The next step involves the registration of the name. Registering a domain name doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, with the increased popularity of the Internet and the influx of new domain registrations increasing everyday, most Registrars have developed their sites to accommodate new users. If you are a complete newbie to the domain registration process then this will come as welcome news to you. The key is finding a Registrar that provides an easy process and guides the user every step of the way by way of a well-crafted site. Of course if you need additional assistance then a 24/7 support system would be another criteria I would use in my selection of a Registrar.

Good luck in your domain registration efforts and have fun selecting all those cool names. Hopefully you build up a good portfolio and get some nice matching websites going in the process.

Books

1) Amazon: Amazon.com has made a revolution in the internet world for a long time. Started as the first major online bookstore in 1995 has later spread its wings to all the areas thereby becoming the world’s leading shopping site covering customers from over 220 countries worldwide. The site offers safe shopping guarantee so that customers won’t have worries thinking about their credit cards.

Amazon has been a first point of reference for many people for book shopping and a leader in the online book market.

2) Barnes and Noble: This site launched in 1997 has seen itself becoming the world’s largest e-commerce retailers. The site primarily started with books and then also spread its focus to other products such as music, software and magazines.

3) Half.com: An Ebay subsidiary specializes in selling new and used products at discount prices. There is a section at half.com that is dedicated only to books. Although the range is not that covered but the prices are good and the site has become a popular online book source.

Others
Abebooks, Alibris, Walmart, PowellsBooks, Waterstones

Softwares

4) Download: Download from Cnet is a popular site for downloads. The site offers a directory of downloadable shareware and freeware. Users can choose the softwares to download based on user ratings and download records. Download.com is a popular online source for downloads.

5) Tucows: The site has been the first to provide softwares since the development of internet. From then, the site has offered around 30,000 softwares through their network consisting of more than a 1000 sites globally.

6) Zdnet: This site has a directory that consists of softwares that are available for download. The users can download according to reviews and user ratings.

Others
Jumbo, Simtel, Winarchives, 5 Star Shareware, SoftwareVault

Games

7) GameZone: This site has a section that provides large downloads with demos, games, preview movies and other features for the ultimate game lover.

Gamespot: Believed to be one of the oldest and popular game site, offers a section that is dedicated to PC games. Games are categorized and also there are feature reviews and previews and downloads available. The reviews are detailed with pros and cons that help you decide a game better.

9) Gamerankings: A review site built for gamers. The page for each game links to a number of reviews. The site is highly interactive.

Others
Gamez, Gamespy, Game Hippo, GameArchives, Games Domain

Other Categories

a) Search Engines: Google, Altavista, MSN Search, AskJeeves, AllTheWeb, WiseNut,NorthernLight.

b) Travel: Fodors, Expedia, LonelyPlanetOnline, Discovery.com Travel, About.com Travel, Excite Travel, CNN.com-Travel.

c) News: CNN, CBS, ABC, GoogleNews, Reuters, MSNBC, FoxNews.

d) Health and Fitness: Fitness, FitnessOnline, Nutricise, Aworkout, Workoutplan, Sportfit.

e) Auction Sites: eBay, uBid, Bidz, MSN Auction, AuctionAddict, AuctionWeiser, Dealspin

Mac Skin: A skin in Mac style. This skin adds a Mac style menu to your Gmail account. Check it here.

Silver Star: Beautiful theme with silver or gray color scheme. Get it here.

Air Skin: This skin makes slight changes to the interface. Adds a cloudy color and also a change in the font. Good theme for those who don’t like radical changes thereby keeping it fresh. You can get it here.

Gmail Skins: software that allows modifying the visual aspect of your Gmail account. It allows setting the colors and the interface menus. Click here to get it.

Fe Mail Skin: Beautiful skin with pink Gmail Skin. Check here.

Brushed Skin: A good looking skin with a maroon and gray theme. Comes with mixture of nifty gradients to match the ultimate style. Get it here.

Let’s analyze how we can get it done.

First put all your mails in one folder.

