Archive for October, 2005

Watch out for the Nasty AIM Worm

A worm found spreading via America Online’s Instant Messenger is carrying a nastier punch than usual, a security company has warned.

The unnamed worm delivers a cocktail of unwanted software, including a so-called rootkit, security experts at FaceTime Communications said Friday. A rootkit is a tool designed to go undetected by the security software used to lock down control of a computer after an initial hack.

“A very nasty bundle is downloaded to your machine” when you click on the worm link, said Tyler Wells, senior director of engineering at FaceTime. “This is the first time that we have seen a rootkit as part of the bundle of applications that is sent to your machine. It is a disturbing trend.” ( Continue…. )

Before clicking on a link in an IM, it’s safest just to ask the person if they’re indeed sending you a link.

Joi

Picture? Perfect.

How To Find The Perfect Images Online

(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved http://www.thenetreporter.com

Has this ever happened to you?

You need a photo for a website, brochure, flyer, or CD / DVD cover.

You buy one of those 100,000 photo and clipart collections on 10 CD-ROMs hoping to find the “perfect” picture, but after hours of searching you find your brain tired, your mouse hand numb, and no “perfect” photo in sight.

Fortunately, the photo and clipart business got a lot smarter online, and anyone who ever needs good photos at rock bottom prices stands to benefit. ( Continue Article )

Blogging For Fun and Profit

Author: Jim Edwards

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last year, you’ve heard the term “blog” once or twice.

To most people, a “blog” simply represents a glorified online “diary” where geeks, computer nerds, and lonely teenagers record their thoughts in cyber-space.

However, many people don’t realize that “blogs” are quietly revolutionizing the way companies and customers interact about everything from existing products to new ideas and improvements in customer service.

In short, “blog” style communication has come of age and anyone with an online business better sit up and take notice fast!

In the beginning, “blogs” were basically an online diary to record your thoughts; but “blogs” have now evolved into dynamic websites that non-technical people can update immediately without html editors or ftp programs. ( Continue Article )

Hightide Web

7 Powerful Ways To make Money From Adsense Using Only Free Tools

There is really no doubting that there are amazing incomes currently being made on Google Adsense and the really interesting thing is that even relatively small sites and blogs are finding new ways to make money from their Adsense sites every day.

Actually there are a lot of increasingly creative ways to make money and maximize on Adsense earnings that are being discovered and also being put to use every day. And what’s even more fascinating is the fact that most of these tools being used don’t cost anything. They are actually free. Here are 7 of the most effective currently being used.

a) Ways to make money from Adsense by Distributing articles through ezine and article announcement lists

Some of the most effective methods ways to make money from Adsense clicks involve the simple step of just increasing the volume of targeted traffic to a site. One of the ways of doing this is by distributing interesting content to ezine lists and article announcement lists. It is not too difficult to quickly build a list that reaches a million or so email boxes and can thus give a lot of visibility and drive tons of highly targetd traffic to your Adsense site or sites. Probably the most popular place for doing this is at Yahoo groups, but there are a few others that you can find easily by using your favorite search engine.

Success here depends on three main factors. Firstly you should be careful to join article announcement lists and ezine lists that are as relevant as possible to your subject matter and offering. Secondly your headline has to be a killer headline that will grab readers by the scruffs of their necks and force them to open your email message amongst the dozens or even hundreds of others they receive daily. It goes without saying that the content must meet the promise of your sensational headline. Anything less will cause annoyance and leave all those potential visitors to your Adsense site feeling cheated. And believe me, you don’t want to cause this sort of reaction because it is definitely not one of the ways o make money from Adsense or any other program for that matter. Thirdly, you will need the sort of resource box in all your articles that will leave most of your readers with no option but to visit your Adsense site.

Within a very short of consistently applying this technique, my daily Adsense earnings increased seven-fold.

Click here for more tips on web advertising using articles plus understand why articles are so effective online

b) Ways to make money from Adsense by Distributing free articles to high traffic article sites

Some people find the recent trends that have seen an increase in article sites surprising. I don’t. The net is primarily an information-seeking tool. Anything that will help improve the search and quality of information will greatly benefit the people making that effort.

Some of the older article directories receive very high traffic, mainly from web masters and site owners seeking quality free content for their sites. So apart from the immediate exposure these sites also guarantee plenty of future targeted traffic to your site, when folks find your articles useful enough to re-post at their sites.

