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	Friday, January 21, 2005

Advertising in Google   ( on tech) If you look at the lower right side of my blog, you will see some Google advertisements.  Some of you may have come  to this site via Google ads of other sites that advertised this blog as well.  I am an advertiser as well as a carrier of google ads.  Allowing millions of small web sites like mine to do business with Google  ( efficiently, without human intervention)  is the main reason of Google's success. If you own a website or blog, you should consider doing both.  The great thing is that you can do both by just clicking on their site.  NO pesky sales people to argue with or trying to sell you a more expensive package. 1.  IF YOU WANT TO ADVERTISE:  ( goto Adwords)  You create your own advertisements, and specify your budget ( even a few dollars will do!), and give a bid on how much you would be willing to pay if somebody clicks on your ad.  It forces you to think through certain words, and get a better understanding about what kind of people you really want to be visiting your site.  If for instance, one of the things you might like to happen is have your ad come out when the person is going to Google to look for BUSINESS THOUGHTS, then you can specify that, and also how much you are willing to pay if the person should click and go to your site. Let us say there are also 2 other advertisers who specified that as well.  Your bid was 15 cents, the second one bid 24 cents, and the third one bid 10 cents.  Thus, in the heirarchy, the person bidding 24 cents will come first, you will come second, and the person bidding 10 cents will come third.  But the great thing is you pay only one cent more than the next lower bidder.  So although you specified 15 cents, if somebody should click yours, you actually need only to pay 11 cents, which is one cent higher than your lower bidder. It encourages people to bid more so that they will be on top, knowing that if not much people bidded on that or bid low, they will still end up paying low. 2. IF YOU WANT TO CARRY ADVERTISING ( goto Adsense) Carrying ads is even more straightforward.  You just specify how big you want to carry, and Google will do the rest.  They will scan the page, try to understand what is the context of your web site, and put in ads that would closely resemble the text of your web site. For instance, if you were talking about your trip to Hong Kong, and put in lots of words like airline names, or place names, you might feature a Google ad featuring travel tour packages to these places.  Isn't that cool? It is this relevance that makes a Google ad on general fare better on click throughs.  Even many professional websites now prefer to advertise through Google rather than maintain their own. For the last two months, I have had fun working through it.  Nothing much. I get about 300 to 400 visits a day, so both ways, it isn't much. Last month, I paid Google a few dollars, and earned a few dollars, so the result was actually near 0. But you should do it, if only that working on both of that can make you understand more about internet traffic, links, and general web marketing.   8:18:25 PM     comment []   trackback []

	Thursday, January 13, 2005

What is your Computer doing that you don't know?  ( on tech) When I started this blog, it was with the goal that I would  share about how to manage business and understand technology to have a more successful life.   For the last few weeks, I have been talking a lot about business and life principles, and I must not forget that while helping people succeed is my passion,  helping people use technology is my business.  I do a lot of talking and writing on technology to earn my recognition  as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, but I guess I will have to do more also in my blog.  For non technical readers, don't worry. I will keep it basic, and make sure I talked about issues that touches basic technical concerns on our everyday life. Last week, I was feeling that something was wrong with my computer. I had performed all the requisite safety practices to insure that I was not infected by viruses, but I really felt that there was something wrong -- some web pages were taking 20 seconds to load, while some of my colleagues could have their sites load in 3 seconds on the same connection. So when Microsoft announced that they have free new beta software that would check spywares for free, I took the offer. On my notebook, they found out four infected files, and on my desktop one. By the way, you should be wary on this -- a good part of services we receive as a business now are related to virus and spyware, and everyday, I receive over a dozen infected emails from friends. It is more prevalent that is generally believed. Most people who surf regularly who think they don’t have, may actually have at least one.  I believe I did all the right things, and I have more protection than I want, but still, I got infected. Spyware is a new class of software that tries to hide inside your computer and collects personal information without your knowledge. It can collect for instance what web sites you visit, but more seriously, it can also collect your user name and passwords when you visit these websites. So in a sense, it is not only irritating that it slows your computer, or display more pop up web page ads that you don’t want or change your settings without you knowing it, it can be stealing information. You should always exercise caution to prevent these programs like: 1.) try to make sure you get windows updated to the latest patch. 2.) make sure that your internet explorer or browser setting is set to at least medium security or higher. 3.) Turn on the personal firewall of Windows. 4.) try to download and surf only on recognized sites, and minimize downloading pirated software sites. 5.) install anti-spyware protection. You can get a free download here from Microsoft.  Although still in beta version, it works fine, and is quite fast. You can also check out this comprehensive guide to spy and anti-spy software. 12:12:12 PM     comment []   trackback []