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How to link Twitter to Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sat, 1 May 2010 03:47:00 -0700

Over the past few months my blog has received thousands of hits a day from users looking for information on how they can link Twitter to Facebook. The following is a brief collection of links that will help all of you find what you need:

Twitter’s official page on how to add Twitter to Facebook. The Twitter app for Facebook integrates Twitter into your Facebook experience.

Here is the most popular Twitter Facebook Application.

A blog post from a Facebook employee discussing Publishing to Twitter from Facebook Pages.

The Facebook application Selective Tweets. Selective Tweet Status lets you update your Facebook status from Twitter – BUT you can choose which tweets you want – just end a tweet with #fb when you want to post it as your Facebook status – simple!

A nifty Facebook Page that helps you manage your Facebook Fan Pages connection to Twitter accounts.

Hope this helps!

perform real-time search using Google

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:55:00 -0700

Google recently added the functionality to perform real-time search across social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Though this functionality is added, however, these options are not turned on by default. To perform a real-time search using Google, here is how you should proceed.

As usual, go to the Google homepage and enter a keyword or a search term. Click on ‘Search’ button and you will be on the search results page. Now to see the real-time search results for the keyword (search term) you entered, you should first click on “Show Options” button.

You will see that a left pan comes up. This pan allows you to limit your search results to videos, images, blogs, forums, books, etc. Click on “Latest” option in this pan. You will see that the Twitter and Facebook public feeds will show up and will get updated in real time.

How to remove followers from your Twitter account

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 7 Mar 2010 01:54:00 -0800

It's one of the basic information that you should know about Twitter.(for begginers)

Twitter is a web-based social networking application that allows you to post short updates in real-time for other people to keep track of. Unless you protect your Twitter posts, anybody who has a Twitter account can choose to 'Follow' you and be part of your social network. If you don't want someone to follow you on Twitter, you can make use of the 'Block' feature that prevents your updates from showing up in another person's profile page. Here's how to remove followers from your Twitter account.

Instructions

Step 1

“Log in to your Twitter account. Enter your email address or username, and password into the login screen. Sign in to access your account.”

Step 2

“Select "Followers" from the right hand sidebar. This area is the middle column directly under your profile image. Clicking it will take you to the list of people who are following you on Twitter.”

Step 3

“Track down the follower you want to block. Scroll through your followers list to find the person that you want to disable the follow feature for. You can scroll through multiple pages using the "Next" button at the bottom right hand corner of the page.”

Step 4

“Select "Block" next to the follower's name. You will be taken to another screen that will ask you to confirm whether or not you want to block that person.”

Step 5

“Confirm the block. Select, "OKAY, I STILL WANT TO BLOCK THIS PERSON" to remove him from your followers list.”

Create a group on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 09:09:00 -0800

Facebook Pages may be taking the social network by storm, but they can take time and technical skill to set up. When you need to promote something quickly, or are looking to foster a stronger sense of community, the more traditional Facebook Group is often the way to go.

While not as fancy as Pages, Groups offer many of the same features, with a slightly more streamlined look. This makes it easy for virtually anyone to create a Group, for any number of purposes, and get them live quickly—an important benefit in the time-sensitive social media sphere.

However, the ease and speed with which a Group can be set up has created a lot of spammy or messy Groups that are slapped together in minutes and abandoned soon after. In order to break through the clutter and gain members, you need to take the time to set up a Group correctly. Here are a few tips:

Global, Open, and Public

In order to get the maximum reach and value out of your Group, you need to ensure that anyone who wants to can join, without you having to approve them. You also want them to be able to invite their friends, as this cuts down on the work for you and allows you to focus on building a Group people want to join and share with other people. So, when setting up your Group, make sure you create it as a “Global” Group so it is visible to all ofFacebook, and that the access is set to “Open,” allowing members to invite friends. Members should also be able to post and share links and media on the Group page.

Fill Out All Fields

First and foremost, you absolutely must include as much information as possible—not JUST the required fields. This is what truly separates a successful, professional Group from a spammy, “I-lost-my-phone, give-me-your-numbers” Group. Don’t go overboard with lengthy text—stick to basic web-reading principles—but don’t leave anything blank. This includes the image field: think of it like a profile picture; would you really friend someone with a question mark for a head? Didn’t think so.

Use Correct Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

Another huge tip-off that a Group was slapped together in a few minutes and won’t provide much value to members? Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Print out your Group and proofread it to make sure it says what you want and reads the way you want it to sound.

Include Keywords for Easier Search

Groups are indexed by the ever-evolving Facebook search, as well as traditional search engines. So having a completely and accurately filled-out Group description not only looks good and provides valuable information to those clicking on an invite, it also increases the chance that a potential member will find your Group while searching for similar topics, organizations or events. Put on your SEO hat when coming up with a Group name and crafting a description; think of keywords people would associate with your content or purpose of the Group and popular searches around your topic of interest.

Use With Profile or Page

When Facebook first introduced Pages, they offered Group admins the option of automatically transitioning members into fans. As a result, many brands now have a single presence on Facebook, in the form of a Page. But in order to launch a Group, you need a “parent” Page or Profile. This will give you a base from which to invite people and provide you with a more human connection.

Make New Friends

Since a Group cannot exist on its own (see above), your Profile, as admin, will more than likely be tied to the initial members, as they will have to be your friends in order to invite them. Send a friend request that explains how or why you found people and want to be friends. Selling socks? Search for “funky socks” and friend people in relevant groups, with a personal message attached to the friend request that says something along the lines of “I share your love for unique footwear."

Segment Friend Lists

While building your friend list (and by extension, potential member base for your Group), segment your friends into lists relevant to the Group for future marketing purposes. If you start friending random people based on a search for similar Groups, name lists after the keywords you searched for to find these people. The “funky socks” friends could go in a list called “funky” or “crazy patterns,” so you know that these people will appreciate updates on your more outlandish designs.

Incorporate Events

Events and groups have a greater reach than other elements on Facebook, as they have built in “pass it on” functionality. Always include a brief intro when sending event invites and keep them as open as possible: allow guests to invite other people and post their own videos, links and photos. Try out “virtual events” as well, asking people to invite their friends to join the Group.

