SEO News and SEO Tips from SEO Blog Expert

What is the .htaccess File, and What Can I Do With It?

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:31:44 +0000

You may have been working on a website, or reading an article about web development, and heard about the .htaccess file, but wondered what it was, or what, if anything, you can do with it. This tutorial will tell you the basics about .htaccess, and show you a few ways you can use it on your website.

Before we go any farther, let’s explain what the .htaccess file is. htaccess is short for Hypertext Access, and is a configuration file used by Apache-based web servers that controls the directory that it “lives” in–as well as all the subdirectories underneath that directory.

Many times, if you have installed a Content Management System (CMS), such as Drupal, Joomla or Wordpress, you likely encountered the .htaccess file. You may not have even had to edit it, but it was among the files that you uploaded to your web server. BTW, that’s its name, .htaccess–it begins with a period, and ends with “htaccess.” If you edit it, you need to make sure that it stays that way, and doesn’t end up with a .txt or .html extension.

Also note that some web hosts do not allow you to edit the .htaccess file–but even on most of those hosts, you can create your own .htaccess file and upload it to specific directories, and as discussed above, it will control those directories and subdirectories below it.

Some of the features of the .htaccess file include the ability to password protect folders, ban users or allow users using IP addresses, stop directory listings, redirect users to another page or directory automatically, create and use custom error pages, change the way files with certain extensions are utilized, or even use a different file as the index file by specifying the file extension or specific file.

Custom Error Pages for Better SEO

One use of the .htaccess file is to redirect users to a custom error page depending on the specific web server error they encounter. By using a custom error page, you can present them with a list of your site’s top articles, a sitemap with links to the various areas of your site, and it can include your site’s navigation system. It can also feature a FAQ, so folks who are looking for information on your site, but can’t find it, are able to narrow down the location of that information on your site without leaving, going back to the search engine, and more than likely not returning to your site.

It’s not difficult to use the .htaccess file to redirect users to a custom error page–but to do it you’ll need to know the proper error code. The most common ones you’ll use are:

400 – Bad request
401 – Authorization Required
403 – Forbidden
404 – File Not Found
500 – Internal Server Error

To use .htaccess with these codes, first you’ll need to open up your favorite text editor, create a new document, and in that document, specify the error message that you’ll be redirecting like this:

ErrorDocument 404 /filenotfound.html

If you wanted to redirect users for another error, such as 500, Internal Server Error, you would do it like this (and so on):

ErrorDocument 500 /servererror.html

Then you’d just save the .htaccess file (remembering to check that it is saved just like that, without some additional extension), and upload it to your web host’s root directory (or whatever directory you are wanting to use it in).

Using a Different File as the Index File

By adding another “command” to the .htaccess file, you can use a different file as the main index file that folks see when they come to your site. In other words, when folks visit www.yoursite.com, usually they are presented with www.yoursite.com/index.html or www.yoursite.com/index.php–but often you have created a special page that you want to use as your site’s main page–and it isn’t any of the traditional pages. Or you may want to take advantage of the latest version of PHP…there are many reasons for needing to use a different file as the index file. Here’s how you would do it, with each type of file being next in line, if the others are not in the directory.

DirectoryIndex index.php3 index.php pictures.pl index.html default.htm

For instance, if there was no file named index.php3 in your directory, then the server would look for a file called index.php. If that file wasn’t present, it would look for one called pictures.pl, and so on. In our next article, we’ll look at other types of redirection, password protection and we’ll show you how to allow or deny users with specific IP addresses from accessing your site.

By Scott Clark

Windows 7’s Worst Features

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:50:15 +0000

Windows 7 fixed many of Vista’s ills, but it also introduced a few of its own.

There’s a lot to love about the Windows 7 operating system: it’s fast, it looks great, and it has some cool features–like Jump Lists for quickly opening recently used files, Homegroup for sharing files between computers, and Aero Snap to help you quickly organize your open desktop windows.

Windows 7 is addresses some of the problems that plagued its predecessor, Windows Vista, such as the Universal Access Control security system, the constant stream of notifications, and the lack of device drivers for printers and other peripherals.

Microsoft hasn’t solved all of those issues–in fact, getting Windows 7 drivers for some printers continues to be a struggle–but so far Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista, despite their underlying similarities.

That said, Windows 7 has downsides of its own. Some of the problems involve minor inefficiencies that grow annoying over time; others truly degrade the user experience through lack of functionality, poor organization, or an overabundance of choice. Here are the problem children of Windows 7–the faulty features I found in the Home Premium version of Microsoft’s latest OS.

When Clicking Isn’t Switching

If you’re looking for a good reason never to use Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7, try this: Open multiple tabs in IE 8, and open a Microsoft Word document. Then click the IE icon in the taskbar, and…nothing happens. Instead of switching over to Internet Explorer as you’d expect it to, Windows 7 greets you with miniature pop-ups for every tab you’ve opened in IE and asks you to choose the one you’d like to go to.

Windows 7’s Aero Peek offers some helpful features, but also makes switching between programs with multiple windows harder to do quickly.This feature, called Aero Peek, is actually a nice idea, since you get to choose the tab you want to see. But we’ve been trained for years to expect to switch to a new program when we click on its icon in the taskbar, so why change the behavior now? In Windows 7, many Microsoft-made programs (including Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer 8, and Windows Live Messenger) use this feature. But since you can also activate Aero Peek by hovering over a taskbar icon instead of clicking it, a better solution for Windows 7 would be, hover to peek but click to switch.

