How Did MySpace Layouts Become Popular?

MySpace has many users and it is the largest networking community on the Internet. Because many users are joining every day, the interests of people will vary. They will prefer to look at various MySpace layouts. Many groups have been formed in this community all based on themes. They could be music related or science related.

Some users will mention their interests in a way that visitors will be attracted to their profiles. Their main goal will be to form groups with people who have similar interests. So to make their profile more interesting they will access free MySpace layouts when they want. They will apply these to the profile and they will make it more interesting.

MySpace layouts became very popular because of the number of users. Although there are millions there are thousands joining every day. Thus the default settings are becoming boring for everybody. The features are also very different from other networking sites. Thus using various layouts became a kind of a norm among users.

MySpace layouts also became popular because it offers various themes. The themes are of various categories and they are arranged accordingly. The layouts are extremely popular because they are free of cost. Besides being free of cost they are available on hundreds of sites. All they have is one simple code, and users just have to copy and paste onto their homepage.

Because of these features, MySpace layouts became highly popular. They can also be changed often and can be chosen according to the interest of the users. There are no technical complexities with the use of these layouts. The use is very simple and also exciting at the same time. It is exciting because users can find almost any theme they are looking for.

If anyone is a movie fan they will find movie-based layouts, and if they are music fans they will find themes of music bands. So because members can find any theme with various looks MySpace layouts became popular. They are also being updated every day and designers are coming up with new designs almost every day.

Members will never get bored as they have a variety to choose from. So every week they may also change the layouts as they please. Since the community is huge all members will use various layouts. So very few may be repeated and this will make it more interesting for people who are reading more profiles.

The popularity of MySpace layouts grew because you can relate any kind of theme to the content of the profile. If you want to promote your interests you can accordingly choose the layout. The layouts are also easy when it comes to navigation while picking them. They may just scroll down to a category and pick one that is appealing.

About Printer's Toner

There's no denying that the cost of printers is low - unbelievably low, as a matter of fact. You can find brand-name photo printers for under a hundred dollars, and workhorse laser printers for under two hundred dollars. Color inkjet printers remain a bargain, starting at around a hundred and twenty-five dollars. If you're not careful, though, what you save in the purchase price of a printer goes down the drain when you have to buy replacement toner cartridges or ink cartridges. 

When deciding which printer to buy, it pays to determine the cost per page printed. That cost is calculated by the cost of the cartridge you use. Let's say, for example, that you purchased a black and white Brother Laser Printer for $150 and an HP color inkjet printer for $150. A new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) toner cartridge for the Brother printer costs about sixty-five dollars and will print about 2,500 pages. The black ink cartridge for the HP only costs about thirty dollars. Great deal, right? No, because the black ink cartridge will only print about 800 pages. The Brother cartridge will give you a cost per page of a little over two-and-a-half cents, whereas the HP cartridge ups the ante to three-and-three-quarters cents per page. That may not sound like a lot, but over the course of printing the equivalent of ten cartons of paper, or 50,000 pages, you'll pay $625 more for the HP ink than you will for the Brother toner. 

But what if you're not in the market for a new printer, and are churning out page after page with the printer you now own? Chances are, you're paying a premium price for that Original Equipment Manufacturer LaserJet toner cartridge or inkjet printer cartridge. A great way to bring down your cost-per-page is to choose a less expensive option to replace your laser toner or inkjet ink. The two least costly options are compatible ink cartridges and re-manufactured ink cartridges.

Before you listen to the hyperbole from printer manufacturers that say that compatible and remanufactured cartridges will ruin your printer or produce inferior quality printed pages, ask yourself this: Don't printer manufacturers have an enormous economic stake in making sure you buy their brand name printer cartridges? Of course they do. They sell their printers at such a low cost precisely because they know that you'll need replacement print cartridges, from which they make huge profits. 

