speed is the name of the game as browsers try to outdo one another in rendering web pages faster, and developers of the latest version of firefox claim that they have improved significatntly on that front.
version 3.5 of Firefox , with several other enhancements, has been available for free download
from june 30, and has attracted attention in cyperspace. it comes a year after the release of Firefox 3 in june 2008 the newest version of Firefox is more than twice as fast as Firefox 2 on complex websites said mozilla, the public benefit organisation that spearheads the development of the open source brower.
Making money from your blog involves quite a few things: a willingness to work harden entrepreneurial / businesslike approach knowledge of / willingness to learn relevant web technologies monetising strategy consistently implementing the strategy all these ingredients are crucial to turning your blog from a non-paying though passionate source of personal expression to a solid revenue stream.
To motivate you in this direction you can consider the fact that may bloggers earn upwards of $100 per day and some even cross the $1000 per day mark. Moreover, these figures have been achieved with little or no startup costs other than the time spent in writing and maintaining their blogs. Just as importantly. Also consider the fact that for every successful blogger. 99 others are not.in this chapter, we look at both the 'soft' skills required as well as the techniques that you can use to extract revenue from your blog.
The basics
Some of the concepts in this section are covered in greater depth in other chapters. It is being included here again as these techniques and attitudes are crucial in creating and maintaining a successful blog. Only if your blog is a success that is with hundreds and thousands of daily visitors can you then focus on deriving money from it.
Attitude, commitment and consistency
Before we look at the different revenue streams that are possible with blogging. the first thing to sort out is your mental attitude. Blogging for money, like any other entrepreneurial activity, is hard work. it is in fact, the single hardest thing that your will have to face if you are serious in transitioning front a passionate blogger to a professional one. this does not mean that you leave your passion behind. The only difference being that now your passion is now going to be a source of income also.
The key factor that separates successful bloggers from the unsuccessful ones is commitment. of course, success can be defined in many different way but for the purposes of this chapter we consider a successful blog as one that has hundreds of thousands of daily visitors. a blogger who is successful with his blog has primarily committed himself to being passionate about his interest and providing visitors with relevant information. note that at this stage revenue is not an issue. Transitioning from just sharing your passion on a subject to actually making money from your passion may sound simple but in actual practice, there are complications.
When you are passionate about blogging, you may find that you have ambivalent feelings about earning money from your blog. if you believe that using your passion to earn money is wrong then youfirst need to decide whether you do want to use your blog to earn a living or not. Once you commit yourself though the sky literally is the limit.
Commitment not only involves a desire and willingness to be a professional blogger. it also means being consistent with your postings. A blog is a service, albeit, in many cases a free one but nevertheless it serves an audience. In one sense you could consider your site visitors as customers who pay you by visiting your site. The means that you have to be consistent in your postings to attract an audience.
Once you begin posting regularly you will attract an audience of readers who will form the initial base. This trickle of readers will continue to evolve and grow and many will come to your blog expecting fresh content one each visit. This expectation of your audience you can control to some extent by deciding how often you are going to post. Remember that it is difficult to scale back from posting several times a day to once a day to several times a week without having an impact on your readership.
A better approach would be to start slow and increase the frequency, as you get comfortable with balancing blogging with the rest of your daily schedule. Give yourself sufficient time and be realistic about how often you can post. If you can initially post once a week, make sure you stick to the once a week schedule until you are comfortable with it and are ready to increase the posting frequency. Remember that your visitors will come to expect your posts according to the pace you set. a once a week post will attract a once a week audience and so on.
Another technique is to set goals for yourself. Take the time to write down a monetization strategy and commit yourself to certain time bound goals on what you would like to achieve in that time. For example, you may decide that you want to be in the technorati top 10000 in six months. Once you define specific goals you can then focus your energies in working in that direction.
Once again, we would like to stress that getting your blog to be successful requires hard work and serious commitment on the blog author's part to continually keep the content of the blog fresh and updated.
Quality of content
Quality is a very subjective term. The primary mark of a quality blog is the content. This has less to do with the language and more to do with the subject matter under discussion. Most web visitors will be forgiving of occasional grammatical and spelling errors if the content is high quality and is not directly relevant to the site's topic. Example, if you are writing about jet engines, the emphasis will be on the technical details and accuracy of what you state language will not be so important. if however your blog is about writing or language then obviously, you definitely need to pay attention to the quality of the language as well as the content.
The balance between gaining the respect of your readers through what you write and the importance of keeping your language error free is a fine line that is always not very clear. This primarily depends on the topic and the demographics of the audience. Fortunately, in most cases you will receive sufficient warnings from your readers on what you are doing wrong. Pay attention to negative remarks. Judge for yourself whether it is an exaggerated personal viewpoint and can be safely ignored or whether the it is genuinely warranted. If the criticism is constructive, accept it in good grace and go about making the necessary changes, genuine blogs are built on the ability of the writers to express themselves honestly and passionately, as well as on their ability to accept constructive criticism graciously and take corrective measures.
If you feel that your writing is not up to the mark and could do with some improvement, blogging is one way to practice. Also there are plenty of writing resources available on the web to help your improve your writing skills. Aim to be clear in your language and avoid using ling sentences. Group thoughts into paragraphs and use the minimum number of words to express the maximum. Avoid repetition unless the context warrants it.
The focus on creating relevant content is to make your website more search engine friendly. There is a whole industry around the concept of optimizing your web site for search engines. the general industry term for this activity is search engine optimization or SEO.
There is good SEO and bad SEO, sometimes called white hat and black hat SEO. Good SEO techniques follow guidelines laid down by search engines in making their sites search engine friendly. For those who are serious about turning blogging into a long term income source there is only type of SEO to pay attention to good SEO.
There are unethical SEO methods that may temporarily boost a blog's search engine ranking but ultimately, this could prove disastrous. if the search engines determine that what you are doing is not permitted and is only designed to boost rankings without any relevant content, they can penalize and black list your site. Unfortunately, search engines do not give a clear set of guidelines on what is permitted and what is not. this is because those who try to artistically boost their rankings that the search engines use to detect good content from bad content.
Invariably those who use black hat SEO are not bothered about providing quality content on their site. Their primary interest is in luring visitors to their websites and getting them to click on advertising links. Luckily, for those who are interested in building a good quality blog with a lot of useful content, there is only one SEO guideline to keep in mind create good, high quality, useful content. search engines will in any case index your site and provide links to your site when relevant search queries are entered.
Deciding on the topic
If you are new to blogging or are still floundering about for a topic to blog with, remember that your topic should be something that you are passionate about, are an expert in or something that you are interested in enough to want to deeply research and write about. Your visitors, in all likelihood, will be research and write about. Your visitors, in all likelihood, will be just as interested as you are in the topic and your blog may become their default source of information on the subject. Also try and keep the topic as broad as possible to give you a wide choice of advertisers and the possibility of having a near limitless supply of content to create. With a very narrow topic it may be difficult to continually, find new and fresh content to blog on daily.
The topic you decide on will also determine your ability to turn it into a revenue source, given that there are about 1 billion people connected to the internet as of now, the chances are that almost any topic will have an audience of interested enthusiasts.
However, for a blog to make money there will need to be a minimum number of regular visitors that can then be translated into revenue. There is no fixed benchmark to determine the ideal number of regular visitors. For a niche up market topic, it may be sufficient if you are passionate about sailing and wish to create a steady income. On the other hand, if you are blogging on a wider interest topic like say, celebrities, you may need an audience in the tens of thousands before you can consider monetising your blog.