Participate and Post New Content

Keeping the Group wall, photo and video restrictions open encourages content sharing and discussion, but that only goes so far; you need to post and update yourself as well. In order to create a Group that people remain members of, particularly engaged members, you need to keep the Group’s page fresh. Pages can be automatically updated, and to compete, you need to provide interesting, valuable perspectives or information to members.

Post Links, Photos, Videos

Besides providing fresh content, frequent posting keeps members engaged and allows for greater interaction. Post a link to any site, or off Facebook, to ask members to join, sign up or take action in some way. You can also post photos or videos from events and tag members in them to increase their connection to the Group.

Send Messages

Groups have mass messaging capabilities, allowing you to quickly keep all members up to date on Group news, events and information. Select “message all members” and draft your message like any other private correspondence on Facebook; it will be delivered to members’ Facebook inboxes just like a message from anyone else. This is one advantage Groups have over Pages; Page updates are dumped into a hidden folder, whereas Group messages carry more weight. That said, they lack the formatting functionality of Page updates and can clog up inboxes quickly, so use sparingly. You may also want to utilize your segmented friend lists to deliver more targeted messaging.

As you can see, a lot of elements go into even the simplest of Facebook Groups. But the tools are all there for you; you just need to use them correctly. And as Facebook pushes users from Groups to Pages, it will be easier and easier to stand out from the crowd of “lost cell-phones” and differentiate your Group as one of the ones to stick with.

Survive the New in Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 08:35:00 -0800

Facebook promised a number of changes to appease user concerns about the latest homepage re-design. Users have been noticing these improvements being pushed live to their homepage over the last day or so, and this morning, I finally got them enabled on my account.

After doing a bit of tweaking, I’m definitely enjoying my Facebook homepage more than I was the past couple weeks with version 1 of the redesign. I thought I’d share with you a few of these tweaks – designed primarily to reduce information overload – so you can try them on your own account, unless of course you’re happy with the new, new Facebook as-is.

Custom Friend Lists

This problem probably only applies to those of us that add hundreds of friends, but let’s face it, if you’re reading this article, that’s probably you! I’ve always used Facebook’s custom friend lists, but now, since they’re front and center, it’s time to really take advantage of them.

What I’ve done is create lists for “People I Know” (folks I could actually identify if I ran into them walking down the street), as well as “Colleagues,” “Close Friends,” and “High School,” which, should be self-explanatory. You can create new lists from the “Create” link at the bottom of your list of friend groups on the left side of the Facebook homepage.

One thing you can do – which isn’t immediately obvious, is make any of these groups your default, so it’s what comes up every time you open Facebook. To do that, just drag the list you want as default to the top of the list of groups on the left of your homepage.

If you don’t do this, Facebook will just default to “News Feed,” which shows updates from everyone you’re friends with.

Tweaking These Lists

With the newest rollout, Facebook has also made it easy to tweak these lists at any time. To do so, just click the little icon next to the Group name, select the list you’d like to add someone to, and then start typing in their name. Facebook auto-detects who you might be trying to add. You can do all of this without leaving the page.

Hiding Application Notifications

One common complaint with the new Facebook was the influx of information from third-party apps likeFlickr, YouTube, and Last.fm, ala FriendfeedOne common complaint with the new Facebook was the influx of information from third-party apps likeFlickr, YouTube, and Last.fm, ala Friendfeed. With the homepage improvements, you can now hide not only people from your feed, but specific application alerts as well.In this example, I’ve decided to hide alerts from Last.fm, so I no longer see the songs that my friends are loving:

Other Improvements

Facebook has also moved “Requests” back to the top right of your homepage. This creates more real estate for friend updates above the fold, which is pretty nice once you’ve tweaked the other settings.

What is Twitter?

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 07:07:00 -0800

Twitter describes itself as, “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

If you’re new Twitter, then that description might seem a bit vague and ambiguous. So, to help you wrap your mind around the short-form messaging tool, start thinking about Twitter as a new form of online communication. Twitter is just communication in a new shape, but it’s also a platform for listening to the communication of others in new ways.

Currently we have email, instant messenger, and VoIP tools like Skype as one-to-one or one-to-few online communication tools. For one-to-many online communication, online publishers can turn to blogs to create and distribute content rapidly and reach anyone on the web through RSS feeds.

Twitter is a combination of these various forms of communication, but its primary difference is that posts, or tweets, are restricted to 140 characters or less. As a Twitter user you can post updates, follow and view updates from other users (this is akin to subscribing to a blog’s RSS feed), and send a public reply or private direct message to connect with another Twitterer.

Though users can answer the prompt, “What are you doing?”, tweets have evolved to more than everyday experiences, and take the shape of shared links to interesting content on the web, conversations around hot topics (using hashtags), photos, videos, music, and, most importantly, real-time accounts from people who are in the midst of a newsworthy event, crisis, or natural disaster.

what about Google Voice?

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:28:00 -0800

Google Voice is about giving you more control over your communications, through dozens of features — ranging from call screening to voicemail transcription to the ability to send and receive SMS by email.

While we've heard from users that they love our growing list of features, we're conscious of the fact that Google Voice can seem overwhelming to people trying it for the first time.

So we've created a short video that gives an overview of what Google Voice can do.

In addition, we've created a set of short videos that dive into more detail about ten features of Google Voice:

The videos show why you might want to use each feature and basic instructions for getting started. And each video focuses on just one topic so you can learn about the features that matter to you.

Finally, we just launched our own YouTube channel at youtube.com/googlevoice. You can view all of the videos mentioned above in a custom video gadget we built for this channel, which will help you keep track of which videos you've already watched.

We hope these videos help you get the most out of Google Voice.

Posted by Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager

How to Watch YouTube Videos While Working on other Tasks

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:28:00 -0800

You plan to watch a lengthy video clip on YouTube but the problem is that you have lot of other stuff to do and therefore can’t focus all the attention on just one video. You need to browse web pages, check emails in Outlook and maybe complete that presentation while the video plays on your screen.

Fortunately, this is possible with a simple hack – just decide where that video should be placed.

You can either watch the YouTube video from the Firefox sidebar or, if you are working with other application or don’t use Firefox, create a standalone YouTube player window and move it anywhere on the desktop in Always on Top mode. See screenshots.

Case 1. YouTube Player inside the Firefox Sidebar

Case 2. YouTube Player on top of other Windows

Here are the steps involved for either of the methods discussed above.

