The Apple App Store hit the 10 billion app download mark overnight on Friday, marking a milestone involving an awful lot of Doodle Jump, Tap Tap Revenge and Angry Birds playing, not to mention Facebook and Pandora usage.
Apple is rewarding the downloader of the 10 billionth free or paid App Store app with a $10,000 iTunes gift card in a bit of showmanship that Willy Wonka would be proud of. As of 7AM EST, however, Apple hadn’t publicly identified the winner, only saying that you’d need to come back later to find out who won.
MORE APPLE: iPhone 5 "iPhoneys" emerge
Apple put an iOS app countdown ticker on its Website last week to build buzz around the milestone and generated about 250 million app downloads since. It also revealed a list of all-time most downloaded free and paid iPhone and iPad apps.
The Apple App Store hit the 1 billion mark in April of 2009, after opening in July of 2008.
Apple celebrated the 10 billionth song downloaded a little less than a year ago: Johnny Cash's "Guess Things Happen That Way.
ANALYSIS: A billion reasons to read about Apple, Facebook and others
Apple’s year has gotten off to a captivating start, with CEO Steve Jobs taking a medical leave, the company posting stellar financial results for Q1, Apple showing up among the top 50 patent recipients in the United States, and with buzz building for the iPhone 5 smartphone and iPad 2 tablet computer.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Will Google CEO shift undermine enterprise efforts?
In the nascent battle between Google and Microsoft for enterprise software customers, there is one stark reality that customers who choose Google must accept: Google's future does not depend on the success of Google Apps.
Whereas Microsoft needs Windows and Office to maintain long-term financial success, Google makes nearly all of its money on advertising, rather than on software licenses. In 2010, Google earned $28.2 billion in advertising revenue, and only $1.1 billion in non-advertising revenue.
HEAD TO HEAD: Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office
That doesn't mean Google can't make great business software. But it does mean current or potential Google customers and business partners should carefully examine any change to the core structure of the company, in case it affects the future of Google's enterprise software business.
Such a change occurred Thursday, when longtime CEO Eric Schmidt said he will step aside in April so that co-founder Larry Page can take over the reins. Schmidt, previously CEO of Novell and CTO of Sun Microsystems, has by far the most enterprise experience in the triumvirate that runs Google, which also includes co-founder Sergey Brin.
"Eric clearly had passion for enterprise software," says Gartner analyst Whit Andrews. "He cared about enterprise software. He worked at a lot of companies that sold enterprise software and bunch of enterprise products. That history is not in place with Page."
Google officials consider Google Apps a strategic business, and "they're highly ethical so they wouldn't just pull the plug," adds Gartner analyst Tom Austin.
But it remains to be seen how committed new CEO Larry Page will be to enterprise customers. From an investor perspective, a blow to Google's enterprise business would be bad but not catastrophic. But "from an enterprise customer's perspective, obviously there is a great deal more concern," Andrews says.
What to say
To reassure these customers, Andrews says Page should say several things. "He could say, 'We intend to grow the portion of our revenue that is coming from the enterprise business. We are investing in the enterprise. We see it as an exciting area for growth. We hope that it takes off.'"
Unless Page delivers that kind of message, it will be difficult for customers to know for sure how much of an emphasis he intends to put on the enterprise business. "If Google is a real enterprise company, then we will need to see Page act like that is the case," Andrews says. "That will include evangelism for the enterprise business, similar to what we saw from Eric."
In addition to paying customers, "If I were a managed services provider I would be looking for that same kind of message," Andrews adds.
Google boasts that more than 3 million businesses are running Google Apps, which costs $50 per user per year and includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and several other services.
These are mostly small businesses. Gartner says Gmail has captured less than 1% of the enterprise e-mail market, counting only businesses with at least 100 paid seats.
Managed services partners are jumping on board, though. "A growing number of MSPs have embraced the Google Apps Reseller program," says an article on MSPmentor.net, which tracks the managed services provider market.
MSPmentor says Schmidt's Google has gained "more channel partner momentum with managed services providers. Indeed, 29 of the world's top 100 MSPs now promote Google Apps to their end-customers." The article asks ,"Will that trend continue when the CEO crown soon shifts from Schmidt to Google co-founder Larry Page?"
Spin off?
While there's no reason to think Google would kill off Google Apps, there are scenarios that could trouble enterprise customers, Gartner analysts say. Google investors could conceivably push the company to spin out the Google Apps business in order to create more value, Andrews says.
Even if that is unlikely, it's possible Google's efforts could shift away from the enterprise if the company struggles in other areas.
"Google Apps is less strategic for them than mobile, Android or all their advertising-related businesses. It has to be," Austin says. "And the strategic threat they have to deal with is their failure in social, which is attracting more and more user time. If push comes to shove and management decides to jettison less-strategic initiatives, Google Apps could be in trouble."
Page, obviously, has his roots in the consumer business, teaming up with Brin to build the Google search engine that made them famous billionaires. Will he stand up for the enterprise the same way Schmidt would? It's probably too early to know for sure.
"Page has less enterprise business experience. Schmidt has deeper enterprise roots," Austin says. "Does that mean they will back off on their enterprise investment on GAPE [Google Apps Premier Edition]? We don't know but we would be surprised if they don't raise (or re-raise) that question."
Whereas Microsoft needs Windows and Office to maintain long-term financial success, Google makes nearly all of its money on advertising, rather than on software licenses. In 2010, Google earned $28.2 billion in advertising revenue, and only $1.1 billion in non-advertising revenue.
HEAD TO HEAD: Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office
That doesn't mean Google can't make great business software. But it does mean current or potential Google customers and business partners should carefully examine any change to the core structure of the company, in case it affects the future of Google's enterprise software business.
Such a change occurred Thursday, when longtime CEO Eric Schmidt said he will step aside in April so that co-founder Larry Page can take over the reins. Schmidt, previously CEO of Novell and CTO of Sun Microsystems, has by far the most enterprise experience in the triumvirate that runs Google, which also includes co-founder Sergey Brin.
"Eric clearly had passion for enterprise software," says Gartner analyst Whit Andrews. "He cared about enterprise software. He worked at a lot of companies that sold enterprise software and bunch of enterprise products. That history is not in place with Page."
Google officials consider Google Apps a strategic business, and "they're highly ethical so they wouldn't just pull the plug," adds Gartner analyst Tom Austin.
But it remains to be seen how committed new CEO Larry Page will be to enterprise customers. From an investor perspective, a blow to Google's enterprise business would be bad but not catastrophic. But "from an enterprise customer's perspective, obviously there is a great deal more concern," Andrews says.
What to say
To reassure these customers, Andrews says Page should say several things. "He could say, 'We intend to grow the portion of our revenue that is coming from the enterprise business. We are investing in the enterprise. We see it as an exciting area for growth. We hope that it takes off.'"
Unless Page delivers that kind of message, it will be difficult for customers to know for sure how much of an emphasis he intends to put on the enterprise business. "If Google is a real enterprise company, then we will need to see Page act like that is the case," Andrews says. "That will include evangelism for the enterprise business, similar to what we saw from Eric."
In addition to paying customers, "If I were a managed services provider I would be looking for that same kind of message," Andrews adds.
Google boasts that more than 3 million businesses are running Google Apps, which costs $50 per user per year and includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and several other services.
These are mostly small businesses. Gartner says Gmail has captured less than 1% of the enterprise e-mail market, counting only businesses with at least 100 paid seats.
Managed services partners are jumping on board, though. "A growing number of MSPs have embraced the Google Apps Reseller program," says an article on MSPmentor.net, which tracks the managed services provider market.
MSPmentor says Schmidt's Google has gained "more channel partner momentum with managed services providers. Indeed, 29 of the world's top 100 MSPs now promote Google Apps to their end-customers." The article asks ,"Will that trend continue when the CEO crown soon shifts from Schmidt to Google co-founder Larry Page?"
Spin off?
While there's no reason to think Google would kill off Google Apps, there are scenarios that could trouble enterprise customers, Gartner analysts say. Google investors could conceivably push the company to spin out the Google Apps business in order to create more value, Andrews says.
Even if that is unlikely, it's possible Google's efforts could shift away from the enterprise if the company struggles in other areas.
"Google Apps is less strategic for them than mobile, Android or all their advertising-related businesses. It has to be," Austin says. "And the strategic threat they have to deal with is their failure in social, which is attracting more and more user time. If push comes to shove and management decides to jettison less-strategic initiatives, Google Apps could be in trouble."
Page, obviously, has his roots in the consumer business, teaming up with Brin to build the Google search engine that made them famous billionaires. Will he stand up for the enterprise the same way Schmidt would? It's probably too early to know for sure.
"Page has less enterprise business experience. Schmidt has deeper enterprise roots," Austin says. "Does that mean they will back off on their enterprise investment on GAPE [Google Apps Premier Edition]? We don't know but we would be surprised if they don't raise (or re-raise) that question."
Google copied Java in Android, expert says
An intellectual property expert has uncovered 43 instances where it appears that Google copied Java code without permission in the most recent versions of the Android operating system.
The discovery could challenge Google's defense in a dispute with Oracle over Java patents and copyright material in Android.
"The discovery process could be very fruitful for Oracle, and may become dreadful for Google," wrote Florian Mueller, who has been closely following the case and founded the NoSoftwarePatents campaign, in a blog post.
Mueller has closely examined the Android code and found six files, in addition to one that Oracle pointed out in its complaint, that are nearly identical to Java files. The files are found in Froyo, which is Android 2.2, and Gingerbread, Android 2.3.
In addition, Mueller points to 37 files in the Android code that include notices that say the code is proprietary to Sun.
"No matter what Google says, that copyright header is anything but a permission to relicense the file under the Apache Software License," Mueller wrote. Google licenses Android to users under the Apache license. "Even if one claimed that Oracle/Sun later made the file available under the GPL (for which I haven't found any conclusive evidence), that wouldn't allow such a license change either."
While there are some minor differences between the code that Google is using and the original Java code, Mueller found that the differences come from the use of a decompiler. When he used a Java decompiler called JAD and decompiled seven different Java files, he found that the result was nearly identical to files found in Android.
Google did not reply to a request for comment about Mueller's allegations.
One developer who writes for ZDnet, Ed Burnette, argued in a blog post that some of the code Mueller points to wouldn't be shipped in devices and has been deleted. Seven of the files are test code, which doesn't get shipped with the product, he said. In addition, those files were deleted from Android either late last year or in January, he said.
The remaining files are in a directory used for native code audio drivers for one kind of chip set, Burnette said. Those files also don't ship with Android, were probably uploaded by accident and should be deleted, he said.
However, Mueller says that the code in the test tree actually contains code related to security and that there are many Android devices that shipped with that code, as well as with the code from the remaining files.
Though the files are not in the current Android code tree, they were used in the two versions that currently make up more than half of the Android phones in use, he noted.
"From a legal point of view, you can't make an infringement undone only by removing it from one particular set of files -- you just avoid additional damage," Mueller said in an e-mail interview.
Oracle filed the lawsuit in August, claiming that Google's Android operating system infringes on Java copyrights that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun. Google has called the suit baseless, denying infringement.
If Google is found to infringe, it could be required to pay Oracle a licensing fee for each handset made that uses Android. It could pass that cost on to device vendors, but that would diminish the attractiveness of Android as a free operating system.
Android, which has grown dramatically in popularity over the past year, is under legal attack from many companies. Other Android-related lawsuits include Apple's suit against HTC; Microsoft's suit against Motorola; and Gemalto's suit against Google, Motorola, HTC and Samsung.
The discovery could challenge Google's defense in a dispute with Oracle over Java patents and copyright material in Android.
"The discovery process could be very fruitful for Oracle, and may become dreadful for Google," wrote Florian Mueller, who has been closely following the case and founded the NoSoftwarePatents campaign, in a blog post.
Mueller has closely examined the Android code and found six files, in addition to one that Oracle pointed out in its complaint, that are nearly identical to Java files. The files are found in Froyo, which is Android 2.2, and Gingerbread, Android 2.3.
In addition, Mueller points to 37 files in the Android code that include notices that say the code is proprietary to Sun.
"No matter what Google says, that copyright header is anything but a permission to relicense the file under the Apache Software License," Mueller wrote. Google licenses Android to users under the Apache license. "Even if one claimed that Oracle/Sun later made the file available under the GPL (for which I haven't found any conclusive evidence), that wouldn't allow such a license change either."
While there are some minor differences between the code that Google is using and the original Java code, Mueller found that the differences come from the use of a decompiler. When he used a Java decompiler called JAD and decompiled seven different Java files, he found that the result was nearly identical to files found in Android.
Google did not reply to a request for comment about Mueller's allegations.
One developer who writes for ZDnet, Ed Burnette, argued in a blog post that some of the code Mueller points to wouldn't be shipped in devices and has been deleted. Seven of the files are test code, which doesn't get shipped with the product, he said. In addition, those files were deleted from Android either late last year or in January, he said.
The remaining files are in a directory used for native code audio drivers for one kind of chip set, Burnette said. Those files also don't ship with Android, were probably uploaded by accident and should be deleted, he said.
However, Mueller says that the code in the test tree actually contains code related to security and that there are many Android devices that shipped with that code, as well as with the code from the remaining files.
Though the files are not in the current Android code tree, they were used in the two versions that currently make up more than half of the Android phones in use, he noted.
"From a legal point of view, you can't make an infringement undone only by removing it from one particular set of files -- you just avoid additional damage," Mueller said in an e-mail interview.
Oracle filed the lawsuit in August, claiming that Google's Android operating system infringes on Java copyrights that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun. Google has called the suit baseless, denying infringement.
If Google is found to infringe, it could be required to pay Oracle a licensing fee for each handset made that uses Android. It could pass that cost on to device vendors, but that would diminish the attractiveness of Android as a free operating system.
Android, which has grown dramatically in popularity over the past year, is under legal attack from many companies. Other Android-related lawsuits include Apple's suit against HTC; Microsoft's suit against Motorola; and Gemalto's suit against Google, Motorola, HTC and Samsung.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Schmidt to step aside as Google CEO, Page taking over
Google co-founder Larry Page will take over as Google CEO in April from Eric Schmidt, who will remain with the company as executive chairman.
The change is an attempt to streamline the company's top-level decision making process, the company said on Thursday, when it reported its 2010 fourth quarter earnings.
Google generated US$8.44 billion in revenue in the quarter, ended Dec. 31, 2010, up 26 percent compared with 2009's fourth quarter. Subtracting commissions paid to partners and other fees, revenue came in at $6.37 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $6.06 billion from analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
Net income came in at $2.54 billion, or $7.81 per share, up from $1.97 billion, or $6.13 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
On a pro forma basis, which excludes certain items, net income was $2.85 billion, or $8.75 per share, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $8.09 per share and compared to $2.19 billion, or $6.79 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
In a statement, Schmidt called the fourth quarter "a terrific end to a stellar year" and credited the success on a strong core search advertising business and to the momentum in emerging businesses such as display advertising and mobile.
Page praised Schmidt in the statement, saying he has done an "outstanding job" and calling him a "tremendous leader."
"There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly," Page said in the statement.
Schmidt said this change has been under discussion "for a long time" as the company tries to "simplify" its management structure. "By clarifying our individual roles we'll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company. In my clear opinion, Larry is ready to lead and I'm excited about working with both him and Sergey for a long time to come," he said in the statement.
Google's other co-founder Sergey Brin will oversee strategic projects, specifically new products.
Schmidt became Google's CEO in 2001, steering the company through its massive financial growth, including its IPO, as well as through a significant expansion of its technology and business focus beyond its core search engine market.
The change is an attempt to streamline the company's top-level decision making process, the company said on Thursday, when it reported its 2010 fourth quarter earnings.
Google generated US$8.44 billion in revenue in the quarter, ended Dec. 31, 2010, up 26 percent compared with 2009's fourth quarter. Subtracting commissions paid to partners and other fees, revenue came in at $6.37 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $6.06 billion from analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
Net income came in at $2.54 billion, or $7.81 per share, up from $1.97 billion, or $6.13 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
On a pro forma basis, which excludes certain items, net income was $2.85 billion, or $8.75 per share, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $8.09 per share and compared to $2.19 billion, or $6.79 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
In a statement, Schmidt called the fourth quarter "a terrific end to a stellar year" and credited the success on a strong core search advertising business and to the momentum in emerging businesses such as display advertising and mobile.
Page praised Schmidt in the statement, saying he has done an "outstanding job" and calling him a "tremendous leader."
"There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly," Page said in the statement.