Compatible laser toner and ink cartridges are made and sold by companies other than printer manufacturers. You can find reputable toner and inkjet cartridge sellers online who take pride in providing products that meet or exceed the specifications set forth by printer manufacturers. Compatible cartridges will work fine in your printer, and won't void your printer's warranty. Essentially, they consist of a previously used casing with all new parts and new toner or ink. Similarly, re-manufactured cartridges are previously used and refilled with toner or ink, but are rigorously tested to ensure their quality.

The bottom line is that toner is the hidden cost of any printer purchase. Why pay for your printer time and again by paying premium prices for OEM cartridges when you can save up to 76 percent of the cost by buying compatible or re-manufactured cartridges?

Advantages Of Barcoding And Barcode Scanners

The use of barcoding and barcode scanners has transformed operational efficiencies of a phenomenal number of businesses both large and small. Simple yet effective, the barcode as an invention has made itself indispensable purely by the multi-faceted advantages that its offers to the user across the entire barcoding spectrum – from generating barcodes through customizable barcode generating software right up to sophisticated barcode scanners and barcode readers. Here we present to you the killer advantages of these marvelous devices.

Super Advantage 1: Speed and Accuracy – A really good data entry operator would be able to enter a 12 digit number (like product code for example) on his keypad in approximately 4-5 seconds, but the average would be more like 7 seconds. The same operation if performed with a barcode scanner would take just one flick of the wrist, less than a second. The speed difference is evident – the use of the barcodes is unmatched in its ability to plough through large volumes of these operations effortlessly. While a data entry operator might make keyboard errors when he types in data, the chances of a barcode reader giving wrong output is practically nonexistent tending almost to zero. For all practical purposes, accuracy is exact, every time the barcode reader makes its flowing motion over the barcode.

Super Advantage 2: Implementation Ease – You decide you want to start using barcodes for your products but are worried that you have never done it before? Fear not, for in 10-20 minutes of your time that scenario will get reversed. The use of barcode readers is almost childishly simple with no prerequisite for usage. Not only can anybody do it, but they can do it quickly as well for the learning curve of using barcodes is extremely steep and short.

Super Advantage 3: Bang for the buck – If you could capture information quickly and accurately, it could only mean a tighter supply chain and well-knit business processes based on this information. With superior information, you can take superior business decisions that increase shareholder value. Imagine what disastrous consequences incorrect information could have on your business! A vast collection of barcodes and barcode scanner usage data has revealed that the investment made in this technology pays back in as short a period as 6 to 10 months – way faster than most modern technologies that attempt to improve the way we conduct our business. Thus the barcode genre is one where the customer truly gets good value for money and high return on investment.

One can never get enough of the importance and advantages of barcodes and barcode scanners. It now only remains for you to start scouring the market for various barcoding solutions to unlock the immense savings and gains that are lying in wait for your business! Go ahead and barcode your business growth in to the future!

Solutions to some of E-MAIL problems

As we continue to evolve into the world of e-mail that is part of our everyday life, sometimes little problems arise that bother the user.  Previously we talked about returned messages and lost connections, both which can be aggravating, and supplied solutions.  But there are a few more problems that can affect an e-mail user causing frustration and we will address these here, and again provide reasonable solutions to over come them.

Problem 1 – You Cannot Send a Message

Even when there is not a connection problem, you may attempt to send email, but find that it continues to remain in your outbox.

Solution 

Typically this is a software problem, the result of otherwise unapparent damage or corruption to one or more e-mail messages.  To address this problem, first copy any unsent messages as text.  Then save them on the computer's hard drive or a back-up storage medium.  After all messages have been saved, highlight all the messages in your outbox and click on “delete” or “clear”.  When clearing your outbox, start over.  Just copy unsent messages from the text files, pass them into new e-mail messages and resend. 

