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Cell phones are probably one of the best “toys” for the electronic hobbyist. They are one of the most complex and intricate devices people use on a daily basis. Advancements in cell phone technology have made them a modern day wonder, and for some, an electronics addiction. If you’re one those people who loves to know how stuff works, the smartphone should provide hours of enjoyment.

The Smartphone Smorgasbord

As a DIY electronic hobbyist, you have always been the guy who can build a super computer in your bedroom. You’re the guy who can’t get enough from technology and electronics. With advancements in smartphone development, it’s not surprising that you’ll want to try out as many as you can. The best way to go is to invest in prepaid cell phones. That way you don’t have any long term contracts you have to meet. You can simply pay as you go.

As the smartphone becomes the standard in the consumer phone market, many companies will be introducing their version. The competition will be stiff, and that’s good for the hobbyist. Samsung, LG, Blackberry, and Apple are some common names, but you’ll find other players popping up, too. Although the general assembly of the circuit board would be similar from device to device, there will be differences in the operating systems.

Smartphone Operating Systems

A few hobbyists could chew up an afternoon comparing Smartphone operating systems. You’ll always have the Apple enthusiast, but the real discussion will be about Blackberry and Android. Since both work on multiple platforms, you’ll want to try both and get an expert opinion on each. In fact, without consumer “experts,” the smartphone market wouldn’t be nearly as advanced as it is today.

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Information on the internet is dominated by the use of the modern search engine. These days if you see something on a search engine in the top slot, that is almost always where you go to obtain your information. There are plenty of companies out there who are paying big businesses a ton to be on top of those spots. With that being said there are also a number of companies who are manipulating the search engines in order to increase traffic to their site.

This is a problem in the search engine industry. It’s not about creating content, but rather stealing reads by making the mistake of believing that it’s ok to just throw in keywords. The good news for those who are fed up with seeing the wrong things at the top of search engines is that it won’t last for long. These days search engine technology is fighting back.

The first thing these companies are doing are seeking out the places that are trying to steal key words and they are putting them out of their search engines altogether. You can’t expect that there are going to be a number of companies who can continue to operate like this and get away with it.

They are also doing what they can to get rid of sites that are keyword jamming. They are requiring a balance between content and keyword. It’s known how important the search engine is to most people so these companies are doing their job to make them clean and usable.

For one thing, you can save some money on game consoles by purchasing them online. There are some unbelievable discounts at a lot of sites, whether it involves cruising around the forums for a good local deal you can pick up in person or just sniping the best deals on one of the auction websites. The only bad part about the whole deal is having to wait for your system to arrive—a store is faster, but sometimes it just can’t compete on price.

There are times, however, there are some occasions when going to store and getting the system of your dreams right now might even be the cheapest option you can take up. For instance, there are often some great sales that give you a pretty solid discount on the system itself. Or you can always trade in your existing game system for a new one that interests you more. Your options in person tend to only be limited by your ability to do your research and find the very best of the deals. They may be hiding, but they’re out there.

If anyone could have the time to watch the birth of a star in the universe, it would be a grand thing. Our sun in the solar system is, in fact, a star. A very big star. But at one point in the cycle of life of our sun, it was small, but burned bright. At some point, you’d see it grow larger and larger, burning more and more material and fuel to power its heat and burning capacity. The sweltering holocaust of the sun somehow hits a peak, and then begins to digress while somehow growing hotter. Soon you’d see the sun growing whiter in color, and then soon you would see the sun completely DISAPPEAR from the universe.

All of that would take millions of years to happen, though. Don’t worry; the sun won’t go anywhere anytime soon.

But the similarity of the sun and that particular life cycle is eerily similar to how the World Wide Web has been progressing in our technologically advancing Earth! To even think that when the Internet first came to be online games was a fantastic idea that took years to realize. Now because of the explosion of HTML supernovas and JAVA comets in cyberspace, free bingo sites are a standard belief and reality. Remember the days when you could actually reach the ‘end’ of the Internet? Only a few sites were the case. Nothing much on there! But check your connection now and the content is almost eternal. There’s no end to it. It’s as if this interstellar star is so huge that you can’t see around it. It engulfs you in a way that you can’t even comprehend. There are virtually hundreds of different games, all online, all available. It’s staggering.

The world is growing. The world is the Internet. Now here’s the hope: that the Internet won’t ‘digress’ like every other star in the universe.

