09/26/2005
Businesses and individuals alike have all grown to rely on computers. The reliance is never more apparent than when something happens to the horrid little box that makes our lives easier. We expect computers to react a certain way, in certain situations. It nearly always comes as a surprise when the beloved little box, know as a computer, refuses to boot up. Probably even more shocking, is the dawning that we've neglected to backup or prepare for the unforeseen disaster that has just been thrust upon us.

Regardless of the number of times you have experienced the dread of being unable to access the information trapped in the god-awful computerized contraption, we are always invariably unprepared.

The reality of it is that computers, not only contain moving parts, but they like other machines, they are prone to failure at some point in their lives. Not only can hardware failures occur, but viruses can also corrupt data making it impossible to retrieve. Regardless of the litany of words used to bully the box into behaving, the truth is that the only offense is a good defense.

Complete Article - Small Business Disaster Plan

09/23/2005
As RSS gains momentum security fears loom large. As publishers are quickly finding innovative uses for RSS feeds, hackers are taking notice. The power and extendibility of RSS in its simplest form is also its achilles heel.

Complete Article - Security and RSS

09/16/2005
Google have confirmed a pilot project to open up communications with webmasters they feel are breaking their guidelines. Emails are being sent to selected websites flagged for removal from the Google index. The "naughty notice" begins something like this:

While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that were outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here:

and goes on to say...

Specifically, we detected the following practices on your webpages: On (webpage url), we noticed that pages such as
(web address) redirect to pages using JavaScript redirects.

We would prefer to have your pages in Google's index. If you wish to be reincluded, please correct or remove all pages that are outside our quality guidelines.

09/14/2005
Amazon.com on Tuesday said Coinstar Inc., best known for coin-counting machines found in many supermarkets and drug stores, has agreed to let customers exchange their loose change for certificates redeemable at the online retailer.

Under the deal, customers can insert their coins into a Coinstar machine and receive a receipt with a redemption code that can be used to make purchases on Seattle-based Amazon.com. With standard coin to bills transactions, Coinstar charges a processing fee. There is no fee to the consumer, however, for the Amazon.com certificate.

Locations

09/14/2005
This site is just a gem! UrlTrends graphs traffic trends and link popularity on a variety of search engines and directories.
Simply enter the url of the site and UrlTrends will graph the site for you.
View sample graphs.

09/13/2005
Google has just launched a search service for victims of Katrina. Google has consolidated information from several publicly available databases (including that of the Red Cross) to build one comprehensive list of people affected by Hurricane Katrina in order to make it easier for evacuees, families and friends to find their loved ones.

Katrina Search

09/12/2005
Small businesses can't match the charitable budgets of large companies, but that doesn't mean their impact can't be just as vital

In the wake of last year's deadly tsunami, New York restaurateur William Jack Degel felt compelled to help with the massive relief effort in any way he could. So the owner of Uncle Jack's Steakhouses decided to donate the proceeds from all his January and February dessert sales to benefit survivors.

Complete Article

09/06/2005
Ego searches are free and simple searches designed to monitor blogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product, competitors or other specific keywords. Conducting ego searches not only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you to maintain a strategic advantage over competing companies.

A number of new Internet services are freely available that make these 'ego searches' painless and easy. Dynamically created keyword based RSS feeds, update in your RSS reader or news aggregators, each time new information containing the keyword appears in the searched resources. The dynamic feeds match requests against new information, as it comes online in real time.

It Is All About Ego Searches