Building traffic
The single most important thing that will separate your blog from the rest of the crowd can be reduced to a single word: traffic. if your blog does not have visitors, there is very little you can do to monetise it. Income from your blog is a function of traffic that is, the move the traffic, the more the potential income you can generate. if you are able to consistently increase the number of visitors to your blog your income will grow proportionately. This is a self-stoking cycle. The more visitors you have to your blog, the more you will attract
All of the techniques discussed in this fast track contribute to building traffic. However, all these are secondary to the primary point of importance: high quality, focused content.
Building a blog with high quality content is the only sure fire way to ensure that you attract traffic that will consistently grow. High quality content is something that will engage your users and want them to revisit your site again and again. this means that you will need to take the time and effort to think through each of your postings and to set high standards for yourself.
in the beginning, when you start out, the focus can be less on quality and more on just making sure that you meet your posting schedule. This is because for most bloggers the main problem is not about delivering quality content but the commitment to maintaining a consistent schedule. once you get comfortable in your posting schedule you can then pay closer to attention to maintaining and enhancing the quality of your content.
by paying attention to the quality of your blog posts and keeping focused on your topic area, you are doing two things you are consciously or involuntarily educating yourself in the subject area. This will make you something of an expert in your area of interest. Second, you are positioning yourself as a trustworthy source of information on that particular topic. These two factors will act as the reinforcing glue that will keep attracting visitors back to your site.
For the first few months forget about traffic and concentrate on building traffic. Be thankful if you receive any comments positive, negative or indifferent on your blog. If people are staying long enough to read your blog post and comment on it. then you're doing something right.
Hook in a free program like google analytics
http://google.com/analytics. to keep track of traffic growth and to understand how your visitors are reaching your site where they come from, how often they come new and returning visitors, what search terms they use to find your site and what are the most popular posts they visit.
Once you get an idea of your visitor patterns, you can then go about trying to improve on this by creating more content with reference to the same thing, for example if your most popular post was about a vacation in an exotic location, you may want to do a follow up story about the same place. You could also sell advertising space to tour companies in that area. However, this decision should be consistent with your monetization strategy and your blog theme. if for example, if your blog theme is about digital photography and the vacation post is primarily to illustrate the techniques you used to in taking those awesome shots then another post on the subject of vacations maybe inappropriate.
You should also be willing to spend some time marketing your blog. Those approaches are more fully covered in chapter five. Only consider paid advertisement if you have a serious plan in monetising your web site. However, the most basic technique, which is free except for the time you spend, is to visit other blogs of interest and get involved in the comments section there. Most comments sections provide a field to leave your website address. Participants in the comments section who like what you say may follow back through your link for more information about your blog.
do not, unless the conversation warrants it blindly post links back to your blog. This is considered as bad etiquette and many blog owners will remove such links. This is what is known as comment Spam. For example, if a blog is discussing politics, do not drop into the comments section and say something like please visit my ice cream blog at xyz.com. Keep the comments meaningful and only point to content on your site if you feel that your post on the subject will better illustrate this.
When you find a blog post that you particularly like and wish to write a post on it yourself, make it a point to leave a track back link on the author's original post. a track back provides a convenient method to leave links to your blog on other blogs with similar content. Similarly, visitors who refer to a post on your blog can leave track back links on your site. Track backs and links from other web sites help in improving search engines. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it , the only way to get quality track backs and links to your blog goes back to the cardinal traffic building rule provide quality content.
Where there's a will, there's a way to make money and google is all but handing it to you on a big silver platter. Everyone knows google makes tons and tons of money, and with ad sense, it looks like google's opening the doors to the safe and sharing. of course they're not they're just making more money themselves but like any good Samaritan, are giving you your share as well. so if you're a popular blogger, or own a web page that gets a lot of hits, here's your payoff.
Free money -how?
How does a channel like sun network make money?
how does a news paper like dinakaran or the Hindu make money?
Just in case you didn't already know, the answer is ads. Advertisers pay the channel or the newspaper to have their ads broadcast or prints, as the case may be. The growth of the web meant that it, too, became a profitable media channel. This resulted in the advertisers who previously had their ads on TV or on radio begin to advertise on the web as well. Now here's where a company like google comes in google's Got a bunch of advertisers dying to advertise on anything that google touches because as we know, anything that google does on the web usually turns to gold. Since ad words already takes up the advertising place on google's search pages, the only place to go is all the blogs and sites that google hosts, that is , google gives out ad space on blogger sites and blogs that it has. this was the case for a while ,until a few months ago these days, ad sense is not restricted to just google sites, any website can host "ads by google"
How does this work? it involves an application and review procedure :basically, what google does it. it gives all the advertisers who want online space to advertise their stuff the opportunity to do so. and in return for the advertising space on your blog or web page, it gives you the chance to make money.
Now, advertising on the web is a hit dirrernt from advertising in a print publication you don't get money for just placing the ad on your site.
Here’s where the money is essentially there are two ways in which you can get money using ad sense, the first is pay per click (ppc) via this method. you get paid every time someone clicks on an ad on your web page or blog. the second method is pay per thousand impression (ppm) via this method, you get paid a certain amount for every thousand unique page views your web page gets, google has algorithms and formulas that determine what kind of ad PPC AND PPM will get you the highest returns.
Getting cracking
Here’s step by step guide
1. Go to www.google.com 2. click on the link that says " advertising programs" 3. Take the ad sense tour 4. Click on click here to apply 5. Fill in the form 6. Wait two or three days while google reviews and approves your request. 7. log in to your ad sense account. 8. Click on the ad sense for content tab. there is also the option of ad sense for search, which follows the same procedure. 9. Click on the ad colors tab and select the layout for the ads. 10. Copy and paste the HTML code from the Ad Layout Code tab into your website's temple. 11. Voila, ads on your website
or
1. Go to http://google.com/adsense 2. Click on the link that says sign up now 3. Fill in the form 4. Wait two or three days while google reviews and approves your request. 5. Log in to your ad sense account. 6. Click on the ad sense for content tab. there is also the option of adsense for search, which follows the same procedure. 7. Click on the ad colors tab and select the layout for the ads. 8. Copy and paste the HTML code from the Ad Layout Code tab into your website's temple. 9. Voila, ads on your website
It really is that simple
Ad sense gives you two ways to make money one is using ad sense for content and the other is using ad sense for search
Ad sense for blogger
Blogger has very simple integrated ad sense into blogs hosted on blogspot. Here’s an easy guide to configure ad sense on blogger.
1. Sign in to your blogger account 2. On your blog's dashboard, click change setting. 3. Click on the template tab and hit the ad sense button 4. The rest is pretty much right there for you to see and of select the "ad format" that you prefer, that is, the ad size on your blog, and then select the colors you'd like the ads to have 5. Click save
So can i keep making money?
Simply put, yes you can keep making money as long as people are clicking the ads on your page. The site freeweblayouts.net that gives people my space templates makes about $100000 a month via ad sense clicks so does that mean you can click on your own ads and it'll count?
Really now, is that even a question to ask? The obvious answer is no. There are tones of people who are caught by the law for click fraud. Essentially, these people, either themselves, or via automated programs, simulate browser clicks on ads. Obviously, for an advertiser, these clicks are useless as they don't result in conversion, and google cracks down on the fraudulent parties. Google themselves give a disclaimer that you can't do, that if done will lead to blacklisting. For example, you can't mention any incentives on your site for clicking on the ads. You can't put ads on sites with pornographic content either.
There have been a lot of controversies about google and its banning policies, with lots of sites being blacklisted from ad sense for seemingly no reason whatsoever, and others getting away scoot free.
