This is a guest post by Darren.

If you have ever tried to market your website using article marketing before, you know that the process can be time consuming and energy sapping. That is because writing articles and submitting articles to hundreds of article directories take time - sometimes up to hours just to submit a single article.

However, despite such a painful process, many internet marketers are still actively doing this. Why? Simply because article marketing works! The most successful article marketers earn in excess of five figures per month. All they do is to consistently market their products and services on the Internet using high quality articles.

One of the secret to success is to write and distribute high quality articles. This means articles that are actually useful to readers. The point here is to allow online visitors to get to know you, and what you have to offer. Chances are, when they buy from you, they already know something about you. This is possible only because your articles are out there, and you have provided some useful solution to them. Over time, they have learned to trust you, and know that you do good work. So they buy something from you.

This is the essence of article marketing. It has worked for years, and will continue to work for years to come. It has worked so well because article marketing gives targeted traffic to the online business owner. Targeted traffic is what converts to sales. So even with a small trickle of traffic (about a hundred unique visitors per day), a skilled internet marketer can still make a good living off the internet. Many have already achieved success on the internet because of internet marketing. And many others will follow the same path to success. Why reinvent the wheel when so many others have already proven that article marketing works?

The problem is, many give up on article marketing because they find it painful to write and submit articles. Considering that they still have other important tasks to accomplish like product development, this is understandable.

Fortunately, there are affordable article distribution services that will help promote your blogs or online businesses for you. For a small fee, these services submit your articles to as many as three hundred article directories. This means instead of having to spend hours in front of your computer submitting articles, you are free to focus on other important aspects of your business.

When you engage others to distribute your articles for you, you are effectively building back links to your site. These links will bring you traffic both in the short and long run. Short term traffic comes from visitors clicking directly on the links in your articles. Long term traffic comes from the search engines.

The search engines are able to find your links on hundreds of sites. These links count as “votes” for your sites. The more sites “vote” for you, the better it is for your search engine rankings. This will ensure that you get a steady stream of highly targeted traffic from the search engines.

So don’t give up just because it’s painful to write and submit articles. Opportunities are abundant on the Internet and you don’t want to be missing out. Hire someone to do the job for you today.

Here is a list of 52 interesting things you can do with Google other than search!