1. Create an Archive folder: In the email client you use, create a folder that followed by the date. For instance: “Archive_20080124”

2. Once done with the above step, next move all emails that are stored in your inbox to the archives folder (the folder that you created).

You are done! Sounds simple eh? But yes, your inbox is clean now. I recommend you throw your old mails to this folder instead of organizing each message.

Most of the messages that are in your inbox are those which you won’t read more than once. So its waste of time deciding over it whether to delete or keep it. But if you find a mail that’s of utmost importance than I suggest using the Google Desktops on PC or spotlight on Mac in order to retrieve it.

Ok so now you must be thinking about what next? How to manage your incoming mails? I suggest you to read Merlin’s Inbox Makeover system that provides you tips on how to process new emails. Maybe it will take another few minutes to know, but it’s worth reading. See the difference. Good luck!

People always look for better possibilities. Better download speeds, better networks etc. Some may not be satisfied with the speeds these networks offer. How to speed up these downloads? That’s the big question in today’s post. I will give you a few tips that could possibly increase your download speeds.

You probably know of different bittorrent clients that you can choose. In my case, I prefer choosing uTorrent or BitComet.

Let’s start with Windows XP on how to speed up downloads.

Always increase the number of TCP connections that are allowed at maximum. The number of allowed open connections in Windows Service Pack 2 is 10.The reason for this is to stop the spyware in getting control of your net connection. For optimal performance, TCP connection allowed should be kept to 50. Apply patch in order to increase the number of connections. You can get it here. Remember, every time you install a new service pack, you need to redo this step.

Moving on, sometimes twisting your torrent client works great. What do I mean by this? Now, if you are using uTorrent, go to options menu, preferences and then advanced options. Once you are in advanced options, you got to change the .net max_halfopen connections to 80. Also change the max halfopen TCP connections to 80. Once done, click OK. Now your bittorrent client will have the maximum TCP connection available.

Once you start downloading files, you should see a difference in speed.

Coming to Windows Vista, let’s see how we can improve speed.

First off, you will find that speeds that are in Windows are better compared to Vista. Vista speeds are slower mainly due to the AutoTuning function that Vista uses in the TCP/IP stack. This result in slow download and can affect platforms such as bittorrent which makes use of threaded downloads.

A better way to solve this problem would be turning off the AutoTuning function. Follow these steps closely.

1. Go to Start menu. In the search box, type cmd. Don’t press Enter. Once you type cmd, hold down Control and Shift keys, and hit Enter while still holding them down. This will open the command prompt window.

2. Once you see the command prompt window open, type netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable and press Enter. You should hopefully see a response that says OK.

3. Once done, reboot your system to see the effects..

Next time when you download files, you must see better speeds in download. But, if everything is messed up and you are not able to see any result, don’t worry. You can revert back to normal by following the same steps but replace the command in the command prompt with netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal

Good luck with your downloads!

In this post, I am listing a couple of downloads which I believe are the “Best downloads of 2007”, and I guess I am right. . These are from my personal collection, and so I thought I should share it with you.

1. Camtasia Studio 5
2. Adobe Digital Edition
3. Audacity
4. Open Office
5. Simplify Media
6. Launchy

Camtasia Studio 5: This software is a body builder. The software is a full fledged recording studio that comes with lots of tools and settings to suit your needs. The tips, video tutorials guide the beginners through the entire process. The software also has a standalone audio editor and a CD menu maker. This software makes it easy for recording any action with or without sound, resizing apps within recorder and more. Here clips are compiled and decorated visually in an accessible production studio. Download a free trial and if you are satisfied, than you can go for a full version. You can check here.

Digital Edition: The Digital Edition from Adobe is real class software which is called as “The iTunes for e-books”. Digital Edition is powered by AIR. The software has a unique design which looks to be its smart feature. It has management on the left and navigation and reading in the center. On the Nav bar there are bookshelves listing All Items, Purchased, Recently Read and others. There are icons in the center which show your books. The item options has other details such as page count, author etc. This software is wonderful tool and I really think you should give it a try today. Click here.

