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A mailing list is the lifeblood of your online business. The old adage “the money is in the list” cannot be true enough — if you had a targeted list of prospects to contact each time you have a new product, you will be able to save a lot of effort by marketing it to your existing list of targeted prospects.

You can actually build up a targeted list of prospects that are interested in your products by offering a relevant download on your website. For example, let’s take a look at a very good example — apple.com. When you download the free iTunes and Quicktime software from their site, they will ask you to fill in an optional name and email form so that they can send you offers on songs that you can purchase via — guess where — iTunes!

In reality, you do not need to offer such a “heavyweight” download such as a full-feature software like iTunes.  You can attract prospects equally well with some quality freebies such as a simple report, a free wallpaper, and so on. The important thing is that your download offers enough value for the prospect to be willing to give away his/her own email address to get it.

However, slapping together a simple download and putting a link on your website won’t be enough to attract qualified prospects. You will have to do some homework in order for your lead-generating mechanism to work well for you.

First of all, you must place your download form prominently on your website. Preferably, dedicate a page to it and link to that page from every other page of your website. That way, there is no way your visitors cannot find the download page, and when they do, you’ll get some of them converted into your prospects!

Also, you have to put a little effort into promoting your download. Explain and elaborate on the values of the download, and why your visitors should download it. You might think why would anyone want to pass on a freebie, but most of your visitors would be too lazy to take the effort to download it because most of their downloads just sit on the harddisk collecting virtual dust. It is hence important to show your visitors why they should download your freebie.

