A friend of mine is a young photographer who has been transferring a ton of digital images onto her year-old laptop.  Now, the laptop is so full that she cannot defrag or store anything else.  She has a Microsoft operating system. In such a situation, this is what I would suggest: Step One. Empty the recycle bin.  Delete anything else on the hard drive that is not necessary, or transfer it to an external storage device (her laptop is so full that this might not be possible). Step Two. Compres... Read Full Story

The 4th of July Giveaway opened its doors on June 30.  You can visit at any time before the end of July to grab some free software, videos, ebooks and more. One of the biggest areas of this giveaway event is PLR (private label right) content.  There are massive packages of PLR articles (ranging from 2000 to 15,000 articles) that you can download for use on your sites and blogs, as well as some specialized packets.  Niches include travel, health and wellness, and several more topics. The 4th o... Read Full Story

Do we all share consciousness on some level, and if so, can it be measured? Although it may sound “New Agey,” a group of researchers have been working since 1997 on the Global Consciousness Project, or GCP for short. The GPC collects data from “eggs” (which are special data collection instruments) and then correlates random data to specific events.  The stream of data shows reactions in the human consciousness to global events, such as major news stories.  There are 6... Read Full Story

Those of us who can see take the Internet for granted.  We use it for research.  We’re entertained online.  We get our news online.  We buy stuff online. And we use the Net to make money. Can you imagine being blind? One San Diego family is on a mission to the make the Internet more accessible to the blind.  JAWS has given them a head start. It is a screen reader service that helps visually impaired people surf the Internet.  JAWS does a fairly good job, but does not work on a site t... Read Full Story

This week, I’m kind of on a “history” trend.  I’d like to show you another site that has cool stuff that you can use for research on your genealogy, history or travel sites.  It’s great for environmental and natural resource sites as well, particularly if you are writing about mining activities or other uses of public resources.  Best yet, it’s free. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has a federal records search service that allows you to access old homes... Read Full Story

One of my most favorite activities is looking at old photos.  Perhaps it’s because I have a pretty active imagination.  Just looking at them inspires me to think about what life was like years ago. When you have a history site or a travel site, dredging up old pictures and stories from the past allows you to create unique and interesting content that people will truly enjoy. You can easily find remarkable material at the American Memory Project, which is a part of the U.S. Library of Co... Read Full Story

Back in June 2008, I gave myself a personal challenge:  Do I have the self-discipline to blog every single day for a full year? Well, I did it.   The first post was made on June 26, 2008.  And I thank you folks for reading and commenting since that time.  This would have been very hard to do if it felt like no one was reading any of this. What Seems to Help With Consistent Blogging. If you’re working on a similar challenge, and for what it’s worth, here’s what I discovered. ... Read Full Story

Getting back links is critical for good search engine rankings with Google. For years, a hot topic has been whether paid links vs. free links have weight with Google.  In the following video, Matt Cullen explains that in evaluating the power of a link, Google looks at the editorial value of a directory.  Directories with editorial discretion and review are considered high quality links. He says that it is not necessary to focus on looking for a lot of directory listings. Read Full Story

According to an article posted at ARS Technica, MySpace is becoming irrelevant because of Facebook’s popularity.  The article says that 30% of the United States employees were laid off last week, and that a significant number of international jobs with MySpace are going to be cut. Personally, I never used MySpace because I wasn’t keen on the backgrounds and layouts, and was concerned about privacy.  According to the ARS Technica, the privacy issue is a common concern. Facebook als... Read Full Story

Using Adsense is an easy way to make some extra money with a blog. I have experimented with a lot of different themes on a lot of different blogs and have found that the Prosense theme, which is Adsense ready, has by far made the most in Adsense earnings.  A blog of mine that is using this theme is averaging  triple the income from from blogs that enjoy more traffic and page rank. I could not find the theme in the handy “automatic theme installer” function of the new Wor... Read Full Story