Schmidt said this change has been under discussion "for a long time" as the company tries to "simplify" its management structure. "By clarifying our individual roles we'll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company. In my clear opinion, Larry is ready to lead and I'm excited about working with both him and Sergey for a long time to come," he said in the statement.
Google's other co-founder Sergey Brin will oversee strategic projects, specifically new products.
Schmidt became Google's CEO in 2001, steering the company through its massive financial growth, including its IPO, as well as through a significant expansion of its technology and business focus beyond its core search engine market.
AT&T may give away MicroCells for weakly covered homes
AT&T may be getting ready to systematically give away its 3G MicroCell indoor base stations to some subscribers who are likely to have very poor coverage in their homes.
The MicroCell is AT&T's name for its femtocell, a small cellular base station designed for use in a home to improve the signal there. Femtocells use local broadband connections such as cable or DSL (digital subscriber line) for backhaul to the Internet. They can reduce the traffic on a carrier's own cell towers and backhaul lines as well as improve the user's experience.
On Sunday, AT&T will begin mailing coupons for free Microcells to the 7.5 percent of its mobile subscribers who are most likely to have very limited AT&T coverage in their homes, according to a Friday report by Engadget. The report includes what appears to be an internal AT&T message about the upcoming offer. The deal would be open only to customers who received the coupon and would require a "verbal" commitment to keep AT&T service for one year, the message said.
AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel declined to comment on future offers but said the carrier has experimented in the past with offering the devices free of charge. AT&T announced in April that it would begin a national rollout of the devices after trials in several states. Pricing the MicroCell at US$149.99, AT&T said it would offer a $100 mail-in rebate on the device and an additional $50 mail-in rebate to customers signing up for a new DSL plan with at least 1.5M bps (bits per second).
The MicroCell is intended specifically for subscribers who get very little or no signal in their homes, Siegel said.
"It is a product with a very narrowly defined use. We don't mass-market it," Siegel said.
AT&T has been offering the MicroCell to customers based on their own reports of weak indoor signals, and an AT&T store employee might recommend it based partly on information from the carrier's coverage map, Siegel said. The MicroCell is only available in markets served by AT&T, he said.
Other U.S. mobile operators are also adding femtocells to their offerings. Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless have already offered femtocells for their voice networks, and last August Sprint quietly launched one for its 3G data network as well. Verizon said at the time that it would have a 3G femtocell within the next few months.
Giving away femtocells would be a good idea for AT&T, because they can help both consumers and carriers, said Mobiletrax analyst Gerry Purdy. He expects to see more such devices in the future, including home gateways that may include cellular, Wi-Fi, mobile digital TV and other types of wireless capability.
The MicroCell is AT&T's name for its femtocell, a small cellular base station designed for use in a home to improve the signal there. Femtocells use local broadband connections such as cable or DSL (digital subscriber line) for backhaul to the Internet. They can reduce the traffic on a carrier's own cell towers and backhaul lines as well as improve the user's experience.
On Sunday, AT&T will begin mailing coupons for free Microcells to the 7.5 percent of its mobile subscribers who are most likely to have very limited AT&T coverage in their homes, according to a Friday report by Engadget. The report includes what appears to be an internal AT&T message about the upcoming offer. The deal would be open only to customers who received the coupon and would require a "verbal" commitment to keep AT&T service for one year, the message said.
AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel declined to comment on future offers but said the carrier has experimented in the past with offering the devices free of charge. AT&T announced in April that it would begin a national rollout of the devices after trials in several states. Pricing the MicroCell at US$149.99, AT&T said it would offer a $100 mail-in rebate on the device and an additional $50 mail-in rebate to customers signing up for a new DSL plan with at least 1.5M bps (bits per second).
The MicroCell is intended specifically for subscribers who get very little or no signal in their homes, Siegel said.
"It is a product with a very narrowly defined use. We don't mass-market it," Siegel said.
AT&T has been offering the MicroCell to customers based on their own reports of weak indoor signals, and an AT&T store employee might recommend it based partly on information from the carrier's coverage map, Siegel said. The MicroCell is only available in markets served by AT&T, he said.
Other U.S. mobile operators are also adding femtocells to their offerings. Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless have already offered femtocells for their voice networks, and last August Sprint quietly launched one for its 3G data network as well. Verizon said at the time that it would have a 3G femtocell within the next few months.
Giving away femtocells would be a good idea for AT&T, because they can help both consumers and carriers, said Mobiletrax analyst Gerry Purdy. He expects to see more such devices in the future, including home gateways that may include cellular, Wi-Fi, mobile digital TV and other types of wireless capability.
HTML versioning eliminated
The working group for HTML has done away with version numbers for the Web page rendering standard.
The decision comes just after the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) introduced a new logo for the newest version of the standard now being worked on, HTML5.
There will be no HTML version 6 or version 6.2.3, or any other numbered version. Instead, HTML will just be considered a "living document," one that will be updated on an ongoing basis, said Ian Hickson, a member of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), in a blog post Wednesday.
Instead of version numbers for the standard as a whole, changes in the standard will instead be annotated on a section-by-section basis.
The change in numbering was necessary to reflect the more dynamic process of developing the standard, Hickson wrote. The group has been laboring to finish HTML5 by 2012, even as requests for more capabilities are coming in.
The change "doesn't really mean much from the point of view of how the WHATWG operates, since we've never really paid much attention to version numbers," Hickson wrote in an earlier e-mail to the group.
The WHATWG is not alone in its dissatisfaction with version numbering. For the past several years, the maintainers of the Linux kernel have been debating a switch from their approach of numbering as well. The current version of the Linux kernel, which tends to be updated every three months or so, is the unwieldy 2.6.37. Linux developers have not reached consensus yet about what would constitute superior version numbering, though.
For the W3C, the group plans to produce an HTML5 snapshot in 2012 in order to say that HTML5 has been completed.
The decision comes just after the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) introduced a new logo for the newest version of the standard now being worked on, HTML5.
There will be no HTML version 6 or version 6.2.3, or any other numbered version. Instead, HTML will just be considered a "living document," one that will be updated on an ongoing basis, said Ian Hickson, a member of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), in a blog post Wednesday.
Instead of version numbers for the standard as a whole, changes in the standard will instead be annotated on a section-by-section basis.
The change in numbering was necessary to reflect the more dynamic process of developing the standard, Hickson wrote. The group has been laboring to finish HTML5 by 2012, even as requests for more capabilities are coming in.
The change "doesn't really mean much from the point of view of how the WHATWG operates, since we've never really paid much attention to version numbers," Hickson wrote in an earlier e-mail to the group.
The WHATWG is not alone in its dissatisfaction with version numbering. For the past several years, the maintainers of the Linux kernel have been debating a switch from their approach of numbering as well. The current version of the Linux kernel, which tends to be updated every three months or so, is the unwieldy 2.6.37. Linux developers have not reached consensus yet about what would constitute superior version numbering, though.
For the W3C, the group plans to produce an HTML5 snapshot in 2012 in order to say that HTML5 has been completed.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Cisco beefs up Wi-Fi mobile payment security
Cisco is beefing up wireless transaction security with new software features for its Wi-Fi access points. The vendor says the changes add needed protection over and above that mandated by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard.
More on Wi-Fi: 6 useful Wi-Fi tools for Windows
A December 2010 survey by Cisco of 500 retail customers found that about one-third of them pass payment or credit card data over internal Wi-Fi networks. (For more details from that study, check out "Survey on PCI: How it's impacting network security".)
The PCI specification, set by the PCI Security Standards Council, outlines how payment-card data is to be secured and stored. Several provisions apply to wireless networks used to transmit that information. The 2.0 PCI spec was released in October 2010 (and formally ratified in January 2011), but doesn't fully address the fast-rising use of mobile payment technologies.
One issue is that the standard requires physical and logical inspections, to detect when a device attaches to the network, and whether it's an authorized device. But it doesn't specify how this is done. In practice, according to Cisco, the PCI specification focuses on only one key threat: rogue wireless access points. "But it can't address [others such as] ad hoc wireless bridging, evil twin/honeypot exploits, denial of service, reconnaissance, or cracking tools," says Cisco's Chris Kozup, director, mobility and borderless networks.
To fill this gap, Cisco has created a feature called Enhanced Local Mode (ELM) for its Adaptive Wireless Intrusion Prevention System. ELM expands the number of threats that IT groups can monitor, and lets the monitoring be done with existing Cisco access points.
Previously, Cisco offered only basic rogue detection, and individual access points had to be dedicated to radio monitoring, unable to support data traffic.
With ELM active on one two-radio access point, the monitoring functions can jump from channel to channel, now able to cover all channels in both Wi-Fi frequencies (2.4 and 5 GHz), and covering a much wider range of threats. No dedicated access points or separate sensors are needed to implement a full Wi-Fi intrusion-prevention system.
Cisco also added expanded PCI-specific reporting features to its Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS). In the past, Cisco offered a general PCI compliance report. Now, WCS can create summary reports, and use filters to focus on compliance in individual locations or even individual devices. Enterprise security staff can administer reports and audits and keep a continuous eye on PCI compliance.
Using the new ELM feature with access points that make use of Cisco CleanAir technology lets IT identify access points running on non-standard channels or running proprietary extensions.
The new PCI-related features will be part of a free software upgrade to all Cisco 11n access points in late March 2011.
More on Wi-Fi: 6 useful Wi-Fi tools for Windows
A December 2010 survey by Cisco of 500 retail customers found that about one-third of them pass payment or credit card data over internal Wi-Fi networks. (For more details from that study, check out "Survey on PCI: How it's impacting network security".)
The PCI specification, set by the PCI Security Standards Council, outlines how payment-card data is to be secured and stored. Several provisions apply to wireless networks used to transmit that information. The 2.0 PCI spec was released in October 2010 (and formally ratified in January 2011), but doesn't fully address the fast-rising use of mobile payment technologies.
One issue is that the standard requires physical and logical inspections, to detect when a device attaches to the network, and whether it's an authorized device. But it doesn't specify how this is done. In practice, according to Cisco, the PCI specification focuses on only one key threat: rogue wireless access points. "But it can't address [others such as] ad hoc wireless bridging, evil twin/honeypot exploits, denial of service, reconnaissance, or cracking tools," says Cisco's Chris Kozup, director, mobility and borderless networks.
To fill this gap, Cisco has created a feature called Enhanced Local Mode (ELM) for its Adaptive Wireless Intrusion Prevention System. ELM expands the number of threats that IT groups can monitor, and lets the monitoring be done with existing Cisco access points.
Previously, Cisco offered only basic rogue detection, and individual access points had to be dedicated to radio monitoring, unable to support data traffic.
With ELM active on one two-radio access point, the monitoring functions can jump from channel to channel, now able to cover all channels in both Wi-Fi frequencies (2.4 and 5 GHz), and covering a much wider range of threats. No dedicated access points or separate sensors are needed to implement a full Wi-Fi intrusion-prevention system.
Cisco also added expanded PCI-specific reporting features to its Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS). In the past, Cisco offered a general PCI compliance report. Now, WCS can create summary reports, and use filters to focus on compliance in individual locations or even individual devices. Enterprise security staff can administer reports and audits and keep a continuous eye on PCI compliance.
Using the new ELM feature with access points that make use of Cisco CleanAir technology lets IT identify access points running on non-standard channels or running proprietary extensions.
The new PCI-related features will be part of a free software upgrade to all Cisco 11n access points in late March 2011.
Cisco: Fraudster's money mules in short supply
A new security report from Cisco Systems estimates that the amount of stolen online bank account data far exceeds the number of people fraudsters can get to transfer stolen funds, who are known as "money mules."
A mule is someone who is either knowingly helps or is tricked into moving money from a victim's bank account through their own account and then onto a third party, usually located in another country.
Despite increasing awareness of the schemes, which are often advertised as "work-at-home" jobs with generous salaries, many people still get caught up in the frauds.
Cisco said in its 2010 Annual Security Report that the ratio of stolen account credentials -- which can be acquired through phishing or hacking -- to available mule capacity could be as high as 10,000 to one.
Being a mule is a high-risk job, and many are caught. Last year, dozens of people were arrested in the U.S. and U.K. on charges they were part of a large gang that stole money from bank accounts using a sophisticated piece of malware known as the Zeus program.
Many of those arrested in both countries were from Eastern Europe. In the U.S., many had gained entry to the country on J-1 non immigrant visas, often granted to visiting students.
Those running the scam will often use a mule only once, since authorities are likely to shut down the mule's account quickly. The money is transferred from the victim's account to the mule's account, and the mule is then instructed to quickly withdraw the money and either do a wire transfer or an ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfer.
The ACH system is used by financial institutions for exchanging details of direct deposits, checks and cash transfers made by businesses and individuals. It can be used to send very large sums of money, which are difficult to recover once the money makes it to an account, for example, in the Ukraine.
If banks detect the fraud, the institutions can try to reverse the transfer, but it is "not a quick and easy process" to initiate, Cisco wrote in its report. The reason is that if a fraudster has started to withdraw some of the money, the reversal won't work.
"The appropriate thing for the bank to do is to keep trying with progressively smaller amounts until it succeeds in recouping at least a portion of the stolen money," according to Cisco's report. "However, many banks are not sophisticated enough to do this, and the money is lost."
A mule is someone who is either knowingly helps or is tricked into moving money from a victim's bank account through their own account and then onto a third party, usually located in another country.
Despite increasing awareness of the schemes, which are often advertised as "work-at-home" jobs with generous salaries, many people still get caught up in the frauds.
Cisco said in its 2010 Annual Security Report that the ratio of stolen account credentials -- which can be acquired through phishing or hacking -- to available mule capacity could be as high as 10,000 to one.
Being a mule is a high-risk job, and many are caught. Last year, dozens of people were arrested in the U.S. and U.K. on charges they were part of a large gang that stole money from bank accounts using a sophisticated piece of malware known as the Zeus program.
Many of those arrested in both countries were from Eastern Europe. In the U.S., many had gained entry to the country on J-1 non immigrant visas, often granted to visiting students.
Those running the scam will often use a mule only once, since authorities are likely to shut down the mule's account quickly. The money is transferred from the victim's account to the mule's account, and the mule is then instructed to quickly withdraw the money and either do a wire transfer or an ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfer.
The ACH system is used by financial institutions for exchanging details of direct deposits, checks and cash transfers made by businesses and individuals. It can be used to send very large sums of money, which are difficult to recover once the money makes it to an account, for example, in the Ukraine.
If banks detect the fraud, the institutions can try to reverse the transfer, but it is "not a quick and easy process" to initiate, Cisco wrote in its report. The reason is that if a fraudster has started to withdraw some of the money, the reversal won't work.
"The appropriate thing for the bank to do is to keep trying with progressively smaller amounts until it succeeds in recouping at least a portion of the stolen money," according to Cisco's report. "However, many banks are not sophisticated enough to do this, and the money is lost."
Facebook brings mobile app to feature phones
Facebook users who want to access the social-networking service on the go, but don't have smartphones, now have an app of their own in some countries.
On Wednesday, Facebook introduced a mobile app for feature phones, the less-expensive, Internet-capable phones that far outnumber smartphones in many parts of the world. Like Facebook apps for the Apple iPhone and other smartphones, the Facebook for Feature Phones app is designed to provide easy navigation, fast scrolling of status updates and photos from friends, and synchronization of contacts with the phone. The app was announced in a Wednesday entry to Facebook's official blog.
While smartphones are widely used in the U.S. and some European and Asian countries, many mobile Internet users elsewhere rely on feature phones. Last year, Facebook launched the mobile website http://0.facebook.com, a stripped-down site for users on slower networks and less-advanced phones. It is designed to work faster by using only text. Now Facebook is offering those users a dedicated application with more graphical content.
The new app works on more than 2,500 handset models from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other vendors, according to Facebook. But it won't immediately be available everywhere. Facebook initially will offer it through 14 carriers around the world, with nine of those offering the app immediately. They include operators in Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Poland, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Tunisia, Dominican Republic and Romania. Soon after, carriers in Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil and Bulgaria will make it available.
For the first 90 days after launch, those service providers won't charge for data use with the new app, Facebook said.
When Facebook launched its slimmed-down mobile site, it announced 50 carrier partners in 40 countries, offering at least 12 months of free data use. At the time, it said the U.S. was left out of the launch because Facebook was doing well with media-rich smartphone applications and was looking to provide a deeper experience to those users.
