The MacBook Air

MacBook Air has a stunning 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight® video camera for video conferencing, and a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support so users can pinch, rotate and swipe.


Pros - Slimmest notebook ever, nice Remote Disc Feature
Cons - No swappable battery, fixed HDD/RAM, too large footprint, sacrificed on ports, esp ethernet, lack of optical drive might be troublesome for students with one computer.
This notebook is not meant to be a powerhouse, with good graphics. The MacBook Pro line is for that. This is to reach the business traveller market who requires something extremely portable for basic tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet, emails and other business tasks.No optical drive is alternate with optional external superdrive.The point for macbook air is for everything to be wireless,so if you want to install something on your macbook you can do it from another computer.

Apple just announced in January 2008 the .16-inch thin MacBook Air -- a laptop so thin it fits in a manila envelope. The new machine features a full-size keyboard and LED-backlit 13.3-inch display with built-in iSight, and the new larger trackpad supports multi-touch gestures. Just like the iPhone, you'll be able to pan around, pinch to zoom, and rotate with two fingers, and move windows with a flick. Apple got the size down by using the same 1.8-inch 80GB drive that's in the iPod classic, but you'll be able to order a 64GB SSD as an option. The new MacBook Air will be available in February for a suggested retail price of S$2988. Apple also introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard™, the latest release of Apple’s Mac OS® X operating system including the amazing Time Machine™ automatic backup software. Time Capsule will be available in February for a suggested retail price of S$489 for a 500GB hard drive and S$788 for a 1TB hard drive.

Pros:

* Lightweight and extremely thin design 3 lbs
* Large 13.3" LCD
* Full size keyboard
* Ships with maximum 2gb memory
* Long battery life 4.5 - 5 hours under "normal" conditions
* Innovative technology allows you to "share" DVD drive from networked computers (Windows or Mac)

Possible Cons:

* No built-in Ethernet port
* Wireless only
* no wired Ethernet for Facilities backups
* No removable battery
* must be changed by Apple Certified Technician
* No built-in DVD drive
* Thin case does not allow for a larger internal hard drive 80gb maximum
* Lack of common ports and connectors
* Only 3 connectors available
o USB port
o Headphone jack
o mini DVI port for connecting external display
* Requires use of external devices for additional connections

For more information about the MacBook Air visit http://www.apple.com/

For pricing and configuration information refer to the CMU Computer Store at: http://www.cmu.edu/stores/computer/apple.html
Apple's share price dipped by 5% after this release.

[b]13inch - 1.6Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor 2GB memory 80GB 4200-rpm PATA hard drive Built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR Estimated Ship: 2-3 weeks Free Shipping S$ 2,988.00 13inch - 1.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor 2GB memory 64GB solid-state drive Built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR Estimated Ship: 2-3 weeks Free Shipping S$ 5,088.00 (edu discount $4,688) VIA

MacBook Air - Pros n Cons
MacBook Air at wikipedia

Read More...... View blog reactions

All Codecs For Windows Media Player

Gordian Knot

This Package Consists Of All The Codecs For Windows Media Player.
You Will be Able To Play Any Format In It.

From the Official Site :

Gordian Knot started out as a simple bitrate calculator for DivX encoding but has evolved to become an integrated package or tool for the entire process of DivX encoding.

Gordian Knot was originally written by TheWEF but has since been made into an Open Source project.

Gordian Knot is available for download in several packages, including a system pack, codec pack and as the executable only.

Operating System: All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
Download Page
Source

Upgrade DIVX component to DivX Pro 6.8.0.19
How? See Here

Related Topic:- K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
MPlayer for Windows

Read More...... View blog reactions

Test the transfer rate of storage devices

Hd Tach
Support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP only
HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible.

New versions of our benchmarks will continue to allow free non-commercial use, however, as before advanced features will only be available in a registered or commercial version.

The trial version of HD Tach measures the sequential read speed (at various points on the device), the random access speed, interface burst speed and CPU utilization of the drive. The registered version adds sequential write testing.

Download Trial Version HDTach-3-0-4-0 Updated at 7:33 AM 15-Feb-08

Online forums for comments on the current HD Tach and desired features in a future HD Tach is available here.

