Website Development, Email Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Tools & Resources

Get the most out of Audacity, Check out this article I found on CNet

Filed under: Audio on February 28th, 2008 No Comments »

 Improve your efficency with Keyboard Shortcuts

Many of the keyboard shortcuts listed below require the use
of multiple keys being activated simultaneously (denoted by the use of the +
symbol).

2 Key combinations: We recommend Pressing and holding down the first key
and then tapping on the second key
 
3 Key combinations: We recommend Pressing and holding down the first
key then the second key and then tapping on the third key

Windows System Key Combinations

• F1: Help
• CTRL + ESC: Open Start menu
• ALT + TAB: Switch between open programs
• ALT + F4: Quit program
• SHIFT + DELETE: Delete item permanently

Windows Program Key Combinations

• CTRL + C: Copy
• CTRL + X: Cut
• CTRL + V: Paste
• CTRL + Z: Undo
• CTRL + B: Bold
• CTRL + U: Underline
• CTRL + I: Italic

Mouse Click/Keyboard Combinations

• SHIFT + right click: Displays a shortcut menu containing alternative
  commands
• SHIFT + double click: Runs the alternate default command (the second
  item on the menu)
• ALT + double click: Displays properties
• SHIFT + DELETE: Deletes an item immediately without placing it in the
  Recycle Bin

General Keyboard-Only Commands

• F1: Starts Windows Help
• F10: Activates menu bar options
• SHIFT + F10 Opens a shortcut menu for the selected item (this is the
  same as right-clicking an object
• CTRL + ESC: Opens the Start menu (use the ARROW keys to select an item)
• CTRL + ESC or ESC: Selects the Start button (press TAB to select the
  taskbar, or press SHIFT+F10 for a context menu)
• ALT + DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box
• ALT + TAB: Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and
  then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window)
• SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert a CD-ROM to
  bypass the automatic-run feature
• ALT + SPACE: Displays the main window’s System menu (from the System
  menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the
  window)
• ALT + - (ALT+hyphen): Displays the Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
  child window’s System menu (from the MDI child window’s System menu, you can
  restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the child window)
• CTRL + TAB: Switch to the next child window of a Multiple Document
  Interface (MDI) program
• ALT + underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu
• ALT + F4: Closes the current window
• CTRL + F4: Closes the current Multiple Document Interface (MDI) window
• ALT + F6: Switch between multiple windows in the same program (for
  example, when the Notepad Find dialog box is displayed, ALT+F6 switches
  between the Find dialog box and the main Notepad window)

Shell Objects and General Explorer Shortcuts

• For a selected object: F2: Rename object
• F3: Find all files
• CTRL + X: Cut
• CTRL + C: Copy
• CTRL + V: Paste
• SHIFT + DELETE: Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to
  the Recycle Bin
• ALT + ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object

To Copy a File

• Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another
  folder.

To Create a Shortcut

• Press and hold down CTRL + SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or
  a folder.

General Folder/Shortcut Control

• F4: Selects the Go To A Different Folder box and moves down the entries
  in the box (if the toolbar is active in Windows Explorer)
• F5: Refreshes the current window.
• F6: Moves among panes in Windows Explorer
• CTRL + G: Opens the Go To Folder tool (in Windows 95 Windows Explorer
  only)
• CTRL + Z: Undo the last command
• CTRL + A: Select all the items in the current window
• BACKSPACE: Switch to the parent folder
• SHIFT + click + Close button: For folders, close the current folder plus
  all parent folders

Explorer Tree Control

• Numeric Keypad *: Expands everything under the current selection
• Numeric Keypad +: Expands the current selection
• Numeric Keypad -: Collapses the current selection.
• RIGHT ARROW: Expands the current selection if it is not expanded,
  otherwise goes to the first child
• LEFT ARROW: Collapses the current selection if it is expanded, otherwise
  goes to the parent

Properties Control

• CTRL + TAB/CTRL + SHIFT + TAB: Move through the property tabs

Accessibility Shortcuts

• Press SHIFT five times: Toggles StickyKeys on and off
• Press down and hold the right SHIFT key for eight seconds: Toggles
  FilterKeys on and off
• Press down and hold the NUM LOCK key for five seconds: Toggles
  ToggleKeys on and off
• Left ALT + left SHIFT + NUM LOCK: Toggles MouseKeys on and off
• Left ALT + left SHIFT + PRINT SCREEN: Toggles high contrast on and off

Dialog Box Commands

• ALT + underlined letter in dialog box item: Move to the corresponding
  item
• ENTER: Equivalent to clicking the selected button (the button with the
  outline)
• ESC: Equivalent to clicking the Cancel button
• TAB: Move to the next control in the dialog box
• SHIFT + TAB: Move to the previous control in the dialog box
• SPACEBAR: If the current control is a button, this clicks the button. If
  the current control is a check box, this toggles the check box. If the
  current control is an option, this selects the option
   

Microsoft Keyboards
Natural Keyboard Keys

• Windows Logo: Start menu
• Windows Logo + R: Run dialog box
• Windows Logo + M: Minimize all
• SHIFT + Windows Logo + M: Undo minimize all
• Windows Logo + F1: Help
• Windows Logo + E: Windows Explorer
• Windows Logo + F: Find files or folders
• Windows Logo + D: Minimizes all open windows and displays the desktop
• CTRL + Windows Logo + F: Find computer
• CTRL + Windows Logo + TAB: Moves focus from Start, to the Quick Launch
  toolbar, to the system tray (use RIGHT ARROW or LEFT ARROW to move focus to
  items on the Quick Launch toolbar and the system tray)
• Windows Logo + TAB: Cycle through taskbar buttons
• Windows Logo + Break: System Properties dialog box
• Application key: Displays a shortcut menu for the selected item

