where technology is simplified
Archive for November, 2007
Users 1 vs Facebook 0
Nov 30th
Highly popular social networking site Facebook has bowed to consumer pressure and removed most of the controversial aspects from its Beacon program. For those of you who do not know Beacon, it is a new information sharing functionality that Facebook recently released. This new program shared users’ online buying habits with other sites which were out of Facebook’s network. Facebook users were not allowed to “opt-out” of the program either. This created a backlash from the large user community and was picked up by MoveOn.org and various other consumer advocacy and privacy protection organizations.
From New York Times … Within the last 10 days, more than 50,000 Facebook members have signed a petition objecting to the new program, which sends messages to users’ friends about what they are buying on Web sites like Travelocity.com, TheKnot.com and Fandango. The members want to be able to opt out of the program completely with one click, but Facebook won’t let them.
Top 3 Reasons Why You Suck At Digg
Nov 29th
If Darwin’s concept of “Survival of the fittest” is applied to blogging, less than 1% of the 50 million blogs would survive. If you want to see this theory applied on the internet then look at digg. Digg has consistently produced and maintained the hottest news stories on the web. Powered by Digg’s users is not just a catch phrase but the foundation beneath Digg’s success. But whenever a blogger submits a story there is a one in a hundred thousand chance (same as winning the lottery) that it will make it to the Digg homepage. Here are the top 3 reasons why this happens.
Articles are judged by their titles
We all know a book should not be judged by its cover but all of us do it anyways. Generating funny and creative content simply isn’t enough for Digg. If your article does not have a powerful title no one will take a second look. Your submission title must be compelling enough for readers to click. In fact, if you don’t get enough diggs in the first hour chances are your submission will simply slip into the endless pages of Upcoming submissions and will fade away with just one (or two if you are lucky) diggs. Look at the top posts on the Digg homepage – they have short and compelling headlines. You will want to click them after one glance which is all your submission is going to get as more and more content is submitted to digg every minute.
Look at what you are competing against
Digg is meant to bring out the most popular stories on the internet. That means all sites are competing with each other to get their stories ‘dugg’. When a blogger submits their posts to Digg, the article is competing with news articles from CNN and BBC or product releases from Google and Microsoft or submissions from A-list bloggers who already have hundreds of readers ready to click 
Everyday more sites are adding a Digg This button to their stories and videos. When you submit a YouTube video of yourself eating cereal, it is competing against a video of 10 cats playing the piano at once (just made that one up). Who do you think will get Dugg? This means don’t submit all your articles to Digg. Wait for the one that you are really proud of, that you want to show off to the community. If you think you might be too passionate about the new article you wrote, take a step back and think “If I read this on another website would I submit it to Digg?” If you answered yes then go ahead otherwise sit back and keep trying.
Network of Friends on Digg
Only a small percentage of Digg users actually make it to the front page. Almost always it takes months to build a network of friends on Digg and numerous failed attempts to get to double digits. A close look at the top Digg users shows that the more half of the Digg’s successes are from the top users. SEOmoz clarifies this in an article titled Top 100 Digg Users Control 56% of Digg’s HomePage Content. My advice to you is to start building friends and have tons of patience. It might take up to a few months to gain popularity and trust among the Digg crowd that others will also vote for your submission.
A special note to fellow bloggers, Digg does not have to be the end of the road. Try submitting items to BloggingZoom and the rest. If your story eventually gets picked up by Digg be prepared for a jump in traffic and hopefully your hosting server will handle the load. Best of luck to all the would-be Diggers out there. I will see you on the Digg main page.
What You Need To Know To Buy Digital Cameras This Holiday Season
Nov 28th
The holiday season is upon us. Time for millions of families to dust off the old video cameras and start recording family, friends and pets memories on tape. Some of you will send in the tapes to TV shows such as Americas Funniest Videos where you can win tons of prizes. Before you start thinking what to do with a hundred thousand dollar prize money check out what kind of camera you need. Big and heavy camcorders were once the rage. But now, in the age of shrinking technology, everyone is looking to save space and buy smaller, sleeker devices.