Payments
so how much can you make with ad sense? well, basically, the amount you make is entirely dependant on how many people visit your site: the more the visitors, the greater the chance that they will see the ads and , therefore, click them. there are reports of cyber cafe owners in tamilnadu -Salem making $1500 a month. High value keyword obviously pay a higher amount per click, but that also means that the content you serve has to be related to those keywords. For example, finance related ad sense ads usually pay more than say cricket related ads. However, some ads can pay really low as well. the thumb rule remains, though, that the more the number of visitors to your site, the more money you can make.
as we mentioned before however, there are certain aberrations to the rosy picture, and cases have been reported of people's accounts being blacklisted for no fathomable reason. However, if you're clean, and of course, popular, you can be assured of some extra monthly pocket money!
Online advertising commands less than a twentieth of the total ad spending revenue worldwide. in the us, online advertisements generated revenue of $15.6 billion of $263 billion. According to the NY post. With online ad spending growing at a rate of 25 to 30 percent and advertisers shifting ad spending from other media to online advertising is set to grow at a tremendous pace. Ford motors. For example, dropped its budget for print media ads from 23.5 to 21 percent, and increased online ad spending from 3 to 3.5 percent for the year 2006-2007.
Enter google
net giants like google and yahoo. Whose brand name and brand recall is the highest, needless to say, get the lion's share of online ad spending? In 2006, google was expected to get nearly a quarter of the online advertising share in the US, while yahoo. Was expected to grab about 20.7 percent of the chunk.
So what makes advertising on google advantageous when yahoo is the most popular website. With 400 million monthly users? The simple answer is that google commands 50 percent of search hit the world over. With yahoo and msn sliding down to 23.4 and 9.2 per cent respectively for 2006.
Context based advertising on search engines allows companies of all sixes to reach their target audiences. a small company that wants to advertise in a newspaper would have to shell out thousands of rupees for a small ad, which may or may not be looked at by potential customers.
Whereas in context-based advertising. You only pay if the customer, making the money, shows interest spent more worthwhile. Ads are positioned on the sponsored links according to the cost per click set by the adveriser, and also by the number of times users clicked the ad. the position of an ad could go from second or third to first position for a particular keyword.
Let’s take an example to see why online advertising is advantageous. Suppose you have a computer accessories shop in mumbai and want to place an ad. for a size of 2 by 3 inches in the middle pages of a newspaper, it will cost you about Rs.4000 with a leading one, and most of the time, it will be ignored by the reader.similarly,a 10-second slot on a leading TV channel will cost the advertiser Rs.1,80,000.and a 10-second slot will not allow brand recall unless it is shown many times over!
TV also isn’t suitable if your businesses catering to only one city. if you advertise using google's adwords,you can set the budget you think is appropriate, and set the cost per click and also target a region. Since you own a computer accessories shop, keywords relating to your business would be "monitor',"keyboard","mouse", etc.when a net user types in one of these keywords, your ad is shown in the sponsored links column of the search results, and the position of your ad will be according to the cost per click you had set. if your cost per click is lower that of your competitors, the placement of your as will be lower.but,if the number of clicks to your ad is more, the placement of the ad will rise-irrespective of the cost per click!
All said and done, it is obvious that other media cannot be ignored. When a new product is introduced on media such an s TV or radio, it creates an interest in the consumer-which cannot be done online. The reach of TV, radio and newspaper is also far greater than online. at least in countries such as India. Products like beds, food, cars and so on on cannot be sold online. Online advertising can only be good for certain goods and services.
What is ad words ?
Ad words are a trademarked name for google's online keyword based advertisement system. Ad words also refer to the keywords taken by the advertiser for the campaign. Taking the above example, the keywords monitor, keyboard, and mouse are called the ad words. When a google user searches on google by typing in these keywords -which you as the advertiser have chosen the ad appears on the right-hand side of the results page, alongside the generic web search results on the left. The placement of the ad depends upon the cost per click and also according to the relevance of the keyword to your ad, as explained before. Ebay, for example, has purchased hundreds of fast moving consumer keywords such as mobile, phone, laptop, pod and so on. So that when a potential user types in these keywords, he sees ebay.in the sponsored links. Since ebay also has set a higher price for many of the keywords it has purchased, ebay ads are displayed first in the sponsored ads section.
Remember that even if your site is listed in the organic links section. There is no guarantee that it will be listed in the first few search results. The web link could be in one of the gazillions of pages of the search results.
Sponsored links have the name of the ad as the title followed with a very brief synopsis of the sponsored site. The advertiser sets the title and synopsis of the ad. This is followed with the address to the web site, which, again is set by the advertiser.
Building ad words There are two ways to sign up for ad words, depending on the type of advertising campaign you are planning.
The starter edition is for advertisers who have a single product or service. This edition is targeted to those new to ad words, and in general to the solo segment. Starter edition offers an easy-to understand interface with a simplified sign-up process to advertise single product of business. an advertiser can choose one or many keywords relating to his ad. Basic reporting like the number of clicks that was registered for the ad, the number of ads that were displayed for that keywords and the cost incurred due to clicks to advertisers advertisement are shown on this editing. One can also target ads to a city, country, or even by language in this edition.
This edition also has templates that assist one in building the ad, by asking a few simple questions. step-by-step procedures allow the advertiser to get tips on what keywords should be selected.
You fix your monthly budget and pay google in your local currency. The more you spend for the keyword; the ad will be displayed more often with higher ad positioning when the keyword is typed into the search engine. This is a bidding process” ads of the highest quoted keywords are displayed more often. With higher ad positioning.
Ad words standard edition has all the features of starter edition with a lot more tools. Here, ads can be targeted to multiple regions at once. Whereas in the starter edition. it is only for one region or one language.
Ad words standard edition has all the features of starter edition with a lot more tools. Here, ads can be targeted to multiple regions at once, whereas in the starter edition. It is only for one region or one language.
When it comes to the pricing of keywords, you have more options than with that of starter edition. Here, you have options of setting the price for each keyword, giving you, the advertiser, more control of how the ad money is spent, and proper strategizing of the ad. For example, for the keywords we mentioned, you could select keyword to be at a higher price per clicking then the rest, thus having the ad displayed more often for keyboard.
The content that goes as the brief description for the ad can also be bid for in this edition, where the highest bidder for keywords can displays a certain set of words relating to the ad.
The placement of the ads-such as second position, also called position preference, can be done with the standard edition.
Ad words standard edition allows you to have multiple products with multiple ad campaigns; with each campaign having many keywords-and each one of these campaigns can run simultaneously.
For example, tata, ad versified company, has multiple products and each product has multiple ads for different regions. The configuration for each a scenario can be done ate the second page.
Extensive report of impressions
Number of times users clicked on your ads
Statistics of impressions and click rates
Billing of yours ads, and custom reports like the region where the most number of clicks were generated, and the time of the clicks most number of clicks were generated, and the time of the clicks graogucak representation of the traffic of certain keyword. it gives you the estimate as to when a particular keyword search was more, like the time of a month or a month of a year.
Keyword tips so as to make the ad pop up more often
An option to get the statistics of keywords, so that you can understand which keyword was used more often in the set of keywords that you chose-allowing you to strategies and plan keywords more effectively. Hints on relevant sites where ads can be placed through ad sense so as to increase traffic to your site.
