Wind Energy Jobs and How To Get Them

Wind energy is one of the fastest growing job opportunities today. The wind industry in the United States has been expanding at a rate of 35-40% per year for the last few years and is expected to continue to expand rapidly under the alternative energy-friendly leadership of President Obama.
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the wind industry already employs 50,000 people in the United States, and this figure is expected to increase at least tenfold, to 500,000, by 2030.
Wind energy careers will be available in numerous fields to those with the interest and educational background to claim them.

Photo by vaxomatic 

Job Opportunities in Wind Energy

The main areas of job growth in the wind industry are expected to include resource analysis, manufacturing, installation, and management, as well as research. A smaller number of jobs are expected to be created in areas such as public relations, human resources, and other support business personnel for wind energy companies.

Job Title Sampling

A sampling of wind energy job titles:

• Wind resource analyist
• Environmental impact analyist
• Windsmith
• Turbine R&D scientist
• Crane operator
• Large load tranportation specialist
• Wind turbine technician
• Construction manager
• Proposal writer
• Offshore developer

The wind industry will employ people with backgrounds in fields such as:

• engineering
• electrical engineering
• construction
• meteorology
• aerodynamics
• computer science
• mathematics
• business

In many cases, a general degree in one of the above (or related) fields might be enough to get a good-paying job in the wind industry. However, a growing number of universities and technical schools in the United States are offering specific degree programs or certification relating to wind energy. The US Department of Energy website Wind Powering America offers a list of wind energy degree programs and other educational opportunities.
Wind industry sources also recommend that students interested in the industry seek out a wind energy internship before graduation. Internships offer valuable real world experience, as well as an opportunity to network and make connections within the industry.

Is Wind Energy Technician the career for you?

Learn More

• KidWind | Wind Energy Careers
  This page will provide you with some resources to learn about the jobs available in the wind industry and how to prepare yourself to get these jobs.
• Careers in Wind Energy - Science Careers
  Wind energy is one of the fastest growing sources of electricity in the United States, and it has produced a number of career opportunities.
• Career Currents (PDF)
  Exploring today's energy careers: wind energy
• Careers in Wind
  A website maintained by the AWEA for wind energy job seekers and employers

Other Opportunities in Wind Energy

Wind energy also offers opportunities for landowners with good wind resources. Through net metering programs, landowners who wish to install a small wind project on their property can earn extra income by selling unused power generated on their property to local energy companies.
A growing number of farmers, ranchers, and other large-scale landowners are also leasing land to wind energy corporations to develop wind farms on their property. Wind farms can be combined with many field crops for extra income, and combine especially well with livestock grazing operations. For more information, visit Wind Energy Basics for Farmers.

Support Wind Energy

• Apollo Alliance
  The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs.
• PickensPlan
  America is blessed with the world's greatest wind power corridor. The Pickens Plan will utilize these tremendous resources to build a bridge to the future — a blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by hanessing domestic energy alternatives.
• Build Baby Build
  Build Baby Build is more than just a blog about renewable energy. It includes your toolbox to organizing support for community-based, distributed generation projects.

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  Homeopathy is getting strong in India as evident from spreading netwrok of Homeopathic research and education institutes in aevery corner of the country. Details are available in the hub linked... - 8 months ago

 

User Authentication using PHP and MySQL and web forms

User Authentication using PHP , MySQL and a web form

This is a how to on establishing a login system for a web page or web based application.

Source files

You've seen them, account signups, email etc, well we are going to show the gist of a PHP login system using MySQL for user management.

First lets create a database responsible for managing the users

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `regUserTbl` (
`regUserID` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`regUserName` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`regPassWord` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`regFirstName` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`regLastName` varchar(25) NOT NULL,
`regEmail` varchar(75) NOT NULL,
`regPhone` varchar(13) NOT NULL,
`regVerified` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
`regToken` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
`regStamp` datetime NOT NULL,
`regLastLog` datetime NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`regUserID`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 COMMENT='Registered users table' AUTO_INCREMENT=1;

Run the above through a SQL query window through your favorite DBMS, i.e. PhpMyAdmin.

Upon success we are ready to go.

Here are the basics.

   1. The page needs to be secure from persons not logged in
   2. The page needs to redirect to the login page if not logged in
   3. The other outstanding logic is that the page shows the form if the Submit button is not clicked, and if it is clicked it checks for the form (validates) the info before we start querying the database (important).

The easiest way to do this is to create a function that will handle all of the processing and then just call the function (neat and tidy).

Lets create a page called login.php (I know really creative).

Now lets create a page called funt.php, this page will carry all of the functions we need and use on all pages.

In the funt.php, first make sure if using a WYSIWIG remove all auto code, just make sure the page is blank.

After that copy and paste this:

