technical writing can be impenetrable to the end user. If this is the case, it is because whoever wrote the documentation, didn't bother to identify their audience and write to their level. It seems an obvious point to make, but one that is often overlooked, that the user of the documents your are creating, may not actually be an expert. Obviously if you are creating a document on a particular specialist product for a particular advanced user group (a good example could be auditing software for computer system administrators) then you will need to compose this is an entirely different way than if you are creating for example, a technical manual for mass market computer software aimed at the inexperienced home user. One of the first tasks you must accomplish before you even put pen to paper, of finger to keyboard, is to identify who the user of your documents will be and construct documents aimed at that particular target group(s). If you get this stage correct, it should avoid your documents being thrown across rooms in annoyance!

Planning for perfection

Once you have identified the target market for the documents you will be creating, you will need to start to plan how the documents will be organised. This process is largely dependent on what documentation is being produced, but you can follow a few rough rules of thumb. Firstly, if the documents are to support a particularly detailed product (such as a computer application) get your grubby hands on it as quickly as you can. By examining the product in detail you can formulate a plan of attack and begin to compose an organisational structure. Whilst you are exploring the product in detail, take copious notes, as doing this during the initial exploratory stages can save you time which can be absolutely vital if you are working to deadline. Even at the planning stage you must ensure there is a consistency to layout, and organisational structure for the document. Select numbering conventions, paragraph styles, and generate rough ideas for layout purposes now, and save vital time later.

Let a Draft in

Before diving headfirst into creating the documentation, draft out each section first. This will allow to reorder if the documents being created do not have a logical 'flow' without seriously having impact on the project. Many technical documents (especially for more detailed products) are made up of numerous (and in some cases practically countless) iterations. This is because the product shifts and changes over time, and one of the principal duties of a technical author is to keep abreast of these changes, and to ensure that they are all well documented. Good technical authors will always push their documents through as many drafts as humanly possible, refining on each draft, until they reach a position whereby they (and their employer) is satisfied that the documentation is timely, accurate and a true reflection of the product or process it documents.

The devil is in the detail

As already identified, technical writing is called that because it is technical in nature. Part of being technical is to be precise, and part of precision is to be as detailed as humanly possible. Even if the documents you are creating are for an advanced and technologically sophisticated user group, your documentation must focus on the details of a process, or in using a product. This can be a difficult feat to accomplish, but not if you write to your audience. Never assume that the reader knows anything about the product or process be documented, but in the case of advanced / expert users at least have the common sense to recognise the fact that they probably do not need to be told how to use the equipment they operate on a daily basis. When describing how to carry out a particular activity or task, identify each stage involved (number them if this fits the conventions of the document type you are creating) and to ensure the accuracy of what you have written test it yourself, or even better, rope in a volunteer of the same skills level as the end user.

Choose the right tool for the job

Although it is possible to create technical documents using parchment and blood, it's not advisable. Many specialist software applications exist to help you create powerful documentation, and part of your duties as a technical author, include selecting the right tool for the job. Largely this depends on the nature of the documents being produced, and the nature of their eventual distribution. If the documents can be delivered using the Internet, this is certainly an avenue to consider. To that end make use of packages such as Flash MX and Dreamweaver to achieve this goal. For integrated online help, you may wish to create raw HTML documents, or alternatively select a specialist package such as RoboHelp or similar. In the case of print based documents, you will need to select a software package powerful enough to handle what you will throw at it. Many inexperienced technical authors instantly turn towards Microsoft Word (as it is ubiquitous in may commercial and private environments). Unless your documentation is going to be beneath 150 pages, and you know how to create templates and make macros, avoid MS Word. As any technical author will tell you it has nasty habits all it's own, and can often be an unstable package to work with. If you are creating graphics heavy documentation, you may wish to consider Quark Xpress, or choose potentially the industry leader in the field, Adobe Framemaker. Whatever software you select, you must ensure you become incredibly proficient with it, either by investing in training, or by using it day after day after day!

Communicate - that's what you are paid to do!

Many people will tell you that creating technical documentation is tedious and repetitive. These people, are wrong, and possibly morons too. Although you may find the process of creating technical documentation 'boring' (if you do you are in the wrong job!) it isn't. Creating quality technical documents is a vital stage in allowing people to adequately and correctly use technology. Although no user will approach the documentation you create in the same way as they approach a novel, you can ultimately help them achieve what they want to achieve using technology. No matter how 'dull' the process may appear to be, allowing users to achieve their goals by reading your documents should give you a rush of pride and indeed, happiness. As long as you remember the positive effects that technology can have on people's lives, when you create your documents you can communicate more effectively, as you will be happier in the communicative process. Throughout the documentation life cycle, you should seek to liaise with colleagues as often as possible (if applicable). Let them read your documents, listen to their criticisms, and adjust your documents (if you can't argue your corner!). A technical author is paid to communicate, make sure that you do, and never forget why your are communicating, and to whom, in the documents themselves.