HD Tach 3.0.4.0 Publisher's description

HD Tach is a physical performance hard drive test which utilizes a special kernel mode VXD in order to get maximum accuracy by bypassing the file system. A similar mechanism is used in Windows NT/2000.

The HD Tach sequential read test is a little bit different from other benchmarks. Most benchmarks create a file on the hard drive and test within that file.

The problem is that modern hard drives use a zone bit recording technique that allows different read speeds depending on where the data is located. Data on the outside of the drive is much faster than data recorded on the inside.

HD Tach reads from areas all over the hard drive and reports an average speed. It also logs the read speeds to a text file that you can load into a spreadsheet and graph to visually read the results of the test.

In addition to sequential read, HD Tach tests the drive's random access time. Random access is the true measure of seek speed. Many drives advertise sub 10 millisecond seek speeds, but seek speeds are misleading.

Finally, HD Tach tests the drive burst speed. The burst speed is the speed that data can be accessed from the drive's on-board read-ahead memory. This measures the speed of the drive and controller interface.

The non-commercial version of HD Tach gives you access to all the functionality, ease of use and reliable benchmarking you expect from HD Tach. In addtion, we have added the ability to save benchmark results and graph your saved benchmark results against previous results or results from the new, included, drive database.(HD Tach 2.70 adds Windows NT, 2000 and XP read testing in the trial version! In the past, support for these operating systems was only available in a registered copy. The release of HD Tach 2.70 is just the beginning of new things, however, as we have started a complete rewrite of our benchmark products.

We have created this database from benchmark results sent in by our users through the new 'Upload' feature of HD Tach - after running the test you are given the option to send your drive benchmarks in to Simpli Software for inclusion in our database.

HOW DO I RECORD GOOD BENCHMARKS? Before benchmarking, reboot your computer. This will clear system caches and unload many unneccesary programs. Upon booting quit all programs that may have been loaded during the boot process, task bar icons, disable virus scanners. Advanced users should unplug the network cable and disable the swap file. Give your system time to ‘stabilize’ - Windows does a lot of work in the background, so do not use HD Tach until you see your hard drive light stop blinking for 10-15 seconds. This may take one to two minutes after boot. During the benchmark do not move the mouse or press any keys. USING HD TACH HD Tach will display a list of drives in the system. Select a drive and click the 'Run Test' button to benchmark. You may also select between 'Quick read' or 'Long read'. 'Long read' should produce more accurate read speed benchmarks, but will take 5-6 times longer than the 'Quick read'. More details about the benchmarks are available in the tests.rtf file. A brief description and parameters used for HD Tach Consumer follows. Access time (in milliseconds) - time to read one random sector from the hard drive. Includes seek time, latency, and read one sector. 512 random accesses are performed, average value reported. Burst speed (in megabytes per second) - maximum speed of the computer to hard drive interface. This represents the speed of data transferred from the hard drive on-board -cache to the system memory. Burst speed can be used to determine if the drive is running at the higher speeds offered by ATA133, SCSI, etc. The burst speed uses a maximum of 128KiB block size, minimum of 32KiB block size, a single 128KiB pre-read and 32 repetitions. Read speed per zone (in megabytes per second) - Each zone is displayed on the onscreen graph. Generally hard drives are faster on the outside of the disc (sector 0) and slower at the inside (end of disc) - your graph should reflect this. A 64KiB block size is used. The Quick read tests a maximum of 64 zones, with a 4MB preread area and a 4MB test area. The Long read tests a maximum of 256 zones with a 16MB preread area and a 16MB test area. The long test may take up to 8 times longer to execute. Average read speed is reported per zone. CPU utilization (as a percentage) - This reflects the amount of time the CPU needed to read data from the hard drive. Generally a good drive interface will use less than 10%. The system is tested at idle (no hard drive usage) for 5 seconds to get a base CPU utilization. During the next 5 seconds the drive is sequentially read with a 64KiB block size while CPU usage is monitored. The difference between idle CPU and loaded CPU is reported. HD TACH RW: HD Tach RW offers two options in addition to the above. The enable write test check box will be active when you have selected a removable media device (such as a flash disk) or a secondary, non-partitioned, hard drive. This will enable the sequential write test for the device. The Full Bench option also becomes available as an alternative to quick or long bench. The full bench will benchmark every sector of the hard drive instead of picking small zones on the drive like quick or full. A full bench could take one to two hours on a 120 gigabyte hard drive. Full bench uses varying zone sizes for different device sizes to minimize the number of zones benchmarked. Under 1GB, 8MB zones are used. Under 40GB 64MB zones are used, under 100GB 128MB zones are used and for all other disk sizes 512MB zones are used. WHAT VERSIONS OF HD TACH ARE AVAILABLE? HD Tach (Free): The non-commercial version of HD Tach is to be used only for non-commercial purposes or for a limited evaulation by commercial customers. Other versions, listed below, are available on our web site for a nominal cost. HD Tach Commercial License: The purchase of an HD Tach commercial license entitles the purchaser to use HD Tach on up to one computer at a time for commercial use. HD Tach RW: HD Tach RW adds several features. Sequential write test is available on removable media and non-partitioned fixed disks. Additionally, when an RW user chooses to save a set of benchmark results a .csv (comma separated values) file is saved for use in spreadsheet programs or internal databases. Finally, HD Tach RW is capable of performing the sequential read and write tests on the entire disk instead of the small number of zones in the quick and long test. HD Tach OEM: HD Tach OEM is not yet available, but will be an advanced interface to the Tach benchmark library allowing control over all test parameters, including running the same test with different parameters (example: sequential read with 32KiB blocks and 64KiB blocks). Users will be able to create test sets to perform on selected devices and use the CSV feature to chart results in any form imaginable.