Surely I am not the only one who suffers from this lack of technology; this intense lack of an email program’s ability to read the body of a message, see any form of the word”attach”, and prompt the sender to actually attach the intended document, picture, file, etc. BEFORE the message is actually sent. How difficult can it be? Has this magical feature been invented already? Did I somehow miss all the news and hype about this? Surely this would not require an overhaul of one’s PC circuits nor installation of complicated hardware.

If you’re in the market to move, you can look for Phoenix apartments online and find just the kind of thing you want to go and see in person. That will also help you weed out the things you aren’t really looking for. You’ll get a better idea of how many bedrooms you’ll want to have, the square footage you’re looking for, and other factors. That’s a wonderful way to make a better determination of what you’re looking for. Then, when you go and look in person, you’ll have an easier time deciding what you want. You’ll be able to make a decision faster, too, which is beneficial to both you and your real estate agent.

Of course, that’s not the only thing you can use the Internet for. There are plenty of other things to take a look at, and there are always many forums and discussions you can get involved in. People love to talk to others who have similar opinions, and debate with others who have different opinions, so no matter what you like to talk about there will be people you can chat with.

Some of my husband’s buddies use sports betting sites to help with their fantasy football picks. My husband uses his own skills to pick his fantasy football team. This has never landed him near the top of the list of winners, but he has fun with it anyway.

Like I said, I’m not that big on football. However, it is a great stress reliever for my husband and gives him as chance to hang out with his friends and joke around a bit. They are always making fun of each others’ teams. Also, even though I could live without watching the games, I do enjoy giving him and the other guys a hard time about their teams.

I know, you probably thought I was talking about Christmas back there in the beginning. I love Christmas actually. I like to decorate and I love buying people gifts. I go shopping for all of my friends and family while keeping in mind the look that I want to see on their faces when they open the gifts I brought them. Who wouldn’t love something that was bought purely to bring the giftee joy?

I have found great deals online this week. I can’t believe how inexpensive some things can be once a store or website has the idea that they can sell thousands of something at a certain price point. I bought DVDs for less than $2 each!

I have some cleaning to do around here that I had better get started. More soon!

Let’s take a look at how one specific industry – the insurance industry – can take advantage of social media.  A company like 21^st Century Insurance which already has an online presence is now able to be more connected with clients, customers, and to departments in its own company. They able to share the latest insurance coverages they have to offer and the latest news from their business quickly and easily. These communication tools also allow customers to communicate with businesses and more importantly to spread this information virally for the company.

A recent study showed that customers have no emotional attachment to the businesses with which they are dealing. This means that a customer may buy a homeowners policy from a company but go to a competitor for an auto policy. Now, with the development of these social media outlets, businesses are able to put a face on their company and try to improve customer loyalty.  They can create online customer loyalty programs and build a virtual community around their social media marketing.

An insurance company can interact via the corporate website, through Facebook and Twitter and use these tools to address customer concerns and educate and inform their clients. It might seem a bit farfetched but having this type of interaction allows companies to develop a bond with their customers, and the company is more likely to keep those customers in the long run.

The gaming industry has metamorphosed into a billion dollar industry now. Every day there are scores of new games added to the list of available video games. There are whole industries fashioned out the manufacturing of gaming components, like joysticks, consoles, gamers and the like. There are also famous game series that add new stories and new games to their selections. All in all, its a big, booming world, and the simple game enthusiast of old can feel a little lost.

There are also games where you can actually win a good deal of money. Most of these are available in online casinos, such as bingo gaming sites. These sites offer the user an experience of a full blown real world casino, at a fraction of the cost of visiting a casino. Here you can play almost every game that is offered in a casino, including poker, bingo, roulette and the rest of them. The jackpots, too, are pretty significant.

If you are a long time dedicated gamer, and seem a little lost in this melee of games, you will need to learn to pick and choose. If you like intellectual games, you may want to stick to the old, trusted game of chess. There are also a bunch of new games that offer intellectual stimulus. However, most new video games are intended to dazzle rather than to stimulate. The awesome 3D animation, the graphics, the sound and the complexity of the games are simply astounding. So, choose one or more games that you like among all these, and stick to it. That is because it is simply impossible to try out all games out there.