Common Mistakes to avoid making

When creating technical documents there are a number of fatal flaws you can make. Although by no means exhaustive, this section details some of the more common mistakes new authors make, in the hopes that you will avoid making them too:

Being Patronising - Although technical documentation should be clear, it should never be patronising. You are not creating documents to be read by morons but consumers and clients. You should always write to the skills level of your audience, but no matter what technical level people are on, they are not morons. Even children get offended when patronised, don't make that mistake with someone who is paying your salary, child or otherwise.

Overuse of humour - People do not read technical documents to be entertained, they read them in the hopes of successfully completing a process, or extracting information. Unless it is relevant to the end user, avoid humour wherever possible. If you are writing a book, fine and good. If you are writing a manual, avoid humour like the plague, as more often than not users will miss the joke and just end up loathing the patronising idiot that wrote the documentation.

Inconsistency - Even at the drafting stage, you should ensure that all the elements used in your document are consistent. This applies as much to the 'tone' of the document as to the layout of it. Ensure you use consistent senses (first person, etc.) as well as page layout, pagination elements, headers and footers, and all other textual elements.

Proof read - By the end of creating a piece of technical documentation, you will probably be sick of the sight of it. That doesn't matter. What matters is what leaves your office or home, is accurate. To that end proof read the document throughout all it's drafts, and before it is distributed proof read it again, and again, and again. Never rely on spell checkers (they never work) and if you can avoid it, never rely solely on your own judgement. Get your document read by as many pairs of eyes as possible prior to distribution, after all, they could spot the one thing you have been missing throughout the creation process.

Conclusion / Shameless self promotion

Technical writing is not regardless of what you may think, an easy job. It requires expertise, patience and a very odd mixture of skills. Just like any other job, you can learn how to do it, but even that tuition will not necessarily make you any good at it. To be a good technical author, you have to be anal yet creative, focussed yet communicative, and a flexible expert. This, as you can probably imagine, is no simple task. Although you may think creating technical documents is easy, creating accurate, consistent and timely documentation to a high commercial standard is a highly challenging role. Regardless of your budget, in the long run it will provide significant ROI if you hire a specialist. After all, they will be able to do in days, what you tear your hair our attempting to accomplish in weeks if not months.

Internet Security Threats: Who Can Read Your Email?

Before being able to choose a secure Internet communication system, you need to understand the threats to your security.

Since the beginning of the Internet there has been a naive assumption on the part of most email users that the only people who are reading their email are the people they are sending it to. After all, with billions of emails and gigabytes of data moving over the Internet every day, who would be able to find their single email in such a flood of data?

Wake-up and smell the coffee! Our entire economy is now information based, and the majority of that mission critical information is now flowing through the Internet in some form, from emails and email attachments, to corporate FTP transmissions and instant messages.

Human beings, especially those strange creatures with a criminal mind, look for every possible advantage in a dog eat dog world, even if that advantage includes prying into other peoples' mail or even assuming your identity. The privacy of your Internet communications has now become the front line in a struggle for the soul of the Internet.

The New Generation Packet Sniffers:

At the beginning of 2001, most computer security professionals began to become aware of an alarming new threat to Internet security, the proliferation of cheap, easy to use packet sniffer software. Anyone with this new software, a high school education, and network access can easily eavesdrop on email messages and FTP transmissions.

Software packages such as Caspa 3.0 or PassDetect - Ace Password Sniffer automate the task of eavesdropping to the point were if you send an email messages over the Internet with the phrase "Credit Card", it's almost a certainty that someone, somewhere will capture it, attachments and all.

(Caspa 3.0 - from ColaSoft Corporation, located in Chengdu, China http://www.colasoft.com ,PassDetect - a product whose advertised purpose is to sniff passwords sent in email, over HTTP, or over FTP from EffeTech Corporation, http://www.effetech.com )

A good example of this new class of software is called MSN Sniffer, also from Effetech, and it highlights the "party line" openness of today's LAN and Internet environments. Just like old telephone party lines, MSN sniffer lets you listen-in on other people's conversations, just like picking up another phone on a party line.