1. Get the full screen mode address of the YouTube video clip. It is something likewww.youtube.com/v/ABC where ABC is the YouTube video ID.

For instance, if the YouTube video is located at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bZ9z6BBMVY, the full screen player will be available at www.youtube.com/v/8bZ9z6BBMVY

2a. To watch the video in Firefox sidebar, bookmark that new YouTube address and check the "Load in Sidebar" property of the bookmark as shown in the screenshot.

2b: To watch the video in a standalone player, open a new browser window and copy-paste the YouTube address THAT you generated in step 1. Now resize the browser window to fit the player, activate the Always on Top program (download link) and press Ctrl + Spacebar to make sure that YouTube player stays in the foreground. That’s it.

Notes: While you may also use the regular YouTube video URL in either of these cases, the experience won’t be so great.

how to Keep Any Window Visible Always

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:17:00 -0800

Imagine a situation where you are browsing the web in Firefox and simultaneously watching some video podcast in Windows Movie Player or QuickTime.

That Firefox window is running in "Maximized" mode so each time you switch to Firefox, the media player window disappears as it moves to the background behind Firefox.

So what do you do to prevent that video clip from hiding even while you continue to work in a browser?

Enter "Always on Top" – it’s a free utility written in Autohotkey that will stick any program window to the foreground of your desktop with a simple keyboard shortcut. Some examples:

Browser running in foreground but QuickTime is always visible

Keep the notepad or calculator handy while using an Excel Spreadsheet

To get started, download the Always On Top utility from box.net (<200k)>

You no longer have to worry about arranging windows side-by-side to copy-paste information from one window to another.

If you like to disable sticking and restore the default window behavior, just press the same Ctrl+Space shortcut again.

Get Transfer Mails from one Email Account to another for Free

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:50:00 -0800

There can be several reasons why you may want to switch email service providers.

Reason #1. Your existing email address gets too much spam so you plan to dump the old account and switch to a new email address (a form of email bankruptcy).

Reason #2. You are leaving your existing job for higher studies and need to transfer all personal emails from the Microsoft Exchange server to your new university email account.

Reason #3. Your ISP’s email service isn’t reliable and you therefore plan to move to a free web based email service like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, etc.

Reason #4. You think the new email service from XYZ Inc. offers more features than your existing mail provider and hence want to make the move.

Moving Emails from One Account to Another

This illustration will help you visualize how to transfer email messages across the three most popular web email services. The transfer will happen online and you just need to specify the credentials (user name & password) of your old email account (from where you want to move message out) and your new email address (where you want to move messages in).

Moving to Windows Live Hotmail

Windows Live Hotmail is integrated with TrueSwitch so you can easily transfer emails from Yahoo Mail, AOL, Gmail, Live.com, .Mac, etc. to your shiny new Hotmail address. The same service may also be used for copying old email from an existing Hotmail account to a new Hotmail address.

Moving to Yahoo Mail

Like Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail too provides integration with TrueSwitch so you can easy copy mails from Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Juno, Rocket Mail, etc. into your Yahoo! account. With TrueSwitch, you can also copy mails from one Yahoo! inbox to another without upgrading to Yahoo! Mail Plus.

Moving to Gmail / Google Apps

Gmail (or Google Apps for Email) has a built-in Mail Fetcher feature that lets you download email messages from 5 different email accounts that support POP access. You may therefore use this feature to move your old Hotmail or AOL messages into Gmail as both these service provide free POP3 access.

The migration from Yahoo! Mail to Gmail is slightly tricky but possible. Keep reading.

Trick: Move emails from Yahoo Mail to Gmail or Outlook without POP

The free account of Yahoo Mail doesn’t provide IMAP or POP3 access so you can’t move these emails into Gmail or a desktop client like Microsoft Outlook.

The Yahoo! Mail Plus upgrade will add POP3 access to you account at $20 per year but if you want to save some money, here’s an alternate but simple trick:

1. Create a new account at Windows Live Hotmail and fetch all your Yahoo! mails into this account using the free TrueSwitch Service.

2. Now that your mails are inside Hotmail, you can setup POP3 configuration to fetch those Yahoo messages into Gmail via Hotmail.

Migrating Emails Away from your ISP Account

TrueSwitch mentioned above supports all popular ISPs including Comcast, Verizon, CableVision, AT&T, etc. but if your ISP is not in the list and you don’t have the time to configure your email client for POP3 or IMAP access, check out Yippie Move.

It’s a online email transfer service similar to TrueSwitch but supports an even larger number of email service providers including the .edu addresses of certain colleges and universities in US. With YippieMove, you can choose folders (or labels in Gmail) that you want to copy to the new location without having to move the entire mailbox. The service is quick and easy but costs around $15 per email account.

Email Transfer Complete? The Next Step

Now that all your message have moved to your new email address, you can set up a vacation responder in your old email account to auto-inform contacts about your new email address. Also check this guide on how to manage multiple email addresses.

how to make a secure Wireless Home Network?

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:31:00 -0800

This article describes how you can secure your Wireless Network from hackers and you’ll also learn about free tools that people generally use to intercept your Wi-Fi signals.

Wireless Networking (Wi-Fi) has made it so easy for you to use the computer, portable media player, mobile phones, video game consoles, and other wireless devices anywhere in the house without the clutter of cables.

With traditional wired networks, it is extremely difficult for someone to steal your bandwidth but the big problem with wireless signals is that others can access the Internet using your broadband connection even while they are in a neighboring building or sitting in a car that’s parked outside your apartment.

This practice, also known as piggybacking, is bad for three reasons:

It will increase your monthly Internet bill especially when you have to pay per byte of data transfer.
It will decrease your Internet access speed since you are now sharing the same internet connection with other users.
It can create a security hazard* as others may hack your computers and access your personal files through your own wireless network.

[*] What do the bad guys use - There have been quite a few instances where innocent Internet users have been arrested for sending hate emails when in reality, their email accounts where hacked though the unsecured Wi-Fi networks that they had at home. Wireshark is a free packet sniffing tool for Linux, Mac and Windows that can scan traffic flowing though a wireless network including cookies, forms and other HTTP requests.

How to Secure Your Wireless Network

The good news is that it is not very hard to make your wireless network secure, which will both prevent others from stealing your internet and will also prevent hackers from taking control of your computers through your own wireless network.

