9 Blog Accessories to Make You More Money Online

If you are a professional blogger, say you’re a corporate blogger or you’re blogging for a blog network and you’re one of those who can’t get past the stage of using some blog accessories you’ve always enjoyed during your younger personal blogging days, you can still have some fun and ”earn some money” if you do it with moderation.Â
Here are some blog accessories bloggers who are making money online with their blogs can make use of without turning off their readers: Â
Clean and Easy to Navigate Blog Layout
There are thousands of free Wordpress themes and Blogger templates out there that you can choose from. But how do you know which assist you in your endeavor to increase your blog profits? Select a blog template that is cool - to the eye that is. White background and lots of space is still the fad if you want your visitors to enjoy reading your blog. Make sure that your sidebar and blog’s body is not cluttered with too many buttons and other unnecessary blog accessories. A modern Web 2.0 touch won’t hurt either if you want your blog to look trendy.

Google Custom Search Engine
Google developed this application to make publishers/bloggers create their own DIY search engines. With it, you can either include sites that you trust or just only your site to show when your site visitors search using your custom search engine. Why would you want to use Google’s CSE in stead of the default search form that blogs’ come with? It can make you earn you some extra moolah since it has some AdSense ads. Although some bloggers have reservations on how Google CSE indexes content, it can be a nice addition to your blog especially if you collect very helpful and relevant websites to populate your CSE’s search results pages. It’s so easy to customize, too, if you have some blog layout matching requirements.
Wordpress Plugins for Mo’ Traffic Mo’ Money
Related Entries Plugin
Expert bloggers can’t emphasize more the value of making your readers enjoy your blog page after page after page. And what better Wordpress plugin can deliver that than the Related Posts plugin?
Angsuman Translator Plugin
You can’t choose what country your blog readers will come from. And that’s a good thing because the Internet’s global acceptance has made your market just so wider. However, you just have to know how to cater to all the different people with different lingos who land on your blog through any means. A translator plugin can help bridge the language barrier.
PayPal Donate Widget Plugin
If you’re tired of AdSense or AdSense got tired of you (you got banned), you can always try other monetization methods such as using Wordpress plugins that help your blog make money from PayPal donations. Patrick Chia’s PayPal Donate plugin just does that.
Buy Me a Beer Wordpress Plugin
Kotari’s Buy Me a Beer WordPress plugin is a relatively new Wordpress plugin that can make it tad easier for your readers to reward your work with some few bucks also through PayPal.
For more blog monetization plugins for your Wordpress blog, Lorelle on WordPress, the blog of the author of the Blogging Tips book, has a comprehensive list of them.
Blog Statistics Tools
No they’re not simply blog accessories. Site statistics analysis tools are more of a necessity than plain accessory. What serious blogger who wishes to make both ends meet from his blog earnings will tell you that you don’t need a stats tool at all?! No one, unless that blogger is too greedy. Sitemeter is one of the simplest and yet effective stats reporting tools around. Other traffic analysis toys for demographics checking are Google Analytics, MyBlogLog, and StatCounter. If you’d like to check out more of these addictive web apps, Hongkiat has a list of ‘em free web statistics tools.
Most Important Blog Buttons and Graphs 
If you are trying to make money from getting direct sponsors for your blog, placing a pagerank button and an Alexa Traffic Graph may prove to be viable steps to improve your chances as a publisher. However, you have to make sure they’re already showing something to be proud of before using them on your blog. There’s not much practicality in displaying a blank Alexa graph or a pagerank button that’s showing a PR 0, right? What do you think is one button that your blog should never go without? It’s that orange chicklet… with white graphics inside… You guessed it right! The RSS button or RSS chicklet button. It makes it way easier for your new readers to subscribe to your blog if you have it somewhere really visible such as the upper fold. Now if you’re just starting with your blog, that orange chicklet will do. But if you already have hundreds or even thousands of blog readers like CoppyBlogger’s Brian Clarke (here’s how he makes that happen), you can use FeedBurner’s RSS feedcounter graphic in stead to show that you’re doing something good that’s keeping those readers subscribed.
Images for Making Your Blog Content Pop Out
It’s not only fun to use images, they help in making readers fall in love with your blog, too. If you don’t have Photoshop, there are online image editing tools such as Fauxto that let you customize images online.
Now if you don’t have much Photoshop skills, Image Chef Custom Images allows you to choose from a wide variety of image categories including animated, fun, friendship, license plates, signs and work. How exactly can this blog bling help you make money online? Remember that a picture paints a thousand words and if you have a cool-looking picture that you, yourself have customized, then, it may bring some more readers’ attention to your blog, right? I know how much an image can pull eyeballs to content because I, myself, has a thing for cool images. They simply bring more fun if you have extra lengthy blog posts. Just don’t forget to use a little bit of SEO on your customized images, too. Â
Personal blogs are notorious for having too much bells and whistles of blog accessories that are bordering the annoying point. But the goodness of blogging, although you’re doing paid blogging, is about the blogger’s personality shining through and if you are a blog-accessories person, then be it. It often helps in making your blog more sticky to those who can relate or get attracted to your blogging voice. Again, just don’t overdo it.
If you know any other blog accessories that gets the money a-flowing in any way, kindly spill the beans about them here. C’mon..

