Cool and Useful Tools & Websites Part 1

Cool And Useful Tools & Websites #1 Free Alternatives To Expensive Software… Here are a few cool tools and websites to help you beat the economy! Remember to subscribe to our blog to stay updated on new cool tools and sites! Splashup –A cool & free online image editing alternative to Photoshop that allows you to work with photos online! http://www.blogger.com/www.splashup.com Open Office –Need to open and write MS Word®, Excel & PowerPoint Docs but don’t want to shell out the $$$? Why not try Open Office. A completely free alternative that works! http://www.blogger.com/www.openoffice.org 7 Zip –Open and compress zip, rar, tar and many other compressed files. Great alternative to Winzip! http://www.blogger.com/www.7-zip.com Kompozer –A free WYSIWYG Web Design application that you can use as an alternative to Dreamweaver or FrontPage. http://www.blogger.com/www.kompozer.com

What the heck is CSS? What every web site owner should know—part two

What the heck is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets, better known as CSS allows web designers to add styles and other formatting to web pages by creating classes or modifying existing HTML tags.
OK, well then, what the heck does that mean?

Well, to really understand CSS it is important to understand at least the very most basic elements of HTML. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is the basic language of the Internet. What HTML does in a nutshell is add links and pictures to, modify, and format simple text documents hence its name. For the purposes of this article I am going to assume that you already know a little bit about HTML. If not click here for a crash course in HTML.

But I have digressed…

CSS can be used in many different ways. It can be written and saved in a separate file that can be accessed by several pages, added to the head section of a web page, or written "in-line". How and where the CSS is written and attached to the web page determines how you can use it within the web site.

By attaching a stand-alone CSS file two one or more web pages, you can make changes directly to the CSS file and it will affect all the files that are attached to it. In other words; let's say that you have a CSS file that is attached to every page in your web site. If you have a CSS style that formats whenever text is applied to as bold, 14 point, red, with the verdana font in your CSS file and you would like to change it from red to black, all you need to do is change the style within the CSS file. The change that you made will change all of the text from every page in your web site that has that particular style applied to it, from red to black.

By adding the CSS styles to the head of an HTML file; any changes you make to the CSS will affect only that document. For clarity's sake; if you have a style named emphasisText that does the same thing as the above paragraph and you change the font color from red to black it will only affect all the text that has had that style applied to it within that particular document.

When you add a CSS style in-line it will only affect the text that is directly applied to. Therefore, CSS can be used both broadly and very precisely depending upon your needs.

As I said before CSS can be applied as a style, class, or modifier. When it is used in-line it is typically refer to as a style, otherwise it is either a class or modifier.

The easiest way to use it is as a simple HTML tag modifier.
When you define a CSS style that modifies an HTML tag; every time that HTML tag is used the CSS style is applied. For example; if you modified the bold tag to not only bold the enclosed text, but to also italicize it and make it red, then, every time the bold tag is used the text will appear bold, italic and red.

Are you still with me? OK, hang in there. Take a deep breath if you need to…

If you want to create a style that is not attached to any particular HTML tag than you would create a class. A class is a set of styles that can be applied to text are images accordingly.

Classes can be very simple or very complicated. They can be applied without having to modify an HTML tag across the entire document and/or web site.

Now I must admit that CSS can get pretty complicated. Not only is it more in depth then your standard HTML, styles are applied in a certain order. They can overlay one another. Sometimes, they can be hard to keep track of. A style applied directly to a text or image (or any other element for that matter) takes precedence over a class applied to an entire page, which in turn, takes precedence over a style applied to an attached style sheet.

To make matters worse… Many times styles may have the same name, but be located in different areas. This can have unexpected and undesired results. These and other issues can be difficult to track down. Even so, CSS provides an extraordinarily powerful tool that gives web developers are enormous amount of power over their code. Ultimately, despite any complicated issues they can create, it does help to simplify web design and when used properly saves a lot of time.

The actual mechanics of CSS are a little bit outside of the skill of this particular article, but if you subscribe to this blog or join as a member (it's free and easy) my website (click here) I will soon include; and in depth tutorial, a step by step walkthrough with images and some cool and useful CSS code snippets that you can cut copy and paste and your own site (the code snippets will be available only to members of my website).

As usual, if you have any questions or comments then please feel free to e-mail me or post into the comments section. Even better, if you post them to my community forum I will make an extra effort to take care of you.