1. Browse the classics without opening a book
   With Google Book Search, you can flick through books from the comfort of your home .
2. Never wake up your Australian relatives at 3am again
   Use Google Search to make sure you don’t rudely awaken anyone the next time you make a call. Type ‘time’ followed by the location, and midnight disruptions will be a thing of the past.
3. Convert £ to Yuan instantly
   Going someplace nice? Type the currency you want to convert into the search box to find out how much it’s worth in another currency.
4. See the Cerne Giant in your bedroom
   Visit some of the world’s most famous and unusual places on Google Earth. You can search for places you know or visit the Google Earth KML directory to make new discoveries.
5. Automatically save every draft of your wedding list/seating plan
   Google Docs automatically saves every version of your document so you never have to worry about losing a valuable draft again.
6. Flight arrival and departure times in real time
   With Google Search, you can enter a flight number and get updated information on when the flight is arriving or departing.
7. Say ‘I don’t speak Italian’, in Italian
   With Google Translate, type the word or phrase you want to translate and select your languages to receive your translation.
8. Are you big in Uzbekistan?
   With YouTube Insights, you can find out what countries your viewers are from and also get additional information like viewer demographics.
9. Settle trivia disputes in the pub
   Settle a bet in the pub with Google Search on your mobile. Access all the information on the web without needing to be in front of your computer. Go to Google search on your mobile by typing m.google.co.uk into your mobile phone browser
10. Watch your favourite YouTube clips in high-resolution
    If you have a fast internet connection, you can change the setting in your YouTube account to always play videos in high definition when available.
11. Stargaze on a bright sunny day, or on a cloudy afternoon
    Amateur astronomers rejoice. With the Sky feature in Google Earth, you can stargaze at any time of day or night. View everything from supernovas to entire constellations, complete with information on what you’re looking at.
12. Get directions when you’re on the move
    Taken a wrong turn? Use the My Location feature of Google Maps on your mobile to figure out approximately where you are. No GPS required. It’s also handy if you want to get directions from your current spot without typing in the address. *Available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices.
13. Find out who’s free for lunch without asking
    Struggling to figure out when everyone’s free for a get together? With Google Calendar, you can add the calendars of friends, family and colleagues to your own calendar, and your only problem will be agreeing on a restaurant
14. Keep your family videos in the family
    Keep family videos private by using the privacy setting on YouTube videos.That way, only the people you want to see your videos are able to.
15. Know not only when the FTSE moves, but why
    Stock prices go up and down. Google Finance pairs financial charts with related news of the day. So you can see what happened and why, when you’re reviewing your portfolio.
16. Find local cinema times
    Get big-screen showtimes on your little screen. Type the movie you want to see and your postcode into the search box to get current times and locations. If you need ideas on what to see, you can type the word ‘film’ and your location to see what movies are playing in your area.
17. Make your homepage YOUR homepage
    Personalise your homepage by adding your favourite content to iGoogle. If you want to give it an extra special something, you can also add designs by well-known artists.
18. Inspiration, insight or information for your essay, dissertation or thesis
    Begin your research with Google Scholar. Search hundreds of different journals, universities, books and other sources from the comfort of your favourite armchair.
19. Turn your email into a conversation
    Instead of emailing back and forth, you can reply to an email by chat instead with Google Mail. Your conversations are automatically saved, so you can revisit them just like email.
20. Show your kid where the Komodo dragon lives
    To see where the endangered species of the world live, use Google Earth’s ARKive layer to display their locations and important facts about them. *Download required.
21. Go back to work without going back to the office
    Never be without that important file again. With Google Docs, all your documents are saved online. So no matter what computer you’re using, or where in the world you are, you can pick up where you left off
22. What Coleridge actually wrote was…
    To avoid misquoting the greats of literature, use Google Book Search to check those famous lines, word for word
23. Have your daily schedule sent to you every morning
    Stay on top of your schedule by setting up Google Calendar to email your agenda to you every morning. You can also set up text reminders to your mobile phone.
24. Map out the local sights for visiting friends
    With My Maps, you can add your own information to a Google Map, such as descriptions and photos, and share it in an email, instant message, or on a web page. It’s a great way to help out-of-town guests find their way, show a favorite route to your running club, or plan your next family road trip.
25. Share your YouTube favorites on the bus
    Liven up your commute with YouTube on your mobile. Search for videos, browse categories or sign in to your account to view your own videos or favourites. Go to YouTube on your mobile by typing m.youtube.co.uk into your mobile phone browser.
26. Get the latest weather forecast for Hyderabad, or anywhere else on Earth
    Taking a trip or going for a stroll? Find out the weather before heading out by typing ‘weather’ and the location into the Google search box.
27. Search the web Elmer Fudd style
    Feewing Wucky? Google Search Preferences lets you choose the language you want to see when you use Google. In addition to many of the world’s popular languages, you’ll find a few fun ones, like Elmer Fudd and Pig Latin.