(http://www.floodofdollars.com)

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Glorious gadolinium gives flash memory

A conventional flash drive

College Park, MD (August 24, 2010) -- Future flash memory could be faster and store more data without changing its basic design by using a clever nanocrystal material proposed by researchers at Taiwan's Chang Gung University, who describe a new logical element made with the rare earth material gadolinium in the journal APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, which is published by the American Institute of Physics.

It's well known in the semiconductor industry that conventional flash memory -- an essential element of mobile electronics today -- cannot improve much more because continued shrinking of its floating gate structure in the pursuit of faster performance and higher data storage capacity will soon degrade its ability to retain its memory. The situation has stimulated a wide range of research worldwide into dozens of alternative memory designs, but most attractive to industry would be one that requires the least modification to the existing floating-gate design.

A research group headed by Chao-Sung Lai at Chang Gung University in Taoyuan, Taiwan, has done just that. They have demonstrated that a cleverly modified floating gate made of gadolinium oxide -- an inexpensive rare-earth compound already used in other microelectronic applications -- has the write/erase speed and data retention properties that will enable smaller, faster and higher-capacity flash memories in the future.

"The low-voltage and low-power operation of this memory should make it particularly attractive for future smartphones and other telecommunications applications," said Dr. Lai.

The Chang Gung scientists made two key insights that enabled their success. Last year, they realized that taken together, crystallized and amorphous gadolinium oxide had electrical properties that were close to those needed for future floating-gate flash memories. After creating gadolinium oxide nanocrystals within a matrix of its amorphous form, they then exposed it to a fluorine-containing plasma, which boosted the materials' properties to the desired level. Since all of the materials and processes they used are well-known in the semiconductor industry, Dr. Lai is optimistic that this design will ultimately be commercially successful.

 

(http://www.technology-blog.com)_

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3-D movies via Internet and satellite

Blockbusters like Avatar, UP or Toy Story 3 will bring the 3-D into home living rooms, televisions and computers. There are already displays available and the new Blu-Ray players can already play 3-dimensional movies based on MVC. The first soccer games were recorded stereoscopically at the Football World Championships in South Africa. What is missing is an efficient form of transmission.

The problem is the data rate mandatory by the movies in spite of fast Internet and sat-ellite links. 3-D movies have higher data rate requirements than 2-dimensional movies since at least two images are needed for the spatial representation. This means that a 3-D screen has to show two images one for the left and one for the right eye.

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI in Berlin, Gera number of have already come up with a compression technique for movies in especially HD quality that squeezes movies while maintaining the quality: the H.264/AVC video format. What H.264/AVC is for HD movies, Multiview Video Coding (MVC) is for 3-D movies. The benefit is reducing the data rate used on the transmission channel while maintaining the same high-definition quality.

Videos on the Internet have to load quickly so that the viewer can watch the movies without interruptions. Thomas Schierl is a scientist at the HHI in Berlin and he explains that MVC packs the two images needed for the stereoscopic 3-D effect so that the bit rate of the movies is significantly reduced. These 3-D movies are up to 40 percent smaller. Thomas Schierl and colleagues are working to establish the MVC codec for television transmission over satellites or the Internet. New TV sets will start off by only playing 3-D movies from the Blu-Ray disc that is now coming into the third dimension. The next step to bring 3-D into living rooms will be made possible via broadcast or IPTV channels running via DSL or cable.

You will be able to experience 3-dimensional movies in your living room in future.

without any 3-D glasses because the MVC format has the technical features to code and compress several views. After all, everybody enjoying the movie with you on the sofa has a different viewing angle. That is why they need a separate view their own 3-D movie for his or her individual seat. MVC compresses all of these views into one compact file or stream and one receiver, one set-top box decodes this information and passes it on to the television.