FAQ for flash drive
Is 16 mb per second consider fast or slow or what for an 8 gb flash drive?
What are 2.0 USB speeds?
16mb/sec read speed is considered to be quite fast (fastest one on the market can do 20-24mb/sec) and 16mb/sec write is very fast.

USB2.0 high speed:
Theoretical rate: 480Mbits/sec = 60MB/sec
Practical rate: 30-40MB/sec

See also USB 3.0 SuperSpeed

Hd Tach v3 0 1 0 including sequential write testing

Read More...... View blog reactions

Mac or PC? Leopard OS X or Vista?

Mackintosh or Pentium Computer
Many computer users have strong opinions regarding Apple, or Microsoft, or open source operating systems. This controversy often sparks heated arguments to say the least.
The plain truth of the matter is that both are about the same. All they are, are different GUIs; slightly different ways of opening applications. Once the application is open, the only differences might be whether you use a single button mouse or a multi-button mouse, and even that difference vanishes with third party hardware.Both Microsoft and Apple share a good deal of technology. Both Windows and MacOS use hundreds of patents shared between the two. Also remember that Microsoft makes a lot of software for the Mac including Microsoft Office which was created by a separate department for the Mac.Learn the pros and cons of the Macintosh and Windows platforms.We'll see how this plays into which might be better suited for Web design.