The Automatic Switch

Thanks to another Aero Peek function, when you move your pointer over any of the small pop-ups, you suddenly find yourself in the new program–except that you aren’t really there. When you mouse over a pop-up, the corresponding application fills the screen, but when you move the pointer to go to the app the app disappears. The purpose of this feature is to enable you to quickly navigate to another program like IE, refer to something in the browser, and then jump back to where you were. But suppose that you’re in Microsoft Word and you jump over to IE 8 to check out a news item on CNN. As you read the article, you decide to click an accompanying video–but the moment you move your mouse, you’re back in Microsoft Word. That’s not helpful; it’s frustrating.

Windows 7 behaves similarly when you hover over ‘All programs’ in the Start Menu. Hover too long over ‘All programs’, and Windows 7 will switch to your full programs list instead of remaining in the primary Start Menu. Unfortunately, this little trick takes just under 2 seconds to pull off, which is too slow to be useful but just fast enough to be annoying.

Too Many Notifications

Windows 7 greatly improves on Vista by cutting down the number of system notification pop-ups that interrupt you during a Windows session–but there’s still room to cut down on the excess. For example, Windows 7 issues an “Information” notice when you plug headphones or speakers into your computer’s headphone jack. You can’t get a virus through a headphone jack, though, so why alert me to something so innocuous?

The most ridiculous alert I’ve encountered was an update telling me that Windows 7 was going to check for a system update at 3 a.m. Do I need to know this? Just do the update; and if you need my authorization to proceed, let me know when it’s time. My computer should work on my schedule, not interrupt me with details about its itinerary.

User Account Control

When it introduced UAC in Windows Vista, Microsoft hailed it as a significant step toward making Windows systems more secure. But most users detested UAC–in particular, the way it blanked out the screen and then repeatedly asked whether they really wanted to install something. Microsoft has made the UAC in Windows 7 dramatically better, with fewer screen blank outs (you can even turn them off) and alerts. Still, there must be a better way than UAC to handle security issues.

Windows Live an Essential Hassle

With Windows 7, Microsoft has removed some basic programs from the operating system and bundled them in a free download called Windows Live Essentials. Windows Live programs include Windows Live Mail (the successor to Outlook Express), Messenger, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, Call, and Writer (a blogging tool). Microsoft says that it decided to make these programs available as a download, instead of including them with Windows 7, so that it could update the applications “without being tied to the OS upgrade cycle.”

The drawback of the Windows Live Essentials download is that it adds a step to the initial Windows 7 setup process. Given that Live Essentials are basic programs that most users will want to have at their fingertips, why not figure out a way to bundle them with new computers right out of the box?

Persistent Gadgets

I’ve never been a huge fan of gadgets, but they can be helpful for quickly checking a flight time or weather forecast. In Windows 7, you can put gadgets anywhere on your desktop; but just as in Vista, you don’t have an automatic hide option for gadgets. Instead, to make your gadgets disappear, you have to right-click your desktop, select View, and uncheck ‘Show desktop gadgets’.

Gadgets can be helpful when you want quick access to things such as weather forecasts and flight times, but they lack an automatic hide option to keep your desktop tidy when you don’t need them.That’s not a very convenient procedure, so your gadgets are likely to remain visible on your desktop pretty much all the time. An automatic hide option that would enable you to make gadgets reappear with a keystroke would be a nice thing for users who value a clean desktop.

Complicated Themes

All I wanted to do was change my desktop background–not get new system sounds or a new color scheme or a new mouse pointer. In XP, adopting one of my own photos as my desktop background took just a few clicks; and even in Windows Vista, the process was pretty straightforward. But Windows 7’s themes take changing your desktop background to a new and unpleasant level of complication.

Themes in Windows 7 are predefined profiles that compile everything from your system sounds, screen savers, and windows colors in one place, where you can activate them with just one click. For the most part this is a great and highly customizable feature, but one of the things people are most likely to want to change is their desktop background. So why not make this basic act something you can do on the fly in just a few clicks, instead of the confusing rigmarole Windows 7 makes you go through now?

Vague Control Panel

The problem with the Control Panel started with Windows XP’s introduction of Classic View. In truth, there’s nothing classic about this view, and “Standard View” would be a more apt name for it. Though the Classic View in XP has a very practical organizational structure, Microsoft insisted on switching to a new default organization in Windows 7 called ‘Category.’

Supposedly, Category provides a simplified version of the Control Panel; but in reality it’s vague, confusing, and much harder to navigate. The display closest to the Control Panel’s old Classic View is called ‘Large icons’, and you select it in the ‘View by’ drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the Control Panel window.

The other trouble with the Control Panel is that, ever since Vista, some icons have acquired more-confusing names. The straightforward ‘Add or remove programs’, became ‘Programs and Features’, and ‘Accessibility Options’ became ‘Ease of Access Center’. Give me that old-time Windows 98 Control Panel any day.

Screenshots: Easy but Not Simple

Creating screen grabs, which I do every day, has always been a chore in Windows. Before Windows 7 you had to press Ctrl-Print Screen, open a program such as Windows Paint, paste the image into Paint, and then save it. You can still do this in Windows 7, but Microsoft has tried to make the screenshot process easier by introducing the Snipping Tool. To access this new application, clicking Start, Accessories, Snipping Tool.

The Windows 7 Snipping Tool is the most efficient way yet to capture screenshots in Windows, but Mac OS X’s approach is simpler still.The Snipping Tool offers such options as a one-window snip, a full-screen snip, a rectangular snip that you frame yourself, and a free-form snip for tablet computers. You select the snip you want, the application performs the action, and then you save. But again, Windows 7 falls short by making the screen capture path unnecessarily difficult.