Arcade games are a great way to outfit a game room or simply own for games that you have absolute obsession of. A good indicator of this might be if you have this particular games theme as a free ringtone. But what you should look for when purchasing a used arcade game? Obviously one of the first things is to check the physical condition of the unit. Is it in good shape? Check for chips, cracks or other damage. Does it feel sturdy? All questions you should verify. Next, are you able to test the machine? Can you verify the unit works? You should try playing a game see if the controls all work, as they should. Check out the sound and the picture quality, too.

One more thing is to check out the coin mechanism. Does it function properly accepting coins and registering them on screen? If the machine is in good shape, even if one or more of these things are bad, you can actually replace them usually with not too much expense. Most of these are actually user replaceable and aren’t very difficult to do. If you do not want to do it yourself, you can find a local shop in your area that can do it for you. You should also ask your seller if they know the history of the cabinet and if they have any extra parts or manuals for it. You may find these very helpful later. If the unit has cosmetic damage, you can find the decals and marquees for sale by private sellers or for sale in online auctions.

It is a good idea to have a basic understanding of arcade games and arcade game cabinets in order to check all this stuff out. The more you know about the cabinet, the better able you will be to appraise it for what it is really worth.

If you don’t have a Nintendo Wii, now is the time to get one. The Wii has many games available that can help you get the exercise you need. For example, the Wii Fit is a complete system that comes with a balance board as well as other accessories designed to help you get into shape.

Wii Fit has such games such as tennis, volleyball, yoga and even fun balance games. Once starting one of these games, you will have no idea that hours have passed because you will be having so much fun.

EA Sports Active is another Wii game that many people use. This one comes with a personal trainer that can help you along in your exercise program. There are also 6-week challenges that you can do in order to stay focused and on track. It works by utilizing the balance board as well as other accessories. The balance board can also weigh you so that you can keep track of your weight loss progress.

There are three levels: beginner, intermediate and expert. If you are just starting out, you will want the beginner mode, as that is still difficult for many people. By the end of the 6-week challenge, you will find that you can go farther distances without becoming out of breath. You will also notice that you have more energy and that you aren’t feeling as lazy.

The best part of all of that is that you will soon see your muscles toning up as well as the weight coming off of your body.

Dance Masters

From Konami, the proud creators of Dance Dance Revolution, comes an entirely new way to get your groove on. Instead of simply moving your feet on a (slippery, sometimes non-registering) pad, you can just move in front of the Kinect and follow the game’s impressive dance directions.

Def Jam Rapstar

While there have been Guitar Heroes and Rock Bands on the consoles for some time, this is the first opportunity we really have to get into the rap genre.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

The Deathly Hollows game follows the movie and allows you to step into the world of witches and wizards. The difference is that there are now 22 controller-free challenges for players to take on.

Kinect Sports

Much akin to the “Wii Sports” for their competitor console, Xbox has released a full body movement game that allows you to step onto the sport’s field from your own living room.

YourShape: Fitness Evolved

This fitness game features virtual trainers to walk you through numerous exercises. With the help of the Kinect, exact directions are given to help you perfect your form, making workouts more effective than ever.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Kinect, one great source is the Kinect Facebook page. Some basic social media monitoring of that page will give you a good idea of the Kinect’s features and upcoming games.

In the world of video games, it used to be that when it was time for an addition to a particular video game, the game was released as a new version and gamers—or their parents—had to buy a new game to get new adventures and improved functions. With the evolving and growing technology in video games these days, that is no longer the case. While new games are always being released and the purchases will not slow down anytime soon, there are new ways for updating existing games and adding more fun or fixing glitches without buying a whole new game.

Many video games have software patches that fix problems or add additional adventures to the games. Gamers can go to specific websites and download these software updates, if the game is PC based. For those video games that are on game consoles such as Nintendo and Playstation, there are new ways to download software updates via online connections that are available options. This is a newer feature that is being further developed. This software enables users to enjoy furthering the game and prolonging interest as well as the life of the game. This is fun and saves money as well. Even if the updates require a small fee—which many do not—it is rarely even close to the price of a new game.

With video games and the resulting software becoming increasingly popular and the game consoles becoming more intricate and able to go online wirelessly and so forth, updating via software online will likely continue to increase. Software has changed so much in recent years, it is next to impossible to keep up with all the updates and changes, with video games and all other programs as well. Technology is amazing and is growing by leaps and bounds every minute, it seems.