Here a few simple things that you should to secure your wireless network:

Step 1. Open your router settings page

First, you need to know how to access your wireless router’s settings. Usually you can do this by typing in “192.168.1.1” into your web browser, and then enter the correct user name and password for the router. This is different for each router, so first check your router’s user manual.

You can also use Google to find the manuals for most routers online in case you lost the printed manual that came with your router purchase. For your reference, here are direct links to the manufacturer’s site of some popular router brands – Linksys, Cisco,Netgear, Apple AirPort, SMC, D-Link, Buffalo, TP-LINK, 3Com, Belkin.

Step 2. Create a unique password on your router

Once you have logged into your router, the first thing you should do to secure your network is to change the default password* of the router to something more secure.

This will prevent others from accessing the router and you can easily maintain the security settings that you want. You can change the password from the Administration settings on your router’s settings page. The default values are generally admin / password.

[*] What do the bad guys use - This is a public database of default usernames and passwords of wireless routers, modems, switches and other networking equipment. For instance, anyone can easily make out from the database that the factory-default settings for Linksys equipment can be accessed by using admin for both username and password fields.

Step 3. Change your Network’s SSID name

The SSID (or Wireless Network Name) of your Wireless Router is usually pre-defined as "default" or is set as the brand name of the router (e.g., linksys). Although this will not make your network inherently* more secure, changing the SSID name of your network is a good idea as it will make it more obvious for others to know which network they are connecting to.

This setting is usually under the basic wireless settings in your router’s settings page. Once this is set, you will always be sure that you are connecting to the correct Wireless network even if there are multiple wireless networks in your area. Don’t use your name, home address or other personal information in the SSID name.

[*] What do the bad guys use - Wi-Fi scanning tools like inSSIDer (Windows) andKismet (Mac, Linux) are free and they will allow anyone to find all the available Wireless Networks in an area even if the routers are not broadcasting their SSID name.

Step 4. Enable Network Encryption

In order to prevent other computers in the area from using your internet connection, you need to encrypt your wireless signals.

There are several encryption methods for wireless settings, including WEP, WPA(WPA-Personal), and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2). WEP is basic encryption and therefore least secure (i.e., it can be easily cracked*, but is compatible with a wide range of devices including older hardware, whereas WPA2 is the most secure but is only compatible with hardware manufactured since 2006.

To enable encryption on your Wireless network, open the wireless security settings on your router’s configuration page. This will usually let you select which security method you wish to choose; if you have older devices, choose WEP, otherwise go with WPA2. Enter a passphrase to access the network; make sure to set this to something that would be difficult for others to guess, and consider using a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters in the passphrase.

[*] What do the bad guys use - AirCrack and coWPAtty are some free tools that allow even non-hackers to crack the WEP / WPA (PSK) keys using dictionary or brute force techniques. A video on YouTube suggests that AirCrack may be easily used to break WiFi encryption using a jail-broken iPhone or an iPod Touch.

Step 5. Filter MAC addresses

Whether you have a laptop or a Wi-Fi enabled mobile phone, all your wireless devices have a unique MAC address (this has nothing to do with an Apple Mac) just like every computer connected to the Internet has a unique IP address. For an added layer of protection, you can add the MAC addresses of all your devices to your wireless router’s settings so that only the specified devices can connect to your Wi-Fi network.

MAC addresses are hard-coded into your networking equipment, so one address will only let that one device on the network. It is, unfortunately, possible to spoof a MAC address*, but an attacker must first know one of the MAC addresses of the computers that are connected to your Wireless network before he can attempt spoofing.

To enable MAC address filtering, first make a list of all your hardware devices that you want to connect to your wireless network**. Find their MAC addresses, and then add them to the MAC address filtering in your router’s administrative settings. You can find the MAC address for your computers by opening Command Prompt and typing in “ipconfig /all”, which will show your MAC address beside the name “Physical Address”. You can find the MAC addresses of Wireless mobile phones and other portable devices under their network settings, though this will vary for each device.

[*] What do the bad guys use - Someone can change the MAC address of his or her own computer and can easily connect to your network since your network allows connection from devices that have that particular MAC address. Anyone can determine the MAC address of your device wireless using a sniffing tool like Nmap and he can then change the MAC address of his own computer using another free tool likeMAC Shift.

Step 6. Reduce the Range of the Wireless Signal

If your wireless router has a high range but you are staying in a small studio apartment, you can consider decreasing the signal range by either changing the mode of your router to 802.11g (instead of 802.11n or 802.11b) or use a different wireless channel.

You can also try placing the router under the bed, inside a shoe box or wrap a foil around the router antennas so that you can somewhat restrict the direction of signals.

Apply the Anti-Wi-Fi Paint – Researchers have developed a special Wi-Fi blocking paint that can help you stop neighbors from accessing your home network without you having to set up encryption at the router level. The paint contains chemicals that blocks radio signals by absorbing them. "By coating an entire room, Wi-Fi signals can’t get in and, crucially, can’t get out."

Step 7. Upgrade your Router’s firmware

You should check the manufacturer’s site occasionally to make sure that your router is running the latest firmware. You can find the existing firmware version of your router using from the router’s dashboard at 192.168.*.

Connect to your Secure Wireless Network

To conclude, MAC Address filtering with WPA2 (AES) encryption (and a really complex passphrase) is probably the best way to secure your wireless network.

Once you have enabled the various security settings in your wireless router, you need to add the new settings to your computers and other wireless devices so that they all can connect to the Wi-Fi network. You can select to have your computer automatically connect to this network, so you won’t have to enter the SSID, passphrase and other information every time you connect to the Internet.

Your wireless network will now be a lot more secure and intruders may have a tough time intercepting your Wi-Fi signals.

Who is Connected to your Wireless Network

If you are worried that an outsider may be connecting to the Internet using your Wireless network, try AirSnare – it’s a free utility that will look for unexpected MAC addresses on your Wireless network as well as to DHCP requests. Another option is that you open your router’s administration page (using the 192.168.* address) and look for the DHCP Clients Table (it’s under Status > Local Network on Linksys routers). Here you will see a list of all computers and wireless devices that are connected to your home network.

*It is also a good idea to turn off the router completely when you are not planning to use the computer for a longer period (like when you are out shopping). You save on electricity and the door remains 100% shut for wireless piggybackers.