function logOn(){
//remove this after maintenance
//$errorMess = 'Performing Maintenance, Try again later!';
//include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/form/loginFrm.php';
//return;
if(!isset($_POST['Submit'])){
if(!isset($_COOKIE['remMe']) && !isset($_COOKIE['remPass'])){
$errorMess = 'Please Log in your Account!';
}else{
$errorMess = 'Welcome Back: ' . $_COOKIE['remUser'] . '!';
}
$aClass = 'normFormClass';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
}elseif(isset($_POST['Submit'])){
//clean the strings for injection
$userName = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['userName']);
$passWord = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['passWord']);
//empty vars
#################################
### Error Checking ##############
if(empty($userName) && empty($passWord)){
$errorMess = 'Put in Username and Password!';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass' ;
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
}elseif(empty($userName)){
$errorMess = 'Put in Username';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
}elseif(empty($passWord)){
$errorMess = 'Put in Password';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
}else{
//logon part of the function
$matchSql ="select * from regUserTbl";
$matchSql.=" where regUserName = '" . $userName . "'";
$matchSql.=" and regPassWord = '" . $passWord . "'";
$matchSql.=" and regVerified = '0'";
$matchResult = mysql_query($matchSql);
$matchNumRows = mysql_num_rows($matchResult);
if($matchNumRows == 1){
$errorMess = 'Check Email For Instructions on Verification!';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
}else{
//select statement
$sql ="select * from regUserTbl";
$sql.=" where regUserName = '" . $userName . "'";
$sql.=" and regPassWord = '" . $passWord . "'";
$sql.=" and regVerified = '1'";
$totalLogins = 3;
//run the results
$result = mysql_query($sql);
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
//if no match put out and error
if($userName != $row['regUserName'] && $passWord != $row['regPassWord']){
if(!isset($_SESSION['attempLog'])){
$_SESSION['attempLog'] = 1;
//echo 'empty';
}elseif(isset($_SESSION['attempLog'])){
//$_SESSION['attempLog'] = $_POST['att']++;
$_SESSION['attempLog']++;
if($_SESSION['attempLog'] == 3){
//echo 'really full';
unset($_SESSION['attempLog']);
$errorMess = 'Recover Lost Password!';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass' ;
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/lostPass.php';
return;
}
}
//count the login attempts
$remainLogins = $totalLogins - $_SESSION['attempLog'];
$errorMess = 'No Matches';
//$errorMess.='&ltspan&gtAttempts Left[' . $remainLogins . ']&lt/span&gt';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass' ;
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
//echo $_SESSION['attempLog'];
#######################################
### end of Error Checking
#######################################
}else{
//create cookie for future logins
if($_POST['remMe'] == 1){
setcookie('remMe' , $_POST['userName'], time()+604800);
setcookie('remPass' , $_POST['passWord'], time()+604800);
setcookie('remUser' , $row['regFirstName'], time()+604800);
//echo 'setcookie';
//return;
}elseif(empty($_POST['remMe'])){
setcookie('remMe' , $_POST['userName'], time()-604800);
setcookie('remPass' , $_POST['passWord'], time()-604800);
setcookie('remUser' , $row['regFirstName'], time()-604800);
}
$_SESSION['userId'] = $row['regUserID'];
$_SESSION['userName'] = $row['regUserName'];
$_SESSION['passWord'] = $row['regPassWord'];
$_SESSION['firstName'] = $row['regFirstName'];
$_SESSION['lastName'] = $row['regLastName'];
//show all the account info
header('location: main.php?cmd=ac');
}//end else
}//end elseif
}
}
}//end function

This is the function that will do all the damage we need.

login.php

Create a simple web page like so:

&lt?php include 'funt.php';?&gt

&lt!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"&gt
&lthtml xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt
&lthead&gt
&ltmeta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /&gt
&lttitle&gtUntitled Document&lt/title&gt
&lt/head&gt

&ltbody&gt

&lt?php

logOn();
?&gt

&lt/body&gt
&lt/html&gt

Notice in bold, we have included the funct.php, and we are calling the login function that we've  created, relax the function will do all the work, and can do more if we choose to.

The first thing the function does is look to see if the Submit button is clicked, if it were submitted already, the form will submit itself.

if(!isset($_POST['Submit'])){
if(!isset($_COOKIE['remMe']) && !isset($_COOKIE['remPass'])){
$errorMess = 'Please Log in your Account!';
}else{
$errorMess = 'Welcome Back: ' . $_COOKIE['remUser'] . '!';
}
$aClass = 'normFormClass';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';

OK, we got a couple of things going on here, we are using a conditional statement to select an user message built into the form.

Before we go any further here is the form code:

&ltdiv id="userNameWrap"&gt
&ltform id="loginFrm" name="loginFrm" action="&lt?=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];?&gt?cmd=lg" method="post"&gt
&lth4&gt&lt?=$errorMess;?&gt&lt/h4&gt
&ltdiv class="userNameRow"&gt
&ltspan class="userClassLeft"&gtUser Name:&lt/span&gt&ltspan class="userClassRight"&gt&ltinput name="userName" type="text" class="&lt?=$aClass;?&gt" id="userName" value="&lt? if (!isset($_COOKIE['remMe'])){ echo $_POST['userName'];} else { echo $_COOKIE['remMe']; }?&gt" size="28" /&gt
&lt/span&gt
&lt/div&gt
&ltdiv class="userNameRow"&gt
&ltspan class="userClassLeft"&gtPassword:&lt/span&gt&ltspan class="userClassRight"&gt&ltinput name="passWord" type="password" class="&lt?=$aClass;?&gt" id="passWord" value="&lt? if (!isset($_COOKIE['remPass'])){ echo $_POST['passWord'];} else { echo $_COOKIE['remPass']; }?&gt" size="28" /&gt
&lt/span&gt
&lt/div&gt
&ltdiv class="userNameRow"&gt
&ltspan class="userClassLeft"&gtRemember Me:&lt/span&gt&ltspan class="userClassRight"&gt&ltinput name="remMe" type="checkbox" id="remMe" value="1" &lt?php if(isset($_COOKIE['remMe'])){?&gtchecked&lt?php } ?&gt/&gt
&lt/span&gt
&ltinput class="blueButtonBgClass" name="Submit" type="Submit" value="Submit" /&gt
&lt/div&gt
&ltdiv class="userNameRow"&gt
&ltdiv align="center"&gt&lt/div&gt
&lt/div&gt
&lt/form&gt
&lt/div&gt

There are some things going on the form code you may ?'s about, post them and I will be happy to oblige.