Dance Dance Revolution is a game played where you follow the characters on the screen in order to mimic their dance moves. By stepping on the giant dance pad that comes with the game, you can learn new dance steps as well as get a great cardio workout.

EA Sports Active is great if you want to stay on a workout plan. You can customize your workouts and even try the thirty day challenge to keep you on track. There are three levels of intensity. Beginner is for those that are new to exercise and also to the Wii way of working out. Intermediate is for those that exercise pretty frequently and need more of a workout than the beginner mode can give. Expert is for those that are highly experienced and in shape, and want an awesome workout in order to feel the burn. There are also many different single workouts you can do, such as step aerobics and yoga.

Punch-out is a great game for upper body strength. Punch-out lets you box your way to the top. By using the Wii remote and the nun-chucks, you can punch your way through different characters in order to raise your skill level and fight against higher levels. If you add the balance board, you will get a total-body workout that promises to be intense.

All of these options are enabled by new microchip technologies that use full body movement, weight, balance, and advanced system interaction to get maximum results.

The best way to save money on anything, including electronic purchases, is by using coupons and discount offers from such websites as offers.com. These can sometimes let you save as much as fifty percent, depending on the amount that is offered. Others can make it easier to apply for rebates, which can also take a lot off the original purchase price, even if you did have the pay the entire amount up front.

Take advantage of end-of-the-model-year sales and holiday sales. New models of electronics come out every year, just like with cars, sometimes even more frequently, and right before the new models are ready to be introduced is a good time to save. Likewise, many stores put electronics on sale during the holiday season, especially on “Black Friday.” If you can get there early enough to get the few that will be available, you can save a bundle at this time.

Look in the classified sections, both print and online, for electronics for sale. These may be brand-new and the buyer did not realize it wouldn’t fit or could not be installed until it was too late. Rather than go through the hassle of trying to return it, he is offering it for sale.

Look at buying floor or display samples. These are usually marked down; if they aren’t, you can ask that they be, especially if you see a scratch or ding on them. The warranties will probably be just as good on them as they are on the new-in-the-box ones.

Do you miss the elementary graphics and nostalgia that are a part of old video games like Pac Man and Donkey Kong? Do you ever long for the simple idea of just trying to rescue the damsel in distress or just racking up the most points? If so, you would probably enjoy the fact that many vintage video games are available to play on the Internet. Here are four of those games in case you would like to relive your younger days. Super Mario Brothers Few games have made an impact on American society like Super Mario Brothers. It came to the arcades in 1983 and became available for NES just a couple years later. It didn’t give that lovable Mario his start, but it bolted him into fame and popularity as millions of American kids and adults played this game for hours on end. The Legend of Zelda One of the most recognized names in video game history is The Legend of Zelda. The game has sold around 60 million copies all over the world and it probably owes its popularity to its combination the aspects of puzzles, role playing, battles, action and exploration all in one game. Who can resist? Pong What might seem like the most elementary and boring game ever was actually very addicting when it first came out. Pong was the start of it all in the 1970s and you can play it online now. Even if you are an avid gamer who has played the latest and most sophisticated games, you might get hooked after just a few minutes of this simple concept. Centipede This was another game that started out at the arcades and made it into millions of American homes just a few years later. Centipede was an Atari creation and it was one of the first games to be played by a large number of female players. All you had to do was shoot the centipede apart before it killed you. The concept doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Technology does not always survive commercially by outperforming its competitors. While natural selection might ensure that a particular species survives while another becomes extinct, no such force exists in the area of consumer preference. Otherwise the Betamax format might be remembered as something other than a failure.

The Video Cassette Recorders- VCRS first became widely available in 1972. The Philips Video Cassette Recording system might have been innovative, but it did not prove to have much staying power. Price might have been part of the problem as consumers could have been hesitant to fork over more than $2000 for a new and unproven technology.

By 1975 the marketplace had shifted and selling VCRs to the public became a profitable endeavor. The idea of bringing a portable movie studio into living rooms proved exciting to the public, while Hollywood Executives predicted that the machine could destroy their industry.

Luckily for movie lovers bringing VCRs into homes proved to have the opposite effect of destroying the movie industry. VCRs became a staple in homes, and the only question that remained was VHS or Beta?

The Betamax emerged first on the market and offered superior picture and sound. VHS offered two hours of recording time. Quantity won out over quality as the public desired time to record movies and television events.