A crash course in HTML

Unless you've spent the last 20 years under rock you've probably heard of HTML. However, in less your extremely tech-savvy or a web developer you may not have any idea what it is or what it does.

I'm here to fix all that… HTML is an acronym that stands for hypertext markup language. HTML is not really a programming language. All it does is format text. It accomplishes this by using special tags enclosed in angle brackets. Different tags do different things. I.e. The bold tag formats the enclosed text as bold. Not really rocket science huh?

Most (but not all) HTML tags will have an opening tag and a closing tag. The opening tag is placed at the start of the text that you would like formatted and the closing tag is placed at the end everything in between will be affected by that tag. For instance if you want to format a portion of text in Italics the HTML code would look like this;

The quick brown fox ‹I› jumped over ‹/I› the lazy dog.

In the above example the words " jumped over" would appear in Italics when viewed in a browser.

Easy cheesy see? Piece of cake right?

There is a handful of HTML tags that are used a lot and a few more that you don't see very often. So there really is not very much to learn to understand basic HTML. It does however get complicated when you start to add different elements such as cascading style sheets, scripting language and SQL amongst others. That however is beyond the scope of this humble blog posting… If you are interested in learning more be sure to check out my comprehensive HTML tutorial located here http://realestatetechonline.com/Tutorials/LearnHTML/tabid/96/Default.aspx

It can show you in far greater depth what you need to know and give you a thorough understanding of how HTML, browsers and web pages in general work. Armed with this knowledge, you can accomplish much. By understanding the basics you are sure to become a much more effective website owner.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions that you may have and I will do my best to answer them for you. Until next time; keep surfin'!

What every website owner should know

It is of little known fact that I am writing a book. The book is titled What Every Website Owner Should Know —Tips Tricks And Secrets To Success Online. I have recently sent the book off to my editor. I think that this book is unique because it is written for people like small business owners, office managers, or people that are self employed. Essentially anybody that needs or wants a website, but does not have a technical background nor the time to figure it all out themselves. I will release the book soon and I hope that it helps those of you that buy a copy get a jumpstart on your website.

Meanwhile, here are a few points that you should keep in mind if you are considering having a website developed for you...

Organize your thoughts —take your time and write down an outline of your thoughts. Make sure to include:

• Your Objective —what you hope to accomplish


• A Short List Of Websites—that you admire and why you like them


• Your Contact Information


• A List Of E-mail Addresses that you would like your webmaster to setup for you


• A List Of Pages that you would like to include


• A List Of Important Keywords regarding your site


• Passwords And User Names that may be relevant


• If You Already Have A Domain Name, Then Make Sure To Include:
  
  
  
  • The Registrar's Name
  
  
  • Your Login Information


• If You Already Have A Web Hosting Account Be Sure To Include
  
  
  
  • The Web Hosting Company's Name
  
  
  • The Ftp Information Including:
    
    
    
    • The FTP Server Address
    
    
    • Login Information
  
  
  • The Type Of Hosting Account—for example Unix, linux, or Microsoft
  
  
  • The Type Of Databases Available—for example MS SQL, MySQL, Oracle, etc…


• Whatever important information regarding your business that you can think of. This can be virtually anything about your business that you deem important. Try to be as thorough as possible, as this will help your webmaster build a strong foundation for your website. The more information that you can includ the better.

Additionally, if you have any photographs or images that you would like to use on the website, organize them as well. If they already on your computer so much the better. If they're not, make sure to give them to your webmaster anyway. If you want to physically keep the photographs and do not own a scanner, you can probably have them scanned inexpensively at your local copy and print store.

If possible include a caption or description for each one. This will also help your webmaster by clarifying how you want to use the picture or what it is about.

If you do not have suitable pictures or images, there are several web sites that provide stock photography at reasonable prices. If you take the time for images you like they will go long way in producing a website that you're happy with.

The service that I like to use is called istockphoto.com. There are literally millions of images to choose from. These images have been contributed by thousands of professional photographers from all over the world. The images are priced by size and resolution. Small images cost about a dollar and ultra large high resolution images suitable to print large murals usually cost about 10 to 15 dollars.

All you have to do is signup and purchase some credits, then you can download your desired images. Chances are, in less you all are planning to do some printing you will only need small to medium sized images at normal resolution.