Digital Cameras
The first thing you might want to look at is a pocket sized digital camera. Equipped with a decent memory card these tiny cameras can take thousands of pictures and tens of small videos. Most of the digital cameras cost about $100 and a fully featured one would run out about $150. Often the sales staff of large chain stores will sway you in to buying more expensive $300 cameras. Before dropping the cash on the counter do some research online. Most online retailers are having holiday discounts and you need to know them before showing up in store and buying the first camera you see. Some of the features to look at are:
Pixels: 7 Megapixel or above is a great choice from taking nice family pictures.
Optical and digital zoom: 5X optical zoom comes fairly standard on most current digital cameras.
LCD Screen: 2inch screen comes standard on most digital cameras
Memory: Most cameras include a small memory card with the camera. If you wish to take more than a 100 pictures you should get a compatible memory card. Get a 2GB or more memory card depending on your budget. Keep in mind the type of card that your camera accepts – they range from mimiSD to xD cards.
Reviews: Check out the product reviews before buying the product. CNet has a large number of reviews. Otherwise Google “manufacturer + product-model-number + reviews”
Point and Shoot Camcorders
Digital camcorders are most favored nowadays. With the emergence of video sharing sites like YouTube and Metacafe sharing the precious moments with grandma has never been easier. Point and shoot camcorders allow you to quickly record home videos of short duration with little
effort. They cost a bit more than digital cameras but offer cheap home video solutions. Things to keep in mind are they are cheap solutions and might break at the time you are trying to record video of the cat playing the piano. Check out the Flip Camera review I did earlier. If you decide to go with such a camera you need to check the compatibility with Mac or PC depending on which computer you use. These cameras cost about $150.
Pixels: 7 Megapixel or above is a great choice from taking nice family pictures.
Optical and digital zoom: Most such cameras do not offer much zoom capability.
LCD Screen: 2inch screen comes standard on most such cameras
Memory: Most cameras include a small memory card with the camera. If you wish to take more than a video longer than 10 minutes you should get a compatible memory card. Get a 2GB or more memory (preferably 4GB) card depending on your budget.
Reviews: Check out the product reviews before buying the product. CNet has a large number of reviews. Otherwise Google “manufacturer + product-model-number + reviews”
Digital Camcorders
Old school technology such as the miniDV tapes are still around and CircuitCity and BestBuy are offering budget miniDv camcorders for about $270 + tax. These offer a significant advantage over the flash media based point-n-shoot cameras mostly because of the recording time. On average they record 60 minutes of footage with a longer lasting battery. Nowadays more and more such cameras also come equipped with a SD card slot specifically for taking still pictures. No more 5 second pause which is generally seen when taking pictures with a camcorder. If you buy this type of camcorder remember to buy compatible tapes with it. And if you camera is equipped with a card slot then you also need a compatible memory card (probably a SD card) if you plan on taking still pictures. Another nice feature to look for is image stabilizer to take the nice shots while riding on horseback.
Pixels: 1 Megapixel or as close to it as possible.
Optical and digital zoom: Approximately 30X optical zoom seems to be a hot feature now and digital zoom should be 1000X or more.
LCD Screen: 2.7 inch or bigger screen comes standard on most such cameras
Memory: Most cameras do not include tape or memory card with the camera. Remember to buy one before flying off to vacation.
Reviews: Check out the product reviews before buying the product. CNet has a large number of reviews. Otherwise Google “manufacturer + product-model-number + reviews”
Hard disk based Camcorders
Hard disk based video cameras are touted as the next generation of the product line. They are extremely expensive compared to the existing line of cameras and are generally in the range of $500 or more. Hard disk drive camcorders provide a clear advantage over tape using devices – it takes significantly less time to transfer the video to a computer or upload it to a website. In almost all the cases you will also be able to record very high quality video (think HD quality) and you are only limited by the hard disk space. Meaning the bigger hard drive you use in the camera the more video you can record. But the hard disk is the most vulnerable part of this type of camera. If you are familiar with hard disk crashing on the camera you should know how painful it can be. Only now disk crash would mean all the pictures you took in the Bahamas will only be left in your mind. When you have to replace the disk it will also run you significantly more dollars compared to tapes. My suggestion would be to hold off on these cameras till the disk technology becomes more reliable.
