How to prevent web and email spam

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Spam is one of the biggest problems and annoyances of today’s Internet. There are tens of billions of spam email messages being sent every single day to millions of people. Along with email spam, there’s web site spam, which comes most often in the form of blog comments, also numbering billions daily.

Spam is basically defined as any unwanted messages for which the receiver has never subscribed or opted. Spammers get their email addresses from freely available contact pages all over the Internet, as well as the computers they infect with their own viruses and scanners. They later use those computers to send spam anywhere in the world to anyone, therefore making it impossible for Internet Service Providers to block their accounts, as that would mean cutting Internet access to millions of innocent victims.

Spammers most often advertise a product and hope that someone will buy it, and they’re pretty successful just because of the sheer number of messages they send to email inboxes and post on blogs. Spam wastes precious disk space, clutters people’s inboxes and websites, and is generally regarded as a very bad thing. But fortunately, there are ways to get rid of it or at least reduce its amounts significantly for your sites and email addresses.

Email Spam.

By far, the most popular spam comes in the form of email messages sent to people’s email addresses. There are actually two reasons for this: one, it is much harder to stop and two, it allows the spammers to get access and infect even more computers with their viruses for their network of spam sending machines. This is possible because every time you open an email message, the computer allows it to execute a few bits of code, which can be used to infect your PC. This can’t happen when you’re reading spam comments on a site, for example, even if you click on a link in the message.

The best way to avoid email spam is to keep your email address private and never, ever post it on any site that is publicly accessible and visible to all the people. If at least one spammer gets a hold of your email address, chances are high that not only he will send you dozens of useless emails, but also sell your email address to other spammers, which is why a lot of inboxes are filled with hundreds of new spam messages every day and can practically become unusable.

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How do professional developers test their work

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This article will cover a few of the techniques and tools used by professional web developers, designers and programmers in their work to test new code and improve their software/websites. Many people don’t know about this, and end up spending much more time on testing (uploading, changing code, troubleshooting) than needed.

This will be very useful to you if you are just starting out in any web development language like PHP, ASP, Javascript and others or if you just have a site that you want to maintain and improve yourself.

Let me start by saying that professionals rarely change and test their code via an FTP client right on their web server. This is because it takes a lot of time to download, edit and re-upload a file via FTP (especially when you’re changing just a line or two of code, or your Internet connection speed is less than stellar) and because they don’t want their visitors to notice any strange things on the website while they are testing the code.

So, what do they do?

They work and test everything locally, which means they have a copy of their website and database in a folder on their computer and they change those files and see the results immediately in any web browser. I’m going to show and explain a few tools used for this purpose in Windows (Linux and Mac OS X are a little different, although you can easily use the tips here for those Operating Systems, too).

To be able to see your website on your computer via any web browser requires you to install a web server (Apache, Microsoft IIS, Lighttpd or any other) on your computer and route it to your localhost IP address (which is 127.0.0.1 by default). If this seems complicated, don’t worry, it is not!

Installing a web server for testing purposes on your Windows machine is as easy as installing Mozilla Firefox, MS Office or any other application. It is a simple matter of downloading an installer and running it.

There are 2 best programs for this purpose: WAMPServer (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP Server) and XAMPP (Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris). While XAMPP is cross-platform and has Perl support, I prefer WAMPServer because it is simpler to install, configure and use.

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HP Pavilion dm1z

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Introduction:

HP Pavilion dm1z has an 11-inch display which uses AMD Fusion that combines powerful graphics plus a dual-core processor that serves as a good alternative for affordable netbooks in the market or is it?

Specifications:

Processor – AMD E-350
Graphics – AMD Radeon HD 6310
Operating System – Home Premium (64-bit) Windows 7
HDD -  Hitachi Travelstar 7K500, 320 GB, with 7200 rpm
Display – 11.6 inch, resolution of 1366 x 768 in HD glossy, LED backlighting
Memory – 3 GB DDR3
Connections – 802.11 that supports b/g/n wireless and a Gigabit
Ethernet plus Ralink Motorola BC8, Bluetooth 3.0
Battery – 6-cell Li-ion
Weight – 3.53 lbs.
Dimensions – 11.45 x 8.45 x 0.9 – 1.25

Advantages:

1. It has a nice keyboard to tap on.
2. The battery has a longer life span and sold at a lower price tag.
3. It is good for both gaming and video just good within the price range.

Disadvantages:

1. 3.0 port of USB is non-existent.
2. The 9.5 hours battery life is not delivered within normal usage.
3. There are some glitches on the touchpad that happens occasionally.

Some of its Features:

•    3 USB 2.0 ports
•    VGA
•    HDMI-out
•    headphones or microphones
•    audio jack
•    Gigabit LAN
•    SDHC-card slot

Review:

The current HP Pavilion dm1z or dm1 is an updated version to its predecessors – the dm1z (last year’s model) and dv2 (2009). At a glance, you will mistakenly identify dm1z as somewhat similar to the dozens of models being released by HP. But the big difference is that it has more to give to it’s users in contrast with those existing low-performance and budget-priced netbooks.

When it comes to it’s build, well, it is of top quality as what other HP Pavilion models do have. It is ultra portable and durable. The netbook’s chassis is thick and strong enough to prevent the flex to crack due to pressure.

Are you afraid to see finger prints swirling over your netbook? With dm1, the painting job they did on it is quite remarkable – its matte black with black pinstripping all done using glossy paint. Thus, this will make fingerprint smudges almost difficult to notice.

When it comes to performance, dm1 offers far more than what it looks like especially at its entry level price of about $449. There is no way you can get a netbook at this price that can perform better than this.

Thanks to AMD Fusion technology, HP has made this netbook a must try especially for those budget conscious individuals out there.

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Top 7 most popular Facebook games

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Facebook is currently the most popular social network online, with over 400 million active users and more than 300 billion page views per month, which is more than Google gets monthly in the United States. It’s quite amazing actually how a social network is more popular than an all-in-one tool like Google, which provides search, email, documents and photo hosting, news and other services.

Experts agree that this trend will definitely continue, and Facebook may possibly get more views than Google overall in the whole world in the next couple of years. A very important reason why this is happening is that, despite us being so used to the Internet, it is still only two decades old, and there are millions or even billions of people who don’t know what is it for and how to use it to its fullest potential.

What they do understand is that Facebook allows them to speak to relatives and friends who are far away, without paying exorbitant prices like they would for phone calls. Not to mention the ability to see each other’s faces and share photos and files between users.
But Facebook is not only a communication tool anymore. With the introduction of Facebook apps, the creators have pushed the network into a new direction, which proved to be the right choice, as the growth rate is higher than ever before. There are already tens of thousands of useful apps on Facebook, in very different niches and for very different purposes, ranging from games to note-takers, document and photo editors, file sharing and time management tools to other things.

In this article, I’ll focus on games, and below you can find a selection of the most popular ones.

Farmville.

Currently the most popular Facebook game (it has over 100 million active users!), Farmville lets you own a farm and perform various duties to maintain and grow it. You can raise cattle or other animals, plant different crops and harvest them, sell your products for virtual coins and do other things. As you progress, the farm grows and becomes more successful. Of course, there is an element of social interaction: you can exchange goods with other Facebook users, help them with their farm and let them help you, go an meet them at their farm (or yours), and much more.

Bejeweled Blitz.

This is, of course, the Facebook version of Bejeweled, one of the most popular puzzle games on every device, from phones powered by Android or iPhone OS to desktops running on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X. What you do is match gems and make them disappear, which increases your score. Pretty simple, but it’s still very addictive. By playing it on Facebook, you don’t need to buy and install it and you can compete with other users to see who gets the highest score.

Mafia Wars.

In this game, you play a member of the Mafia, and have to increase your authority by performing various tasks and missions like money laundering, killing other competing members from other Mafia clans, running illegal games and operations, and other things. What makes it very interesting despite the lack of any 3D graphics whatsoever is the fact that you play with other real people, so you never know what will happen next. Plus, you get to do various criminal offenses without actually breaking the law, which can be pretty exciting at times :-) .

Restaurant City. If you’re tired of working on your farm and have decided to retire from the criminal underground, you can do what many real Mafiosi do and run a restaurant :-) . In this Facebook game, you’ll have to manage your employees and income/expenses, find ingredients for new dishes (you’ve got to have your unique taste, otherwise you won’t have any clients), and perform other business tasks. You can also communicate and partner with other Facebook users to create new dishes, trade ingredients and do other things.

Petville and Pet Society. This Facebook game gives you your own virtual pet, which you have to care for. You need to feed him, play with him and groom it regularly; otherwise he’ll get sad or even perish. Pet Society has a few more advanced features like earning virtual money by competing in races and visiting your other friends and their pets. It’s a lot like those old Tamagotchi games, so if you liked them (or similar software for your desktop), you may want to give this game a try.

Happy Aquarium. A game from the same genre as the above two, Happy Aquarium lets you have your own virtual fish tank (a quite pretty one, at that). You’ll also have to care for it and the fish inside, purchase fish, clean the aquarium and maintain it regularly. This game seems more realistic than Petville and Pet Society, probably because real fish tanks are a bit like computer monitors, as you’d probably never want to actually get a fish out and hold it, but just watch it from outside.

There are a lot of other various games, ranging from card games to car racing (not as pretty as it sounds :-) to puzzles. If you’re interested in them, just perform a search for your keywords on Facebook or even a search engine like Bing or Google. The games presented in the list above are certainly the most popular, which makes them the best by definition (after all, millions of people can’t be wrong), so you should definitely check them out.

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Understanding the Science of Taking Great Pictures with a Digital Camera

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When you get serious about photography, the last thing you want to do is point and shoot. Indeed, simply waving your camera at anything that moves is the mark of a beginner. Once you accumulate some experience, it just makes sense to learn exactly how to get the perfect shot, as well as how you can maximize your chances of getting the perfect shot over and over again.

First and foremost, you should understand that the basic principle of photography is that you’re playing with light and show. The more light that you have the work with, the easier it will be to take your pictures. If you don’t already have enough light for your photos, you may want to invest in spotlights that can provide enough light for you to get a shot. These can be found online at discount photography supply stores and other retailers.

Another point that will make all the difference in how your pictures turn out is the shutter speed. When you’re trying to catch a moving shot, the amount of time that your camera’s shutter is open can definitely make a difference. The exposure of a camera will come into play when you’re trying to time the best shot possible. Paying attention to the alteration of your camera’s f-stop (aperture) is another key concept in managing the exposure features.

Your lens plays a big role in the type of pictures you will be able to take. For example, if you need to take a picture of a very wide space, you will not be able to do this well with a standard lens. You will need to pick up a wide angle lens to take care of the job. Again, this is something that a serious enthusiast would need that a beginner would not — extra lenses are expensive, which means that you will need to make sure that you’re ready to take these steps to have better pictures.

On the whole, these are just a few things to keep in mind as you begin working with your camera. Be prepared to have to take shots over and over until you get the right one. Even with the right equipment and the best conditions, there’s always a chance that things can go wrong. This is why it just pays to make sure that you can have a complete setup before you proceed. With the information presented in this guide, you should have even more information to lead you to taking a great picture each time, every time!

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Making Money with Your Digital Cameras, Creatively

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For the serious photography fan, there’s only one thing that’s more interesting than photography — making money from photography in a very creative way. If you happen to own a few digital cameras, you might be wondering what you can do in order to actually make those digital cameras make money for you and your family. This can be something that unleashes your creative spirit in a positive way. If you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few ideas that might get you thinking in the right direction.

First and foremost, you can hire out your skills as a photographer to people that need photographers. Contrary to popular belief, there are quite a few different businesses that need photographers. For example, you might have a local eBay reseller that you know who has to take hundreds of photographs day in and day out. You might be able to work something out where you take a portion of the pictures. This can be a great way to break into doing product photography. It’s much more difficult than it sounds, because you will need to take great pictures of products that will entice people to actually make a purchase.

If you prefer to take photos of people instead of objects, you might offer your services to families, wedding parties, and corporate events. The need for a great photographer to capture every moment of a wedding is something that has launched countless photography businesses. You don’t have to limit yourself to weddings — there are up and coming models that need photographers as well. You can trade time for prints (TFP), which would be a free trade on both sides, but you build your portfolio so that you can eventually charge people for your time.

While this can be a long shot, you can always take pictures of exotic location and attempt to build a career as a travel photographer. The opportunity to travel around the world may be hard to get, since the field is quite competitive. However, if you have a strong portfolio you may be able to get a company’s attention in a way that will give them all the right reasons to hire you and send you around the world. This type of photography isn’t for everyone — long assignments can definitely make you homesick, so keep this in mind.

All things considered, there are definitely plenty of things you can do to make money with your digital cameras — you just need to get creative!

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Extra Goodies for the High End Digital Camera You Already Own

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If you’ve just purchased a high end digital camera, congratulations! You’re definitely on your way to getting amazing quality photographs that have to be seen in order to be believed. When it comes to high end digital cameras, the type of camera that’s usually discussed is called a Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex). It’s one of the best camera sot get as you get more serious about photography. You get a big lens to focus with, making it even easier to get quality pictures.

Like any other hobby, there are additional things you can purchase to help you as you venture deeper into the world of photography. If you’re not sure what accessories to get for your new digital SLR camera, there’s a few things you might want to add to your list first.

First and foremost, you want to make sure that you pick up an extra battery and an extra charger if you plan on doing a lot of field photography, or traveling away from home in order to get your photography work done. Extra batteries aren’t as expensive as they used to be, which means that you can catch deals that will even let you pick up two batteries for the price of one.

Another accessory that you should add to your list is a few flash memory cards. When you begin to take high resolution pictures and video, you definitely begin using a lot more room than you might expect. This means that having extra memory cards that you can use to swap out when you run out of space can be pretty helpful. The last thing you want to do is get the opportunity to take some amazing pictures, only to find that the one memory card that you took for the opportunity is completely full!

If you don’t have a computer that can automatically read your memory card, you will also need to pick up a media card reader. Most computers on the market today have this built in, but if you don’t happen to have that functionality already, you might want to go ahead and pick one up just to be on the safe side. They’re very inexpensive, which means that you will be able to quickly purchase one and put it in use right away.

Overall, are there other goodies out there to make your photography more enjoyable? Sure. However, these are the extras that you’ll want to start with — after all, you can always pick up more when you’re ready!

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The New Generation of Digital Cameras – Why Buy One Now

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If you’re like most people, you’ve had a digital camera for a while now. Perhaps you’ve even purchased your digital camera when they first came out or shortly thereafter, and it’s been working just fine for you. With a working camera, you might wonder why you should have buy into the new generation of digital cameras. As more and ore people in your social group pick up newer cameras, you might get asked why you are determined to stick with your old digital camera. If you want to stay with an older model that you are familiar with, that’s fine. However, there are a few reasons why you should definitely check out the new generation of digital cameras as soon as you can.

First and foremost, the quality is a lot better. When digital cameras first came out, it was difficult to get something better than 3.0MP (megapixels). Megapixels are the measurement of quality when it comes to digital cameras, and the more megapixels you have on your digital camera, the better off you really are. Today, the average digital camera on the market has 5.0MP or better, giving you a lot more quality than when these cameras first came out.

If you dream about having a professional career in photography, you will need to eventually upgrade your camera. If you have the money to spend, you might want to think about getting a digital SLR camera, which has a much higher focus level as well as a better resolution. Lens quality does make a big difference in the world of digital cameras, and the older generation of cameras just can’t compare to what’s out and available now.

If you’re worried about being able to actually get familiar with a new digital camera, you’ll actually be pleased to know that the new generation of these cameras is friendlier than ever before. In fact, there are even videos online on sites like YouTube.com that teach you how to use your camera. This can be helpful for people that struggle with traditional help manuals. Instead of feeling lost, you can actually handle things effortlessly with a new digital camera without fear.

With so many deals online for the new generation of digital cameras, you owe it to yourself to at least check them out. Once you see the leap in quality, focus, and user friendliness, you will definitely want to get one for your own use today!

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Digital Cameras Make Great Gifts for College Students

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If you’ve sent one of your children off to college, then you already know just how important college is for a growing young adult. Your child will develop a wide variety of skills, meet a lot of new people, and even collect new experiences that they’ll cherish for many years to come. It will also be a time where they have plenty of decisions to make. One could say that college is a time to relax and get serious all at the same time. Thankfully, you don’t have to give them serious gifts all the time. If you’re looking for something functional to give your new college student, why not give them a digital camera?

Prices for digital cameras have fallen dramatically in the past few months due to a variety of factors, one of which being the fact that everything is going digital. From radios to televisions, the world is a digital place. The technology behind every digital camera has gotten better, which means that it’s getting cheaper to produce great quality digital cameras that will let your college student capture all the memories of this special time in their lives.

Of course, if you’re trying to buy a good digital camera, there are a few things you will need to keep in mind. The biggest point here is resolution — after all, quality is really the biggest reason to get a digital camera. You don’t want to get a low level camera that will produce blurry and faded images. On the other hand, your child’s first digital camera should be like their first car — something that isn’t so high end that it’ll be a disaster if something happens to it. College is an environment where unexpected things happen all the time, and if the digital camera gets damaged, it could be expensive to replace a higher end model.

Another point you will want to keep in mind is form factor, as in the overall dimensions for your camera. You don’t want to get a big bulky camera for your college student, since it will make it difficult for them to use the camera as often as they would like. Buying a wrist strap for them to use with the digital camera can make it more portable, but really, the smaller digital camera you can purchase for them, the better off they will be in the long run.

So, if you’re looking for a great gift that will make your college student think of you every time they go to capture college life, you really can’t go wrong with a good digital camera!

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The iPad – Gaming on the Move Gets Serious

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Forget those Nintendo DSs’, Sony PSPs’ – Make Way for the iPad!

Apple is known for churning out products that make unbreakable benchmarks (iPod, iPhone, iMacs, etc) and this time, they’ve not done anything less. The past week has made the world stand up and applaud for Apple’s latest marvel, the iPad. The first glance will make you think it’s just another E-book reader. But a closer look will make your jaw drop. The iPad is being heralded by top notch analysts and serious developers as the next big gaming platform, kicking aside the gaming on the stay (contrary to the gaming on the go of course). An unexpected, staggering 900 games designed for the iPad were released in less than a week of the amazing device being launched and hitting the shopping shelves.

The unbelievable number of games doesn’t even nearly match the 25,000 iPod touch and iPhone applications available via iTunes. The iPad is backward (iPod and iPhone) compatible and lets all of its applications and games run on its large screen, in native resolution. “The iPad is the fourth step in gaming evolution,” said Gonzague de Vallois, the senior vice president of publishing at one of the most reputed game developers, Gameloft. “The first being the PC, the second being the game console and the third being the smart phones. Each of these platforms revolutionized gaming in its own way.”

Ipad Gaming

Ipad Gaming

With roughly around seven games specifically designed for the iPad available at the launch, ngmoco is going to take the maximum advantage of the large, sensitive multi touch screen, by allowing the players of games such as ‘Godfinger’ and ‘We Rule’ to literally multitask, by sliding the small sized game windows to one side and allowing to concentrate on the larger playing field and then at the same time, read the story progression or even try checking out friends’ castles right in the middle of the game.


Johnny Coghlan, the head of the publishing department at Chillingo, which has well over 13 games for the iPad, claimed that with the iPad’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities, it would allow the iPad to incorporate crystal integration. Games such as Super Shock Football HD and Quantz HD, will permit the players to compete against one another and flaunt their high scores. With its large screen, game makers can implement multiplayer possibilities even more easily. Firemint’s Flight Control HD allows two or more players to co-operatively to successfully land a never ending stream of jet planes. The must see game EXO-Planet is making waves across all gamers, with its immersive and high graphics third person shooter game play.


Apple quite clearly observed the amazing possibilities and advantages of having a larger screen, by seeing the success of gaming from the iPhone and iPod touch series. It’s clearly quite impressive how Apple has finally accepted gaming as one of an important field in its industry. Be sure to get wowed as more and more immersive high definition games come out for the gorgeous iPad and its high glossy screen.

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