Notice at the top of the form code $errorMess, we use this variable to give feedback to our users, (bad login, etc).

Now here is what happens when we push the button:

}elseif(isset($_POST['Submit'])){

First things first:

//clean the strings for injection
$userName = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['userName']);
$passWord = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['passWord']);

And then we check for empty fields:

//empty vars
#################################
### Error Checking ##############
if(empty($userName) && empty($passWord)){
$errorMess = 'Put in Username and Password!';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass' ;
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
}elseif(empty($userName)){
$errorMess = 'Put in Username';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';
}elseif(empty($passWord)){
$errorMess = 'Put in Password';
$aClass = 'errorFormClass';
include $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gfl/form/loginFrm.php';

if you look thru each case, you can follow the logic, if you didn't fill out a field, show the form, simple.

Now here is what happens when all fields are present and accounted for:

$sql ="select * from regUserTbl";
$sql.=" where regUserName = '" . $userName . "'";
$sql.=" and regPassWord = '" . $passWord . "'";
$sql.=" and regVerified = '1'";

We are checking to see if we carry any matches against the db.

You know what happens when you answer the door and you don't know the person right, well you don't let them in, same thing except in outer space now.

//if no match put out and error
if($userName != $row['regUserName'] && $passWord != $row['regPassWord']){

And of course we show the form, the point is not to allow the person access and when we don't we SHOW the form.

Alot of people ask ok the login is working, what do I do next, you show them the PAGE, we redirect after all is well.

Before that we created all the SESSION vars we need to make the magic work.

$_SESSION['userId'] = $row['regUserID'];
$_SESSION['userName'] = $row['regUserName'];
$_SESSION['passWord'] = $row['regPassWord'];
$_SESSION['firstName'] = $row['regFirstName'];
$_SESSION['lastName'] = $row['regLastName'];
//show all the account info
header('location: lockedPage.php');

Notice in bold, first we create some sessions and then we send the user to the page, which in our example lockedPage.php.

That's the gist of it, a couple of tidbits though, the lockedPage.php must have a couple of deals at the top the page in order for this thing to pull off.

&lt?php

session_start();

if(empty($_SESSION['userId'])){

// send them back to login

header('location: login.php');

}

We must always start our pages using session_start(); other wise the values will not be carried over in the new page, and the conditional statement does what is says, if the SESSION does not exists, send them back (SHOW THEM THE FORM).

Now if there any questions or needs lets post them and share, as always take it and make it better so we can all learn, and always look for more efficient and elegant ways to make it happen, thank you all.

Boone Pickens the social networker? Pickensplan.com launches!

Pickens goes to social networking to promote alternative energy plan

T. Boone Pickens, the legendary billionaire oil tycoon, has developed a rather definitive plan for the United States to become less dependent on foreign oil through alternative energy. Just today Pickens launched the website PickensPlan.com where you find out all the details of his comprehensive energy plan.
What does he see as the principle problem that we face right now? The fact that the United States has become infinitely more dependent on foreign oil. In 1970 we imported 24% of our oil. Today we import 70% and that number is still growing.
What is T. Boone Pickens plan anyway? Pickens believes that the United States should make a huge investment in wind power. He says "the United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power." The main idea of Pickens plan is that we need to utilize wind power as a major source of U.S. electric power generation. He believes that we can provide electricity to more than 20% of America's homes using wind power within 10 years. The second major step of his plan involves the fact that natural gas is what he calls the "cleanest transportation fuel available today." Pickens believes natural gas, because of its affordability and cleanliness, should be used as a major source of transportation fuel. Natural gas for transportation costs less than $1 now, and 98% of the natural gas used in the United States is from North America. Basically, Pickens believe that through wind electricity and natural gas transportation fuel we can dramatically reduce our need for foreign oil and thus drive down the price of oil.
Pickens is clearly putting on a full court press to push this new energy plan of his. This morning he was a guest on Squawk Box on CNBC to announce the plan. He also had a major articleon his plan today in USA Today. It's not just normal media that Pickens is using though. He has opened a fan club on Facebook and started his own channel on youtube. Pickens is doing this to try to reach younger people and those who he normally couldn't reach.
I think some parts of the plan are a little simplistic. I believe if natural gas is used in a wider way for transportation it will likely cause natural gas prices to soar. Having said this, I believe that Pickens Plan is certainly a step in the right direction. He makes some good clear points about how to ween ourselves off foreign oil, which is clearly what needs to be done. Kudos to Boone Pickens for putting forth a detailed plan!

SERPs - What does this mean?

SERPs - What does this mean?

SERPs is a term commonly seen on internet forums. It is just another piece of jargon that is not quite so mysterious when you know what it stands for. SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page and is used by internet marketers and webmasters to describe where

they appear for their target key words in the various search engines results. This article explains the basics and also details why the results are constantly changing as both the internet and the search engines themselves change.

Blog: http://www.myincomeonline.info/2010/02/serps-what-...

Why is my Browser so Slow?

Photo courtesy CV Neikirk Web Browsers are not the quickest beasts in the computer jungle. Although recent releases of most of the popular browsers are several orders of magnitude faster and more efficent than the lethargic browser suites of earlier desktops, there are still a number of problems that web browsers can have that will have a major impact in both system and browser performance.