Click here to scroll SOURCE : GUIDENET.NET Typography - Mac's support of typography is a result of years and years involvement with the pre-press industry. Type-styles rendered with a Mac just plain transfer better when submitted to a service bureau. You get what you saw. If you're into pre-press Mac is the clear winner here. Video Subsystem - Windows open architecture and PCI bus allow a wide non-saturated video subsystem. Video cards are made which exceed 6 Gigaflops of geometric rendering. Mac, though PCI, has a severely bottle-necked video subsystem so if you're into advanced 3-D rendering, Windows is the clear winner here. Postscript Support - Mac natively supports both postscipt and PDF formats making them the clear winning here. Again, if you're into pre-press, Mac makes a lot of sense. Back to Resources Raw Speed - Windows PCs have a serious edge here. Where time is money, processor speed can be very important. Regardless of how hard Mac advertising attempts to claim that the slower clock speed Macs are really just as fast as a PC, it just ain't so and proven so by every bench test out there. If you have the "need for speed" in gaming, software development, 3D rendering and other applications, Windows is the clear winner here. Color Matching - Apple is the only OS and hardware which supports Colorsync™, the industry standard for "what you see is what you get" color matching. If you want your advertising copy of an egg to come out of the press with the same yellow you saw on the screen, Mac is for you. Web Design - Now this will be a hot one. In my opinion the clear choice here is Windows. I say this for two reasons. * First, 95% of the people surfing the Web use Windows on PCs. If you want to be able to design in an atmosphere where you see pretty much what that 95% sees, then Windows just plain makes sense. * Secondly, though many technologies are available for the Mac, Windows technology isn't and much of the Web uses this technology. If you want to take advantage of .NET technology or ASP, it's just way easier to implement from a Windows platform. Ease of Use - I give Mac the edge here, though the difference is pretty small with the release of Windows XP. Windows binary Plug-in-Play is no longer "Plug-n-Pray" and though technologically superior to Mac doesn't get the job done as nicely. By using nearly draconian messures and monopolistic threats, Apple has been able to maintain tight control over makers of third party hardware. What this means to you is an easier to use system, but with much less choice in add-ons. Back to Resources Software Availability - Though many might argue that anything you might need is available for Mac, and though almost all generic task software is, industry specific software is not. For example, if you own.. say a lawnmower repair shop, you might want software written exclusively to run lawn mower repair shops. You just won't find it on the shelf or by mail order for the Mac, while you have several to choose from for Windows, maybe even for free or cheap as shareware downloads. You might argue that you can adapt database and spreadsheet software to need, but it's just not as easy. Advantage to Windows. Coolness Factor - What can I say? Mac wins. Look at that new i-Mac or the i-Pod. It beats a biege box. Geek Factor (I'm one) - Windows wins (Linux beats that and BSD might beat Linux

Thinking about upgrading to Vista? Even more reasons to get a Mac.

Click here to scroll Thinking about upgrading to Vista? Even more reasons to get a Mac. 1. No upgrade nightmares. Before you can even think about Vista, you’ll likely need a new PC. Or upgrades for memory, hard disk, and graphics card. Why go through all that hassle, when you can just get a Mac? More 2. You can even run Windows. The Mac gives you choices. With the latest software options, an Intel-powered Mac can easily run Vista or Windows XP applications. Not that you’ll want to... More 3. It’s simpler. No need to choose from the many (and expensive) flavors of Vista. Every Mac runs the same Mac OS X — with the full set of industry-leading features. More 4. You don’t have to buy new stuff. Your existing printer, camera, keyboard, and mouse will work with a Mac. PCs and Macs can usually share peripherals if they connect via USB, FireWire, or Bluetooth, three industry standards available on most Macs. More 5. Know iTunes? You know Mac. You’ll recognize features like the library collection, playlist arrangement, and instant search in many Mac applications. So you’re something of a Mac expert already. More 6. Macs run Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office for Mac OS X gives you Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, all with familiar features and shortcut commands. For collaborative work, Office for Mac connects to Microsoft Exchange servers. More 7. You can take it with you. Most popular applications for Mac and PC use the same file formats, making it simple to exchange documents with friends and coworkers or move existing files from a PC to a Mac. More

Micro$oft Virtual PC 2007

This peice of software will allow you to run several Operating Systems on your computer, without affecting your main OS!

If you want to use linux, but you are unsure about what it may do to your system, or just want to get used to the commands, without installing it on your PC, this is your option.

If you want to use MAC, but you are unsure about what it might do to your system, or just want to get used to the commands, without installing it on your PC, this is your option!

Again, you may copies of XP/VISTA, and you don't want to mess your system up. This is the options for you.


Have multiple Operating Systems running at the same time! You can network them all together, with your host too. This enables you to communicate from one virtual machine, to another!

Also, if you set the options to go through your Internet enabled network connection, you can then access the Internet through these Virtual Machines!


Both 32Bit, and 64Bit editions of Virtual PC are included.

Works on: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows VISTA. All versions of each!

Download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007
Download Portable Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

Virtualization, Emulation, and Remote Control Solutions
Running Windows or Linux Software on a Macintosh
and Running Mac OS on other Platforms

Related Topics on this blog
Run Mac OS X on a PC

Run Windows on Your Mac

macworld-us-december-2007

maximum-pc-september-2007

hp-pavilion-media-center

Linux Operating System

Read More...... View blog reactions

180 Portable Programs

A portable application, or portable app for short, is a software program that does not require any kind of formal installation onto a computer's permanent storage device to be executed, and can be stored on a removable storage device such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, flash card, or even a floppy disk, enabling it to be used on multiple computers.Another term sometimes used for portable applications is standalone.

