Posts Tagged ‘antivirus’

Conquering Writers’ Block (part one)

Monday, May 7th, 2012

If you are composing articles in order to advertise web sites, either your own or those of someone else for a fee, the first thing to do is choose topics that you are at least mildly interested in. Let’s take for granted from here on that you are composing to support your own web sites.

Well, presumably you would not have commenced a web site on a topic that you know nothing of and have no interest in. I have tried writing on topics I know little about and, although it can be done (500 words is not much), I do not think that I have ever been truly content with the results.

So, let’s begin by picking a site that is interesting to us, but is not so mainstream that you have no opportunity of ranking on Google for a few niche words.

The most popular subjects are: love, health, sport, cars, insurance, travel, fashion and dieting but you would be hard pressed to earn any money from sites in those areas because they are snowed under by people with far more resources than you or I.

Therefore, you have to step back a little. Pick one of the above and drill down until there is much less competition, but remain within your interest group.

For instance:

Love: I am married to a Thai girl, so I could have a website on mixed marriages, mixed race marriages, Buddhist-Christian relationships in marriage (or dating), living in Thailand with your Buddhist wife, etc, etc.

Health: diabetes is a big killer in our village. The topic is too big, but what about cooking for an aging diabetic, Asian diabetic recipes, diabetes mellitus etc, etc?

Sport: I have no real interest in sport, but I could compose a site on where to go in London during the 2012 Olympic Games.

Cars: no interest again, but I am interested in the technology of hybrid vehicles This could be further refined to hybrid cars or motorcycles from one country of continent.

I won’t go through the remainder of the list, but I think that I have illustrated the tactic. Then you need keywords that people use to look for websites on these subjects. Enter ‘Google keyword tools’ into Google and you will see a assortment of free keyword tools to help you find the best ones.

Then, you purchase a URL that matches one of those keywords – hopefully the one that is most sought for every month. You will require at least five interesting pages of about 500 words each for your new web site to have a lot of chance.

Then you will require at least two or three pieces to advertise each page. These articles will get you backlinks which will help your website rise to page one on Google for your keywords. Therefore, you need 10-15 keyword (phrases) for every fledgling web site.

I make two-three websites at a time, because variety makes writing easier. It is difficult to come up with 10 original articles and five web pages in five days, but not so problematic to write 20 pieces and 10 web pages in 10 days. The readers will not be so bored either.

Although the web site has to be interesting to you for you to be able to write so a lot about it, it also has to be interesting to others or you are working for your own pleasure and no money. However, judging what will become a successful website is impossible.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now concerned with Blogging. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at PLR pieces.

The Programs Included With A New Computer

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

A new computer comes with a raft of programs, yet quite which programs you get depends where you buy your computer but it can also depend on which country you live in. For instance, in the UK, all new computers come with Windows pre-loaded, but in Thailand some come with Linux although this is a recent development.

How useful are these programs that come ‘free’ with your new computer? Well, it varies, to be honest, and in the rest of this article we will take a look at some of the most common pre-loaded programs.

Occasionally you receive ‘Notepad’, occasionally you get ‘Wordpad’ and occasionally you get both. Wordpad is a more sophisticated version of Notepad and it can open old ‘Write’ documents. It can also open all rich text files (.rtf) as well as plain text (.txt) files.

Most computer users see Wordpad as an upgrade to Notepad and in numerous ways that is what it is, yet it does not have enough features to make me want to use it. I use Notepad each and every day, yet I very hardly ever use Wordpad. Wordpad can be regarded as a halfway house to MS Word the documents of which it can also read.

Wordpad is a functional program if you do not have Word, because you can create attractive-looking documents and embed sound and picture files and text can be coloured. Regrettably, there is no spell-checker, but it can open Excel files as well, which can be handy.

If you have the MS Office suite, then Wordpad is redundant. If you do not have MS Office, download OpenOffice, which is a free Open Source contender to Office.