A lot of the more popular web pages are quite simply crammed to the edges with Flash, Java, Javascript, blinking ads, eight zillion different fonts, 500K imagemaps with no "bypass this" button, midi files, music, narration, animation and video in dozens of different formats. This is a phenomenal volume of data that would drive quite a number of very capable game engines to their limits. It's understandable that a web browser, which doesn't have "to the metal" access to ultra fast video display memory, the advanced video functions on video cards, or any specialized or optimized functions like game engines do, might have some trouble keeping everything moving at full speed.

But also unlike game engines, most web browsers are equipped with a wide variety of "off switches" many of which make it possible to increase performance dramatically. There are also browsers available for just about every operating system that are both more specialized and faster than standard browsers precisely because they can't do all of the stuff that the larger suites can.

The first and most important potential area for performance slowdowns with a web browser is graphics. The reasons for this are as varied as the individual web sites. Each can have different graphics formats, file sizes, and page layouts. Despite the fact most web connections are on high speed hardware, a page with 50MB of 24-bit non-progressive JPEGs or PNG files is going to be a heavy load for any browser. Browsers are not only limited by download speed, but they have to make room in system memory first, then video memory second for every single one of those files, and that can take a lot of CPU cycles. Again, browsers have to be lowest common denominator applications. They can't have super fast display functions, because they have to support just about any hardware.

The second is animation. Adobe Flash is a great technology and it has done a number of great things for the web, but animation puts a lot of stress on both the CPU and system memory. The doubly difficult part is that Flash animations, even if they are off-screen, can still chew up CPU cycles and extra system memory. Since Flash is almost never the central feature of a web page, it is usually that animated banner ad that is using up a third or more of the CPU cycles that could be put to better use running the rest of the computer.

Third are features that are programmed into web sites using scripting languages like Javascript or compiled virtual machine languages like Java. With a very few notable exceptions, Java is almost always a massively slow addition to any web site. The reason for this is that a browser must load an entire client side virtual machine into memory so a Java program can run. If the virtual machine isn't already in memory this can take several seconds during which time the browser and system may have difficulty doing anything else. Unless it is turned off in advance, a Javascript interpreter is almost always running in most browsers, so it doesn't have the same potential for a system slowdown as Java does. Nevertheless, Javascript can and does slow down web sites, especially poorly written Javascript.

Now the obvious answer would be to simply turn everything off and read the web as a gopher index in 12 point Times New Roman font, but that's really not terribly exciting. The web is supposed to be the future and all. There are ways to increase browser performance, however.

One is to make sure the browser has adequate cache space. Cache is disk memory allocated to a browser so it can keep local copies of pages that have already been visited. This means browsers don't have to re-download information if a page is visited more than once in a given browsing session. The more space that is allocated to cache, the more pages that can be saved client-side and the faster those pages can be re-displayed if visited again.

The second is to turn off any animation or programming language that isn't necessary to the central feature of a given web site. If, for example, you are browsing articles on gardening written in text with a few pictures here and there, having Flash and Java running is unnecessary and will just slow the gardening site down if they have to load an advertisement or something.

Third, and this is important even if performance isn't an issue, is to set your browser to disable pop-ups and pop-unders. Each new window a browser is required to open will reduce the amount of system memory available for quickly displaying web pages. Every pop-up window uses the same amount of memory as a new browser window even if it is only displaying a small ad, and those memory uses can add up as more pop-up windows appear.

The main thing to understand is that web speed isn't just about download speed. What is happening on the client machine can have a dramatic effect on overall performance, and turning off services that aren't needed can make the web faster and more efficient.

Best Chrome Addons

Google Chrome Addons

The Google Chrome browser has long been my favorite browser, it is simple, quick and easy to use. Despite this I sill found myself using Firefox a huge amount, simply because off all the addons I could use in conjunction with it, to make my life easier.

Well now the time has come, with Google Chrome Extensions, we can finally use Google Chrome Addons to improve our browsing experience and improve upon our productivity.

Google Chrome Addons are easy to install, and even easier to use, which is why I ma going to give you a rundown of the best chrome addons you can get!

You can get all these Google Chrome Extensions Here!

And I have ten more of these as well, check out the Best Chrome Extensions!

10) Google Chome Addon - Proxy Switchy

A proxy server may not be for everyone, but for those who use things such as Megavideo or Rapidshare, may find this nifty little tool a great way to get around the time limits!

A proxy server basically hides your IP address, so you can also use it for anonymous surfing, or you could fake the IP address of a certain country. using the IP address of another country comes in particularly helpful if you want to know how to use Pandora outside America!

Proxy Switchy is by far one of the best proxy server switcher Chrome Addons that you can find out there today, expect more of these great addons in the future though!

Best Google Chrome Extensions

Twitter integrates perfectly in to Google Chrome with the Chromed Bird Chrome Addon!

9) Twitter Bird Chrome Addon

I do not really use twitter that much myself, I can kinda see its benefits, but Facebook is what I tend to use!

Nevertheless there are millions of twitter users out there who will love this Google Chrome Extension Twitter Bird. Twitter Bird gives you a simple drop down box containing your twitter news, and allows you to quickly post twitter updates without getting in the way of your Internet surfing.

This Chrome addon for twitter is pretty much essential if you are a fan of twitter!

If you spend more time on Facebook though, check out our next Google Chrome Addon.

Facebook Chrome Extension

This amazing Facebook Chrome Addon is the best chrome extension for Facebook users!

8) Facebook Chrome Addon

Facebook is one of those things that became a huge success, and instantly managed to drain hours from every single users daily life. When it first appeared I know I spent some time on there, and even now, when you think I would have got bored, I usually have Facebook open in the background so I can check it every ten minutes.