Audacity: Audacity is a multiplatform and open source editor. Agreed, there are lots of audio editors out there, but choosing the best is always a tough job. Audacity has a clean interface and has support for 32-bit floating-point audio. The software comes with lots of features. Audacity is much flexible and feature-rich. This software supports uncompressed audio and basic effects such as delay, reverb and others. The software is plug-in supported. Audacity lacks advanced features, but this makes less difference as its usability sets it apart from the rest. Try here.

OpenOffice.org: Openoffice.org comes with apps that help to make text documents, presentations, spreadsheets, databases and more. The software can handle multipart documents and complex equations easily. This software is a useful tool for advanced office users as they can find macros, templates etc. The software is extensible and let’s import and save documents in different formats such as PDF, XML, HTML, WordPerfect and others.

Openoffice.org is a helpful tool for anyone who is in need of an alternative office suite. Try it here.

Simplify Media: Simplify media is a tune sharing software which lets users share wherever they are, as long as they use iTunes or WinAmp. This software also lets you add friends and customize settings. Listen and share through the player’s left-hand nav. When running installation the software needs Apple Bonjour bundled together with the program. This software is a piece of cake and is a simple way of sharing with people. Give it a try!

Launchy: This software lets open any file, folder or sites with fewer keystrokes. Launchy is software that lives in the background. When you run a program file, what you have got to do is, enter the first few letters of a file and Launchy displays the rest of the name automatically. Press Enter to open. Suppose the name that is displayed is not the one you look for, then wait for few seconds and the tool will display a drop down list of other names. It is easily configurable. Try out this software today.

So these are my favorites and the best collections of 2007 I have presented to you. Enjoy!

Sharing videos online is a prominent way of making money. You may have come across many video sharing sites on the web. Ok, I know a popular video sharing site known as Flixya. It works by sharing adsense revenue with you 50/50. First off, you need to have a adsense publisher account. The work is simple. All you got to do is submit videos from popular sharing sites like Youtube, Video Google etc and provide them your adsense publisher id. Once done, your videos will be displayed on the pages along with adsense ads and split the ad impressions 50/50. This actually works real well. Why not give it a try today?

Moving on, next in the list is Vume, a popular website for making cash either by uploading videos or pictures. Vume pays you for views. For every 1000 views you have, $ 3 is paid. At the month end, earnings from all your media are being added up and if you have earned about $25, you’ll be paid at the beginning of next month via paypal.

Revver is another site which I have come across. This site normally takes videos uploaded by users and at the end of the video; it places an ad which is relatively smaller. Each time when viewers click the ad on a video you’ve submitted, you get paid. The best thing I have noticed about this site is, there are lots of tools provided to share your videos.

Try it!

Enough with videos, time to play with images.

If you are looking for something more than videos, why not images? Just as you share videos, you can share images and earn cash. Where to share? Check Break.com. This is one such site which gives you the option to share. You need to upload pictures to their site. If you are lucky enough, they may choose your image for their homepage. Done! You will be paid $25. Women can earn $50 by uploading their picture for “Hot girl of the day”. The site also has “Girl of the month” contest and if your luck turns, you can make lots of cash of about $500. But getting into the hot list is not as easy as you may think, because there is fierce competition. So you got to make a way above all.

Similarly use your images to create the ultimate merchandise. Cafepress.com is the best I have known so far. Here with the help of your images, you can build your own online shop with lots of products. The amount of money you make depends on sale. More sales=more money. Keep the best prices to attract lots of customers.

So what’s on your mind? Take a pen and a paper and plan your next move. Good luck!

Facebook Inc has renovated a new advertising system that can flicker private complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other corporations.

The 55 million people who use Facebook will be given control whether they want to join in for the three week program that movement’s responsive information about online purchases and other activities.

After the reforms, users will have to give their open consent before any information is passed along. The privileges were made after about 50,000 users signed a petition online saying that the system called “Beacon” intruded, that put the Palo Alto based startup’s pursuit of profit ahead of its member’s privacy interests.

Almost 40 different sites including overstock.com, fandango.com has implanted Beacon in their web pages to track facebook users. Facebook felt that the marketing feeds would help the users to keep their friends informed about their interests while serving as referrals would help in bringing better sales to the sites that were using the Beacon system.