**If you ever want to let a new device connect to your network, you will have to find its MAC address and add it to your router. If you simple want to let a friend connect to your wireless network one time, you can remove his MAC address from the router settings when he or she leaves your place.

How to Check Multiple Email Addresses for New Mail At Once

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:09:00 -0800

In the last 15 years, I have had at least four different primary email addresses. My first email account was on MSN Hotmail (now Windows Live Hotmail), then I shifted to Yahoo Mail for some time, then to Google mail followed by Google Apps for Gmail.

Creating a new email account is easy (and often free) but the big problem is that you can’t completely ignore the old inbox (unless the service supports auto-forward) because some of your past contacts may still try to reach you on your previous (primary) addresses.

Now if you are in a similar situation as me and maintain two or more email addresses, here are some solutions that will help you check for new mail across all your web email accounts from a central location without having to log into individual accounts.

Option #1: Use a Desktop based mail client

Gmail, Google Apps for Mail and now Windows Live Hotmail officially support the POP3 protocol so you can check mails in any of these accounts though desktop mail clients like Microsoft Outlook, ThunderBird, Windows Live Mail or Eudura.

Since the free version of Yahoo! Mail doesn’t offer auto-forward or POP access facility, there’s a simple workaround – you can either use WebMail (for ThunderBird) or YPOPs and manage your Yahoo! emails from any desktop mail client.

Another good alternative here is Zimbra Desktop – it’s an Outlook like desktop software (developed by Yahoo) that will help you check mails across all your Yahoo! accounts for free. Zimbra is available on Mac, Windows and Linux.

If you prefer reading and replying to emails on the service provider’s website itself but need some sort of a desktop notifier to ping you as soon as new messages land in any of your inboxes, get ePrompter – this runs in the Windows system tray and can retrieve messages from all your web mail accounts at pre-defined intervals.

Option #2: Check mails on any computer

If you work across multiple computers, it may take lot of effort for you to install and configure desktop mail clients on all these individual machines. What you therefore need is ThunderBird Portable – it’s just like the desktop version of ThunderBird except that all settings and data are stored on the USB drive so you can easily carry it around and check mails on multiple email accounts from any computer anywhere.

Alternatively, you may try web based services like Fuser and Mail2Web that help you check all your email accounts on a single website. They provide a common inbox for all your web email accounts where you can send as well receive messages without having to log separately into any of you different mail accounts.

Fuser works with Microsoft Exchange as well so you check both personal and work related email simultaneously. Mail2Web offers a WAP version of the website optimized for the small screen of your mobile phones.

Option #3: Let one email address rule them all

The solutions that we discussed so far involved pulling up emails from multiple web accounts into one central location. What if all the messages that reach your secondary inboxes are pushed automatically to your main email address so you can check them in the web browser itself without having to configure anything?

There are two services that can help us here – the good old Gmail and the second is NutShellMail – it’s new and awesome.

Let’s start with Gmail. This Google mail service includes a featured called Mail Fetcherthat will help download messages from up to five other email accounts into your central Gmail inbox. Thus you can check even non-Gmail accounts from Gmail as long as they support POP access (e.g., Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail Plus).

Things get much simpler if you want to use your Gmail (or Google Apps) account as a secondary address because Gmail can auto-forward all incoming messages to any other email account so you really don’t have to check your Gmail account ever except for any false positives that get caught in the Spam folder.

Next in this category is NutShellMail – it’s a relatively new web service that takes a different but very original approach to dealing with email.

Let’s assume that your main address is on Gmail but all the junk newsletters reach your Yahoo! address. You also maintain an AOL account because some of your old college friends still have that address.

Now NutShellMail is a web based service that will monitor all your secondary email addresses in the background and will send you a digest mail containing a list of messages that may have arrived in any your web mail accounts. You can click on the subject line of any message to read the contents.

This service will also come handy in places like your office where you can’t check personal mails (on say Gmail or Yahoo!) as access to the mail website has been blocked due to company policies. You can configure NutShellMail and it will send you snapshots of all your inboxes on a recurring schedule.

Why Everyone on Twitter Needs NutShellMail

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:05:00 -0800

NutShellMail, in a nutshell, is a free web based service that helps you manage* one or more Twitter accounts via email.

The service will periodically send you an email message (see live example) containing a detailed snapshot of activity around all your Twitter account(s).

*You may also use NutShellMail to consolidate email accounts but here the focus is on Twitter specific features.

Email Snapshot of Twitter Activity

What you see above is a screenshot image of a NutShellMail email that recently landed in my inbox. Let me explain the numbered parts:

1. The Update hyperlink is actually mailto: address. I can send an email message to that email address and it will automatically update my status on Twitter.

2. This is a list of people who have recently started following me on Twitter.

3. This is the unfollow list or people who have recently stopped following me on Twitter.

4. This section includes a list of all Twitter replies and tweets that were addressed to me.

5. Finally, this is list of recent tweets from people whom I follow on Twitter. I can reply or retweet any of these messages via email itself.

Why Twitter Users Should Try NutshellMail

Reason #1. While it has always been possible to update Twitter via email, NutShellMail turns your Twitter account into a proper email platform. So when people send you direct messages on twitter, you can reply to them right from your mail client. Another service that does this is Topify.

Reason #2. If you are using Twitter on a mobile phone with a pay-per-byte plan, NutShellMail is a good alternative to reducing your phone bills. For instance, some BlackBerry plans offer unlimited email but they charge for Internet usage.

Reason #3. If you work in a company and are worried that spending too much time on the Twitter website would reflect in the monthly web usage report, NutShellMail can possibly save you from that situation.

Reason #4. If your company feels that social networking sites waste employee productivity and have therefore blocked Twitter, NutShellMail can help you bypass that block.

Reason #5. When you are new on Twitter, you love email notifications that say "Mr XZY is now following your updates". But as your Twitter network grows with time, these emails can often bring inbox overload. With NutShellMail, you get a nice summary of all new followers (and quitters) in a single message so no more email overload.

Capture video or audio files from YouTube, Dailymotion, Google Video, MySpace using TubeMaster++

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:29:00 -0800

GgSofts’s TubeMaster++ is a freeware for windows that allows you to capture video or audio files being watched or listened to at YouTube, DailyMotion, MySpace, Google Videos, LastFM, Deezer, Jiwa, and Songza.