1. Go to www.gmail.com 2. Click on the link that says, " Create an account"
CREATE THE BLOGGER
Introduction
blogging short for web logging, is the term used for something as simple as maintaining a diary or journal online. For those not in the habit of maintaining a dairy, a blog is a place to jot down thoughts. It can be record of events that can make an interesting read a few years down the line it can be something as mundane as a daily work schedule, or ti can be something at interesting as a daily record of a journey through space.
a blog can be personal a single Peron’s notes or communal. Where a group of individuals contribute, like members of an organisation. Blogs can offer a glimpse into the life of a person, they can be informative, they can be the ramblings of a like-minded soul. in fact, they can be a lot of things, and there are as many reasons to read blogs as there are to maintain one. Given the ease with which a blog can be created online there are free tools to create and host them it is easy to understand the popularity they have attained. Blogger is google’s response to the popular need to blog. while blogger is the tool used to create blogs, the blogs themselves are hosted at blogspot. Comb logger is the result of google's acquisition of pyre labs, the creators of blogger a web logging tool, and blogspot a web log host.
The blogs hosts offer the basic tools needed to maintain a dairy or journal: you need not worry about learning to code. The user interfaces are intuitive, and anyone can master the basics with ease. Adding images and links to other pages are all easily accomplished putting up the page online, also called publishing in most cases just involves a mouse click, previous blog entries are archived for easy access.
While maintaining a blog is similar to maintaining a website people these days tend to prefer blogging sites because of the simplicity. The toughest part of maintaining a diary, of course, is finding something interesting to record. Using blogger
Creating a blog
Blogger can be accessed at www.blogger.com you need to sign up to be able to create a blog. you can sign in to blogger using your gmail.ID. Alternatively, you can also create a distinct blogger ID.
like any web page, your blog will have a URL the address by which other will access it. thanks to the popularity of blogger.com. the chances of finding your preferred blog url are slim for example. if your name is an common as kumar, forget about kumar.blogspot.com in fact, even forget about kumar1.blogspot.com so once you have compromised on a URL of your choice, you are presented with a clutch of page styles to choose from. the styles differ in the font, color, and layout, and there is a preview of each. After you have finalized the page style, you can ask google to go ahead and create the blog. Creating the blog is nothing but publishing a web page online.
The page,with the style you choose,could have been manually coded using HTML and scripts. fortunately, all the necessary functions are carried out in the background, leaving your to twiddle your thumbs as the process is gone through. simplicity, like we said, is the buzzword. once the blog is published , it can be accessed at the URL you chose and you can start posting to it.
Adding content
Adding content to your blog is accomplished through the online text editor at blogger.com.this editor allows for modifying of the font, font size and colour, applying bolding and italicization, setting paragraph alignment, adding numbers and bullets, and spell checking all at the press of a button. Adding images and links to other pages are also accomplished through the editor. You can also use the familiar shortcut keys to accomplish routine tasks like applying italics ands so on. This feature is common to all google service. Once your post is ready, it needs to be "published" so it becomes available online. You can preview your post before publishing it. Also, the content can be saved as a draft and published later.
Navigating the dashboard
Every time you log into your blogger account, after the first time. You are presented with what is called the dashboard. this is an area where you can see the blogs you already have ,add blogs settings, and add post to a blog.
blogging by email.
RSS {really simple syndication / rich site summary] is a system by which websites can inform their readers when the site is updated through this system a site can create a small file, called a feed, containing information about the updated content. Readers can use feed readers to subscribe to the RSS system of the web site. Feed readers to subscribe to the RSS system of the website. Feed readers access the site's feed available at a particular URL and display the content to readers who can remain informed of site changes without visiting the site. Most feeds offer only four small part of the updated content, acting as an appetizer for the reader to visit the site to read all the content.
Blogger supports the RSS system, which is enabled by default you can control the feed settings or disable it from the site feed link under the settings tab. the site feed URL displayed on the page is the URL that feed readers need to be directed to access yours blog's feeds. Under the descriptions heading. You can choose to send entire blog posts to subscribers, or just a small part to when their interest so that they visit your blog and read the rest. Akin to the users signature in email article footer is additional text appended to the content in the RSS feed. if you desire to insert an article footer. it can be done in the adjoining text box. Logger also allows you to add an ad sense text ad as article footer. Publishing options
you can choose to host the blog you create at blogger.com at some other host besides blogspot.com. Blogger allows you to configure the service so that every time you click on the publish button at blogger.com. the blog on the other host gets updated. The server settings are included under the publishing link.weblogs is a blog indexing service that keeps updated information about all blogs. Someone tracking blogs newly created or newly updated blogs can find the latest information at weblogs.com. Blogger can be configured to notify web logs every time your blog is updated. This way, your blog will figure in the recently updated blogs list a weblogs.com
Changing templates
The template tab allows you to modify the page layout of your blog. the pick new link offers more page style options than were presented during sign-up.
Customizing the template
nothing speaks more about your dedication to blogging than a customized template. Which requires modifying HTML code and, to an extent, is not recommended for newcomers to blogging. the edit current link allows you to customise the layout. Making money from your blog ad sense is a programme promoted by google that involves putting text ads on to you site and making money every time a visitor to the blogs clicks on the ad. if you intend to convert your blog into a money-making operation. Logger can help you, you can find the option to enable ad sense under the template tab. before you can start making money, you need to sign up for the ad sense programme. Then you can choose the size and colour of the ad box you're willing to show on your blog.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Science Facts
4.5 pounds of sunlight strike the Earth each day.
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!
A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball made of rubber.
A cesium atom in an atomic clock beats over nine billion times a second.
A cubic yard of air weighs about 2 pounds at sea level.
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
A single cup of gasoline, when ignited, has the same explosive power as five sticks of dynamite.
According to studies, men change their minds two to three times more often than women.
Airports that are at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.
All Humans Are 99.9% Genetically Identical and 98.4% of human genes are the same as the genes of a chimpanzee.
Aluminum used to be more valuable than gold!
Approximately 70 percent of the earth is covered by water. Only 1 percent of this water is drinkable.
At room temperature, the average air molecule travels at the speed of a rifle bullet.
Another name for a Microsoft Windows tutorial is 'Crash Course'!
Bill Gates' house was designed using a Macintosh computer.
By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.
Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.
E-mail has been around longer than the World Wide Web.
For every 'normal' webpage, there are five porn pages.
In the 1980s, an IBM computer wasn't considered 100 percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft Flight Simulator*.
MySpace reports over 110 million registered users. Were it a country, it would be the tenth largest, just behind Mexico.
One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.
The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.
The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half the normal rate of 20.
The first banner advertising was used in 1994.
The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.
The dollar symbol ($) is a U combined with an S (U.S.)
Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
The tune for the "A-B-C" song is the same as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
Des Moines has the highest per capita Jello consumption in the U.S.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Great Britain was the first county to issue postage stamps. Hence, the postage stamps of Britain are the only stamps in the world not to bear the name of the country of origin.
Since 1896, the beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have participated in every Games.
Did You Know, Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
Did You Know, The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. Did You Know, 40 percent of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
Did You Know, TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. Did You Know, Butterflies taste with their feet.
Did You Know, Coca-Cola was originally green.
Did You know, If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.Did You Know, Every day more money is printed forMonopoly than the US Treasury. Did You Know, It is impossible to lick your elbow.
Did You Know, Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The Official Olympic Flag Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag contains five interconnected rings on a white background. The five rings symbolize the five significant continents and are interconnected to symbolize the friendship to be gained from these international competitions. The rings, from left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The colors were chosen because at least one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the world. The Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.
