Find more using extended search terms in Google Search.  You can test them by copying the bold text into the search box on Google.

• intitle:software will provide you all the websites that contain the word “software” in their name.
• allintitle:software for Windows will offer all websites that contain the entire expression in their name.
• link:news.softpedia.com will present you all the sites that contain a link to news.softpedia.com.
• related:news.softpedia.com shows you the sites that are similar with news.softpedia.com.
• info:www.softpedia.com displays some interesting information about www.softpedia.com.
• location:romania provides all the sites that corresponds with the text you typed located in Romania.
• movie:softpedia will present movie related information about softpedia.
• weather:Bucharest, Romania displays the current forecast for Bucharest, Romania.
• phonebook: Softpedia Team will offer Softpedia Team’s telephone number, if it is included in US white page listings.
• site:gdscomp.com will show you all pages indexed from this site.

So the next big Social Networking Platform is suppose to be Google+ and so far people seem to like it.  It’s Google’s hope that it will overtake Facebook for serious social networking.  It shows a lot of promise with it’s new way of grouping contacts and sharing with only those you want to share with.  It also ties you into many other Google services that far surpass what Facebook has to offer.  I like it more and more.  Facebook is fun.  Google+ seems to be more serious and informative.  If nothing else it is a great addition to the social networking world.  I found this great article about using Google+ that kind of wraps it all up.  Check out this Complete Guide To Google+ from Mashable.

After quite a few beta releases, Firefox 4 finally entered the “release candidate” stage recently.

So, assuming that no fatal bugs emerge, this version (minus any minor bugs) will soon be released as a final product that is up to six times faster than its predecessors, features a new minimalist interface and incorporates long-awaited sync and panorama features.

You can download the RC version which we can say is very stable for a look at all the new features.

Download it here…  Firefox 4 release candidate version

There are plenty of URL shortener sites around and now there is another.  Google has set up one  of their own.  It’s fast and gathers stats for you.

You can find it at http://goo.gl and give it a try.

Spider or crawler robots that access your website are using your bandwidth.  Just like the real visitors that browse your site.

So, in the case of WordPress, they are also causing php calls to be made increasing your site’s CPU load and memory use.  This is all normal except when you see certain bots hitting your site a few hundred times a day.  In this case you may need to deny them access using your robots.txt file.  Hopefully they will follow the rules and leave you alone.  If they don’t you may need to ban them by IP address.  Try your robots.txt file first though and see what happens.  It usually works.

Here’s an example of  a robots.txt file disallowing access to a crawler.  Your robots.txt file should be in your website’s root directory and it is just a text file with something similar to the following.

#this one blocks all from the cgi-bin folder
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/

#this one blocks MJ12bot from all folders
User-agent: MJ12bot
Disallow: /

#this one blocks Yandex
User-agent: Yandex
Disallow: /

# This one keeps all robots out.
# User-agent: *
# Disallow: /

If you have a WordPress site, using a plugin like StatPress Reloaded will give you a list of spiders that are visiting your site and you can see how often they are crawling and what impact they have.

The iPad is here!

Wonder what your website or blog will look like on the new iPad?

You can check it out here at ipadpeek.com .

We picked this info up from weblogtoolscollection.com by Mark Ghosh, who tells us lots of useful and informative things about WordPress.   Thanks Mark!!

The FCC now has a new website that you can use to test your Internet Connection speed. One reason is so that you can make sure you are getting what your provider is selling you. So if you want to see your upload and download speed capabilities visit www.broadband.gov .  You can also read about their plan to make sure that eventually everyone has access to high speed internet.

We’ve told you about Gavatars before!

A gravatar is a “Globally Recognized Avatar” or little square picture that is associated with your email address.  In many blogs, forums and websites your gravatar shows up when you post a comment to an article or post.  It can be a picture of you, a logo, or anything else you want to represent yourself.  They are not used on all blogs or sites but they are growing in popularity and you will see them more and more.  Getting your own is very easy.  Just go to www.gravatar.com and register for a free account.  You can even assign gravatars to multiple email addresses.  You just upload a picture and crop out the image you want to use and your done.  You can even upload a picture taken with your webcam.  Sites with support for gravatar will now show the image you have chosen when you post your comments.

Twitter has become the latest big thing on the Internet.  Real Time Social Networking is what it’s all about.  Read on to learn about some Free Applications that make Twitter even better. The following article tells us all about what is out there.

In response to the phenomenal growth of Twitter, software developers have come out with numerous free applications designed to deliver greater functionality for twitter users. Here’s a list of some of the best applications.