28. Fill in web forms with one click
    Chances are you’ve entered your personal details on websites more times than you can count. With Google Toolbar’s AutoFill feature, you can enter all of that information once, and the next time you encounter a web form, just click the AutoFill button and your information will be entered automatically.
29. Add comments directly into your videos
    With YouTube annotations, you can add speech bubbles, comments or spotlight a particular section of your video to make sure your audience gets your message. For more information, visit http://uk.youtube.com/t/annotations_about
30. Star or label important emails for easy reference
    Google Mail makes it easy to locate important messages in more ways than one. Star or label your messages so you’ll be able to easily find them again
31. See tomorrow’s storm coming a thousand miles off
    Try your hand at weather forecasting by using the weather layer in Google Earth to see when the next storm is coming. *Download required.
32. Multiply 27,334.56 by 21.3 without a calculator
    Use the built-in calculator in Google search to solve maths problems, as well as units of measure, conversions, and physical constants. For the full range of possibilities, visit our instructions page: http://www.google.co.uk/help/calculator.html
33. Tart up your holiday snaps before sending them out to mates
    Make your next holiday slideshow for your dinner guests more interesting. Use Picasa to turn your images into black & white or sepia, or add captions and visual effects.
34. Read a newspaper written in a language you don’t speak
    Browse a foreign website by entering the URL into Google Translate to convert it into the language of your choice. Please note that Translate is only available in some language pairs. We’re adding more as fast as we can.
35. Learn a new skill in a minute
    Watch instructional videos on YouTube to learn new skills, from badminton to the piano. Search for the topics you’re interested in or browse the ‘How-to & Style’ section.
36. You are here. The pub you want is there
    Use the My Location feature of Google Maps for Mobile to figure out approximately where you are. No GPS required. Once you know where you are, you can also search for nearby places to go. *Download required. *Available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices
37. Work on the same document from four corners of the Earth
    With Google Docs, people can work on the same document at the same time, without sending attachments back and forth, or merging changes.
38. Know when to take the high road or the low road
    Customise your route with Google Maps. Use features like the ‘avoid highways’ option to tailor your directions.
39. Make yourself feel better - convert your weight from pounds to kilos
    Use the built-in calculator in Google search to convert your measurements. For more possibilities, go to http://www.google.co.uk/help/calculator.
40. Translate your website into 13 languages with a single line of code
    No hablo Espanol? No problem. Add the Google Translate gadget to your website, and visitors can view a translation of your site by choosing their language from a list. Please note that Translate is only available in some language pairs. We’re adding more as fast as we can.
41. Glam up your YouTube channel
    Give your YouTube channel the red carpet treatment it deserves. Pick a new colour combination, add a border, or include your own background images.
42. Find the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything
    You could meditate under a waterfall for the answer to life. Or try typing it into Google Search and see what you get.
43. Find the email in the haystack
    Tired of trawling through 1,932 important emails to find the really important one? Google Mail automatically groups email replies in a single thread, and you also can search by name or keyword to find what you’re looking for.
44. DJ at your friend’s party…take your playlist with you
    Leave your record bags at home and take your laptop to play a set at your mate’s party. YouTube’s QuickList feature allows you to add videos to your playlist with just one click.
45. See the effects of climate change for yourself
    Add KML files to Google Earth to see a variety of information geographically displayed, such as the predicted effects of climate change or what country an unusual species calls home.
46. Survey your mates to conclusively agree on the best film of all time
    Settle a friendly debate amongst your friends by using Google Docs to create a survey. Email it to your friends and Google Docs will automatically update with their responses.
47. Be famous for 15 seconds, minutes or days
    Could you be the next YouTube star? Upload your latest video and spread the word.
48. Travel as the crow flies, or go right around the houses
    If you prefer the scenic route, use the draggable route feature in Google Maps to change your course and your directions will automatically update to reflect your changes.
49. Work on your online documents even when you’re offline
    With the offline feature of Google Docs, you can work on your documents on a plane, at the beach, or in a land far away. Your changes will be automatically saved online the next time you sign in.
50. Love this video? Don’t miss the sequel
    Make sure you’re in the know when the latest videos are released by your favourite YouTube stars. By subscribing to their channels, you’ll receive an update as soon as they add new videos.
51. Preserve instant message conversations
    Google Mail automatically saves all your instant messages, so you can refer to them later on. Of course, there are some you may not want to keep around. In those cases, simply take the conversation Off The Record, and it won’t be saved.
52. Add a YouTube player to your website
    You can create a custom YouTube player to play your own videos, or your favourites from others, on your website. You can also embed individual videos by copying and pasting the embed code next to a video into your website.