Downloading media files from YouTube, Vimeo, Myspace, Dailymotion and others, as well as encrypted media from “abu-leeching” websites sites such as Imeen, Pandora and Last.fm are easy with Tubemaster Plus Plus (Tubemaster++).

But now the new version is completely re-written in JAVA.

Usually TubeMaster++ makes grabbing streaming videos and music incredibly simple. As long as TubeMaster++ is running, it will grab nearly every kind of media you watch over your internet connection thanks to its ability to scan the incoming data and not rely on the browser itself. Whether you’re watching a video in Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera, as soon as you start watching it, TubeMaster++ will begin capturing it.

You can convert audio formats into WAV, MP3, OGG, and AC3, among others. Video can be converted into dozens of formats and presets for mobile devices including the Creative Zen, iPod, Blackberry, PSP and PS3, various mobile phone sizes, and more universal formats like AVI and MPEG4.

With the inclusion of JAVA, It avoids or circumvents all of the problems/issues that afflicted the previous incarnation including false positives reported by some anti-malware programs, restrictions on some (adult) sites, memory issues, and issues with registry entries and drivers that the program installed and left on the system.

How does TubeMaster++ work?

Once you launch TM++ (it will reside in the system tray), use your browser to navigate to the video or audio that you want to download. TM++ will display a notification and start downloading your media as soon as it starts playing in the browser. You will need to keep the browser window open for the duration of the download in order for TM++ to download your media properly.

TubeMaster++ for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 can be downloaded at here or here. It requires Java Runtime Environment and WinPcap, both of these are included in the download.

How to locate a good Search Engine Optimization Company?

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:02:00 -0800

Internet has become highly competitive place where a new website is launched every seven seconds. Professional SEO companies do the work of adding appropriate keywords to the websites so that they can be easily found by the search engines crawlers and spiders. But the question is how to select a SEO company to promote your website for better business?

A genuine and good SEO company does not follow a fix procedure of search engine optimization; instead they offer customized services to the clients according to their needs and requirements. Great deal of online research and hardwork is essential to develop a well optimized website.

Different processes and analysis are required like market assessment, research for suitable keywords, content fortification, appropriate website designing, identifying proper web theme and layout of website, HTML code and web log analysis, properly planned search engine submission, etc for your website to rank high in popular search engines.

A good SEO company would caters to the need of various types of websites dealing in different types of products/services and provide search engine optimization services like article submission, directory submission, onsite optimization and many more for better enhancement of the website. Flash websites, ecommerce websites, database driven websites, corporate websites, retail websites, etc are few types of websites that can bring target customers through search engine optimization.

Wide range of services are offered by any professional SEO company like- Search engine marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, etc. It depends on the client’s decision to choose the right company by their judgment and market analysis

Download Your Google Reader Stories as PDF via the ‘Send To’ Option

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:00:00 -0800

Inspired by FeedDemon, the Google Reader team has added some useful features in their popular web based feed reader program including a new "Send To" option that lets users share and bookmark stories directly from Google Reader.

For instance, you can now save articles on to your delicious account or send them to your Twitter stream in few clicks – select the Google Reader story that you want to share, press Shift + T (or click the "Send To" link with your mouse) and choose the social site where you want to send that story.

It’s that simple. Google Reader comes pre-loaded with links to some popular social services but if the one you use frequently is missing from that default list (e.g. Mister Wong, FriendFeed or even LinkedIn), add it manually from the settings page.

Create Your Own "Send To" Items for Google Reader

Tip #1: If you want to quickly save stories from Google Reader to your hard drive in PDF format, create a new custom link with the following settings:

Name: Save as PDF URL: http://savepageaspdf.pdfonline.com/pdfonline/pdfonline.asp?cURL=${url} Icon URL: http://www.adobe.com/lib/com.adobe/template/icon/pdf.gif

Tip #2: Dealing with Partial Feeds

When you use the "Email This" option inside Google Reader, the full text and images of that story are sent via email. This is great for full-text feeds but what do you do in the situation where the RSS publisher is syndicating only partial feeds? Well, here’s a workaround.

Name: Email This URL: mailto:www@web2mail.com?subject=${url} Icon URL: http://mail.google.com/favicon.ico

Now when you select "Email this" from the Send To menu, a request is sent to theweb2mail service (see #0) – it will fetch the whole web page from the original URL and will send you the contents via email.

Tip #3: If you are planning to add multiple social sites to that Send To menu in Google Reader, wait. What you can do is add a link to any of your favorite social bookmarking widgets and that will give you access to almost every popular social site from the Google menu.

Here are the settings for addthis.com but you may even use addtoany.com or sharethis.com.

Name: Share This URL: http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&url=${url}&title=${title} Icon URL: http://shareicons.com/favicon.ico

Tip #4: Track related conversations

If you like to know how the web world has reacted to an article that you are currently reading inside Google Reader, add a new "Conversations" custom link with the following settings:

Name: Conversations URL: http://backtweets.com/search?q=${url} Icon URL: http://backtweets.com/favicon.ico

You may use a similar approach for tracking reactions in the blogosphere – replace BackTweets with either Technorati or Google Blog Search.

How to enable TELNET in Vista

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Mon, 1 Feb 2010 01:42:00 -0800

When I try to use telnet feature in Vista, I couldn’t use it. After scrolling through Microsoft help, I learn that you need to enable it in Vista first.

Go to Start –>> Control Panel –>> Programs and features –>> Turn Windows features on or off

After that, check Telnet Client and click ok.

That’s it. You can use telnet in Vista from Run command or Command prompt now.

4 Twitter Codes and How to use Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Mon, 1 Feb 2010 01:40:00 -0800

While technophiles have taken quickly to Twitter, turning every waking moment into a momentous occasion to tweet about, the computer user with limited Internet and social networking skills might be at a loss. The good news is I’ve created this simply little cheat sheet to help new Twitter users navigate the sometimes complex Twitterverse and help make your tweets more productive.

Sending a Tweet on Twitter

Ready to start sending tweets? See that little box at the top of your Twitter home page which reads “What are you doing?” Type in a tweet in this box and then press “Update.” But, remember, you only have 140 words to express yourself!

Reply to a Tweet

See a tweet you would like to reply to? Hit the reply button under the trash can next to the specific tweet and Twitter will automatically populate the text field with the user’s screenname so you can reply.