180 Portable Programs - GIGA Collection AIO

Contents:

ABR viewer .net 2.0
Youtube Spider 2.0
ACDSee32 v2.42
Advanced IP Address Calculator 1.1
AMP Font Viewer 3.70
AnyMP4 Media Converter 6.0
Artful GIF Animator 1.3
Auto shutdown n Remind 1.2
Bearshare 5.2.1.9
Blaze GIF Creator v5.60
CCleaner 1.36.430 MultiLang
CloneDVD 2
CloneDVD mobile
Coffe Cup Gif Animator 7.5
Corel Draw 11 Portable
CuteFTP 8.0.4.0 Build 01.15.2007.1
Dictionary 7 languages
Digital Object Rescue
Disk Shower 2007
Driver Magician 3.16
DVD Info Pro
Easy Photo Recovery 1.3.1 buil 314
EVEREST Ultimate Edition 3.80.917 Beta
Fast AVI MPEG Joiner 1.0.2
FastStone Capture 5.2
Final Recovery 2.1
FireFox 2.0.0.1 .. A Must Have On Every Single USB Flash
Flash Player Pro v3.4
FlashFXP.U3.Portable.v3.4.0.1145.Multilingual-ACME
Fresh UI 7.73
FTPRush 1.0.0616
Gif Creator 3.38
GoldWave v5.18
Google Earth v4.0.25
HideWindow Plus v2.0
Image Icon Converter 1.3
Indigorose Setup Factory 7.0.5.1
Internet Download Manager 5.09
Kaspersky Internet Security v6.0.2.614
KMPlayer 2.9.3.1232 Beta
Magic ISO Maker 5.4.239
MagicDisc 2.5.74
Mobile Ringtone Converter v2.3.36.0
My Desktop Portable Gadgets Version 2
Nero 7.7.5.1
nlite 1.3 RC 2 Multilanguages
NoteZilla 7.0.76
O O Media Recovery v4
Opera 9.20 Build 8771
PC Security Tweaker v7.1
PDF Converter
Perfect Icon v2.10
Port Fine Reader 8.0 Pro
Portable Tweak Now PowerPack 2006
Power dvd v7
ProShow Gold 3.0.1891
Proxy Switcher Pro 3.7.3647
REAPER
Registry Clean
Registry Genius
Registry Workshop 3.0
SnagIt V8.2.1B.215
Speed Commander v11
Tech Smith Camtasia Studio 4
TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress
TMPGEnc XPress v4.2.3.193
Total Video Converter v3.02
Tracks Eraser Pro v6
TuneUp Utilities 6.0.1255
Ulead GIF animator 5.05
Ultimate Defragment 1.34
Video Vision 8.0.27
Virtual Everest Ultimate Edition 3.01.716
Vista Start Menu Pro 2.1
VisualRoute 2007 Personal Edition v11.0a
Win Cleaner
WinCHM
Windows XP USB Stick Edition
Winrar 3.70
Winzip 11
Portable M'zoft Office 2007 Enterprise
Yahoo Messenger 7.5
1by1 v1.55
7-Zip v4.47
Abiword 2.4.5
Ad-Aware SE Pro
Ad-aware-se 1.06
Adobe CS2 v9.02
Alcohol 120 1.9.5.3823
Anti Vir Personal Edition Classic 7 XP Eng
Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.0
CCleaner 1.31
Convert v4.10
CyberShredder v1.06
DeepBurner Portable v1.7.0.208
DVD 2one 2.05
Dvd Fab Decrypter 2.9.7.7.0
Dvd Region css 5.9
Easy DVDCD Burner 3.0.76
EasyCleaner v2.0
Edition v6.6.1.4 AIO
Emule 0.46c
Essential PIM Pro v1.6
Everest Home 2.20
FileZilla 2.2.23a
Firefox 2.0 beta 2
Firefox v1.5.0.6
Flash FXP 3.20
Flash Player 3.0
Flashget 1.71
Foxit Reader 1.3
Gaim 1.5
GAIM 1.5b3
Get Data Back 3.03 For Fat
Get Data Back 3.03 For NTFS
GIMP 2.2.11b
GSpot v2.2
Hide Ip Plantinum 2.91
IceSword v1.18en
Internet Explorer 7
IrfanView 3.98
Kaspersky Antivirus 6.01
LimeWire Pro 4.12.3
M'zoft Office 2003
MSN Messenger 7.5
Nero 6.6.1.4
Nero 7.2.0.3
Nero v6.6.1.4 Burning Rom Enterprise Edition-CPR
Nod 32 Antivirus 2.51
Norton - WinDoctor 2006
Norton Partition Magic 8.0 for XP and 98
Norton Utilities 2006 - 35in1 USB Drive Edition
NVU 1.023
O O Format Recovery 4.0
Offline Browser v4.6.2570
Omziff v3.0.5
Openoffice 2.0.2
Opera 9.01 en
Opera Browser 8.54
Partition Magic v8.05
Passware Kit 7.9
PPTminimizer 2006 1.8
PStart party portable applications v2.09
Registry Mechanic 5.02
Restorator.2006 3.60.1535
SafeXP v1.5.7.14
Scan Repair Utilities 2007 v4.0.2
Skype 2.5
Skype v2.50113
Sudoku 1.1.7a
Sunbird 0.3a2
SunbirdPortable v0.2
textme v1.5.22
Thunderbird 1.5.0.5
Total Video Convertor v2.603
Trillian 3.1
utorrent v1.6
VLC 0.8.5
VLC Media Player 0.8.5 Revision 2
VLCPortable v0.8.5
Winace v2.65
Winamp 5.21 Pro
WinAudit v2.10
WinAvi Video Converter 7.1
WinFuture XP-ISO-Builder 3.0
WinHTTrack 3.30
WinRar 3.5
WinRAR v3.60
LAN Viewer v1.6.4
MS Hotfix Cleaner
Process Explorer v9.21
Process Viewer v5.2.15.1
Total.Commander.v7.00.RC1
UltraEdit-32 v12.0
xp-AntiSpy 3.96-2
xpy 0.9.4
Autoruns v8.6
CrackDown v2.2
IE History X v1.4.3.42