In contrast, Mac OS X gives you two basic choices for screen grabs: Command-Shift-3 takes a shot of the whole screen; and Command-Shift-4 lets you frame your own shot. Screenshots in OS X are saved directly to your desktop as a Portable Network Graphic file (.png). Like the Snipping Tool, Mac OS X offers various other screenshot options, but in OS X the variations use keyboard shortcuts and don’t require you to open any applications. Microsoft should create a similarly easy method for capturing screenshots.

Tip: To make screen grabs a little easier, create a keyboard shortcut to the Snipping Tool. Click Start, Accessories, and right-click Snipping Tool, Properties. Move your cursor into the Shortcut tab’s entry box, enter s (or any other keystroke), and click apply. From now on, whenever you type Ctrl-Alt-s, the Snipping Tool should open up.

Elusive ‘My Documents’ Folder

Wondering what happened to your old ‘My Documents’ folder (from Windows XP) in Windows 7? In a practical sense, My Documents has become ‘Documents’–but that description isn’t quite accurate. Actually, Windows 7 introduced a new file hierarchy called Libraries that differs from the file systems in previous versions of Windows. As a result of this change, the My Documents folder rarely appears in the main section of Windows Explorer in Windows 7. Instead, it sits in the side panel on the left under Libraries, Documents, My Documents, but it almost never appears in the main window.

The new arrangement is helpful in that you can see the My Documents subfolders right away; it also reduces the number of clicks needed to get to the folder’s contents. But the new hierarchy provides what appear to be two places to save a document, though in fact you end up in the same location either way you do it.

To illustrate this, save a file to My Documents in Windows 7: Select Libraries, Documents, My Documents; once your document is saved, right-click the file and select Properties. Under ‘Location’ you should see something like ‘C:\ Users\USERNAME\Documents’. But didn’t you save that file directly to the ‘My Documents’ folder? So shouldn’t it be ‘C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\MyDocuments’?

If you use the left navigation pane in Windows 7 to get to My Documents, you’ll still see your file listed as part of the My Documents folder, but you’ll also see it standing alone in the Documents view one level up. So Windows 7 appears to the user to maintain two different navigation structures for getting to the same file: Libraries, Documents, My Documents, FILENAME, and Libraries, Documents, FILENAME.

It may be a great way to organize your files, but I find it redundant. Windows 7 should either discard the My Documents folder or embrace it; the OS shouldn’t try to do both at the same time.

The Exclusivity of Homegroups

Homegroup in Windows 7 lets you easily share documents, music, pictures, and videos between different computers at home. It’s a great feature, except that it only works with Windows 7 computers. It’s a shame that Microsoft hasn’t brought this functionality to computers running Windows Vista. You can still share files between Vista and Windows 7 PCs through Windows Media Player, or you can set up a home network the old-fashioned way under Network Settings. But I wish that Microsoft had brought Homegroup to Windows Vista–and enabled Homegroup to share with Mac OS X computers, too.

For the most part, Windows 7 is an excellent operating system that includes an array of great new features as well as some basic improvements on its predecessors. I’ve never seen Windows interact so seamlessly with peripheral USB devices, for example; and monitoring your default and startup programs in the new OS is remarkably easy. But if Microsoft tweaked a few more things in Windows 7, the experience would be nearly perfect.

news source – pcworld.com

Article Submission & Article Distribution Sites

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:58:36 +0000

Article Submission Sites

This Page is republished with permission from ArticlePR.com, its original source, and with our sincere thanks to Glenn Murray from ArticlePR and DivineWrite.com for the tremendous effort he put into producing this information.

Add a site or report a broken link – This list is maintained manually, so we’d really appreciate it if you could point out any broken links or links that point to questionable sites. Also, if you know of an article submission site or article distribution list that isn’t listed here, we’d love to hear about it. Please Contact Us, and we will update our page and also pass on the info to ArticlePR.com.

List of Article Submission Sites & Article Distribution Lists

The following table contains several hundred article submission sites and article distribution lists. These are ALL the sites I’ve used to achieve my top ranking (for divinewrite.com).

Jump to:

Article Submission Sites

Article Distribution Lists

Article Submission Sites

Article submission sites are websites that act as ‘article banks’. They allow authors of articles to post their articles on the site for free, and they allow webmasters who need content to copy those articles for free (in exchange for a link to the author’s website).

TIP:	I’ve tried to order the article submission sites by their Alexa ranking, with the most popular at the top. This way, if you don’t get to the bottom of the list, you’ve still managed to submit your article to the most popular article submission sites (giving it more exposure).