The Olympic Motto
In 1921, Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, borrowed a Latin phrase from his friend, Father Henri Didon, for the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius ("Swifter, Higher, Stronger"). The Olympic Oath
Pierre de Coubertin wrote an oath for the athletes to recite at each Olympic Games. During the opening ceremonies, one athlete recites the oath on behalf of all the athletes. The Olympic oath was first taken during the 1920 Olympic Games by Belgian fencer Victor Boin. The Olympic Oath states, "In the name of all competitors, I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams." The Olympic Creed
Pierre de Coubertin got the idea for this phrase from a speech given by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 Olympic Games. The Olympic Creed reads: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."
The Olympic Flame
The Olympic flame is a practice continued from the ancient Olympic Games. In Olympia (Greece), a flame was ignited by the sun and then kept burning until the closing of the Olympic Games. The flame first appeared in the modern Olympics at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. The flame itself represents a number of things, including purity and the endeavor for perfection. In 1936, the chairman of the organizing committee for the 1936 Olympic Games, Carl Diem, suggested what is now the modern Olympic Torch relay. The Olympic flame is lit at the ancient site of Olympia by women wearing ancient-style robes and using a curved mirror and the sun. The Olympic Torch is then passed from runner to runner from the ancient site of Olympia to the Olympic stadium in the hosting city. The flame is then kept alight until the Games have concluded. The Olympic Torch relay represents a continuation from the ancient Olympic Games to the modern Olympics. The Olympic Hymn
The Olympic Hymn, played when the Olympic Flag is raised, was composed by Spyros Samaras and the words added by Kostis Palamas. The Olympic Hymn was first played at the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens but wasn't declared the official hymn by the IOC until 1957.
Real Gold Medals
The last Olympic gold medals that were made entirely out of gold were awarded in 1912.
The Medals
The Olympic medals are designed especially for each individual Olympic Games by the host city's organizing committee. Each medal must be at least three millimeters thick and 60 millimeters in diameter. Also, the gold and silver Olympic medals must be made out of 92.5 percent silver, with the gold medal covered in six grams of gold.
The First Opening Ceremonies
The first opening ceremonies were held during the 1908 Olympic Games in London.
Opening Ceremony Procession Order
During the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the procession of athletes is always led by the Greek team, followed by all the other teams in alphabetical order (in the language of the hosting country), except for the last team which is always the team of the hosting country.
A City, Not a Country
When choosing locations for the Olympic Games, the IOC specifically gives the honor of holding the Games to a city rather than a country.
IOC Diplomats
In order to make the IOC an independent organization, the members of the IOC are not considered diplomats from their countries to the IOC, but rather are diplomats from the IOC to their respective countries.
First Modern Champion
James B. Connolly (United States), winner of the hop, step, and jump (the first final event in the 1896 Olympics), was the first Olympic champion of the modern Olympic Games.
The First Marathon
In 490 BCE, Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, ran from Marathon to Athens (about 25 miles) to inform the Athenians the outcome of the battle with invading Persians. The distance was filled with hills and other obstacles; thus Pheidippides arrived in Athens exhausted and with bleeding feet. After telling the townspeople of the Greeks' success in the battle, Pheidippides fell to the ground dead. In 1896, at the first modern Olympic Games, held a race of approximately the same length in commemoration of Pheidippides.
The Exact Length of a Marathon
During the first several modern Olympics, the marathon was always an approximate distance. In 1908, the British royal family requested that the marathon start at the Windsor Castle so that the royal children could witness its start. The distance from the Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium was 42,195 meters (or 26 miles and 385 yards). In 1924, this distance became the standardized length of a marathon.
Women
Women were first allowed to participate in 1900 at the second modern Olympic Games.
Winter Games Begun
The winter Olympic Games were first held in 1924, beginning a tradition of holding them a few months earlier and in a different city than the summer Olympic Games. Beginning in 1994, the winter Olympic Games were held in completely different years (two years apart) than the summer Games. Cancelle Games
Because of World War I and World War II, there were no Olympic Games in 1916, 1940, or 1944.
Tennis Banned
Tennis was played at the Olympics until 1924, then reinstituted in 1988. Walt Disney
In 1960, the Winter Olympic Games were held in Squaw Valley, California (United States). In order to bedazzle and impress the spectators, Walt Disney was head of the committee that organized the opening day ceremonies. The 1960 Winter Games Opening Ceremony was filled with high school choirs and bands, releasing of thousands of balloons, fireworks, ice statues, releasing of 2,000 white doves, and national flags dropped by parachute. Russia Not Present
Though Russia had sent a few athletes to compete in the 1908 and 1912 Olympic Games, they did not compete again until the 1952 Games.
Motor Boating
Motor boating was an official sport at the 1908 Olympics.
Polo, an Olympic Sport
Polo was played at the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, and 1936.
Gymnasium
The word "gymnasium" comes from the Greek root "gymnos" meaning nude; the literal meaning of "gymnasium" is "school for naked exercise." Athletes in the ancient Olympic Games would participate in the nude.
Stadium
The first recorded ancient Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE with only one event - the stade. The stade was a unit of measurement (about 600 feet) that also became the name of the footrace because it was the distance run. Since the track for the stade (race) was a stade (length), the location of the race became the stadium. Counting Olympiads
An Olympiad is a period of four successive years. The Olympic Games celebrate each Olympiad. For the modern Olympic Games, the first Olympiad celebration was in 1896. Every four years celebrates another Olympiad; thus, even the Games that were cancelled (1916, 1940, and 1944) count as Olympiads. The 2004 Olympic Games in Athens was called the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad.
Introduction: Batteries generate electricity through a chemical reaction between two different electrodes and one electrolyte. Use of Copper and Zinc electrodes and Sulfuric acid as electrolyte is a proven method for this process. We are wondering if we can use any other liquid as electrolyte? This gave us the idea of using a potato as electrolyte. After all a fresh potato has a lot of juice that may serve our purpose as electrolyte. Problem: Can Potato be used to generate electricity? Hypothesis: Potato juice contains many water soluble chemicals that may cause a chemical reaction with one or both of our electrodes. So we may get some electricity from that.
Material: For this experiment we use: A fresh potato Copper Electrode Zinc Electrode A Digital or Analog Multimeter to measure Voltage or Current of produced electricity. Alligator clips/ Leads
Procedure: We insert copper and zinc electrodes in to the potato, close but not touching each other. We use Clip leads to connect our electrodes to the Multimeter to measure voltage between two electrodes or current passing through the multimeter. For this experiment we removed the shell of a broken AA battery for our Zinc electrode. (Make sure to test your multimeter by connecting it's Positive and Negative wires to each other that should show no current and no voltage).
A digital multimeter showed 1.2 volts between the electrodes, but the analog multimeter showed a much smaller value. In other words even though the voltage between electrodes is 1.2 Volts, the speed of production of electricity is not high enough for an analog multimeter to show the exact voltage. (Analog multimeter gets it's power from our potato to show the voltage, but digital Multimeter gets it's power from an internal battery and does not consume any of the electricity produced by our potato, that is why it shows a larger and more accurate value).We repeated this experiment with some other fruits and all resulted almost the same. In all cases the produced voltage is between 1 and 1.5 volts, and in all cases they do not produce enough current to turn on a small light. Another thing that we learned from this experiment is that creating electricity and making a battery is easy, the main challenge is producing a battery that can continue to produce larger amount of electricity for larger amount of time.