The more new articles you release to these sites every week, the more targeted traffic your Adsense sites will receive. This is in fact one of the most effective ways of making money consistently from Adsense clicks. One of the reasons for this is that targeted traffic will tend to spend more time at your site or sites, and the more time they spend, the higher the chances that they will click one one of the Adsense ads posted there.

c) Ways to make money from Adsense by Using Articles And A Viral Marketing Website

Any online marketing technique that involves the use of referral marketing or viral marketing automatically has a huge chance of being a success. The net is ideal for viral marketing and in fact gives any viral marketer huge leverage. Viral marketing or referral marketing is one of the most effective ways to make money online. Just ask Bill Gates.

When Gates was trying to play catch up on the Internet after an earlier mistake of underestimating the future importance of the net, he launched his Hotmail free email service when rivals like Yahoo already had millions of users. He decided to use a simple referral marketing technique. Every Hotmail message that went out had a brief signature at the end requesting the recipient to sign up for their free Hotmail account. Within a few short months, Hotmail had millions of users. And there are many other amazing stories which viral marketing boasts of on the net.

There is one of the very simple ways to make money from Adsense by going viral. Sign up at a leading viral marketing site. You will automatically get your own viral site. You can then use some of your articles to point people to your viral site. The way these sites work is that anybody who signs up at your site will have to visit your Adsense site if you register it at the site. So within a very short time you will be driving thousands of visitors to your Adsense site.

Here is the link to my favorite viral site. You can go there now and register, setting in motion a process that could see your Adsense sites receive lots of free traffic every day.

Send me One Million FREE Guaranteed Visitors

Admittedly this traffic is less targeted. Still the huge potential and possible numbers you are able to receive using this free tool more than makes up for this shortfall.

d) Ways to make money from Adsense With Your Email signature

People greatly underestimate the power and potential effectiveness of a simple email signature as one of the ways to make money online. Actually this is a viral marketing method because emails get forwarded all the time and are even copied to several other people sometimes.

Do not waste another minute. Go to all your email accounts right now and create a signature that points to your Adsense site or sites.

Writing effective email signatures is a skill that you will have to develop, but I have found that using famous quotes is more effective than a straight advertising message. Always remember that people hate to be advertised to online.

e) Ways to make money from Adsense By Asking Questions At Discussion groups

I recently had an interesting conversation with a young Internet and computer techie. He asked me whether there were quick ways to make money online by answering technical questions and helping people to solve their computer and web-related problems. My answer was that there were many discussion groups where participants would get these answers for free. I advised him that he had a better chance of making money by making use of this free advice available online rather than by trying to sell his own advice.

There are tons of online discussion groups where leading world experts will answer your questions and give you valuable insight for free. It is amazing why most people do not think of using these online forums to learn as much as they can about the most effective ways of making money from Adsense.

These forums can easily be found through you favorite search engine. You will find a long list of some of the leading ones in my Special Report titled; 17 Powerful Ways To make Money From Adsense Using Only Free & Low Cost Tools

f) Ways to make money from Adsense By Bartering your online skills for valuable Adsense keywords

In the old days, before the invention of money, if somebody needed something, the first question they asked themselves was; “What is it that I already have that I can exchange for what I need? Barter trade seems to have been forgotten but it is a very powerful method of trading. More so online where people have plenty of skills but are slow to trust others enough to send them money for an item they need.

You can barter whatever it is you have, your skills, products or services, and exchange them for genuine valuable Adsense keywords. Valuable Adsense keywords are the most effective way for a small site with low traffic to earn big cash from Adsense. And you can do this barter trade on an ongoing basis so that you always have a constant supply of valuable Adsense keywords which you can use at your site or blog as one of the ways to make more money from Adsense.

g) Ways to make money from Adsense By Sending Teaser Emails To Everybody In Your Inbox And Also To Your Opt-in Email List

Most of us receive tons of email in our inbox every day. You’ll be surprised at the huge number of people you know by simply going through your email inbox. No matter how good your spam filters are, you are also bound to be receiving more than your fare share of SPAM or unsolicited email. All this is “gold” lying in your email inbox and there are ways to make money using these emails. All you need to do to process the emails into pure gold is to send out “teaser emails about the most interesting aspects of content at your site. The whole objective of teaser emails is to get people to visit your site. For instance if I were to send out teaser email on this content here is how I would construct it;

Subject: Free Tools Currently Being Used To Increase Adsense Earnings

Hello,

Just thought you might be interested in this subject, since so many folks online use Adsense these days. If not please accept my sincere apologies. Details are at my sight.

www.detailshere.com Regards, Chris.