Site	HTML Allowed in Byline? (Y/N)	Login Required (Y/N)	Notes
Digg	?	Y	NA
Ezine Articles	Y	Y	See their editorial guidelines, but specifically DO NOT USE Paragraph or Break tags. Instead, use normal paragraph breaks in Word. No more than 3 self-serving links.
Go Articles	Y	Y	Max 15,000 characters.
Content Desk	Y	Y	NA
Article City	N	N	NA
Article Dashboard	Y	Y	NA
Articlesbase	?	Y	NA
Idea Marketers	Y	Y	Max 14,000 characters INCLUDING BIO.
Article Alley	Y	Y	Interprets Word’s paragraph markers as HTML Paragraph tags so if you have both those and actual Paragraph tags, you’ll get double paragraph spacing. Same network as A1 articles. Articles are automatically published there.
Excellent Guide	?	N	NA
Valuable Content	Y	N – uses WYSIWYG	Do NOT change ‘Start Date’, ‘End Date’, or ‘Article Type’. Do NOT select ‘Don’t Auto Format’ under ‘Headline Summary’.
Home Business Webmaster Tips	N	N	NA
Article OnRamp	Y	Y	NA
InfoPool	Y	Y	Article Title: Title length must be between 4 to 100 characters. Your title must be relevant to your article and may not contain contact information, your name, business name, and any website name or otherwise. Article title must not be stuff with keywords. Titles must NOT be written in all CAPS. The first letter of each word must be capitalized, excluding common words (optional) like ‘the, and, are’ unless it is the first word of your title. Article Summary: Article summery is a required field and must have minimum 20 characters and maximum 150 characters. Article summery should be relevant to your article. Article Body: Articles must be 350 words minimum not including the summary or author’s bio. DO NOT include any HTML tag or hyperlink in the body of your article. Article submitted with hyperlink in the body will be rejected immediately (use about author box to display hyperlinks). We strongly recommend that you copy and paste articles from a basic text editor like notepad. About Author: Up to 300 characters or roughly 40 words. Maximum two hyperlinks are allowed per “About Box” (Affiliate links are not allowed). You must include the necessary HTML tags to make any link included here active; simply placing http://www.yoursite.com in the text will not generate a live link. The About box can be used for biographical and copyright information as well as linking to relevant websites.
SimplySearch4It	Y	N	500 – 8000 words.
I-Snare	Y	Y	NA
Free Content	Y	N	NA
Article Hub	N	N	Append bio to article end.
Ezine Finder	N	Y	NA
Amazines	Y	Y	NA
ReprintArticles	N	N	NA
Business Highlight	Y	Y	NA
Home Highlight	Y	Y	NA
LinkSnoop	N	N	350 – 1000 words including bio.
Click-Partners	Y	Y	No smart quotes (i.e. the fancy ones that Word sometimes creates) and don’t use HTML equivalent. Just use text quotes.
Morgan Article Archive	N	N	NA
Xongoo	N	N	NA
Oqey	N	N	NA
Article Avenue	Y	Y	NA
WebSition	Y	Y	NA
Connection Team	?	N	Just list url of the page where your article appears on your website.
Article Blast	?	Y	NA
Business Tool Chest	N	N	NA
WorkAtHomeArticles	N	Y	NA
ArticlesHaven	N	N	You can only put a link that goes to a top level domain or directory. We do not allow linking to specific pages. This is to prevent link spamming and affiliate linking.
ArticleDepot	N	N	NA
ExpertArticles	?	Y	NA
Business Clique	Y	Y	NA
Article Point	N	N	NA
USWebPros	N	N	NA
How-It-Works	?	?	NA
What Say	N	Y	NA
Money Making Parents	Y	N	NA
Content-Articles	Y	Y	NA
Live Articles	?	?	NA
The Whir	?	?	NA
Marketing Seek	?	?	Can format fully or copy & paste from MS Word. You must send a picture with your article.
Free Spirit	?	?	NA
SearchImport	?	Y	Must include reprint guidelines in order for it to be considered a free reprint article.
ArticleWorld	?	?	NA
Free-Articles-Zone	?	Y	NA
Article99	?	Y	NA
ActiveAuthors	?	Y	NA
ArticlePros	?	N	NA
Free-Articles-Zone	?	Y	NA
The Self Improvement Site	?	?	NA
Article Content King	N	Y	NA
Article Sphere	?	?	NA
Good Morning Planet Earth	?	Y	NA
Article Street	?	Y	NA
Articles Beyond Better	?	Y	NA
Article Treasure	?	?	NA
Article Destination	?	?	NA
Articles4Free	?	?	NA
Articles-Hub	?	Y	NA
Article Pro	?	Y	NA
ArticleXtra	?	Y	NA
Work At Home Business Website	?	Y	NA
ArticleMS	?	Y	NA
All Over Essays	?	N	1 on topic link allowed in article
Articles Book	?	Y	NA
Qwik Ezine	?	Y	NA
GoArticle.net	?	N	NA
Smash Articles	Y	N	NA
Copy & Paste Articles	Y	N	NA
Go-See.Info	Y	Y	Use the resource box for linking back to your site – Articles submitted will not be approved if they contain links in the body belonging to the author. Please use the resource box to link back to your site. Please limit resource box links to 3 or fewer – Articles containing more than 3 links in the resource box will not be approved. Articles must be spellchecked and proof read for grammatical errors prior to submitting – Do not submit articles filled with spelling errors and bad grammar. We do monitor article submissions and we will reject content that doesn’t meet this requirement.
TNT Articles	Y	Y	NA
Topic Planet	Y	Y	Quite detailed guidelines.
My Free Article Central	Y	Y	Quite detailed guidelines.
Live Article Directory	Y	Y	NA
ArticlePower.org	Y	Y	Article Title: maximum 150 characters. Article Body: maximum of 15,000 characters or roughly 5,000 words. Author Bio: 400 characters or roughly 60 words. We strongly recommend that authors submitting to ArticlePower.org copy and paste articles from a basic text editor like Notepad or TextEdit. Following this suggestion will ensure that paragraph breaks, line length and other basic formatting will be properly handled by our submission form. Copying and pasting content from applications like MS Word can and does result in a variety of formatting problems. The reason for this is that MS Word and similar applications use non-ASCII, sometimes invisible, characters that are copied with article content into our submission form, causing articles to appear very differently from the way they were submitted. Keeping the above in mind, it is not necessary for authors to use html tags for specifying font size or to create paragraph and line breaks. Use of HTML should be minimal and we suggest html tags only be used for creating live links to sites, services or products. Our submission process does not automatically create activated links. You must do this.
Smartfinds Article Directory	Y	Y	Use the resource box for linking back to your site – Articles submitted will not be approved if they contain links in the body belonging to the author. Please use the resource box to link back to your site. Please limit resource box links to 3 or fewer – Articles containing more than 3 links in the resource box will not be approved. Articles must be spellchecked and proof read for grammatical errors prior to submitting – Do not submit articles filled with spelling errors and bad grammar. We do monitor article submissions and we will reject content that doesn’t meet this requirement.
Worthy Articles	Y	Y	No links in the article body are welcome as well. Please use the resource box to link back to your site. Articles containing more than 3 links in the resource box will not be approved.

