The computer addict’s flowchart  

Surreal Paintings by Vladimir Kush.

Create a Pocket Emo. Give it a name and click on Finish. Then click on Visit my Emo. After that you can feed your Emo, play with it, giva it a diary to write into, or let it listen to music.

(via Know or Never, Generator Blog)

Lately there has been a lot of discussion on how to make tons of money with Google Adsense. In fact, many people are making the claim that Adsense sites can earn a higher revenue then an affiliate-marketing site.

So that brings us to an important question: Which is a better online business - Affiliate-Marketing sites or Google Adsense sites?

Let’s explore each one and then find out which online business is better option:

Google Adsense

How do you like the idea of earning money without dealing with customers or answering emails. This is possible when you run a Google Adsense site. With Adsense sites, you can have a virtual passive-income that requires little maintaining. But is this the best option for an online business?

Here are the positives of Google Adsense sites:

• They are perfect for people who run information sites that have no related affiliate product
  
• You can set it and leave it. With Google Adsense, you can create a content page, and there is little need to update the content.
  
• Adsense sites are easy to scale. Since they require little upkeep, you can easily create multiple websites that each make a nice income.

Here are the negatives of Google Adsense sites:

• They are not a great long term solution. Instead of getting your visitors to subscribe to a mailing list, you are focusing on getting people to click on ads. Real online businesses concentrate on building assets that can use for long-term growth.
• These sites are dependent on search engines. Most Google Adsense sites make the mistake of depending on search engines for the majority of their traffic. If the SE algorithms change then your income might drop significantly.

Affiliate Marketing

Being an affiliate marketer is great for those who want build a theme site. With this type of business, you can easily create web pages around a topic and get people to buy products through your products. If done correctly, you can easily build a loyal following that will help you make money for years to come.

But can affiliate marketing make you more money then Google Adsense?

Here are the positives of affiliate marketing:

• A great advantage of affiliate-marketing is that you can build a long term business that will bring in a revenue stream for years.
• With affiliate-marketers you need to focus on building an email list. This list is a major asset of your business. Every time you have an offer, you can go to your list and increase your profits..
• Unlike Google Adsense sites, which only concentrates on high paying keywords, an affiliate marketing site can be centered on a topic that you have an interest in.

Here are the negatives of affiliate marketing:

• You have to learn how to write persuasively and get people to purchase the product that you are recommending. For many people this is a difficult skill to learn.
• Each affiliate marketing site requires a lot of effort. You must spend a lot of time writing product reviews, building your email list and creating web content.

So which is better: Affiliate marketing or Google Adsense?

The answer is that both are great solutions for an online business. Instead of choosing one over the other, you should create websites that can take advantage of both.

Here is how you can do this:

1. Create a content site on a topic that you are interest in, while paying a good amount per Adsense click.
   
2. Integrate your Adsense into the menu bars and the top of your web content.
   
3. Add web pages for affiliate-products and your opt-in email list. But, make sure that you leave out the Adsense blocks on these pages. This way you are ensuring that you are building your long-term assets.
   
4. Create optimized web page articles that focus on a specific keyword phrase. Place your Google Adsense in these blocks.
   
5. Provide your email list with good content and product recommendations. Once in awhile, email your list and provide a link to some of your web articles. That way, you can earn a little bit of money from your subscribers while giving them good content.

By focusing on both affiliate products and Google Adsense, you will be building both short-term and long-term profits.

Source: Affiliate Marketing vs. Google Adsense

Note, these apps are free — not all of them are open source.