Problem 2 – The E-mail is Missing an Attachment or the Attachment Won't Open

An especially handy feature of e-mail is the ability to send and receive attachments.  Transmitting documents, photos or other such information can save time and money compared to the U.S. Mail or express delivery services.  At the same time, attachments can be real headaches.  A common frustration is to receive an e-mail message that refers to an attachment, but then find nothing is there.

Solutions

Often the best solution is to request that the sender try once again, since it is not unusual for the writer to refer to an attachment, but then forget to attach it.  Even if this is not the case, your request might prompt the sender to re-think the attachment's format before transmitting again.  If the problem continues, consider asking the sender to paste the contents inside an e-mail message and try again.  This may disrupt formatting, but can be an effective way to circumvent attachment problems. 

If you see a message that the attachment has been deleted, it may be that your anti-virus software has detected a virus, and you're better off without it anyway.  But if you find that all attachments are indiscriminately being deleted, check your mail properties.  If a box is checked that blocks all attachments, remove the check mark so that you can receive attachments.  If you then receive a message from an unknown person, or if the message or attachment seems suspicious, delete the message without opening the attachment. 

A related problem is to see that an attachment has been transmitted, but find that you are unable to open it.  The causes (and thus the solutions) vary.  In some cases, the problem is that the software used by the sender does not match that of the recipient.  As with a missing attachment, a simple fix is to ask the sender to copy and paste the contents of the attachment within a follow up mail message.  Even if formatting is disrupted, you can still get the gist of the information.  You can also use your own copying and pasting process to reformat the contents, if that is important. 

Another strategy is to save the document to your hard drive, and then open the software program that was used initially to create it.  Once this program is in use, your computer may be able to recognize what had been the attachment, and open it.  If you do not have the appropriate software loaded on your computer, you may be able to download it from the Internet; just follow the on screen prompts to proceed.

Problem 3 – You Have too Much Incoming Mail or Cannot Download What You Have 

If you are receiving large volumes of e-mail, you may be vulnerable to several difficulties.

Solutions

Many Internet service providers place limits on the amount of storage provided to each user (although some have recently increased storage limits).  If a pre-set limit is reached (perhaps because you've gone too long without downloading your e-mail, or have been inundated by SPAM or virus induced flood of messages), additional messages will be bounced back to those who sent them.

Of course the direct approach is to download your mail and then weed it out, but a smarter move may be to access your e-mail account via Web mail.  That way you can see a listing of all messages and quickly delete any that do not appear to be of interest.  The end result is the same, but this step can save a great deal of downloading time if you're using a dial up modem.  It also adds an extra measure of virus protection even if you have a broadband connection.  Since you're deleting messages from your ISP's server before they ever have a chance to infect your computer, it's like killing mosquitoes before they bite you – instead of afterwards. 

If you do not have a Web mail account, it's easy to get one.  Simply go to a provider such as Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) or Lycos (www.lycos.com) and register.  You can also use a site such as mail2web (www.mail2web.com) or webmail4free.com without even registering.  Go to the site and enter you e-mail address and password.  You will see a listing of all incoming mail, which you can read and then retain for downloading, or delete, as you choose.

A similar challenge may be caused by unusually large message.  Again, this problem is more common with dial-up modems, where hefty messages may take an annoyingly long time to download.  In the worst cases, you may find yourself unable to receive other messages, because the connection with the server where your messages are stored is severed when a time limit has been reached.

Use of Web mail can also do the trick here.  Just log on to the third-party site, peruse the list of messages in your inbox, and choose the one that is the largest (most Web mail programs automatically list the size of each message).  If the message seems of potential interest, open and read it, and then delete it.  Or if it is obviously spam or something in which you have no interest, you can delete the message without even bothering to read it.  Once you have removed the offending message, your other incoming mail will no longer be blocked.

If you do not have Web mail, an option is to contact your Internet Service Provider and ask for help.  Once a customer service representative deletes the offending message from the ISP's server, you can then download all remaining messages.