Article Distribution Lists

Article distribution lists serve a similar function to article submission sites – they just operate differently. Instead of visiting the site and posting your article, you simply email your article to the group, and all members automatically receive it (assuming they’re subscribed to received emails). Most article distribution groups are Yahoo groups.

This list is not ordered by popularity; it is alphabetized.

TIP:

Each article distribution list / group will have its own conditions and formatting requirements, but this Article Template for Article Distribution Groups will be suitable for most.

IMPORTANT: Before you can email your article to a group, you MUST:

have a Yahoo Group membership (or Google, MSN, Topica, etc.)

be signed in to Yahoo Groups (or Google Groups, etc.)

be a member of the group

in most cases, subscribe to receive the group’s email

Site (Home)	Type	Email articles to	Notes
aidphelp	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Allergy-Asthma-Info	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
AllThingsPondered	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Announce_It_Write	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
AP-Shorts	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article Announce Writer & Publisher Exchange	Yahoo	Click to email	In addition do not post more than one article per group per day. If more than one article is posted within a 24-hour period, it will be deleted without notice. Press releases may be posted to the groups only if they are formatted as a press release and follow the submission guidelines.
Article Announce Home	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article Announce Health	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article Announce Business	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article Announce General	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article Announce Internet	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Articles4You2Use4Promotion	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article_Announce_List	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ArticleAnnouncer	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article_Archives	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article-Distribution	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ArticleExchange	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article-Free	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Article-Group	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ArticleSubmission	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
articles-about-promotion-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
articles-concerning-google-adwords	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Articles-Network	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ArticlePublish	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ArticlePublisher	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
AstroClubNewsletters	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
automotive_content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
BachAndHandelResearchResources	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
BizEzyGuide	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
bookreviews-fiction	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
bookreviews-nonfiction	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
BusinessArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Christian_Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	Post only the preview and bio incl an email address. Interested editors will then contact you for the entire piece.
Christian_Content_For_Reprint	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
computer_tips_4_reprint	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
content-4-the-holidays	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
content-about-communities	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
copywriting_help	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
dating-tips-and-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
diabetic-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Edipity	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
EditorsReview	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
E_A_A	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
electronics_articleblaster	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
employment-hunting-tips	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ePub	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ExCHANGE-board	Yahoo	Click to email	When you subscribe, you’ll be asked to submit a bio, end-of-article blurb, by-line and a your first article to: ExCHANGE-board-owner@yahoogroups.com. Once approved, you will receive further information on how to post your articles directly to the group.
EzineZone	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
family_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
family-by-design-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
filler_content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
FreeAnnouncements-Ebooks	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-automotive-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-business-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-Content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
FreeContentArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
FreeContent4WAHMS	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
FreeContentForWAHMS	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-dating-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free_eContent	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
FreeEzineArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-Ezine-Content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free_gardening_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free_Health_Articles_for_Reprint	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free_internet_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
free_medical_business_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
free_parenting_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-Pet-Content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
free_political_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free_real_estate_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
free-reports-and-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-Reprint-Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free-Reprint_Recipes	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
FreeReprintables	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free_Sports_Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Free_travel_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
freE-zinecontent	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Freelance_Promotion	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
FreeWrites	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
freezinecontent	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
GH-ContentAnnounce	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Health-And-Wellness-Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Health-Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Helping-Our-Kids-Succeed	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Historical-Reprint-Content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
HolidayArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Home_and_garden_content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Home-Improvement-Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
humor-articles-and-jokes-4-reprint	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
internet_marketing_articleblaster	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
I_Need_Content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Inspiration-Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
jewelry-reprint-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
JustArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
MarketingArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
mba-crm-erp-cio-pm-it-free-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
med-content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Nature-Reprints	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
netwrite-publish-announce	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
OnlyWritingArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Parenting-Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
PNewsletterFreeArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Political-Thoughts	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ppcse-reprint-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
PromoteYourArticle	Yahoo	Click to email	You may submit only one article per day. You must be the author of any Article that you post to this list.
PublishYourArticle	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Publisher_Network	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
pyabusiness	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
pyahealth	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
QC_Reprint_Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ReadMyArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
realty-web-content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
realworld-advertising-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Relationship-Advice-Content	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ReprintArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ReprintArticles-Paradise	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
ReprintedArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
SelfCareArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Self-Improvement-Reprint-Articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
SpiderSuccess	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
spirituality_article_publisher	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
sports-health-medicine-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
stormpay_articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
SubmitYourArticle	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
The-Article-Depot	Yahoo	Click to email	You may post one (1) article or report per day (until further notice).
the-business-of-medicine	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
TheWriteArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
UseMyArticles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
video-production-articles	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
Webmaster-article-corner	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
WriteAnnounce	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
WriteQualityContent	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
WritersContent	Yahoo	Click to email	NA
1st-Article-Group	Google	Click to email	NA
Article	Google	Click to email	NA
Article-Distribution	Google	Click to email	NA
Content Discussion Group / FreeContent	Google	Click to email	NA
Free-Content	Google	Click to email	NA
Free Online Reprint Articles	Google	Click to email	NA
Free-Reprint-Articles	Google	Click to email	NA
Quality Content	Google	Click to email	NA
Real Estate Information	Google	Click to email	NA
Relaxation	Google	Click to email	NA
Reprint Articles for Ezines and Websites	Google	Click to email	NA
Free-Reprint-Articles	MSN	Click to email	NA
Free website content	MSN	Click to email	NA
The E-Zine Article Exchange	MSN	Click to email	NA
Articles Only	SmartGroups	Click to email	NA
Free Reprint Articles	SmartGroups	Click to email	NA
ArticleReview	Topica	Click to email	NA
Click for Content	Topica	Click to email	NA
Free_Articles	Topica	Click to email	NA
FreeEzineContent	Topica	Click to email	NA
Free-Reprint_Articles	Topica	Click to email	NA
New_PhantomArticles	Topica	Click to email	NA
Reprint-Articles	Topica	Click to email	NA