But pricing and marketing also doomed Sony’s VCR. VHS was cheaper, and once JVC’s VCR began to gain market share it partnered with movie studios to offer a wider selection of offerings. Despite being first and better quality, Betamax proved to be the lesser of the two VCR offerings. By the 1990s the Beta was a dead technology.

While Beta had a short shelf life, the format war between the two systems has become a marketing case study. The rapid introduction of new technologies to the market place means that companies will always remember the lessons of the Sony Betamax, while desperately hoping that their products do not suffer a similar fate.

Computers are essential to life as we know it today. They are everywhere, but just who invented them? The computer is something that has evolved from many different designs and inventions, developed over time by various people over many years.

A mechanical calculator was built in Germany in the 1930’s. This was considered the first binary computer and was used to do mathematical calculations. It was refined by the 1940’s to use old movie film to store programs and data; the first not to use paper tape or cards. A 1941 version had a memory of 64 words.

What were referred to as personal computers from then through the 1950’s and 1960’s were able to do mathematical calculations. They weren’t able to do everything like the computers of today, but were sophisticated for the time. Their concept and the ideas of their builders were still visionary nonetheless. The different types that appeared throughout the time period featured switches and dials built into bulky large boxes.

The paperclip computer was a device in the late 1960’s based on a book that described a working computer built out of homemade supplies. Programs were stored on a magnetic drum and the device had units for input, output, control, and arithmetic. The main units of this system correspond to most modern digital computers, even though the machine looked nothing like a home computer.

Machines that began to take on the appearance of modern PCs in the early history of computers began to appear in the 1970s. The first successful mass produced computer was made by Apple in 1977, while IBM and Microsoft developed several computers in the 1980’s. Several entered the mainstream, such as Atari, as computerized video games became a cultural phenomenon, but it is also impossible to leave out the Commodore 64, since it was one of the most popular individual computer types on the market.

The reliance on more powerful gaming systems, as well as word processors, secured the high demand for better computers. Today, there are computers everywhere and inside just about anything electronic.

Every wonder why seemingly every website has an annoying blinking animation or game that asks to click here?

Well that answer is marketing, but wondering how leads to the answer of Wunderkind Jonathon Gay. As a child, Gay became interested and apt at working with computers. So much so that by the time he was in high school his science fair projects were sophisticated enough to earn the attention of professional programmers. By the time he was a senior in high school Gay was working for the company Silicon Beach, which released his first commercial product, Airborne! a black and white game for the Macintosh. Gay had bigger plans than building games for the Apple II or Mac. Before leaving home to attend Harvey Mudd College, Gay contributed to Superpaint 2, a revolutionary program that allowed both simultaneous bit map painting and vector drawing.

Foreseeing a market for graphics, Gay formed his own company. FutureWave Software company built a drawing program, before moving on to software for the emerging market of Internet programmers. Future Wave Software released FutureSplash Animator, which created vector based animations. As a vector based program the animations adjusted to screen size, unlike pixel based programs.

With the advent of Netscapes plug in features turned FutureSlash into a more viable product. Soon major sites such as msn.com and Disney’s Daily Blast were using FutureSplash. Gay had gone from high school standout to the big time. Soon major companies such as Macromedia were taking notice.

In December 1996 Macromedia purchased FutureWave. With a team of developers behind it Flash animations would soon become an Internet staple. Flash enjoyed the advantages of being vector based, bandwidth friendly and browser independent with those advantages, Flash spread. Some would say like a weed.

Back to those annoying, “look at me” animations. Those are almost certainly Flash, but so are useful tools again. The tutorial that showed how to make a Bobbie Flay style meal or the YouTube video showing the after effects of visiting the dentist both probably used Flash Media Player. Much like the Internet Flash has greatly evolved. And like any technology it has been abused. But with out Flash the Internet would be, well, less Flashy (or not as animated).

What has spurred the perennial cycle of marketing and marketed? The best explanation is the fundamental human drive to possess the latest and coolest gadget. Smartphones are some of the most amazing devices currently released, and a thorough smartphone comparison provides even those “in the know” with the information necessary to make a wise decision.

A comparison of all the great aspects of every smartphone may not be realistic, but you can definitely relish the best parts and pieces of a specific smartphone. This year, 12 new smartphones hit the market: Samsung Galaxy S Pro, Evo 4G, iPhone 4, Droid X, Motorola Droid, Droid Incredible, Nexus One, Dell Streak, Nokia N900, Blackberry Bold 9700, Blackberry Storm 2 9550, and the Palm Pre Plus (they may sound like video games for X-Gen members).