The weather gets colder, days get shorter and leaves turn color and fall off the trees. Soon, winter is here. Snow covers the ground. People live in warm houses and wear heavy coats outside. Our food comes from the grocery store. But what happens to the animals? MIGRATE Animals do many different, amazing things to get through the winter. Some of them "migrate." This means they travel to other places where the weather is warmer or they can find food. Many birds migrate in the fall. Because the trip can be dangerous, some travel in large flocks. For example, geese fly in noisy, "V"-shaped groups. Other kinds of birds fly alone. How do they know when it is time to leave for the winter? Scientists are still studying this. Many see migration as part of a yearly cycle of changes a bird goes through. The cycle is controlled by changes in the amount of daylight and the weather.
Birds can fly very long distances. For example, the Arctic tern nests close to the North Pole in the summer. In autumn, it flys south all the way to Antarctica. Each spring it returns north again. Most birds migrate shorter distances. But how do they find their way to the same place each year? Birds seem to navigate like sailors once did, using the sun, moon and stars for direction. They also seem to have a compass in their brain for using the Earth's magnetic field. Other animals migrate, too. There are a few mammals, like some bats, caribou and elk, and whales that travel in search of food each winter. Many fish migrate. They may swim south, or move into deeper, warmer water.
Insects also migrate. Some butterflies and moths fly very long distances. For example, Monarch butterflies spend the summer in Canada and the Northern U.S. They migrate as far south as Mexico for the winter. Most migrating insects go much shorter distances. Many, like termites and Japanese beetles, move downward into the soil. Earthworms also move down, some as far as six feet below the surface.
ADAPT
Some animals remain and stay active in the winter. They must adapt to the changing weather. Many make changes in their behavior or bodies. To keep warm, animals may grow new, thicker fur in the fall. On weasels and snowshoe rabbits, the new fur is white to help them hide in the snow. Food is hard to find in the winter. Some animals, like squirrels, mice and beavers, gather extra food in the fall and store it to eat later. Some, like rabbits and deer, spend winter looking for moss, twigs, bark and leaves to eat. Other animals eat different kinds of food as the seasons change. The red fox eats fruit and insects in the spring, summer and fall. In the winter, it can not find these things, so instead it eats small rodents.
Animals may find winter shelter in holes in trees or logs, under rocks or leaves, or underground. Some mice even build tunnels through the snow. To try to stay warm, animals like squirrels and mice may huddle close together.
Certain spiders and insects may stay active if they live in frost-free areas and can find food to eat. There are a few insects, like the winter stone fly, crane fly, and snow fleas, that are normally active in winter. Also, some fish stay active in cold water during the winter.
HIBERNATE
Some animals "hibernate" for part or all of the winter. This is a special, very deep sleep. The animal's body temperature drops, and its heartbeat and breathing slow down. It uses very little energy. In the fall, these animals get ready for winter by eating extra food and storing it as body fat. They use this fat for energy while hibernating. Some also store food like nuts or acorns to eat later in the winter. Bears, skunks, chipmunks, and some bats hibernate.
AND MORE Cold-blooded animals like fish, frogs, snakes and turtles have no way to keep warm during the winter. Snakes and many other reptiles find shelter in holes or burrows, and spend the winter inactive, or dormant. This is similar to hibernation. Water makes a good shelter for many animals. When the weather gets cold, they move to the bottom of lakes and ponds. There, frogs, turtles and many fish hide under rocks, logs or fallen leaves. They may even bury themselves in the mud. They become dormant. Cold water holds more oxygen than warm water, and the frogs and turtles can breath by absorbing it through their skin.
Insects look for winter shelter in holes in the ground, under the bark of trees, deep inside rotting logs or in any small crack they can find. One of the most interesting places is in a gall. A gall is a swelling on a plant. It is caused by certain insects, fungi or bacteria. They make a chemical that affects the plant's growth in a small area, forming a lump. The gall becomes its maker's home and food source.
Every type of insect has its own life cycle, which is the way it grows and changes. Different insects spend the winter in different stages of their lives. Many insects spend the winter dormant, or in "diapause." Diapause is like hibernation. It is a time when growth and development stop. The insect's heartbeat, breathing and temperature drop. Some insects spend the winter as worm-like larvae. Others spend the winter as pupae. (This is a time when insects change from one form to another.) Other insects die after laying eggs in the fall. The eggs hatch into new insects in the spring and everything begins all over again.
On a clear sunny day, the sky above us looks bright blue. In the evening, the sunset puts on a brilliant show of reds, pinks and oranges. Why is the sky blue? What makes the sunset red? To answer these questions, we must learn about light, and the Earth's atmosphere. THE ATMOSPHERE The atmosphere is the mixture of gas molecules and other materials surrounding the earth. It is made mostly of the gases nitrogen (78%), and oxygen (21%). Argon gas and water (in the form of vapor, droplets and ice crystals) are the next most common things. There are also small amounts of other gases, plus many small solid particles, like dust, soot and ashes, pollen, and salt from the oceans. The composition of the atmosphere varies, depending on your location, the weather, and many other things. There may be more water in the air after a rainstorm, or near the ocean. Volcanoes can put large amounts of dust particles high into the atmosphere. Pollution can add different gases or dust and soot. The atmosphere is densest (thickest) at the bottom, near the Earth. It gradually thins out as you go higher and higher up. There is no sharp break between the atmosphere and space. LIGHT WAVES Light is a kind of energy that radiates, or travels, in waves. Many different kinds of energy travel in waves. For example, sound is a wave of vibrating air. Light is a wave of vibrating electric and magnetic fields. It is one small part of a larger range of vibrating electromagnetic fields. This range is called the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic waves travel through space at 299,792 km/sec (186,282 miles/sec). This is called the speed of light.
The energy of the radiation depends on its wavelength and frequency. Wavelength is the distance between the tops (crests) of the waves. Frequency is the number of waves that pass by each second. The longer the wavelength of the light, the lower the frequency, and the less energy it contains. COLORS OF LIGHT Visible light is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can see. Light from the sun or a light bulb may look white, but it is actually a combination of many colors. We can see the different colors of the spectrum by splitting the light with a prism. The spectrum is also visible when you see a rainbow in the sky.
The colors blend continuously into one another. At one end of the spectrum are the reds and oranges. These gradually shade into yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The colors have different wavelengths, frequencies, and energies. Violet has the shortest wavelength in the visible spectrum. That means it has the highest frequency and energy. Red has the longest wavelength, and lowest frequency and energy. LIGHT IN THE AIR Light travels through space in a straight line as long as nothing disturbs it. As light moves through the atmosphere, it continues to go straight until it bumps into a bit of dust or a gas molecule. Then what happens to the light depends on its wave length and the size of the thing it hits. Dust particles and water droplets are much larger than the wavelength of visible light. When light hits these large particles, it gets reflected, or bounced off, in different directions. The different colors of light are all reflected by the particle in the same way. The reflected light appears white because it still contains all of the same colors. Gas molecules are smaller than the wavelength of visible light. If light bumps into them, it acts differently. When light hits a gas molecule, some of it may get absorbed. After awhile, the molecule radiates (releases, or gives off) the light in a different direction. The color that is radiated is the same color that was absorbed. The different colors of light are affected differently. All of the colors can be absorbed. But the higher frequencies (blues) are absorbed more often than the lower frequencies (reds). This process is called Rayleigh scattering. (It is named after Lord John Rayleigh, an English physicist, who first described it in the 1870's.) WHY IS THE SKY BLUE? The blue color of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air. However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.
As you look closer to the horizon, the sky appears much paler in color. To reach you, the scattered blue light must pass through more air. Some of it gets scattered away again in other directions. Less blue light reaches your eyes. The color of the sky near the horizon appears paler or white.