Fortunately the Facebook Chrome Extension makes life a little easier, with a drope down facebook box which allows you to update, check notifications, and keep on top of your facebook account.

This Facebook Chrome Addon might seem superfluous, but it can speed up your daily Facebook surfing, saving you a huge amount of time!

7) Google Translate Chrome Addon

This Google Chrome Extension is pretty self explanatory. The Google Translate Chrome addon is a simple and quick way to translate a webpage from nearly any other language in to English.

This may not seem like a big deal, but I was surprised how often I had to revert to Firefox to view some webpage in German that had just the information I needed.

This may not be useful to everyone, but to may of us a translation chrome addon is a brilliant addition to our web browser!

Best Chrome Addons

Select an address and instantly get a link to Google Maps.

6) Chrome Select to get Maps Extension

Google maps is by far one of the most useful applications, and this simple Chrome addon save you that little bit of work, copying and pasting the address. Select to Get Maps is well programmed to detect if you have selected an address.

If it detects that you have selected an address then it comes up with a small box containing a link, which will instantly take you to a map of the area. This is an incredibly simple concept, but also incredibly useful, After a week of using it, I already miss it when I am using Firefox.

SEO Tools for Chrome

SEO Tools for chrome is specifically designed to help webmasters who love chrome!

5) Chrome SEO Extension

For those of you who like me, are webmasters, you may miss the SEO functionality of Firefox. Fortunately Chrome SEO completes many of the daily functions that you might need as an SEO specialist or webmaster.

While not all of the functions in the addon are displayed directly yet, they have plans to fix this soon, in the meantime there are still direct links which will take you to the information you need!

If you are looking to collect SEO data through Google Chrome then you will find these SEO tools are an essential Google Addon!

Best Google Chrome Addons

One number is one of my favorite Google Chrome Extensions!

4) One Number Google Chrome Addon

There are plenty of Google Chrome Extensions to check your Gmail account for updates, and even a few for Google Wave. With the One Number Google Chrome Addon however, you can check your Google Mail, Google Wave, Google Voice and Google Reader for updates all with one simple button.

This integration of your e-mail, RSS feeds, Google Voice account and your waves is a great mix. This Google addon brings them all together seamlessly to provide you with everything you need to keep you up to date.

Best Chrome Extensions

FastestFox is originally a firefox addon released on Chrome!

3) FastestFox for Chrome

FastestFox is originally an addon created for Firefox. However the team have worked hard to bring you this top notch Google Chrome Extension. FastestFox is designed to make your day to day browsing just that little bit quicker. It does this using several techniques, from pre-caching to selection links (allowing you to search for your selection on sites such as wikipedia0

This is a fantastic Chrome extension which has helped me massively in the last week, especially for research, where I may often be flicking through hundreds of webpages, and often referencing sites such as Wikipedia. I definitely suggest you give this little Google Chrome addon a try!

Ad Block for Chrome Addon

Adblock prevents annoying ads and popups on Chrome!

2) AdBlock Chrome Extension

Out of all the things missing in basic Chrome release, the most complained about was the lack of a simple AdBlocker. Fortunately with the release of Google Chrome Extensions came a fully functional adblock which will make your Chrome surfing advert free!

AdBlock does also come with some great little features, and as far as I am aware, it is the only chrome extension which allows you to choose whether or not a button is displayed by your address bar!

If you are looking for a way to remove adverts, tehn this is by far the best Chrome extension!

Top Google Chrome Addons

Session Manager is the Best Chrome Extension!

1) Google Chrome Session Manager Addon

So this might not be in everybody's number one spot, but to me the Google Chrome Extension, Session Manager, is by far the most useful of the Google Chrome Addons. It allows me to save a window state, allowing me to close down, and come back to it days later.

This great simple tool may not have much to it, but its usefulness brings it straight to the number one spot of my best Chrome Extensions list!

While this Chrome addon may not be useful to everyone, in my day to day research I find this addon to be the most useful Chrome extension created so far!

Interesting Links

• The Latest How to Guide
  A Guide on How to Do Everything and Anything
• ClearView Writing - Freelance Writing, Website Management and SEO Services - About
  
• Geekywood - Get the daily digest of latest Tech gadgets.
  The latest news and reviews on technology, gadgets, internet and Computers. We also write quality tutorials and tips. Visit this site and don't forget to subscribe!

Getting Your Own Investment Club Accounting Software

If you’re looking for a great means to become financially successful online, then you would love the ideas that you can get from buying investment club accounting software. It combines the best methods in investment club accounting and online moneymaking – so it’s double the profit and half the hassle and effort. There are many brands and categories of these software available online, for all levels and sizes of investment clubs and other financial organizations.

In an investment club, a group of people agree to direct or invest funds into a particular project or account, and gain profit collectively. Usually, there is one or several people designated to perform administrative or record keeping tasks. Handling accounts and records for fluctuating money figures can be a bit tedious, especially if the investment club is comprised of member who keep day jobs and manage their accounts at home or during the weekends. It is in this scenario that investment club accounting software can come in handy.

These kinds of software can help managing and tracking accounts much easier and organized. Software designed for investment clubs can help with printing files, keeping profiles of each member, and automatically computing debits or profits. It is the norm for part time or full time investors to rely on software for many investment tasks, including predicting the market or keeping records and graphs of trade trends and patterns. It is sensible that they can also begin to rely on software for helping accomplish organizing and recording tasks. It makes the whole business of investing a much easier one, especially for beginner investment clubs whose members have little or no experience in finance issues. User directed software can help investing become an easier task for anyone who has capital and would like to earn profit.