To get the most with this generation’s phone obsession, you will need to understand terminology such as slide-QWERTY keyboard, super-AMOLED touch-screen, front-facing camera, Media-Hub access, DLNA support, Android 2.1, six-axis sensor, accelerometer, Hummingbird processor, and Visual Voicemail.

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed, but know that with the right information, you too can join the evolving symbiotic relationship, enter the high-tech world, and communicate.

Even if you don’t yet have access, you can always use a friends’ computer, go to a library, or visit an Internet café if one exists near where you live to do your research. The type of information you want to look for is whether you get enough features and perks to justify the cost. Most of the time, they are relatively inexpensive because of the competition; there are almost countless providers out there.

If you are lucky, you can even have Internet access included in your cable TV and/or telephone plan. Various top named cable providers offer high-speed access; speed being one of the top features to look for. You can easily get a fast service and connection, and there is no reason to have long wait times for websites to load or to send email.

Email is another feature that you can no longer do without. In addition to reliability, you also want to know how much storage space you have, and whether the provider’s system experiences any significant downtime. This is something you want to assess about the system overall before you buy into the service. You can also consider extras such as website hosting and domain registration, if you’re inclined to get into the technical side, as affordable additions or standard features of the service.

With so much information online, you can use the Internet to find Internet deals. Don’t hesitate to browse forums, blogs, review sites, or your favorite trusty search engine to find information. If something is worth talking about it, you can be sure someone is out there to post useful information that you can use in your decision.

In today’s face paced, instant access world there are a lot of new technologies emerging every day to bring information faster and no other trend has captured people the way twitter has. For those of you who haven’t caught up with the craze, twitter is a social blogging site where instead of long, drawn out blogs, the tweeter is giving those that follow his thoughts, feelings, and other musings in short 160 character bursts. This is right on par with today’s society of the short attention span.

But twitter wasn’t the start of the short, constant update theater. If you have been following the social networking and media sites you can come to the conclusion that twitter has been around forever, it’s just more of an evolution.

The first big social networking site was myspace. Myspace was a fully customizable web page where you could add friends as well as send out bulletins and comment on peoples page. Each page was allowed to have a profile pic and a quote next to it. In the very beginning of the Myspace craze, these quotes were anything from the absurd, to inside jokes, to famous sayings, to simple explanations of the person themselves.

As Myspace’s user base grew so did the use of these quotes. Quotes were being updated daily and changing from song lyrics to thoughts and feelings. There was also the increase in the rise of bulletins and how they were being used. Once only used for alerting people to special cuases, events, and chain emails. Now bulletins were being used to simply let out feelings.

When facebook became, far and away, the preferred social networking site we learned very quickly that the most important feature wasn’t a friend request. The status update became the preferred method of communication. There were people updating every day, some times multiple times in a day and it became that they may have led to the twitter craze. In the status updates people could tell you how they felt or simply promote something. The Twitter format was around long before Twitter itself.

People spend their whole lives thinking about their past. Not just what they have done as it relates to where they are going, but the past that existed before they did. They try to learn of the heritage and lineage they belong to.

In today’s world companies are established to help those that want to know get a very thorough picture of their own family tree. People will pay top money to find out where their ancestors came from and who they were. They pay money to be intrigued by the journey it took to have them created. But how is tracing a history easier now than it was 30 years ago? One answer: the Internet.

Many years ago tracing the family tree required a lot of leg work. Not only would you need to oral accounts of things that happened but you would need to call places to research documents and begin piecing together your history. However, in today’s digital world there is no need to go anywhere but the privacy of your own home.

These agencies and companies do it the same way anyone else would in this day and age. With hospitals leaving their medical records online it’s easy to search to see if someone was born in that hospital 100 years ago. With so many counties and cities being online you can find out for certain if someone had lived in the state. The reason the agencies are so successful is because they have the knowledge to understand not only where to go but how to navigate through the sites to obtain the information they need.

Still there is one thing that the family tree companies cannot help with and that is the oral history, the rich and vibrant stories that make a history worth looking into. Perhaps something was accounted for in a local paper or perhaps there was something written in a book, but more often than not there is nothing that can replace the telling of those stories.