Download
Download2
How? See Here

Read More...... View blog reactions

Create Email with Undisclosed recipents

Bcc Means Privacy and Efficiency with Group Email

Send an Email to Undisclosed Recipients in Outlook Express

Create an Address Book Entry for "Undisclosed recipients"

• Select Tools | Address Book... from the menu.
• Click the New button in the toolbar and select New Contact....
• Type "Undisclosed" in the First: field.
• Type "recipients" under Last:.
• Type your email address under E-Mail Addresses:.
• Click Add.
• Now click OK.

Send an Email to Undisclosed Recipients in Outlook Express.

To compose and deliver an email message to a group of undisclosed recipients in Outlook Express.

• Start with a new message.
• Click on the To: button with the address book icon.
• Highlight your "Undisclosed recipients" entry.
• Click To: ->.
• Highlight all other desired recipients.
• Click Bcc: ->.
• Click OK.
• Now you can add any additional recipients in the Bcc: field.
  • Make sure you separate recipients by semicolons.
  • If you do not see the Bcc: field, select View | All Headers from the menu.
• Compose and eventually send your message.

Use Bcc when sending email to multiple recipients to maintain the privacy of their email addresses.

Bcc stands for blind carbon copy. Bcc is used to advise a third party of the email without disclosing to the intended recipient that the email has also been sent to the third party. For example, if you wish to advise Ryan that you have emailed John and you don't want John to see that you have notified Ryan.

Bcc can also used to send a message to multiple parties without disclosing the other recipients or their email addresses. You can do this in two ways:

1. Addressing a message to yourself and filling in the intended recipients in the Bcc field.
2. Creating a mailing list. An intended recipient will receive an email addressed to them but will be unable to see the emails of the other recipients.

• Create a new message in your email client.
• Insert "Undisclosed Recipients" in the To: field, followed by your email address in "<,>" braces.
  • The To: field should look like: "Undisclosed Recipients ".
  • If you send emails to undisclosed recipients frequently, you can add your own email address to your address book with "Undisclosed" as the first and "recipients" as the last name.