On their web site, Effetech advertises MSN Sniffer as:

"a handy network utility to capture MSN chat on a network. It records MSN conversations automatically. All intercepted messages can be saved as HTML files for later processing and analyzing. It is very easy to make it to work. Just run the MSN Sniffer on any computer on your network, and start to capture. It will record any conversation from any PC on the network."

Just as the Internet has been flooded by a deluge of spam messages after the introduction of cheap, easy-to-use spam generation software, the same effect is now taking place with sniffer software. The major difference is that, unlike spam, Internet eavesdropping is totally invisible, and ten times as deadly. How much of the identity theft being reported today is a direct result of Internet eavesdropping? Its hard to tell, but with the every growing dependency by individuals and corporations on Internet communications, opportunities to "capture" your sensitive data abound.

Most FTP transmission are unencrypted!

As of November 2003, the majority of corporate FTP transmissions are still unencrypted (unencrypted is geek speak for "in the clear" ) and almost all email communications take place "in the clear". Many email and FTP transmissions travel over 30 or more "hops" to make its way from the sender and receiver. Each one of these hops is a separate network, often owned by a different Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Any Idiot in the Middle

Even a well run corporation must still primarily rely on trusting its employees, contractors and suppliers to respect the privacy of the data flowing over its networks. With the new sniffer technology, all it takes is one "idiot in the middle", and your security is compromised. It could be the admin assistant sitting in the cubical next to you, or a network assistant working for one of the many ISPs your data will travel over, but somewhere, someone is listening. Maybe all he is looking for is his next stock trading idea, or maybe he wants to take over your eBay account so he can sell a nonexistent laptop to some unsuspecting "sucker" using your good name. its all happening right now, at some of the most respected companies in the world.

Access to your network doesn't have to come from a malicious or curious employee-many Internet worms, Trojans and viruses are designed to open up security holes on a PC so that other software can be installed. Once a hacker has access to one computer in your network, or one computer on your ISP's network, he can then use a sniffer to analyze all the traffic on the network.

So I'll password-protect my files, right?

You're getting warmer, but this still isn't going to do the trick. It's a good way to stop packet sniffers from searching for key words in a file, but unfortunately it is not as secure as you might think. If you ever forget a Zip, Word or Excel password, don't worry, just download the password tool from Last Bit Software www.PasswordTools.com, it works very well. There are many other packages out on the Internet but Last Bit's tool is the most robust and easy to use, if a bit slower that some others.

So what can I do about it?

OK, so now that you understand the threat, what can you do about it?

Stop using the Internet? - More than a few professionals are returning to phone calls and faxes for all their important communications.

Complain to your IT department? - If you have an IT department in your company this is a good place to start. But did the spam mail stop when you complained about it to your LAN administrator? Unfortunately he is almost as helpless as you are.

Encrypt your communications with PKI, etc. - For email this is a bit drastic, and can be very expensive, especially since you will need to install a key on each PC and coordinate this with the receivers of your email messages, your IT organization, etc.

Use FileCourier - This is by far the easiest and most cost effective way to protect your email attachments, or replace FTP transmissions. It takes out the "idiot in the middle" with a very clever solution.

The FileCourier approach to Security

I believe that FileCourier is the easiest out-of-the box secure communication system available.

FileCourier approaches Internet data transfer security in a unique way. Until FileCourier was first released in December of 2002, all secure email and file transmission systems relied on encrypting the data during the tried and true method of "upload, store, and forward". When you send an email, it and any documents attached to it are first transmitted to one or more intermediate servers. These mail server store the documents and then attempt to forward it to the receivers email server. To secure the transmission of the email requires either the servers to use extra encryption software technology, or forces the individual sender and receivers to install encryption software and their associated keys, or both. Not only is this a costly and time consuming exercise but it also often fails to protect the data over the complete path of the transmission. What do you do if the receiver is in another company and doesn't have any encryption software installed? What if his company is using a difference encryption standard? Ignoring the complexity of existing secure email and FTP systems their biggest failings continue to be the "idiot in the middle". From a nosey email or FTP server administrator, to a hungry co-worker, to an incompetent who lets a hacker have free reign of their server, if your sensitive documents are stored on a server maintained by someone else then that person, or his company, can view your documents.

The FileCourier approach is creative, yet simple. FileCourier utilizes existing email and instant messaging systems in the same way you use an envelope to send a letter thru the US postal service, as a wrapper for the real content. We assume that EVERYONE can read what is in the email, so we don't send your documents in the email at all. In fact your documents never leave your PC, until the receiver of the email requests it.