IntelliType Software Installed

• Windows Logo + A: Starts Accessibility Options (if installed)
• Windows Logo + C: Opens Control Panel
• Windows Logo + I: Opens Mouse Properties dialog box
• Windows Logo + K: Opens Keyboard Properties dialog box
• Windows Logo + L: Log off Windows
• Windows Logo + P: Starts Print Manager
• Windows Logo + S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off
• Windows Logo + SPACEBAR: Displays the list of Microsoft IntelliType
  shortcut keys
• Windows Logo + V: Starts Clipboard

Filed under: Training on February 26th, 2008 No Comments »

by Scott F. Geld
http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

1. Maximize the effectiveness of your banner ads. Don’t just use the same ad on every banner, use a variety to attract the greatest number of clickers.
2. Make your web site load much faster by cutting down on banner ads and start using more buttons. Button ads are also smaller and take up less space.
3. Offer free advertising space to well known and respected companies on your web site. Sometimes people link their business credibility to yours.
4. People have been taught all their life to respect people in authority. Tell your visitors that you are the president or CEO of your business.
5. Offer people a free telephone consultation before they order your product. When they get to know you personally, it could convert to more sales.
6. Test the “bill me later option” on your web site. Most people are honest and will pay you. It is a powerful little niche and could increase your sales.
7. Find a charity your target audience would likely support. Tell people on your ad copy that you will give a percentage of the profits to that charity.
8. Hold a “buy the most wins contest” on your web site. Tell people each monthly winner will get their entire purchase refunded.
9. Attract visitors to your web site by offering them a free course. You could package the course on a follow-up autoresponder and send lessons daily.
10. Interview people related to your industry and get their legal permission to convert it to an article. Promote your web site by submitting it to ezines.

Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for MarketingBlaster.com, a company providing targeted traffic and direct text links. For more info, please visit: http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

Filed under: Tactics on February 23rd, 2008 No Comments »

by Jon Ricerca http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com

Lots of research has focused on inbound links to a site, but little has focused on the number of links actually on a page (outbound or to other parts of a site). Many SEO gurus have recently been talking about something they call “PR Leak” which seems to be a theory that the more outbound links you have, the more your page rank on Google “leaks” away. That concept isn’t found in the academic papers published by the founders of Google, but does seem to be accepted by a majority of SEOs. I decided it was time to take a look at the number of links present on a page and how that number correlates with ranking.

The methodology: I gathered the results of the queries that were naturally performed last month by myself and three associates using the two leading search engines and analyzed them. I counted the number of links on the page (references to “href”) and tabulated the results against the ranking of the URL in the search results. The tabulated results were finally converted into a normalized “ranking correlation.” The results for each of the two leading search engines were kept separate so that we could discover any differences between the two leading search engines for this factor.

The resulting graphs show the results for groupings of number of links normalized into a number between -100 and +100 showing the likelihood of being ranked higher/lower. A value of +100 shows that all 10 rankings were in the proper order to show that pages of the studied value ALWAYS rank HIGHER than pages of another value. A value of -100 shows that all 10 rankings were in the proper order to show that pages of the studied value ALWAYS rank LOWER than pages of another value. Numbers in between show the varying likelihood of rankings proportionally between - 100 and +100.

That is the number you see on the Y-axis. On the X-axis, we have the number of links found. They are grouped into sets of 10 in order to increase the statistical significance with the amount of data we had available to analyze. Here are the graphs for the two leading search engines:

http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dey01.gif
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/deg01.gif

(Note to webmasters: Feel free to hot link to the above graphs or copy them to your own site if you publish this report. Feel free to remove this note as well.)

The number of links were grouped in this way in order to increase the number of data points available. Unfortunately it also reduces the precision of the results. One is able to see that 91-100 links rank much higher than 1-10 links, but you are unable to see if 77 links rank differently than 79 links (for example).

The result is very conclusive. Both leading search engines rank pages with more links much higher than pages with fewer links! Once again, it appears that the SEOs touting the “PR Leak” theory are simply wrong. If their theory held any weight at all, we should see the exact opposite. Pages with more links should rank lower on average.

Notes:

1. There was no exercise to attempt to isolate different keywords. I merely took a random sampling of the queries performed by myself and three associates during the month.

2. This is merely a correlation study, so it cannot be determined from this study whether the leading search engines purposefully entertain this factor or not. The actual factors used may be far distant from the factor we studied.

Jon Ricerca is one of the leading researchers and authors of the Search Engine Ranking Factor (SERF) reports at SearchEngineGeek.com. For access to the other SERF reports, please visit: http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com

Filed under: Link Popularity on February 20th, 2008 No Comments »

Great article on how companies are partnering to take away your Internet functionality. Google and eMachines partner to force you to type in www.

Filed under: Tech Support on February 19th, 2008 No Comments »

If you use cafe Cafe’ Press and need an idea on how to create a T-Shirt shop, with a consistant theme Ranger Up is a good example.

Filed under: Revenue Streams on February 13th, 2008 No Comments »