There are occasions when you need to surf online anonymously. This may be for a variety of quite legitimate reasons. For example, Google know so much about you and your computer connection, even if you are not logged into a Google account, the search results that are served up are biased towards your physical location and preferences. Sometimes you want differently biased results – totally unbiased results are probably no longer possible.
I have recently come across a piece of software that protects your web browsing by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all over the world. This system prevents anyone who is watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. The software is called ‘Tor’ and it works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.
For web browsing, there is a Tor bundle that integrates very neatly with Firefox.
For more information, take a look at the Tor website.
If you have not already updated to WordPress 2.9 you may wish to hold off for a short while. The recent 2.9 release triggered a bug in certain versions of PHP’s curl extension. With these versions of curl, scheduled posts and pingbacks are not processed correctly. WordPress 2.9.1 will be released shortly to fix this problem as well as a handful of other, lesser issues.
The WordsPress team have released the first beta version of WordPress 2.9.1 so that the various fixes can be tested on a wide range of platforms.
See the WordPress announcement for more information.
The next version of WordPress, 2.9, has been released. It has been named “Carmen” in honor of jazz vocalist Carmen McRae. New features include:
- Global undo/”trash” feature - if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can now retrieve it.
- Built-in image editor - you can crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images.
- Batch plugin update and compatibility checking - update up to 10 plugins at once and check whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress.
- Easier video embeds - just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code.
- and more.
For more information, take a look at the WordPress release announcement.
This last week has seen the first “major” snowfalls in the UK this winter. Predictably, the various organizations responsible for keeping the country moving have failed, yet again. Some roads have been gritted and salted, but many have not. In general, trains worked OK, except for Eurostar who had “the wrong sort of snow”. Airports also failed to cope with the weather.
Pre-Christmas snow
Many of you outside the UK probably assume that we had a couple of feet of snow without warning. But no. A couple of inches of well forecast snow caused complete chaos in many areas.
We see interviews on television. Apparently, everyone is to blame for the various problems, except for the organizations themselves.
I saw an interview with one official who said that the problem with the gritting in his area was that there was too much traffic on the roads to lay grit and salt, but in the next sentence, he said that there was not enough traffic on the roads to make the salt work properly. I worked out what he meant but he was trying to put the wrong message across and not succeeding at that.
Have we learnt any lessons? Probably not. It will probably happen all over again in less than two months time.
On that “happy” note, let me wish you all best wishes for Christmas.
The UK Government has finally found a way to tax the Internet (but missed the target). This new tax has been on the cards for some time now but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, confirmed the introduction of the tax in his pre-budget report last week.
The new tax will be levied at a rate of £0.50 (+VAT) per month on all fixed phone lines. The stated purpose of the tax is to help develop future superfast broadband networks. Mr Darling expects the tax to raise about £175 million per year, thus enabling next generation broadband services to reach 90% of the UK population by the end of 2017.
In his speech, Mr Darling said:
“Mr Speaker, we are modernising the UK’s digital infrastructure and, in the process, creating thousands more skilled jobs. We have provided funding to help extend the opportunities of the broadband network to more remote communities.
We now want to go further, so we can provide the next generation of super-fast broadband to 90 per cent of the population by the end of 2017. This will be funded through a duty of 50 pence a month on landlines which will be included in the Finance Bill.”
Concerns have already been raised about the government’s intentions. For example:
- Will the tax be withdrawn in 2017 or will it become like road tax, i.e., not all spent on roads?
- Why is VAT to be levied on top of the tax? (Because, technically, it’s a duty not a tax!)
- Who will the monies raised be distributed to?
- How do you define a fixed telephone line?
- What happens if (when) the tax is not enough?
The Conservatives have vowed to scrap the tax if they win the next election, so it may not be around for too long. However, if they do scrap it, the tax will probably cost more money to implement than it will actually raise.
Oh dear!
December 16th, 2009 in
Internet Marketing | tags:
tax |
No Comments
Yesterday, I had the great privilege of being shown around the Pendennis Shipyard in Falmouth, close to where I live.
Pendennis Shipyard specialises in building and refitting super yachts. They are currently working on the refit of a 57m motor yacht (see dry dock photograph below), the building of a beautiful Ron Holland designed 46m ketch, as well as a number of other projects.
Pendennis Shipyard Dry Dock
I was shown round by joint managing director, Henk Weikens, who is both passionate and very knowledgeable about his subject. Although this was not the first time that I had visited Pendennis, I was very struck (again) by how dedicated the workforce are to producing a top class product; the finish on the boats has to be seen to be believed, whether it is the exterior, interior, woodwork or mechanical.
It’s great that Cornwall has such a world class facility that attracts customers from all over the world. Thanks to everyone at Pendennis who was involved in showing me round.
Having just posted that this morning’s previous post was indexed by Google in less than 59 minutes, that post was indexed by Google in less than 8 minutes. Isn’t WordPress great.
Indexed by Google in less than 8 minutes
I have said a few times recently that a properly set up WordPress blog that is updated regularly with good content can be indexed by Google within an hour or two of being updated. There have been skeptics who have not believed this so I have decided to post proof.
The following Google screen shot shows this morning’s post indexed by Google within 59 minutes!
Google indexed within 59 minutes
People keep telling me that Google AdSense is dead as far as Internet Marketers are concerned, but it’s simply not true. You do, however, need to choose high paying niches.
Luckily for us, Google provides us with a tool that we can use – it’s Google’s ‘Search-Based Keyword Tool‘ – you may remember that I have mentioned it previously in this blog.
The tool was designed by Google to be used by people buying Google Adwords – it gives information on search volumes and recommended bids for adverts. Because Google does not give any indication of how much income you will receive when someone clicks on one of your AdSense ads, this is the best information about relative payouts available to us.
When you open the tool using the above link, you will see a list of categories on the left side of the page. You can browse these categories and their sub-categories to find a niche that meets your needs. You can display the search results in any order you choose – just click on the header of the column that you wish to order your results by.
It’s interesting to see results ordered by Suggested Bid. I have just looked at the Health category this way and seen that the suggested bid for the term ’serious injury claim’ is $141.85 – the number of searches is not high enough to make this a viable niche, but you should be able to see the potential of this information.
If your marketing involves niches, and most forms of internet marketing do, once you have selected your niche you will need some keywords to base your various internet marketing resources around. Here is a great tip for selecting such keywords.
1. Decide on your niche, let’s say it is health insurance.
2. Go to Google and type in your main keyword in the search bar in quotes, in this case “health insurance”, and hit the Google search button.
3. Open the Google Adwords keyword tool in another browser window(http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).
4. Go back to the Google search page, where you did your search, and copy the url in the address bar.
5. Go back to the Google Adwords tool, check/select “Website Content”, paste the URL that you copied from the address bar of the Google search page into the URL box on the Google adword tool page and click on “Get Keyword Ideas”.
6. You will see some coloured balls moving from side to side while the Adwords tool does its work, which usually takes about a minute. Then you will get your results: a great list of keywords for you to use, including information on search volumes and advertiser competition.
You can also use the Google Adwords tool to “analyze” your competitors’ pages.