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• Ancient Chinese artists freely painted scenes of nakedness and sex. However, they would absolutely never depict a bare female foot.
• Ancient Chinese artists would never paint pictures of women’s feet.
• Ancient Egyptian priests would pluck every hair from their bodies.
• Ancient Egyptians believed that “Bast” was the mother of all cats on Earth. They also believed that cats were sacred animals.
• Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats.
• Andorra, a tiny country on the border between France and Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.49 years.
• Andrew Jackson spent most of his adult life with a bullet no more than two inches away from his heart as a result of a duel he fought before becoming President.
• Andrew Johnson, was the only self-educated tailor. He is the only President to make his own clothes as well as his cabinet’s.
• Andy Warhol based his 1964 series of silk portraits of Marilyn Monroe on a still photo from the 1952 movie Niagra.
• Andy Warhol created the Rolling Stone’s emblem depicting the big tongue. It first appeared on the cover of the ‘Sticky Fingers’ album.
• Animal gestation periods: the shortest is the American opossum, which bears its young 12 to 13 days after conception; the longest is the Asiatic elephant, taking 608 days, or just over 20 months.
• Animals that lay eggs don’t have belly buttons.
• Anne Boleyn had three breasts.
• Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth I’s mother, had six fingers on one hand.
• Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I, had an extra finger on her left hand.
• Annually, approximately 46 millions Cokes, five million pounds of French fries, and seven million hamburgers are consumed at Walt Disney World Resort.
• Another law in Helena, Montana, mandates that a woman can’t dance on a table in a saloon or bar unless she has on at least three pounds, two ounces of clothing.
• Another name for your pinky finger is Wanus
• Antarctica has only one ATM machine.
• Antarctica is the only continent without any reptiles or snakes.
• Antarctica is visited by over 10,000 tourists a year.
• Anteaters prefer termites to ants.
• Anthropologists use a standard height of 4 feet 11 inches to determine if a group of people are pygmies. The average adult male must be less than 59 inches in height.
• Ants are social insects and live in colonies which may have as many as 500,000 individuals.
• Ants can live completely submerged underwater for up to 2 days.
• Ants don’t sleep.
• Ants make up 1/10 of the total world animal tissue
• Any free-moving liquid in outer space will form itself into a sphere, because of it’s surface tension.
• Any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th in it.
• Anyone could come to Andrew Jackson’s public parties at the White House. At his last one, a wheel of cheese weighing 1,400 lbs. was eaten in two hours. The White House smelled of cheese for weeks.
• Aphids are born pregnant without the benefit of sex. Aphids can give birth 10 days after being born themselves.
• Apparently 1/3 of people with alarm clocks hit the ’snooze’ button every morning, and from 25-34 age group, it is over 1/2. (r u 1 of them?)
• Apparently there’s a law stating that if a Kurtatchi woman of the Soloman Islands unintentionally reveals her genitals, it can be expected and will be understood if any nearby man sexually assaults her.
• Apparently, according to Playtex, the best selling bra sizes these days are 34B and 36B.
• Apparently, I misspelled it…it’s “Sinterklaas.” Thanks to the unnamed person from Holland who corrected me.
• Apple pie was brought to England from France sometime around 1066 by William the Conqueror. It made it to America when the Pilgrims arrived.
• Apple pits contain cyanide.
• Apples are more effecient than caffeine for waking you up in the morning.
• Approximate number of facial expressions dogs can make: 100.
• Approximately 125 people die in the United States from an anaphylaxis to foods each year.
• Approximately 20% of Americans have a passport.
• Approximately 200 pets are buried in a pet cemetery out of the thousands of pets that die each day.
• Approximately 25,000 workers died during the building of the Panama Canal, and approximately 20,000 of them contracted malaria and yellow fever.
• Approximately 40,000 tons of meteoric dust hits the Earth each year.
• Approximately 850 peanuts make a 18 oz jar of peanut butter.
• Approximately one out of four injuries by athletes involve the wrist and hand.
• Arabic numerals are not really Arabic; they were invented in India.
• Argentineans eat more meat than any other nation in the world an average of 10 ounces per person per day.
• Aristedes won the first Kentucky Derby in 1875.
• Armadillos along with humans are the other creatures that can contract leprosy.
• Armadillos can be house broken.
• Armadillos can have up to four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.
• Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
• Army doctor D.W. Bliss attended to two presidents after they were shot by assassins. In 1865 he was one of the 16 doctors who tried to save Abraham Lincoln. In 1881 he supervised the care of James Garfield.
• Around 2,000 left-handed people die annually due to improper use of equipment designed only for right handed people.
• Around 22% of Americans are teenagers.
• Around the 16th century the Yo-Yo was used by Philipinos to stun prey from trees.
• Arrowroot, an antidote for poisoned arrows, is used as a thickener in cooking.
• As artists and traders in medieval cities began to form organizations, they instituted tough initiation ceremonies. For example, journeymen in Bergen, Norway, were shoved down a chimney, thrown three times into the sea, and soundly whipped.
• As bananas ripen, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Therefore, the riper the banana the sweeter it will taste.
• As late as 1820, the universe was thought to be 6,000 years old. It is now thought to be between 15 and 20 billion years old.
• As mentioned, the first Fords used Dodge engines. Many ford vehicles now use Nissan engines, especially in Mini-vans.
• As much as 80% of microwaves from mobile phones are absorbed by YOUR HEAD! visit microshield
• As of 14.10.2003, only 0.6% of people actually sign the guestbook. Its true. Over 120,000 visitors. Yes, the statistic did go down.
• As of 1996, Hee Haw holds the record for the longest running weekly first-run syndicated show in the history of television. It spanned over 4 decades, from the late ’60s to the early ’90s, airing every Saturday night at 7:00.
• As of 2004, there are two men for every woman in the United Arab Emirates.
• As of Dec. 31, 2000, the number of climbers summiting Mt. Everest reached 1314, and the number of deaths on the mountain reached 167.
• As specified by the Christian church, the canonical hours are matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline.
• Aspirin was the first drug offered as a water-soluble tablet in 1900.
• Aspirin went on sale as the first pharmaceutical drug in 1899, after Felix Hoffman, a German chemist at the drug company Bayer, successfully modified Salicylic Acid, a compound found in willow bark to produce Aspirin.