Pixels: 1 Megapixel or as close to it as possible.
Optical and digital zoom: Approximately 30X optical zoom seems to be a hot feature now and digital zoom should be 1000X or more.
LCD Screen: 2.7 inch or bigger screen comes standard on most such cameras
Memory: These cameras have a hard disk built in which is used to record video and take snapshots. If your camera is SD card enabled then you might want to get a compatible memory card for taking still pictures.
Reviews: Check out the product reviews before buying the product. CNet has a large number of reviews. Otherwise Google “manufacturer + product-model-number + reviews”
DVD Recording Camcorder
The DVD RW camcorder is another type of video camera which does not use tape for storage. Rather than storing the media on traditional media it burns the video files directly on to DVD discs. It is a nice feature to have for people who want to view their vacation pool cannonball diving contest on their DVD player or TV. But for the tech savvy crowd who might want to put some titles on their video or trim the occasional clip it might not be the best solution. If you decide to get this camera try and look for the SD card slot enabled models. This feature will allow you to take glorious still shots far better than the ones recorded on the tape.
Pixels: 1 Megapixel or as close to it as possible.
Optical and digital zoom: Approximately 30X optical zoom seems to be a hot feature now and digital zoom should be 1000X or more.
LCD Screen: 2.7 inch or bigger screen comes standard on most such cameras
Memory: Most cameras do not include tape or memory card with the camera. Remember to buy one before flying off to vacation.
Reviews: Check out the product reviews before buying the product. CNet has a large number of reviews. Otherwise Google “manufacturer + product-model-number + reviews”
Stop Spending Hundreds Of Dollars On Logos
Nov 27th
You look different from the person next to you and the person next to him or her. Following along the same lines, don’t you want your logo to be different and unique from the rest of the crowd? Countless times I arrive on a website and I see the standard WordPress or Blogger theme with no unique favicon or logo. On the other end of the spectrum I have seen websites and companies spending hundreds of dollars just to create a logo.
At the start of the Web2.0 craze creating a logo meant designing a branded, colorful, aesthetically pleasing image which is meant to grab the attention of the visitors. But this does not meant throwing more money at the designer. There are hundreds of talented graphics designers out there who are eager to get their work published. You can probably find some of the best designers on sites such as DigitalPoint. One such designer named Adrian was recently featured on CourtneyTuttle.com blog.
Spending money, however, is not an option for many webmasters who are just starting out. If that is the case then either learn Photoshop or Gimp or unearth websites which will automatically generate logos for you. One such site is Logo Creatr which generates some of the best clean logos I have seen. There are other similar websites which generate templates and favicons. Sometime in the future I will collect the various free online logo, favicon, banner and template creating services in to one post. Till then Google what you need and be prepared to spend some time doing research.
How To Make Facebook Pay You
Nov 27th
Facebook started off as an immensely popular social networking website targeting a very specific and drunk group of individuals aka college students. Since then the website has grown exponentially and now looks to overtake MySpace in popularity. The Alexa graph below should give you some idea how Facebook stacks against MySpace in traffic.
But, as far as I know, Facebook has not paid any of its users. Although, paying users would skyrocket its user base 
Now Lara Saad from I Make Money on Facebook is about to show us all how she earns top dollars from the social networking giant. She started off the site with a brief overview of the money making process. Now she is getting down to business including the all so important little details of her 25 step process in her latest post. It is sure to be extremely popular among the money making blogs and is a recommended good read for everyone using Facebook regularly.