Hopefully, this is enough to get you started on the right foot. If you stayed till end and subscribe to my blog I will continue to post excerpts from my buck and additional tips tricks and secrets that will help you be successful online.

Good luck, I wish you the best in your endeavors, and I hope that your efforts payoff. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me and I will do my best to get you an answer. Even better, you can post your question to my community forum and we'll see if we can get answered for you there. All you have to do is simply register and then you will be able to post your questions. If you do register and post your question to you my community forum, I promise I will get to it, email is another story.

"Hey Marc, How Do I Get More Traffic?"

Such a simple question… I wish the answer was that simple. There are many things that you can do to bring visitors to your site. The obvious thing most REALTORS® think of first is business cards and other print-type marketing. While this is a good way to meet people, when was the last time somebody told you about their site and you actually sat down at the computer and visited it? Rarely at best? Ever? I didn’t think so.

Most people find websites by surfing. While there are many different ways people can find you by surfing, usually, they use search engines. Considering that there are millions of Real Estate Websites, “Getting Found” on one without a little know how is about as likely as me becoming a rock star. Chances are your website will appear on page 650,234 (or thereabouts) when someone searches the term “Real Estate”.

So now, the problem becomes: How do I get a good search engine ranking? For that matter how do I get listed at all?? To answer this, you should know about search engines and how they work. First, let’s start with Google. Google actually “powers” most of the thousands of other search engines. In other words most search engines pull results from Google to fill in the gaps in their own database. So, if you get a good ranking with Google, you will show up better on other sites.

It is important to understand how a search engine works. Basically, a search engine is a really big searchable database. Results are returned based on different parameters. The two most important parameters at this point are Keyword Density Ratio and Link Popularity. These are the ones we will look at in this article. There are more, but they are outside of the scope of this humble article…

Let me introduce you to Googlebot your friendly neighborhood search engine spider. A search engine spider is a program that endlessly “crawls” the web indexing web pages as it goes. When it comes to a link it will follow it. It keeps going day and night. If any other website links to yours, chances are Googlebot (and others) will eventually find it. However, to speed up the process you can submit your site and Google (I use Google as an example because it has so much influence.) will schedule a Googlebot to visit your site. This can take a considerable time for it to get to you, due to the enormous volume of sites out there. Once your site is indexed the Googlebot will visit periodically to see if you have posted any changes.

Keyword Density Ratio is the first parameter we will look at. Keyword density is just that. The number of times certain keywords are used throughout your website, or on a specific page. When the spider (Googlebot in this case) indexes your page, it removes all common language (words such as “the” “if” “when” “but” “that” etc…) and saves the remaining text in a database. From there it counts the number of times the words and/or phrases appear on your page. It then counts the number of words in total on that page. For instance, let’s say the phrase “Real Estate” appears 37 times out of a total number of 1000 words. Your Keyword density ratio would be 37/1000. Therefore, when somebody searches for “Real Estate” your page is ranked accordingly. A website with a higher keyword ratio will score higher, a site with a lower keyword density would accordingly, score lower.

So, why not just write “real estate” over and over? Well, in the early stages of the web, that is exactly what they did. Webmasters would type key words over and over in the very smallest font size and the same color as the back ground (If this text were white for example). Even though the user couldn’t see the text, since the spider reads the code behind the page rather then the page itself, the spider could see and index the page. This form of “search engine spamming” is known as “Spider Lines”. Of course, it wasn’t long before the search engines caught on to this and now, if your keyword ratio is too high, then the search engine won’t list you at all. Of course, Google won’t tell anyone what the limit is, so you just have to guess.

Which brings us to Link Popularity, link popularity is the term used to describe how many other sites link to yours. It doesn’t matter how many sites you link to, rather how many sites link to that counts. This is an important distinction. You see you can not really control who links to you and Google looks at this as “Well, a lot of sites link to this one, therefore it must be important.” Moreover, the higher ranked the site linking to you, the more important Google considers the link.