How it works:

FileCourier lets you ticket the file you want to email, and then instead of sending the file in the email, sends a "FileTicket" instead. The file is only transmitted to the receiver of the email when he opens the FileTicket and is "authenticated". After the receiver is authenticated the file is transmitted through an SSL (secure socket layer) tunnel directly from the sender's PC to the receiver's PC through our secure relay servers. SSL is the same security used by banks and is impossible for packet sniffers to penetrate. With FileCourier each packet is encrypted using a 1024 bit key and is delivered to your receiver through his browser. FileCourier lets your communications go un-detected by any sniffer, and removes the "idiot in the middle" threat by never storing the data on an intermediate server. More over, FileCourier is the easiest way to secure your sensitive data transmission in both an Internet and corporate LAN environment.

Take Action Now!

Internet communications security is one of the most important privacy issues we face today. It might feel a bit paranoid for a law-abiding citizen to encrypt his email communications and computer document transmissions, but would you send a customers contract thru normal mail without an envelope? How would you feel if your employer sent your next pay stub to you on the back of a postcard? Use FileCourier, just like you would use a envelope for regular mail. Download the no obligation free trial today at www.filecourier.com and send 50MB of data securely for free!

Guide to Safe Online Shopping

Despite the many benefits of shopping online, many people still have some reluctance towards parting with their cash on the net, therefore we've compiled a general checklist and answers to the most common questions to help put your mind at rest.

Vendor Checklist

If the answer is no to any of these question then do not purchase from the retailer in question.

1. Do they have a secure server?
2. Are their contact details clearly visible on the site?
3. Are their contact details authentic?
4. Do you trust them?

How Do I Know I'm in a Secure Server?

Whilst in a secure server a closed padlock symbol should be visible somewhere along the bottom of your browser, you should also notice that the beginning of the site address will have changed from http:// to https:// again signifying that you are on a secure server.

It should be noted that a large majority of sites only make use of their secure server during the payment procedure.

Note about Actinic Sites

Please note: shopping sites powered by the Actinic software use a 128-bit encryption Java applet to encrypt credit card information this method is approved for merchants account holders at Barclays Bank, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Always email the retailer in question if you have any doubts.

Helpful Hints

1. Always keep a copy of the order confirmation .
2. Always read the small print.
3. Contact the retailer if you have any questions or doubts.
4. Never shop with a retailer you don't trust, no matter how good their prices.

Useful sites:

Office of Fair Trading
www.oft.gov.uk
Includes helpful online shopping advice.

Trust UK
www.trustuk.org.uk
Non-profit organisation endorsed by the Government to enable consumers to buy online with confidence

Trading Standards
www.tradingstandards.gov.uk
Offers consumer protection information in the UK.

Choosing the Right Strategy for your Online Business: Pay for Inclusion vs Pay per Click

Back in the old days of the Internet - in 1993, - there were 284 locations on the entire World Wide Web. According to Bill Clinton, only 8 of them ended in .com or .net when he was sworn into office. As of January 1, 2003, there were 171,000,000 domain hosts in use. In 1995, the largest search engine database was Altavista, and it had most of the Internet categorized. Today Google and FASTsearch own the largest databases. Yet neither one of them has even 10% of the Internet covered. It's estimated that more than 8,000,000 web pages are added to the Internet every day. None of the search engines are able to keep up to that pace. So how will your website stand out? How will it acquire the traffic it needs to succeed? There are many ways to approach the issue of marketing an online business, but for the sake of this article, we'll concern ourselves solely with online tools, and ways to expedite success. In that vein, we'll concern ourselves with Pay for Inclusion and Pay for Placement (or Pay per Click) advertising.

Some engines, such as AltaVista, Inktomi, Looksmart and FAST, use a pay for inclusion model. What this means is that to be guaranteed to be found within that specific search engine index, the website operator must pay a fee to be listed. It's similar to the fee a business pays for a Yellow Pages listing. These fees vary from monthly to annual. Looksmart charges a listing fee, plus a fee of $0.15 per clickthrough.

Engaging a Pay-for-Inclusion service does not come with any placement guarantees. If your website is not properly optimized, but you paid an inclusion fee, it is guaranteed to be indexed and listed somewhere within that search engine. If you want to ensure success with a Pay-for-Inclusion search engine, then your website must still be optimized. Without proper optimization, which includes an analysis from the perspective of all the factors that the search engines look for, a pay for inclusion service will not deliver the desired benefits to the website operator.