Facebook viewers have viewed the Beacon referrals as a betrayer. Critics have complained the advertising tool saying it is an unwelcome nuisance with flimsy privacy protections that has embarrassed some users.

The spokesman of Moveon.org said that if Facebook had followed the new opt-in standard it would be a crucial step in the correct direction. Moveon.org launched a petition drive recently to restore Beacon.

The reactions against Beacon have showed the balancing act that facebook must discuss as the company has tried to cash in on its popularity. Beacon is a key constituent in the social ads program launched by Facebook which is bringing in more revenue from visitors who use the social networking site as a place to chat, flirt and share interests and feelings with others.

Facebook is already believed to generate about $150 million revenue annually, after three years since its launch online, but it is under pressure to accelerate its growth.

Cynics have questioned over the market value of Facebook, given the company’s brief existence and its chief executive’s inexperience, Mark Zuckerberg, who was still a student of Harvard when he started facebook in 2004.

Zuckerberg’s stake in Facebook is worth about $3 billion, thought Beacon to be a friendly product that could help in generating more sales. This isn’t the first time Facebook has come up with problem like Beacon. Earlier Facebook had introduced a “News Feeds” tool that could track changes to user’s profiles. After lots of user reactions, Zuckerberg apologized for the inconvenience and turned off the news feeds feature.

Facebook’s paul Janzer apologized saying “We’re sorry if we spoiled some of your holiday gift-giving plans,” “We are really helping to provide you with new meaningful ways, like Beacon, to help you connect and share information with your friends.” Janzer said.

Based on a report published on Thursday, one of the biggest threats to the security in the next decade would be waged through computers resulting in a “Cyber Cold War”.

According to McAfee, an internet security company, about 120 countries are coming up with ways to use internet to target financial markets, government systems etc. McAfee said that intelligence agencies were testing other states networks to make out their weakness and their methods were growing as time goes.

The senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs said that, Cybercrime had become a global issue. It had advanced substantially and was not only a threat to industries but to national security at large.

According to the report, China was the mastermind of Cyber war. The report said that, China was blamed for attacks in the US, Germany and India. The director of the center for Intelligence and Research in Washington said in the report that, Chinese used cyber wars for military goals. The report cautioned that in April Cyber wars on government sites in Estonia looked threatening.

The attacks were initially stemmed from Russia although it denied any wrongdoing. In a country heavily dependent on the internet, thousands of sites were affected in attacks. McAfee predicts that future attacks may be still worse.

Recently EU Information Society commissioner told that cyber attack in Estonia was a warning to the world over. NATO gave a call saying immediate work was needed in order to defend. NATO said that most of its member nations were targeted in one way or other form of cyber-attack, and that the threat had been a challenge to national infrastructure and had become a serious issue which had to be dealt seriously.

“We’re seeing emerging threats from increasingly sophisticated groups attacking organizations around the world. Technology is a part of the solution, and over the next five years we may see international governments take action.”, said McAfee senior vice president.

According to an internet research firm, American consumers stuck shopping sites on Monday, giving a robust start to the shopping season, resulting in good sales.

ComScore Inc reported that about $733 million were spent by consumers for shopping on Monday, resulting in a 21 percent high when compared to the same day a year ago. It was expected that the sales figure would surpass the $700 million mark.

According to ComScore, the first Monday after Thanksgiving was not the busiest day for retailers however. Wednesday, Dec 13 was the busiest day last year bringing in $667 million in sales. Monday after Thanksgiving was actually the 12^th busiest day for the 2006 holiday period.

However Monday, known as Cyber Monday, represented the big sales, as consumers got back to office and started clicking to shop. Monday’s sales resulted in 84 percent jump from average daily online spending, according to ComScore.

The number of buyers online saw a rise to around 38 percent compared to last year, according to ComScore. Average dollars spent per head was 12 percent down. ComScore chairman said that he believed deeper price discount depressed sales. ComScore said that about $10.7 billion has been spent online from Nov 1 through Nov 26, thereby gaining 17 percent compared to last year.