Also keep in mind that retaining too much e-mail can be an organizational problem, if not a technical one.  Take time to delete e-mail that does not need to be saved for future reference.  Allowing too many messages to accumulate wastes storage space and makes it more difficult to find important messages when you need to refer to them.  For messages that merit retention, create a series of folders so that they can be readily located, and so that your inbox will not become too full.

Tips on Buying Cheap Laptops

Laptops are gaining in popularity these days. Almost everyone is carrying one now either for work or entertainment. Laptops with the latest technology are introduced to the market everyday and these new laptops come with a huge price tag. However, that does not mean you cannot get a good and cheap laptop. I have put together a guide that may help you out in your hunt for a cheap and good laptop.

Buy cheap laptop with older technology

Rapid advance in technology makes it meaningless to buy the latest technology at a high price. When laptop with wireless capability first came to the market, a unit with this technology can cost up till US$2500. NOw after 2 years, you can get a relatively fast centrino laptop for less than US$1000

Buy used or refurbished laptop
The depreciation of a laptop value is so high, that after one year in the market, a laptop can easily lose half its value. So if you are looking for a cheap laptop, look for one which is close to one year old. Not all used laptop are in bad condition. You will be surprised to find that some used laptops are still in good condition because their owners are power users or gamers.

Buy laptop from power users or gamers
I like to buy electronic gadgets including laptops from hard core power users or gamers. Let me share with you why. Gamers or power users usually require the latest and most powerful technology to run their games or power hungry applications. They often will not settle for second best. They also have the tendency to chase after the latest technology. So after one year, they will be bored of what they have and will look to sell off their laptops so that they can buy a new one. Now if you are looking to buy cheap laptops with up to date technology and you happen to have friends who are gamers, do ask them if they are looking to sell off their laptops. Who knows, maybe you can buy a good and cheap laptop from them.

Scan through gaming forums and local gaming community
if you do not already have friends who like to play computer games, then scanning through gaming forums on the internet is another way to get good and cheap deals for used laptop. Internet makes it easy for you to do this. Go to google.com and start searching for gaming forums. Visit each and everyone and see if they have a Trading Section. You will definitely find many post from gamers looking to sell their gaming laptops.

Scan through local bulletin boards
Do scan through local bulletin boards near you for cheap deals on laptop.Especially if there are software companies around the area. Software companies do offer their used computers or laptops for sale when their software projects end. I personally had gotten a few good deals for my family and friends.

Look for cheap laptop with at least 512mb memory
This is especially important for used laptop. If the processor speed is slow, then having more memory can compensate for the lack in speed. In fact, The size of memory plays a big part in determining how fast a laptop runs an application. Just by increasing the memory size, you can see a huge difference in speed. A cheap laptop with at least 512mb memory can run most non graphic intensive application easily.

Get cheap laptop from reputable manufacturer
This is very important because if you are buying used laptop, then the chances of requiring servicing is higher than a new laptop. So if you buy from a reputable manufacturer, you will save alot of trouble and time if your laptop do require servicing.

Tips on Finding Online Information

Copyright 2006 Tony Mase

In his book "How to Get What You Want", Wallace D. Wattles, best known for his classic masterpiece "The Science of Getting Rich", talks about the importance of "making constructive use of the people and things in your environment" in getting what you want.

One way you make constructive use of the people and things in your environment is to get the help you need, when you need it.

If you spend any amount of time on the Internet, you'll occasionally need someone's help...

It might be help with an online purchase, technical support for a product, or some other kind of help.

Regardless of the kind of help you need...

The manner in which you ask for that help will determine the quality and the quantity of the help you receive now and in the future.

You see...

There are two ways you can ask for help online...

One is "constructive"...

The other is "destructive".

When you ask for help in a constructive manner, you'll get the help you need, when you need it, and you'll "build" a relationship that'll keep the door open for future help.

On the other hand...

When you ask for help in a destructive manner, although you might get the help you need this time, you'll "destroy" any chance of a relationship and close the door to future help.