THE BLACK SKY AND WHITE SUN On Earth, the sun appears yellow. If you were out in space, or on the moon, the sun would look white. In space, there is no atmosphere to scatter the sun's light. On Earth, some of the shorter wavelength light (the blues and violets) are removed from the direct rays of the sun by scattering. The remaining colors together appear yellow. Also, out in space, the sky looks dark and black, instead of blue. This is because there is no atmosphere. There is no scattered light to reach your eyes.
WHY IS THE SUNSET RED? As the sun begins to set, the light must travel farther through the atmosphere before it gets to you. More of the light is reflected and scattered. As less reaches you directly, the sun appears less bright. The color of the sun itself appears to change, first to orange and then to red. This is because even more of the short wavelength blues and greens are now scattered. Only the longer wavelengths are left in the direct beam that reaches your eyes.
The sky around the setting sun may take on many colors. The most spectacular shows occur when the air contains many small particles of dust or water. These particles reflect light in all directions. Then, as some of the light heads towards you, different amounts of the shorter wavelength colors are scattered out. You see the longer wavelengths, and the sky appears red, pink or orange.
Expert Web Programmer for an MIT startup at Localot (Cambridge, MA 02139). See this and other great job listings on the jobs page. Joel on Software Advice for Computer Science College Studentsby Joel SpolskySunday, January 02, 2005Despite the fact that it was only a year or two ago that I was blubbering about how rich Windows GUI clients were the wave of the future, college students nonetheless do occasionally email me asking for career advice, and since it's recruiting season, I thought I'd write up my standard advice which they can read, laugh at, and ignore. Most college students, fortunately, are brash enough never to bother asking their elders for advice, which, in the field of computer science, is a good thing, because their elders are apt to say goofy, antediluvian things like "the demand for keypunch operators will exceed 100,000,000 by the year 2010" and "lisp careers are really very hot right now." I, too, have no idea what I'm talking about when I give advice to college students. I'm so hopelessly out of date that I can't really figure out AIM and still use (horrors!) this quaint old thing called "email" which was popular in the days when music came on flat round plates called "CDs." So you'd be better off ignoring what I'm saying here and instead building some kind of online software thing that lets other students find people to go out on dates with. Nevertheless. If you enjoy programming computers, count your blessings: you are in a very fortunate minority of people who can make a great living doing work they enjoy. Most people aren't so lucky. The very idea that you can "love your job" is a modern concept. Work is supposed to be something unpleasant you do to get money to do the things you actually like doing, when you're 65 and can finally retire, if you can afford it, and if you're not too old and infirm to do those things, and if those things don't require reliable knees, good eyes, and the ability to walk twenty feet without being out of breath, etc. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Advice. Without further ado, then, here are Joel's Seven Pieces of Free Advice for Computer Science College Students (worth what you paid for them): Learn how to write before graduating. Learn C before graduating. Learn microeconomics before graduating. Don't blow off non-CS classes just because they're boring. Take programming-intensive courses. Stop worrying about all the jobs going to India. No matter what you do, get a good summer internship.Now for the explanations, unless you're gullible enough to do all that stuff just because I tell you to, in which case add: 8. Seek professional help for that self-esteem thing. Learn how to write before graduating. Would Linux have succeeded if Linus Torvalds hadn't evangelized it? As brilliant a hacker as he is, it was Linus's ability to convey his ideas in written English via email and mailing lists that made Linux attract a worldwide brigade of volunteers. Have you heard of the latest fad, Extreme Programming? Well, without getting into what I think about XP, the reason you've heard of it is because it is being promoted by people who are very gifted writers and speakers. Even on the small scale, when you look at any programming organization, the programmers with the most power and influence are the ones who can write and speak in English clearly, convincingly, and comfortably. Also it helps to be tall, but you can't do anything about that. The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it's not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless. By writing clear technical documentation for end users, they allow people to figure out what their code is supposed to do, which is the only way those users can see the value in their code. There's a lot of wonderful, useful code buried on sourceforge somewhere that nobody uses because it was created by programmers who don't write very well (or don't write at all), and so nobody knows what they've done and their brilliant code languishes. I won't hire a programmer unless they can write, and write well, in English. If you can write, wherever you get hired, you'll soon find that you're getting asked to write the specifications and that means you're already leveraging your influence and getting noticed by management. Most colleges designate certain classes as "writing intensive," meaning, you have to write an awful lot to pass them. Look for those classes and take them! Seek out classes in any field that have weekly or daily written assignments. Start a journal or weblog. The more you write, the easier it will be, and the easier it is to write, the more you'll write, in a virtuous circle. Learn C before graduating Part two: C. Notice I didn't say C++. Although C is becoming increasingly rare, it is still the lingua franca of working programmers. It is the language they use to communicate with one another, and, more importantly, it is much closer to the machine than "modern" languages that you'll be taught in college like ML, Java, Python, whatever trendy junk they teach these days. You need to spend at least a semester getting close to the machine or you'll never be able to create efficient code in higher level languages. You'll never be able to work on compilers and operating systems, which are some of the best programming jobs around. You'll never be trusted to create architectures for large scale projects. I don't care how much you know about continuations and closures and exception handling: if you can't explain why while (*s++ = *t++); copies a string, or if that isn't the most natural thing in the world to you, well, you're programming based on superstition, as far as I'm concerned: a medical doctor who doesn't know basic anatomy, passing out prescriptions based on what the pharma sales babe said would work. Learn microeconomics before graduating Super quick review if you haven't taken any economics courses: econ is one of those fields that starts off with a bang, with many useful theories and facts that make sense, can be proven in the field, etc., and then it's all downhill from there. The useful bang at the beginning is microeconomics, which is the foundation for literally every theory in business that matters. After that things start to deteriorate: you get into Macroeconomics (feel free to skip this if you want) with its interesting theories about things like the relationship of interest rates to unemployment which, er, seem to be disproven more often than they are proven, and after that it just gets worse and worse and a lot of econ majors switch out to Physics, which gets them better Wall Street jobs, anyway. But make sure you take Microeconomics, because you have to know about supply and demand, you have to know about competitive advantage, and you have to understand NPVs and discounting and marginal utility before you'll have any idea why business works the way it does. Why should CS majors learn econ? Because a programmer who understands the fundamentals of business is going to be a more valuable programmer, to a business, than a programmer who doesn't. That's all there is to it. I can't tell you how many times I've been frustrated by programmers with crazy ideas that make sense in code but don't make sense in capitalism. If you understand this stuff, you're a more valuable programmer, and you'll get rewarded for it, for reasons which you'll also learn in micro. Don't blow off non-CS classes just because they're boring. Blowing off your non-CS courses is a great way to get a lower GPA. Never underestimate how big a deal your GPA is. Lots and lots of recruiters and hiring managers, myself included, go straight to the GPA when they scan a resume, and we're not going to apologize for it. Why? Because the GPA, more than any other one number, reflects the sum of what dozens of professors over a long period of time in many different situations think about your work. SAT scores? Ha! That's one test over a few hours. The GPA reflects hundreds of papers and midterms and classroom participations over four years. Yeah, it's got its problems. There has been grade inflation over the years. Nothing about your GPA says whether you got that GPA taking easy classes in home economics at Podunk Community College or taking graduate level Quantum Mechanics at Caltech. Eventually, after I screen out all the 2.5 GPAs from Podunk Community, I'm going to ask for transcripts and recommendations. And then I'm going to look for consistently high grades, not just high grades in computer science. Why should I, as an employer looking for software developers, care about what grade you got in European History? After all, history is