• Assuming that all the offspring survived, 190,000,000,000,000,000,000 flies could be produced in four months by the offspring of a single pair of flies.
• Astronaut John Glenn ate the first meal in space when he ate pureed applesauce squeezed from a tube aboard Friendship 7 in 1962.
• Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper was so relaxed on the morning of his launch into space in May 1963 that he fell asleep in his space capsule while waiting for blastoff.
• Astronaut Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon with his left foot.
• Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.
• Astronauts become between two and three inches taller when in space.
• Astronauts brought back about 800 pounds of lunar rock to Earth. Most of it has not been analyzed.
• Astronauts grow taller in space
• At 188 decibels, the whistle of the blue whale is the loudest sound produced by any animal.
• At 4,145 miles, the Nile River is the longest in the world.
• At -40 degrees fahrenheit,a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour breathing.
• At 840,000 square miles, Greenland is the largest island in the world. It is three times the size of Texas. By comparison, Iceland is only 39,800 square miles.
• At age 47, the Rolling Stones’ bassist, Bill Wyman, began a relationship with 13-year old Mandy Smith, with her mother’s blessing. Six years later, they were married, but the marriage only lasted a year. Not long after, Bill’s 30-year-old son Stephen married Mandy’s mother, age 46. That made Stephen a stepfather to his former stepmother. If Bill and Mandy had remained married, Stephen would have been his father’s father-in-law and his own grandpa.
• At age seventy, 73% of men are still potent.
• At Andrew Jackson’s funeral in 1845, his pet parrot had to be removed because it was swearing.
• At Arkansas State University two people cannot hold hands while standing in a doorway unless they belong to a union.
• At birth, a panda is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.
• At birth, bear cubs weigh between 1/2 1 pound.
• At its center, the sun has a density of over a hundred times that of water, and a temperature of 10-20 million degrees Celsius.
• At Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Florida, on June 26, 1985, organist Wilbur Snapp played “Three Blind Mice” following a call by umpire Keith O’Connor. The umpire was not amused, and saw to it that Mr. Snapp was ejected from the game.
• At one time in India, a fiance was required to deflower his future bride if she died before the wedding. The girl could not be cremated until this ritual was carried out in front of the village priest.
• At one time the earth consisted of one land mass and a huge body of water. Geologists today call the land Pangaea (from the Greek words “all land”), while the water was called Panthalassa (from the Greek words “all sea”). Between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea split into two parts: Laurasia, which consisted of North America, Europe and Asia; and Gondwanaland, which consisted of Africa, South America, India, Antarctica and Australia.
• At one time, there was a law in India that forbade lower-caste people from casting their shadows on a member of the Brahman (the upper class).
• At one time, Venus de Milo had arms.
• At sea level there are 2,000 pounds of air pressure on each square foot of your body area.
• At the age of 26, Michelangelo began sculpting his monumental statue of David. He finished it seventeen months later, in January, 1504.
• At the beginning of the year 2001 all Canadian cigarette packaging will depict graphic images of rotting teeth and deteriorating organs.
• At the distance at which our sun is located from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, Earth and the rest of our solar system are moving at a speed of about 170 miles per second around the center.
• At the end of the Beatles’ song “A Day in the Life”, an ultrasonic whistle, audible only to dogs, was recorded by Paul McCartney for his Shetland sheepdog.
• At the end of WWII the Germans had more planes than the start of the war.
• At the height of its power (400 BC) the Greek city of Sparta had 500,000 slaves and only 25,000 citizens.
• At the time of the U.S. Revolutionary War, Philadelphia was the second largest English-speaking city in the world, surpassed only by London.
• At Will’s first competition he competes with the sword, and after his first victory Jeff gives a little speech which recieves no response until one of Will’s friends cheers. this was a mistake none of the extras spoke english and so missed their cue to start cheering, and needed a reminder from one of the lead actors. This scene was going to be shot but the director decided this was better than what they had planned.
• Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), and Pope Leo VIII (d 963-965) all died while having sex.
• Audrey Hepburn’s real name was Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston.
• August 9, 1173 marked the first day of construction on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was completed sometime in 1370 after two building stoppages. In 1178, when the tower was three stories tall, construction was halted for unknown reasons. It wasn’t until 1272 that construction resumed, and that lasted until 1278 (the tower was seven stories at that point). In 1360, construction of the belfry that would eventually hold seven bells began.
• Aunt Jemima pancake flour, invented in 1889, was the first ready-mix food to be sold commercially.
• Australia has no native monkeys. (in the wild)
• Australia is a major exporter of camels
• Australia is the only country that is also a continent.
• Australian termites have been known to build mounds twenty feet high and at least 100 feet wide.
• Australians consume 60% more coffee than tea, a sixfold increase since 1940.
• Australia’s box jellyfish has toxins more potent than the venom in cobras, and is one of the most dangerous jellyfish in the world
• Average calories burned daily by the sled dogs running in Alaska’s annual Iditarod race: 10,000.
• Average length of a coat hanger when straightened: 44 inches.
• Average number of eggs laid by the female American Oyster per year: 500 million. Usually only one oyster out of the bunch reaches maturity.
• Average number of hummingbirds required to create the weight of 1 ounce: 18.
• Average number of squirts from a cow’s udder needed to yield a gallon of milk : 345.
• Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.
• Aztec emperor Montezuma drank 50 golden goblets of hot chocolate every day. It was thick, dyed red and flavored with chili peppers.
• Aztec emperor Montezuma had nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant “plenty of excrement.”
• Aztecs believed that the sun died every night and needed human blood to give it strength to rise the next day. So they sacrificed 15,000 men a year to appease their sun god, Huitzilopochtli. Most of the victims were prisoners taken in wars, which were sometimes started solely to round up sacrificial victims.