Based on the thousands of questions and support requests I've received and answered online, here are five powerful tips that'll help you get the help you need, when you need it, and get it in a way that'll leave the door wide open for future help:

Tip #1 - Don't lead with your chin.

Leading with your chin is a great way to get knocked on your...

Well...

You fill in the blank. :-)

The single most important thing you need to remember when you're asking for help online, whether you're asking by email or by filling out an online form, regardless of how angry or frustrated you might be, is that there's a real "live" person on the other end...

A person who has "feelings" just like you do!

Including phrases in your first request for help like...

"Are you going to help me right now, right this minute, or are you going to give me my money back?"...

Or...

"I'm starting to think this is a scam!"...

Or...

"If I don't hear back from you in one hour, I'm going to call my lawyer!"...

Might make you feel good, but they'll virtually guarantee whatever help you do get right now will be minimal, at best, and your chances of getting anything other than minimal help from that person again in the future will be somewhere between slim and none.

Tip #2 - Be polite.

For some strange reason, one I've yet to figure out, many people seem to think the rules of simple, common courtesy don't apply online...

Don't you be one of them!

A request for help written in a polite tone, using "please" and "thank you", will, more often than not, get you a prompt and courteous reply.

Tip #3 - DON'T SHOUT!!!

Whether you know it or not, typing your request for help in all capital letters is the online equivalent of shouting in the face of the person who receives it...

And...

The liberal use of multiple exclamation marks makes your shouting even louder and more emphatic!

Question for you...

Do you like it when someone shouts in your face?

Guess what?

Neither does anyone else! :-)

Tip #4 - Keep your request short and to the point.

Most people doing business online don't have the time to read long, drawn out messages trying to figure out what you need, nor do they have the time to keep writing you back over and over again trying to clarify what you need.

When you ask for help online, *always* include your name, contact information, order information, specific dates, specific details, and a clear, concise description of the help or information you need.

Avoid including any information that doesn't directly contribute to helping the person you're asking for help to give you the exact help you need.

Tip #5 - Say thank you.

After you've received the help you've asked for, a simple "thank you!" or "thanks, I appreciate your help!" will go a long way towards insuring the door will be wide open the next time you need that person's help again.

Once again...

The single most important thing you need to remember when you're asking for help online is that there's a real "live" person on the other end.

Treat that person as you'd like to be treated and you'll find as I have that, more often than not, you'll get all the help you need, when you need it, and that person's door will always be open to you should you need their help again.

(source: internet)

Important Things When You Are Online.

When you connect to the internet you can harm your PC. That is a fact. The reason antivirus software and other similar products where created is to protect your PC.

It is not your fault that you got viruses, however you should take the precaution methods to stop this from happening again.

Keep PC Clean: It is important that your PC stays clean if you use the internet. Clean from the 'bad, harmful objects' that are also known as spy ware, adware or viruses.

There are many different types of harmful objects but luckily there exist also cure to keep your PC protected.

A must use Software: The two most important software you must have are an antivirus and an anti adware. There is no need to purchase 30 different kinds of anti spy ware software...

However you must choose two software which will protect your PC. These will work in the background automatically. Some anti adware products also heal spy ware not just adware.

Schedule Maintenance: The software will block spy ware and adware. However you should also use the software when you are offline. You should scan your
PC using both software at least once every three weeks. That will clean any harmful objects. These objects can make a lot of harm to your PC.

Safety Measurements: We already mentioned that you need two software to keep ongoing protection on your PC.

If you download software/movies/images/videos or any other thing from the internet it is recommended that you scan those items. Before opening them right click on them and use your antivirus to scan them.

Go to Control Panel to turn on Firewall. Firewall is also an ongoing protection which is very important.

Once you have your software installed these protect your PC and you get back the freedom you deserve. Remember that prevention is better than cure.

(source: internet)