The first thing you need to know is that the law states that copywritten images or sounds are only to be used with expressed written consent of the people who own the rights to them. This means if you wanted to make a five minute short film and use a popular bands music for your soundtrack you could be in violation of the copyright law unless you get their written permission and usually that comes with a fee.

Now, sites like YouTube are generally passive about copyright infringement for 2 reasons: 1.) The sheer volume of videos that exist with copywritten images are huge and unless the company that owns them complains it would be very difficult to remove them, not to mention time consuming. 2.) In most cases the companies themselves don’t care because the images are used as good advertisement for the show or in some cases they are tribute videos from fans. This makes it in bad form to ask them to remove them from the site.

So what does all this mean for you? Well it means that first and foremost you should be aware that when you are making a video and setting it to popular music that there may implications for you financially and legally. And while it is unlikely that anything would happen to you it doesn’t mean it couldn’t so it means you should be very careful before doing it.

The internet is a great place to learn about a variety of things you may not have had access to years ago. You can learn about medicine, world news, and the latest in movies and music. But perhaps you didn’t know that you can use the internet to begin to retrace your own family history. There are various companies that can trace your family history for you and while they do a good job they can also set you back a pretty penny.

So how do you trace your own family history with the whole world wide web to navigate through? The answer is simple and can have you discovering cool and interesting things about your family in no time.

The first is to start at home. Get on your computer and write out a comprehensive list of everyone you know in your family. Don’t forget to include your mothers maiden name as well as your grandmothers maiden name. Any woman who came through your family could be a descendant of another family. At some point you’ll have a pretty long list. Once you get far enough down make sure you try and keep everything straight. Things can get confusing once you branch out. When you get to far enough back that the memories and the history become fuzzy, then it’s time to get online.

As you go farther back it will help to find information about where someone lived. This will help you narrow your search down. Perhaps a person lived in Chicago, Illinois, then you can search through the city of Chicago database to find any information you can on that person. It could have an address, social security number, or copy of their birth certificate or death certificate. From there you can do a google search to narrow down the person’s name based on their city. This should pop up any other relevant information there. Then it’s a game of connecting the dots. You have to be patient but if you are then you can reap the rewards of a rich family history.

The Internet offers businesses the ability to focus on their competitive advantage rather than spending time building up expensive infrastructure. Software as a service (SaaS) is a case in point. These on-demand applications are generally deployed over the Internet or run behind a firewall in a local area network. They are also highly flexible and scalable and lets users save money by avoiding the costs of buying their own servers or software. This model is also referred to as the application Service Provider (ASP) model. ASPs charge on a “per-use” basis or may require a monthly/annual fee.

Small enterprises and home users are usually more cost conscious. They’ve been using a lot of freeware and shareware applications from the Internet on their computers. Shareware applications are essentially “try-it-before-you-buy-it” software. Unlike traditional software distribution channels where one is forced to pay for the product even before one has seen it, these applications allow a user to try the program, evaluate it, and decide if it suits the customer’s needs or not. It offers the ultimate money back guarantee; if you don’t use the product, you don’t pay for it.

The Internet, to use a clichéd term, has truly revolutionized business in every way, from the way products are created to the way products are marketed. In fact, the Internet is unearthing hitherto unknown markets. The lowering of search costs leads to a substantial increase in the number of products that are difficult to find (i.e. you can find almost anything). Some of the most famous businesses that have benefited from this new model of “using the niche to find the riches” include eBay (auctions), Google (web search engines), and Audible (audio books).

The Internet allows users to research and learn, conduct business, play games, shop around the world without leaving the comforts of home, and communicate with people across the globe instantaneously. Who knows what’s next?

Online video uploading sites have been around for a few years. And since that time people have been uploading copywritten images onto these sites. These are usually clips of their favorite shows or videos set to their favorite songs. Many of these sites have become a great way to see your favorite shows and clips of movies and television shows from the past.

However, not everyone is happy with these uploading sites. Big television companies have been coming down hard on these user friendly websites. The reason for the companies ire? Money. These companies are popping up with their own websites. They are spending millions of dollars to get viewers trafficked to the company website so they can show clips of shows and up their views so they can turn around and sell advertising on the site. Shows are not made without money from advertisers.

So they see these video uploading sites as a way of stealing visitors from their website. They know the viewer would rather get their content all in one user friendly place rather than having to shuffle around online.