Strange But True Facts (Part 1)

Strange But True Facts (Part 3) — Coming Soon

Strange But True Facts (Part 4) — Coming Soon

Strange But True Facts (Part 5) — Coming Soon

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• More Monopoly money is printed yearly than real money throughout the world.
• Penguins are not found in the North Pole
• People photocopying their buttocks are the cause of 23% of all photocopier errors worldwide.
• A dentist invented the Electric Chair.
• Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer was actually created as a promotional figure for Montgommery Wards department stores.
• A cockroach can live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
• Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
• A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.
• About 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens each year.
• About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they’re still sitting on it.
• Alexander Graham Bell’s wife and mother were both deaf .
• The “O” when used as a prefix in Irish surnames means “descendant of.”
• Alfred Hitchcock did not have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
• Cockroaches break wind every 15 minutes.
• Charlie Brown’s dad was a barber.
• Fish scales are an ingredient in most lipsticks.
• Frank Baum, the writer of “The Wizrd of OZ”, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence “Oz.”
• The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (a variety of the marijuana plant) paper
• On average, every chocolate bar contains at least three insect legs.
• Up until the early 20th century, New Jersey and Wisconsin had laws allowing the castration of epileptics
• “A motion to table a motion to reconsider a vote to table an appeal of a ruling that a point of order was not in order against a motion to table another point of order against a motion to bring to a vote the motion to call up the resolution that would institute a rules change.”
• “Adcomsubordcomphibspac” is the longest acronym. It is a Navy term standing for Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate Command.
• “Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, La Allah Il Allah, La Allah Il Allah U Mohammed Rassul Allah” is heard by more people than any other sound of the human voice. This is the prayer recited by muezzins from each of the four corners of the prayer tower as Moslems all over the world face toward Mecca and kneel at sunset. It means: “God is great. There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the prophet of God.”
• “Almost” is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
• “Aromatherapy” is a term coined by French chemist René Maurice Gattefossé in the 1920’s to describe the practice of using essential oils taken from plants, flowers, roots, seeds, etc., in healing.
• “Asthma” and “isthmi” are the only six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between.
• “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson was the first video to air on MTV by a black artist.
• “Conservationalists” & “Conversationalists” (18 letters) are the longest non-scientific transposals (word formed from another by changing its letters).
• “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.
• “Duff” is the decaying organic matter found on a forest floor.
• “Fickleheaded” and “fiddledeedee” are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.
• “Flushable” toilets were in use in ancient Rome.
• “Fortnight” is a contraction of “fourteen nights.” In the US “two weeks” is more commonly used.
• “Forty” is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. “One” is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.
• “Four” is the only number whose number of letters in the name equals the number.
• “Hang on Sloopy” is the official rock song of Ohio.
• “Happy Birthday” was the first song to be performed in outer space, sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on March 8, 1969.
• “”Kemo Sabe, meaning an all knowing one, is actually a mispronunciation by Native American of the Spanish phrase, Quien lo Sabe, meaning one who knows.”
• The lunula is the half-moon shaped pale area at the bottom of finger nails.
• “Ma is as selfless as I am” can be read the same way backwards. If you take away all the spaces you can see that all the letters can be spelled out both ways.
• “Mad About You” star Paul Reiser plays the piano on the show’s theme song.
• “One thousand” contains the letter A, but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an A.
• “Ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.
• “Rhythms” is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.
• “Second string,” meaning “replacement or backup,” comes from the middle ages. An archer always carried a second string in case the one on his bow broke.
• “Speak of the Devil” is short for “Speak of the Devil and he shall come”. It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That’s why when you’re talking about someone and they show up people say “Speak of the Devil.”
• “Stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
• “Tautonyms” are scientific names for which the genus and species are the same.
• “Taxi” is spelled exactly the same in English, French, German, Swedish, Portuguese, and Dutch.
• “Teh” means “cool” in Thai. (Pronounced “tay”).
• “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.
• “THEREIN” is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.
• “Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”
• $203,000,000 is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S.
• 1 and 2 are the only numbers where they are values of the numbers of the factors they have.
• 1 in 5,000 north Atlantic lobsters are born bright blue.
• 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of lemons contain more sugar than 1 kg of strawberries.
• 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire are strung across the Unites States.
• 1.7 litres of saliva is produced each day. In Discovery Channel, its a quart.
• 10 percent of all human beings ever born are alive at this very moment.
• 10% of human dry weight comes from bacteria
• 11% of the world is left-handed.
• 111, 111, 111 X 111, 111, 111 = 12, 345, 678, 987, 654, 321
• 1200 equals 1 pound (72 rupees).
• 123,000,000 cars are being driven on highways in the United States.
• 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the United States.
• 1959’s A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.
• 2 and 5 are the only prime numbers that end in 2 or 5.
• 203 million dollars is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S.
• 22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong bank accounts in the next hour.
• 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.
• 25% of a human’s bones are in its feet.
• 259200 people die every day.
• 27% of U.S. male college students believe life is “a meaningless existential hell.”
• 3% of all mammals are monogamous
• 315 entries in Webster’s 1996 dictionary were misspelled.
• 315 words in the 1996 Webster’s dictionary were mispelled.
• 4 tablespoons of ketchup has about the same amount of nutrition as a ripe tomato.
• 40% of all people who come to a party snoop in your medicine cabinet.
• 40% of McDonald’s profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
• 43.7% of all statistics are made up right on the spot
• 48% of astronauts experience motion sickness.
• 52% of Americans drink coffee.
• 55.1% of all US prisoners are in prison for drug offenses.
• 56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball games each year
• 67 million pounds of pesticides and about 3 million tons of fertilizer are used annually on lawns in the US.
• 78 rpm albums, used prior to 1948, were only capable of recording for four minutes. It wasn’t until later that year that Columbia Records introduced 33 rpm albums capable of playing 23 minutes per side.
• 80% of animals on earth are insects.
• 80% of arrested criminals are male.
• In Disney’s Fantasia, the Sorcerer to whom Mickey played an apprentice was named Yensid, which is Disney spelled backward.
• By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
• One in ten people live on an island.
• 84% of a raw apple is water.
• It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
• 85% of men who die of heartattacks during intercourse, are found to have been cheating on their wives.
• 85,000,000 tons of paper are used in the United States each year.
• 28% of Africa is classified as wilderness. In North America, its 38%.
• Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
• Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
• Sherlock Holmes NEVER said “Elementary, my dear Watson”, Humphrey Bogart NEVER said “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca, and they NEVER said “Beam me up, Scotty” on Star Trek.
• 90% of bird species are monogamous; only 3% of animals are.
• 90% of New York City cab drivers are recently arrived immigrants.
• 98% of all murders and rapes are by a close family member or friend of the victim.
• 98% of the weight of water is made up from oxygen.
• 99% of the pumpkins sold in the US end up as jack-o-lanterns.