It will also be possible to play the MVC-coded movies on older televisions and set-top boxes and Thomas Schierl tells us how: The first view corresponds to the signal that the existing television can receive and we would hide the second view in the same stream so that only the new receivers can use it. They are invisible to older tele-visions. That is particularly interesting to movie lenders and television stations because they do not have to worry about compatibility. And even mobile radio and mobile phone manufacturers can join the trend towards 3-D with the MVC standard. In the meantime, there are even displays the size of a mobile phone that allow a good 3-D impression.

The experts from the HHI show how the MVC-Codec functions transmitting television via DVB-S2 satellite from September 10-14, 2010 at the IBC in Amsterdam (Hall 8, Stand C81). 

 

(http://www.technology-blog.com)

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Posted in: tech news

Powergorilla: portable charger

I have been testing a Powergorilla portable charger for a few weeks now, mainly as a phone charger for extended trips rather than a laptop charger, and one thing sticks out –  this is not your average power block. The massive 21000mAh capacity battery pack for standard 5V USB devices is absolutely superb, and means you can keep all your gadgets charged on the move, without having to worry about finding one of the majors power socket at all.

I’ve successfully used it to keep my phone charged for 10 days with no hassle. The array of connectors is impressive, as is the flexibility of the power output options, from 5V up to 24V for heavy devices such as laptops or video cameras. It’s kind of like carrying around your own powerstation in a bag. It’s not lightweight at 700g, but worth the lug if you’re always finding yourself out of power when it counts.



The company also promotes the Solargorilla solar charger as an optional accessory to keep the Powergorilla charged up in the field, but when I tried I found the output of the solar unit so weak (it took an hour to add 10% juice to my phone) that I gave up almost instantly. I guess you need to be in Africa to get the most out of it, and really if you’re serious about solar you’ll need to carry around one of those hefty suitcase products to get the job done.

However, the powergorilla unit really shines as a power source on the run, and for £150.00 it’s not too heavy on the wallet. It’ll deliver around 2 to 3 hours of power for your laptop and the blurb says 20 hours for your phone from one recharge of the unit, which could be a lifesaver in extreme emergency.

 Then simply hook up your gadget and away you go! You can even daisy-chain, so whilst the powergorilla is charging your laptop, you can charge the powergorilla from the mains power supply. Or you can charge your laptop and your mobile phone simultaneously! One-touch button technology means the powergorilla charger for laptops is easy to use and its sleek, aluminium casing with shock resistant rubber protection strips makes it totally robust. 

(http://www.technology-blog.com)

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Advance could change modern electronics

CORVALLIS, Ore. Scientists at Oregon State University have solved a quest in fundamental material science that has eluded researchers since the 1960s, and could form the basis of a new approach to electronics.

The discovery, just reported online in the professional journal Advanced Materials, outlines the creation for the first time of a high-performance "metal-insulator-metal" diode.

"Scientists have been trying to do this for decades, until now without success," said Douglas Keszler, a distinguished professor of chemistry at OSU and one of the nation's leading material science researchers. "Diodes made previously with other approaches always had poor yield and performance.

"This is a fundamental change in the way you could produce electronic products, at high speed on a huge scale at very low cost, even less than with conventional methods," Keszler said. "It's a basic way to eliminate the current speed limitations of electrons that have to move through materials".

A patent has been applied for on the new technology, university officials say. New companies, industries and high-tech jobs may ultimately emerge from this advance, they say.

The research was done in the Center for Green Materials Chemistry, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Laboratory and the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute.

Conventional electronics made with silicon-based materials work with transistors that help control the flow of electrons. Eventhough fast and comparatively inexpensive, this approach is still limited by the speed with which electrons can move through these materials. And with the advent of ever-faster computers and more sophisticated products such as liquid crystal displays, current technologies are nearing the limit of what they can do, experts say.

By contrast, a metal-insulator-metal, or MIM diode can be used to perform some of the same functions, but in a fundamentally different way. In this system, the device is like a sandwich, with the insulator in the middle and two layers of metal above and below it. In order to function, the electron doesn't so much move through the materials as it "tunnels" through the insulator almost instantaneously appearing on the other side.

"When they first started to develop more sophisticated materials for the display industry, they knew this type of MIM diode was what they needed, but they couldn't make it work," Keszler said. "Now we can, and it could probably be used with a range of metals that are inexpensive and easily available, like copper, nickel or aluminum. It's also much simpler, less costly and easier to fabricate".