Mobile is Facebook's biggest growth engine, mobile products head Eric Tseng said at a conference last July. At that time, the company had about 150 million mobile users out of a total of 500 million members
On Wednesday, Facebook introduced a mobile app for feature phones, the less-expensive, Internet-capable phones that far outnumber smartphones in many parts of the world. Like Facebook apps for the Apple iPhone and other smartphones, the Facebook for Feature Phones app is designed to provide easy navigation, fast scrolling of status updates and photos from friends, and synchronization of contacts with the phone. The app was announced in a Wednesday entry to Facebook's official blog.
While smartphones are widely used in the U.S. and some European and Asian countries, many mobile Internet users elsewhere rely on feature phones. Last year, Facebook launched the mobile website http://0.facebook.com, a stripped-down site for users on slower networks and less-advanced phones. It is designed to work faster by using only text. Now Facebook is offering those users a dedicated application with more graphical content.
The new app works on more than 2,500 handset models from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other vendors, according to Facebook. But it won't immediately be available everywhere. Facebook initially will offer it through 14 carriers around the world, with nine of those offering the app immediately. They include operators in Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Poland, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Tunisia, Dominican Republic and Romania. Soon after, carriers in Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil and Bulgaria will make it available.
For the first 90 days after launch, those service providers won't charge for data use with the new app, Facebook said.
When Facebook launched its slimmed-down mobile site, it announced 50 carrier partners in 40 countries, offering at least 12 months of free data use. At the time, it said the U.S. was left out of the launch because Facebook was doing well with media-rich smartphone applications and was looking to provide a deeper experience to those users.
Mobile is Facebook's biggest growth engine, mobile products head Eric Tseng said at a conference last July. At that time, the company had about 150 million mobile users out of a total of 500 million members
Make Your Small Business Look Bigger With Virtual Services
While it's always nice to have extra help--in the form of a personal assistant, an accountant, or a lawyer, say--it's also nice to cut costs. Small and medium businesses often can't afford to hire salaried professionals for all of those extra tasks that must be done.
Luckily, virtual help abounds. Don't be fooled by the term "virtual," either--you're not necessarily hiring a cyborg, as a lot of virtual services still utilize the skills of real people. They're just remotely located, dedicated people who don't require a benefits package you can't afford.
If you already operate on a shoestring or need to cut costs--and perhaps water cooler chatter--read on for virtual services you can "hire," instead of an extra employee.
Replace Your Personal Assistant or Secretary
Hiring a dedicated personal assistant or a secretary will cost you around $35,000/year ($2900/month), plus benefits. But you can easily outsource much of the work of a personal assistant to the virtual world for just a fraction of the cost of hiring a professional, especially if you know what tasks you need the most help with.
If you do a lot of traveling and entertaining, RedButler offers personal assistant and concierge services (such as making hotel reservations), and it features a special membership card that allows holders to receive discounts at hotels and restaurants. RedButler memberships start at just $36.95/month for 15 tasks (each phone call or hotel booking constitutes one task) and a membership card.
If you're looking for more of a dedicated personal assistant, Habilis and AskSunday offer hourly membership plans. Instead of being billed per task, you can sign up for a certain number of hours per month. Habilis plans start at $350 for 40 hours, while AskSunday plans start at $150 for 10 hours. Both offer personal assistant services such as making phone calls, handling e-mails, and making reservations, and they feature 24-hour availability.
Replace Your Lawyer
While I don't recommend completely outsourcing your legal needs to technology, free legal Websites are a valuable resource. Because lawyers charge by the hour, doing your own research, or at least finding the correct legal form, can actually save you a small chunk of change.
RocketLawyer features hundreds of free legal documents created by lawyers--including confidentiality agreements, general service contracts, and employment agreements. LawHelp and FindLaw both offer free legal advice from lawyers, though they should probably not be used as lawyer replacements.
If you need specific legal advice, LawGuru features an extensive question-and-answer service with free and paid options. For free, your question is forwarded to a limited pool of attorneys (though not right away) and answered eventually on the public forum. If the question is urgent, or you want a private answer, however, you can choose to pay between $40 and $60 (you are charged only if you accept an answer) for quicker service.
Replace Your Accountant
The first place you should look for virtualizing your accountant is accounting software. Intuit's QuickBooks, which features invoice and expense tracking and sales and profitability reports, is a small business standby, and the Pro version of the software will set you back just $184. QuickBooks 2011 also offers convenient browser and smartphone access to the software for an additional $10 monthly fee per user. Sage's Peachtree, which costs $200 for the Pro version, is another desktop accounting package that offers invoice and receipt tracking, easy payroll entry, and business analytics and forecasting.
If you'd prefer not to be tied to your desktop, online accounting services are another option. QuickBooks features an online version whose cost ranges from $12.95/month to $63.16/month and has a lot of the features of the desktop version, including invoice and expense tracking, payroll support, and online banking support.
Freelancers and self-employed individuals should check out Outright, which is a free online accounting service that helps users track invoices and payments received, calculate estimated taxes, and organize W-9 forms.
FreshBooks, whose plans range from free to $40/month, is more suited for small businesses larger than one person. FreshBooks allows you to track invoices and expenses, and to create and manage inventory, and it even creates and mails invoices for you via snail mail at a nominal additional cost.
Even if you end up hiring an accountant anyway--just as an extra pair of eyes before tax time--these services are worth it. After all, if you have your finances in relative order, it will save your accountant time--which translates to saving you money.
Replace Your Customer Support
Customer support is an essential--yet tiring and time-consuming--aspect of running a small business. Fortunately, a few online tools can make customer support a relatively easy, painless process.
Instead of hiring extra workers to answer customer questions and concerns, you can put your customers to work. Get Satisfaction allows you to take advantage of people's enthusiasm for helping each other, building a community in the process. On Get Satisfaction, anyone can ask questions and answer them--though "official" company responses are marked as such. Putting your company on the site is free--although the site also has several paid options with benefits, such as community branding and customization, Google Analytics and community statistics, and ZenDesk integration.
ZenDesk is a virtual help desk and more of an organizational tool for customer support. Instead of crowdsourcing customer support as Get Satisfaction does, ZenDesk allows you to solve customer problems using helpdesk trouble tickets. You can embed ZenDesk into your company's Website, enabling customers to open a ticket when they have a problem. ZenDesk helps you manage, organize, and resolve open tickets.
ZenDesk is nicely transparent in that customers can see who is working on their ticket and when it's expected to be resolved. ZenDesk can also help users help themselves with its ticket tagging--certain tags will pull up forum and discussion suggestions that may resolve the customer's issue. ZenDesk starts at $9/month for up to three customer service agents.
Replace Your Travel Agent
In this day and age of budget airlines, it's surprising that flesh-and-blood travel agents still have a market. Instead of calling up a local agent to book your next business trip, here are some virtual alternatives.
For booking flights, check aggregator sites such as Kayak, Hipmunk, and Mobissimo, which check online booking sites (such as Travelocity, Orbitz, and Priceline), airline Websites, and other aggregators for the best prices.
If you're not sure how much your route should cost, consult Bing's Farecast; it collects past data from your selected itinerary to show you what the price should be based on the time of year, and whether it will drop in the next few days. Kayak can also help you find alternative itineraries by searching for a range of dates and airports. Also remember to check individual airline sites for specials and discounts.
Want that extra "insider" knowledge? TripAdvisor's SeatGuru gives you detailed seat maps of hundreds of airplanes with information on legroom, reclinability, and outlets. If you need the human touch, Compete 4 Your Seat and Zicasso both take your itinerary to real travel agents, who then bid for your patronage.
Booking hotels is a similar process. Aggregator sites will help you find out what the general price range should be, while individual hotel sites often have specials and discounts. If you're wary of the hotel's quality, check out its reviews on TripAdvisor and TravelPost.
Replace Your...Other
Maybe you don't need a virtual accountant, lawyer, or travel agent, but you need a virtual "something else." If you can't find the exact job you need on this list, never fear: A number of labor-on-demand Websites will help you find skilled workers for just about any job you can think of.
There are two types of labor-on-demand sites: those that offer "unskilled" labor and cater to short, menial tasks such as finding e-mail addresses or posting to online forums; and those that offer skilled labor, such as Web development and marketing.
If you're looking for the former--say you want someone to post short messages to forums--then check out CrowdFlower, ShortTask, or Amazon's Mechanical Turk. These Websites help you outsource tasks that are menial--yet require a human touch--to the "cloud" for mere pennies (anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars). The downside to the short-task sites is that the labor you're paying pennies for is unskilled--great for posting reviews, bad for everything else.
For help with tech support for your business, you can visit a big-box retailer for basic setup and troubleshooting. And a number of remote-support services are ready to assist you from afar via remote-access software; directories such as OnForce list tech-support pros around North America.
If you need to spruce up your company's marketing, Web design, and social media presence, sites such as Acumen Works provide long-distance services for such white-collar tasks. A search for "social media virtual assistant" can guide you down the right path.
If you need a real job done right, you should turn to Elance, which is a great site for finding independent online contractors. Elance features contractors for a variety of jobs, including Web design and programming, writing, marketing, and consulting. It's an example of the "human cloud" of skilled workers. Posting a job is simple--employer accounts are charged a one-time fee of $10, and Elance takes a cut of each project's budget--between 6.75 and 8.75 percent.
A note of caution before you pick up the phone to fire all of your employees and virtualize your company: Some tasks are best left to real human beings. Personal assistants, for example, are valuable not only because they'll do those little tasks you don't have time for, but because they'll know what needs to be done without your constant supervision.
Also, organizing virtual assistants and services take a toll, even if it's minor, on your personal time, so if you're a particularly busy person it's probably better to keep flesh-and-blood assistants instead of burdening yourself with all of the organization.
Luckily, virtual help abounds. Don't be fooled by the term "virtual," either--you're not necessarily hiring a cyborg, as a lot of virtual services still utilize the skills of real people. They're just remotely located, dedicated people who don't require a benefits package you can't afford.
If you already operate on a shoestring or need to cut costs--and perhaps water cooler chatter--read on for virtual services you can "hire," instead of an extra employee.
Replace Your Personal Assistant or Secretary
Hiring a dedicated personal assistant or a secretary will cost you around $35,000/year ($2900/month), plus benefits. But you can easily outsource much of the work of a personal assistant to the virtual world for just a fraction of the cost of hiring a professional, especially if you know what tasks you need the most help with.
If you do a lot of traveling and entertaining, RedButler offers personal assistant and concierge services (such as making hotel reservations), and it features a special membership card that allows holders to receive discounts at hotels and restaurants. RedButler memberships start at just $36.95/month for 15 tasks (each phone call or hotel booking constitutes one task) and a membership card.
If you're looking for more of a dedicated personal assistant, Habilis and AskSunday offer hourly membership plans. Instead of being billed per task, you can sign up for a certain number of hours per month. Habilis plans start at $350 for 40 hours, while AskSunday plans start at $150 for 10 hours. Both offer personal assistant services such as making phone calls, handling e-mails, and making reservations, and they feature 24-hour availability.
Replace Your Lawyer
While I don't recommend completely outsourcing your legal needs to technology, free legal Websites are a valuable resource. Because lawyers charge by the hour, doing your own research, or at least finding the correct legal form, can actually save you a small chunk of change.
RocketLawyer features hundreds of free legal documents created by lawyers--including confidentiality agreements, general service contracts, and employment agreements. LawHelp and FindLaw both offer free legal advice from lawyers, though they should probably not be used as lawyer replacements.
If you need specific legal advice, LawGuru features an extensive question-and-answer service with free and paid options. For free, your question is forwarded to a limited pool of attorneys (though not right away) and answered eventually on the public forum. If the question is urgent, or you want a private answer, however, you can choose to pay between $40 and $60 (you are charged only if you accept an answer) for quicker service.
Replace Your Accountant
The first place you should look for virtualizing your accountant is accounting software. Intuit's QuickBooks, which features invoice and expense tracking and sales and profitability reports, is a small business standby, and the Pro version of the software will set you back just $184. QuickBooks 2011 also offers convenient browser and smartphone access to the software for an additional $10 monthly fee per user. Sage's Peachtree, which costs $200 for the Pro version, is another desktop accounting package that offers invoice and receipt tracking, easy payroll entry, and business analytics and forecasting.
If you'd prefer not to be tied to your desktop, online accounting services are another option. QuickBooks features an online version whose cost ranges from $12.95/month to $63.16/month and has a lot of the features of the desktop version, including invoice and expense tracking, payroll support, and online banking support.
Freelancers and self-employed individuals should check out Outright, which is a free online accounting service that helps users track invoices and payments received, calculate estimated taxes, and organize W-9 forms.
FreshBooks, whose plans range from free to $40/month, is more suited for small businesses larger than one person. FreshBooks allows you to track invoices and expenses, and to create and manage inventory, and it even creates and mails invoices for you via snail mail at a nominal additional cost.
Even if you end up hiring an accountant anyway--just as an extra pair of eyes before tax time--these services are worth it. After all, if you have your finances in relative order, it will save your accountant time--which translates to saving you money.
Replace Your Customer Support
Customer support is an essential--yet tiring and time-consuming--aspect of running a small business. Fortunately, a few online tools can make customer support a relatively easy, painless process.
Instead of hiring extra workers to answer customer questions and concerns, you can put your customers to work. Get Satisfaction allows you to take advantage of people's enthusiasm for helping each other, building a community in the process. On Get Satisfaction, anyone can ask questions and answer them--though "official" company responses are marked as such. Putting your company on the site is free--although the site also has several paid options with benefits, such as community branding and customization, Google Analytics and community statistics, and ZenDesk integration.
ZenDesk is a virtual help desk and more of an organizational tool for customer support. Instead of crowdsourcing customer support as Get Satisfaction does, ZenDesk allows you to solve customer problems using helpdesk trouble tickets. You can embed ZenDesk into your company's Website, enabling customers to open a ticket when they have a problem. ZenDesk helps you manage, organize, and resolve open tickets.
ZenDesk is nicely transparent in that customers can see who is working on their ticket and when it's expected to be resolved. ZenDesk can also help users help themselves with its ticket tagging--certain tags will pull up forum and discussion suggestions that may resolve the customer's issue. ZenDesk starts at $9/month for up to three customer service agents.
Replace Your Travel Agent
In this day and age of budget airlines, it's surprising that flesh-and-blood travel agents still have a market. Instead of calling up a local agent to book your next business trip, here are some virtual alternatives.
For booking flights, check aggregator sites such as Kayak, Hipmunk, and Mobissimo, which check online booking sites (such as Travelocity, Orbitz, and Priceline), airline Websites, and other aggregators for the best prices.
If you're not sure how much your route should cost, consult Bing's Farecast; it collects past data from your selected itinerary to show you what the price should be based on the time of year, and whether it will drop in the next few days. Kayak can also help you find alternative itineraries by searching for a range of dates and airports. Also remember to check individual airline sites for specials and discounts.
Want that extra "insider" knowledge? TripAdvisor's SeatGuru gives you detailed seat maps of hundreds of airplanes with information on legroom, reclinability, and outlets. If you need the human touch, Compete 4 Your Seat and Zicasso both take your itinerary to real travel agents, who then bid for your patronage.
Booking hotels is a similar process. Aggregator sites will help you find out what the general price range should be, while individual hotel sites often have specials and discounts. If you're wary of the hotel's quality, check out its reviews on TripAdvisor and TravelPost.
Replace Your...Other
Maybe you don't need a virtual accountant, lawyer, or travel agent, but you need a virtual "something else." If you can't find the exact job you need on this list, never fear: A number of labor-on-demand Websites will help you find skilled workers for just about any job you can think of.
There are two types of labor-on-demand sites: those that offer "unskilled" labor and cater to short, menial tasks such as finding e-mail addresses or posting to online forums; and those that offer skilled labor, such as Web development and marketing.
If you're looking for the former--say you want someone to post short messages to forums--then check out CrowdFlower, ShortTask, or Amazon's Mechanical Turk. These Websites help you outsource tasks that are menial--yet require a human touch--to the "cloud" for mere pennies (anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars). The downside to the short-task sites is that the labor you're paying pennies for is unskilled--great for posting reviews, bad for everything else.
For help with tech support for your business, you can visit a big-box retailer for basic setup and troubleshooting. And a number of remote-support services are ready to assist you from afar via remote-access software; directories such as OnForce list tech-support pros around North America.
If you need to spruce up your company's marketing, Web design, and social media presence, sites such as Acumen Works provide long-distance services for such white-collar tasks. A search for "social media virtual assistant" can guide you down the right path.