Strange But True Facts (Part 2) — Coming Soon

Strange But True Facts (Part 3) — Coming Soon

Strange But True Facts (Part 4) — Coming Soon

Strange But True Facts (Part 5) — Coming Soon

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Audio-video streaming is basically video with sound that you can watch online. The video is transmitted over the internet for various reasons, but you can take advantage of it for your own online business.

The first way to use audio-video streaming is to create a video that promotes your business or product. Think of it as an internet ad. Depending on how you do it, this video could be uploaded onto site like YouTube where millions of potential viewers can see it. You can also pay to have your ad placed on third-party websites.

Audio-video streaming can also be used to show how to use your product, right on your own site. This is very important if you have a product that benefits from more explanation than simply a photo or two with accompanying copywriting. For example, George Foreman has videos on his site that both promote and show how to use his famous grill. There, you can learn right along with him, how to use his grill to prepare a fabulous meal. He isn’t just telling you how to do it in text, but actually showing you through the wonder of audio-video streaming!

At times audio-video streaming can be used to create the actual product. You can sell videos on just about anything and if you make a video on something that many people are interested in, you can sell it on your website. The best way to do this is to create the video, then charge a fee to be able to enter the website. Alternatively, you could offer audio-video streaming downloads that people can pay for individually. This is best if you plan to offer multiple videos for sale on your site.

If you decide to use audio-video streaming to create and deliver your products, you need to have a very good and very interesting topic. Something that is easy to promote and that will draw people to your website. For example, fitness videos are very popular with all ages, but particularly with middle-aged women who are worried about their weight. If you offer a website that uploads a new audio-video streaming fitness program every day or every other day, you can charge a monthly fee for access.

The same goes for just about any popular topic. You can also use audio-video streaming to add more products to an existing website that sells information and/or physical products. For example, you might want to try creating some audio-video streaming videos on do it yourself projects for a home improvement site. Use your products in the video to gain extra promotion.

Audio-video streaming can be a very useful tool if you know what to do with it. There is plenty of information on the internet and it is worth your while to take a little time and learn how it works. Then you can start applying it to your business, creating your own products to sell or using it for promotional purposes. One thing remains clear; audio-video streaming is a valuable addition to the internet business.

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As many web developers can attest to, logging into your server through SSH (Secure Shell) is one of the more common day-to-day tasks (you can even use it as a secure tunnel for your traffic). It only makes sense to automate this process which in turn can save many many keystrokes.

This how-to is written with PuTTY and Windows in mind and requires several other tools that are available from PuTTY’s website. So from their download page, make sure you have these files:

• PuTTY (putty.exe)
• PuTTYgen (puttygen.exe)

Then to automate SSH login, do the following:

1. Run PuTTYgen.
2. Select SSH-2 DSA as the Type of Key to generate.
3. Click generate and move your mouse around to generate randomness.
4. Click “Save Private Key” and save it somewhere on your computer.
5. Copy the entire content inside the box to your clipboard (this is your generated public key).
6. Login to your SSH server.
7. Create the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys containing the generated public key (from step 3) on a single line.
8. Make this file readable (chmod 755).
9. Then open up PuTTY and navigate to Connection->Data and fill in the auto-login username.
10. Navigate to Connection->SSH->Auth and under Private-key, browse to the file you had saved earlier on your computer.

That’s it! Now you can try logging in to your SSH server and it should login automatically. If it works, make sure you save your session so you don’t have to repeat these steps every time!

Hopefully these steps work for everyone! Let me know if there are any problems.

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For anything to work well, care must be taken to make firm, workable plans to execute it and the same goes for website designs. With a well thought out website design, you will be able to create a site that generates multiple streams of revenue for you. In fact, may websites turn into online wasteland because they are not well planned and do not get a single visitor. Gradually, the webmaster will not be motivated to update it anymore and it turns into wasted cyberspace.

The crucial point of planning your site is optimizing it for revenue if you want to gain any income from the site. Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. For example, you might have a “food” section, an “accomodation” section and an “entertainment” section for a tourism site. You can then write and publish relevant articles in the respective sections to attract a stream of traffic that comes looking for further information.

When you have a broader, better-defined scope of themes for your website, you can sell space on your pages to people interested in advertising on your page. You can also earn from programs like Google’s Adsense and Yahoo! Search Marketing if people surf to those themed pages and click on the ads. For this very reason, the advertisement blocks on your pages need to be relevant to the content, so a themed page fits that criteria perfectly.