As I said before, you can not control who links to you. This is one of the more difficult methods of SEO (search engine optimization). With this said, there are some things you can do to influence your link popularity. First, you can ask other people in related industries (builders, carpet cleaners, movers etc…) to exchange reciprocal links. This means that you link to their site and they link to yours. It helps both of you out. If you want to know how many other sites are linking to yours there is a handy link popularity tool at http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/ this will help you keep track of inbound links. Outside of that you can sign up for some community forums and include a link to your website in your signature. This will ensure that there is a link included every time you post. Then you are free to talk about anything under the sun while quietly advertising your business AND improving your search engine ranking.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say something about Meta tags. It is my understanding that Google no longer looks at Meta tags and completely disregards the information. For those of you that don’t know what a Meta tag is, it is simply a bit of code in your web page that tells search engines what the site is about, offers a description, and provides the search engine keywords and other stuff the public never sees. From what I understand at this point, Meta Tags have been devalued due to people misusing them and manipulating them for better search engine placement.

Now, for the bad news, you did expect some bad news, right? Google changes the rules as they see fit, which is often. Worse still, they don’t really tell anybody what the rules are, because they don’t want us to know. If we know, they we will all try to tweak our sites for top ranking (Google looks at this as cheating). Therefore, every week Google reassesses its rankings. This reshuffling is known as the “Google Dance”. It used to be a major event that happened approx 10 times a year, but since 2003 they do smaller adjustments more often. This is why your ranking will change from time to time.

So, what can you do? Simple, build a good site, and fill it will good useful, current information. Use a lot of text and write about what you do. Change it around and add stuff often. Exchange links with professionals you recommend and join forums or start a blog (I will be writing about blogs soon!). GOOD LUCK!!!

Choosing a Webmaster

Choosing a webmaster can be a challenging task. Creating a website is a big investment so naturally you want to find the best man/woman for the job. Hopefully this article will shed a little light on your quest.

Here are a few things that you should consider:

1.) Your budget. Know what it is before you begin to negotiate. Don't be afraid to share this information with your webmaster. You can perhaps start a little low and hold some of your budget in reserve when you're negotiating, but it is difficult for the webmaster to make an accurate estimate without a ballpark figure for budget. I don't recommend that you tell exactly how much you're willing to spend, just a round figure so your webmaster will know " the league hewill be playing in".With that said, if you want the moon and the stars, be willing to pay for them. Building a website is a time consuming venture and a good designer will want to be paid a fair price.


2.) Know what you want. Make sure you have a general idea regarding what you are looking for. The more information you can provide your webmaster at the start the easier, faster, better the results will turn out. Outline your ideas, sketch pictures, and provide a list of websites that you like with a notation of the features that you found particularly appealing. This will go long way to helping your webmaster understand your vision.

3.) Provide Content. What do you want your site to say. The more the better; as far as the search engines are concerned text is king. Search engines can’t “read” pictures or images and therefore they do not help your websites ranking.

It should be you that rights the original draft of your content. Regardless of your writing ability, if the original sentiment comes from you it will most likely convey your message. Your webmaster or other individuals can edit it and/or rewrite completely, but even if that’s the case the original sentiment should be yours.

4.) If you have a shoestring budget, then consider a template.
Template Monster is a good place to start. Their templates are priced fair and more importanly, they are retired after 10 downloads. This way you can be assured your site is relatively original. The have hundreds of real estate sites to choose from.

*I have used them with great results. I should tell you I am an affiliate.

5.) Time. The more time you can devote to upkeep and new content the better. You will only get as much out of your site as you are willing to put into it.

6.) Marketing. I have written a couple of articles re: marketing. You can find them scattered around this blog. Marketing your website is a wide ranging topic that I will get into here. However if you subscribe to my blog I will continue to reveal new tips, tricks and secrets about marketing online

What you should know about viruses...

Viruses and Spyware are actually two different forms of “Malware”. Although, they are both similar, they are different types of threats and need to be handled differently. It is of the utmost importance that you install both anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer. Fortunately, some of the best Anti-virus programs are free! That’s right, absolutely gratis. Grisoft has a great program known as AVG and can be downloaded for free at http://grisoft.com and Avast also has a terrific program known as (unsurprisingly) Avast, which can be found at (you guessed it…) Http://avast.com . Also worth mentioning (though it is not free) is NOD32 which is an excellent program.

Regarding spyware, Microsoft Windows Defender is a fantastic program. It is also free and you can get your copy by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Search.aspx?displaylang=en. This will protect you against most spyware out there.

Again, if you are on a PC (Mac’s generally have less trouble with viruses/spyware) it is imperative that you protect it. The internet is full of threats that are running constantly. I have personally installed Windows XP on a machine and within 1 minute it had become infected by the Sasser virus and I had to do a complete reinstall.