Send an Email to Undisclosed Recipients from Gmail

Now, to address a message in Gmail so that it goes to "undisclosed recipients" but arrives in all the real recipient's inboxes:

* Click Compose Mail to start a new message.
* Type "Undisclosed recipients <" followed by your Gmail address followed by a closing ">" in the To: field.
o If your Gmail address is rzr.onr@gmail.com, for example, this (not including the quotation marks) would go in the To: field: "Undisclosed recipients ".
* Click Add Bcc.
* Type the email addresses of all intended recipients in the Bcc: field.
o Make sure you separate addresses by comma.
o If you write the same group of recipients repeatedly, you can make it a list.
* Now type the message and its subject, and finally click Send.

Set up an Address Book Group for List Mailing in Gmail

To create a group for list mailing from existing contacts in Gmail:

• Select Contacts from the left side navigation bar in Gmail.
• Check all the contacts you want to add to the new list.
• Click the Add to group ... drop-down menu.
• Select New group ... from the menu.
  • To add the selected contacts to an existing group, select it instead.
• Type the name by which you want the new address book group to go.
• Click OK.

Of course, you can also create an empty group:

• Select Contacts from the left navigation bar.
• Go to the Groups tab.
• Click Create Group.
• Type the desired name of the group under Group name:.
• Enter an initial set of members under Add contacts:.
  • You can add contacts already in your Gmail address book but type fresh email addresses, too.

The latter will be added to your regular address book as well.

Edit the Members of a Gmail Group

To add new members to a group in Gmail, proceed as above. To remove or edit members of a mailing list:

• Select Contacts from the left navigation bar.
• Go to the Groups tab.
• Click the name of the group you want to edit.
• Check members and choose Remove from group to delete them from the group.
• Click on individual contacts to edit their details.

Send Group Mail in Gmail

With your groups set up and populated, you can now send messages to all members easily and swiftly.

Bcc is a useful tool for maintaining privacy of email addresses. With Bcc recipients cannot see the email address of the other email recipients. With To and Cc all recipients can see the email addresses of recipients in the To and Cc fields.

Be savvy and exercise some caution before clicking on that send button. Don't clicked on the wrong mailing list when sending an email and advised everybody in a large department of important dates or events. You subsequently have to send another email recalling your earlier email.
Double check that you have selected the intended recipient or mailing list and the right fields (To, Cc, Bcc) before clicking the send button. Train yourself as to how your email software management package (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird) implements terms such as Bcc. Doing so may save you considerable embarrassment and, importantly, respect privacy obligations

Source

Read More...... View blog reactions

Rewrite Articles The Right Way

Rewrite Articles The Right Way

Related Content

Related content is all material that is related to the topic of your website. If you
have a content site, then 'related content' for you could be images, definitions on
the subject, interesting facts / news (to be used as side-notes or as 'notes' within
articles), etc.

For example, suppose that an article has the topic "learn guitar". If you were
asked to find 3 different things you can add to your site apart from articles on this
niche, what would you add?

Here are a few ideas:

• Videos – people showing how to 'handle' a guitar, how to perform guitar
maintenance, etc.
• Music sheets
• Images – not of you and your dog, but of guitars and famous guitar
players.
• Facts – first guitar, first guitar band, etc
• Guitar sites from around the web or feeder sites
• Tips section
• Glossary of terms
• A guitar learning / playing FAQ
• Authors opinions or authors favorite players, etc
• Related links - be it your other sites or something that contradict article or
your opinions, some generic information, etc
• Comparison charts or graphics? What about surveys formatted in your
own site's style? Plug in a poll!
• Insert short related product review straight in to the article – it can be
featured as recommended product, sponsor's section, product of the
month, etc
• Opt-In form for free newsletter or PDF guide
• Think outside the box!

This way, not only you will be creating something that is link worthy in your niche,
but you will also be helping yourself create internal sources of content that you
can add and link to from your articles.

Where to get this content?

You don't have to create it yourself. If you do have a background in the niche or
can rely on someone else to do this for you cheaply, that's excellent. If not, you
will have to search the Internet for it and get it from somewhere else.