Outlook Express is a competent email client that can actually perform some tasks that Outlook can not. It also has an address book. Outlook Express is good enough for most users, but if it is not, download Opera and integrate the email client and address book that comes with it.

The calculator that ships free with Windows is very impressive. The version that comes with Windows 7 can be turned into a mathematical, a scientific, a statisticians”, a programmers’ calculator and several others besides. You will absolutely never require another calculator if you have this tool. In one word it is superb.

Paint is a passable image editor. It is not particularly sophisticated, but it can perform several practical functions. If you require more and there are a great deal who will, you will be able to find much better free image editors on the Internet.

Windows Media Player is a very strong media player of sound, pictures and movies, but sometimes you have to go hunting for a new codex, if you want to play something in an unusual format. This is not a big drawback. WMP is a very useful and fully-equipped tool. You can play radio from around the world through it too.

The system tools supplied with Windows are satisfactory. They will monitor system resources and help you take care of your hard drives, but many users move on to more specialized tools in the long run.

Internet Explorer is a decent browser, but again, lots of people drift away from it to use other browsers (|and there are quite a few). In short, the tools and programs supplied with Windows are all right to get you going (although there are a few gems), normally, you will want to upgrade, and this can often be done by downloading other programs free of charge.

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Defeating Writers’ Block (part two)

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

No matter what the statistics tell you, some sites will soar and others will flop and you are a better man than I am if you can work that out 12 months in advance. My rule is, that if a web site does not triple my financial expenditure in a year, I drop it.

I do not count the pieces of writing because they can get recycled to aid other pages and the web pages can be recycled as new web pages on new or old web sites or, at the last resort, into pieces.

For that reason, I have classes of loosely related sites based on the main subjects I have identified, to wit, love, sport, cars, health, travel etc.

The main thing is to start with what people would like – not what you would like. Then, strive to find a niche within that market that interests you. The more removed your personality is from the norm, the more vital this is.

Never start with yourself, but you can twist the topic back to something that you know something about or are willing to research because you are keen on it. I do a heck of a lot of research and really like doing it.

I am not interested in collecting gold and gems, but my wife is and she asks my opinion often, so I am learning. Her son is getting married on 28-12 and he has to give his wife an ounce of gold as a present – that is what her mum wants for her, which is a further incentive to learn about gold, investing and market trends and swings, because I have to stump up for that gold.

There are so many items to write about.

I would like to create a site on orchids – I know nothing about them, but they grow like weeds here and they are my wife’s favourite flower. If that is too narrow, maybe ‘Thai Gardens’.

I was in Nan yesterday renewing my visa. I have already written a website on how to get a visa, but there is a stone-age tribe living in Nan Province of northern Thailand! 285 km from my house. They live in bivouacs and are nomadic. They are 10,000 years behind the remainder of Thailand.

My wife is getting skin growing across one of her eyes. It can easily be taken off and will require doing after the wedding, but I can see a website on cataracts coming up.

There are hundreds of millions of us Boomers so topics for us are sure to be well-liked. We are aging, entering a new stage of life, are computer literate and are not destitute. That’s a fantastic combination.

A further thought is: a man on the radio said the other day that there are more middle-class people in India than the total population of Europe. Imagine that!

And it is increasing by hundreds of thousands a year. And China is double the size of India. So they have (or soon will have) a middle-class equalling the populace of Europe and America combined. That is excluding the upper-class.

Discover what interests those nouveaux-riches and you will strike it big. I think that they love old-world style. Old European ‘style’ – not antiques, but silver salvers, beautiful whiskey glasses, posh dog collars, fancy walking sticks, Panama hats, silk scarves, sensible shoes, home schooling, English language courses, etc, etc.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now involved with Blogging. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at PLR Articles.

What Should You Put In Your Social Network Profile?