While no software can keep you totally safe, these products do a first rate job and they are completely free. Install them today.

Even with a good Anti-virus/anti-spyware system in place, you must still use common sense. Don’t open suspicious email attachments; be cautious when you install programs from the internet… A good rule of thumb is: If it is free, or cute there is a good chance it has some kind of Malware…

Good luck and safe computing!

How to beat the economy with free software Part I

The word processor/Office productivity suite war for dominance and control of the marketplace has been over for a long time with Microsoft Office the clear winner. Although I know a lot of people slam Microsoft, I think they've done a relatively good job producing software over the years. Most of their products are highly compatible across a range of hardware and software.

Unfortunately, Microsoft products are not cheap.

The dominance of Microsoft Office coupled with its hefty price tag presents a problem for many people. While Microsoft provides special pricin for OEM and students, it still boast a pretty stiff sticker price. Microsoft is in business to make money after all and I understand this fact. Still, for people with limited income shelling out a few hundred bucks for Microsoft Office can put a serious crimp in the household budget.

To make matters worse; many people who own a legitimate copy lose track of the installation disk or serial number. Invariably, something happens, whether it's a virus or system crash, that requires a reinstallation of the operating system. Reinstalling the operating system means that (in many cases) everything that was on the computer before will be completely erased.

Often, these computers end up in my shop where I have the unhappy task of informing my client that I can reinstall their operating system, but their Office Suite is a goner in less they can come up with the disks and serial number. More often than not, the same " deer in the headlights" expression crosses their face and they either have no idea what I'm talking about or they have no idea where the serial number is.

The client then has little choice but to purchase the software again. Since just about everybody needs to use a word processor and that word processor must create documents that other people can open they're really up a tree.

Here is where a great open source product if it east wheat known as Open Office enters the picture. It is completely free, supports all of the Microsoft Office formats, is easy to use and readily available to download from the Internet. It was created by an online community of software developers and is well documented and supported.

While I prefer Microsoft Office, Open Office a good substitute in a pinch. It offers the same basic functionality and can really save your bacon if you're working with a tight budget. You can download it here and read more about it.

I hope you give it a try and that it works out for you. If you do leave a comment so I know that you're out there. For every five comments that I get I will try to post an article with more free software.

A good point…

As many of you know, I have begun to write a series of articles regarding how you can make a little extra money for online and beat the economy. You can see the first article in this series here:

http://everlovetech.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-few-extra-bucks-on-line-in.html

A reader of my blog on another web site where and syndicating this blog left a comment. The comment was made on activerain.com, a popular real estate web site aimed at real estate professionals. This particular reader was a real estate agent and made the comment " why would I want to advertise for the realtor down the street?".

His concern make a lot of sense, so I thought that I would clarify my thoughts on the matter now. If your website or blog is promoting a product or service it may not make a lot of sense to advertise a competing product or service. Although, I have noticed advertisements for satellite TV on cable and vice versa. I think enough your visitor is not impressed enough with your website, services and other offerings to do business with you you might as well make a couple of dollars on their way out.

If you are offering our clients and customers a square deal, most of them will recognize that and wild horses couldn't drag them away. Such is the lure and power of a bargain. By offering good value and backing it up with excellent service has been a formula for success for centuries.

However if your visitor isn't interested it is a show of good faith and professional courtesy to direct that visitor to a website that may be more useful to them. It is a fringe benefit that you can get paid for doing so. Face it, if your visitor is going to click on an ad you have basically already lost them anyway.

Even in the case of stiff competition; isn't it nice to know that you have lightened a competitors pockets by a few dollars when a visitor (who was probably on their way out anyway) clicks on that competitors ad. Whether your competitor makes a sale or not doesn't matter.

All of this is of course assuming that you're going to advertise on your main blog or website. When I started writing this series I was thinking more along the lines of starting blogs or websites about things that are an interest to you rather than a vocation. If you blog about a hobby or something else you are passionate about your likely to have a lot of material and knowledge that other people will find useful and interesting.