Not all companies see this as a bad thing. Some big television companies have began uploading clips to these sites and running their own paid advertising prior to showing the clip. This is just a way for these companies to know that it’s too hard to beat the popularity of these sites but they are finding a way to advertise and gain exposure within the sites. As long as these uploading sites exists, big television companies will have a decision to if to do business with them.

Around the time folks at CERN invented the Web so that scientists across the world could work together watching the birth of taus, muons and antihydrogen, another smaller invention was popping up in small pockets: bulletin boards. Most common modems were 300 baud rate. In simple terms, the speed was reminiscent of an ant pulling a barge across dry land. You could actually see the text build . . . a single letter at a time. Later, if you decided to invest in the cutting edge upgrades, you could purchase 1200 and 2400 baud rate modems. Lightning fast, you witnessed full lines building so quickly that the letters almost blurred. Stunning technology.

Many bulletin boards were sites run by various university science departments. These departments were often more than willing to allow public access, wanting as much good press as they could get. Others were privately run by computer savvy individuals with fanatical streaks ranging from social deviant to political activist. Their bulletin boards were the next generation underground. To gain access you needed only to apply.

The more eccentric sites were the most interesting. Each site had “rooms” where clusters of computer aficionados lived with their software egos hanging on flag poles for everyone to see. These sites were an amusing place to go when there was nothing good to watch on TV—the forerunner of Facebook. It was often most informative to enter a site room mute, simply watching the verbal interplay of self-proclaimed geniuses jousting their opponents with words of sarcastic wit—somewhat like watching a bad afternoon soap opera where post adolescent self-professed geniuses flexed their muscles.

All good things eventually end or are reinvented. Baud rates moved to 56K, and CERN’s invention spread. Bulletin boards went the way of the dinosaur. Eventually the internet of today will be seen in the eyes of nostalgic mental wanderers as a departed old relative, as muons and quarks become old hat and ch’i driven webs allow Facebook and Twitter to become myth. As Einstein and Dirac well knew, the only constant is change.

It’s not just businesses that have Websites today. A lot of people start up a personal Website and blog just so they can talk to the world about their trials and tribulations. Some of them also do it to keep up with family members who are far away or connect with distant relatives that might be looking for them. No matter what your reasons for starting up a Website, keep in mind that you’ll need a hosting package that will handle everything you want to do. You’ll need a Web address and a way to operate your site. You’ll also want to look for e-mail hosting to be sure that you get your messages.

If you’re looking for the least expensive options, there are free email addresses and free blog sites all over the place. If that’s not enough for you, there are paid options that aren’t really that expensive. The real costs come in when you’re running a large business that has a huge site and uses a lot of bandwidth. A personal site won’t take up that much space, and small space translates to small cost when it comes to providers for your site.

Also think carefully about the content. What do you want the world to know about you? Everything you put out there has the potential to be read by everyone on the planet who has an Internet connection, so remember that when you’re posting things. Don’t say anything that you wish you could take back later. Even if you delete the information, it may have already been copied and passed on. It’s almost impossible to ever completely erase something from the Internet once that’s taken place. Most people don’t have to worry about that, but if your Website is controversial for any reason you may want to be prepared for the messages you might receive about it.

That the story broke prior to the official announcement is not a surprise. Stories break prior to press conferences frequently. The manner in which the LeBron James free agency news broke and was reported might become more enduring than the story about the basketball player’s decision to leave home to play for the Miami Heat.

Smith broke his news that James would be heading to Miami via Twitter, which was only appropriate considering how information out the potential free agent moves were reported throughout the process. News and rumors swung were James would land everyday.

For months it had been assumed that he would leave for New York. ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons even organized Boston Celtics fans to chant New York Knicks at Lebron when he stood at the free throw line during the 2010 playoffs. Simmons used twitter to organize the chants.

As soon as the 2010 NBA Playoffs ended, the Chicago Bulls became the favorite to land James. Twitter reports in June had him looking at homes in the Chicago area. And a website sendlebrontochicago.com was launched and reported on by traditional media.

Technology changed not only how news was reported but also how it was created. Where it once mattered who owned the printing press or television station, the dynamics have shifted so that anyone has the ability to report and broadcast. Sites like mepacircuit.org help to explain this transition. Technology does not just shape the news. As Herbert Marshall McLuhan stated, “The medium is the message.” And in the case of twitter the message is brief, frantic and always seeking an immediate payoff.