Article PR – More links, less time.

For comprehensive Search Engine Marketing, contact Alkemi – Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Consultants and Internet Marketing Agency

Data Center Chief Mike Manos Quits Digital Realty Trust

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:16:05 +0000

Mike Manos, an influential figure in data center design and construction, has resigned from wholesale data center provider Digital Realty Trust after less than a year at the company, Digital Realty said on Friday.

Digital Realty designs, builds and manages large data centers for third parties, including collocation providers and hosting companies. It is one of the biggest providers of such services worldwide.

The company hired Manos last April as senior vice president of technical services, where he oversaw design, construction and technical operations for Digital Realty’s data centers worldwide. Before that, he ran Microsoft’s Data Center Services division.

Manos said via e-mail that he planned to announce his next move on Sunday. “The next chapter of my career brings me back in closer alignment with what I did for Microsoft,” he wrote.

“I remain firm in my endorsement of Digital Realty Trust and hope that my involvement has helped to move the company forward,” he was quoted as saying in a statement from Digital Realty.

Digital Realty said, “We understand that this was a difficult, personal decision for him and we wish him the very best in his future endeavors.”

Manos has been a champion of containerized data centers like those being used on a large scale at Microsoft’s new data center in Chicago. Containerized data centers pack servers and other compute gear into shipping containers, and they can help companies boost energy efficiency or delay the need to construct new data centers.

Manos is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences on energy efficiency and other data center topics. He is also a proponent of building data centers in a more modular, standardized way, where mechanical and electrical components are designed and can then be reused in a “cookie-cutter” fashion.

Digital Realty said Dave Caron, senior vice president for portfolio management, will oversee technical operations, and Jim Smith, chief technology officer, will oversee design and construction on an interim basis, both effective Feb. 1.

Why Amazon Must Now Focus on E-Book Sales

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:13:32 +0000

If Amazon stakes its future on Kindle hardware instead of cross-platform e-book sales, it’s in for a world of hurt from Apple’s iPad.

Apple’s upcoming iPad includes the iBooks app, which combines e-book reader software with an iTunes-like service for selling books. I was somewhat surprised by iBooks. I had just assumed that Apple was going to let existing e-book distributors like Amazon.com and FictionWise install apps on the iPad and sell books that way. But I should not have been surprised. Why wouldn’t Apple want to have its own e-book store?

The iPad is likely to suck the oxygen from e-book hardware sales. Given a choice between an e-book reader and a device that does e-books and dozens of other things, consumers will likely choose the more useful device.

Novelist Charles Stross thinks the Kindle is in trouble.

“And this thing is going to slaughter the Kindle and most of the other ebook readers on the market, even without Apple coming up with a better business model for the publishers. With Penguin, Hachette, Macmillan, Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins on board, they’ve just about aced the main US trade publishers — remains to be seen how smaller outfits plug into the platform, but at this point Amazon have a struggle on their hands. As iBook reads ePub format files it may be possible to add free content to it. Maybe.”

Whether this is a win or loss for Amazon depends on how Amazon plays it from here out. The Amazon Kindle software already runs on the iPhone, and it will therefore run on the iPad. With the introduction of the iPad, the market for e-books is going to explode.

If Amazon stakes its future on the Kindle hardware, it’s in for a world of hurt. But if it builds a business on cross-platform e-book sales, then Amazon will prosper.

Not everyone agrees that the iPad will be fatal to the Kindle. Brad Stone of the New York Times argues that the iPad is not a Kindle-killer:

“The Kindle is for book lovers, and the iPad is not.

“Sure, the Kindle’s potential market may have shrunk today, since the two-books-a-year folks will now opt for the more versatile iPad.

“But the Kindle (and other devices with E Ink screens) will continue to be the best device for lovers of long-form reading, period. (And they do love it; check the Kindle forums for the passion of Kindle owners.) The iPad’s backlit screen, higher price and more limited battery all make it a poorer choice for curling up with a novel.

“Also, there’s the distraction factor. When you read a book, you just don’t want to have e-mail, Twitter and the ESPN Web site beckoning from the browser. The absence of those services on the Kindle — sure, it’s also a flaw — actually make it better for focused leisure reading.”

I’m a book-lover, and I disagree with Stone. I don’t think there are enough people who agree with him to sustain e-book reader sales.

And there’s one way the iPad is great for writers, readers and publishers: The iBooks store will provide an e-book alternative to Amazon’s growing monopoly.