• Tweetdeck.com: This is the biggest program of the lot. To run it you first need to download it to your hard-drive. Once it is set up you can use it to organize your Twitter followers into different groups so that you can deal with all the tweets that have come in, prioritize your responses and so on. This app is for serious tweeters.
• Twellow.com: The Twitter yellow pages. If you want to be found by Twitter users, post your Twitter details here.
• TweetBeep.com: Track your keywords on Twitter. Tweetbeep will update every day or every hour when your keywords have been used by someone on Twitter.
• TweetLater.com: This tool lets you write your messages and plan them to go out at specific times. As with Tweet beep, you can set up keyword tracking.
  Tweetlater also permits you to automatically respond when someone follows you. You can also set up a welcome message and Tweetlater will automatically post it out to each of your new followers.
• SocialToo.com: This service tells you who has recently started following you and who is no longer following you. You can pre-write an automatic welcome message for your new followers.
  Socialtoo also allows you to run online questionnaires, and publish them on various social networks as well as Twitter and Facebook.
• TwitterCounter.com: Check the number of people are following you, or anybody else. You can plug in two different Twitter users and compare their stats. Twittercounter also predicts how many followers you will have in the future. You can then post the result in a widget on your blog.
• Friendorfollow.com: Find out which of the people you are following is NOT reciprocating.
• Tweetergetter.com/hirohurl Here is neat resource, by Gary McCaffery, that is designed to build your following on autopilot.
• Twittergrader.com: This tool gives you feedback about the health of your network, how often you post messages on Twitter and how complete your profile is. It also gives you an overall score which you can then Tweet out on Twitter!
• Twitthis.com: This is a great way to tweet about links to anything that takes your fancy on the net. Post a button to your website to encourage people to tweet your articles.
• Tweetstats.com: this attractive tool shows you uses bar graphs to display your performance on Twitter. Find out when you use Twitter the most. If you wish, you can share it with everybody else by tweeting about it!
• Twollo.com: Set your keywords and this neat little tool will seek out people who posted the same keywords so that you can follow people with similar interests to yourself!
• Is.gd: This service will shorten any URL and so free up some characters for your main message if you wish to link out to a website or blog post.

How to create great headlines and titles to turn your prospects into buying customers using hypnotic words that will empower them to purchase your product or service, or even join your ezine.

First of all, you must learn how to get your prospects to trust you. This is true on every field. We trust those that are more like ourselves or one that we have been conditioned to believe.

“How many of you do not trust a car salesman? This is because you have been repeatedly told over and over again, how they can not be trusted. Not every car salesman is going to give you a bad deal, just as every young man with long hair and holes in their jeans are not criminals.”

All of us resist people we do not trust, even though it starts in our subconscious mind. So, you must learn how to get your prospects to trust you with an unconscious connection.

This can be done by perceiving others behavior and mimicking or mirroring it so to speak. To rich this we must use “embedded commands”.

What are embedded commands? This is a term from NLP that stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP is founded on then idea that the language and behavior of a person is extremely ordered. These behaviors and language can be either functional or dysfunctional. This order or structure can be organized into a mimicking form.

This means that others can copy the language or behavior of another to produce the same results in order to improve there late comings. This in essence means that the way in which we act or feel is based on how we perceive the world instead of the real world.

An embedded command is a technique used in NLP, which will plant a thought in the mind of another person just beneath that person’s conscious awareness. Embedded commands utilize the use of commanding tone to be effective. The command generally formulates words into a question, with the tone however being in the form of a command.

The reason people use embed commands is to get their listener to do you wish them to do in a non-intrusive or demanding manner.

Example

Look at this sentence:

“You should buy this software.”

Now look at the same sentence only written a little differently. “You know, that some people find they really want to purchase this software.”

What happened in the second sentence is that you let the person know that other people want to purchase this software and like most people they believe in their own minds they are better than most people or at least want to know as much as everyone else put there.

You can also use the same sentence and use other hypnotic phrases such as:

I don’t know if you knew it, but some people find they really want to purchase this software.

And I’d like to have you discover… that some people find they really want to purchase this software.

Headlines that Control the Mind

You will need to learn how to write headlines that will control the mind of your prospects. Yes, this is possible.

Three elements you must have in your headline to control the mind include:

Engagement: The easiest way to engage thought is by asking an open-ended question.

Curiosity: Mother nature has endowed each of us to be curious creatures, appeal to a person’s curiosity and you can hypnotize almost everyone.

Short and Sweet: In general, most people want to know at glance what the letter is all about. Use a headline that is short. You can always use a longer headline as a secondary headline or sub headline. The first short headline should lead into the longer headline, which can be more hypnotic than the first one. You need to create cravings if you want prospects.

In reality, people do not purchase products; they purchase altered states of emotion. You must convince your prospects that the products will give them something they desire or crave.

You must have a product that is in area of human desire. Remember everyone wants to look and feel younger, thinner, have more energy, and of course have more stamina.

Let us see some examples of good headlines.

For Health fitness products:

Eat Right, Stay Fit, Feel Young, Gain Energy, Enjoy Less Pain

Headlines for relationships:

Attract the opposite sex, Find True Love, Improve Communication with your kids, Be noticed by your Boss, Be admired by coworkers

Headlines for finance and employment:

Be successful, Gain more knowledge, Scale the ladder of success, Get the promotion you deserve, Fire your boss

These examples are here to show you how to create your own effective headlines. Your headlines must convince your prospects that they really need you product or service. People usually buy what they want, not what they need.

