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I am bad about keeping in touch with people, though I do go through periods where I really make an effort to e-mail or talk to friends and family. Living 7,000 miles from home, though, makes calling often a bit tough on the pocket. However, I was recently told about SKYPE, and that changed everything.

SKYPE is one example of VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP allows computer users with Internet connections to use their computers like phones. By simply utilizing a headset, or a mic and speakers, users can call other users all over the world, usually for free, as long as they are using the same service, such as SKYPE or Yahoo Messenger. With many programs, it is also possible to call non-users for a fee (which is usually less than what a regular telephone company would charge you).

Calling internationally without VoIP is either ridiculously expensive or just plain troublesome. I used to use phone cards, and they required a lot of time and dialing long strings of numbers which, if input incorrectly, would require you to start your call over from the beginning….and that’s when the phone card actually worked! It was also troublesome keeping track of how much money was on each card, which cards could be used with which payphones, and expiration dates.

For people living in foreign countries, this technology is a serious blessing. It will be interesting to see how traditional phone companies deal with this competition.

These days it’s hard to ignore all the advice on how to increase website traffic. Be it paid advertising or writing free newspaper articles, there seems to be a plethora of ideas from which to choose from. For me personally, I wanted to create a website from scratch and build its traffic to an exceptional level without spending any money on marketing or promotion. I wanted to focus on providing genuine value and letting word of mouth do the rest.

First and foremost I think a good website has to provide valuable content. There is so much garbage out there at the moment that it’s hard to find useful information that I can learn from, use or walk away from feeling that I have been affected by it. I strive to provide this kind of information to the guests that frequent my site. That brings me to the next piece of advice and that is original and timeless content. Not only should your content be valuable but it needs to be original. I can find a thousand websites all offering me the same advice as the next. People want new and fresh ideas, something that they haven’t read or heard before. And, they want content that will be relevant for years to come.

Other areas for consideration include having goals. Why do you want a high traffic site? Is it because of monetary reasons, or because you really want to affect the person you are reaching out to? Whatever your reason, make sure you clearly set your goals and always treat your visitors like real human beings, not just cyber visitors. People want to feel like they are receiving a quality service and this is generally what keeps people coming back to sites.

Finally, remember to write truthfully and like a real person. You should always think that you are writing for human beings first and computers second. Try not to focus purely on SEO or ranking, this could have a severely negative effect on your site in the long term.

Scientists have recently smashed the current world internet speed record by transferring approximately 6.7 gigabytes of data across more than 10,900 kilometers from the United States to Amsterdam in Holland in less than one minute. Using a quantity of data equivalent to two feature-length DVD-quality movies, the average speed was recorded at more than 923 megabits per second or more than 3,500 times faster than a typical home broadband connection.

The data in this experiment were sent across the new Internet2 network and is a major break through for the Industry. The Internet2 network is operated by a consortium of 200 universities working in a worldwide effort to develop and deploy the next generation of the Internet. The premise behind this joint research is to allow research and educational institutions to transmit large volumes of data at near instant speeds.

Experts in the Industry are very excited at the prospects this new found technology could bring to the medical industry allowing doctors to share information about diseases and possible treatments for patients almost instantaneously. Other industries to benefit would include the finance industry, military and disaster recovery experts who would be able to gain valuable information and assistance from around the globe at the push of the button. Hopefully in the not too distant future this technology will also be readily available for home users and businesses.

One of the quickest ways of gaining credibility and improving your website ranking is to have your press releases published in popular portals and industry specific online magazines. Over the past few years press release has slowly but gradually become one of the most sought after medium for effectively marketing your online business.

There are now hundreds of sites willing to submit your press release to 50 or more portals and industry specific websites for as little as $200. Whether your business is on Smith Street in your home town or online, publicity is essential. When you are operating on a small budget the best thing to do is get people interested in your company. Using this method of internet marketing allows you to be as broad or as narrow as you like when targeting your audience yet not having to pay a small fortune.

You may wish to write the press releases yourself or employ the services of a writer. Either way, be sure to mention your online business, its URL and the products and services it provides. Try to be original and offer your readers something other than that of the competition and remember it must be optimized for the internet. This means it can be written with images or videos attached. Just remember to pick your distributor well, so to fully take advantage of the numerous amounts of portals and online magazines available at your disposal.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it’s known in the industry comes from a subset of search engine marketing. It is involved in improving the volume and quality of traffic (visitors) to a web site from search engines via search results. As SEO is a form of marketing, it is primarily interested in how search algorithms work. By understanding this and what human visitors are searching for, better enables the marketer to optimize a site’s coding, presentation and developing unique content on pages that can be easily indexed and given higher page ranking by the search engines.

Webmasters began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s as the first search engines started to catalog the web. These days there are thousands of companies on the net offering SEO services to further increase a Company’s website traffic. With the billions of websites currently making up the internet, it is imperative to make your site known by high page ranking. Anyone who has used Google or Yahoo will know that rarely does a surfer go past the first two or three pages of search results. If your website is not at the top of this list then it is unlikely that you will have many visitors.

Whilst there are numerous methods a SEO Marketer uses, one popular tool is the use of contextual linking. Here websites use keywords and links on their website to promote other websites of interest to them or that they think would be beneficial to other viewers. By having many links pointing to your website, will further enhance your page ranking on the bigger search engines.

So you’ve probably seen the advertisements and you’ve probably even got a friend telling you about it – but what exactly is Google AdSense? Well in a nutshell, AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers to make money by displaying relevant Google ads on their website’s content pages. Now don’t worry this isn’t going to destroy your site by displaying ads with porn or other unrelated topics, AdSense ads are only related to what your visitors are interested in and looking for.

Google AdSense is a program that can generate advertising revenue from each page on your website with almost no investment in time or resources. AdSense delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content. Once you have the relevant CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) ads you can get a running total of the amount of money your Google AdSense program is generating. Every time a visitors clicks on the Google link you start making money.

It’s very easy to set-up and takes minutes to do. With Google’s advanced technology you are guaranteed not to have ads about java programming if your site is about java coffee. With its filtering technology not just one key word is used to assign the ads. AdSense also offers a great support network for those of you new to this e-commerce business. As your website traffic grows so will the potential to earn money from Google.

People tend to align themselves with one side against another, often promoting confrontation, in areas of life that really don’t benefit from it. When I was a kid, it was Ford vs. Chevy, the Celtics vs. the Lakers, “tastes great” vs. “less filling”. Now, it’s Windows vs. Mac. People seem ready to start wars over which is better. Why?

I have two computers in my apartment. One is a Dell Inspiron, the other a Mac Powerbook. I am by no means a computing aficionado, but I am no novice, either. The conclusion I reach every time I think about it is that for basic computing needs, both Windows and Macintosh machines will get the job done equally well, and with the same level of ease (or difficulty, depending on your outlook). People have the desire to support some and fight others. It must be something ingrained in our personalities.

Now, that’s not to say that those with specialized computer needs are wrong in their beliefs. Gamers tend to favor Windows, while designers and musicians tend to favor Macs. There is, of course, something to this, but for those people who just surf the Internet or involve themselves in word processing, I wonder if they are really anything more than trend-followers, mere sheep in a vast meadow of technology.