If you need a real job done right, you should turn to Elance, which is a great site for finding independent online contractors. Elance features contractors for a variety of jobs, including Web design and programming, writing, marketing, and consulting. It's an example of the "human cloud" of skilled workers. Posting a job is simple--employer accounts are charged a one-time fee of $10, and Elance takes a cut of each project's budget--between 6.75 and 8.75 percent.
A note of caution before you pick up the phone to fire all of your employees and virtualize your company: Some tasks are best left to real human beings. Personal assistants, for example, are valuable not only because they'll do those little tasks you don't have time for, but because they'll know what needs to be done without your constant supervision.
Also, organizing virtual assistants and services take a toll, even if it's minor, on your personal time, so if you're a particularly busy person it's probably better to keep flesh-and-blood assistants instead of burdening yourself with all of the organization.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
About 500 computer models made in Taiwan will use Intel’s just-released second-generation Core processors and add features that would make those deskt
Google saw a slight increase in its share of Chinese search advertising revenue at the end of 2010, after a long decline in its share, according to a Beijing-based market research firm.
The search engine giant's share of Chinese search advertising revenue rose to 23.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, a 1.5 percentage-point increase from the third quarter, Analysys International said Tuesday. At the end of 2009, though, Google had a 35.6 percent share.
The Chinese search engine Baidu.com, Google's rival in China, has long dominated the search business in the country, with a market share currently at 71.7 percent.
Google's slide in the Chinese market began at the start of 2010 when the company announced it might possibly leave the country after being the victim of a cyber attack that it said originated in China. This followed the company's move to stop censoring search results in China by redirecting all users from its Google.cn page to its unfiltered Hong Kong search engine.
Google's search business in China suffered as a result, analysts say. The company, however, continues to operate offices in the country. Last month Google held an event in Beijing promoting new products, one of which allows users to browse foreign web pages that have been automatically translated into the selected language.
Both Google and Baidu have cemented their user base in the country, said Sabrina Dong, an analyst with Analysys. In the future, the two search engines' market shares will remain about the same, with Dong adding that "Google and Baidu will lead as the top two."
In time, though, other domestic search engines may cut into their market share, Dong said. Other search companies including Sogou.com and Goso.cn hope to attract more users. E-commerce giant Alibaba Group also launched a beta version of its shopping search engine called Etao last year.
The search engine giant's share of Chinese search advertising revenue rose to 23.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, a 1.5 percentage-point increase from the third quarter, Analysys International said Tuesday. At the end of 2009, though, Google had a 35.6 percent share.
The Chinese search engine Baidu.com, Google's rival in China, has long dominated the search business in the country, with a market share currently at 71.7 percent.
Google's slide in the Chinese market began at the start of 2010 when the company announced it might possibly leave the country after being the victim of a cyber attack that it said originated in China. This followed the company's move to stop censoring search results in China by redirecting all users from its Google.cn page to its unfiltered Hong Kong search engine.
Google's search business in China suffered as a result, analysts say. The company, however, continues to operate offices in the country. Last month Google held an event in Beijing promoting new products, one of which allows users to browse foreign web pages that have been automatically translated into the selected language.
Both Google and Baidu have cemented their user base in the country, said Sabrina Dong, an analyst with Analysys. In the future, the two search engines' market shares will remain about the same, with Dong adding that "Google and Baidu will lead as the top two."
In time, though, other domestic search engines may cut into their market share, Dong said. Other search companies including Sogou.com and Goso.cn hope to attract more users. E-commerce giant Alibaba Group also launched a beta version of its shopping search engine called Etao last year.
Facebook movie "The Social Network"
"The Social Network," the blockbuster film based on the story of the Faceback social media site, made the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony absolutely geeky this year by winning four major categories.
The Social Network won the award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, beating out Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception and The King's Speech.
MONEY MATTERS: Facebook co-founders pledge to give away most of their riches
BEST AND WORST: Celebrity tech moments from 2010
David Fincher earned the Best Director award and Aaron Sorkin took home honors for Best Screenplay. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross paired to win the award for Best Original Score.
The Social Network, based on Ben Mezrich's book (which we reviewed), opened this past fall to rave reviews. Casting nailed its lead in choosing Jesse Eisenberg to play Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was ranked at #35 on the Forbes list last year of 400 richest Americans with a total worth of $6.9 billion.
One other geek-worthy note from the Golden Globes: Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper in the geek-filled TV show "The Big Bang Theory", won the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Comedy or Musical).
The Golden Globes are awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are seen as an indicator of how things might go at the Academy Awards, which are handed out in late February.
The Social Network won the award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, beating out Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception and The King's Speech.
MONEY MATTERS: Facebook co-founders pledge to give away most of their riches
BEST AND WORST: Celebrity tech moments from 2010
David Fincher earned the Best Director award and Aaron Sorkin took home honors for Best Screenplay. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross paired to win the award for Best Original Score.
The Social Network, based on Ben Mezrich's book (which we reviewed), opened this past fall to rave reviews. Casting nailed its lead in choosing Jesse Eisenberg to play Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was ranked at #35 on the Forbes list last year of 400 richest Americans with a total worth of $6.9 billion.
One other geek-worthy note from the Golden Globes: Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper in the geek-filled TV show "The Big Bang Theory", won the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Comedy or Musical).
The Golden Globes are awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are seen as an indicator of how things might go at the Academy Awards, which are handed out in late February.
As PC Virus Turns 25, New Worry Emerge Attack Toolkits
Happy anniversary Basit and Amjad! Twenty-five years ago this month, the Alvi brothers of Lahore, Pakistan, gave the world the Brain Virus, the first bit of malware capable of infecting a DOS-based PC. Back in those relatively innocent times, the brothers actually embedded their real names and business address in the code and later told Time magazine they had written the virus to protect their medical software from piracy.
Who knows what they were really thinking, but by all accounts the Brain Virus was relatively harmless. Twenty-five years later, most malware is anything but benign and cyber criminals pull off exploits the Alvi brothers never envisioned.
Slideshow: Quiz: Separate Cyber Security Fact From Fiction7 Cybercrime Facts Executives Need to Know
No longer just a way to make a political point or demonstrate one's technical prowess, malware has become a useful tool in the bag of tricks bad guys use to steal from consumers and institutions alike. And just as big-time drug dealers and many criminal gangs now mimic the ways of legitimate business, hackers have begun to do the same.
One particularly disturbing trend coming to light in this anniversary month is the production and online sale of "kits" that allow relatively unskilled hackers to create and launch malware attacks. And by "kit" I really do mean a kit. "Attack toolkits are bundles of malicious code tools used to facilitate the launch of concerted and widespread attacks on networked computers. Also known as crimeware, these kits are usually composed of prewritten malicious code for exploiting vulnerabilities along with various tools to customize, deploy, and automate widespread attacks," according to a recent report by Symantec.
Marc Fossi, a development manager for the giant security company, says attack kits are selling on the Web from $40 or $50 to about $4000. Some hackers peddling the higher-end kits even offer online support and subscription services, so customers can get updated versions of the malware. Symantec has also observed advertisements offering to help install and set up purchased attack kits for a fee. "It's like a mirror of the legitimate software business," he says.
Here are six reasons to be concerned:
1. Attack kits make it easier for relatively unsophisticated hackers to launch an attack. That's not to say that any computer-illiterate bozo could successfully use one of these kits, but it's much easier than building a virus or other malware from the ground up, says Fossi.
2. The prevalence, simplicity and effectiveness of the attack kits are contributing to an upward spike in cybercrime. For example, one major kit called ZeuS accounted for more than 90,000 unique malicious code variants as of August 2009. That's 90,000 different malware applications; the number of computers attacked by ZeuS is in the millions. Not coincidentally, ZeuS is designed primarily to steal financial details, such as the online banking credentials of a victim. Its ease of use and ability to generate income makes it an appealing purchase for even novice cybercriminals.
3. Cyber criminals, like legitimate business people, believe in a return on investment. Since they're spending money to buy those attack kits, it's likely they'll want to use them
4. Because buyers of the kits can get updates, they're using the newest and most potent versions of the malware, and that, of course, means users will be hit even harder.
5. Increasingly, attack toolkits include exploits for vulnerabilities that encompass multiple applications and technologies. This increases the likelihood that an attack will succeed because there is a greater chance that the victim will be using one of the vulnerable applications and that one of the applications is unpatched.
6. The attack kits spew out malware that can attack multiple platforms; so users of Macs or computers running the Linux operating system, which are usually considered safer than Windows, are at risk as well.
Naturally, you want to defend yourself against these clowns. Some of the viruses and other kinds of malware are so that new your anti-virus and other types of protection might not recognize them, but many are known. So be sure you're running reputable defense programs and keep them updated. And since many of the kits rely on "poisoned" Web sites, make certain that if your malware detector questions the authenticity of a site you pay attention and get out of there without clicking on anything.
It's tempting to make jokes about those two wild and crazy guys from Pakistan, and to be sure, the story of the Brain Virus has its place in computer lore. But ultimately, this stuff isn't funny, and it's not really a happy anniversary.
Who knows what they were really thinking, but by all accounts the Brain Virus was relatively harmless. Twenty-five years later, most malware is anything but benign and cyber criminals pull off exploits the Alvi brothers never envisioned.
Slideshow: Quiz: Separate Cyber Security Fact From Fiction7 Cybercrime Facts Executives Need to Know
No longer just a way to make a political point or demonstrate one's technical prowess, malware has become a useful tool in the bag of tricks bad guys use to steal from consumers and institutions alike. And just as big-time drug dealers and many criminal gangs now mimic the ways of legitimate business, hackers have begun to do the same.
One particularly disturbing trend coming to light in this anniversary month is the production and online sale of "kits" that allow relatively unskilled hackers to create and launch malware attacks. And by "kit" I really do mean a kit. "Attack toolkits are bundles of malicious code tools used to facilitate the launch of concerted and widespread attacks on networked computers. Also known as crimeware, these kits are usually composed of prewritten malicious code for exploiting vulnerabilities along with various tools to customize, deploy, and automate widespread attacks," according to a recent report by Symantec.
Marc Fossi, a development manager for the giant security company, says attack kits are selling on the Web from $40 or $50 to about $4000. Some hackers peddling the higher-end kits even offer online support and subscription services, so customers can get updated versions of the malware. Symantec has also observed advertisements offering to help install and set up purchased attack kits for a fee. "It's like a mirror of the legitimate software business," he says.
Here are six reasons to be concerned:
1. Attack kits make it easier for relatively unsophisticated hackers to launch an attack. That's not to say that any computer-illiterate bozo could successfully use one of these kits, but it's much easier than building a virus or other malware from the ground up, says Fossi.
2. The prevalence, simplicity and effectiveness of the attack kits are contributing to an upward spike in cybercrime. For example, one major kit called ZeuS accounted for more than 90,000 unique malicious code variants as of August 2009. That's 90,000 different malware applications; the number of computers attacked by ZeuS is in the millions. Not coincidentally, ZeuS is designed primarily to steal financial details, such as the online banking credentials of a victim. Its ease of use and ability to generate income makes it an appealing purchase for even novice cybercriminals.
3. Cyber criminals, like legitimate business people, believe in a return on investment. Since they're spending money to buy those attack kits, it's likely they'll want to use them
4. Because buyers of the kits can get updates, they're using the newest and most potent versions of the malware, and that, of course, means users will be hit even harder.
5. Increasingly, attack toolkits include exploits for vulnerabilities that encompass multiple applications and technologies. This increases the likelihood that an attack will succeed because there is a greater chance that the victim will be using one of the vulnerable applications and that one of the applications is unpatched.
6. The attack kits spew out malware that can attack multiple platforms; so users of Macs or computers running the Linux operating system, which are usually considered safer than Windows, are at risk as well.
Naturally, you want to defend yourself against these clowns. Some of the viruses and other kinds of malware are so that new your anti-virus and other types of protection might not recognize them, but many are known. So be sure you're running reputable defense programs and keep them updated. And since many of the kits rely on "poisoned" Web sites, make certain that if your malware detector questions the authenticity of a site you pay attention and get out of there without clicking on anything.
It's tempting to make jokes about those two wild and crazy guys from Pakistan, and to be sure, the story of the Brain Virus has its place in computer lore. But ultimately, this stuff isn't funny, and it's not really a happy anniversary.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
500 computer models made in Taiwan
About 500 computer models made in Taiwan will use Intel’s just-released second-generation Core processors and add features that would make those desktops and laptops some of the world’s best, local Intel officials said on Tuesday.
More than 20 Taiwanese firms are equipping their products with "Sandy Bridge" Intel Core microprocessors to raise speed and sharpen graphics, said Ken Lau, Asia-Pacific managing director of Intel's advanced technical sales. Some, he said, will raise performance with USB 3.0 or mobile wireless display technology.
The 500 Taiwanese PC models make up a majority of those set to be produced worldwide with the new Intel chipsets, he said. Acer and Asustek are among the Taiwan firms on board.
Taiwan's legacy as an island packed with experienced high-tech firms used to doing business together will raise quality and get the computers to market sooner than in other countries, Lau said in an interview.
"The proximity of suppliers to manufacturers is very close," he said. "For example USB 3.0, you get a guy in your office in half a day to talk about their product."
"Overall, the quality of the systems they build (in Taiwan) is better," he said. "In terms of critical mass of companies aggregated in one area, Taiwan is probably the most dense. It's not just PCs. It's goes from all the critical components, the WiFi, the LAN."
Bugs involving the new processors that were officially launched on Jan. 5 are inevitable, Lau said, but so far none have stopped installation.
Consumer prices for the computers using the new chipsets should not exceed those with the previous generation of Intel processors, said Judy Chen, a company product marketing manager in Taiwan.
Some computers are already on the market as their Taiwanese manufacturers worry that competitors will beat them, Lau said. Taiwan's Micro-Star International was among the first to show Intel Core-equipped devices at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month.
"Things happen a lot faster in this part of the world," Lau said. "We have one goal in mind, just launch products. They just want to be getting the product out the door."
More than 20 Taiwanese firms are equipping their products with "Sandy Bridge" Intel Core microprocessors to raise speed and sharpen graphics, said Ken Lau, Asia-Pacific managing director of Intel's advanced technical sales. Some, he said, will raise performance with USB 3.0 or mobile wireless display technology.
The 500 Taiwanese PC models make up a majority of those set to be produced worldwide with the new Intel chipsets, he said. Acer and Asustek are among the Taiwan firms on board.
Taiwan's legacy as an island packed with experienced high-tech firms used to doing business together will raise quality and get the computers to market sooner than in other countries, Lau said in an interview.
"The proximity of suppliers to manufacturers is very close," he said. "For example USB 3.0, you get a guy in your office in half a day to talk about their product."
"Overall, the quality of the systems they build (in Taiwan) is better," he said. "In terms of critical mass of companies aggregated in one area, Taiwan is probably the most dense. It's not just PCs. It's goes from all the critical components, the WiFi, the LAN."
Bugs involving the new processors that were officially launched on Jan. 5 are inevitable, Lau said, but so far none have stopped installation.
Consumer prices for the computers using the new chipsets should not exceed those with the previous generation of Intel processors, said Judy Chen, a company product marketing manager in Taiwan.
Some computers are already on the market as their Taiwanese manufacturers worry that competitors will beat them, Lau said. Taiwan's Micro-Star International was among the first to show Intel Core-equipped devices at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month.
"Things happen a lot faster in this part of the world," Lau said. "We have one goal in mind, just launch products. They just want to be getting the product out the door."
EMC today unveiled upgrades to its high-end and midrange
EMC today unveiled upgrades to its high-end and midrange Data Domain deduplication arrays, boosting performance with new Intel processors, and capacity by using new drives.
The company also announced the Data Domain Archiver, which acts as an online storage repository for long-term backups, or data kept longer than typical 90 or so days.
The single-controller Data Domain Archiver array has a maximum data throughput rate of 9.8 terabytes per hour and can store a whopping 768TB of raw capacity, or 28.5 petabytes of deduplicated data, according to Rob Emsley, senior director of product marketing at EMC's Backup Recovery Systems Division.
The DD Archiver supports all current Data Domain tools, including the DD Replicator, a data replication application that copies files between Data Domain appliances, and the DD Retention Lock software , which saves files in a non-rewriteable and non-erasable format.
"We introduced a policy into the Data Domain Archiver ensuring that as backups age, say longer than 90 days, we move the data associated with it to other parts of the storage system or the archive tier," Emsley said. "We fill up those archive trays of storage and then seal them and have them remain on line for retrieval, not from tape but from disk."
EMC's refresh of the DD880 and DD690
EMC's refresh of its high-end DD880 array, now called the DD890, adds an Intel Nehalem processor, which allows the box to ingest data at up to 14.7TB per hour. Its predecessor has a data intake rate of up to 8.8TB per hour.