As Internet becomes more widespread, advertising on the Internet will bear more results than on magazines or offline media. Hence, start tapping in on this lucrative stream of profit right away!

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There’s DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and even DVD-ROM! So what’s the difference between all of these different names, aren’t all DVDs the same? Well, it’s not quite that simple.

Let’s first start with the most obvious difference: some have R and some have RW. The “R” stands for readable, while the “W” stands for writeable.

The main difference between DVD-R and DVD-RW, or DVD+R and DVD+RW is that the R disc formats can only be written to once, and then it is only readable and can’t be erased for the rest of its digital life. While RW discs are can be written to and erased many times, they are both readable and writeable.

“R” discs are perfect if they are only needed to be written to once, such as giving some files to a friend or transferring them between PCs. “RW” discs have their strength in the ability to be used many times over, which is great for routine system backups, etc. And naturally, the RW discs are slightly more expensive than the R discs, but you’ll have to decide if the trade offs are worth the money.

Now, onto the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. As I just described above, DVD-R & DVD-RW are sister discs, the difference being one is writeable once, while the other is writeable multiple times. The same thing is true for DVD+R & DVD+RW. So the question is, what’s the difference between the plus and minus?

In order to explain this we must take a trip back in time. When DVDs were first being developed, there was no industry standard. Multiple companies were competing to develop what they hoped would be the dominant form of the future.

The DVD-R DVD+R difference can easily be summarized by the following:

• The DVD-R/RW standard was developed by Pioneer, and is used primarily by Apple and Pioneer. These “minus” discs can only be written to in one layer on the discs surface. In addition, this format is supported by the DVD forum, but is in no way an industry standard. DVD-R/RW discs are cheaper than the “plus” format.
• The DVD+R/RW format is supported by Philips, Dell, Sony, HP, and Mcft. These discs can be written to in multiple layers, giving them slightly better and more disc storage than the “minus” format. Because of this additional capacity, they are slightly more expensive than “minus” discs.

A couple final things to clear up is the difference between DVD-ROM and DVD+RW, or the other DVD formats I mentioned above. The DVD-ROM drive can only read DVDs, while the other DVD drives can read and write data to DVDs.

And naturally the DVD+RW CD+RW difference can be explained by the “DVD” or “CD” prefix. DVDs, on average, can store up to 4.7 GB of data, while a CD can only store about 700 MB of data, or about 15% of a DVD’s capacity. While CDs are slightly cheaper, in my opinion, the benefits of DVDs are much greater.

So now that you’ve learned about the difference between DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and even DVD-ROM, which one is right for you? The easiest way to determine which is more beneficial is to watch the industry trends. A few years ago all pre-built computers were shipping with DVD-ROM drives. Today, most PCs have a burnable DVD drive.

I feel that the benefits of having a burnable DVD drive far outweigh any additional costs. They store much more data, and they are ideal for storing your home movies to watch on your DVD player.

My advice is to look at DVD burners that support all of the major formats I’ve mentioned above, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW. While a DVD drive that supports all of these formats may be slightly more expensive, it will allow you to use any type of DVD disc to burn to, and you’ll be protected from any industry shifts to one format or the other.

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This is only a quick tutorial, there are literally hundreds of little tricks you can do with a DNS, but this will get your basics up and running. I’m assuming you want to setup a windows DNS server, but the principals will work for most servers.

You will need..

• 1) A domain name over which you have full control
• 2) DNS server software(Windows server always comes with one of these)
• 3) At least one fixed IP address, allthough two is highly desirable
• 4) An idea of what services you want on your server

The first thing you need to do is create your new domain entry. In windows this is called a “Zone” and you will have one for every domain name you have. Add your main domain in the forward lookup zone as a Primary zone, which will be in the format “Domainname.com”, or .co.uk, or whatever, you shouldn’t need any more details for this bit. Do *not* allow dynamic updates unless this is a local network DNS. Once it is created you will have 2 entry’s under your new domain, “SOA”(Or Start of Authority) and “NS”(Or Name server). If you want a 100% compliant DNS then you should now follow the same process but adding a domain as a reverse lookup zone. Any changes you make to the forward lookup should have the “Update Reverse Lookup” option ticked if its available, if not you must update the reverse zone manually(This is very important).

Now edit the “NS” entry in your forward zone to “NS0.DomainName.Com”, and set it to the relevant IP address. Add another (NS) record and set it to “NS1.DomainName.Com”. If using 2 IP address, try to make NS0 the first IP. Now you need to configure the SOA entry in the forward lookup zone. The serial number should be changed to a date followed by a number in this format “YYYYMMDDnn”, this is not required, but is advised by RIPE. The primary server will be the “NS0.domainname.com” entry you just made and the responsible person should be left for now. The refresh interval should be set somewhere between 1200 to 43200 seconds, the retry should be between 120-7200 seconds and the expires after should be around 2-4 weeks(I’ll let you work out the seconds for that). The minimum TTL is quite important, and depending on what you are going to do with the domain, you might need to tweak this a bit. Typically a value between 1-3 hours should be used. Now go to your “Name server” settings in your SOA record(In windows this is a tab in the same window) remove the defaults, and add your two Name servers that you just setup. We will come back to the SOA record later, but for now we need to do some more stuff.