The findings were made by scientists in the OSU Department of Chemistry; School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering.

In the newly released study, the OSU researchers and engineers describe use of an "amorphous metal contact" as a technology that solves problems that previously plagued MIM diodes. The OSU diodes were made at relatively low temperatures with techniques that would lend themselves to manufacture of devices on a variety of substrates over large areas.

OSU scientists have been leaders in many important material science advances in recent years, including the field of transparent electronics. University researchers will do some initial work with the new technology in electronic displays, but a number of applications are possible, they say.

High speed computers and electronics that don't depend on transistors are possibilities. Also on the horizon are "energy harvesting" technologies such as the nighttime capture of re-radiated solar energy, a way to produce energy from the Earth as it cools during the night.

"For a long time, everyone has wanted something that takes us beyond silicon," Keszler said. "This could be a way to simply print electronics on a huge size scale even less expensively than we can now. And when the products begin to emerge the increase in speed of operation could be enormous". 

(http://www.technology-blog.com)

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Posted in: tech news

Deals on Electronics, Watches, Family Products

New York (12/10/2010)-For perpetual bargain hunters and other shoppers looking to get a great deal on the latest electronics, brand name watches, wireless accessories, jewelry and more, 1SaleaDay.com is the lowest-priced deal-of-the-day website offering unheard-of exclusive deals on just a single item and only for 24 hours. To keep customers coming back for more, 1SaleaDay.com even offers surprise free products once or twice a week.

As the largest independently-owned daily deal site in the world, 1SaleaDay.com leverages its tremendous buying power with major brands and retailers plus a dedicated team of competitive price-comparison experts to offer outrageous deals to more than 350,000 daily site visitors, like a Magellan Roadmate GPS, HD camcorder or 12 MP digital camera-all of which recently sold for just $39.99.

How 1SaleaDay.com offer such amazing prices? Rather than spend precious dollars on marketing to attract new customers, 1SaleaDay focuses on giving deep savings to customers, who then pass the word on about the great deals they've discovered at the site.

"Thousands of customers make 1SaleaDay.com their first web stop of the day to see what's hot and get the best deal on the products they want at a price anyone can afford," said Ben Federman CEO of 1SaleaDay.com. "Collectors, gadget geeks and even parents and grandparents check us out first to get the best deals anywhere on the web on gifts for their kids or grandkids - or even for themselves."

With a new deal posted everyday at midnight EST in each of five categories-Deal of the Day, Wireless, Watch, Family and Jewelry-1SaleaDay entices shoppers who stop by every day to check out the deal, offering items like a TomTom GPS device, luxury watches, a waterproof MP3 player with earphones, black freshwater cultured pearls, and even kid's games, accessories and home decor.

Once in a while, 1SaleaDay clears out its inventory with the Chunk o'Junk Deal featuring a box full of items randomly selected from past deals, such as laptops, MP3 players, USB adapters, GPS units, cables, accessories and cell phones - a $200 value - sold for just $5 plus $5 shipping. Chunk o'Junk deals are limited to the first 1,000 customers and are usually gone in just a few hours.

"Customers often tell us that they love shopping at 1SaleaDay not only for the great deals, but also for the fun, creative and catchy descriptions for the products," Federman said. "We don't just tell them about the product-we tell them how they can use it to get the most out of their purchase."

Most items ship the day after ordering and typically arrive in 3-5 business days via UPS or USPS. Products offered on 1SaleaDay.com are almost always new, in original packaging, with occasional deals on refurbished or wholesale packaged items for even greater savings. The site is accredited by the Better Business Bureau, and authenticated secure by Comodo, Authorize.net, McAfee and PayPal.

To find out about today's Deal of the Day, visit www.1SaleaDay.com. And, stop back tomorrow for a different deal-there's a new one posted every day.

About 1SaleaDay.com
1SaleaDay.com offers the deepest discounts on a variety of merchandise with a new deal posted every day at 12 midnight EDT. With Deals of the Day in five categories, including Wireless, Watch, Family and Jewelry, 1SaleaDay leverages its global buying power to offer discounts up to 90% off retail prices for electronics, collectibles, housewares, toys and more. Headquartered in New York, NY, 1SaleaDay.com is part of a family of discount retailers that includes Ben's Outlet, Dynamite Time and Glasses Unlimited. For more information, visit, 

www.1SaleaDay.com.

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Posted in: technology