The DD890 now has a total raw capacity of 384TB, twice the DD880's 192TB capacity.
Using its deduplication algorithm, the appliance is able to theoretically store up to 14.2 petabytes of data, Emsley said.
EMC's new DD860, which supersedes the DD690, adds an Intel Westmere processor, which allows it to ingest up to 9.8TB of data per hour. The deduplication device now has up to 192.2TB of raw capacity. Its predecessor ingested up to 1.1TB of data per hour and had a data capacity of up to 48TB.
With deduplication, the DD860 could theoretically store up to 7.1 petabytes of data.
Emsley said the upgrades mean more users can protect more data faster.
"Clearly, if you're talking about backup storage, speed matters. With shrinking backup windows, the more terabytes per hour, the more the system can protect from a backup perspective," he said.
The new DD690 and DD880 arrays are single controller devices that allow trays of serial ATA (SATA) disk to be added for up to 7.1 petabytes and 14.2 petabytes of data, respectively.
The company also announced an update to its dual-controller configuration Global Deduplication Array (GDA) that it announced last April . The GDA is a dual configuration of the DD890 array, providing twice the throughput and capacity. The GDA is now capable of ingesting up to 26.3TB per hour and can store up to 570TB of capacity.
The updated GDA also adds support for virtual tape libraries (VTL), or disk arrays that pose as tape libraries to backup servers. The GDA acts as a target device to the VTL, which allows it to act as longer-term storage for backups.
The first iteration of the GDA could be used with Symantec NetBackup and EMC NetWorker backup software. "Now the Global Deduplication Array now supports IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager because it supports VTL," Emsley said.
Emsley said the GDA also supports IBM i products , or the unified operating system that run its open systems servers, formerly known as AS/400s.
"Now a customer considering using Data Domain for his open systems workloads can leverage the same system for an IBM i workload," he said.
A DD890 controller with no storage capacity has an entry list price of $300,000. The DD860 has a starting price of $160,000. The entry level DD Archiver, which consists of its controller and one storage shelf of disks in the active tier, lists for $222,000.
The company also announced the Data Domain Archiver, which acts as an online storage repository for long-term backups, or data kept longer than typical 90 or so days.
The single-controller Data Domain Archiver array has a maximum data throughput rate of 9.8 terabytes per hour and can store a whopping 768TB of raw capacity, or 28.5 petabytes of deduplicated data, according to Rob Emsley, senior director of product marketing at EMC's Backup Recovery Systems Division.
The DD Archiver supports all current Data Domain tools, including the DD Replicator, a data replication application that copies files between Data Domain appliances, and the DD Retention Lock software , which saves files in a non-rewriteable and non-erasable format.
"We introduced a policy into the Data Domain Archiver ensuring that as backups age, say longer than 90 days, we move the data associated with it to other parts of the storage system or the archive tier," Emsley said. "We fill up those archive trays of storage and then seal them and have them remain on line for retrieval, not from tape but from disk."
EMC's refresh of the DD880 and DD690
EMC's refresh of its high-end DD880 array, now called the DD890, adds an Intel Nehalem processor, which allows the box to ingest data at up to 14.7TB per hour. Its predecessor has a data intake rate of up to 8.8TB per hour.
The DD890 now has a total raw capacity of 384TB, twice the DD880's 192TB capacity.
Using its deduplication algorithm, the appliance is able to theoretically store up to 14.2 petabytes of data, Emsley said.
EMC's new DD860, which supersedes the DD690, adds an Intel Westmere processor, which allows it to ingest up to 9.8TB of data per hour. The deduplication device now has up to 192.2TB of raw capacity. Its predecessor ingested up to 1.1TB of data per hour and had a data capacity of up to 48TB.
With deduplication, the DD860 could theoretically store up to 7.1 petabytes of data.
Emsley said the upgrades mean more users can protect more data faster.
"Clearly, if you're talking about backup storage, speed matters. With shrinking backup windows, the more terabytes per hour, the more the system can protect from a backup perspective," he said.
The new DD690 and DD880 arrays are single controller devices that allow trays of serial ATA (SATA) disk to be added for up to 7.1 petabytes and 14.2 petabytes of data, respectively.
The company also announced an update to its dual-controller configuration Global Deduplication Array (GDA) that it announced last April . The GDA is a dual configuration of the DD890 array, providing twice the throughput and capacity. The GDA is now capable of ingesting up to 26.3TB per hour and can store up to 570TB of capacity.
The updated GDA also adds support for virtual tape libraries (VTL), or disk arrays that pose as tape libraries to backup servers. The GDA acts as a target device to the VTL, which allows it to act as longer-term storage for backups.
The first iteration of the GDA could be used with Symantec NetBackup and EMC NetWorker backup software. "Now the Global Deduplication Array now supports IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager because it supports VTL," Emsley said.
Emsley said the GDA also supports IBM i products , or the unified operating system that run its open systems servers, formerly known as AS/400s.
"Now a customer considering using Data Domain for his open systems workloads can leverage the same system for an IBM i workload," he said.
A DD890 controller with no storage capacity has an entry list price of $300,000. The DD860 has a starting price of $160,000. The entry level DD Archiver, which consists of its controller and one storage shelf of disks in the active tier, lists for $222,000.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Google's Working Towards a Universal Translator
I have to wonder sometimes if there’s a limit to where Google will go. I can’t deny that I’m often cheering them on as they gobble up companies, scan every book ever published and apparently turn a smartphone into a universal translator, as reported by New Scientist.
An update to Google's Translate app for Android lets you translate a conversation from one language to another. I downloaded it today to test it out, and it is very simple.
You type or say the initial phrase in whatever language you choose (well, you can currently choose English or Spanish), and it will spell out and give the option to allow it to say the phrase itself. For example, I turned on the microphone and spoke “Hello, my name is Jason.” It thought for a second, and then did a speech to text translation (correctly for once) in the text box and repeated it in written Spanish below, with a speaker button I could then press to have the sentence translated as audio.
In the Conversation mode, you would then hand the phone off to whomever you were speaking with, and they would repeat the process in the other language. My Spanish must be especially terrible pronunciation-wise because the best I could get it to think I was saying was “Cuba, how are you?” when I repeated “Hola, como estas?” half a dozen times. The intent is clear, though, and brilliant through its simplicity. It even puts the conversation in a convenient bubble format:
To me this is the best thing since sliced bread. The only issue I have at all with it is that handing my five-hundred-dollar phone to a stranger I can’t understand seems questionable. I’m willing to cross that bridge when I come to it, though.
An update to Google's Translate app for Android lets you translate a conversation from one language to another. I downloaded it today to test it out, and it is very simple.
You type or say the initial phrase in whatever language you choose (well, you can currently choose English or Spanish), and it will spell out and give the option to allow it to say the phrase itself. For example, I turned on the microphone and spoke “Hello, my name is Jason.” It thought for a second, and then did a speech to text translation (correctly for once) in the text box and repeated it in written Spanish below, with a speaker button I could then press to have the sentence translated as audio.
In the Conversation mode, you would then hand the phone off to whomever you were speaking with, and they would repeat the process in the other language. My Spanish must be especially terrible pronunciation-wise because the best I could get it to think I was saying was “Cuba, how are you?” when I repeated “Hola, como estas?” half a dozen times. The intent is clear, though, and brilliant through its simplicity. It even puts the conversation in a convenient bubble format:
To me this is the best thing since sliced bread. The only issue I have at all with it is that handing my five-hundred-dollar phone to a stranger I can’t understand seems questionable. I’m willing to cross that bridge when I come to it, though.
Facebook Gives Your Home Address to Developers
Your home address and phone number are now part of the information dump third-party developers can obtain through Facebook-powered Website logins and applications.
A new policy lets you authorize applications such as Facebook games and quizzes, and Websites that you log into with your Facebook ID access some of your most personal Facebook data
How They Can Get Your Number
Whenever you start using a new Facebook application such as Farmville, a pop-up window appears showing you the details from your Facebook profile the application wants to access.
Now, under the heading "Access my contact information," developers can ask for your home address and mobile phone number if you've included this information in your profile. This pop-up window also appears when you use your Facebook ID to log into a third-party website such as PCWorld.com for the first time.
In Facebook's Friday blog post explaining the expanded permissions, Facebook said users have to explicitly allow access to their address and phone number. The problem is, Facebook's permissions dialog only gives you two choices: hand over your address or don't use the product or service you want to access.
That's really no choice at all. It would be one thing if Facebook gave you the power to deny a developer access to your address and still use the application or Website. But instead, Facebook has given ultimate power to developers who can decide whether to demand your address and phone number.
Questioned about this apparent discrepancy, Facebook responded with a statement: "On Facebook you have absolute control over what information you share, who you share it with and when you want to remove it. Developers can now request permission to access a person's address and mobile phone number to make applications built on Facebook more useful and efficient. You need to explicitly choose to share your data before any app or website can access it and no private information is shared without your permission. As an additional step for this new feature, you're not able to share your friends' address or mobile information."
Disaster Waiting To Happen?
Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, challenges Facebook's approach.
"Facebook is trying to blur the line between public and private information. And the request for permission does not make clear to the user why the information is needed or how it will be used," he says in a statement.
"This is all part of the FTC's failure to act on the original EPIC complaint concerning the changes in Facebook privacy setting. EPIC explained to the FTC that self-regulation requires the FTC to investigate companies when they change their practices. The FTC doesn't need any new laws and they don't need to issue any reports. They simply need to do a better job protecting user privacy."
The big question is whether Facebook's decision to open up your home address and mobile phone number will result in serious or even dangerous breaches of privacy. Security firm Sophos says in a blog post that Facebook's new policy could encourage rogue applications to collect mobile phone numbers for targeted spam SMS messages or to sell data to marketing companies. Sophos also says the ability to access a users' home address will "open up more opportunities for identity theft."
Previous Problems
In 2010, Facebook users fell prey to numerous scams and malware attacks such as clickjacking, the Ikea gift card scam, dislike button scam, the Russian hacker who claimed he was selling 1.5 million Facebook user login credentials, Boonana malware, malicious ads found in a Facebook application and likejacking, to name just a few. The idea that malicious applications in 2011 could get access to some of your most personal information is unsettling, to say the least.
Facebook did not specify why the company is opening up some of the most personal user data to developers. One possibility is that handing over your home address will make it easier and faster to fill out Website membership forms. While this may be a convenient way to sign up for a new service, it is not as obvious what kind of data you are handing over compared to manually filling out a Web form or using a security program such as Lastpass to fill out the form for you.
What You Can Do
If you are concerned about revealing your home address and phone number, the first thing you should do is verify whether Facebook has this information. After logging in to Facebook click on "Profile" on the upper right side of your News Feed. Then click on the "Edit My Profile" button at the top right of your profile page. Next, click on "Contact Information" in the left hand column, and check to see whether you've included your home address and mobile phone number. You can then edit this information as you see fit.
At the least, however, Facebook's timing of its latest amendment to its privacy procedures is questionable.
Facebook was recently gaining a measure of respect for giving users more control over their data with new features such as the data export tool and a privacy control dashboard. But the company appears to have taken a gigantic leap backward with Saturday's announcement. In fact, Facebook's decision to release this information on the Friday before a long weekend is also a questionable move. With most people going about their weekend, many were unlikely to notice the policy changes--a fact Facebook was probably well aware of when it planned its announcement.
Connect with Ian Paul (@ianpaul) and Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.
A new policy lets you authorize applications such as Facebook games and quizzes, and Websites that you log into with your Facebook ID access some of your most personal Facebook data
How They Can Get Your Number
Whenever you start using a new Facebook application such as Farmville, a pop-up window appears showing you the details from your Facebook profile the application wants to access.
Now, under the heading "Access my contact information," developers can ask for your home address and mobile phone number if you've included this information in your profile. This pop-up window also appears when you use your Facebook ID to log into a third-party website such as PCWorld.com for the first time.
In Facebook's Friday blog post explaining the expanded permissions, Facebook said users have to explicitly allow access to their address and phone number. The problem is, Facebook's permissions dialog only gives you two choices: hand over your address or don't use the product or service you want to access.
That's really no choice at all. It would be one thing if Facebook gave you the power to deny a developer access to your address and still use the application or Website. But instead, Facebook has given ultimate power to developers who can decide whether to demand your address and phone number.
Questioned about this apparent discrepancy, Facebook responded with a statement: "On Facebook you have absolute control over what information you share, who you share it with and when you want to remove it. Developers can now request permission to access a person's address and mobile phone number to make applications built on Facebook more useful and efficient. You need to explicitly choose to share your data before any app or website can access it and no private information is shared without your permission. As an additional step for this new feature, you're not able to share your friends' address or mobile information."
Disaster Waiting To Happen?
Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, challenges Facebook's approach.
"Facebook is trying to blur the line between public and private information. And the request for permission does not make clear to the user why the information is needed or how it will be used," he says in a statement.
"This is all part of the FTC's failure to act on the original EPIC complaint concerning the changes in Facebook privacy setting. EPIC explained to the FTC that self-regulation requires the FTC to investigate companies when they change their practices. The FTC doesn't need any new laws and they don't need to issue any reports. They simply need to do a better job protecting user privacy."
The big question is whether Facebook's decision to open up your home address and mobile phone number will result in serious or even dangerous breaches of privacy. Security firm Sophos says in a blog post that Facebook's new policy could encourage rogue applications to collect mobile phone numbers for targeted spam SMS messages or to sell data to marketing companies. Sophos also says the ability to access a users' home address will "open up more opportunities for identity theft."
Previous Problems
In 2010, Facebook users fell prey to numerous scams and malware attacks such as clickjacking, the Ikea gift card scam, dislike button scam, the Russian hacker who claimed he was selling 1.5 million Facebook user login credentials, Boonana malware, malicious ads found in a Facebook application and likejacking, to name just a few. The idea that malicious applications in 2011 could get access to some of your most personal information is unsettling, to say the least.
Facebook did not specify why the company is opening up some of the most personal user data to developers. One possibility is that handing over your home address will make it easier and faster to fill out Website membership forms. While this may be a convenient way to sign up for a new service, it is not as obvious what kind of data you are handing over compared to manually filling out a Web form or using a security program such as Lastpass to fill out the form for you.
What You Can Do
If you are concerned about revealing your home address and phone number, the first thing you should do is verify whether Facebook has this information. After logging in to Facebook click on "Profile" on the upper right side of your News Feed. Then click on the "Edit My Profile" button at the top right of your profile page. Next, click on "Contact Information" in the left hand column, and check to see whether you've included your home address and mobile phone number. You can then edit this information as you see fit.
At the least, however, Facebook's timing of its latest amendment to its privacy procedures is questionable.
Facebook was recently gaining a measure of respect for giving users more control over their data with new features such as the data export tool and a privacy control dashboard. But the company appears to have taken a gigantic leap backward with Saturday's announcement. In fact, Facebook's decision to release this information on the Friday before a long weekend is also a questionable move. With most people going about their weekend, many were unlikely to notice the policy changes--a fact Facebook was probably well aware of when it planned its announcement.
Connect with Ian Paul (@ianpaul) and Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Relax at Work
When we're honest with ourselves -- if not with our bosses -- we have to admit that the office isn't our favorite place to be.
There's no budget to replace these terrible desk chairs, and the air-conditioning is always turned up too high. The cafeteria color scheme is a terrible shade of orange and your toes are pinched into office-appropriate pumps, making it impossible to concentrate on your latest deadlines. When your stomach metamorphoses from a digestive organ into a pit of anxiety, or your ears start jangling with nerves, just take a deep breath. Calm down, and check out a few of our simple office relaxation tips:
Take breaks
Get up and stretch: Pausing for five minutes once every hour or so does wonders for your mental stress level. The best way to reset your brain is to stand up and get the blood flowing. Print out a PDF of desk stretches and run through the routine at least a few times a day.
Take a walk: Those durned hippies were right. Multiple studies show that being outdoors (or even just looking at pictures of natural landscapes) reduces stress and causes heart rates to decrease. If your office is in an urban area, try to find some local parks. Besides the physiological benefits of exercise and vitamin D, being around trees or absorbing natural daylight will have an uplifting effect on your mood. If your building happens to be located in a park-free zone, try opening the windows or putting a few houseplants on your desk.
Find a relaxation spot nearby: Smokers have it right - they take a break every couple of hours, go to a regular spot and take 7 minutes' worth of deep breaths (carcinogen-filled though they may be). Rather than taking a walk, some people find that a park bench, spot on the grass, or just a comfortable chair in your own office, is enough to break the monotony. Change of venue often relaxes the mind, and you can train yourself to relax when you get to the "relaxation place" immediately.