I am sure you can write an even more effective teaser email. It would be a better idea to have a different message for your close friends, a different one for your business contacts and yet another one for those nasty guys SPAMMING you.

You can also quickly create your own opt in email list.

Click here for tips on how to create a huge opt-in email list

These are just some of the many creative ways to make money from Adsense.

Click Here to get a more detailed Special Report; 17 Powerful Ways To make Money From Adsense Using Only Free & Low Cost Tools. See SR 4 at the bottom of the page

About the Author:
Christopher Kyalo is a successful online writer and entrepreneur. Visit his blog for more details at; http://webcontentprovider.blogspot.com He can be reached at strongwallafrica at yahoo.com.

The Dark Side of Blogs

Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards

America Online (AOL) announced recently they will pay as much as 25 million dollars for Weblogs, Inc. (www.weblogsinc.com) in a move to expand their reach even further into the consumer market.

Blogs, also know as weblogs, enable individuals to post, comment, and respond to various topics online without publishing a website. All text editing and commenting takes place right through the web browser.

The Web’s leading blog search engine, Technorati.com, lists 19.2 million blogs online.

Blog popularity has skyrocketed to the point that even news networks like CNN and MSNBC quote blogs, in particular political blogs, often giving some blog publishers instant rock star status with the media.

With all the hoopla around blogs, people forget that blogs, by their very nature, represent opinions, and opinions don’t necessarily represent the facts.

~ Information Pollution Syndrome ~

Blogs use a powerful form of psychology know as “social proof” where we look to others to help us understand how we should view, feel, or react to news and information.

Since the glut of information only gets more massive online with each passing day and rates impossible for one person to get through completely on their own, we look to others to help us sort the piles of data.

When you combine this with another online phenomenon, virtual anonymity, you get a volatile combination where any social responsibility for what gets posted flies out the window in many cases.

People can and do post whatever they want because no “hall monitor” can call them down for blatant intellectual hooliganism.

~ Facts Colored With Opinion ~

Strong opinion often equals an agenda, however hard to discern for either the author or the reader.

But make no mistake, every person publishing a blog with any level of readership (not junk blogs used for search engine promotion) takes a stance on the issues, whether political, social, religious or business.

Even if they strive to be impartial and only report the “news,” blog publishers are human beings who want you to think they’re smart, agree with them, and accept their point of view, even if they don’t realize it consciously.

Less scrupulous blog publishers often exploit the social and psychological power of blogs to spread disinformation (intentionally wrong information) to further their agenda. This tactic rates quite popular on political blogs and has started creeping into business blogs too.

~ Protect Yourself ~

Whenever you read anything online, use the following evaluation criteria to help separate fact from opinion.

What is my purpose in searching for information on this subject?

Is this a credible source of information?

What ulterior motive, conscious or otherwise, do they have in publishing this information?

What alternative sources of information can I find to confirm / dispute the information on this blog?

Don’t rely heavily on the opinions of others to make your decisions, especially the opinions of nameless, faceless bloggers with a self-serving agenda who operate with a veil of anonymity and a no sense of social responsibility.

About the Author:
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist & creator of an amazing course that shows A Quick and Easy Way To Painlessly Set Up Your OWN Money-making ‘Mini’ Websites… Without Being a Computer Geek, Buying Software, or Paying A Webmaster!” Click => http://www.MiniSiteCreator.com

Linkshare Affiliate Marketing

Millions of dollars in online sales every day. Get your share.

We’ve tried out just about every affiliate program there is, so when I say that Linkshare is the best - I’m basing it on experience. It’s by far the easiest to use and the selection of merchants is more than you could ever hope for.

There aren’t many things (online) that I could honestly say are totally pain-free, but Linkshare is one of them. Check them out, you’ll be as impressed as me.

Joi
Hightide-Web

Basic Graphic Design

Basic Graphic Design

By: Kelly Paal

Whether you design your business brochures, flyers, web page, or ads there are some things that you need to know. There are some basic graphic design principles that those of us trained in the commercial art/graphic design field don’t always share. Here’s a short list of elements of graphic design that you can use today.