Entire investment clubs can go on and become successful even if its members are scattered all over the country or even throughout the world. Each member can update their records at the time which is convenient for them, and his or her co-investors can view the updates and append decisions on their own free time. It can eliminate the need for setting a fixed schedule for business meetings while still getting much of the investment tasks done.

Having investment club accounting software can make it easy for investment clubs to grow and progress without the need for face to face meet ups. The norm these days is for investment clubs to go online, with much of the transactions and decisions happening in cyberspace. The connectivity and data keeping tools of software for investment club accounting can help make transactions and tasks much more secure by making them easier to track down and identify.

How To Get A Free UseNext Account

If anybody doesn't know what UseNext is, it is basically a piece of download software.. The difference between UseNext and common sites such as RapidShare is that UseNext will allow you to download files from its database at a stupidly fast speed, at least as fast as your own Internet connection allows. They have thousands of movies, music albums, software packages, and almost every digital product you can think of; I myself managed to download an entire movie in around 6 minutes. Anybody with experience or knowledge of downloading movies will know that this is extremely fast!

Now, UseNext is NOT a free site but they do offer a 14 day trial, before asking you to pay an astonishing 80 Euros per month to use their highest spec service. The thing is, they actually want to charge you for the trial! This may only be a few euros, but surely a trial should be free? Thanks to me, and this article, you will be shown how you can get this 14 day trial for no charge whatsoever......... The ONLY way that you will get a free UseNext account.

The Free UseNext Account Trick.....

Follow these simple steps to get your free UseNet account.......

1. Go to UseNext.com and click on the banner which says "Get Your Risk Free 14 Day Trial".

2. Clicking on this link brings you to a long form for you to enter your details. This is where you are expected to enter your personal information, entering fake information works perfectly fine, meaning that you can happily avoid the inevitable spam that these programmes will bring. The only bit that you must enter correctly is an email address which you can access. Just click on 'Next'

3. You will now be taken to a payment screen. Make sure that you select 'Paypal' as your payment option, they state that this entails a 1 euro processing fee. Accept the terms and conditions at this point and press 'Complete Order' at the bottom of the page. Don't worry, they can't take money from your paypal account at this stage!

4. You will now be taken to the paypal payment screen. Enter your real life paypal email address, but get your password incorrect intentionally on three consecutive occasions. You will be informed by paypal that you have entered your password(s) incorrectly. Believe it or not, this will trick the UseNext payment system into believing that you have paid.

5. You should receive an email confirmation from UseNext shortly after this, giving you your username and password for the UseNext.com website. You can change account setting etc. if you wish. You will be presented with the option of downloading the UseNext software, which you should subsequently download.

6. When you open the software you are asked to provide your username and password, which you were given in the confirmation email. DO NOT enter these details, as UseNext will subsequently send you an email asking for payment. Instead, just leave these details blank and close the software.

7. UseNext will subsequently send you a new username and password within a few days (yes they are that stupid!) and you can use these to login with these without paying a single penny.

And hey presto! You now have a free UseNet account trial and haven't given them any of your personal details.

Sound Like A Lot Of Work For 1 Euro?

You can use this trick multiple times, an infinite amount of times in fact, saving yourself about 80 euros a month. That's over 1,000 euros per year for this fantastic piece of software, which you are getting completely free..... and because of their own system faults. UseNext completely and utterly pisses all over standard p2p or torrent programmes, as it is about 25 times quicker and without the spyware/malware issues.

Have fun ;)

Free Downloads in the News

• Mobile Games Developers Score Over 60,000 Downloads Within Days Of Free Games Portal LaunchPress Release Network11 hours ago

  Mobile Games Developers worldwide are gearing up for the full launch of Djuzz (m.djuzz.com), BuzzCity's new games and entertainment portal. The portal, which provides free downloads of mobile games and applications to users, is set to become an important tool for mobile developers to test new products and gain traction in key markets. Hosting games and applications within the portal is free for ...

How Do I Create My Own Blog? Part I

I Hear This Question On So Many Forums ...

How do I make my own blog? Is it difficult to do? Can I make money doing it? All good questions. And the answers? Yes, you can make your own blog. No, it's not difficult once you know how. Yes, you can make some money doing it. And so, this article will tell you how to make your own blog, and it just might be of use to the many who already have done so.

Starting your own blog sounds like a really cool thing, but there is much to consider before doing so. The very first question you have to ask yourself is this ... do I want to make money from my blog? If not, then there are many ready-made free ones on the internet. Here's a few free blog pages I have come across in my many travels:

• blogger.com
• wordpress.com
• livejournal.com

Well, you get the idea. You need not own your website to have a blog, but doing so does offer some advantages:

• You maintain total control over your site
• The only advertising on the site belongs to you
• All the traffic is yours and yours only

Now, if you are going to blog to express yourself or to keep a personal journal I recommend a free blogging site. However, if you are looking to make money while blogging I highly recommend paying for your own site. Ah yes, you need to invest to make money - and we all know that investments are risky business. That's why we'll look into this a bit deeper before pressing on.

How Much Does It Cost To Have My Own Blog?

Provided you are just looking to do it for kicks ... nothing ... zilch ... nada ... just as I said above. Ya didn't expect me to change my tune midcourse, did ya?

But if you are looking to profit from your writing you will definitely need a site you own yourself. Why? Because affiliate marketers like Google Adsense, Amazon, and Ebay offer a lot of great advertising devices, but they only give out the best of toys to those who own their own site. As such, if you want to make money that's what you'll need - a site of your own - and that's what we will go over here.