Should you copy other people's material? Absolutely not. You should respect
copyright laws, and in this case that means understanding what is fair use and
what requires permission.

For example, fair use is basically a principle under which you can, within
reasonable limits, use snippets of content from other websites provided that you
cite your sources. You have to denote that the selected content is from another
site (one way of doing it is to put it inside double-quotes) and you absolutely must
mention your sources.

When we say reasonable limits it means that you should not copy an article
sentence by sentence. If you are using a small portion of an article (say, a few
lines), that's fine. Use it, and cite it, and you'll be fine. This applies to definitions,
FAQs (short answers), and small tips. In effect, as long as you are mentioning
your sources properly (and denoting the cited content), you can pretty much build
your sites without much trouble.

However, if you wish to use someone else's content extensively or use images
from other sites, you have to be aware of copyright law. A good solution is
royalty free pictures and imagery provided by MoreNiche (product pictures,
before-after pictures, screenshots, etc).

Related content is a must if you want your website to be more than just a cookie-
cutter site. You have to make sure that your website becomes a magnet for your
target market – it cannot be all things to all people, but it must be remarkable in a
way that attracts attention immediately – and the best way to do that is to provide
your visitors with amazing value.

Note that this approach will help in three ways:

• Get you more links (and make it easier to get links)
• Get you more sales (more people coming to your site = more sales)
• Get you more visitors from the search engines (We've already talked
about using different language versions of the same article as alternate
content – what about alternate mediums such as pictures and other stuff?
SEs are going down the road of providing alternatives to their users, you
might as well cash in now)

Now that we're a bit clearer on related content (and how you can use it in your
sites), let's look at rewriting steps.

10 Step Article Rewrite Walkthrough

Ideally, you should be rewriting the whole article. The rewriting process takes
about 10 minutes if all related materials are prepared. It is important to rewrite
whole article as it literally guarantees that you will have the one and only copy of
this material (technically) and probably by meaning which will ensure great
benefits from visitors and search engines as well.

Step 1: Read the Article

Go through the article once so you have an idea of what it is about – this will help
in rewriting it later.

Step 2: Change the Headline

Keywords always come first, but can you change the headline to add something
more creative at the end? A headline must also be short to work well, so you'll
have to balance that too. Your best bet is to add a related keyword to the
headline – for example, if the article is on antioxidant supplements add the words
healthy or health into the headline. And make sure that it makes sense and isn't
gibberish.

Step 3: Add a subheading

The subhead, despite its notoriety in sales letters is actually quite useful in
providing focused, relevant information about the article to the reader. If you can
write a 1-2 line keyword-rich summary of the article, put it here.

Step 4: Rewrite the introduction paragraph

Just reword the intro paragraph and don't worry about changing too much or too
little. Think of a different way of putting across the same point.

Step 5: Create headings in your articles

Slice and Dice – break up your article into 2-3 sections, give them headings and
rewrite the first few lines that go after each heading. Subheadings can be also
useful when compelling one article out of 2 or more other articles.

Step 6: Create a list(s) in the middle

Slice and dice again – break up a paragraph or two and turn it into a list –
whether it is of features, of symptoms, a checklist, etc.

Step 7: Rewrite the last paragraph

You're almost done – go through the last paragraph (or the last two paragraphs if
they are short) and rephrase them again. Follow the tips given in the previous
section for what type of words to use, but basically as long as you stay on topic,
use related keywords and paraphrase, that's all there is to it.

Step 8: Create a call to action at the end of the article

For articles that are submitted to article directories, your intention is two-fold –
you want to drive readers to your site, and you want the links from your submitted
articles to help your site rank higher in the search engines. As such, it makes
sense that the end of the article should contain some information about the
author and his site as well as a direct link back to it.

Step 9: Add links

Use keywords in your article to link to sections of your website – specific articles,
categories, etc. Do this so that when the article is picked up by the search
engines (in the article directory), they will count these links as backlinks to your
internal pages and your search engine rankings will improve as a result.

Step 10: Review

Take a couple of seconds to go through your rewrite – is the headline ok, does
the subhead make sense, does the new article have a conversational flow to it.
Make sure you haven't missed out anything and that you've formatted things
properly (links, images, lists, etc).

Source :

Read More...... View blog reactions