Delete a Tweet

Send a tweet before it was done? Visit your profile page on Twitter and click the trash can icon next to the tweet to delete it from the Twittersphere.

RT on Twitter

Read something funny or noteworthy that you’d like to ReTweet? Enter “RT” then “@” and then the Twitter username who authored the original tweet, then the original message. But, remember, the 140 word limit also applies here, so keep it brief, even extracting a portion of the original tweet if necessary.

OH on Twitter

Want to ReTweet something but don’t want to reveal the original author? Enter “OH” then the original message. “OH” stands for “overheard,” and helps us reiterate an earlier message without reveal (or embarrassing) the tweet’s author.

HT on Twitter

Heard something from a Twitter user in real life? Tweet this information using “HT,” (which means “Heard Through”) then the “@” and then their Twitter username.

# on Twitter

See the “#” on Twitter and wonder what it could mean? The hashtag helps Twitter users designate keywords to conversations that are popular. For example, the swine flu pandemic recently discussed in the news has been designated as #swineflu. This is helpful for those who search for information about the swine flu in the future using Twitter’s search function. To designate a keyword, tweet and let folks know about it. For example, I might tell friends and family to use #Arren23 to discuss my 23th birthday coming in May.

how to get a Facebook glowing!!!

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Mon, 1 Feb 2010 01:32:00 -0800

I am sure most of you have received the messages posted your friend’s Facebook update that sounds like this

“Go to any Facebook page and click once in a white area just to get a blank timeline to do this with.Press up arrow, up arrow, down arrow, down arrow, left arrow, right arrow, left arrow, rightarrow, B, A, then the Return key.”

Give it a try and you will get the same result as my screenshot over my Facebook account below.

This won’t be like the forwarded email like clicking Alt+F4 or Alt+F5 then nothing comes out.

can’t login on Windows Live Messenger ?

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Mon, 1 Feb 2010 01:28:00 -0800

This is not my first day having problem with Streamyx broadband . I am using Streamyx’s 512kbps packages and I

can almost browse all websites in the world but I can’t login my Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail account and I need to restart my router a few times in order to login.

I am certainly and perfectly 100% sure that I am not having slow connection problem or lagged connection because I am the only user using this broadband at home.

This is what I get when attempting to login to my WLM account. Troubleshooting it does not solve even the problem as it is not due to key port problem.

In case there are possibilities that my own firewall might have blocked the connection, I can prove that there is no such possibility as I have already added Windows Live Messenger as allowed application into the Exception list.

I am speechless for today as I am tired of rebooting my router again and again for logging in to my Windows Live Messenger or my hotmail account.

Below is my ipconfig result.

In case you realized that I am using OpenDNS servers for my DNS server. I have switched from default Streamyx’s DNS and OpenDNS and I have no idea what is going wrong with my broadband.

I am not a type of person that like rant about a fact that is too factful that Streamyx is really sucks to the max when providing users a broadband services. I am just requesting for broadband that allow me to have decent speed and allow me to access my simple, normal, basic application such as Windows Live Messenger and my email account.

And thanks to Streamyx I gotta reboot my router again and again. Maybe that’s why they gives us free wireless modem so that we can reboot our router anytime and anywhere.

The Best Software Tools for the Paperless Office

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:17:00 -0800

A scanner and an OCR software are the key components of a “paperless office”.

The scanner helps you bring existing paper documents like letters, invoices, books and faxes into the computer while the OCR software converts these scanned images into editable and searchable formats like PDF or Microsoft Word.

The program that came bundled with your scanner is probably good for controlling the quality of your scans but that’s just half the job done because image scans aren’t searchable and are therefore impossible to manage in the long term.

To complete the cycle, here are some of the best software tools and online services that will assist you in making a successful move towards a “paperless office”:

Abbyy FineReader – Abbyy FineReader 9 is an extremely powerful OCR software packed in an easy and very intuitive interface. It the only software you need in your quest for a paperless office though it doesn’t come cheap.

As you open a scanned image inside Abby FineReader, it automatically analyzes different areas of the image that contain text, tables or pictures. The software can even recognize different languages and fonts used in the document.

In my test run, the software successfully managed to extract text from an old manuscript with excellent accuracy. I then tried Abbyy FineReader 9 with a photograph of the Wall Street Journal newspaper (credit) that was captured with a digital camera and the results were equally impressive.

Abbyy 9 also features a Screenshot Reader utility that can directly extract text from any area of your desktop screen be it a wallpaper, a Flash presentation or a photo on Flickr.

The built-in spell checker suggests spellings and will help you quickly fix words that could be recognized by the Abbyy FineReader. The scanned documents can then be exported as searchable PDF files, Word documents or even HTML web pages.

Adobe Acrobat 9 – Adobe Acrobat (not the free Adobe Reader) can directly scan paper documents to searchable PDF documents.

In the test run, Acrobat could accurately scan a newspaper clipping with fairly high level of noise though it did not manage to preserve the layout while exporting the scanned image to a Word document.

Acrobat is again a commercial software but it does come bundled with some scanners.

SimpleOCR – Unlike Abbyy FineReader or Adobe Acrobat, Simple OCR software is a fairly basic solution but it is completely free and may appeal to budget conscious consumers.

Simple OCR lets you proof-read the scanned image as text so you can fix inaccuracies before exporting the scanned image as plain text.

Scribd iPaper – If you have piles of paper documents in your office, you can easily get rid of them by sending everything in a snail mail to Scribd – this service will convert all your paper clutter into digital documents for free.

Scribd will also run your documents through their own OCR software so everything remains searchable as well.

Evernote – This is not an OCR software but it can easily recognized text in image. So if you have scanned a bunch of electricity bill receipts as images, you may use Evernote to locate them on the hard drive. The software is free and available for Mac and Windows.

Qipit, Snapter and ScanR are pretty similar solutions – they help use a digital camera or a mobile phone as a scanner. You capture a newspaper clipping, a page from a magazine or the conference room whiteboard room with your camera phone and turn to these services for extracting text out of the images.

How to manage your scanned documents ?

Once you have converted your scanned images into scanned documents, you can bulk upload them to Google Docs (that comes with Google Apps) via email.

Alternatively, you can put everything on an hard drive and index them using Google Desktop search or via Windows Vista’s built-in search indexer.