boring. Oh, so, you're saying I should hire you because you don't work very hard when the work is boring? Well, there's boring stuff in programming, too. Every job has its boring moments. And I don't want to hire people that only want to do the fun stuff. I took this course in college called Cultural Anthropology because I figured, what the heck, I need to learn something about anthropology, and this looked like an interesting survey course. Interesting? Not even close! I had to read these incredibly monotonous books about Indians in the Brazilian rain forest and Trobriand Islanders, who, with all due respect, are not very interesting to me. At some point, the class was so incredibly wearisome that I longed for something more exciting, like watching grass grow. I had completely lost interest in the subject matter. Completely, and thoroughly. My eyes teared I was so tired of the endless discussions of piling up yams. I don't know why the Trobriand Islanders spend so much time piling up yams, I can't remember any more, it's incredibly boring, but It Was Going To Be On The Midterm, so I plowed through it. I eventually decided that Cultural Anthropology was going to be my Boredom Gauntlet: my personal obstacle course of tedium. If I could get an A in a class where the tests required me to learn all about potlatch blankets, I could handle anything, no matter how boring. The next time I accidentally get stuck in Lincoln Center sitting through all 18 hours of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, I could thank my studies of the Kwakiutl for making it seem pleasant by comparison. I got an A. And if I could do it, you can do it. Take programming-intensive courses. I remember the exact moment I vowed never to go to graduate school. It was in a course on Dynamic Logic, taught by the dynamic Lenore Zuck at Yale, one of the brightest of an array of very bright CS faculty. Now, my murky recollections are not going to do proper credit to this field, but let me muddle through anyway. The idea of Formal Logic is that you prove things are true because other things are true. For example thanks to Formal Logic, "Everyone who gets good grades will get hired" plus "Johnny got good grades" allows you to discover the new true fact, "Johnny will get hired." It's all very quaint and it only takes ten seconds for a deconstructionist to totally tear apart everything useful in Formal Logic so you're left with something fun, but useless. Now, dynamic logic is the same thing, with the addition of time. For example, "after you turn the light on, you can see your shoes" plus "The light went on in the past" implies "you can see your shoes." Dynamic Logic is appealing to brilliant theoreticians like Professor Zuck because it holds up the hope that you might be able to formally prove things about computer programs, which could be very useful, if, for example, you could formally prove that the Mars Rover's flash card wouldn't overflow and cause itself to be rebooted again and again all day long when it's supposed to be driving around the red planet looking for Marvin the Martian. So in the first day of that class, Dr. Zuck filled up two entire whiteboards and quite a lot of the wall next to the whiteboards proving that if you have a light switch, and the light was off, and you flip the switch, the light will then be on. The proof was insanely complicated, and very error-prone. It was harder to prove that the proof was correct than to convince yourself of the fact that switching a light switch turns on the light. Indeed the multiple whiteboards of proof included many skipped steps, skipped because they were too tedious to go into formally. Many steps were reached using the long-cherished method of Proof by Induction, others by Proof by Reductio ad Absurdum, and still others using Proof by Graduate Student. For our homework, we had to prove the converse: if the light was off, and it's on now, prove that you flipped it. I tried, I really did. I spent hours in the library trying. After a couple of hours I found a mistake in Dr. Zuck's original proof which I was trying to emulate. Probably I copied it down wrong, but it made me realize something: if it takes three hours of filling up blackboards to prove something trivial, allowing hundreds of opportunities for mistakes to slip in, this mechanism would never be able to prove things that are interesting. Not that that matters to dynamic logicians: they're not in it for useful, they're in it for tenure. I dropped the class and vowed never to go to graduate school in Computer Science. The moral of the story is that computer science is not the same as software development. If you're really really lucky, your school might have a decent software development curriculum, although, they might not, because elite schools think that teaching practical skills is better left to the technical-vocational institutes and the prison rehabilitation programs. You can learn mere programming anywhere. We are Yale University, and we Mold Future World Leaders. You think your $160,000 tuition entititles you to learn about while loops? What do you think this is, some fly-by-night Java seminar at the Airport Marriott? Pshaw. The trouble is, we don't really have professional schools in software development, so if you want to be a programmer, you probably majored in Computer Science. Which is a fine subject to major in, but it's a different subject than software development. If you're lucky, though, you can find lots of programming-intensive courses in the CS department, just like you can find lots of courses in the History department where you'll write enough to learn how to write. And those are the best classes to take. If you love programming, don't feel bad if you don't understand the point of those courses in lambda calculus or linear algebra where you never touch a computer. Look for the 400-level courses with Practicum in the name. This is an attempt to hide a useful (shudder) course from the Liberal Artsy Fartsy Administration by dolling it up with a Latin name. Stop worrying about all the jobs going to India. Well, OK, first of all, if you're already in India, you never really had to worry about this, so don't even start worrying about all the jobs going to India. They're wonderful jobs, enjoy them in good health. But I keep hearing that enrollment in CS departments is dropping perilously, and one reason I hear for it is "students are afraid to go into a field where all the jobs are going to India." That's so wrong for so many reasons. First, trying to choose a career based on a current business fad is foolish. Second, programming is incredibly good training for all kinds of fabulously interesting jobs, such as business process engineering, even if every single programming job does go to India and China. Third, and trust me on this, there's still an incredible shortage of the really good programmers, here and in India. Yes, there are a bunch of out of work IT people making a lot of noise about how long they've been out of work, but you know what? At the risk of pissing them off, really good programmers do have jobs. Fourth, you got any better ideas? What are you going to do, major in History? Then you'll have no choice but to go to law school. And there's one thing I do know: 99% of working lawyers hate their jobs, hate every waking minute of it, and they're working 90 hour weeks, too. Like I said: if you love to program computers, count your blessings: you are in a very fortunate minority of people who can make a great living doing work they love. Anyway, I don't think students really think about this. The drop in CS enrollment is merely a resumption of historically normal levels after a big bubble in enrollment caused by dotcom mania. That bubble consisted of people who didn't really like programming but thought the sexy high paid jobs and the chances to IPO at age 24 were to be found in the CS department. Those people, thankfully, are long gone. No matter what you do, get a good summer internship. Smart recruiters know that the people who love programming wrote a database for their dentist in 8th grade, and taught at computer camp for three summers before college, and built the content management system for the campus newspaper, and had summer internships at software companies. That's what they're looking for on your resume. If you enjoy programming, the biggest mistake you can make is to take any kind of job--summer, part time, or otherwise--that is not a programming job. I know, every other 19-year-old wants to work in the mall folding shirts, but you have a skill that is incredibly valuable even when you're 19, and it's foolish to waste it folding shirts. By the time you graduate, you really should have a resume that lists a whole bunch of programming jobs. The A&F graduates are going to be working at Enterprise Rent-a-Car "helping people with their rental needs." (Except for Tom Welling. He plays Superman on TV.) To make your life really easy, and to underscore just how completely self-serving this whole essay is, my company, Fog Creek Software, has summer internships in software development that look great on resumes. "You will most likely learn more about software coding, development, and business with Fog Creek Software than any other internship out there," says Ben, one of the interns from last summer, and not entirely because I sent a goon out to his dorm room to get him to say that. The application deadline is February 1st. Get on it. If you follow my advice, you, too, may end up selling stock in Microsoft way too soon, turning down jobs at Google because you want your own office with a door, and other stupid life decisions, but they won't be my fault. I told you not to listen to me. Work with me, here! Fog Creek Software has great paid internships in software development for qualified college students. They’re in New York City. Free housing, lunch, and more. And you get to work on real, shipping software with the smartest developers in the business. Next:Colo Expansion Version 2.0