As an added bonus feature, iBooks supports the ePub standard for e-books. Macworld’s Dan Frakes explains the significance of ePub support:

“Adopted by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) as an open-standards-based format for digital books, ePub allows publishers to create books in a single format for distribution to various e-book resellers and for use on any device that supports ePub. With more and more publishers and hardware vendors adopting the ePub standard, this news means it will be easier for publishers—big and small—to make their e-books available for the iPad and other e-readers.

“(Questions still remain, however: Will Apple apply FairPlay copy protection to books you purchase through the iBookstore? Will you be able to import unprotected ePub documents into the iBooks app? We’ll be working on the answers to these questions going forward.)”

Google to End Support for IE6

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:11:27 +0000

Google will phase out support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 Web browser starting in March, the company said Friday.

“Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites,” Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager, wrote in a blog post Friday.

The announcement comes more than two weeks after Google reported that its servers had been the target of attacks originating in China. Those attacks targeted a vulnerability in IE 6, for which Microsoft has since issued a fix.

Support for IE6 in Google Docs and Google Sites will end March 1, Sheth said in the post. At that point, IE6 users who try to access Docs or Sites may find that “key functionality” won’t work properly, he said.

Sheth suggested that customers upgrade to Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox 3.0, Google Chrome 4.0 or Safari 3.0, or more recent versions of those browsers.

According to StatCounter, IE6 has 18 percent market share among browsers.

What Defines an E-Reader?

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:07:57 +0000

Until recently, pretty much all e-readers used E-Ink displays like the ones in Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. However, at CES we’ve seen a number of concept designs and prototypes-from both Asian contract manufacturers and established companies-that are billed as “e-readers”, but use LCD screens like the ones in typical notebooks.

MSI’s dual-screen e-reader/netbook

Are these devices truly e-readers? The whole point of electronic paper-based e-readers is that the display, which doesn’t use a backlight, mimics the look of physical paper and is easier on the eyes than a bright, backlit LCD. I saw many LCD “e-readers” at the show, but none had those same qualities.

Tech companies are as susceptible to trends as teenage girls and I’d argue that many of the companies making LCD-based e-readers are simply jumping on the craze for these devices. Many of these so-called e-readers are no more than tablet PCs or MID (mobile Internet devices), capable of displaying e-books with e-reader software but not really optimized for that purpose. It’s no different, really, than a mobile phone running Amazon’s Kindle app, or any other e-reader software for that matter. The only difference between the two categories is the size of the screen.

Much of the hype is just that. After all, this is CES-the place where companies go to put forth ideas and gauge the reception from the media and potential customers.

Which brings me around to the MSI 10-inch dual-screen e-reader concept. The clam-shell prototype device was surprisingly lightweight in my hands, and had a touchscreen that made it easy to navigate around the Windows 7 starter operating system. The screens responded to being reoriented from the vertical position to horizontal; in horizontal mode, the unit has a virtual keyboard with haptic feedback. The prototype is intriguing, to be sure, but, MSI has no plans to bring it to market, and according to a product manager, the product won’t be manufactured until at least 2011. Ditto for the company’s other concept display, a half-inch-thick (give or take) tablet “e-reader” with touchscreen, running Google Android. Both devices ran e-reader software, had LCD screens, and used full-featured operating systems. They were capable of far more than many traditional e-readers, but will they be optimal if what you really want is a device primarily to read novels on your commute?

Entourage eDge e-reader textbook

Other e-readers, like the Entourage eDge and the Spring Designs Alex Reader, also include multi-purpose LCD screens. But in addition, they have E-Ink displays of equal or greater size that the manufacturers intend for use as the primary reading display.

Spring Designs Alex Reader

While many of the tablet/MID devices introduced at CES look promising, none appear ready to replace electronic paper for long-form reading. When the sun set in Vegas, they’re still just small PCs that let you access electronic books, along with doing a whole lot of other stuff.

Google Apologizes to Chinese Authors for Book Scanning

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:04:43 +0000

Google has apologized to a Chinese authors’ group over its scanning of books by local writers into an online search system, moving to defuse copyright concerns around the project in China.

The Chinese Writers Association posted a copy of the Google statement on its Web site on Sunday. On the same day Erik Hartmann, an Asia-Pacific representative of Google Books, delivered the apology in a news program aired by China’s state broadcaster.

China is one of several countries, including the U.S. and France, where Google’s digital library program has faced legal challenges. The apology comes after the Chinese group demanded that Google compensate local authors whose works the U.S. search giant scanned without their approval.

Google is scanning hundreds of thousands of books, often without prior permission from their rights holders, so they can be searched and previewed on the Google Books service.

Google acknowledged in the statement that it had scanned books by Chinese writers and said the company would no longer do so without local authors’ permission. It also said it hopes to reach a general agreement over resolving the tensions by March and to sign a final agreement in the second quarter.

“Due to different starting notions and different understandings of the copyright law systems in China and the U.S., our behavior has caused discontent among Chinese writers,” the statement said. “Our communication with Chinese authors has not been good enough. Google is willing to apologize to Chinese authors for this behavior.”

Google has held talks with a local copyright protection group over the book service. One Chinese author, Shanghai-based Mian Mian, has brought a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google for scanning her novel Acid Lover and showing portions of it online.

A Google spokeswoman said Google Books complies with U.S. and Chinese law and that the company only shows snippets of copyright books for which it does not have permission from rights holders. Authors and publishers can choose to exclude their works from the service, she said.