If you are Blogging about something other than your profession, it doesn't really matter what ads are served. For instance, if your account and as a profession, but you love to fly small airplanes you can blog about that. Whatever ads are displayed on your blog will most likely be about flying. Therefore there is no worry about sending traffic to your competition, or losing traffic in general. In all cases, the traditional way that people do business, is and forever will be, changed. The people that will do well usually are the ones that can adapt to whatever changes present themselves.

Keep an eye out for my tutorial on using google AdSense for profit.

This series is being brought to you courtesy of http://RealEstateTechOnline.Com

How to make a few bucks online Part II

If you haven't been following along you can click here to see part one which talks about setting up a blog online.

I have included a free step by step How To Setup Your Blog tutorial complete with pictures containing big red arrows to help you out every step of the way. It's easy, it's free and it it will take less than 10 minutes to get started. Incidentally, if you're wondering, I'm not selling you anything.

Once you have your blog and have published a few posts, you will probably want to start using it to make money. The first thing that you will need to do is set up an account with Google AdSense. I know I mention this in part one of the series, but now will look at it in a little bit more depth.

The Google AdSense program is in outstanding affiliate ad program. What does is allow you to run advertisements on your website or blog. This is how they do it; and advertiser signs up for a Google AdWords account and selects some key words to bid on. Google will then display those ads on web sites or pages that are appropriate for whatever keyword the advertiser was bidding on.

Here's where you come in. Not only does Google run the ads on its own web sites and search engine, it allows affiliates (people such as yourself) to display the these ads on their own web sites and share in the profit. So every time one of your visitors clicks on an ad Google adds the appropriate amount of money to your account. At the end of the month Google sends you a check. There it is a $100 minimum though. If you do not have $100 in your account your balance will roll over into the next month and this will continue until you have $100.

There are few things that make this program stand apart. I've tried many other affiliate programs with little or no success. In my experience the Google AdSense program works. It works because it serves the ads that people want to see. Google generates the ads based on keywords that pertain to whatever it is your website or blog is all about.

While it is possible to earn a lot of money this way, most people will just earn a few hundred bucks every month or two. It might not make you rich, but it may just cover a car payment or give you a few extra bucks in your pocket. All it really takes is spending half an hour or so two or three times a week on your blog.

Your profits will take time to build up. First google will have to approve your application. Then, you will have to build your content. Finally, you will need to publicize and market your blog or website to build readership.

I will be covering all of the things in depth in future installments of this blog. If you subscribe to this blog I was in you an email every time it is updated with new info. If you stick with me through this there's a really good chance you can earn some serious money in your spare time. I will walk you through the whole process step by step with pictures, tutorials, walkthroughs and advice.

Subscribe to Marc Everlove's Tech Tips by Email

If you start a blog, leave a comment or email me, I would love to see it!

Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day. This will take some time to get rolling. However, once it gets up to speed, your blog can make you money while you sleep. People from all over the world can visit your blog anytime day or night. When they do come, some of them are bound to click on one of your ads.

You can make anywhere from 3¢ to 10 bucks on a single click! It all depends on how popular the keywords that are contained in your blog or to advertisers. When a key word is really popular advertisers will bid quite high for it. Regardless of whether you're ads make a lot of money per click or just a modest amount, you will be surprised how fast they add up.

I can tell you this; it is really nice to see that google check, the mail with the usual pile of bills. Think about it… Isn't it about time you got started?

How to create your own blog tutorial walkthrough...

As a follow up to my blog post: Heck with the economy; How to make a few bucks online, I have published a pictorial walkthrough on one of my websites...

Feel free to stop by and check it out.

RealEstateTechOnline.com How To Set Up A Blogger.com Blog Walkthrough.

Leave a comment if you have any questions, or I can help you out...

Enjoy!

Heck with the bad economy! How to make a few extra bucks online. Part I

If the first thing that you need to realize is the fact that there is no free lunch. However, if you're willing to spend a little time and energy it is entirely possible to make a few hundred bucks every month from the comfort of your living room.

You do not need to be a computer programmer or some sort of genius. It is not really all that hard nor do you need any super specialized talents or knowledge. Your average everyday person can do this. All it takes is a little bit of know how and some passion. Outside of that, all you will need is time and perseverance.

Before we start you will need to think of something that you feel passionate about. Whether that is politics, the economy, business, family, a hobby, crafts, health, or anything that you like to talk about. Once you have a topic that you are passionate about, you don't even need to be an expert in it just something that you love… Then you are ready to begin your journey toward fame and fortune (OK maybe your journey toward active bloggers status and a car payment).