Color

This is the first and most important. Color is everything. It’s why we buy HDTV sets to get better color. You want to consider your product first. Is there a color that fits the item? Are you selling beach items, chose a sand color. Are you selling electronics, chose a metallic color. Next make sure the color is eye-catching but possible to look at. If you can’t stare at the color for at least the minimum amount of time that you’d want your customer’s attention, then don’t use it.

Line

And I don’t mean “a line” I mean the line of the elements in your project. Stand back and squint at your creation. Notice the line of the text and the images. Where are the lines moving? They should all direct your customer’s attention from the top of your page to the bottom in a seamless movement. If you notice an out of place line the directs your eyes back to the top of the page or stops it all together then you need to rearrange a few items. (Continue….)

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization for Everyone

by Sherry Holub

There are many facets to SEO and the search engines continually change their methods of indexing sites to help prevent the same sites from staying up in the ranks all the time.

Here are some strategies we have personally used with our web design firm:

1) Google AdWords. This is an excellent and cost effective method of getting good search results. You set the maximum daily amount you would like to spend on your key words and phrases. Within the first month we were getting more client contacts through using AdWords.

2) Overture Keywords. A lot like AdWords, but we found that their system did not really allow you to set a daily limit to how much you wanted to spend and it quickly got out of hand with some of the phrases we had chosen! Still, pretty cost effective in the grand scheme of things.

(Continue article…)

Making a Living as an Affiliate

How to Make a Living as an Affiliate
by Hans Hasselfors

95% of all affiliates make $0 - $100 a year. I don’t know about you, but in my books, this is not a living. In this quick “How To” guide, we’ll take a look at how you can become part of the 5% who ARE making their living online. This guide does not guarantee that you’ll make a fortune, but it will point you in the right direction if you’re interested in making a living as an affiliate.

1. Mindset: Get in touch with your grey matter. Program your mind with positive, committed thoughts. If you can believe it,you can achieve it. It sounds a bit like a sales seminar, but bottom line is, if you don’t believe you can make a living online, you won’t. You have to be committed. Commit to yourself that you will develop an income online - no matter what it takes. Think of your business as a bacon and eggs breakfast. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed!

2. Viewpoint: This is your business. Once you’ve accomplished your first hurdle and committed yourself to making this work, you have to look at your business from the proper viewpoint. No rose coloured glasses here. This is your business. You are the CEO of your own marketing company. You can choose to offer your services to one or several companies. Bottom line, you are responsible for every action in your company. Every decision you make affects your bottom line.

3. Learning Curve: Expect it. Becoming an affiliate is like going to college or university. You start at the beginning, learn the basics and build on what you learn. Take it step-by-step and you’ll build a much stronger business. Think of it like becoming a doctor. One doesn’t decide to become a doctor with the expectation of opening a successful practice one week from now. It takes time to learn the products or services you’re marketing and it takes time to learn to run your business.

4. Budget: Time and money. Set a general budget for both. As a business owner, you’ll use plenty of time developing and promoting your affiliate business. Budget as much time as you can each day and make sure you use your time wisely. Set up a budget for your monetary expenses too. You can run a business online with a shoestring budget, just don’t expect a mammoth income in the beginning. The more you can invest in your business, the better. This doesn’t mean that simply throwing money at your business will make it grow. Every dollar that goes out your door, needs to come back in and bring another dollar with it.

5. Goals: s/he shoots - s/he scores! Your goals will get you through the tough times. There’ll be lots of days when you feel like quitting. If you make your goals tangible, you’ll make it through the tough days. Money isn’t a motivator, but what money can buy, is. Set your goals for a family vacation, a new car, boat, or home. It’s much easier to get excited about a shiny red corvette in your driveway than $100,000 sitting in your bank account. Money is only numbers on a pieceof paper or a computer screen, but it can bring you a luxurious lifestyle, and that’s where the fun is.

6. Nuts and Bolts: Once you’ve got your house in order, with the proper mindset, you’re looking at your business from a realistic viewpoint, you’ve got an open mind and you’re ready to learn, you’ve set aside some time and money and you’ve got pictures of your dream house, car and vacation plastered on your wall, you’re ready to go hunting. The next step is to find a business that interests you and offers an affiliate program with a reasonable commission. For information products, one of the most popular and profitable online, you can and should expect a commission of 25% or more.