Block out the chatter
With e-mail, IM and two different phone lines pinging you all day, it's no wonder if you end up a bit frazzled. By eliminating pesky distractions, you can maintain a sense of calm at your desk.
Log out of chat for an hour or two each morning to help you focus.
Tweak your e-mail settings. Build filters for personal e-mail, so it gets dumped into a separate folder. By keeping your inbox all business, you'll have fewer distractions. Turn off new mail notifications, they interrupt your flow. Also, set up your e-mail client to grab new messages once or twice daily, instead of constantly checking your inbox. If you use Gmail or Yahoo mail, minimize the browser tab or close it entirely.
If you have the kind of job that requires you to be instantly available, there are other tricks you can do to maintain a sense of calm at your desk.
Go invisible on IM. You can stay logged in and you can still initiate chats, but you won't get roped into any unexpected fire drills. Google Chat and a few other popular clients have an invisible status choice.
Get headphones. Wear a pair of noise-canceling headphones to drown out office chatter. And play some Mozart.
Breathe
Stress and anxiety are common causes of hyperventilation, which increases the amount of oxygen in your blood but can also have the unfortunate side effect of causing you to pass out. Since fainting is not a very productive way of easing out of your latest assignment, practicing meditation and yogic breathing techniques can keep your mind, hands and heartbeat steady.
Even the most staunchly non-Buddhist can get a leg up with the help of apps like Be Happy Now, which includes a helpful "bonus" meditation called "Doing the Work."
If you don't have 20 minutes to set aside, simply taking a few deep breaths while counting backwards from ten can work wonders.
Take a nap
Despite the proven benefits of a mid-afternoon nap, most corporate offices don't keep cots in the lobby or give you a long enough lunch hour to sneak home and snooze for a bit. Don't be embarrassed; while the siesta has been a time-honored tradition in Spain, their British neighbors have been catching on with National Nap at Work Week, which is a little more generous than our own American National Napping Day.
Miss Cellania at Mental Floss offers many tips to help you doze off unobtrusively, some (propping your head) more helpful than others (eyelid tape).
Quit
Even in an economic downtown, the pros and cons of a job that gives you unmanageable amounts of stress have to be weighed. Finding a new job will be difficult, but is the prolonged anxiety of paying the rent any worse than dreading coming into work? Only you will know for sure.
Happy 25th birthday, IETF
The Internet's leading standards body - the Internet Engineering Task Force - turns 25 on Jan. 16.
The IETF is responsible for many of the underlying standards that make the Internet work, including the Internet Protocol (IP) for data transfer, Domain Name System (DNS) for matching domain names with IP addresses, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for sending e-mail, and Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) for traffic engineering.
BACKGROUND: IETF hums along at 20
Over the years, the IETF has published more than 4,500 documents that describe standards for the Internet's fundamental technologies, and these documents are referenced by network operators on a daily basis.
Unlike other standards bodies that rely on corporate or government members, the IETF is known for its outspoken, individualistic participants, who have rigorous debates at their thrice-annual meetings and online chats. IETF leaders, who work on a volunteer basis, come from the world's most powerful networking companies, including Cisco, Juniper, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia.
"The IETF is unique," says Russ Housley, an Internet security expert who got involved with the group in 1987 and has been IETF Chair since 2007. "Unlike other standards bodies, wherever possible the IETF avoids formal hierarchy, and there are no membership requirements or fees. The IETF invites all interested parties to participate in the technical evolution and work toward even greater stability of the Internet. The IETF's standards are available online, without charge, providing a platform for the continued growth and evolution of the Internet."
The majority rules at the IETF, and all proposals must have working prototypes before they are approved as standards. This has led to the group's motto of seeking "rough consensus and running code.''
Like the Internet itself, the IETF has migrated away from its roots in the U.S. Defense Department to becoming increasingly commercial and global over the years. Back in 1996, the IETF was led by Michael Corrigan, then the technical manager for the Defense Data Network program. Today, the IETF chair is Housley, who runs his own consulting shop called Vigil Security. In between, the group has been led by network engineers from the United States, Norway and Great Britain, who worked for such industry stalwarts as Cisco and IBM.
BY THE NUMBERS: The Evolution of the Internet
The IETF also has grown over the years, although it's not as big as it was during the dot-com boom years of 1999 and 2000 when its meetings held standing-room-only crowds.
The IETF held its first meeting on the afternoon of Jan. 16, 1986 in San Diego with 21 attendees. In March, the group will hold its 80th meeting in Prague, and more than 1,000 attendees are expected. The group will publicly recognize its 25th birthday at the Prague meeting.
Going forward, the group's biggest challenges include helping the Internet community with two much-needed upgrades: to IPv6, a new version of the Internet Protocol; and to DNSSEC, which adds a layer of encryption to the DNS.
"Sometimes the IETF sees a need before the marketplace is ready to embrace it. This leads to the standards being in place before the service providers are ready to deploy. DNSSEC and IPv6 are two examples," Housley says. "So working on global deployment of these completed protocols to offer new capabilities is one challenge. Yet the capabilities offered by these protocols is necessary for the continued growth of the Internet as a trusted platform for communications and innovation used by billions of people around the world.''
The IETF is responsible for many of the underlying standards that make the Internet work, including the Internet Protocol (IP) for data transfer, Domain Name System (DNS) for matching domain names with IP addresses, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for sending e-mail, and Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) for traffic engineering.
BACKGROUND: IETF hums along at 20
Over the years, the IETF has published more than 4,500 documents that describe standards for the Internet's fundamental technologies, and these documents are referenced by network operators on a daily basis.
Unlike other standards bodies that rely on corporate or government members, the IETF is known for its outspoken, individualistic participants, who have rigorous debates at their thrice-annual meetings and online chats. IETF leaders, who work on a volunteer basis, come from the world's most powerful networking companies, including Cisco, Juniper, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia.
"The IETF is unique," says Russ Housley, an Internet security expert who got involved with the group in 1987 and has been IETF Chair since 2007. "Unlike other standards bodies, wherever possible the IETF avoids formal hierarchy, and there are no membership requirements or fees. The IETF invites all interested parties to participate in the technical evolution and work toward even greater stability of the Internet. The IETF's standards are available online, without charge, providing a platform for the continued growth and evolution of the Internet."
The majority rules at the IETF, and all proposals must have working prototypes before they are approved as standards. This has led to the group's motto of seeking "rough consensus and running code.''
Like the Internet itself, the IETF has migrated away from its roots in the U.S. Defense Department to becoming increasingly commercial and global over the years. Back in 1996, the IETF was led by Michael Corrigan, then the technical manager for the Defense Data Network program. Today, the IETF chair is Housley, who runs his own consulting shop called Vigil Security. In between, the group has been led by network engineers from the United States, Norway and Great Britain, who worked for such industry stalwarts as Cisco and IBM.
BY THE NUMBERS: The Evolution of the Internet
The IETF also has grown over the years, although it's not as big as it was during the dot-com boom years of 1999 and 2000 when its meetings held standing-room-only crowds.
The IETF held its first meeting on the afternoon of Jan. 16, 1986 in San Diego with 21 attendees. In March, the group will hold its 80th meeting in Prague, and more than 1,000 attendees are expected. The group will publicly recognize its 25th birthday at the Prague meeting.
Going forward, the group's biggest challenges include helping the Internet community with two much-needed upgrades: to IPv6, a new version of the Internet Protocol; and to DNSSEC, which adds a layer of encryption to the DNS.
"Sometimes the IETF sees a need before the marketplace is ready to embrace it. This leads to the standards being in place before the service providers are ready to deploy. DNSSEC and IPv6 are two examples," Housley says. "So working on global deployment of these completed protocols to offer new capabilities is one challenge. Yet the capabilities offered by these protocols is necessary for the continued growth of the Internet as a trusted platform for communications and innovation used by billions of people around the world.''
Mozilla pushes devs to make Feb. ship date for Firefox 4
Mozilla hopes to have a final version of Firefox 4 ready to ship by the end of February, according to comments made by the company's engineering director.
"We've worked tremendously hard on Firefox 4, and it's time to ship it," Damon Sicore, Mozilla's director of platform engineering, said in a message Monday on the Firefox developers mailing list .
Sicore exhorted Firefox developers to slap down the bugs that still block the upgrade's release, saying that the count was still higher than what the company has used to pinpoint schedules in the past.
Currently, Firefox 4 contains about 160 "hard blockers," a term that describes bugs that would bar a final release. Historically, Sicore said, Mozilla has needed six weeks to make a ship date once a product had 100 blockers remaining.
"We have to reach Release Candidate status as quickly as possible, ideally finishing the hard blockers by the beginning of February and shipping final before the end of February," he said. "We'll need your help to balance these targets against the need to build a high quality product.
"We must press hard now," said Sicore referring to fixing as many blocking bugs as quickly as possible.
Mozilla developers often re-classify blocking bugs or drop bug-containing features to make a schedule.
Although Mozilla had originally planned to ship Firefox 4 in November 2010, delays last fall forced it to announce in October that it would instead wrap up development early this year .
Mozilla plans to issue at least one more beta version of Firefox 4 -- identified as Beta 9 -- but may do more if necessary. "We'll drive the beta bugs to zero and ship another beta," said Sicore. "If we can't get them to zero in reasonable time, we'll repeat."
Firefox 4 Beta 8 was released Dec. 22.
Sicore's hint that Firefox 4 may need just one more beta runs contrary to previous plans by Mozilla, which had listed a ninth and 10th beta, then one or more "release candidates" on its schedule, before it would issue final code.
Even though Mozilla urged developers to work as quickly as possible, Sicore stressed that the company would not ship Firefox 4 until it was solid. "We'll need your help to balance these [schedule] targets against the need to build a high quality product," Sicore said. "[But] we must ship the best possible product we can."
According to Internet measurement company Net Applications, Firefox currently accounts for 22.8% of all browsers used worldwide. Since its peak in November 2009, Firefox has lost two percentage points . Google's Chrome, meanwhile, gained more than six points in that same period, and now owns a 10% share.
"I know you're all tired and stressed," said Sicore to Firefox's developers. "Stay focused. Be nice to each other. Firefox 4 is gonna kick ass."
The current Firefox 4 beta can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from Mozilla's site.
"We've worked tremendously hard on Firefox 4, and it's time to ship it," Damon Sicore, Mozilla's director of platform engineering, said in a message Monday on the Firefox developers mailing list .
Sicore exhorted Firefox developers to slap down the bugs that still block the upgrade's release, saying that the count was still higher than what the company has used to pinpoint schedules in the past.
Currently, Firefox 4 contains about 160 "hard blockers," a term that describes bugs that would bar a final release. Historically, Sicore said, Mozilla has needed six weeks to make a ship date once a product had 100 blockers remaining.
"We have to reach Release Candidate status as quickly as possible, ideally finishing the hard blockers by the beginning of February and shipping final before the end of February," he said. "We'll need your help to balance these targets against the need to build a high quality product.
"We must press hard now," said Sicore referring to fixing as many blocking bugs as quickly as possible.
Mozilla developers often re-classify blocking bugs or drop bug-containing features to make a schedule.
Although Mozilla had originally planned to ship Firefox 4 in November 2010, delays last fall forced it to announce in October that it would instead wrap up development early this year .
Mozilla plans to issue at least one more beta version of Firefox 4 -- identified as Beta 9 -- but may do more if necessary. "We'll drive the beta bugs to zero and ship another beta," said Sicore. "If we can't get them to zero in reasonable time, we'll repeat."
Firefox 4 Beta 8 was released Dec. 22.
Sicore's hint that Firefox 4 may need just one more beta runs contrary to previous plans by Mozilla, which had listed a ninth and 10th beta, then one or more "release candidates" on its schedule, before it would issue final code.
Even though Mozilla urged developers to work as quickly as possible, Sicore stressed that the company would not ship Firefox 4 until it was solid. "We'll need your help to balance these [schedule] targets against the need to build a high quality product," Sicore said. "[But] we must ship the best possible product we can."
According to Internet measurement company Net Applications, Firefox currently accounts for 22.8% of all browsers used worldwide. Since its peak in November 2009, Firefox has lost two percentage points . Google's Chrome, meanwhile, gained more than six points in that same period, and now owns a 10% share.
"I know you're all tired and stressed," said Sicore to Firefox's developers. "Stay focused. Be nice to each other. Firefox 4 is gonna kick ass."
The current Firefox 4 beta can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from Mozilla's site.
IT Budgets Will Get Bigger in 2011
Out of the 333 executives we polled in November, 54 percent have plans to grow their budgets in 2011. That’s a significant improvement compared to the low point in May 2009, when only 14 percent planned a budget increase.
When it comes to choosing where to direct these funds, IT leaders are gravitating toward mobile solutions. Eighty-seven percent said they consider mobile devices and applications to be a factor in improving employee productivity. Rick Peltz, CIO of brokerage firm Marcus and Millichap, says mobility is crucial to the work of his company’s 1200 brokers. “Any type of mobile device is a big benefit to them and it leverages their ability to foster relationships away from the office.”
Peltz, who recently released a mobile app to the iTunes store for his employees, says he anticipates seeing more spending on mobile in the coming year in part because it will help his company generate more deals.
Dee Waddell, group information officer of marketing, sales and customer service for Amtrak, says he sees mobile as a strategic investment and is continuing to explore consumer and enterprise mobile solutions. The company is about to deploy on-board mobile technologies for its electronic ticket initiative.
New Projects Expected
Spending on new projects this year is on the agenda of 57 percent of IT leaders, with 34 percent of that spending going toward projects designed to increase top-line revenue. Applications also ranked high in IT leaders’ spending preferences at 54 percent.
Our results indicate staffing is looking brighter as well. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed plan to increase salaries and 42 percent want to increase headcount. Yet despite the encouraging spending and hiring news, not all companies feel completely out of the woods. Thirty percent of those surveyed said they are still feeling the effects of the recession, with 42 percent still in the process of returning to growth.
When it comes to choosing where to direct these funds, IT leaders are gravitating toward mobile solutions. Eighty-seven percent said they consider mobile devices and applications to be a factor in improving employee productivity. Rick Peltz, CIO of brokerage firm Marcus and Millichap, says mobility is crucial to the work of his company’s 1200 brokers. “Any type of mobile device is a big benefit to them and it leverages their ability to foster relationships away from the office.”
Peltz, who recently released a mobile app to the iTunes store for his employees, says he anticipates seeing more spending on mobile in the coming year in part because it will help his company generate more deals.
Dee Waddell, group information officer of marketing, sales and customer service for Amtrak, says he sees mobile as a strategic investment and is continuing to explore consumer and enterprise mobile solutions. The company is about to deploy on-board mobile technologies for its electronic ticket initiative.
New Projects Expected
Spending on new projects this year is on the agenda of 57 percent of IT leaders, with 34 percent of that spending going toward projects designed to increase top-line revenue. Applications also ranked high in IT leaders’ spending preferences at 54 percent.
Our results indicate staffing is looking brighter as well. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed plan to increase salaries and 42 percent want to increase headcount. Yet despite the encouraging spending and hiring news, not all companies feel completely out of the woods. Thirty percent of those surveyed said they are still feeling the effects of the recession, with 42 percent still in the process of returning to growth.
Microsoft offers Web server for developers
Microsoft began shipping this week IIS (Internet Information Services) Express 7.5, a free version of its IIS Web server optimized for developers. The company also unveiled an embedded database upgrade and an open source content management tool.
IIS Express 7.5 enhances developers' ability to develop and test Web applications on Windows by combining IIS 7.5 strengths and lightweight Web server capabilities, Microsoft said. Working with both ASP.Net Web Forms and ASP.Net MVC project types, IIS Express 7.5 is a download of fewer than 5MB and does not require an administrator account to run or debug applications from Visual Studio, said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president in the Microsoft Developer Division, in a blog post on Thursday. The product offers a full Web server feature set, including SSL, URL Rewrite, and other IIS 7.x modules.
"We think IIS Express combines the ease of use of the ASP.Net Web Server (aka Cassini) currently built-into Visual Studio today with the full power of IIS," Guthrie said.
Downloadable at Microsoft's website, IIS Express 7.5 can be installed side-by-side with a full IIS Web server and the ASP.Net Development Server. It works on Windows XP and higher operating systems.