If you want a website, then your going to want the WWW. setting up. We will set it up as an “A” record, which means it is a separate top level record and will be populated separately from other entries. So add an “A” to your forward lookup zone and put the entry as “WWW”, and set the IP address to wherever you want the website to be. This will be where the domain always goes, and it could be anywhere. Just make sure there is a web server waiting there for it. If you want FTP, then setup the same thing but with “FTP” in the entry. You will now also have to setup “A” records for the NS0 and NS1 name servers that you added previously, just make them the same as WWW and FTP, but make sure the IP addresses match the ones used for setting up the “NS” records. Also add a blank “A” record, this will make sure that “domainname.com” works as well as “www.domainname.com”.

Now you should decide whether or not you want to have mail on this domain. It is Hegel advisable that you set one up, even if it just to catch domain mail about abuse or potential problems that might occur. You can find plenty of high quality free mail servers out there, but I would recommend “Mail Enable”, its free and provides everything you would want, but if you want webmail you do have to pay something extra for it. We will now configure the MX records. Add an “A” name for your mail server, you can add 2 if you want, but for simplicity I would advise staying with 1. We will call ours “Mail.domainname.com”, and point it to one of our IP addresses. Now add an “MX” record in the Forward Lookup zone, giving it the full “A” record you just entered “Mail.domainname.com”, and do not setup a host or child domain, just leave it blank.

This next step isn’t needed, but is again highly recommended.

Now to finish the SOA you need to add two more records. A “RP” entry, which is a Responsible Person, and they will be the contact point for domain complaints and a “MB” entry, which is a mailbox entry. The “MB” should just be pointed to the mail server domain name “Mail.domainname.com”, and the “RP” should have the host or domain set to the name of your mail box. So for this server it will be “Tony.Domainname.com”, and the mailbox will be set to the “MB” record you just made. Don’t worry about the RP address having no “@” in it, this is the expected format for an “RP” entry. You will now have to go back into the SOA and change the responsible person to the new “RP” record you just made.

And thats it, your done! You can add as many “A” records as you like to point to other web servers, or a multitude of FTP sites. And you can add “CNAME” records to basically point to another name, usually an “A” record, like an alias.

Now before you switch your domain on, you need to check that the server is performing properly. So go to www.dnsreport.com, and run the report on your domain “domainname.com”, and it will give you a very detailed report of any problems, and even a short description of how to fix the problems. If all is OK, then you are ready to go live. If your domain name is new, or not currently hosted anywhere then the first thing you should do is re-point the domain at your new server. You will typically do this with the provider who owns the domain, and it will be different with all hosts. But the basic settings are the same. You will be asked for at least 2 name servers and ip addresses to go with them. Just put in “NS0.domainname.com” and “NS1.domainname.com” and put in the correct IP addresses. Make sure you do not mess this up, as changes to your main NS servers could potentially take several days to straighten themselves out. Update these settings, and then sit back and wait. You can do a whois on the main DNS server of your domain provider to check if the settings have worked, but again this doesn’t always work. For the big 3 domains(.com .net .org) you can do a whois on the network associates site to see the changes instantly. You can also track the progress of the domain changes by doing an NSLookup in dos, like this…

c:\nslookup ns0.domainname.com NS0.yourprovidersdns.com

That will give you the entries your domain provider has

c:\nslookup www.domainname.com ns0.domainname.com

And this will tell you if the changes for your domain have gone through to your ISPs DNS yet. It should give you back the IP address of your new DNS server.

You should always make sure your server is backed up, and that you refresh or update the DNS when you are making changes.

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To burn a bin file, you will need an appropriate cue file.

You do exactly the same as for iso files, but when you click on “burn image,” you don’t browse to the bin itself, but instead to the cue file, and you open that one.
When the writer starts to burn, it will automatically search for the bin file and start burning it. In fact, the cue file tells the burning program where it can find the bin file that is attached to it. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you use the right cue file when you burn a bin. i.e both cue and bin files that are attached to each other must be located in the same folder, and every bin file has it’s own cue file.

Normally, when you download a bin file, you can download the appropriate cue file as well. If you do not have the cue file (or feel bold) you can make the cue file yourself, which is really easy to do:

a. Open notepad

b. Copy the following text into notepad:

FILE“nameofimage“BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00

Where nameofimage.bin is the name of the bin file you want to burn.

c. The rest is easy: just save the notepad text with the name of the bin, but with the cue extension.

d. The file should be saved in the same folder as its appropriate bin file and should be something like myfile.cue

Or you can use Alcohol 120% to burn directly from the bin file

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So, it’s time for a digital camera huh? Well, buying one can be more than a little difficult. What types of features should you look for? Well, this guide will tell you that plus get you a little more familiar with what these cameras are capable of.