Since setting up a blog is so incredibly easy let's take a look at that first. All you need to do it is register for an account here on blogger.com or any other blogger website that you may find. It really couldn't be simpler. First click, the register link in the upper right hand corner, then follow the instructions and select a template then your good to go.

Once you have your blog setup it is time to make sure that you can start making money. I recommend writing a few simple blog entries just to get started. Once you feel comfortable and have posted a few entries it is time to serve ads.

Hands down, the absolute best way to start making money quickly is to sign up for Google AdSense. It is simple to use but extremely powerful. The way it works is relatively simple. Advertisers pay Google to run their ads. Then Google pays you to place the ads on your website. Due to Google's high standards and excellent monitoring it has been my experience that the ads are tasteful and not inappropriate.

Now you will need to visit www.google.com/adsense and sign up for an account. Once you have signed up for an account you will be able to start serving ads on your blog. It is easy to setup simply go to the admin panel on your blog (I'm using blogger.com as an example) and go to the layout and select the Google AdSense module in place it in the desired position.

Now if you keep it up and post to your blog frequently you will start receiving checks from Google in the mail every month (assuming you make at least $100 that month otherwise you will get a check after your balance adds up to $100).

As I said before you may not get rich doing this, but with perseverance and dedication you should start making some decent money. Subscribe to this blog to catch future installments on how to maximize your profits and find other newlin cool ways to make a few extra bucks on the web to help fight off this stupid bad economy.

Is it me or has the Internet gotten just a tiny bit safer?

I have been noticing a general trend in the type of clients I've been getting recently and the problems they are bringing their machines in for. Overall I have noticed a pretty big decline in the number of computers they had been infected with viruses or spyware.

This is definitely good news across the board. Even better, the computers that I do see that have been infected are usually not been updated automatically. This tells me that Microsoft must be doing something right.

Now I know that Microsoft has really taken a beating about security over the years. In some cases they have earned it, but sometimes I think they really have gotten a raw deal. Whatever the case it really appears that computer infections are happening less frequently.

Of course this is just my perspective. To definitively say would take some pretty serious research. Unfortunately, if the people best geared up to do that would be the folks that produce antivirus and other forms of Security Software. Since it is obviously not in their best interest to show a decline in the number of computer infections I wouldn't count on it happening anytime soon.

So just for the sake of argument let's take a closer look at it.

A noticeable reduction in the number of virus cases I am asked to repair. Outside of the possibility of an actual decrease virus infections there may be other causes. Perhaps I have a different type of clientele, or maybe people are better educated about Internet safety. It could be due to better, more comprehensive antivirus programs, or even simply due to the fact that people aren't falling for it anymore making it less profitable.

What do you think? Leave a comment in let me know…

Welcome to the Information Age.

Welcome to the Information Age.
It's here, it's not going away

I speak to many Professionals that simply don't want to deal with it. It is too much of a hassle to learn, they don't have time and a whole host of other excuses.

They have been doing business the same way for years and it has worked out so far, why change?

Well, for starters, whether you want to face it, or not, the majority of customers are or are becoming tech saavy and expect a certain level of technical service. It's just that simple.

Generation X and Y have grown up, and become a serious financial powerhouse.

Moreover,the 30 to 50 year old demographic has gotten much more comfortable with technology. Even the baby boomers are online in droves. They can shop for a house from 5,000 miles away, complete with satellite images, from the comfort of their living rooms.

They expect you, as a professional business person to be up on all of this technology.

BUT WAIT! You're a business person. Your business is painting, selling cars, or candlestick making. Who said you have to be a computer science major? Now, you have to know about legal stuff, financial stuff, city ordinanaces, taxes, and everything else that goes with owning a business? PLUS TECHNOLOGY??? Wow, doesn't seem fair does it?

Unless of course you happen to enjoy technology.

I have found that many people that don't have a good grasp on technology, either don't understand what it is all about, or are concerned that they will "break" something. If that is the case, perhaps I can be of assistance.

Keep reading. Before you get discouraged, let's take a look at technology. What it is all about, how to work it, how to keep up with it... When you boil it all down, it's much more manageable then you might think.