The Web server arrives in a week when Microsoft also shipped ASP.Net MVC 3 and the WebMatrix Web development tool. Also arriving this week was SQL Server Compact Edition 4, a free, embedded database engine. It runs in-memory within an ASP.Net application. "SQL CE does not require you to run a setup or install a database server in order to use it. You can simply copy the SQL CE binaries into the \bin directory of your ASP.Net application, and then your Web application can use it as a database engine," Guthrie said.
Usable for development, testing, or light production scenarios, SQL CE 4 works with existing .Net data APIs and supports a SQL Server-compatible query syntax. "This means you can use existing data APIs like ADO.Net as well as use higher-level ORMs like Entity Framework and NHibernate with SQL CE. This enables you to use the same data programming skills and data APIs you know today," said Guthrie.
Version 4 has been engineered to ensure that SQL CE will not crash or deadlock when used in a multi-threaded server scenario, such as with ASP.Net.
Microsoft's Orchard 1.0, released this week as well, provides a content management and blogging system along with enabling development and management of Web sites without having to write code. "Orchard itself is built as an ASP.Net MVC 3 application using Razor view templates (and by default uses SQL CE 4 for data storage). Developers wishing to extend an Orchard site with custom functionality can open and edit it as a Visual Studio project -- and add new ASP.Net MVC Controllers/Views to it," said Guthrie.
Also offered by Microsoft this week were Microsoft Web Deploy V2 and Web Farm Framework V2. "These services provide a flexible and powerful way to deploy ASP.Net applications onto either a single server, or across a Web farm of machines," Guthrie said.
This article, "Microsoft offers Web server for developers," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com
IIS Express 7.5 enhances developers' ability to develop and test Web applications on Windows by combining IIS 7.5 strengths and lightweight Web server capabilities, Microsoft said. Working with both ASP.Net Web Forms and ASP.Net MVC project types, IIS Express 7.5 is a download of fewer than 5MB and does not require an administrator account to run or debug applications from Visual Studio, said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president in the Microsoft Developer Division, in a blog post on Thursday. The product offers a full Web server feature set, including SSL, URL Rewrite, and other IIS 7.x modules.
"We think IIS Express combines the ease of use of the ASP.Net Web Server (aka Cassini) currently built-into Visual Studio today with the full power of IIS," Guthrie said.
Downloadable at Microsoft's website, IIS Express 7.5 can be installed side-by-side with a full IIS Web server and the ASP.Net Development Server. It works on Windows XP and higher operating systems.
The Web server arrives in a week when Microsoft also shipped ASP.Net MVC 3 and the WebMatrix Web development tool. Also arriving this week was SQL Server Compact Edition 4, a free, embedded database engine. It runs in-memory within an ASP.Net application. "SQL CE does not require you to run a setup or install a database server in order to use it. You can simply copy the SQL CE binaries into the \bin directory of your ASP.Net application, and then your Web application can use it as a database engine," Guthrie said.
Usable for development, testing, or light production scenarios, SQL CE 4 works with existing .Net data APIs and supports a SQL Server-compatible query syntax. "This means you can use existing data APIs like ADO.Net as well as use higher-level ORMs like Entity Framework and NHibernate with SQL CE. This enables you to use the same data programming skills and data APIs you know today," said Guthrie.
Version 4 has been engineered to ensure that SQL CE will not crash or deadlock when used in a multi-threaded server scenario, such as with ASP.Net.
Microsoft's Orchard 1.0, released this week as well, provides a content management and blogging system along with enabling development and management of Web sites without having to write code. "Orchard itself is built as an ASP.Net MVC 3 application using Razor view templates (and by default uses SQL CE 4 for data storage). Developers wishing to extend an Orchard site with custom functionality can open and edit it as a Visual Studio project -- and add new ASP.Net MVC Controllers/Views to it," said Guthrie.
Also offered by Microsoft this week were Microsoft Web Deploy V2 and Web Farm Framework V2. "These services provide a flexible and powerful way to deploy ASP.Net applications onto either a single server, or across a Web farm of machines," Guthrie said.
This article, "Microsoft offers Web server for developers," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com
Saturday, January 15, 2011
How People Show Fake Proof of Income?
I am sure almost everyone related to SEO and Webmaster World, have witness several videos posted on several websites to show proof of their earning. I was always wondering as how people do that. How they show real accounts and secure websites but with mind blowing earnings. Finally, I got the answer. Here is a video that shows it and then another one video on his website to show you how he did it
Isn’t it interesting? More than that, it teaches us not to beleive video demonstrations of anyone claiming big mind blowing incomes.
Here is the site that shows how this guy manipulated it. {www.404defender.com}
Isn’t it interesting? More than that, it teaches us not to beleive video demonstrations of anyone claiming big mind blowing incomes.
Here is the site that shows how this guy manipulated it. {www.404defender.com}
Free Software License from Microsoft
Microsoft is offering free licenses of Windows Web Server and SQL Server Web Edition along with Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition to small software development companies. This is a great way to put your hands on Microsoft Technologies and even to start your Web Hosting business if you can help manage high bandwidth reliable Internet Connection. This program is known as WebSitePark and here is its link,
http://www.microsoft.com/web/WebSiteSpark/
There are two major requirements for any company to qualify for this program and they are as follows,
You should have 10 or fewer Employees
You should be building websites and web application for others (your customers)
I think there are many companies in Pakistan that qualify above requirements and they should rush to sign up before it goes down. Here are other benefits of this program,
A third-party premium Web site control panel (DotNetPanel)
Two technical support incidents per company
Unlimited access to technical managed newsgroups on MSDN
Unlimited program support for nontechnical issues
Listing in WebsiteSpark marketplace
So what you are waiting for? Go and get it.
http://www.microsoft.com/web/WebSiteSpark/
There are two major requirements for any company to qualify for this program and they are as follows,
You should have 10 or fewer Employees
You should be building websites and web application for others (your customers)
I think there are many companies in Pakistan that qualify above requirements and they should rush to sign up before it goes down. Here are other benefits of this program,
A third-party premium Web site control panel (DotNetPanel)
Two technical support incidents per company
Unlimited access to technical managed newsgroups on MSDN
Unlimited program support for nontechnical issues
Listing in WebsiteSpark marketplace
So what you are waiting for? Go and get it.
The Business Model – Make Money Online through Adsense
After conducting enough research and my own personal experiments, I have come to the conclusion that if you wanted to make money online through Google Adense, you have to follow a Business Model described below. This business model is a key to success no matter either your goals are short term or long term.
This Business Model consists of following four steps.
Step 1: Selection of a Niche and Keyword Research
Step 2: Domain Name Selection and Website Development
Step 3: Internet Marketing (SEO and SEM)
Step 4: Monetizing Website
Step 5: Monitoring and Improvement
Selection of a Niche and Keyword Research
The first and the most important part of this business model is selection of a Niche. This niche should have enough demand and traffic to meet your income objectives. This estimate can be prepared by finding keywords in that Niche and calculating their PPC rates as well as number of searches per day. It is also very important not to select an already saturated niche as it will take a long time for your website to come up in that competition. The best niche is the one that has more than 10,000 searches per day (top 100 to 150 keywords) and an average PPC rate in between $1 t $2 with less competitive websites being found on those search keywords at google, yahoo and bing.
Domain Name Selection and Website Development
Once a Niche has been selected, it is critical to choose a Domain Name that help visitors to understand its scope (purpose) from its name. Moreover, from SEO point of view, it is important that your main keyword should have been included in the domain name (A domain name which is itself a keyword is known as Nugget Domain). If a single word keyword domain is not available, it would be wise to choose a composite keyword domain (a domain name having more than one keyword in it).
Another important aspect is the type of TLD (Com, Net, Org etc) you should choose for your domain. A .COM is already preferred domain no matter whatever purpose you have from that domain. However I shall give equal importance to .NET and .ORG as well. But be careful not to choose .INFO or .BIZ domains. They are not as search engine friendly as the first three TLDs.
After choosing a domain name, it is the time to start the buildup. As you want to earn money by displaying Google Adsense so you need a website full of contents. If you are good in writing English articles, then prepare it yourself otherwise hire some freelancer to do the job for you. Make sure it must be end user friendly. Try to focus one or two keywords per page/article so that it should be easier to do SEO for it.
Internet Marketing (SEO and SEM)
Once you have got your website up and running, you need to focus on its Marketing i.e. SEO and SEM. SEO stands Search Engine Optimization while SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. In SEO, there are activities to make your website optimized for search engines to crawl and rank your website or page for desired keyword. These activities are called On-site SEO and Off-site SEO. In On-Site SEO, it is tried to made web page titles, URLs and contents to show desired keyword frequently. Creating an optimized navigation throughout the website is also part of On-Site SEO. While in Off-site SEO, efforts are made to spread links of website or its pages across the Internet. As much websites would be pointing to your website as more benefit you will get from search engines in ranking. A link from other website to your website is counted a vote of confidence. More links mean more confidence and hence search engines will give your website more importance in ranking.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is focused on advertising with search engines for PPC campaigns or through affiliate networks. The basic objective of SEM is to bring more and more quality traffic to your website and establish a brand name.
Monetizing Website
Once you got your website visibility in search engines and got some other traffic resources, it is time to monetize the traffic. The best way to monetize rich content website is to display Google Adsense there. Apply for Google Adsense account if you don’t have one. They need your website URL to confirm that you are serious publisher. Once your website is approved, you can put ads on as many websites as you want. However it is important to read their Terms of Service to make sure you are not going to violate any of their term which can result in your account being banned.
There are other PPC networks such as Ads Bright, Clicksor, Bidvertizer etc. But it is a common opition that no one else is as profitable as Google Adsense.
Moreover, you can use some monetizing networks along with your Google Adsense such as Chitika. However they pay quite low as compared to Google Adsense. But you can use it intelligently to actually use it in addition to Google Adsense and not as an alternative.
Monitoring and Improvement
Once you got your website up and some cash dropping by into your account. It is time to monitor sources of your traffic. Track traffic keywords and your website ranking for those keywords. Improving your ranking for such keywords means more traffic which will obviously convert into cash for you ultimately. Moreover, try to find out more keywords related to your niche and keep adding more pages (targeting these new keywords) from time to time.
Google provides a very handy and useful resource Google Analytics to help you monitor your website traffic. Go and use it for your website. There is no alternative to this not even in paid services.
This Business Model consists of following four steps.
Step 1: Selection of a Niche and Keyword Research
Step 2: Domain Name Selection and Website Development
Step 3: Internet Marketing (SEO and SEM)
Step 4: Monetizing Website
Step 5: Monitoring and Improvement
Selection of a Niche and Keyword Research
The first and the most important part of this business model is selection of a Niche. This niche should have enough demand and traffic to meet your income objectives. This estimate can be prepared by finding keywords in that Niche and calculating their PPC rates as well as number of searches per day. It is also very important not to select an already saturated niche as it will take a long time for your website to come up in that competition. The best niche is the one that has more than 10,000 searches per day (top 100 to 150 keywords) and an average PPC rate in between $1 t $2 with less competitive websites being found on those search keywords at google, yahoo and bing.
Domain Name Selection and Website Development
Once a Niche has been selected, it is critical to choose a Domain Name that help visitors to understand its scope (purpose) from its name. Moreover, from SEO point of view, it is important that your main keyword should have been included in the domain name (A domain name which is itself a keyword is known as Nugget Domain). If a single word keyword domain is not available, it would be wise to choose a composite keyword domain (a domain name having more than one keyword in it).
Another important aspect is the type of TLD (Com, Net, Org etc) you should choose for your domain. A .COM is already preferred domain no matter whatever purpose you have from that domain. However I shall give equal importance to .NET and .ORG as well. But be careful not to choose .INFO or .BIZ domains. They are not as search engine friendly as the first three TLDs.
After choosing a domain name, it is the time to start the buildup. As you want to earn money by displaying Google Adsense so you need a website full of contents. If you are good in writing English articles, then prepare it yourself otherwise hire some freelancer to do the job for you. Make sure it must be end user friendly. Try to focus one or two keywords per page/article so that it should be easier to do SEO for it.
Internet Marketing (SEO and SEM)
Once you have got your website up and running, you need to focus on its Marketing i.e. SEO and SEM. SEO stands Search Engine Optimization while SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. In SEO, there are activities to make your website optimized for search engines to crawl and rank your website or page for desired keyword. These activities are called On-site SEO and Off-site SEO. In On-Site SEO, it is tried to made web page titles, URLs and contents to show desired keyword frequently. Creating an optimized navigation throughout the website is also part of On-Site SEO. While in Off-site SEO, efforts are made to spread links of website or its pages across the Internet. As much websites would be pointing to your website as more benefit you will get from search engines in ranking. A link from other website to your website is counted a vote of confidence. More links mean more confidence and hence search engines will give your website more importance in ranking.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is focused on advertising with search engines for PPC campaigns or through affiliate networks. The basic objective of SEM is to bring more and more quality traffic to your website and establish a brand name.
Monetizing Website
Once you got your website visibility in search engines and got some other traffic resources, it is time to monetize the traffic. The best way to monetize rich content website is to display Google Adsense there. Apply for Google Adsense account if you don’t have one. They need your website URL to confirm that you are serious publisher. Once your website is approved, you can put ads on as many websites as you want. However it is important to read their Terms of Service to make sure you are not going to violate any of their term which can result in your account being banned.
There are other PPC networks such as Ads Bright, Clicksor, Bidvertizer etc. But it is a common opition that no one else is as profitable as Google Adsense.
Moreover, you can use some monetizing networks along with your Google Adsense such as Chitika. However they pay quite low as compared to Google Adsense. But you can use it intelligently to actually use it in addition to Google Adsense and not as an alternative.
Monitoring and Improvement
Once you got your website up and some cash dropping by into your account. It is time to monitor sources of your traffic. Track traffic keywords and your website ranking for those keywords. Improving your ranking for such keywords means more traffic which will obviously convert into cash for you ultimately. Moreover, try to find out more keywords related to your niche and keep adding more pages (targeting these new keywords) from time to time.
Google provides a very handy and useful resource Google Analytics to help you monitor your website traffic. Go and use it for your website. There is no alternative to this not even in paid services.
Adsense Earning of Comsdev, Pakistan
In my efforts to find out Pakistani Adsense earners, I have realized that most of them are hesitating to disclose their earning details. I don’t know why they do it. Hence I am taking the initiative myself by posting a scanned cheque of my last month’s earning.
I know this is not a big amount at all. However by posting this, I hope to encourage some big Pakistani Adsense Earners to disclose their earning details and hence become a role model for rest of webmasters.
Here is the cheque of USD 959.57, I just received it today.
I know this is not a big amount at all. However by posting this, I hope to encourage some big Pakistani Adsense Earners to disclose their earning details and hence become a role model for rest of webmasters.
Here is the cheque of USD 959.57, I just received it today.
Adsense Earners (International)
How Christy made $10,000 per month from Adsense
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Today, I wanted to share story of Christy from My-Thank-You-Site.com. She earned her financial freedom with only four websites while the My-Thank-You-Site.com was her first success. This story gives us motivation as how a house mom earned a decent earning through internet and using Google Adsense. If she can do it…. Why not anyone else?
Christy heard about online business but never actually attempted it. Then finally she thought to give it a try and she researched about a niche to create her first website. She find “Thank You” topic as what she herself call a good topic to spend her time on. Here is what her aim was when she get started.
“Even if I didn’t make a nickel, would I feel good that I spent time doing this?”
She loves to write on this topic without a feeling of burdened or doing something like a duty.
Quality of content is what she always focused on. She wrote something that she feels good about and hence every reader of her feel good as well while reading it.
Her first milestone was 100 unique visitors per day. Here is how she describes it,
“My first 100 unique visitor day! This happened after two months with 40 pages of content and beginning link building via article and directory submissions.”
However moving forward from here took her lots of research and guidance from seniors. She research low traffic (less than 100 searches per day) keywords with less saturation. She targeted those keywords and found quick success. This technique helped her to gather more than a couple of thousand visitors per day on her website and hence increased revenue from Google Adsense.
She earned her first $1000 per month from Google Adsense on first anniversary of this website. Then she planned her second project and moved on.
She reached to her financial freedom within a couple of year. She earns more than $10,000 per month from all of her four websites and still work only a few hours a day.
She is enjoying The Dot Com Lifestyle.
Tags: $10000 for adsense, 000 from adsense, earning from adsense, how to make 10
Posted in Adsense Earners (International) | No Comments »
Markus Frind of PlentyOfFish.com Earns $300,000 per month
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
Here is a success story with Google Adsense where Markus Frind (A 30 Year old guy) earned $300,000 in just one month through Adsense. He runs PlentyOfFish.com which is a free dating website targeting Canada, UK, Australia and United States. According to his own claims, he is having 1 billion page impressions per month.