Pick a product that interests you. Buy it and use it. Your business is based on your recommendations of a product or service. If you haven’t used it, how can you recommend it? Avoid running around in circles after the newest, hottest selling product of the day, it only leaves you dizzy and broke.

Choose a product you’re interested in. If you like astronomy, becoming an affiliate of a star chart company may be a good fit. Selling women’s pantyhose may not.

7. Look before you leap: Finding a company to represent as an affiliate is one thing, finding a company that respects its affiliates is another. Do a bit of research before you jump on the bandwagon. Send an email to the company as if you’re a potential customer. 24 - 48 hours is a good response time. This shows that someone is actually running the company. It also gives you an idea of their commitment. Generally, the faster the response, the more committed the company is to doing business. The quality of the response is also important.Did the response answer your question? Was it written in a friendly, professional manor? Did they answer your question directly or simply send you to a FAQ sheet?

8. Flip the switch: If everything checks out up to this point,then your next step is to take action. Fill out the affiliate application form and get your affiliate URL. Now the ball is in your court. It’s time to get down to brass tacks. If you freeze now, you make no money and flush your goals down the toilet. If you take action, you make it one step closer to your goals.

9. If you build it - they will come: OK not really, but you do have to build it. If you want to maximize your income and be taken seriously, you need to own a website. Just like a brick and mortar business, you need a professional location to offer your products. Yes, you get an affiliate URL when you sign up as an affiliate, but promoting an affiliate link looks amateur and will help you LOSE 98% of your sales. We’ll cover this in point 10.

10. Follow-up = Sales: Only 2% of your prospects will sign up or buy what you’re offering, on their first visit. 98% of yoursales will be made from your follow up. There’s a very simple method for following up and making sales automatically.

i. Check your favourite search engine to locate a free ebook, software program or report that relates to your offer. If you’re promoting a website that sells peanut butter, a free peanut butter recipe book would be a good match. Your give-away must always relate to the product you’re promoting to maximize the results of this system.

ii. Build a page on your website to give away your free peanutbutter recipe book. Design the page as if you were designing a sales page. Make people’s mouths water until they want the recipes so bad they’d gladly pay for them, but then give it to them free. All they have to do is fill in their name and email address in the simple form and you’ll send their recipe book to them instantly via email.

iii. As soon as your peanut butter prospect fills out the formon your site and clicks the send button, they are taken to your affiliate URL where they can buy peanut butter. At the same time, the peanut butter recipe book is sent to their email address.

iv. Now your peanut butter prospect receives an email from you each week with new tips and useful peanut butter information. This information positions you as a peanut butterexpert and gives you the opportunity to promote your peanut butter affiliate website once a week, to hot prospects. This is where you’ll make 98% of your sales.

Although this may seem like an overwhelming amount of work for the beginner, it’s all very simple. The whole process is run from an autoresponder, a simple piece of email software that automatically sends your prewritten email messages on a predetermined schedule.

Your success as an affiliate is determined by you. 95% of the people that read this simple How To guide will do nothing withit. 5% of the people that read this guide will put all the pieces in place and start making a living as an affiliate. You have to decide which side of the coin you want to be on.

Hans Hasselfors is a successful business entrepreneur and internet marketing consultant. Get the net working for you. Join a community of like-minded entrepreneurs and make your living online. Become a member of The Business Professional network. http://www.internet-marketing-experts-online.com

New Article added to Hightide Web

Jump-Starting Your Forum Community

Author: Dax Christopher

Forums are an excellent addition to a website to attract visitors to interact with the site and to return to the website freqeuently. While there are many other website additions that can retain visitors and have them coming back for more, forums are perhaps the most engaging for visitors to your website and offer the most benefits to both the website’s owner and the visitor.

Unfortunately, having a forum addition to a website does not guarantee its success and usefulness in gathering the hypothesized attention and attractiveness. A new forum with no content, no members or no active discussion is like an empty hall. Anyone who steps into such an empty room would most definitely get the creeps and run away as fast as they can. Similarly, your forum can quickly lose its purported usefulness if it is empty and bare. Continue….



The ideal world of affiliate marketing does not require having your own website, dealing with customers, refunds, product development and maintenance. This is one of the easiest ways of launching into an online business and earning more profits.

Assuming you are already in an affiliate program, what would be the next thing you would want to do? Double, or even triple, your commissions, right? How do you do that?

Here are some powerful tips on how to boost your affiliate program commissions overnight. Keep Reading...





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