To start, you will need your own domain. Two great places to buy a domain are:

• godaddy.com
• hostgator.com

Yes, they look immature and gimmicky in their ads, but make no mistake, both are top-notch domain providers. As for me, I went with godaddy.com, but I could have went with hostgator just as easily. Once I explain the full path I took I think you'll understand why I chose as I did. As for the cost of a domain, I went with a package deal, which I will explain.

Godaddy.com offers wordpress hosting for as low as 4.49/mo for 24 months. This intrigued me, as websites with less than a 1 year domain license are given less respect on the search engines, as they look at you as if you are a flash in the pan, looking to get rich quick and head out of dodge. This plan also allowed me to secure a domain (the place where I place my site) for an extra $1.99/yr. Total cost for a two year site: $110. And that's where the question came in my mind ... can I feasibly make $110 of my blog in two years time? Because if the answer is no I'm better off slogging it through with a free blog and looking at limited income opportunities.

Adding up the dollars and cents, this came up to slightly less than $5/mo. And so, I thought to myself, that's two and a half large sodas at Burger King, so if it don't work out I'll drink less 72 less large sodas over the next two years, which would actually benefit me. haha!

And so, that was my initial investment, though the place you choose for your hosting and the package you chose could drastically change your own experience. Just remember ... To own your own blog you will need a domain to host it (that's the www.mysite.com part) and webspace to hold the data (10Gb should be enough for many, but others might need more). It also doesn't hurt to spend the extra for your own email address. This mailbox can then be used to help your blog readers communicate with you and to keep track of the many communications involved with setting up a blog. Ah yes, we are going to get our hands dirty up to the elbows as we get unfer the hood to set everything up - read on!

Setting Up A Wordpress Blog

As I chose Wordpress for my blogging, all of the information from here on out will be specific to Wordpress blogs. And why did I chose the Wordpress format? It's a trusted format, it's been around for a long time, and there are tons of free plugins for it!

Now, provided you signed up with godaddy.com they walked you through the setup. Of course, you might have went elsewhere and they (typically) will also walk you through the setup. Of course, if you went the free route you will need to go to wordpress.com and setup your account.

Regardless of how you do it, Wordpress is *not* difficult to install. The work is in maintaining it and making it work for you. As such, we won't go into a detailed description of how to give someone your name and other pertinent info, as such info varies anyway by how you sign up for Wordpress. Just know that there's a huge Wordpress community out there to tag for support and they will see to it that you get up and running with minimal pain, and that allows us to focus on what's really important - desinging your site!

Designing Your Wordpress Site

The first thing you will see when you log into Wordpress is the Dashboard. This is where you, the admin, become a demigod of your own little world. Learn to like this screen, as you will be seeing a lot of it over the next two years, and perhaps many more to come:

A Typical Wordpress 2.9 dashboard

Your dashboard will differ from mine as I have added things that you haven't added yet, and because you will eventually add things that I didn't. That's okay. For now, it's important to get a feel for what you are (or will be) looking at.

What Are All Of Those Gizmos on your dashboard?

Good question! As much as I would like to go into a detailed explanation of each one, I think we need at this level to just understand what they are. As this series of articles grows (you saw that this was part I, right?) we'll go deeper through each one. For now, we will start our path down the left side and move on from there with the basic explanations:

Dashboard: This button is like a homing button to get you back to your dashboard after you have opened something else. Consider it your panic button, and expect to use it often when starting out.

There's also a down arrow that leads to other options. For my Wordpress blog it leads to several plugins, but we aren't there yet, so no need to confuse ya just yet!

Posts: This button leads you to the posting interface where you will add new posts to your blog. Something to note: Your posts are displayed on your blog in a first in - first out fashion, meaning the newest stuff stays on the front page, while the oldest works its way down and finally disappears. Of course, you can make a post stay on the front page, but you want to do this minimally, as each sticky post takes up room on the front page for another new post.

And what are posts? These are the daily updates you make to your blog. Simple, eh?

Media: I never use this button, but it's designed for you to store data locally. So, if you snapped a photo of something and wanted to display it on your site, you would go here to place it on the site and then link to it in one of your posts or pages. And why don't I use the media button? Once you understand my philosophy in my design, you'll understand the method to my madness. But alas, my young Padawan, you can only absorb so much at one time.

Links: This button is kinda useful. Here, you can store outgoing links that you want to appear on each blog page. By placing all of your important links here you can get them on every page without having ti manually reenter them 500 times. Useful? Yes. Do I use it a lot? No.

Pages: This button is one I almost snubbed, until I learned what it can do. While posts are useful for sharing info that will be forgotten in days, pages are great for creating static info you want to keep in the public eye. So, if you wanted to announce to everyone that you are hosting a contest, you would use a page to do so. However, know this ... pages appear in your margins and posts appear in-between them. By this I mean that pages typically are made to set aside of your main content, so you need to use them wisely to keep them visible.

Comments: This button allows you to hear what others are saying about your articles. Don't expect tons of get ones right away, unless you are tickled by spam (which we will tell you how to combat later on). Fact is, no one will comment until they trust you, and once you earn their trust you'll never be able to silence them ... it just takes time. And of course, this button also allows you to manage said comments, allowing you to drop those that are spam or injurious to your blog.

Rating: This button is an add-on I will explain in Part II

Polls: This is another addon I will explain in Part II

Appearance: This button allows you to pick a theme (the outward appearance of your blog) and widgets (those little doodads that make your blog (for lack of a better expression) more than just a blog.