When properly matched with a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization regimen, a Pay for Inclusion program will result in powerful results: Qualified Traffic, Customers, and Relevant Traffic.

Pay per Click advertising is the process by which a web site operator can arrange for a website to be placed in a pre-defined position within certain search engines, such as Overture.

Search Engine Placement is always a Pay-Per-Click solution. While advertising websites are only permitted to buy advertising in search queries that are relevant to their content, they are not sorted by relevance but rather purely based on bid value.

Pay per click services allow advertisers to bid for each visitor directed through to their web site, based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. Pay per Click search engine placement should be realistically viewed for what it is - an online auction. Advertisers bid against each other for a fixed position within a list of search results. The advertiser who bids the most is given the top spot in the list. Each advertiser bids according to their budget, and has to know his or her Return On Investment (ROI) to determine how much money should be spent on acquiring new customers.

How Do I Know Which Strategy Is Right For My Website?

For those advertisers where the ROI is sensible or worthwhile, pay per click search engines are valuable customer acquisition tools. But is it right for you? While it can be expensive, here's a way for you to easily determine the ROI for your online business, and determine if it is the right choice for you. Take out a sheet of paper, and at the top of the sheet mark down the average price of the goods you sell - we'll use $100.00 for the purpose of the example. From that number, make some simple and basic calculations, outlined here:

$100.00 Sale Amount

-$ 50.00 Cost of Goods

-$ 5.00 Transaction Cost (bank charges, credit card)

-$ 8.50 Shipping Fees (This assumes you're delivering a product, it needs a box, label, and has a delivery cost.

-$ 10.00 Customer support costs - time on phone, email, etc... supporting and processing the transaction. What's 1 hour of your time worth?

$ 26.50 = Margin

Assuming this margin is correct for your website, is a Pay per Click campaign right for you? You'll need to look at your stats to judge this properly. You need to determine how many of your visitors are converting into buyers. IF your website has a 4% conversion rate, and your category is moderately competitive, you will probably need to budget at least $1.00 per click to get spot #3. Spot #3 is important because more often than not it's the top 3 spots per page of search engine results that are reserved for Pay per Click advertisers.

Assuming your website gets into the top three spots, here's how the math works if you get 100 clicks in a month. Since it's all percentage based, the same holds true if you get 25 clicks or 10,000 clicks.

100 clicks @ $1.00 per click = $100.00 cost 4% conversion = 4 sales = 4x $26.50 (margin on sale) = $106.00 Profit = $ 6.00

So, if the above were true, and IF the pay per click advertisement sent you 100 visitors per month, you would make only $6.00. Would you make much less having spot #4 instead of spot #3 ? If it meant one less sale a month, that would be worth it. You would make $70.00 more by selling less! Does spot #3 get much more traffic than relevant results in spots 4 through 10? Not at all for spot # 4, 5, 6, and only a little bit more for spot #'s 7-10. Remember, people usually look at the title or site description to see if it is relevant. Pay per Click is worth the money if your website is not found under any relevant queries in the top 20, but its value drops quickly if a website is found easily in the free listings within the search engines.

Is Pay for Inclusion Less Expensive?

If we use the same calculation as above, and your website had 4 sales from a pay for inclusion engine where you paid $39.00 per year, or $3.25 / month, your profit would have been $103.25.

What About The Cost Of Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization does not have to be expensive. You can do the work yourself, but you need to ensure that it makes sense to do so. By this I mean, is doing it yourself a cost efficient, business proposition? Any time that you as an individual put into search engine optimization is time that you take away from business fundamentals and essentials. It's time away from customer support, content creation, service, administration, product research, other marketing, etc... What is that time worth? It's got to be part of the ROI calculation too. More and more people are choosing to outsource this work. It's estimated that 70% of online businesses will outsource non-core operations this year. It only makes sense. It's smart business to focus on what you know and do well and to hire others to support you in the other areas. Not many smart businessmen write their own contracts - they get their lawyer to do it. They want to ensure it's done right. Doing it right in the first place saves money in the long run. Outsourcing means getting someone else to do the work for you, properly. It does not mean getting someone to tell you what to do, or how to do things.

What's Right For Your Website?

In the long run, a website operator that has a well optimized website will beat out a non-optimized website that concentrates on Pay per Click advertising for customer acquisition every day of the year. He may make fewer sales in a year, but he will make more profit from each sale. If the website is properly optimized, it will enjoy better placement in more search engines. This means it will survive, and prosper in the long run.