• OpenOffice – not quite as advanced as Microsoft Office and doesn’t have SharePoint integration, but if that doesn’t matter then look no further (check out Novell’s version too)
• Mozilla Firefox – just as secure as IE7 but insanely customisable. The best browsing experience available
• Mozilla Thunderbird – outstanding customisable email (make sure you install Lightning as well)
• Evolution – yes, it’s been ported to Windows, and is an excellent corporate groupware product
• Mozilla SunBird – if you prefer a separate application for calendaring, this is the one for you
• Pidgin - chat on every network through one lightweight open-source program, with none of the banner ads and hoop-jumping the official clients put you through.
• Media Player Classic – lightweight media player with lots of useful addins (like DVD playback)
• The GIMP – still one of the best image editing packages out there
• K-Lite Mega Codec Pack – play any media file available (includes Media Player Classic)
• VLC Media Player – cross-platform media player and streaming server
• MediaCoder – can convert pretty much anything to anything and back again
• Winamp – still the best music player, in my opinion
• RSSOwl – if you prefer a separate app to manage newsfeed/RSS/XML/Atom subscriptions, this is the one
• Juice – any podcast, any format
• AVG Anti-Virus – still kicking goals. Lightweight, stable and offers great realtime protection
• AVG Anti-Spyware – manual updates required for the free version, but still very good
• Ad-Aware Free – despite the push towards licensing, the free version is still great
• Spybot – still free, still powerful
• Azureus – a powerful and very advanced Java-based torrent client
• PrimoPDF – convert pretty much anything to PDF

Source APC Magazine

The Pixel Awards announced their 2007 nominees today. The sophomore year of the web awards competition saw a nice increase in quality website submissions.

The Top 5 nominees were named in each award category, including Agency, Commerce, Green and Non-Profit. Along with an array of personal websites, many agencies participated in this year’s call for entries ** Big Spaceship, Cuban Council, Digital Pulp, PUSH, Red Interactive Agency, RDA International, RESN Design Studio, ROKKAN, The Vacuum Design and WHITTMANHART, to name a few.

A full list of nominees and categories can be found at The Pixel Awards website (www.pixelawards.com).

Remember, voting for the People’s Champ will be open from September 17 through October 19. This is your chance to vote for your favorite nominee. You get to vote once a day for 33 days so be sure to cast a vote everyday. Winners will be announced in November.

Special thanks to our unparalleled sponsors — Go Media, Harvest, LuckyOliver, MailChimp and MediaTemple.

About The Pixel Awards
Established in 2006, The Pixel Awards take a fresh look at the best on the web. The Pixel Awards are the pre-eminent website award, annually honoring 20 compelling sites that have shown excellence in web design and development. Sites are submitted in 20 diverse categories, including the unique Geek and Green categories. Any site can enter. Only 20 exceptional sites will win.

Create a Web 2.0 application.

With our exciting new Web 2.0 software, eGo, you can enjoy a one-of-a kind application with no cost to your or your immediate family at this time.

According to reports, HTC has received ODM orders for a Windows Mobile smartphone from Sony Ericsson, which is expected to ship sometime in the second half of 2008.

So far, there isn’t too much news on the topic and no specs have been announced, but definitely look for more information as it becomes available.

Akihabara news

A Silicon Valley company run by a 12-year-old CEO has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital.

PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first “publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network.”

Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more “rewarding,” and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won from quests he fought.

This has got to be downright depressing for most budding entrepreneurs, most of whom strike out while pitching investors for funds, even in their 30s or 40s.

This is the second company led by a middle-schooler of south Asian heritage. In May we wrote about 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar, who runs an educational gaming company.

The difference is that PlaySpan is making all the sounds of a traditional silicon valley company, right down to the slick web site and a press release manufactured by a PR firm that is barely decipherable. Mehta will probably learn to write his own press releases within a year

New York based Easton Capital led the funding round, along with Silicon Valley based Menlo Ventures, South Korea based STIC International and Hong Kong based Novel TMT Ventures.

The release said the market for “in-game commerce” has surpassed $2 billion this year and continues its rapid growth as more publishers adopt micro-transaction based revenue models.
Shawn Carolan,of Menlo Ventures, has some experience with gaming, as a board member of virtual world game, IMVU. The young Mehta even knows how to pick his VCs.

Venturebeat

According to recent visitors stats to Internet Vibes its interesting to see following browser data:

Firefox 2	63.3%
Explorer 6	16.8%
Explorer 7	15.3%
Firefox 1	2.2%
Opera 9	1.0%

As we see Firefox 2 is leading the way

Actually this means that our visitors is mostly advanced internet surfers. Partly explanation is that we are getting much of referrers from stumbleupon.com, which users are mostly using FireFox StumpleUpon Toolbar.