Plugins: This button is where you go to get new plugins and manage them. As much as words determine the worth of your blog, plugins determine how well you will be able to control your blog. There's a plugin for everything imaginable, and we will go into some of the best in Part II.

Users: This button is the heartbeat to your users. Here, you can promote users, demote users, and do all of the other stuff a demigod can do on their own blog.

Tools: This is another seldom used button, but an *extremely* useful one. Here, you can export your site to your PC any time. And why would you want to do this? Because you are preparing to make a big change and your uncertain of the consequence. It might be installing a new theme, adding a new plug-in, etc. I highly recommend exporting your site before any large change, so if anything goes terribly wrong you can import the old stuff back in before the readers come at you with their pitchforks - and they will ...

Settings: This is the final button, and one you will use often. This button control many of the technical aspects of the site, allowing you to reshape the mechanisms behind how your new world works.

And what is the rest, you might ask? Well, there's my spam filter (and I highly recommend one), the quickpress for creating articles on the fly, and various items from Wordpress attempting to catch your eye. In particular, the most popular plugins section is the best. After all, things get popular for a reason - they typically do something useful and do it well. As such, they could prove popular with you as well.

Picking A Theme

There are so many themes to chose from ... You don't believe me? Click Appearance -> Themes -> Add New -> Featured.

What you are looking at are the ones considered to currently be the most popular themes on wordpress. And as said before, things get popular for a reason. You can preview each one by clicking on them, but that doesn't tell you how well they will work on your site. However, you can click install on them to your own site (by clicking install) and preview them with your own data by clicking Appearance -> Themes -> and clicking preview on the one you want to try out.

It's all a matter of taste - trust me! However, if you want to know my favorites, here they are in order:

• Atahualpa (my current theme)
• Arjuna X (a really close second place)
• Pixel
• Coffee Desk

Each theme has its pluses and minuses, and my reasoning for choosing Atahualpa was all of the customizations available. In fact, most themes have customizable options which allow you to modify them to fit your needs - and Atahualpa is one of the most customizable ones I know of - and it's free. :)

I Picked A Theme - What's Next?

Well, provided you are serious about your blog you will want to create categories to sort things out for readers. After all, wouldn't it be nice to write about several topics at once and give each equal weight? Well, you can - and that's why you use categories.

To get started, click Posts -> Categories then choose some unique things you want to write about. For example, I chose Computers, Science, and Technology. All very basic, but each deserving a category of its own. I also added Blog Info as a category, to allow readers to refresh on changes I post about in the blog.

And why are categories important? Well, maybe someone enjoys reading about science, but hates computers. So, if I write several blogs about computers that person might think I stopped writing about computers altogether, and might stop coming around. Plain and simple, categories create focused user groups - that's why they are so important.

Adding Posts To Your Blog

Posts can be added through the quickpress area on your dashboard or by clicking Posts -> Add New. Then you use the latter method you will find yourself on this screen:

The Wordpress 'add new' post screen

This is the screen you will use to create most of your posts. And as you can see, there are plenty of option buttons. You can change the text to bold, italic, underlined, or strike-through; you can create lists and block quotes; you can left-justify, center, or right justify the text; you can perform a spell check; you can change your text color, size and font; you can import text from word or other programs; you can insert media (such as videos) and special characters; you can indent and outdent; you can create hyperlinks; and you can even undo and redo your changes on the fly.

Now that is what I call a text editor! There's even options above for adding pictures, video, audio, and other media - and I also have one for adding polls, which I will get into in Part II.

So, type your little fingers off and make that first post!

Done with it yet? Good! Now we need to add some tags. And what are tags you might ask? Well, tags are words and phrases used to internally link documents. Much like categories link the types of posts, tags can link them according to content.

For example, if I wrote an article about nuclear starships I might categorize it under space, with the thought that it goes along with space exploration. Next, I might write an article about new forms of nuclear energy in development (which I have, by the way). This article gets categorized under a different category, technology, as it's about new technological breakthroughs.

Now, both articles are in different categories, but a tag with the name 'nuclear' could link them both together. In doing so, every article tagged with the word 'nuclear' now has a category of its own, without ever breaking the original category structure I created for my blog. And that's the fine distinction between tags and meta keywords, as meta keywords bring in outside search traffic using phrases and tags organize the throughput of that traffic once it arrives to your site.

Never think of tags as keyword phrases ... think of them as links to other related articles, as that's what they truly are. And when you are done with your post, click the appropriate category to place it in, as this categorizes the post.

What? You can't find a proper category? Well, then add a new one, as it's obvious your thoughts have diversified elsewhere and there's no need to scrap a good post to save yourself from adding another category (which is a very simple process). Of course, you also should try to make articles fit when you can, as a blog with fifty categories is far too complex a maze for any human mind to master. I recommend no more than 10 categories, and even less if you can get away with it. Become a specialist - focus your writings as much as you can and your readers will love you for it.

That's All For Part I

Part I got you on your feet. As for Part II, I intend to show you a lot of really useful plugins. So, stay tuned for more as it's quickly on its way!

By now, you should know if you want to own your blog or get a freebie from someone else. You should also have your heart set on whether you are doing this for the money, the love - or both (and you can definitely do both by writing about what you love and monetizing it). Just remember ... This is something very new to many of you, so don't expect it to come easy - nothing worthwhile ever does.

I can give you all of the building blocks in the world, but in the end, for this to be your blog you'll need to become brave and get in there with your own hands to make it work. Trust me, there is no better feeling in the world than seeing your creation slowly come to life. Yes, there will be frustrations along the way, but those first 10 visitors will erase them all - I know this as I have experienced it myself.