Source : http://www.google.co.uk/landing/thingstodo/#tip22

There is an interesting post in Google operating system about how to access Gmail in 8 different ways.

Safe mode - http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0. It disables the experimental features from Gmail Labs, just in case some of them are buggy. You can remove some of the features from Gmail’s settings page.

Secure mode - https://mail.google.com/. It encrypts the traffic between your computer and Gmail’s servers. Use it from public computers, Wi-Fi networks or to bypass some proxies and web accelerators. There’s a Gmail setting that redirects the standard version to the secure mode (”Always use https”).

Older version - http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1. This version has been replaced in October 2007 by a rearchitectured Gmail, but the old version is a little bit faster.

Read the rest of the ways here

What if Microsoft waved a magic wand and everything people hated about Windows Vista went away? You might have an operating system that you liked–and that’s what Microsoft appears to be striving for with Windows 7. We checked out an early beta of the future OS, and though at this point many features are either missing or works in progress, the improvements to everything from user interface to memory management look highly promising.

Along with several dozen other reviewers and analysts, we got our first real look at the OS, preinstalled on loaner notebooks, over the weekend at a workshop on the eve of the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference. Microsoft planned to hand out installation discs later Tuesday, after the head of engineering for Windows and Windows Live, Steven Sinofsky, delivers his scheduled keynote formally introducing Windows 7 to PDC attendees. (We’ll report on our experiences upgrading PCs from Vista to 7 later on.)

Read the rest of the story here

Microsoft Corp. is taking another step into the world of Web-based computing with a new system it’s calling Windows Azure.

Microsoft says it’s joining Amazon.com Inc. and other rivals in selling information storage space and computing power “in the cloud,” distributed across massive data centers worldwide. That will let companies build Web-based programs without having to manage their own data centers.

Microsoft’s chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, described Azure to software developers at a conference Monday in Los Angeles. Ozzie said that managing Microsoft’s own Web sites and Web-based programs has made the company adept at anticipating Web traffic spikes and knowing when to ramp up some computers and dial down others.

Read more here

Japan retailers get the jump on the U.S. market today as they get to sell Dell’s new laptop, the Inspiron Mini 12, before anyone here in the U.S. even gets to lay eyes upon it. While built-to-order models will be available in the states by mid-November, three retail chains in Japan (Bic Camera, Kujima, and Sofmap) get the first crack at selling preconfigured versions of Dell’s 12.1-inch take on the mini-note space.

You read that right: a netbook with a 12.1-inch CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) illuminated screen. That’s larger than some ultraportable notebooks currently on the market — and a pretty significant jump from Dell’s first stab at the mini-note space. The Inspiron Mini 9 had small solid state drives, a tiny 8.9-inch screen and honestly, some pokey performance. I mean, you keep expectations in check when it comes to netbook performance, but the mini 9 garnered a sadsack score of 26 in WorldBench (as opposed to the average score of about 35).

Read more

What is Media portal?

MediaPortal is an Open Source application ideal for turning your PC in a very advanced Multi-Media Center / HTPC. MediaPortal allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch your video’s and DVD’s, view, schedule and record live TV and much more.

As Open Source software licensed under the GNU/GPL agreement, you get MediaPortal for free. This means anyone can contribute to MediaPortal or customize for their own needs!

MediaPortal is built on the Microsoft .NET framework using C# and currently has a growing international community of over 10,000 users.

Read more here and download it from here

The Internet’s key oversight agency issued preliminary guidelines Wednesday for the introduction of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of alternatives to “.com” in the first sweeping changes to the network’s 25-year-old address system.

But individuals should forget about claiming a personal domain name suffix for themselves or their families.

The application fee, scheduled to be disclosed Friday, is expected to approach $200,000 — partially refundable only in limited circumstances — to help cover the potential $20 million cost of crafting the guidelines and reviewing applications.

Read the rest of the story here

By default, wordpress diaplays the most recen blog comments at the bottom. Wouldn’t it be nice to display the most recent ones first? This is very helpful if you have a blog post with hundres of comments. There are two ways to display the comments in reverse order.

If you enjoy experimenting with wordpress files then this method is for you.

1. Comments.php : Every theme has a comments.php file . simply replace the following code

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>

with this one

<?php foreach (array_reverse($comments) as $comment) : ?>

If programming is not your cup of tea, then the below tip is for you.

2. Wordpress plugin : If you are not interested in playing with your wordpress files then this plugin is for you. Simply install this plugin and activate to display comments in reverse order.

Here is a list of 5 sites where you can get free wordpress themes. I know there are lot of sites but sites which give you very nice themese is very less.

1. http://wordpress.reviewitonline.net/ : This site has a nice collection of cool wordpress themes. The current theme I use is from this site.

2. http://several3.jeremyreviews.com/ : This site has a wonderful header which shows recent posts and comments.

3. www.wordpress.org : There is no need for an introduction fo this site but there are lots and lots of themese that we miss very good ones but this page has a neat collection of good themes.

4. Infinity: A Free Wordpress Theme : Get this theme here.

5. Time manage wordpress theme