How to Manage Your Collection of PDF Files

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:13:00 -0800

Whether you are downloading ebooks, gadget manuals, research papers or your monthly bank statements, chances are that all these documents are available as Adobe PDF files.

That’s because PDF is probably the only format that can retain the original formatting and can be read across all platforms or even on the web if you don’t want to install any desktop software for reading PDFs.

Organize your library of PDF documents

Here are some useful web apps and software tools that will help you better manage your collection of PDF documents with any real effort. The objective is that you should be able to locate files quickly and also access them from other computers.

1. Mendeley Desktop – If you need access to your library of PDF documents on other computers, get Mendeley Desktop – it’s available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Mendeley is an awesome desktop software cum web application that not only indexes your local PDF files but can also upload them online so you have read these files anytime, anywhere. The service offers 500 MB of free online storage space and it will also synchronize tags, notes and other meta-data associated your PDF files.

You can add documents to your Mendeley library manually or there’s a watch-folder concept (like your Windows Media player) so any document added to the watch folder automatically becomes a part of the Mendeley database.

2. Google Desktop – If you are looking to find that one PDF document from a pile of thousand, consider taking the help of Google Desktop Search. The software can index the full content of all PDF documents on your hard drive and can make this information searchable as in the screenshot above.

Google Desktop Search shares the same search operators as Google’s web search so use the filetype:pdf operator to limit your search to PDF documents. Google Desktop can only index unprotected PDF files and it won’t help you find scanned PDFs that require an OCR engine (more on that later).

Windows Desktop Search too can index the content of PDF files pretty much like Google Desktop but the latter offers two extra advantages – Google Desktop is available on all platforms and second, it’s possible to search PDF files stored on the home computer from your office computer (and vice-versa) using the “Search Across Computers” feature.

3. Copernic Desktop Search – While both Windows Desktop Search and Google Desktop Search offer some excellent PDF search capabilities, they still have one major limitation – they’ll tell you if a particular word or phrase is present is some PDF document but you won’t know where that phrase is located and how often does it occur in the document. Copernic overcomes that limitation.

Copernic can highlight all occurrences of the search term in the document (similar to cached web pages in Google search) and you can also navigate through the found document from Copernic itself without requiring an external viewer. The downside – Copernic is free for home use only so you can’t the free version for your office documents.

4. Scribd – Let me show how you can use Scribd as an online PDF organizer.

Create a free account at Scribd (if you haven’t done so already), install their desktop uploader software (available for Windows and Mac) and upload your entire PDF library online. Make sure you check the “Keep Private” option before hitting the upload button.

Once your documents are online, you can not only access them from other computers but the other big advantage is that you can search through your uploaded PDFsright from the Scribd website. Like Google Desktop, Scribd too allows full text search so you aren’t just searching titles but the actual content of your PDF documents.

Other services like SlideShare, Issuu, Google Docs and even Office Live Workspaces too offer PDF hosting but with Scribd, you can upload as many documents as you want, though each document should less than 100 MB in size. And then there’s search.

Scanned PDF Files

None of the options discussed above can index your scanned PDFs as these are essentially images and therefore require an OCR software that can recognize as well as extract text from the scanned pages.

If you are looking to search through a bunch of scanned PDF files, the premium version of Evernote could be a good choice though it costs around $5 a month.

The Highest Paying AdSense Ads May Not Always Be On Top

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:52:00 -0800

If there are multiple Google AdSense ad units on a web page, it is generally assumed that the top ad unit (the one which appears first in the HTML source code) will serve the highest paying CPC ads. Well, that may be true most of the times but not always. Let’s understand why.

But before you dive into the example below, please watch this excellent video by Dr Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google, as he explains how an ad auction works and what factors determine the position of AdSense ads on a web page for a given keyword

The Google AdWords system assigns a "Quality Score" to every advertiser who is participating in the ad auction and this score is determined by the quality of the advertiser’s website, the historical CTR of his ads on Google and a couple of other factors.

For instance, the Google ad system is likely to assign higher Quality Scores to Sony.com or Amazon.com for the keyword "digital cameras" than an advertiser xyz.com who is trying to promote his eBay auction on the AdSense network.

Google than computes the final rank (or ad position) of each advertiser using their respective quality scores and the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a single click (CPC).

Ad Rank of an advertiser = Quality Score * Maximum CPC Bid

Coming back to our original example, let’s say four advertisers are bidding in an auction to show up on a web page that is about "digital camera".

The advertiser Sony.com has been assigned a score of 8 by Google and they are ready to spend a maximum of $16 per click. Amazon has an even quality score (9) but they have specified their maximum CPC as $14 and so on.

Now the ad position (column 5) of various advertiser in an AdSense unit is determined on the basis of Ad rank (column 4) but the actual cost (or CPC) that these advertiser have to pay per click to Google is not always in that order.

As Dr Varian explains (time 05:50), the price that an advertiser has to pay (his actual CPC) is equal to the Ad Rank of the advertiser just below him divided by his own CPC bid.

So in the case of Sony, they’ll have pay 126 (the Ad Rank of Amazon) / 16 (CPC Bid of Sony) and this is equal to 7.88.

The click cost for Amazon will therefore be 120/14 = 8.57 which is more than that of Sony but the Amazon ad will still show up below the Sony ad since the Ad Rank of Sony is higher.

Google will share a fixed portion of ad revenue (or click price) with the AdSense publisher (where these ads are shown) and therefore a click on a Sony ad will fetch him less revenues even though the ad occupies the top slot.

Search High Resolution Videos on YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:44:00 -0800

If you are looking to download some high-res video clips from YouTube for your next presentation, try this easy trick that will only display high quality videos in the search results.

Go to Google.com, type your search phrase and append the following paramters your search query.

site:youtube.com "watch in normal quality watch in high quality"

To illustrate this with a real example, a search for "cnn hologram" related videos on YouTube would look something like this on Google:

cnn hologram "watch in normal quality watch in high quality" site:youtube.com

This works because YouTube adds a small "watch in high quality" link beneath their video player if the video you are watching is available as high resolution.

When you click that "high quality" link, it is replaced by "watch in normal quality" so the two strings are really close in the HTML source and that helps us filter low quality videos from search.

Simplest Way to Download a Youtube Video

noreply@blogger.com (mmigo) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:36:00 -0800

View a video on YouTube.
In the URL location box, type pwn in front of youtube, and enter.
Get links to download the video!

Example: