The Lady Programmer

It is a first time to hear personalized flash drives – get to Pexagon and REALLY have your name imprinted on a Flash drive. I find this a perfect gadget for gift-giving this coming Halloween celebraion, for handing out to employees with a printed corporate logo or even for personal use.

Making a personalized flash drive is easy. Anyone can just design a simple one in seconds with the use of the site’s online design creator. For a more controlled look, one can just upload a logo or even get to have a CLE or Custom Laser Engraving number approved with Pexagon before the final design is imprinted.

Get one custom thumb drive now for up to 16 GB!

What comes into your mind when you hear the words “universal remote”, “media player” and “online backup”?

Most of you would say – hey, there’s nothing new with this stuff. Some tech-savvy individuals would even cite a media player or two that might probably be better than Windows Media Player.

True, you might not be needing to hear news. To the mainstream consumers, knowing the coolest gadgets before you buy is best researched through authority blogs like Gadget Advisor.

The universal remote

When I first heard about this universal remote gadget, I was under the impression that there is nothing new to it. Not until I read that Logitech Harmony Universal Remote Control eliminates all those numerous remote control clutter at home. If you have a DVD player, a TV and a sound system and other gadgets you could end up with a lot of remote controls. Having this universal remote is a good solution to this clutter.

have multiple remotes? eliminate all of these – by Logitech

A good media player

There are a lot of networked media players around, but this DViCo TViX M-6500A Network Media Player one got an internal hard drive that does not need any external power and supports a lot of file formats. It can be connected to a USB port where files can be transferred to and from, plus some slots for USB flash drive for additional playback. This network media player works well on HDTV too – almost.

network media player (on my wishlist) by DViCo

An online backup service

I had been using IDrive for several months. One big thing that I like on this is that I don’t get to babysit on my backups. It had eliminated downtime due to backup maintenance. That downtime can be used for regular blogging duties or freelance work. IDrive simply performs automatic backups which are stored on my 2GB free online account.

I have not tried Mozy Pro and Intronis SureIT and I have not plans of doing backup online with these other two. I am very much happy with using IDrive on my personal home PC.

no babysitting on backup – my IDrive interface

Cutting Through the Cutting Edge

These are just some of the things that you will see in Gadget Advisor. I definitely agree that they had handpicked the best gadgets in the market and made good reviews on it. Do you often wonder which equipment or gadget is the best in the market? Gadget Advisor just might give you a good idea.

I call myself a paranoid before I entered the world of blogging. I’m afraid to trust the internet. Although I have started my career in IT (instead of pursuing my original course as an engineer), I immersed myself with all the IT magazines that I could read. I learned about the perils of using the internet.

These words blared out at me: hacking, password theft, online security breach

These antivirus, firewall and software manufacturers have to come up with ways to make it easier for the end user. Zone Alarm did not work for me as a personal firewall, I find BitDefender and Kaspersky antiviruses with built-in firewalls consuming much of my PC’s resources. Right now I dumped my ESET Smart Security and used the one with out any built-in firewall instead. Why? Because its built-in firewall blocked me off from using the internet, and I had mistakenly blamed it on my good performing ISP.

Comodo Free Firewall is probably a good alternative to those that I have used so far. I guess their mission on making a trusted internet for the end users worked well for them. When I checked CNET, my favorite download site for almost a decade, their free firewall software is the second most downloaded firewall software next to Zone Alarm.

Right now, I’m taking this Free Comodo Firewall for a spin. I turned off my default Windows XP firewall then proceeded with the installation. The interface of this firewall look a bit advanced, so I think ordinary users might get lost at first.

first look at Comodo after installation

I think that using third party firewall like Comodo is a suitable option than relying on old Microsoft to patch up vulnerabilities in their Windows firewall, which comes in every Windows XP package. I guess hackers and virus writers figured out ways to always take out that Windows firewall’s defenses. Not all network administrators and home PC users want to perform those pesky Windows updates.

I’d probably stick with Comodo’s firewall for a while, and see how it fared. I still like Windows XP but I think the Windows XP firewall lacks the security that I need. I am one among those people who need to check seemingly secure bank accounts and Paypal money.

Comodo is not limited to their famous free firewall product: they also have antivirus malware, antivirus and if you are designing a secure website, they can also provide Comodo HackerProof certificate authority.

I used to play Bingo when I was a kid. My grandmother taught me how to play this community game and we used to do this whenever a typhoon knocks off the electricity in our place. We always played Bingo games for hours to avoid boredom. Indeed, the game truly strengthens family ties.

My grandmother passed away a decade ago, and our family had not played bingo since then. The old bingo game had gathered dust in the cupboard with some of the boletas missing.

Computers and consoles had slowly replaced board games. Kids are more exposed to electronically-powered games. Even board games had been slowly making their transition to online gaming. For instance Disney Bingo is a game designed for playing using a TV and a DVD player. This game is sold at Amazon.com and Drugstore.com. The video below shows a quick preview of the game.

The kids of today belong to a generation of electronics and information technology. Although they still appreciate playing non-electronic games, computer and console games remains to be the main attraction to younger people. Board games may be slowly dying; but putting out online versions of these board games can definitely help rekindle the spirit of family and community ties.

As long as a visiting typhoon does not knock out electricity in our place.

How does a business benefit from search engine optimization services?

Search Engine Traffic: The Holy Grail

At first I’ve always looked upon search engine traffic as the Holy Grail of website visits. I still consider it as the Holy Grail, because over long term, search engine visitors had always found the older posts contained in my blog.

I’ve ventured into blogging in the meantime to learn some SEO skills along with new web design skills. Search engine optimization is something that some freelance web design jobs require. I had to learn a bit of SEO to make myself profitable in this career. Along the way, I realized that it is possible to profit from doing blogging gigs.

try any of the listed keywords beside each site in Google search

Don’t Easily Topple at Google’s No. 1 Search Ranking Spot

Bigger businesses who need to promote their online presence needed better exposure. Thus, they require the help of search engine optimization consulting services such as those from ThinkBigSites.com to help them out. I’ve realized that many hands are needed to really optimize a big business site for stable and better search engine rankings. For one, an army of bloggers can help build a buzz to improve a business website’s rankings with the right keywords.

A small website made for a small business can profit from a little SEO made by a single webmaster; but to really be consistent in the search engine rankings then it is best to invest in search engine optimization companies.

A business listed at the top of Google search engine always gets the best exposure. Once it gets noticed it gets a good number of visitors. Among those visitors some of them will be doing business deals.