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

Everyone has heard of social networking web sites. Social networks such as MySpace and FaceBook. Most people who are on line all around the world have at least one account with one of these many, many social networks. They permit members to find long-lost friends, stay in touch with family and make new contacts in places or even countries that they have never visited

When you sign up to one of these social networking sites, you will get asked to fill in account details. These details have nothing to do with a bank account. Rather they are what most people call their ‘profile’.

This profile can ask fairly detailed questions on the pretext that the more information you give, the easier it will be for your friends to find you, should they be searching.

Typical questions are name, age, sex, address, schools attended, location of workplace, musical interests, hobbies, likes, dislikes, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail address book passwords and user names. They also want a photo.

They want your address book so that they can email your friends and tell them that you are now a member and offer them membership too. So, as you can see, it becomes vital to judge just how much detail it is prudent or you are willing to give away.

The first thing to keep in mind is: just because a social networking site asks you for an answer to a question, do not feel that you have to answer it. For instance, it is a fact that if you add lots of details and a photo, more members might recognize you and want to become friends, yet how many strangers do you want in your home town to know where you live, where you go to school or work and what you look like?

If you are concerned that you might become simple for a predator to find, lie about your locality. For example, if you live in a small town, say you live in the nearest big city and be sure you put a matching zip or post code from that city too.

If you post a photo, it is almost certainly not a wise idea to put details of where you go and where you live. On the other hand you could provide those details so that friends can find you, but use an avatar or cartoon to represent your image and use a nickname instead of your real name.

If you opt for a nickname, opt for a sensible one. ‘Hotand Lusty1990’ or ‘BigBoy1990’ are not apt for most surfers no matter how funny you may think they are at the moment of registration. Do not include your age or a tell-tale to your age either, as in the above examples. Surfers will assume that the number is your year of birth.

The guiding principle should be: how much would I tell a stranger if one walked up to me in the street? Not much, probably. Well, there could be thousands doing just that in the virtual streets of social networking.

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Is It OK To Download Computer Software From The Internet?

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

Do you ever wonder whether it is safe to download items off the Net? I know that I am asked that question several times a month. The fact is, that it depends, like most solutions. It depends on two basic factors: how good your defences are and where you are downloading from.

You may be thinking: well, if my defences are decent, why would it matter where I download from and that is a decent question, but so is: what do you think of as good protection?

If your idea of good protection is a free version of Avira, then you are going to have trouble. One day or another you will have problems, guaranteed. I can say that with my hand on my heart, because they have a paid version too. If the free version is as good as the paid version, why do people pay?

Because they are stupid? I do not think so. By the way, I am not having a go at Avira! They give away a marvelous product and as long as you are cautious, it might be all you require. Avira and all the other good anti-virus software suites require a little help to keep you secure.

For instance, they will require you to run a firewall at the same time and use an anti-spyware program on a regular basis. They will also need you to not put yourself at the greatest risk either by visiting certain types of sites and not opening attachments from people you do not trust.

If you run the free versions of these av software programs, you will see that certain features like the firewall or and the email attachment scanner have been disabled. This is how you will pick up viruses. Another manner that you lay yourself open to problems is by downloading free utilities. These pieces of software almost always include tracking routines.

The software will work, but it will install a tracking cookie on your computer which will email home every day to its boss and tell them where you have been surfing, so that they can spam you with similar things.

Porn sites are another decent instance of dangerous web sites. You receive ‘free porn’, but they receive your IP address and possibly your email address too, which means that they are able to either spam you themselves or and sell your email address on so that half the world can spam you.

So, free av software is OK, but you have to help it. On the other hand paid software from a dependable company like Norton, Kaspersky and Nod, to name but a few, should take care of you without you having to do anything but pay and install and permit automatic updates. You can expect that from these companies and they are able to deliver that degree of protection for $50-60 a year and then you can download anything you like.

The Internet is very much a case of ‘you pays your money and you takes your choice’ and ‘free’ is definitely not always the best option.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several subjects, but is now involved with the wireless broadband router. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Best Router For Gaming Online