Let's break it down:

• The Internet, is simply a hugenetwork of computers.
• Computers Manipulate and StoreFiles.
• Files, regardless of what they are (pictures, numbers, letters, emailetc ... ) data.
• Data is simply information.
• Therefore, the Internet is just information, or, more plainly theInternet = Information.

Think of it like an enormous library, that contains basically all of mankind'sknowledge that you can access from anywhere you have access to it. All you need is a simple computer, even as simple as a cellphone ...

Better yet, once you get the hang of it, it is a lot more fun and a whole lot easier to find information then a real actual library. What's more,the information is up to the minute, comprehensive, interactive and constantly updated. There is information about anything that could possibly interest you, even if it only interests you for a moment (like this blog perhaps).

Yep, it's all about information. That's all there is to it. As I see it, information is becoming more important than money.

I am guessing that soon information will be the new money. Think about it... there is little or no need for actual cash. I can lose it, have it stolen ... My check card is acceptedeverywhere. I even think the neighbor kid's lemonade stand has a credit card terminal ...

Speed up your workflow...

With just a little tweaking, you can make your computer more personalized and easy to use.

Although, there are litterally hundreds of things I could point out, I am going to a few basics...

1.) Set Background image. Visit Google Images and enter a term that you like (e.g. Beach). Once you find a suitable image, click on "View Fullsize" once it loads, right click the image and then click "Set As Background"

2.) Useful Desktop Shortcuts. Right-click the desktop and select New > Shortcut. Browse to one of the folders that you use often. Then Click Next. Give it a name and Viola' you have your shortcut. Look at steps 3 & 4 to take it further...

3.) Change your shortcut icons Visit a search engine of your choice and find some icons. Once you have found some that you like save them in a location you will remember later. Right click on the shortcut you wish to personalize and click Properties, then click Change Icon. Browse to the icon you downloaded earlier and select it. Click OK and your are done.

4.) Add shortcuts to Quick Launch Bar. Once you have your shortcut all setup, simply drag it to the Quick Launch Bar (usually on the bottom left hand side of the monitor) and you will be able to access it in a jiffy!

A Few Good Sites

Here is a short list of some new (and maybe some not-so-new) Websites and tools that I have found to come in handy. If you know of a cool/useful Website or free online tool email me. I will be happy to review it.

Microsoft Office Live This handy MS OfficeTM Plug-In allows users to save documents and files online. The obvious benefit to people on the go is huge. You can now have the ablility to access documents and files from practically any computer that is connected to the Internet. The project is still in beta testing so the occasional glitch may crop up, there is also a short waiting list to be approved for your space.

iGoogle Allow me to introduce to what promises to be a staple of the next generation of online computing ... The Mashup. A mashup is a Webpage that allows users to add modules of their own choosing. Developers from all over the world can develop modules that you can use. This is extremely useful. When you set it as your home page, you have all the news and tools that are pertinent to you at your fingertips.

Picassa A free basic graphics editor. This will help you organize and do some basic editing on your photos.

Aumha.org Think your computer is infected? Register and post your issue online. Security professional will typically respond within 24 hours with directions that can help you remove most Malware.

Microsoft® Save as PDF Another Add-in for Office. This will allow users to save documents in PDF format. You can additionaly send the PDFs as email attachments.

Snopes.com Not sure whether or not that email from Nigeria is legitimate? Perhaps you wanted to know if your hair really will grow back stronger and darker if you shave it off (uh sorry guys, the last one is an old wives tale, but you can try it if you are feeling lucky), than this is the site to visit. Snopes.com will verify and dispell myths, chain letters and urban legends by the score.

Website Grader Have you been wondering how your Website stacks up? Stop by and enter your URL for a free report.

Outsourced...

Well it was bound to happen. I was directly attached to the Real Estate industry...

The most dreaded word in I.T. came rolling down the pike for me... Outsourced.

Cest la Vie'. They kept me on longer then I expected, so that counts for something.

While it may not be the best time to be pounding the pavement looking for a job, freelancing looks like a nice option.

The troubled economy got me into this mess. Ironically, it will help get me started consulting again. Let's face it, I like consulting. Even though it can be a white knuckled ride from month to month, the flexibility and potential are unmatched. With the economy tightening, more companies are seeking outside help.

Additionally, due to the current economic conditions, more companies are turning to the Web as either a marketing apparatus or an additional revenue stream.

That means freelance work is flowing like a mighty river...

Cheers and keep your nose to the wind!