Megapixels
When it comes to megapixels, the more the better. I recommend a minimum of 2, but 3 or 4 is great. We did a test to see if a camera with 2.3 megapixels (actually 1.92 - 1600 x 1200) could produce a good quality 8×10.

Turns out it can, if you have the right paper and printer. We used HP Premium Plus photo paper with an HP 970 series printer and made a fantastic 8 x 10. Remember, I was a professional photographer before I got into computing, so I know a good print when I see it :-)

The resolution at 8×10 (we had to crop in to make the picture proportional to 8×10) was only 150 DPI. Most printers would not make a real good 8×10 at that resolution, but this one did. So, if you want to be sure you can get good 8 x 10s, you may want to go with a 3 megapixel camera or better (that gives you around 200 DPI at 8×10 size, still not quite the optimum 300 DPI, but it looks good with the right printer).

Optical vs Digital Zoom
You’ve probably noticed that most digital cameras have both a specification for digital and optical zoom. Pay the most attention to the optical zoom.

The optical zoom magnifies (zooms in) using glass. The digital zoom basically crops out the edge of the picture to make the subject appear closer, causing you to lose resolution or to get an interpolated resolution (i.e. the camera adds pixels). Neither of which help image quality.

Finally, make sure you get enough (optical) zoom. A 2x zoom isn’t going to do much for you. A 3x is the average you’ll find in most digital cameras will probably be good for most uses. More on lenses later.

Connection
How does the camera connect to your computer? If you have a USB port in your computer, you’ll want a camera that can connect via USB as opposed to a slow serial connection.

On the other hand, if your computer doesn’t have a USB port, is there a serial connector available for the camera you’re looking at? If so, is it a special order and how long does it take to get it?

Storage
What does the camera use to store images with? If it uses a memory stick, make sure you consider buying additional sticks when you get your camera.

Some cameras use a 3.5 inch disk for storage. Be careful of these!
Although it may sound like a good idea, a 3 megapixel camera at high resolution produces a 1 meg file (compressed!). That’s only 1 picture per disk.

Here’s a few more things to look out for when trying to make your digital camera purchase.

Picture Formats
When you’re trying to decide on which digital camera to get, check and see how many different picture formats it supports.

You want something that can produce both uncompressed (usually TIFF) and compressed (usually JPEG) images. I personally use the high quality JPEG setting on my camera for most of my shooting. TIFFs are just too big and the difference in quality is not ascertainable by mere mortals.

You also want to be able to shoot at a lower resolution than the camera’s maximum. That way, If you’re running short on memory, you can squeeze a few more shots on your memory stick.

Auxiliary Lens / Flash
This was a biggie for me. While a 3x zoom may work for the “average” user, I needed something that allowed me to do some wide angle work as well as have a good telephoto lens.

So, the camera I purchased a few months back was a Nikon Coolpix 990 (note that this isn’t the only camera that can accept lenses). It has auxiliary lenses that screw into the filter ring on the front of the lens. I now have an ultra-wide fisheye lens plus a nice telephoto.

In addition to lenses, I wanted a good flash. The flash that is built into most of these cameras gives you a top range of 15-20 feet - at best. I wanted a camera that could take a powerful auxiliary flash (again, the Nikon isn’t the only camera that fits this requirement, but I liked it better than the rest). If you need more reach than the small built in flash can deliver, then make sure you can attach an external flash to any camera you consider.

As an added bonus, if you get a camera that can take an external flash, you can place that flash on a bracket and eliminate red-eye.

Flash Distance
Speaking of flashes, make sure you check the distance the built in flash is good for. You don’t want a camera with a wimpy flash that only travels a few feet (well, unless you can get an external flash for it as described above).

Battery Type
This may not sound important, but it is. Anyone who owns a digital camera can tell you they eat batteries the way a sumo wrestler eats at a buffet.

Make sure the camera can run on regular (or rechargeable) “AA” type batteries. You don’t want a camera that eats through expensive lithium batteries every 10 shots or so.

One thing to remember about digital cameras, they do eat through batteries. I recommend getting some Nickel Metal Hydride rechargeable for it. I have some for mine and they have saved me a fortune.

Final Notes
Choosing a digital camera isn’t easy. There’s a huge selection out there and only you can determine which features you need.

For instance, if you shoot wildlife photos, a small 3x zoom probably isn’t going to cut it (unless you can attach auxiliary lenses to it). If you shoot lots of close-ups, make sure the camera has some sort of macro capability. If you shoot big group photos indoors, an external flash may be necessary.

My advice is to make a list of things you want to be able to do with the camera then go to somewhere that can help you make a good purchase decision.

Finally, buy the BEST camera you can possibly afford. Or wait until the price drops on one with the type of features you want.

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