Markus Frind graduated in 1999 from British Columbia Institute of Technology. After graduation, he tried several companies for period of 3 to 4 years but wasn’t able to settle down anywhere. In 2003, he started learning ASP.NET and then his first website was his own (PlentyOfFish.com). How lucky he has been as his first flight was so successfulJ.
Below is his 3 month earning cheque.
PlentyOfFish earned $1100 for the very first month of July 2003 and then this journey gets started. He has shown a proof of earning $300,000 per month in early 2006. How much he earns right now? Nobody knows. But anyone can make a guessJ.
Here are a couple of Interviews published on Internet.
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Today, I wanted to share story of Christy from My-Thank-You-Site.com. She earned her financial freedom with only four websites while the My-Thank-You-Site.com was her first success. This story gives us motivation as how a house mom earned a decent earning through internet and using Google Adsense. If she can do it…. Why not anyone else?
Christy heard about online business but never actually attempted it. Then finally she thought to give it a try and she researched about a niche to create her first website. She find “Thank You” topic as what she herself call a good topic to spend her time on. Here is what her aim was when she get started.
“Even if I didn’t make a nickel, would I feel good that I spent time doing this?”
She loves to write on this topic without a feeling of burdened or doing something like a duty.
Quality of content is what she always focused on. She wrote something that she feels good about and hence every reader of her feel good as well while reading it.
Her first milestone was 100 unique visitors per day. Here is how she describes it,
“My first 100 unique visitor day! This happened after two months with 40 pages of content and beginning link building via article and directory submissions.”
However moving forward from here took her lots of research and guidance from seniors. She research low traffic (less than 100 searches per day) keywords with less saturation. She targeted those keywords and found quick success. This technique helped her to gather more than a couple of thousand visitors per day on her website and hence increased revenue from Google Adsense.
She earned her first $1000 per month from Google Adsense on first anniversary of this website. Then she planned her second project and moved on.
She reached to her financial freedom within a couple of year. She earns more than $10,000 per month from all of her four websites and still work only a few hours a day.
She is enjoying The Dot Com Lifestyle.
Tags: $10000 for adsense, 000 from adsense, earning from adsense, how to make 10
Posted in Adsense Earners (International) | No Comments »
Markus Frind of PlentyOfFish.com Earns $300,000 per month
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
Here is a success story with Google Adsense where Markus Frind (A 30 Year old guy) earned $300,000 in just one month through Adsense. He runs PlentyOfFish.com which is a free dating website targeting Canada, UK, Australia and United States. According to his own claims, he is having 1 billion page impressions per month.
Markus Frind graduated in 1999 from British Columbia Institute of Technology. After graduation, he tried several companies for period of 3 to 4 years but wasn’t able to settle down anywhere. In 2003, he started learning ASP.NET and then his first website was his own (PlentyOfFish.com). How lucky he has been as his first flight was so successfulJ.
Below is his 3 month earning cheque.
PlentyOfFish earned $1100 for the very first month of July 2003 and then this journey gets started. He has shown a proof of earning $300,000 per month in early 2006. How much he earns right now? Nobody knows. But anyone can make a guessJ.
Here are a couple of Interviews published on Internet.
The Dot Com Lifestyle
A common man in Pakistan is very surprised as why everyone in Pakistan (related to IT) is so mad about Google Adsense? I was also among them too and hence my research began to find out more and more about Google Adsense as well as people who are earning through Google Adsense. Allow me to share my conclusion and summary of findings through this blog post.
n fact, this is all about The Dot Com Lifestyle. A lifestyle that allows you to quit your 9Am to 5Pm job and relax at home while working in your own defined and desired times. It offers you to work only a few hours daily rather than 8hrs heavy duty. The most fascinated thing about The Dot Com Lifestyle is that you earn money while you sleep or go on vacations. Such type of lifestyle is IDEAL in current Pakistani Business conditions because of Electricity Crisis. In The Dot Com Lifestyle, it doesn’t hurt if you don’t have power for 8hrs or even 12hrs a day. Your money making machine (website) is already hosted on a server at USA where there is no concept of load shedding.
The Dot Com Lifestyle business model is about occupying a Virtual Cyber Space online in order to host bunch of visitors by offering them quality contents and then presenting them advertisements (PPC or Affiliate Campaigns) in order to monetize it. It is by no means a simple job to do as it has its inherent complexity and lot of tricks to know. But it is worthy to invest some time in it as it can give you financial freedom and more time for your friends and family. Google Adsense has made it very easy for website owners to find non-stop advertisements related to your website contents. You just need to focus on quality of contents and maintaining a good amount of visitors on your website. That’s all.
The purpose of setting up this website Google Adsense in Pakistan is to put together all necessary information for young and newcomers to get started with The Dot Com Lifestyle. You can find success stories, earning techniques, tips and free stuff to help you shift to The Dot Com Lifestyle smoothly without taking any risk.
So keep in touch with this website and you will not be disappointed.
n fact, this is all about The Dot Com Lifestyle. A lifestyle that allows you to quit your 9Am to 5Pm job and relax at home while working in your own defined and desired times. It offers you to work only a few hours daily rather than 8hrs heavy duty. The most fascinated thing about The Dot Com Lifestyle is that you earn money while you sleep or go on vacations. Such type of lifestyle is IDEAL in current Pakistani Business conditions because of Electricity Crisis. In The Dot Com Lifestyle, it doesn’t hurt if you don’t have power for 8hrs or even 12hrs a day. Your money making machine (website) is already hosted on a server at USA where there is no concept of load shedding.
The Dot Com Lifestyle business model is about occupying a Virtual Cyber Space online in order to host bunch of visitors by offering them quality contents and then presenting them advertisements (PPC or Affiliate Campaigns) in order to monetize it. It is by no means a simple job to do as it has its inherent complexity and lot of tricks to know. But it is worthy to invest some time in it as it can give you financial freedom and more time for your friends and family. Google Adsense has made it very easy for website owners to find non-stop advertisements related to your website contents. You just need to focus on quality of contents and maintaining a good amount of visitors on your website. That’s all.
The purpose of setting up this website Google Adsense in Pakistan is to put together all necessary information for young and newcomers to get started with The Dot Com Lifestyle. You can find success stories, earning techniques, tips and free stuff to help you shift to The Dot Com Lifestyle smoothly without taking any risk.
So keep in touch with this website and you will not be disappointed.
Web Site Promotion
Promoting your website is the key in earning money. Good promotion means good amount of traffic and traffic is money for you.
Here are basic 5 ways to promote your website no matter what kind of a website you run.
Social Bookmarking
Forum Posting
Blog Posting
Directory Submission
Link Exchange
There are many bookmarking services like del.icio.us, stumbleupon.com, foldk.com etc. People bookmark their favorite sites to make them available to them no matter where ever they are. Similarly, people also like to search through bookmarks of others as they feel it valuable. Hence bookmarking your website (maximum pages) can result in good and quality traffic coming to your site.
Forum Posting is a way by which webmasters sign up on forums related to their website niche and then participate in discussions while leaving their website’s signature in the footer of their message. It is important that one should use appropriate keyword as anchor text for such footers so that it should not only attract its reader but also become useful in improving search engine rankings. Usually forums allow up to 3 signature links in your forum posts. However several forums don’t allow even one. So be careful and choose only those forums where they allow signatures.
Blog Posting is very useful if you do run your own blog. Go and search about blogs related to your blog and then read posts to submit your comments on that with a link to your website. Usually blog comments are submitted with a link back to your site. Moreover, you can also refer to a particular post URL of your blog in the comment message if it is related to the post your are commenting on. This will direct more visitors to your site. Blog Posts can also help improve your search engine ranking. However
Google only counts Do Follow blog comments. So be careful while posting.
Directory Submission is an old but still useful way of promoting a new website. There are thousands of website directories available on internet that allows you free or paid listing. Initially, you can only focus on free directories but later on as you grow, you can purchase listing in good quality directories such as yahoo directory.
Link Exchange is a bit technical stuff for webmasters. In this way, website owner search related websites and then drop them an email to see if they are interested in link exchange. A two way link exchange give equal benefits to both parties. However there are also more advanced techniques such as Tree-Way link exchanges that give the benefits of one way links. Moreover, some sites also sell one way links on per month or year basis. However google dislike link trade. So better to avoid it.
No related posts.
Here are basic 5 ways to promote your website no matter what kind of a website you run.
Social Bookmarking
Forum Posting
Blog Posting
Directory Submission
Link Exchange
There are many bookmarking services like del.icio.us, stumbleupon.com, foldk.com etc. People bookmark their favorite sites to make them available to them no matter where ever they are. Similarly, people also like to search through bookmarks of others as they feel it valuable. Hence bookmarking your website (maximum pages) can result in good and quality traffic coming to your site.
Forum Posting is a way by which webmasters sign up on forums related to their website niche and then participate in discussions while leaving their website’s signature in the footer of their message. It is important that one should use appropriate keyword as anchor text for such footers so that it should not only attract its reader but also become useful in improving search engine rankings. Usually forums allow up to 3 signature links in your forum posts. However several forums don’t allow even one. So be careful and choose only those forums where they allow signatures.
Blog Posting is very useful if you do run your own blog. Go and search about blogs related to your blog and then read posts to submit your comments on that with a link to your website. Usually blog comments are submitted with a link back to your site. Moreover, you can also refer to a particular post URL of your blog in the comment message if it is related to the post your are commenting on. This will direct more visitors to your site. Blog Posts can also help improve your search engine ranking. However
Google only counts Do Follow blog comments. So be careful while posting.
Directory Submission is an old but still useful way of promoting a new website. There are thousands of website directories available on internet that allows you free or paid listing. Initially, you can only focus on free directories but later on as you grow, you can purchase listing in good quality directories such as yahoo directory.
Link Exchange is a bit technical stuff for webmasters. In this way, website owner search related websites and then drop them an email to see if they are interested in link exchange. A two way link exchange give equal benefits to both parties. However there are also more advanced techniques such as Tree-Way link exchanges that give the benefits of one way links. Moreover, some sites also sell one way links on per month or year basis. However google dislike link trade. So better to avoid it.
No related posts.
The Art of Keyword Research
In my previous post (long ago), I discussed Google Ranking Factors. Today I wanted to share some tips for Keyword Research. Keyword Research is very important for the success of your website. Carefully selected keywords can bring thousands of visitors to your website while poor selection can eat you up by means of cost but will attract only a few visitors. Remember, visitors are your revenue. More visitors simply result in more revenue.
I have used around a dozen Keyword Research tools both free as well as paid. However the best one I have found is Google keyword Tool. It is very accurate and free to use. However you need some experience to better understand how to use it. Just spend more and more time to experiment different ideas for a keyword and you will see your desired results coming up. A quick short tip is to use MS Word’s Thesaurus facility. Write your word and then hit Shift+F7 after highlight it and it will give you alternative words with similar meaning. Try those words in Google Keyword Tool and you can get lots of new keywords to target for your website.
Long Tail Keywords
It is a common problem that most of Pakistani webmasters don’t understand how to use Keyword Research Tools. For instance, when they do search on keyword “Gadget” they think about targeting high traffic keywords like “cool gadgets”, “tech gadgets”, “electronic gadgets” etc. Hence they fall down because they face immense completion on these keywords. Even if they can achieve first page position on such tough keywords, they won’t get much traffic. So what they did wrong?
First of all, understand that monthly searches referred in google keyword tool are not actual traffic on that keyword. It is an accumulated sum of keywords that include this keyword. For instance, google shows monthly searches for “tech gadgets” as 135K. It sounds like more than 4,000 searches per day. However it is not correct. Google includes searches of “best tech gadgets”, “hi tech gadgets”, “electronic tech gadgets” etc in this keyword. Hence 135K represents monthly searches of all keywords having “tech gadgets” as a part of it. People searching on “tech gadgets” exactly wouldn’t be much more than 200 searches per day. Hence targeting this keyword will result in tough competition and low return.
So what should we do to get lower completion and higher return? Focus more on Long Tail Keywords than short one or two word keyword. In our example, “spy gadgets for the evil genius” is a long tail keyword. Even you can try to target “cool gadgets for men” instead of “cool gadgets” And target “tech gadgets 2009” instead of “tech gadgets” and vice versa. You might have noticed a lower search volume for these keywords but they will not be tough in completion and with a quality content page, you can easily get ranking in top 5 positions which will result in traffic more quickly coming to your website than if you have targeted some high competition keyword.
I have used around a dozen Keyword Research tools both free as well as paid. However the best one I have found is Google keyword Tool. It is very accurate and free to use. However you need some experience to better understand how to use it. Just spend more and more time to experiment different ideas for a keyword and you will see your desired results coming up. A quick short tip is to use MS Word’s Thesaurus facility. Write your word and then hit Shift+F7 after highlight it and it will give you alternative words with similar meaning. Try those words in Google Keyword Tool and you can get lots of new keywords to target for your website.
Long Tail Keywords
It is a common problem that most of Pakistani webmasters don’t understand how to use Keyword Research Tools. For instance, when they do search on keyword “Gadget” they think about targeting high traffic keywords like “cool gadgets”, “tech gadgets”, “electronic gadgets” etc. Hence they fall down because they face immense completion on these keywords. Even if they can achieve first page position on such tough keywords, they won’t get much traffic. So what they did wrong?
First of all, understand that monthly searches referred in google keyword tool are not actual traffic on that keyword. It is an accumulated sum of keywords that include this keyword. For instance, google shows monthly searches for “tech gadgets” as 135K. It sounds like more than 4,000 searches per day. However it is not correct. Google includes searches of “best tech gadgets”, “hi tech gadgets”, “electronic tech gadgets” etc in this keyword. Hence 135K represents monthly searches of all keywords having “tech gadgets” as a part of it. People searching on “tech gadgets” exactly wouldn’t be much more than 200 searches per day. Hence targeting this keyword will result in tough competition and low return.
So what should we do to get lower completion and higher return? Focus more on Long Tail Keywords than short one or two word keyword. In our example, “spy gadgets for the evil genius” is a long tail keyword. Even you can try to target “cool gadgets for men” instead of “cool gadgets” And target “tech gadgets 2009” instead of “tech gadgets” and vice versa. You might have noticed a lower search volume for these keywords but they will not be tough in completion and with a quality content page, you can easily get ranking in top 5 positions which will result in traffic more quickly coming to your website than if you have targeted some high competition keyword.
Why We Buy Domain
I have discussed five different ways of Web Site Promotion in my one of previous posts. Now think about some webmasters that register hundreds or even thousands of domains and then performing website promotion activities for each one of them. At the renewal time, they check traffic status of each and every domain and whatever goes above their minimum threshold, they renewed it. All others are left to expire. Such domains are not worthy for them to keep working but these are nuggets for newbie or small scale webmasters because lot of working has already been done for these websites. One can easily purchase it and create a few pages website around it to start making some money with that low traffic. Most of all, these domains provide you best back links to your websites that can’t be achieved even by buying links.
I have bought two domains in past. Both has had PR raised to 4 on next Google PR Update. I have supported several of my sites using these two good quality expired domains. So it is worthy to find such domains in long daily lists of expired domains. However question comes to mind as how we can check which domain is worthy to buy? Here are some tips,
Give importance to the Name of Website. Is that a keyword? Brandable name or Technology specific domain?
Check Alexa backlinks. See what sites are still linking to them.
Check Google PR (For several domains google PR still shows up).
Prefer .com, .net and .org domains only.
Once selected, go to archive.org and find out what kind of contents were posted there in the recent past.
Using above tips, one can easily find out several useful nugget domains to get started. This business technique requires some investment in start but is well worthy once you understand it well.
Good luck, and let me know if someone already using this trick.
I have bought two domains in past. Both has had PR raised to 4 on next Google PR Update. I have supported several of my sites using these two good quality expired domains. So it is worthy to find such domains in long daily lists of expired domains. However question comes to mind as how we can check which domain is worthy to buy? Here are some tips,
Give importance to the Name of Website. Is that a keyword? Brandable name or Technology specific domain?
Check Alexa backlinks. See what sites are still linking to them.
Check Google PR (For several domains google PR still shows up).
Prefer .com, .net and .org domains only.
Once selected, go to archive.org and find out what kind of contents were posted there in the recent past.
Using above tips, one can easily find out several useful nugget domains to get started. This business technique requires some investment in start but is well worthy once you understand it well.
Good luck, and let me know if someone already using this trick.
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