About The Author:

Branko Rakic:

Millions Through Mind Control http://masscontrol.tosobiz.com/

Web Traffic Pro:

Free internet marketing videos and lessons.http://www.web-traffic-pro.com/
This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

A Gravatar, or Globally Recognized Avatar, is an image or picture of yourself or something that represents you.  Avatar images have been around for a long time used on bulletin boards and blogs to show users who you are. 

Avatars were usually local to the system you were logged into.  Now we have Globally Recognized Avatars available through gravatar.com .  It is a free service that lets you create an account and assign Avatar Images to your email addresses.  Then when you are on a system or blog that recognizes you it will show your Gravatar next to your name in comments and sometimes posts.    The use of gravatars has become more and more popular and more systems are adding support for them. 

At gravatar.com you can upload a picture you already have, that you can then crop and save, or you can take a live snapshot using your web-cam and use that as your gravatar.  They do not supply any images.  Generic avatar images are available many other places on the net.  Just do a search for “avatar images’ and you’ll find all kinds.

Go ahead!  Get yourself an Avatar today and post a comment somewhere.  You’ll see your avatar show up.

The Battle of the Browsers – The History and the Future of Internet Browsers
by: Nicholas C Smith

With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla’s Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.

People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla’s Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Origins

The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 – that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The Browser Wars – Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer

Mosaic’s decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

………………..Netscape…….IE
October 1998……….64%………32.2%
April 1998…………70%………22.7%
October 1997……….59.67%……15.13%
April 1997…………81.13%……12.13%
October 1996……….80.45%……12.18%
April 1996…………89.36%…….3.76%

In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.

Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape’s dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.

By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape’s parent company rather than Netscape’s user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 – 2005

These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape’s ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it – adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.

2005 – Present

Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990′s – Safari – complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer’s market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.

The Future of Web Browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.

However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online ‘world’ creating an online virtual You to go from ‘shop to shop’ with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some ‘worlds’ allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.

Will ‘worlds’ like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? – It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, ‘thinking out of the box’ wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.

About The Author

Nicholas C Smith is the project manager at Breakfrom Limited, who specialise in affordable ecommerce solutions and general web design knowledge and advice.

For more information and advice visit http://www.breakfrom.com

by: Richard Legg

Nowadays, it seems that everyone and his cousin have taken to blogging. This form of online self-expression has slowly but steadily taken over the World Wide Web to become somewhat of a phenomenon in recent years. Some people use blogs as their personal journals, some may see them as an outlet for their creative work, and others may just want their own personal place in cyberspace to share thoughts and ideas.

Now, a quick question for the Internet businessman. If you have a blog, can you use it to boost your site’s exposure and drive more traffic to it? A blog is great for sharing ideas and posting about things you like or don’t like, but can a blog help your online business succeed?

The answer is a definite YES. Your blog can do wonders for your website, but it all depends on the way you utilize its potential power. I’m going to teach you a tried and proven method that has been effective for other website owners, and this method is applicable for any type of blog. You will just need a lot of creativity and some time to make it work.

First thing you have to keep in mind is that most blogs on the Web have a community feel to them. You may think that your blog is your own, since you’re the one who installed and developed it. And you may be right. But your blog is also connected to other blogs on the same site. You may also be connected to other blogs that are using the same blogging software as you. This situation guarantees that sooner or later, a person will land on your blog and be able to see all that you have to say. This can also mean that your blog is now getting free advertising within the blogging community. I don’t think you need me to tell you how beneficial this can be for your site’s traffic.

However, you do have to keep in mind what you’re posting as your blog’s content. If all you’re doing is making posts that promote your products or your business, then you’re dead. Believe me, that is not the recommended way to use your blog. Have you seen the Internet lately? It’s already overflowing with loads of advertisements for products and services. Be different. Your visitors need a good reason to keep coming back to your blog. Use it to give expert and knowledgeable information about your line of work to your readers. If you’re selling a product on your site, talk about it on your blog, and don’t just post a measly advertising blurb.

Let’s say you’re selling power tools on your website. You can write reviews and other useful posts about the kinds of tools you have on your site. What you’re doing is providing some insight for your potential customers about the tools you’re selling. These blog posts will then be able to generate confidence in your readers and encourage them to actually buy the products.

Another advantage of having a blog is that it makes it easier for interested buyers to get access to the seller (that’s you). Usually, readers of a particular blog post are allowed to leave comments on what they’ve just read. For example, you’ve just finished a review for the new Ajax power drill. Whenever a reader comes across it and has a question regarding that product, he or she can easily leave a comment. You can then see the questions and post your answers. See? You can now connect with your readers and potential customers personally. This make you much more approachable, as compared to the faceless entity behind the impersonal commercial website.

In addition, your readers will also have the option of subscribing to your blog feeds via RSS or to your newsletters, so they can be immediately notified about any new posts you make. If you have established a reputable standing in your niche, a long list of eager readers will soon be waiting for your next post, and lots more will be coming to your website.

About The Author

Richard Legg is a web traffic expert and generates over 1.5 Million visitors a year to his websites. Discover how you can instantly increase website traffic for free at http://www.MyInstantTraffic.com.