Google Outages Damage Cloud Credibility

admin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:10:46 +0000

Gmail was out this morning…again. The outage affected only a small percentage of Gmail users, but in the wake of Tuesday’s Google News outage the lack of reliability from Google isn’t helping justify the business case for embracing the cloud.

The cloud is all the rage. Vendors of all shapes and sizes are in a race to move as many products and services as possible to the cloud – providing managed services and software-as-a-service rather than traditional, locally-installed, software applications.

There are many major players investing in moving customers to the cloud. Amazon has a cloud computing offering and recently bolstered it with a more secure, segregated private cloud service. Microsoft provides hosted online productivity services and recently rolled out the technical preview of Office Web Apps, delivering Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote from the cloud.

Google is arguably the primary champion of cloud computing. The Web is what Google does. Google has a virtually endless list of products and services that are all delivered via the Web from the cloud.

Google is not content with dominating Web search or search engine advertising. It has an ongoing crusade to deliver business productivity from the Web. Google is taking on Microsoft head-to-head across a range of markets in an effort to wrest control from the desktop and move the computing experience to the Web.

That crusade has had relative success. Many users and businesses have found that Google Docs can fill their office productivity needs. Gmail can fulfill their e-mail needs. Google Calendar provides scheduling. Google Talk delivers instant messaging. Basically, Google has enough tools and services to fulfill virtually all of the productivity and communications needs for an organization…from the Web.

The problem is that Google has experienced repeated issues with service outages. Here are just a few of the headline-making outages:

· September 24, 2009: Gmail outage

· September 22, 2009: Google News outage

· September 1, 2009: Gmail outage

· May 14, 2009: Google network outage

· May 18, 2009: Google News outage

· March 9, 2009: Gmail outage

· August 7, 2008: Gmail and Google Apps outage

These repeated outages damage the credibility of the cloud. Enterprises that are considering the pros and cons of moving office productivity or communications to the cloud have reason to be concerned when the poster child of cloud computing can’t provide reliable availability.

The cloud offers many potential advantages for customers, but one of the biggest factors driving apprehension and impeding adoption is availability. Customers are reluctant to offload productivity and communication to the cloud if the possibility exists for the cloud to disappear. Productivity and communication are mission-critical aspects for businesses and reliable availability is not negotiable.

David Coursey summed it up nicely, stating “Rather than adding features that add only questionable value to our lives, such as Sidewiki and Fast Flip news, maybe Google needs to stop, take a deep breath, and focus on quality and reliability for products many of us use every day? ”

Google can help improve the reputation of the cloud and further its own agenda to make desktop applications obsolete and move everything to the Web by ensuring that the products and services it provides are as reliable as they are functional.

Google Wants You to Be Able to Leave if You Want

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:58:21 +0000

Data portability is an important issue for users and businesses alike. In this age of cloud computing, where so many web users have valuable data hosted by web services, we can sometimes find ourselves vulnerable to the will and occurrences of these services. Let’s say for example, Twitter is one of the key components to your marketing strategy, and one of your main sources of traffic. When Twitter goes down, as it frequently does, this can present quite a problem. Ever wished you could access your tweets when Twitter was down?

On the subject of Twitter, the company announced some changes to its terms of service late last week. They tried to emphasize that users “own their tweets.” But do users really own them if they cannot access them because Twitter is not working? What if you could export your Tweets into Facebook, or into MySpace? It’s not that one service is better than the other. It’s about simply having the freedom to take your data wherever you want.

Google realizes the importance of this concept, which is why some members of the company’s team have gotten together and formed the Data Liberation Front, a group that is dedicated to making Google’s products easier to get data in and out of. The group has also launched a website at DataLiberation.org, where users of Google products can find information about how to import and export data.

“Many web services make it difficult to leave their services – you have to pay them for exporting your data, or jump through all sorts of technical hoops — for example, exporting your photos one by one, versus all at once,” says Brian Fitzpatrick, Data Liberation engineering manager. “We believe that users – not products – own their data, and should be able to quickly and easily take that data out of any product without a hassle. We’d rather have loyal users who use Google products because they’re innovative – not because they lock users in.”

The group’s mission statement goes:

Users own the data they store in any of Google’s products. Our team’s goal is to give users greater control by making it easier for them to move data in and out.

“This principle not only applies to individual users, but also to businesses, schools and other organizations that choose Google Apps to provide better tools at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions,” says Fitzpatrick. “It should be easy to bring legacy data into the cloud, share data between Google Apps and other IT infrastructure, and get data out of the cloud if it ever makes sense to stop using our service.“

At DataLiberation.org, users can simply browse through Google’s list of products and see detailed instructions for each one about how to “escape” to or from any of them. This list includes: AdWords, Alerts, Analytics, App Engine, Apps for Businesses, Blogger, Bookmarks, Calendar, Chrome Boomarks, Contacts, Docs, Finance, Gmail, Health, iGoogle, Maps, Notebook, Orkut, Picasa, Reader, Voice, Web History, and YouTube.

The company says it will be working on adding import/export features to more of its products like Google Sites, and Google Docs (batch-export) in the coming months.

“We think open is better than closed — not because closed is inherently bad, but because when it’s easy for users to leave your product, there’s a sense of urgency to improve and innovate in order to keep your users,” says Fitzpatrick. “When your users are locked in, there’s a strong temptation to be complacent and focus less on making your product better.”

Google’s certainly not the only company to offer data portability options, but it’s a very large one that has a huge impact on a lot of users and businesses. That’s why Google’s work in this area is so important. The company’s broad range of products that are used heavily on a daily basis emphasizes the importance of the issue on the web in general. Tired of Gmail going down? You can take your info elsewhere if you wish.